Monthly Archives: January 2021

Painted Post — a Village of Monuments

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Painted Post is a village of monuments, and North Hamilton is a street of monuments.

Some communities do this deliberately – gathering their various unrelated statues, plaques, boulders, and horseback-riding generals from their original sites into one location. In Painted Post, it seems to have grown more or less organically. And that has fortuitously created a nice, comfortable walking loop.

The most obvious, of course, of course, and surely the best known, is the 1951 “Chief Montour” statue that has become a symbol of the village. This harks back to the original “painted post” which gave its name to the whole region. It anchors a knot of monuments at Water and Hamilton Streets, close by the Village Square shopping center.

Last week in this space we looked at Painted Post monuments relating to the Native peoples of the region, so this week we’ll just summarize them, and concentrate on the OTHER monuments. In addition to the statue itself, the BASE of the statue bears a large and lengthy plaque, giving the history of the original “painted post,” and the three 19th-century “Indians” that preceded the current statue.

Right nearby is a 1966 plaque commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Treaty of Painted Post, which more-or-less stabilized arrangements between the Iroquois and the U.S. (Guess who came out best.)

Also nearby are two plaques celebrating the Village recovery from the catastrophic “Hurricane Agnes” flood of 1972. The whole Village Square center occupies a neighborhood that had to be demolished – it’s remarkable that the community came back as it did. The NYS Urban Development Corporation dedicated one plaque to “Painted Post and its citizens in recognition of their courageous and determined recovery… may the Village enjoy a long and prosperous future.” The other plaque is FROM the citizens, “to all the people and organizations, far and near, who unselfishly gave of themselves to assist the Village in its hour of greatest need.”

The next knot of monuments starts at the post office, and spills over both sides of Chemung Street and the railroad tracks. The post office lobby, as we saw last week, includes a New Deal mural of an imaginary event from Seneca days.

Painted Post has two fully-rounded statues in close proximity, which may be unusual among communities of similar size. Besides the Chief Montour statue down the street, we find a Civil War soldier on the post office grounds. This monument “to the soldier dead of the Town of Erwin” was dedicated in the 50th anniversary year of Vicksburg and Gettysburg. Two small cannon nearby are the focal point of Memorial Day observances.

Cross the tracks to the hard-to-notice World War Memorial Park, dedicated in 1930 (that’s World War ONE), but not comprising much more than a plaque, a mortar, and a flagpole. Across Hamilton is the sesquicentennial marker for the Sullivan expedition (invasion) during the Revolution.

Walk on up to Pulteney Street, turn left, and (once things are open again) cross Pulteney at Steuben to the Painted Post-Erwin Museum at the Depot. Here you can find all three of the “Indian” monuments that preceded today’s statue.

Cross back over on Steuben to the Village office building, and the first thing you’ll see is a memorial for deceased fire fighters, going back to 1867. Behind that, more powerful for being understated and unostentatious, is a memorial to the victims of September 11, 2001.

Walk south to Chemung, take a left, and look at the bell in its little tower. The bell rang out from the Methodist church on the spot, demolished after 1972 and now part of the nearby United Church – a union of congregations, since the Presbyterian church was wrecked at the same time.

Go into the shopping center and find the gazebo in the middle. This Centennial Pavilion went up in 1993 to mark a hundred years of incorporation as a Village.

Keep headin’ south, and cross Water Street into Hodgman Park. At the lacrosse field is a touching memorial to former player Michael Joseph Tammaro, 1989-2016. And finally, just a few steps away, check out the James A. Hogue memorial scoreboard. Are there any monuments that we missed?

Painted Post Monuments Follow Society’s Views of Native Americans

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The “Chief Montour” statue (originally set dead in the intersection of Water and Hamilton Streets) has become a symbol of Painted Post. This harks back to the original “Painted Post” which gave its name to the whole region.

According to Cornplanter it was a memorial to a Seneca leader of note, whose name he declined to divulge, in accordance with cultural conventions. The post weathered away with time, and white inhabitants of the early 1800s replaced it with a sheet-metal silhouette (for which they paid the maker one cow), theoretically depicting an Indian. This was replaced decades later by a more elaborate version, and then by a fully-rounded metal statue, which blew down and broke in 1948. (You can see all three of these in the Town of Erwin Museum at the Depot.)

The current fully-rounded model, executed by a local art teacher and erected around 1951, is the most artistically-impressive of the series. It incorporates a representation of the “painted post” itself, along with a respectful portrayal of Chief Montour, acknowledging the early owners of the land, muscled out in the 1790s. A large plaque on the base of the statue summarizes this history.

