Monthly Archives: May 2016

On to Ontario!

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One of the great mysteries of western New York is: why doesn’t Ontario County touch Lake Ontario?

*Well, the answer is that once upon a time it did. When Ontario was created, back in 1789, it included all or part of 11 modern counties.

*What’s left has a special place in my heart, as we lived in Ontario for the first two years of our residence in New York state, in “The Bloomfields.” In 1939 my father-in-law and his cousin drove down Routes 5 and 20 on their way from Vermont to Oklahoma, hoping vainly to get work in the oil fields. At every stop they made, a knot of men huddled around the radio, listening to news of Hitler’s invasion of Poland. Little did he think that six decades later he would have a daughter, a son-in-law, and two grandsons living along that route.

*“Five-and-twenty,” which is a single road, was our first road west, following the “natural corridor” route later exploited by the Erie Canal, the New York Central Railroad, and the New York State Thruway. Our son Josh and I first drove this from west to east, heading from Lima back to Vermont. As we approached Canandaigua we gaped to see a golden dome resplendent in the sun and topped by a statue. “Is that some Mormon thing?” we asked. It’s the county courthouse, of course, but a gold star to my eighth-grade son, with no background in Mormonism or in western New York, for knowing that Ontario County is the birthplace of that religion.

*There are several Mormon historic sites in the county, not to mention the spectacular Hill Cumorah Festival, a gigantic sound-and-light-and-stage show scripted, in its latest incarnation, by science-fiction great Orson Scott Card. We’ve been – it’s impressive.

*While counties such as Yates, Chemung, Schuyler and Monroe each have a community that by virtue of its population forms the definite hub of its region, Ontario has two cities – Geneva and Canandaigua – nearly equal in size. Each lies at the foot (or north end) of a major Finger Lake… Seneca and Canandaigua, respectively. Two smaller Finger Lakes, Canadice and Honeoye, are completely within Ontario County, which also boasts the east shore of Hemlock Lake.

*Ontario is home to Boy Scout Camp Dittmer, and also to the New York State Pageant of Steam. Just as I’ve been to Hill Cumorah Festival at least once, I’ve also been to the Steam Pageant at least once. You don’t have to be especially interested, and you certainly don’t need to be an expert, to be overwhelmed. It’s really a terrific experience.

*Sonnenberg Gardens and Mansion I’ve been to MANY more times than once or twice. I love to wander the grounds and weave through the greenhouses, while in the great entrance hall I expect Theodore Roosevelt or Frederick Remington to stride in any minute. Ontario County Fair could be bottled for essence of American county fair.

*Naples, with its lovely mile-long Main Street, lies in Ontario County – the ride from Naples to Canandaigua is a ride through vineyard country, often overlooking Canandaigua Lake. Pause in Cheshire, and check out The Company Store and Cheshire Union Gifts & Antique Center.

*Canandaigua’s Main Street is a good place to shop and stroll. It has an embroidery store (Expressions in Needlearts) AND a comic book store (Pulp Nouveau)… the perfect recipe for domestic harmony. I once saw a coyote on Main Street, and last week a Cooper’s Hawk. Sunken gardens set into the sidewalks add green space and process storm water.

*I know good libraries in Geneva, Bloomfield, and Canandaigua, and shoppers love Eastview Mall in Victor. Skiers like Bristol Mountain Ski Resort, while LeTourneau Christian Center camp and retreat center is washed by Canandaigua’s eastern waters. Roseland Waterpark is a popular attraction, borrowing its name from a well-remembered but long-gone amusement park. Those who like the ponies visit Finger Lakes Racetrack in Farmington. Ontario County Historical Society has a museum worth visiting, as does Geneva Historical Society.

*Canandaigua is home to Finger Lakes Community College, and to the open-air Constellation Brands-Marvin Sands Performing Arts Center, where we’ve seen Garrison Keillor, and also Peter, Paul, and Mary. The 1894 Smith Opera House in Geneva makes a lovely baroque setting for performances.

*Last week I was at the Jumpoff Point, a cliff with a dramatic view in Ontario County Park, when a cyclist appeared, looked around, and proclaimed it well worth his trip. This spot also marks the northern terminus of the rugged 55-mile Bristol Hills Trail, which I found a hard slog but a joy to hike.

*If you’re reading this in the main “Leader” coverage area, it may remind you of lots of places you plan to get around to visiting, but which are just far enough away that you never quite get there. My advice is to pick a date, pick a destination, grit your teeth, and go. I’ll be very surprised if you decide that you’d rather have puttered at home.

The Little Land Between the Lakes

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Yates County has shoreline on Keuka Lake… and Seneca Lake… AND Canandaigua Lake. How cool is that?

It’s never had a magnet attraction like Watkins Glen State Park, or Watkins Glen International, or Corning Museum of Glass. But all that lakefront means that Yates gets plenty of company anyway, all summer long.

