Tag Archives: Canisteo

Steuben County — 225 Years!

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Happy birthday, Steuben County! Steuben was created 225 years ago, by separating territory from Ontario County. Land agent Charles Williamson, founder of Bath and a tireless promoter, had pushed the project through the legislature.
The County was much bigger back then, but it only had six legal municipalities – officially Towns, or as I sometimes call them “supertowns,” since all the municipalities of Steuben… and parts of four other counties! – were created from these original six.
BATH originally included what’s now Bath, Urbana, Wheeler, Prattsburgh, Pulteney, and Avoca, plus parts of Cohocton and Howard. This is the area that gave us Glenn Curtiss and several of our U. S. Representatives, besides hosting the county seat and county fair, giving birth to our grape and wine heritage, and becoming an incubator of fish culture.
CANISTEO included today’s Canisteo, Greenwood, West Union, Hornellsville, Hornell City, and parts of Jasper and Troupsburg, not to mention Almond, Alfred, Andover, and Independence (all in today’s Allegany County). This was the beating heart of railroading for our region, and is still significant in that field.
DANSVILLE covered our modern Dansville, Fremont, and Wayland, with parts of Howard and Cohocton along with North Dansville and Ossian (Livingston County) plus Burns (in Allegany). Here we find the gorge of Stony Brook, and much of our rich muckland.
FREDERICKSTOWN (now Wayne) was spelled just about any way you wanted. All that’s left in Steuben County are the Towns of Wayne and Bradford. But it also included what we know as the Schuyler County Towns of Tyrone, Reading, Orange, and some of Dix, AND the Yates County Towns of Barrington, Starkey, and the part of Jerusalem covering most of Keuka Bluff. Keuka, Waneta, and Lamoka Lakes largely bound Wayne and Bradford.
MIDDLETOWN is now Addison. Back then it stretched over today’s Addison, Cameron, Rathbone, Thurston, Tuscarora, and Woodhull, plus parts of Troupsburg and Jasper. With Major General W. W. Averell, and the men of Troupsburg who suffered exactly 50% casualties, “Middletown” contributed mightily to saving the nation in the Civil War.
PAINTED POST is now the Town of Corning. Besides that Town it covers our Hornby, Campbell, Erwin, Corning City, Lindley, and Caton. Besides being the seat of our glass industry, old Painted Post also has our only institution of higher education, SUNY’s Corning Community College.
And that ain’t all! Our sheriff’s office is also 225 years old! Some of our sheriffs have been very prominent men, including Dugald Cameron, for whom a Town was named. John Kennedy and John Magee were heroes in the War of 1812. Magee, who also served two terms in Congress, was the last sheriff to be appointed and the first to be elected… not to mention building the 1831 Magee House, formerly Davenport Library and now the Steuben County History Center. When WVIN radio host Dave Taylor-Smith was blocked by his doctor, Sheriff Jim Allard stepped up on less than 24-hour’s notice, and became the first person other than Dave to “jump in the lake” (Salubria) to raise “Tyrtle Beach” funds to support youth programs.
And don’t stop yet! Benjamin Patterson Inn also got its start in 1796. Charles Williamson had it built and installed “Hunter Patterson” to run it, offering a hostelry that would prove a key link in the European development of the area. It’s now Corning’s oldest building, at the heart of Heritage Village of the Southern Finger Lakes, showing local life in days gone by – all the way back to when George Washington was president. I’m a member! Have been for twenty years! You might like it. I sure do.

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.

Come 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 was recreated last year… eight decades takes its toll.

*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). We hope you can join us!

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!