Tag Archives: Bath

Where to Park, in the Southern Tier!

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“If I had a dead fish, I’d share the carcass –
If I had a car, I’d parallel parkus.”

Stirring words from the Sherman the shark, sage of Kapupu Lagoon! But seriously, if you (or your guests) are touring the Finger Lakes, where many of our streets were laid out BEFORE the horse and buggy, you’ll sometimes find parking to be a challenge, or at least an annoyance. Here are some ideas, drawn from rich experience.
Parking in downtown Owego can be a challenge, especially since most of the on-street parking has a two-hour limit. There’s a small public lot on Church Street, but it’s often full. Two lots for county employees are available, but open to the public ONLY evenings and weekends. You don’t have to go very far to hit residential neighborhoods, with on-street parking not limited to two hours.
What you may not know is that the large Hyde Lot, off Temple Street behind the village hall, has free three-hour parking. It’s exactly what you need in Owego on a business day. Since the entrance is a block or two away from the business district, we visited Owego for decades before realizing it was there. It certainly simplified our visits!
Corning offers some challenges in the Southside business-government district. Tourists sometimes get caught (and ticked) (and ticketed) because they move from Zone A (for example) when the time limit’s up, and park at another spot. BUT if you find another area marked Zone A, THE SAME LIMIT APPLIES – it’s a TOTAL of two hours a day for ANY Zone A. So you have to move to a differently-lettered zone, or pay for parking… or pay for a ticket. There is a pay garage off Market Street, plus there are pay lots along Denison, next to the library, and elsewhere. The automated kiosk system at these lots is kind of a nuisance. You memorize your space number and go to the kiosk, key in your number, put in the appropriate money, get a slip, go back to your car, and leave it on the dashboard, after which you can finally go about your business.
This is tough on tourists who don’t know the system, the disabled or elderly who have trouble getting around, parents with small children, and anybody who doesn’t like walking or standing in sleet (snow, rain, hail, high wind, lightning). I believe the kiosks now take debit or credit cards, which helps if you’re out of cash. There’s no fee on weekends.
Hammondsport is a small town that gets large crowds. There’s a parking lot at Main and Shethar, and another at Mechanic and Shethar (both on northeast corners). There’s also a strip of head-in spaces at the waterfront, near the Depot, and two or three fringes of spaces at Liberty Square (Mechanic and Lake). Otherwise it’s on-street parking… try getting over to Lake or other away-from-the-center streets, and you may do well. For some events they arrange “remote” parking with free shuttles in and out.
Bath recently took out a few parking meters in the downtown business district, making free parking available for limited periods, helping people who need to step into a store or the post office. Many metered spaces (both parallel and head-in) are available. There’s also a large municipal lot (metered) behind the row of buildings on the east side of Liberty, between East William and East Steuben.
Watkins Glen has a small free lot on Third Street, behind the visitors center. The state park lot charges eight dollars sunrise to sunset. There are also spaces near the marina, and on-street parking… no meters in Watkins.
All of this is subject to change! And none of this is official! But it’s overwhelmingly accurate, and at least gives you a starting point for when you visit. Have fun in our small towns!
(By the way, that “If I had a dead fish” poem is by Jim Toomey, in his “Sherman’s Lagoon” comic strip. Check it out – it’s a great strip!)

Time-Traveling Through the 1920s — Part One!