There’s a long-standing story that Red Jacket, the charismatic Seneca leader, was born in the Penn Yan area, where we even find Red Jacket Park. And we know that his mother lived nearby at the end of her life, but actually no one knows where Red Jacket was born.

Sullivan’s invasion rampaged through the region in 1779, killing and burning indiscriminately. Some of the first Europeans to muscle in permanently were followers of pioneer prophetess Jemima Wilkinson, the “Publick Universal Friend.” They came to Torrey in 1778, but later moved the center of their community to Jerusalem. Claiming to be (or at least, to have) a divine spirit, she ruled her flock imperiously until she “left time” in 1819, after which her following withered away.

They had worked hard and well, though, and Penn Yan grew largely from their labors. Lying at the foot of Keuka Lake, it became a busy transshipping town. By 1833 a canal, and then later a railroad, connected with Dresden (still in Yates) on Seneca Lake, and thence to the Erie Canal system and the entire world. Penn Yan and Hammondsport (in Steuben County) became rivals (sometimes friendly), but neither could get along without the other. Each was a vital link in Keuka’s transportation chain.

Yates was set off from Ontario County in 1823, and uninspiringly named for the governor who signed the enabling act. The county later gained land from Steuben, but lost to Tompkins and Seneca.

There are nine towns in Yates County (Starkey, Barrington, Torrey, Milo, Benton, Potter, Middlesex, Italy, and Jerusalem), including four incorporated villages, (Penn Yan, Dresden, Rushville, and Dundee). Branchport and Bellona are unincorporated communities.

Penn Yan is the largest town, the county seat, and a fun place to visit. The county fairgrounds are here, and Main Street is a good place to stroll and shop. There’s a “new book” store (Long’s Cards and Gifts) and two used book stores. Millie’s Pantry offers lunches and gifts, with proceeds making sure children get enough to eat.

Yates County History Center has, among other things, notable Jemima Wilkinson memorabilia, including her coachee (a cut-down carriage – she liked her comforts). Penn Yan also has a movie theater and a very nice Carnegie Library (one of very few in the region). This library has recently undergone significant renovations, though it still retains space for buggy parking. Branchport recently completed a brand-new library, plus there’s a library in Dundee and reading centers in Rushville and Middlesex.

Jerusalem is home to the dramatic Keuka Bluff, that high formation that juts out into the lake to form the East Branch and West Branch, both of which lie largely in Yates. The Bluff is home to Keuka Lake State Park and also to the jewel-box Garrett Chapel, a beautiful stone structure hidden in the forest overlooking the East Branch.

Yates County has two weekly newspapers (the Observer and the Chronicle-Express), not to mention Keuka College (founded 1890) and a public-use airport. As traditional family farms have gone out, conservative “plain-dress” anabaptists have moved in. It’s no surprise that vineyards line much of the lakeshores. The wonderful Keuka Outlet Trail stretches from Penn Yan on Keuka Lake to Dresden on Seneca.

Yates is a small county, and sadly easy to overlook. Lacking a magnet attraction it’s not necessarily the place people visit for short stays. But people make homes there. And they stay the summers. The little land between the lakes is not Brigadoon. But in the depths of World War II Arch Merrill observed that Penn Yan was a good community – the kind of place where you could ride out the storm.

Steuben County Historical Society Assumes Assets of Call Homestead Museum

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Judge Bradstreet of Steuben County Court has ruled that the assets of Call Homestead Museum/Hartsville Historical Society be transferred to the Steuben County Historical Society.

Richard Call originally established the museum on his family homestead at Post Road and Purdy Creek Road. After his death 16 years ago the place was operated by a board. But operating a farm museum in Hartsville was always going to be a challenge.

The action to dissolve the Call Museum non-profit was originally instigated by that institution’s bank, then after study supported by the Department of Education and finally by the Attorney General’s office, which actually brought the action.

The state approached Steuben County Historical Society “out of the blue” to see whether they would agree to receive the assets of Call Museum, and the SCHS board agreed. I am the director of SCHS.

Besides two officials of Steuben County Historical Society, a member of the Call Museum board and the two official Hartsville Town Historians also attended the hearing.

The assets include artifacts, archival materials, real property, and some funds — we can’t speak in detail because it hasn’t been proper for us to go in and inspect or “inventory” until judicial action.

We at SCHS anticipate distributing some of the artifacts and such to Allegany County or to the local communities where they relate more directly. We would take in some materials, and would look at disposing of the real property and other assets with a view to strengthening Steuben County Historical Society. We would use some of these resources to provide services in that southwestern part of the county, and to maintain the name of Mr. Call.

To forestall any confusion this is NOT Town of Hartsville Museum, recently opened in the old Slate Creek School.

We at SCHS were not seeking or expecting this offer/request from the state. Now that it is coming to pass we want to strengthen SCHS and also increase our support for “saving the stories and telling the tales” in Hartsville-Greenwood-West Union, besides letting Allegany County have those materials that relate to them.

