Tag Archives: Penn Yan

Let’s Have a Wander!

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In times like these, as public and personal health – not to mention the lives of our loved ones – call on us to maintain a certain isolation, we can get to feeling cooped up and coo-coo. What can we DO with the long summer days?

In our case, we’ll sometimes go wandering. Even if you’re not up to hiking, our towns and villages offer hours and miles of pleasant ambling. While you’re wandering you can: keep a village bird list; spot (and read) every monument and historic marker; look BEHIND the houses to see which garages and other structures started out as stables, barns, or carriage houses; admire the streetside gardens, planters, and window boxes. Make up your own quarry to spot as you wander!

But WHERE shall you wander? Last weekend we enjoyed ourselves in ANGELICA (Allegany County). It’s a small but pleasing village with fine homes, not to mention the Allegany County Fairgrounds. One of the most memorable features is a large traffic circle with a park (and Saturday farmers market) inside, and five churches plus the town hall arranged along the outside. Spot the library, the veterans’ monument, and the lamppost banners that also honor veterans.

NAPLES and CANANDAIGUA (both in Ontario County) are very different communities, but they each enjoy a mile-long Main Street. Main Street in Naples is treelined, except where it’s bordered by vineyards. The Catholic church is an exciting modern design that suits the grape country, while the school would feel right at home in an Archie comic. Tree-covered ridges overlook Naples on either side.

The Canandaigua Main Street runs gently downhill into a marina at the north end of Canandaigua Lake. It’s a busy place, lined with shops and restaurants, offices and businesses, with the county courthouse at the top of the hill. (A monument honors Susan B. Anthony, who was convicted at that courthouse for the crime of voting. “I will never pay one cent of your unjust fine,” she told the judge, and she never did.)

If you’re wandering Main Street in PENN YAN (Yates County), notice when the bridge carries you over Keuka Outlet, draining that lake and filling Seneca. As you go by Birkett Mills, think about the days when the running outlet powered huge grindstones here. Notice Millie’s Pantry, whose founder was honored by President Obama for her years of work feeding the hungry. And spot the library, the oldest part of which was a gift from turn-of-the-century billionaire Andrew Carnegie.

At the other end of the lake, in HAMMONDSPORT (Steuben County), have a seat at the park in the village square and use your mind’s eye to see it in the days when Glenn Curtiss and Alexander Graham Bell would have strolled right past you, agitating ways to get into the air. Stroll down Sheathar or William Street to the lakefront with its “railroad gothic” depot, and imagine that you’re waiting for the steamboat to take you to your cottage.

Over in Schuyler County, start at the gazebo on the end of the pier in WATKINS GLEN. Spot the waterfowl in Seneca Lake, step across the (active!) railroad track, and amble down Franklin Street. Like Naples, Penn Yan, and Hammondsport, Watkins is in grape country. But it’s also auto racing country. Keep your eyes down to spot blocks in the sidewalk honoring great drivers. Lift your eyes up to spot the murals on the sides of buildings, capturing great moments in Watkins Glen racing. Soon you’ll be walking the route of those original Grand Prix road races, over 70 years ago. You’ll also be at the mouth of the Glen, that dramatic cleft that’s attracted hikers, artists and photographers for centuries. There are plenty of other places to wander. But these will get you started!

“Stay in the Loop” at Yates County Arts Center

*A few weeks ago in this space we took a trip to Dansville ArtWorks, and today we’re stepping up to the Yates County Arts Center, in Penn Yan.

*We went in particular because our friend Jean Hubsch is exhibiting fine needlework along with Nancy LeVant (quilting) and Raphaela McCormack (3D paper and fiber art), in a show entitled “Stay in the Loop.”

*Well, I know a thing or two about art, but I also know what I like. And I LIKE Nancy LeVant’s “Snowy Egret” quilt, with the huge gold circle of the sun (moon?) backgrounding the almost life-size bird. It arrests you and delights you all at once.

*Her “Alaska” quilt is large enough to befit the state, with designs suggestive of Native designs, and blocks depicting the eagle, orca, bear, and moose – not to mention the salmon, the loon, and a landscape.

*“Autumn Leaves” builds very nicely on the classic maple leaf pattern, but my favorite quilt was actually graphic and geometric, rather than pictorial – “Feathered Star,” with a multipointed star inlaid within a larger star. The shading is what caught my attention, and made it my favorite. I’m not sure I can explain why but, as I said, I know what I like.

