Monthly Archives: January 2020

Our Map Remembers Our Wars, and Our Soldiers

A little while back, the U. S. Postal Service bent a bit, and went against the grain of its own tradition to name the Hornell post office in honor of Lance Corporal Zachary Smith. Nineteen year-old Corporal Smith, First Battalion of the Sixth Marine Regiment, had been killed on January 24, 2010 while supporting combat operations in Afghanistan. He was the first Hornell combat death since Vietnam, and the post office now honors his name.

Similarly, the stretch of Interstate Route 390 between Exit 2 (Cohocton) and Exit 3 (Wayland) is now the Sergeant Devin A. Snyder Memorial Highway. Sergeant Snyder, of the army’s 793rd Military Police Battalion, was one of four soldiers killed with an improvised explosive device on June 4, 2011, also in Afghanistan. She was the first female soldier from western New York to die in the war.

War memorials are scattered across our communities, but the very names on the map often form memorials as well. The state legislature often honored heroes of the Revolution with county names. George Washington, James Monroe, Nathaniel Greene and Alexander Hamilton all crossed the Delaware in 1776, on the attack that in some ways was the turning point of the Revolution. Herkimer (Oriskany), Warren (Bunker Hill), and Montgomery (Quebec) were all killed in that war.

Schuyler, Steuben, Sullivan, Broome and Wayne were all generals in the War of Independence. Like Washington himself, Clinton, Israel Putnam, and van Cortlandt each served not just in the Revolutionary War, but also in the French and Indian War. (Van Cortlandt’s name was anglicized a little to give us Cortland County, and the Cortland apple for that matter.)

We can also see the experience of the Revolution if we zero in a little more closely on the map. The Dansvilles (Steuben and Livingston Counties) were named for Captain Dan Faulkner. Silas Wheeler and Robert Troup (Troupsburg) had each been P.O.W.s during the war. Colonel Arthur Lindsley got his name misspelled on the second line of his town’s founding document, and it’s been called Lindley ever since.

The War of 1812 was not very inspiring, and as far as I know only inspired one local name, which isn’t even on the map any more. Until the 1860s Franklin Street in Hornell was called Lundy’s Lane, presumably after the fierce 1814 Battle of Lundy’s Lane (Niagara Falls, Canada) in which local troops fought.

Curiously enough the Mexican War, which was not very popular in the north and in which local troops did little more than garrison duty, inspired a number of local names. The Steuben County Town of Fremont was named for “the Pathfinder,” John C. Frémont, a military man and western explorer who seized much of California when the war broke out. (In 1856 he was the first Republican candidate for president, and voters in his namesake town backed him enthusiastically.)

The small settlements of Sonora (Steuben County) and Monterey (Schuyler) remember significant Mexican War locations, while Buena Vista (Town of Howard, Steuben) spotlights a major victory for future Whig president Zachary Taylor. Young Hickory in Troupsburg commemorates Mexican War president James K. Polk, a Democrat, thus putting all three major parties on the Steuben map with Mexican War references.

After the massive World Wars, with gigantic death tolls, we were more likely to see general “war memorial” edifices (Bath municipal building, Corning stadium, old Corning library), but individual fallen were still remembered in the names of Legion posts and V.F.W. posts. I suppose that not long after the Mexican War, our local maps were pretty well filled up. There wasn’t much space for new names.