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A few weeks ago we looked at things that were happening exactly a hundred years ago, in 1920. Today let’s take a time machine back, and tour our area to see what was new and fresh then, and old friends to us now.
To begin our trip, we can sit in on foundational meetings for the brand-new incorporated Village of South Corning – home to St. Mary’s Cemetery, St. Mary’s Orthodox Cemetery, most of Hope Cemetery, a massive memorial arch for glass workers killed in a train crash, and the Town of Corning offices.
We can start 1921 in Wayland, at the Bennett’s Motors building on Route 15. Sad to say the family business closed at the end of last year, but the building will now be used by the ambulance corps.
Since we have a time machine, zipping over to Painted Post takes no time at all. Here we can see the foursquare old Erwin Muncipal Building, “built like a fortress” according to new owners, which allowed it to survive floods in 1935 and 1972. Keep your eye on it – the owners have great plans.
Just a few blocks down, but a year forward, we enter Riverside, incorporated as a village in 1922. It was formerly named Centerville, and also got hammered by those floods.
Continue on down Pulteney Street, once again jogging a year ahead, and we can look at the still-impressive Hotel Stanton on Bridge Street. In Bath the municipal building (which looks a lot like the Erwin building) was dedicated as a Great War memorial in 1923. That same year the new K-12 Haverling School opened at Liberty and Washington… most people know it nowadays as the old Dana Lyon school.
Up in Prattsburgh the Air-Flo building has been substantially altered, but it also first saw the light of day in 1923. And back at Wayland we can admire the 1923 American Legion hall, which was built to include a movie theater, and operated as such for decades.
Head south on Route 21, smoothly transitioning to 1924 as we go, and we’ll arrive at the Village of North Hornell – the last municipality to be created in Steuben County, and home to the new St. James Mercy Center. Driving on into the City of Hornell we can admire the neoclassical Lincoln School, now on the National Register of Historic Places after providing a neighborhood school for generations of families.
Back in Prattsburgh we’re bound to be impressed by the Franklin Academy (Prattsbugh Central School) and the ornate Presbyterian Church. The side-by-side structures went up in 1924, after their historic side-by-side predecessors burned down together on a memorable winter’s night in 1923. (The school’s been added to considerably in the last century, of course.)
On a less-dramatic note we can stop at the Babcock building on Bath’s Liberty Street, opened as a new-fangled movie theater (silents only) in 1924. The auditorium itself is gone, but many, many folks still fondly remember Friday nights or Saturday afternoons at the Babcock. But the street level later become part of Bath National Bank, now Five Star Bank. Unfortunately that branch has just been closed, so who knows what the Babcock faces as its second century approaches?

Take a One-Mile Walk — on Sidewalk

A couple of weeks ago, both for business and for pleasure, I made several stops in Corning that required walking from one end of Market Street to the other, and back again. Since Market is half a mile long, I did a mile walk.

*If you’re doing that walk for exercise or pleasure, you can enjoy yourself checking out all the varied architectural facades. You can take in the clock tower at the Centerway Square, and stop in next door at the visitors center in the Baron Steuben Building to use the rest rooms.

*You can get a Texas hot across the street, or smoothies down at the Soulful Cup coffeehouse. You can study the art at West End Gallery, or at the ARTS of the Southern Finger Lakes. You should check out the “blade signs.” Corning is famed for these creative signs coming out at right angles to their buldings.

*There are quite a few other places around our region where you can walk a mile without having to leave the sidewalks – which can be a fun way to keep fit when the woods and fields are icy, soaked or snowcovered.

*Stand by the bandstand in BATH’s Pulteney Square, look up Liberty Street, then walk out of the park onto the Liberty sidewalk at your left (the west side). Keep walking up Liberty (crossing Washington) until you get to the Civil War statue. Walk back to the bandstand, and you’ve done a mile.

*Besides the bandstand and the statue, you’ll see the “three sisters” near the statue – three elaborate matching 19th-century homes, created in part to promote a lumber business. You pass the monumental 19th-century St. Thomas Church, across from the delightful contemporary Centenary Methodist Church.

*As on Market Street, enjoy the business facades, but recognize that many of Bath’s buildings are older, such as the 1860 county courthouse and the 1835 Bank of Steuben, almost directly across the Square. The green space in the Square has several monuments, and the dramatic First Presbyterian Church is on the south.

*In CANANDAIGUA if you use the courthouse as one anchor, the pier a mile away is the other.