We’re also committed to maintain the name and the legacy of Richard Call, who first saw Steuben County through the windows of an orphan train. In Hartsville he found a home and a family and a community, and his generosity will continue to bear fruit through the years to come.

Carved in Stone: The James A. Wetmore Story

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James A. Wetmore made his mark on America, though most people scurry by without ever noticing his name. It’s on the cornerstones of the many federal buildings — the New York Times figured about 2000 — created during his fifteen years as Acting Supervising Architect of the Treasury Department.

*Wetmore was born in Bath and educated in Hornell, then trained as a stenographer and held various jobs before settling in with the Treasury in 1885. He also got a law degree, and became a 33rd-degree Mason.

*Energetic and highly capable, he was often put in charge of various offices and divisions on an interim basis — for a couple of months even filling in for the Secretary of the Treasury himself. In 1915 he took over the Supervising Architect’s job on a “temporary” basis, and retired from that position — still only temporary — in 1934.

*This office designed all federal buildings. As Acting Supervising Architect Wetmore oversaw creation of the Alaska State Capitol (then the territorial capitol) in Juneau, and the monumental 1916 Post Office in Hornell, not to mention courthouses from coast to coast.

*During the first hectic year of the New Deal he was in charge of 1700 architects. Time Magazine said that his name was “carved on the cornerstones of more post offices, customs houses, federal court houses and office buildings than that of any other U.S. citizen.” He oversaw creations through the Wilson, Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, and Roosevelt administrations… though we should mention that he had also filled that role on a “truly temporary” basis even back in the 1800s. Right to the end Wetmore insisted on being labeled as “acting” – and so he’s listed on all those cornerstones – since he was not, in fact, an architect.

*Time reported (in its article “Cornerstone Man,” December 10, 1934) “Of all the cornerstones that bear the name of James A. Wetmore, Acting Supervising Architect, he is proudest of the one under the new post office in his native Bath. He laid that one himself, in 1931. The trowel, suitably engraved, hangs over his mantel. He will take it with him to Coral Gables, Fla., where he plans to spend the rest of his days.” And there he ended those days, in 1940.

Come and See — Canisteo!

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We very reasonably begin the Steuben County story with Charles Williamson establishing Bath in 1793. But of course people had been living here for thousands of years, and in particular European-descended people were already living here before Williamson arrived. Europeans had been living in Canisteo for five years before anybody around here ever heard of Williamson.

*The main Iroquois cities were up at the north end of the lakes, but there was a substantial Seneca town here well before Europeans stared muscling in. There’s a long-standing story that Marquis de Denonville marched down from Montreal and burned the town in 1690. Actually in that year he would have been marching from France, so it’s more likely to have been during a major expedition that he led in 1687, BUT despite the antiquity of the story, many scholars are pretty sure that he never got anywhere near this far.

*There’s another story that “Kanestio Castle” was a fortified town populated by local Indians, refugee Indians, white renegades, and escaped slaves, and was broken up in the 1700s. It’s quite possible that something along that line did in fact happen.

*By 1796 Canisteo was well-populated enough that it became one of the six original towns of Steuben County. I call these “supertowns” – Canisteo gave rise to another half-dozen current towns, plus Hornell and part of Allegany County.

*From an early date Canisteo was was an important point for road and river travel. Stages and mail came overland, while arks and rafts were poled downstream to Chesapeake Bay, carrying the produce of the region. Taking advantage of the same natural paths, the Erie Railroad came through in 1850. The nearby unincorporated hamlet of Hornellsville (today’s City of Hornell) started to boom with Erie work, and neighboring Canisteo grew along with it.

*In later years the New York-Pennsylvania railroad reached Canisteo, as did an electric trolley line linking to Hornell, and also circulating through each community. The Village incorporated, and became the market and business town for the surrounding countryside.

*The rail lines guided pioneer aviators, who made Canisteo a stop on long-distance flights. Cal Rogers cane through when he made America’s first coast-to-coast flight (1911, seven weeks elapsed but only 84 hours in the air). Canisteo at one point in the 1800s even had its own professional minor league baseball team.

*In 1933 Canisteans laid out the living sign on a hillside – 260 pines spelling out “Canisteo.” It was reported in Ripley’s Believe It or Not!, and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It’s being recreated now (80 years takes its toll), and only the “O” is in place.

*The 1935 flood inundated the whole downtown area knee-deep, and also killed off the New York-Pennsylvania, which was already on its last legs. Two years later, with New Deal help, the community built a fine modern school that’s still in use. A fleet oiler, USS Canisteo, served in the US Navy from 1945 to 1989.

*We’ll be exploring the village in a historic walk (free and open to the public) at 4 PM Friday, May 6, sponsored by Steuben County Historical Society. We’ll meet at Kanestio Historical Society (23 Main Street), and if weather precludes a walk we’ll get a tour of K.H.S. and its museum. We hope you can join us!