Steuben County Bells

Hugo, Longfellow, Tennyson, Housman, Poe, John Hersey, and Dorothy Sayers all wrote with great depth of feeling about the tintinnabulation of the bells. The sound of bells dominated a small community, and reverberated way out into the countryside. If your town wasn’t on the railroad, and you didn’t have a waterfall, a grist mill, or a boiler factory, the bell was probably the loudest sound you ever heard.
Bells once served to sound alarms, or to mark specific times, such as church services or the opening of school. When reliable clocks and watches became widespread, most bells became superfluous apart from their nostalgia value. As towers and steeples needed expensive repairs or maintenance, the bells… which might weigh half a ton – were often removed, and sometimes the towers along with them. Some bells were replaced with chimes or carillons.
What then? What do you do with a weighty, bulky bell, purchased at great sacrifice and once the focus of great community pride? Some were passed on to other institutions, and some went for scrap, especially during World War II. Others were preserved, and in many cases fondly incorporated into newer facilities, now “on exhibit” rather than pealing across the community.
Bells are especially associated with churches, schools, and fire stations. But I’m only aware of two school bells here in Steuben County. The old Hammondsport Academy bell is now at Curtiss Museum. (Otto Kohl bought the Academy as a place to create the Museum… presumably the bell came with the belfry.) The old Haverling bell stands a few rods away from its former location; it’s now in front of the one-room Babcock Hollow School at Steuben County Fairgrounds in Bath.
Besides sounding alarms, the wild bells also rang out for joyous events. Outside Bath Fire Hall is the old village fire bell. On Armistice Day in 1918, besides pealing out the good news of peace and victory, the fire company raised $115 for Red Cross by charging celebrators a quarter apiece to ring the bell.
There’s also a bell at Cohocton Fire Department (outside), and one at Canisteo Fire Department (inside).
The old Addison Town Hall bell has had some hard times, but still stands where it started out, albeit at a lower altitude. Hal Sisson writes, “Installed around 1909 in the newly constructed ‘City Hall,’ the bell was donated by businessman George True. It weighs 700 lbs. and is cast iron. It was removed for safety reasons in the late 60’s or early 70’s, fortunately before the building’s demise by fire in the 1990’s. When the duties of the bell were superseded by an electric siren a couple of entrepreneurial locals decided they were going to make a financial killing cutting up the bell for scrap during World War II. Dragging the heavy cylinders of oxygen and acetylene up the seven stories proved pointless. The heat generated by the torch was not enough to cut through the 3-inch-thick metal; it could only cut about a half inch. Fortunately the bell was kept in various safe places until a few years ago a friend and I built a new cupola in the park at the five corners on Main Street.”
The bell at the former Jasper Methodist Church has migrated a few miles and come to rest outside West Jasper Wesleyan Church, while Haskinville Wesleyan has moved its own bell from the steeple to the grounds. St. Mary Catholic Church in Rexville preserves its old bell outside its new building (1984), as does Bath Centenary Methodist outside ITS new building (1978). Likewise we can find the old Avoca Baptist bell (1853, weighing in at over 800 pounds) outside Avoca First Baptist (1977).
The bell outside Avoca Methodist Church (1997) has clearly seem better days. The bell crashed to earth when the old building burned in 1996, right after fire fighters had backed out, concluding that nothing could be done to save the structure. The bell would never ring again, but its superb timing was certainly worth a celebration!
(Did we miss any “on exhibit” bells? Please let us know!)

Look Out for Microclimates!

Quite a few people, over quite a few years, have taken note of the fact that if you’re driving I-86, between Campbell and Savona, you often run into a band of rain, snow, or sleet. There’s something similar going on above Prattsburgh, on the height overlooking the village from the north, along State Route 53. You’ll also find it along I-390, on the height between Dansville and Cohocton.

WHY this should be the case, or even whether they result from the same phenomena, is more than I can tell you. But I take it that they reveal microclimates – small pockets where the climate (and thus the weather) differs from its surroundings. It may differ by only a tiny amount, but it’s enough to make noticeable results.

You’ve already noticed this, on a small and transitory scale, whenever you’ve stepped into the shade to escape the blast of the sun’s direct rays. Not that this has been a problem LATELY!

You’ve also seen it when you lift your eyes unto the hills, and see that they’re covered with snow, while there’s none where you’re standing.

Altitude can make quite noticeable changes, as you can learn if you’re in Bath on a hot summer’s day. Drive on up to Mossy Bank Park, overlooking the village, and you’ll instantly be MUCH more comfortable.

We aren’t the only ones to recognize this. We know that many birds migrate northwrad in summer, and southward for winter. Juncos migrate UPWARD for summer and DOWNWARD for winter. When the snow flies, we enjoy them at our feeders. We meet them again in summer at Mossy Bank Park, or in the gorge of Watkins Glen State Park. Just a few feet of elevation, and a little cover, are all that they need. The climate’s a few degrees cooler, and they’re perfectly happy.

Watkins Glen is so narrow that it blocks out most of the sunshine, meaning that the ice and snow sometimes lie on the trail for weeks after it’s a memory elsewhere, keeping the gorge closed to frustrated hikers and tourists.

In some seasons Letchworth Gorge also preserves ice for a long time, while it can lie under Niagara Falls until midsummer.

As western New Yorkers we’re aware of microclimates that create “lake effect snow.” But I’ve noticed that Steuben County seems to be in an odd little trough that frees it from most of these proverbial snowfalls. Lake Erie lake effect seems to peter out around Hornell. Lake Ontario lake effect gives up the ghost around Canandiagua, or at least around Ingleside. And coastal storms rarely dump much west of Elmira.

We live in Bath village, and drive maybe a quarter-mile to work. We often drive INTO a thick fog bank, as we approach the Conhocton River. Folks in Cameron Mills and elsewhere get similar narrow morning fog bands lining the Canisteo.