*Susan B. Anthony was tried in that courthouse for the crime of voting, and fined a hundred dollars. She said she would never pay one penny of that unjust fine, and she never did.

*On your Canandaigua walk you’ll cross active railroad tracks (watch your steps), besides passing art galleries, a paperback book store, an embroidery shop, and even a comic book store. All of this depends on which side of the street you’re on, and Canadaigua’s Main Street has four lanes, plus a grassy median… so once again, watch your step!

*Also watch the “green” sidewalk features that Canandaigua has created to capture rainwater and naturally process it… a marvelous addition to the city. And, of course, if you walk north to south you just improve your view of the lake with every step.

*Start on Main Street in CANISTEO, walk up Greenwood (the old trolley route) to the elementary school and back, and you’ve got a mile. This also gives you a chance to see the famed “living sign” tree plantation spelling out the name of the village up on a hillside near the school.

*Also by the school is the very pleasant cemetery, including two 1920s gravestones appallingly inscribed with “K.K.K.” On a less horrifying note, there are also historic homes and churches on Greenwood Street, plus the businesses and churches down on Main Street and the village green area.

*So – want a little exercise, but at your own rate, with frequent breaks allowed and a good surface underfoot? There are plenty of one-mile walks available in our communities. We’ll look at some more, another time.

A Tour Through the Counties: Sprawling Steuben

STEUBEN was formed in 1796, and named for hero of the Revolution Baron Steuben. He never visited, but the name continually confuses researchers who mix it up with the Town of Steuben, near the Baron’s home in Herkimer County… not to mention those who mix it up with Steuben County, Indiana (where several place names are duplicated, just to muddy the waters even more).
*Steuben County is bigger than Rhode Island… in fact, it’s almost the size of Delaware. Its terrain varies considerably. Roughly south of the line of the Conhocton and Chemung Rivers, the highlands of the Appalachian Plateau rise. In the northwest corner, western New York’s rich muckland begins.
*The county’s so big that folks from its various components scarcely know the rest of the place. Corning, of course, is dominated by Corning Incorporated. Formerly an industrial town where the Glass Works pumped out soot, and trains ran down the main streets, Corning is now world headquarters for the company, and the center of research. Market Street, once crammed with saloons, is a lovely tourist marketplace. The Glass Museum is a major tourist attractor, and Corning Community College perches up on the peak of Spencer Hill.
*Hornell once boomed with railroad work – nowadays it hums, but the “Maple City” still earns much of its bread from the trains. Hornell has one of two Carnegie libraries in the five-county region. For decades Hornell was home to farm teams for Major League Baseball… alumni include Don Zimmer and Charlie Neal.
*Bath bustles as the county seat, and home for a V.A. Medical Center, which began life as a place to care for New York veterans of the Civil War. Arbor Development, the ARC, Pro-Action, Catholic Charities and other service agencies complement the work of the County and the V.A. Bath also has the county prison, and what used to be called “the infirmary.”
*Hammondsport, like Corning, is a tourism magnet (though many of the tourists bed down in Bath). The attractors here are Keuka Lake, the wineries, and Glenn Curtiss. Swimming and boating are big on the lake, and the scenery’s spectacular. Vine-covered hillsides and 19th-century stone vaults complement modern winery operations, and many of them welcome visitors.
*The Finger Lakes Trail wends through Steuben – so do the Bristol Hills Trail, and the Crystal Hills Trail. It’s New York’s top county for deer harvest, and in the top five for turkey.
*There are hospitals in or near Bath, Corning, and Hornell, and state parks in opposite corners. Robert Moses selected the “gorge-eous” site for Stony Brook State Park, and Governor Al Smith bought it.
*Addison, Prattsburgh, Hammondsport, and Bath have lovely green town squares (some have more than one). Savona, Bath, Hornell, and Corning have breathtaking historic churches. Parts of the central and southern portions of the county are horse-and-buggy country, with substantial populations of Amish and/or Old Order Mennonites.
*A staggering view overlooks Bath from Mossy Bank Park. On the flats below the lookout, eagles frequently nest… the corridors of the Conhocton and Canisteo Rivers have been growth regions for them, and also for osprey. Bobcat, beaver, fisher, and bear have recently returned to their historic ranges here.
*Besides the wildlife, Steuben has a little over a hundred thousand people. As far as I can tell, most of them like it here.

