Bronson Case Rumsey
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Bronson C. and Dexter P. Rumsey Bronson Case and Dexter P. succeeded in placing the leather firm of A. Rumsey & Company among the leading industries of that nature in the United States, which held until the business was absorbed by the United States Leather Company. After Bronson and Dexter sold their father's tannery, they invested the $10 million each received in railroads (where they partnered with the Vanderbilts), banking and real estate, much of it in Buffalo. At one time they owned 22 of the 43 square miles that comprised Buffalo. The Rumsey family sold Rumsey Park around 1914. By 1915, Rumsey Lake was filled in and subdivided, making it possible to extend Elmwood Avenue from Virginia Street into downtown.

Bronson Case Rumsey The text below is excerpted from Buffalo's Delaware Avenue: Mansions and Families, by Edward T. Dunn. Pub. by Canisius College Press, 2003, pp. 153, 162 ff. In Warsaw Aaron married Sophia Phelps in 1819. They had two sons, Bronson Case, born in 1823, in Warsaw, and Dexter Phelps, born in 1827 in Westfield. Bronson, Aaron Rumsey's elder son, married Evelyn Hall in 1848, a year after he and Dexter had become partners in Aaron's tanning enterprise. The Bronson Rumseys had four children, Lauren, Laurence Dana born in 1849, Mary Lovering born in 1851, Bronson (Bert) born in 1854, and Evelyn born in 1855. Two years after their marriage, Bronson and Evelyn moved into the house at #1 Park Place. Grander quarters were soon to take shape: In the late [eighteen] fifties, a brick and lumber yard conducted by Hodge & Baldwin occupied many acres, beginning at Delaware and Tracy Place. A brook ran through the yard, where the feeding spring kept the water fresh and cold, and where brook trout once abounded. In 1861 the lumber yard disappeared. In its stead rose a stately mansion, and the little stream became a forest-bound lake, and far back behind the mansion was a sylvan scene of enchantment. -- Buffalo Times, Jan. 22, 1927 In 1862 Bronson Senior completed the palatial vine-covered mansard-roof mansion surrounded by extensive flower gardens and grape vines at what was to become #330 Delaware, his home for the rest of his life. Illustration 7 above is the ground plan of Rumsey Park, a family compound since besides Bronson Senior in the big house at #330, at one time or another in the last quarter of the nineteenth century Edward Movius and his wife, Mary Lovering Rumsey Movius, resided at #334, Doctor and Mrs. Charles Cary resided at #340, and Bronson (Bert) Rumsey at #132 West Tupper. Old man Rumsey's eldest son Laurence, still lived at #1 Park Place. Bronson's enormous wealth depended on the tanning business he and Dexter had inherited from their father which they sold in 1893 and on their real estate holdings in Buffalo, in counties nearby, and in property in other cities. Bronson was also a founder of the M&T Bank. [The 1901 Pan-American Exposition was held] on the Rumsey tract on Forest Avenue.