Two other nearby pieces are little more outdated, or at least one-sided. “Recording the Victory” is a New Deal mural in the post office, seeming to conflate the original painted post with the capture of Boyd and Parker, which took place about a hundred miles away.

That capture marked the westernmost penetration of the “Sullivan Expedition” (actually, the Sullivan INVASION), designed to demolish Iroquois life during the Revolutionary War. A tombstone-like monument on the east side of Hamilton, just north of the railroad track, is one of dozens that were scattered throughout the region in 1929 ( 150th anniversary), commemorating the “expedition.”

This was the largest independent command that George Washington ever authorized. SOME Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) sided with the British, raiding, burning, and killing down into the Wyoming Valley of Pennsylvania. Sullivan was to respond in kind, BUT with no attempt to sort out pro-British, neutral, or even pro-American. Everything was to be burned, everybody killed or expelled.

The invaders, of course, were considered heroes at the time. But the monument is an interesting relic of the early days of auto travel, when such markers were sort of checkpoints for tourists and drivers.

A 1966 marker, back near the statue, commemorates the 1791 Treaty of Painted Post… although as I understand it, the conference actually took place in today’s Elmira. Timothy Pickering represented the U.S., while Red Jacket and Cornplanter were among those negotiating for the Six Nations and others (1,800 of whom actually attended). The result, predictably, was a disappointment for the Haudenosaunee, but it did at least mark a general unenthusiastic acquiescence on both sides, normalizing arrangements at last.

The point where the Conhocton and Tuscarora form the Chemung… the point in which a town flourished, and on which the original painted post stood… was a key point for Native peoples and for the white invaders. The succession of markers and monuments here show a course beginning with Native life; then a 19th-century view of “the Indians” as exotic curios; then an early 20th-century age of growing concern for history, contaminated with white supremacy and flag-waving patriotism; and then a late 20th-century groping toward a more truthful and more respectful approach. We can find all of this with little more than a five-minute walk in Painted Post.

Wild Animals I Have Known… in the Finger Lakes (Part 2!)

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Last month we blogged about interesting wildlife encounters from 27 years of living in the Finger Lakes. One thing I should mention is, that the animals came to me, or at least we blundered upon each other. My point is that much as I love seeing the wildlife, I try very hard not to bother them. Close encounters are nerve-wracking for them, and potentially dangerous for both of us. Social distancing is the way to go!

*That might have been good advice for a red fox I encountered while hiking the Bristol Hills Trail through Hugh Tor, near Naples. At this point the Trail took advantage of an old farm lane, on which we were walking converging courses. He had his head down, schlepping along, until I was about the make my presence known, when all at once he jerked his head up, gaped in astonishment, and lit out for the high timber. I must have interrupted some deep philosophical contemplation.

*Beavers are making a comeback! Forests are up, trapping is down, and stream qualities have been improving. The first good look I ever got at a beaver was in Boughton Park, near Holcomb. He was standing on his hind feet on a log in water, leaning his chest on a branch, and reaching over the branch to strip twigs from the tree, gnawing at them to his heart’s content… he was busy as a beaver. When we first moved to Bath we could watch them from the road near Risingville, and at a farm pond between Wayne and Hammondsport. Like the Lone Ranger, they move on when their job (damming streams) is done. There’s always another stream, just over the next rise.

*I also met some interesting woodchucks near Bath. Right in the village I frequently saw a ‘chuck that was terrified of cats, even though he probably outweighed them two to one. I knew another one that threw up a little parapet for himself, in a slope near Pleasant Valley on State Route 54, and spent his days enjoying the sun and watching the traffic. When we lived on Mitchellsville Road I used to watch a woodchuck from a second-floor window. He was also across the back yard, putting a good amount of distance between us. But as I watched him, he watched me. Just raising my hand would send him scurrying for the safety of his burrow. They must have excellent eyesight.

*I once caught a glimpse of a fisher on the Finger Lakes Trail, west of Mitchellsville. And one night a bobcat scooted across Cold Brook Road in front of our car. It’s been quite recently that either of these predators have moved into our neighborhood in any numbers. There are even experimental hunting and trapping seasons nowadays.

*I’ve read that many European visitors, spotting squirrels on our lawns, are flabbergasted that “wild animals” come up so close to the houses. The gray squirrel is our most common model, but the gray has a naturally-occurring black variant. I see them near Birdseye Hollow Park, and up at Mossy Bank Park, and lately I see them in greater numbers and wider ranges. A friend tells me that the black version was the more common type hundreds of years ago… grays came to the fore as the forest was cut down. Now that so much more of our land is once again forested, blacks are making a comeback – the better to hide beneath the shade of the forest canopy.