Strolling Through the Ages at Steuben County Fair

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Steuben County Fair, which is going on this week, has an anniversary coming up – sort of.

*Although there were occasional fairs going back to the 1790s, an 1819 event was the first true county fair, held with support from the state of New York, which wanted to encourage such events. Besides their economic impact, fairs served as educational centers for farmers. Competitions stimulated improvements in agriculture.

*Fairs continued until 1821 (when state aid ended), then disappeared until a new governing agency revived the fair in 1841 to 1845. In 1853 the new Steuben County Agricultural Society conducted a county fair, and they have done so every year since. In 1854 they moved to the current location (where they’ve been ever since), and in 1862 bought the place.

*In 1863 they started making the fairgrounds their own. As Grant was taking Vicksburg and Lee was fleeing from Gettysburg, the Ag Society created the first permanent structures on the site… the Fair House, and the Gatehouse on East Washington Street. Both of them are still there, and still in use today.

*In 1867 a Floral Hall was erected, and a Driving Park created. I assume that this is the oval track, which appears just as it is today on an 1869 map.

*Besides the track, that map shows buildings on the current footprints of the Gatehouse, the Fair House, and the Judge’s Stand.  It also shows buildings (east and southeast of Fair House) on what appear to be the current footprints of the Grange dining hall and the Grange exhibit building.  The Fair House, Gatehouse, Dining Hall, and Grange Exhibit Hall all show similar structure (as does one building on the north end), lending weight to the supposition that they were built at about the same time. 

*In 1884 the Pioneer Log Cabin was built – also still in use

*In 1920 the Auto Subway was built, and apparently rebuilt in 1935, but it’s no longer in use. The Pedestrian subway, still in use today, came in 1921 – it runs westward out of the infield.

*From 1927-1962 “new” stables were built, and in 1968 our Grandstand replaced one that had burned several years earlier.

*In 1993 the Babcock Hollow one-room school (built in 1849) was moved to site, making it the oldest building on the fairgrounds, but also a fairly recent addition. Along with the Fair Museum and the Log Cabin, the Schoolhouse anchors a historical corner east of the main Fair House. (New this year – non-functioning outhouses, so the kids can get a feel for what the “good old days” were like.)

*Looking back to 1853, when Millard Fillmore and then Franklin Pierce were President… when Queen Victoria, Franz Josef, and Napoleon III were on their thrones… Steuben County Fair has endured without interruption through the Civil War, two great world conflicts, polio outbreaks, the Spanish Influenza, and much, much more.

*Teen-aged Glenn Curtiss used to race bicycles on the track at the Fairgrounds (this was organized competition for cash prizes). Civil War General W. W. Averell was grand marshal of the Fair. Members of Congress attended Steuben County Fair, some of them as kids, then as Members, and finally as retirees. Captains of industry strolled through those gates, and inventors, and pioneer aviators, and renowned performers. And you and me. Maybe we’ll see you there.

Good Hikes With Easy-On/Easy-Off — Part II

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Two weeks ago in this space, we looked at Sperr Park and the Keuka Outlet Trail – two easy-on/easy off hikes where you don’t have to send half the day just getting to the trail. We observed that Sperr Park and the Big Flats Trail made a very easy hike, with Keuka Outlet Trail not much harder.

*Going up a little bit on scale of difficulty… and going up a LOT on spectacularity… are the trails at Mossy Bank Park, overlooking Bath.

*Those who’ve visited Bath have surely noticed the cliffs across the river on the south side of the village. Up at the top is Mossy Bank, a site that had that name at least as far back as 1851, when diarist Hannah Seeley noted that it had become a fad for people in Bath to go up to Mossy Bank to have picnics and to walk around.

