J. Howard Terwilliger, 93, of 115 Clyde Ave., Syracuse, died Friday, May 31. Mr. Terwilliger was a native of Sullivan, Madison, and moved to Kirkville at the age of 15. At the time of his 90th birthday, July 6, 1981, Mr. Terwilliger remembered as a youngster sliding down the bannister at the old Conrad Shoemaker house on North Main St. and East Ave. in Minoa, now the Masonic Temple. At that time it was the home of his aunt Jane, who married John Edgerton. There was a street named after the Edgertons, and the Edgerton Estates Senior Citizens apartment complex also bears the family name.
Mr. Terwilliger also remembered that the back end of his family’s garden was the original Clinton’s Ditch that ran down to Pool’s Brook in the next settlement east of Kirkville. Packet boats plied the canal, carrying freight from the city to the stores;
Mr. Terwilliger moved to Syracuse, and worked for Brown-Lipe-Chapin and in other factories. In April 1922, he opened the first Texaco drive-in gasoline station in Syracuse at 925 Onondaga Ave. In 1934 he formed a Gulf oil distributorship with B.T. Weinberg called the T&W Company.
He was a 65-year member and the third generation of his family to be a member of the Chittenango Masonic Lodge 148. He was a member of St. Paul’s United Methodist Church.
His wife, Ruby, died in 1969. Surviving are several cousins.
Services were held Monday at Greenleaf Funeral Home, the Rev. Gordon Knapp officiating. Burial was in Pine Plains cemetery, North Manlius.
1891 - 1985 (93 years)
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