Skip to Main Content

Historypin: Wilcox-Cobb House

November 9, 2016

Image courtesy of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery Digital Assets Collection and Archives.

The Wilcox-Cobb house was constructed by Birdseye (Birdsey) Wilcox (1799–1861) circa 1835.

Wilcox was a member of the Young Men’s Association in Buffalo in 1845 and was actively against women’s right to vote. He owned a looking glass store on the corner of Swan Street and Main Street. He, along with General Sylvester Matthews, started a private cemetery business in 1833 or 1834.

The 12-acre cemetery was located on the corner of Delaware and North Streets and open to the public in 1835. It soon became the principal burial ground in the city before the opening of Forest Lawn Cemetery in 1850. All the occupants of the cemetery on Delaware and North Streets were moved from Wilcox Cemetery in 1901. 

The house was the residence of Oscar Cobb and his family from 1858 to 1912. The house was torn down in 1912.