*And they’re still doing it, 167 years later! But the hill is steep, so today’s walkers and hikers find getting there an easier trip than the trips that Hannah’s friends had.

*Once you get to the park the simplest walk is a double loop. You can park on the outer loop, near the pavilions and the Ted Markham Nature Center, or you can park down by the Lookout. The dirt road forms a figure eight, with the loop that includes the Lookout encircling forested land, while the other loop encircles lovely green picnic, playground, and rest room space. There’s also fitness equipment you can indulge in, if you’re inclined in that way.

*Doing the double loop twice will take you close to a half-hour, depending on your speed and what you stop to admire along the way. Lady’s slippers bloom in their brief beautiful season. Juncos desert the flats to summer up at Mossy Bank, and butterflies flit mindlessly by. Pileated woodpeckers laugh in the trees, while squirrels and chipmunks crash around so frantically that they probably forget where they’re going, or where they’ve been.

*Mossy Bank visitors sometimes get to see bald eagles. For eight years running they nested successfully down on the flat, but this year they didn’t, despite some indifferent gestures in that direction. It’s going too far to say that they’re commonplace, but they do come along in every season of the year. Ospreys also nested nearby until recently, and still turn up at times.

*There are several trails inside the wooded loop that includes the Lookout. There are also mapped and blazed trails throughout the park. For the most part they’re pretty well beaten underfoot, but there are spots where it’s a bit of a climb up or down.

*On top of that, despite the mapping and blazing some Mossy Bank trails have minds of their own – they’ll disappear right in the midst of the woods. When that happens, just turn around and cheerfully follow the blazed trail back. I’ve been exploring Mossy Bank for twenty years, and even I can get “a mite bewildered” if I get off the trail.

*(Part of the problem is property lines. Hitting a line can bring a trail to an end, but it’s also easy to mistake property blazes for trail blazes.)

*If you’re facing out on the lookout, a trail to the west has a somewhat steep drop (you stay upright, but worry about it) for twenty feet or so, but then a more gentle downward grade that takes you through the woods and over a couple of streams until you reach the property line near an abandoned road. Of course, then you have a long (though gentle) climb back up.

*Unlike Sperr Park, most trails in Mossy Bank are wooded, and it’s isolated enough that (unlike Keuka Outlet) you don’t encounter any active roads. You CAN, however, hear (and in spots see) Interstate 86 far below. Walking into the woods at Mossy Bank, I often feel weights of troubles lifting instantly off my shoulders.

*Of course, no trip to Mossy Bank is complete without enjoying the Lookout. Bath village, Lake Salubria, and the Conhocton River are spread out below you. You can see a good distance toward Hammondsport, Mitchellsville, and Kanona. On a good day, you can see wind turbines in Prattsburgh and Howard. And the Lookout pavilion is a great place to watch the rain progress across the scene, and listen to it drum away on the roof.

WHAT’S NEARBY: Bath, county offices, Steuben County Fairgrounds, the Bath V.A. and National Cemetery. Hammondsport’s not too far, either.

*WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW: (a) The best way to get there is to cross the Conhocton River at Cameron Street (becomes County Road 10) from Bath, veer left onto Windfall Road, then go left again onto Mossy Bank Road. (b) There used to be bobolinks on the road in, but I haven’t seen them in years. (c) Markham Nature Center schedules interesting programs from time to time. (d) The Bath Christmas star is installed (in season) onto the Lookout pavilion. (e) During the winter months Mossy Bank is open to walkers, BUT cars are not permitted AND hunting is.

Join Us For a Walk and Some Stories — in Bath

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So how about Bath? Arch Merrill, half a century ago, called it “the grande dame of the Southern Tier.” Older folks remember it as the region’s market town, lit up like a Christmas tree on Friday and Saturday nights as farm families came in from miles around. Charles Williamson planned it as the great metropolis of western New York, and accordingly laid it out with the green squares and broad straight boulevards that it still enjoys.

