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.