*Sticking with the bird theme (egret-eagle-loon), I was struly struck by two oversize color photos from Nancy Ridenour. “Great Egrets Mating Behavior at Rookery” captures three of the large white birds, one of them displaying with wings and throat, and no doubt vocalizing. (One of them is peeking in from the shrubbery, perhaps waiting for his chance to move in.) “Great Blue Heron Flying into Rookery” captures the majestic bird in flight, with wings wide, primaries spread, and legs trailing. It also brings out the bird’s many colors, which we usually miss in the field.

*On the painting side, Kathy Armstrong’s “Goose Parade” makes a funny barnyard scene. On the other hand in “Pines at Dawn” Karleen VanDeusen has captured with surprisingly few strokes the eerie beauty of first light in a pine forest, with wide-winged birds soaring above.

*As far as Jean’s embroidery is concerned, it’s always excellent work, which explains why she’s so highly regarded among needlework artists. The Hardanger-technique “Christmas House” has multiple levels. We view the house itself on a second surface, through a cutout in the first surface. And we view the interior of the house, including Christmas tree, through a window in the second surface.

*Brambles and Berries” (3D counted thread technique) pushes past traditional embroidery, with the brambles actually breaking free from the surface, casting shadows beneath.

*But perhaps the one I liked best is a quiet piece in stumpwork technique, with a plant aspiring high, carrying along its leaves and blossoms.

*I sometimes exhibited Hannelore Woolcott-Bailey’s work when I was director of Curtiss Museum, and I was delighted by her painting “Milkweed,” with seeds exploding from the pods, and monarchs beholding the swelling scene. It’s small, and it’s glorious.

*Hannelore also painted the more whimsical “Grandview, Keuka,” a wraparound view of the lake and the Bluff, speckled with sailboats, gulls, hayrolls, and a tractor.

*And, of course, the Art Center’s in an old bank (at 127 Main Street), and the door to the vault is a breathtaking example of industrial art all by itself. Really, take some time to grok its artistic and mechanical intricacies.

*”Stay in the Loop” is up until June 8. But there’s always stuff worth seeing, no matter what the date.

Winter Fun in the Summer Towns

It isn’t summer any more. Most of the tourists have long since gone home. The boat liveries are closed, the canoes are up on racks. The beaches belong to coots and sea gulls. The ice cream shops are closed. And here we’re left, in the towns that live and die on the summer trade.

*So what about US? What do WE do, all winter long?

*Well, there’s no reason to stop visiting the summer towns. There’s actually still a lot going on. (Though you should check for winter hours.)

*In HAMMONDSPORT (south end of Keuka Lake), as long as the day’s not too windy you can still stroll the streets and appreciate the dramatic scenery of the little village in the deep cleft… a cleft that it shares with the Lake to the north, and Pleasant Valley to the west and south.

*There are a couple of antique stores still open year-round, and one just outside the village, on State Route 54.

*You should really visit the Glenn Curtiss Museum… 56,000 square feet of pioneering aviation and motorcycling history.

*You can find a comfortable chair at the Fred and Harriet Taylor Memorial Library, and open up a book. Or a magazine. Or your laptop.

*Drive up to the other end of the Lake at PENN YAN, and you’ll find two bookstores (one new books, one used books) just a block or so apart. Besides new books, Long’s also has cards, gifts, and office supplies.

*Penn Yan has a museum complex at Yates County History Center, and an art gallery at the Arts Center of Yates County… both on Main Street. Also on Main is Penn Yan Public Library, where the original part of the building was donated by Andrew Carnegie.

*Take a stroll and enjoy the architecture of the historic business district (blending into fine homes and churches), or drop down to water level and hike (yes, even in winter if conditions permit) on the Keuka Outlet Trail. At times you can watch the ice fishers on the East Branch. There’s a triplex movie theater on the edge of town.

*If conditions permit, you can walk out on the pier and the docks at WATKINS GLEN (south end of Seneca Lake). Watkins has an old-fashioned downtown walk-in movie theater (The Glen), so see if they’re playing something you’d like.

*Even when it’s chilly you can stroll the streets to see memorials for racing drivers, set into the sidewalk, and wall-art murals celebrating the Glen’s ongoing racing heritage.

*You can also stop in at the Motor Racing Research Center, to see which historic racing cars are now on show in the lobby. Go down the hall, and you enter Watkins Glen Public Library.

*Main Street has two antique shops, a fiber arts store, an art gallery, and Famous Brands.

*At GENEVA (Seneca’s north end) try out lunch at the elegant Belhurst Castle. You could also visit Geneva History Museum at the 1829 Prouty-Chew House..

*CANANDAIGUA (north end of the lake of the same name) has a comic book store, a needlework store, a used book store, art galleries, antique shops, Unique Toy Shop, and lots more… the mile-long Main Street is still a thriving site for business and shopping. You can learn a little about “olden days” at the Ontario County Historical Museum. Or you could spend some time at Wood Library… all on Main Street!