*Bath is the seat of Steuben, home to the clerk, the courthouse, the surrogate, the county office building, the prison, the county historical society – not to mention the county fairgrounds. It’s the place where people go to get help.. from the ARC, the V.A., the Davenport Hospital, and (from 1863 to 1958) the Davenport Home (or orphanage) for Girls.

*At 4 PM on Friday (June 2) I’m leading a free historic walk through the village, sponsored by Steuben County Historical Society. We’re going to start at Historical Society headquarters, the 1831 Magee House (old Bath library, next to the new Bath library). It’s going to be kind of a mixed bag, taking in architecture, church history, transportation history, community history, and tales of days gone by.

*Take Pulteney Square, for instance. This is said to be where Charles Williamson and his party first started clearing trees in 1793, making space for the new home that he had already named Bath. Until 1910 the Land Office faced the Square, still selling off those 1.2 million acres that Williamson represented. Desperate farmers sent angry delegates where after the Erie Canal opened and collapsed their land values. They demanded, and finally received, revaluations on their mortgages.

*William Jennings Bryan thundered forth here in the 1900 presidential campaign, condemning imperialism and calling for a government that worked on behalf of its people.

*The courthouse faces the Square from the east side. This is where draft contingents gathered every month during World War II, to be sworn in and then marched (very badly, I suppose) to the depot and off to their fates, while the Old-Timers Band (augmented by a few callow youths awaiting their own call-ups) serenaded them.

*John Magee erected the large brick building facing the Square from the west as home for the Bank of Steuben, the first bank in this county. He built it at the same time as he built the Magee House, and later generations would know it as the Masonic temple.

*Facing the Square from the south is the magnificent First Presbyterian Church, with its rose window, its monumental stonework, and the carillon that from time to time fills the Square with music.

*Running straight north from the Square is Liberty Street, long the business and shopping district of Bath and indeed, as we said earlier, of the whole countryside. Alexander Graham Bell knew this street, while Glenn Curtiss and Charles Champlin knew it intimately. Civil War general William Woods Averell made his home on Liberty Street. James Wetmore, who grew up in Bath and became Acting Supervising Architect of the Treasury Department, made sure that Liberty Street got a fine new post office in 1928. He came to lay the cornerstone himself, and treasured that trowel forever after.

*Liberty Street is where you went to the movies (at the Babcock); where you bought shoes (from Orr’s or Castle’s); where you sent or received funds at Western Union; where you got your prescriptions (at Dildine’s, among others); where you did your Christmas shopping (at Grant’s), got an ice cream (the Olympia), grabbed some lunch, or even had Thanksgiving dinner (at the Chat). You could even go bowling on Liberty Street.

*You can do Town or Village business on Liberty Street, or get help from the Village police. Up at the north end, you can go to church (Methodist or Episcopal). Take a few more steps, and until fairly recently you could go to school. A few steps more, down East Washington, and you could go to the fair… since before the Civil War.

*All in all, Bath is worth a visit! Come join us, hear some stories, and share a few of your own.

African Americans of Bath — in 1899

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The 1899 Directory of Bath, New York, published by Interstate Directory Co., separates the names of “Colored People.” While “colored” was, or at least often was, a courteous term at the time, it’s mystifying as to why this would have been considered worthwhile. The directories of 1868, 1891, 1906, and 1917 do not distinguish racially in any way, and there were no longer any laws in New York that called for separate treatment. Bath schools were integrated as far back as 1867.

*Whatever their intent, the Directory publishers gave us a snapshot of African American life in Bath as the new century approached.

*Noting 38 families (out of 962), the Directory identifies 56 African American individuals over the age of 20 (out of an estimated 4500 of all ages in the Village and immediate environs).

*Of those 56 individuals, eight are identified as laborers, and one as a gardener. Three men are hostlers, one a teamster, and two are drivers. One works at the county jail, but in what capacity is not specified.

