Place:Pekin, Niagara, New York, United States

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

Pekin is an unincorporated hamlet at the intersection of Upper Mountain Road and Townline Road on the border between the towns of Lewiston and Cambria, New York.

Pekin in bordered by Sanborn to the south, the Tuscarora Nation to the west, and New York State Route 104 to the north. Points to the east of Townline Road are in the Town of Lewiston; points to the west are in the Town of Cambria. All of Pekin falls within Niagara County, New York State.

Streets

Upper Mountain Road: On the Pekin map in the New Century Atlas (1908), this is identified as Main Street. In news articles, also referred to as "the Mountain Road".

Townline Road: The is the Cambria-Lewiston Town Line Road. On the Pekin map in the New Century Atlas (1908), this is identified as Ontario Street. It was Route 30 in the old numbering system (1908-1930). It is now New York State Route 429.

Old Pekin Hill Road: On the Pekin map in the New Century Atlas (1908), Ontario Street (Townline Road) went over the top of the escarpment and and turned right to join what is now Old Pekin Hill before descending the rest of the slope. This changed after Pekin Cut was dug (1914-1915) and traffic began to flow directly north and south on Townline Road.

Grove Street:

Carney Drive: On the Pekin map in the New Century Atlas (1908), Carney Drive is not labeled as a street but there is something indicated there by parallel dashed lines. This is probably an undeveloped road and may be the bed of the old strap railroad where it ran through Pekin.

Bridgeman Road:

Meyer's Hill Road:

Lower Mountain Road:

Churches

Hope United Methodist Church (2914 Upper Mountain Road)

St Andrew Lutheran Church (3229 Upper Mountain Road)

Abundant Life Baptist Church (5017 Baer Road)

Immaculate Conception Church (4671 Townline Road)

Cemeteries

Mount View Cemetery (Upper Mountain Road) - East of Pekin, across from the Pekin Fire Hall. Currently well-maintained and in use.

Old Pekin Cemetery (Upper Mountain Road and Townline Road) - May also be referred to as the Pekin Pioneer Cemetery or Jungle Cemetery. It is no longer maintained or in use, and is inaccessible except through private property.

Other Points of Interest

Pekin Fire Hall (3024 Upper Mountain Road)

Pekin Cut and Pekin Bridge

Hotel and Restaurant

Schimschack's Restaurant (2943 Upper Mountain Road)

Stores

Joseph H. Parker (1854-1931) and Margaret Laughlin Parker (1859-1936) ran a grocery on Upper Mountain Road for 32 years by. The building and business were later taken over by Howard Clancy (?-?), who ran the business for some years. The building still stands.

Alva Edson Patt ran a barber shop and then "a men's wearing apparel and novelty store" from 1909 until his death in 1954.

Barber

Alva Edson Patt was Pekin's barber or owned the barber shop from 1909 to his death in 1954.

By 1948, Harold Maybee appears to have been doing at least part of the work at the Patt barber shop (Niagara Falls Gazette, 15 Sep 1948, p35c6).

In 1951, however, Patt was still advertising for someone to rent the barber shop (Niagara Falls Gazette, 21 Aug 1951, p23c1).

Maybee died in 1953, Patt died in 1954, and the Patt place was put up for sale (Niagara Falls Gazette, 22 Oct 1954, p30c8).

There may have been no barber in Pekin between 1954 and 1958, when someone named John Stone advertised a new barber shop now open in Pekin on Townline Road "across from Baker's Service Station" (Niagara Falls Gazette, October 24, 1958, p14c6).

Research Tips

Pekin was at first called Mountain Ridge but was eventually named after the Chinese capital, whose common English spelling has evolved from Pekin to Peking and eventually to Beijing. The alternative name "Perkin" was a recent typographical error and was never used by residents of Pekin.

The early histories of Pekin and Sanborn are somewhat intertwined. In the early 19th century, when the railway route passed through Pekin, the place currently called Sanborn was relatively unimportant and was known simply as South Pekin. In the 1850s and 1860s, however, the railway route was shifted away from Pekin to South Pekin, South Pekin got its own post office and grew in importance, and South Pekin postmaster Lee Sanborn renamed the place after his father, Reverend E. C. Sanborn, and, perhaps not incidentally, after himself.