2020 — Hail and Farewell

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Well – what to lead with? Because 2020 was the year that was!

The exploding COVID/coronavirus pandemic led to widespread closings in March, and we’re still noplace near back to normal. The stock market went on a rollercoaster, the economy is staggering, many families are becoming desperate, businesses have closed, churches and summer camps stood empty, tourism tanked, kids are out of school, millions have been sick, and a third of a million have died, despite Donald Trump’s insistence that it’s all just exaggerated to make him look bad, and will go away soon “like a miracle.” (How did he wind up in the hospital, then?) As year ends, the first vaccines are arriving, but cases still rise dramatically. Corning Inc. is manufacturing the Valor Glass vials to store the vaccines.

Libraries shut down in March. Most reopened on a limited basis in July or August, though Hornell had to remain closed until December. Hornell and Corning libraries both took advantage of the “Pause” to have major work done.

Allegedly inspired by Trump, right-wing terrorists allegedly plotted to seize the governor of Wisconsin, making her their first victim for televised mass murder. They were arrested before they struck.

Protected by his party’s senators, Trump easily survived his impeachment trial only to be cast aside by the voters, who had, after all, already rejected him four years earlier. Since then he’s been screeching about a steal, just as he did when Ted Cruz beat him in the Iowa caucus five years ago. Uncharismatic Joe Biden got more votes than any other candidate in our history, flipped five states, and has been hard at work setting up an administration, despite what looks like a bizarre slow-motion coup attempt that’s still struggling along.

Revulsion following a series of police killings reinvigorated and broadened the “Black Lives Matter” movement, as millions of all races demand better policing and greater accountability, as part of a growing enthusiasm for a trans-racial America.

The worst Atlantic hurricane season ever recorded killed thousands of people and annihilated millions of dollars.

Locally, tourism had a terrible year. Several Chemung County churches sparked COVID outbreaks that have killed several people, and made many sick. Despite such examples, the U. S. Supreme Court limited the state’s authority to demand public health procedures from religious congregations.

On April 2 Steuben County’s first coronavirus death, a woman from Bath, was announced. The largest block of deaths has been among nursing homes, mostly in the Hornell, Bath, or Corning areas. The 139th death, an Arkport man, was announced on December 30. The first confirmed case was announced on March 18. The December 31 report showed a yearly total of 3493, with December having been the worst month. Chemung showed 65 deaths, 4500 cases for the year; Schuyler 10 and 531; Yates 10 and 583; Tompkins 14 and 2031. The far more populous Broome County had 176 deaths and 7959 cases.

Pierri’s Central Restaurant closed in Painted Post. Salvation Army stores closed in Bath and Corning, and Pizza Huts throughout the region. Silliman’s barber shop in Bath reopened under new name and ownership, while Joint Venture Antiques closed in Savona. Five Star Bank closed its branches in Avoca and in downtown Bath, consolidating them into the Bath West End branch. Steuben Trust merged with Community Bank. The Heights Theatre has been gifted to a local church.

St. James Mercy Center, now part of the University of Rochester Medical Center, moved from its home of over a century to new construction in North Hornell.

Five people, including a Steuben County legislator, were arrested and accused in connection with a sex-trafficking ring.

Out in the world as a whole, we bade farewell to performers Kirk Douglas, Max von Sydow, Kenny Rogers, Little Richard, Olivia de Havilland, Dawn Wells, Sean Connery, and Diana Rigg; judicial giant Ruth Bader Ginsburg; baseball greats Bob Gibson, Tom Seaver, and Whitey Ford; writers Clive Cussler, John le Carré, and Mary Higgins Clark; French president Giscard d’Estaing; star aviator Chuck Yeager; science-fiction titans Ben Bova and Mike Resnick; and beloved answer man Alex Trebek.

Which brings us to our saddest passage of this and EVERY year. Here at home we lost community activists Rosalie Niemczyk and Carol Reynolds; businesswoman Helen Joint; Curtiss Museum volunteer Lois Stempfle McHenry (daughter of revered County Agent Bill Stempfle); business and governmental leader Amo Houghton; local-history leaders Jerry Wright (who also had a long Glass Works career), Garth Murray, and Roger Grigsby (also a noted educator); and agricultural and community leaders Levi Weaver and Bill Brundage. Such losses are normal in the course of a year, and in the course of our lives. But they each leave a space that can never be filled. Safe journey, old friends. Thanks for helping us along our way.