*There are two ministers, a teacher, and a clerk.

*Eight are identified as barbers, which was an occupation of some status at the time among African Americans, and was also one in which white Americans felt comfortable seeing African Americans excel. One woman operates a hair store, and one man is a bootblack. One woman is a dressmaker.

*Residence patterns suggest that there was no “black street” or “black neighborhood” in Bath at this time. There is some concentration on the short West Steuben (numbers 27, 107, and 124, along with the Imperial Club at 17-19, and barber shops at 14 and on the corner with Liberty), plus outliers on Buell, Howell, and West William, along with the church on Pine, but that whole section, like the rest of Bath, is predominantly white. There’s another cluster on Warden, Hudson, and Geneva, with the same caveat. Additional residences are on Rumsey, Purdy, McMaster, East Steuben, West Morris, West Washington, Hubbell, Charles, and Water Works Lane, plus one man apparently residing at the jail, next to the courthouse.

*One man operates a second-hand goods business at 24 Liberty Street rear, while another is a peddler. Two men are chefs, and one woman is a cook. One man is a farmer.

*Six barber shops are identified, along with the farmer, the dress maker, and the second-hand store, suggesting that 11 people own their own business. Some of the barber shops may be partnerships with family members, which would raise that figure a little.

*Besides the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church on Pine Street, there is also an Imperial Club at 17-19 West Steuben, for African Americans.

*ALL of the occupations engaged in by African Americans are ALSO engaged in by European Americans. This would suggest that there was no significant backlash, or possibly that the numbers just weren’t consequential enough to bother. It is also possible that the business of, say, a dressmaker, was almost entirely among African Americans, meaning that there was no real competition effect.

*Besides the farmer and the laborers, a number of people engaged in occupations which white people at the time considered “suitable” for African Americans… chefs, cooks, dressmakers, barbers, drivers, animal handlers, gardeners, bootblacks, ministers in the “colored” church.

*Farmer Jacob B. Storey of 3 Warden Street was apparently the father of barber Walter Storey, of teacher Florence Storey (who later married Reverend T. A. Auten, one of the two “colored” ministers), and of dressmaker Julia Storey, who later married William Murrell, who was born a slave but who later rose to become a state legislator, and inductee of the Steuben County Hall of Fame. This suggests that Mr. Storey had a remarkable family, but it also suggests the best-educated people of the small community gravitating toward each other (unsurprisingly). Like Colonel Murrell, Reverend Auten also had a significant career beyond Steuben County.

*None of the African American residents appear on the Directory’s list of civic officials, fire company officers, and the like. The Imperial Club is listed as one of two clubs in Bath, the A.M.E. Zion as one of seven churches.

200 Years Ago — The Way We Were, in 1817

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In 1817, folks in Steuben and around the Northern Hemisphere were overjoyed to learn that the disastrous 1816 “Year Without a Summer” had been an aberration.

There were 11 towns within today’s boundaries of Steuben County — Addison, Bath, Canisteo, Cohocton, Corning (then called Painted Post), Dansville, Howard, Prattsburgh, Pulteney, Troupsburg, and Wayne. But in 1817 Steuben County stretched all the way to Seneca Lake, and further up Keuka Lake, so there were towns (Barrington, Reading, Tyrone) that are now in Yates or Schuyler Counties.

Steuben County had 21,989 people in the 1820 census, and 179 of them were nonwhite. Of them, 46 were slaves.

John Magee, who had only recently arrived in Bath, was farming for Adam Haverling at eight dollars a month. He would parley this into a banking, mining, and transportation empire, several fine mansions, and two terms in Congress. Ira Davenport, a pioneer merchant in what’s now Hornellsville, was laying the foundation of his own fortune. Joel Pratt was 73 years old, and Silas Wheeler was 67. Both men had fought in the Revolution, as had James Monroe, who became our fifth president on March 4th.