And this persists after those rivers flow together to form the Chemung… as you’ve bitterly realized whenever you’ve tried to take an early morning flight out of Corning-Elmira Airport, near Big Flats.

You can thank microclimates for our grape and wine industry. On the eastward-facing slopes (the west side, in other words) of the Finger Lakes, we get a warming effect from the combination of the sun’s rays and the lakes’ heat sink. It’s just warm enough to preserve the vines, and just cold enough to kill the pests, et voila! But I imagine, unfortunately, that global warming will open up that narrow window, and pretty well put us out of business.

2019 — the Year in Review

In April 2019, we watched heart-stricken as the 800 year-old Cathedral of Notre-Dame burned in Paris. You didn’t have to be Catholic, or even Christian to grieve… you didn’t have to be French, or European, or even western… Notre-Dame is one of the great treasures of humanity. Thank Heaven it still stands, although fragile and still endangered.. President Macron said, “We shall rebuild.”

President Trump tried to coerce the Ukrainian president into using the Ukrainian government to help with Trump’s re-election campaign. When public servants revolted, Trump issued a summary (not actually a transcript) of the conversation, and Trump’s own summary appears to show him committing a crime. This led, among other things, to impeachment hearings.

Trump also yanked protection from our Kurdish allies, and gave permission for Turkish forces to enter Kurdish-held areas and massacre Kurdish forces.

Trump fled the NATO summit after video showed world leaders laughing at him, and then the House of Representatives impeached him. He doesn’t need to fear losing his office – most of the jurors proudly proclaim that they are working hand-on-glove with the accused – but these twin setbacks endanger Trump’s mental and emotional health, as he has shown a life-long desperation to present himself as strong, successful, and respected.

Christianty Today called for Trump’s removal, leading to speculation about Trump finally losing some white evangelicals, and to hilarious attacks describing CT as “left-wing.” The reality is probably that CT in this case speaks for those evangelicals who are already anti-Trump, though the editorial might encourage a tiny amount of erosion around the edges, white evangelicals having a strong follow-the-crowd, follow-the-leader bent.

The year also speeded up a process that’s been going on for 60 years, of people leaving churches and organized religion. Catholics have been bleeding, largely over the abuse scandal and the handling of the scandal. White evangelicals are driving out their own young, who are largely disgusted over hypocrisy as those who wailed that Bill Clinton was too immoral to be president now passionately embrace Trump. They probably could have gotten away with the 180-degree shift if they had FACED it as a 180, confessed that they’d been wrong before, and announced that they’d changed their minds. Come back for the 2028 elections and you’ll find that the Catholic bloc and the white evangelical bloc are both smaller, weaker, and much more elderly.

Locally, 2019 saw the closing of Immaculate Heart Church in Painted Post. This had been the newest Catholic congregation in Steuben County, and the newest Catholic edifice. Like St. Vincent on Corning Northside, which closed last year because of a structural collapse, IH has merged with St. Mary/All Saints, leaving just one congregation in the Corning-PP area.

St. James Mercy Center in Hornell moved along in its transition from being a Catholic hospital to becoming a University of Rochester hospital, complete with new location to come. A multi-structure fire wrecked a large part of the Preston Avenue neighborhood in Hornell, but no lives were lost. But an April car crash in Allegany County killed four young people from the Dansville area. An October crash in Pulteney killed four people who had just left a bar in Hammondsport. Both drivers survived, injured, to face charges.

Beaver Pharmacy closed in Canisteo – the business went back to at least 1901, and the Beavers bought it in 1935. Walgreens in Hornell bought the business, and took on all the employees. Bennet’s Motors closed in Wayland on New Year’s Eve – the Bennet brothers started the business when they got back from World War I.

Bath’s K-Mart closed, although the main chain endures. Bath Building Company went out in November, but the parent Corning Building Company continues. Also in Bath the Steuben Bowling Academy closed after structural collapse – the county bought the place, demolished it, and plans to use it for parking. The Chat-a-Whyle Restaurant closed on Liberty Street, but there may be some possibility that it will open again. And after more than 150 years, the Steuben Courier no longer has an office in Bath. It still publishes weekly, out of the Leader office in Corning.

Carol Channing, Albert Finney, and Kaye Ballard died in 2019. So did author Rosamund Pilcher, and Jackie Kennedy’s sister Lee Radziwill. Doris Day, Tim Conway, Peter Fonda, Valerie Harper, and Herman Wouk passed away. Lee Iacocca and Ross Perot departed, as did Addison native MLB player Jim Greengrass.

Locally we were forced to say goodbye to Norm Brush, Kitty Ormsby, Floyd Hayes, and Dot Cornell. And we miss every one of them.