The most famous Corning Tower is the Albany skyscraper, the centerpiece of Empire State Plaza, which is named after Erastus Corning 2nd, the long-serving 20th century mayor of Albany. But the city of Corning in the southern tier is named after another Erastus Corning, steelmaker, banker, politician and railroad king, whose son, also named Erastus, built a monument to him there 11 years after his death.
The original Erastus, like many New York Democrats, had an ambivalent attitude toward the Civil War, but prospered by it. His spendthrift son did not serve in the war. The son's grandson, for whom the Empire State Plaza tower is named, did serve in World War II. He later betrayed his constituents and benefited his own insurance company by letting Nelson Rockefeller build the Plaza on which his Tower stands.
Not far from Corning, NY, is Elmira, where on the graceful grounds of Elmira College sits the Mark Twain Study, a building which used to be attached to Twain's summer home nearby. Twain wrote most of his best work there, free from distractions. Olivia Langdon was from a wealthy abolitionist family in Elmira, graduated from Elmira College in 1864, and married Samuel Clemens in 1870. Clemens (Twain) famously deserted from a Confederate militia company and wisely avoided most of the Civil War by Roughing It out West, where he laid the foundation of his literary career. He is a character in The Last Circle of Ulysses Grant.
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