Up in Rome, work got going on the Erie Canal. Although a great thing in general, the canal, once opened, collapsed the economy of the Southern Tier, which depended on the Conhocton-Canisteo-Chemung-Susquehanna River chain. That would also kill Bath’s prospects for becoming the great metropolis of western New York. But Bath already had its beautiful boulevards and its open squares, and keeps them to this day.

In Hartford, Connecticut, the American School for the Deaf opened. Henry David Thoreau was born, and Jane Austen died. Robert E. Lee was about 10 years old, and Abraham Lincoln a year or two younger. The Lincolns had just moved from slaveholding Kentucky to the free territory of Indiana. Ulysses S. Grant was not yet born. John Brown was at a co-educational college preparatory school in Connecticut. Twelve-year-old Joseph Smith had just arrived in the Finger Lakes.

No one had ever heard of Charles Darwin, James Fenimore Cooper, Davy Crockett, or Edgar Allen Poe. A trip from Bath to Dansville would cost you a couple of days. Husbands had complete control over their wives’ income and assets. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was two years old.

Mississippi became the 20th state in 1817. Louisiana was the only state west of the Mississippi River. America did not yet include Texas, the southwest, or the Pacific coast. No steam ship had ever crossed the Atlantic. Telegraphs and cameras wouldn’t exist for another 20 years.

Here in New York, Allegany County already existed, but Schuyler, Livingston, Yates, and Chemung did not. DeWitt Clinton became governor, and George McClure was sheriff of Steuben County. The 1824 gazetteer reported that Steuben had 18 post offices, 156 school districts, 40 grist mills, 102 sawmills, two oil mills, an iron works, two textile mills, 30 distilleries, 30 asheries, and 22,600 “neat cattle” — just about one per resident!

Running for President — Here in Steuben

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For fifty years or so after the Civil War, railroad routes channeled the course of presidential campaigns. This very sensibly took candidates to major population centers, but also gave them a chance to “whistle stop” at in-between towns that never see major candidates nowadays. When Theodore Roosevelt’s campaign train stopped at Cameron Mills, he spotted the milk station manager with his nine children on the loading dock. “This is the most prosperous place I have been to yet,” TR quipped (he only had five himself).

Roosevelt (running for vice-president as a Republican) and William Jennings Bryan (Democratic presidential candidate) both stumped Corning in 1900. Bryan was one of the country’s greatest orators. Four years earlier, at 36 just barely eligible for the White House, he had come out of nowhere to seize the Democratic and Populist nominations, running on a reform ticket. In 1900 he was rematched against McKinley, who conducted a “front porch” campaign, meeting friendly groups in Ohio while sending the energetic, combative Roosevelt out on the hustings.

On arriving in Bath in October ‘00, Bryan led a parade from the station to the courthouse square. Many in attendance were enthusiastic supporters, though the crowd included opponents, one of whom carried a banner (now in Steuben County Historical Society’s collection) reading “Bryan is in the Enemy’s Country.” Some no doubt just wanted to experience the prairie wind with which Bryan was scouring the land. The Democratic and Republican newspapers disagreed widely as to what kind of welcome he got.

New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey (unsuccessful Republican presidential nominee in 1944 and 1948) made frequent appearances in Corning. Dewey and IBM founder Tom Watson (of Campbell) made sure that their 1952 choice (Dwight D. Eisenhower) got good face time too. But by then campaign trips were revolving around airports, not depots. Local partisans were on their own, as Pulteney Democrats had been in 1892 when they slung a large banner for Grover Cleveland and Adlai Stevenson (grandfather of Eisenhower’s opponent 60 years later).

With TV, radio, and Internet to reach voters, major candidates mostly leave small communities to the “third parties” with their quixotic campaigns. Ralph Nader in 2000 let his hair down enough to freely express his surprise at discovering he was giving a press conference in Corning… it was a very busy tour, and he’d thought it was Binghamton.