*Anyway, don’t mope. There’s still lots to do!

The Keuka Story — in 600 Words

Native peoples in small numbers lived around Keuka Lake for centuries before the Seneca took control, around 1500. But their main towns were at the north end of the lakes, and Keuka’s population remained small.

*White people started muscling in around 1790, after forced sales and unjust treaties. Jemima Wilkinson, the imperious frontier prophetess, ordered mills established along Keuka Outlet and settled her flock nearby. Jemima claimed to have died and come back to life, but she finally got it right in 1819, after which her following dwindled away.

*By the early 1800s a schooner plied the lake, and shipping ran southward to Bath and the Conhocton River. When the Erie Canal changed traffic patterns in 1825 the entire economy of our region collapsed until the Crooked Lake Canal (Penn Yan to Dresden, on Seneca Lake) opened in 1833, joining us with the Erie system. Now freight flowed northward, Hammondsport became a true port, and the economy revived.

*About then steamboats appeared, beginning with “Keuka,” a double-hulled centerwheeler that ran right up onto the beach.

*In the 1850s grape cultivation got under way… the first thing Pulteney people had ever found to justify the taxes on their land, according to one contemporary. Penn Yan and Hammondsport had academies offering high school education. Pleasant Valley Wine Company opened just before the Civil War. Hundreds of men from Yates and Steuben Counties died, while many more suffered life-long effects from their wounds.

*Railroads found their way to Penn Yan and Hammondsport, which helped the grape growers and wine makers, but also stimulated tourism. Families traveled by train and steamboat to lakeside resorts, there to spend a month or even a whole season enjoying the water and the scenery, with tasting tours laid on.

*An electric railway (or trolley) connected Penn Yan with Branchport, and Keuka College got under way by fits and starts, beginning as a ground for revival meetings.

*With a new century Glenn Curtiss opened the age of internal combustion, first on motorcycles and then in blimps and airplanes. Hammondsport became a dirty, smelly, smokey industrial town, until the Great War ended, and the Curtiss plant closed just as Prohibition began. The economy collapsed again, and drunken men taking pistol practice became routine on Hammondsport streets.

*The last of the steamboats gave up the ghost, and in 1919 local folks formed the Finger Lakes Association – now Finger Lakes Tourism Alliance – to promote family travel to the region. This meant improving the roads, and Governor Al Smith made an inspection, ordering that the West Lake Road be paved.

*Then came the Great Depression and the catastrophic 1935 flood, but Roosevelt’s New Deal repealed Prohibition, built the Glenn Curtiss Memorial School, and took up the disused trolley tracks in Penn Yan. When World War II came Mercury Aircraft jumped from two employees to 850. But 14 boys from Curtiss School died, and the other communities fared equally sadly.

*State Route 54 was installed in the 1950s, finally providing a good land route between Hammondsport and Penn Yan. Ira Davenport Hospital replaced the old Bath Memorial. Curtiss Museum and the Finger Lakes Trail both got into operation in the early 60s. Experiments by Charles Fournier and Konstantin Frank transformed the grape and wine business. The Hurricane Agnes flood took a toll in 1972. Family farms largely went out until the influx of Amish and Old Order Mennonites. The big wineries were largely succeeded by smaller “boutique” operations.

*As the farms went out the forest came back, and with it came the deer, the bear, the turkey, the beaver. The steamboats are gone, but locals and visitors alike crisscross Keuka in sailboats, motorboats, rowboats, and canoes. Another season on the lake.

Keuka Lake — Highway or Playground?

Funny thing about Keuka Lake.

*For the first 130 years or so of European occupation, it was a highway. But HOW that highway worked kept changing.

*It’s about 21 miles along the main axis, between Penn Yan and Hammondsport… plus you’ve got that arm reaching over to Branchport.

*Twenty-one miles doesn’t seem like much. But until well into the 20th century, there was NEVER a good land connection between Hammondsport and Penn Yan.

*People and goods moved over the lake, and the traffic generally ran from north to south. The vale of Pleasant Valley started a long portage down to Bath, where goods (or travelers) could embark on the Conhocton River, poling-floating-drifting-paddling-rowing down as far as the salt water of Chesapeake Bay. (Native people had done the same for centuries.) There was even a schooner on the lake (the “Sally”), maybe as far back as the Jefferson administration.

*So the Southern Tier, and the Keuka-Seneca region, prospered on that watery highway down to the Tidewater, and Bath was laid out to become the great metropolis of western New York.

*Then that busybody DeWitt Clinton went and opened the Erie Canal. River traffic continued, but it was pretty much an act of desperation. Land pices collapsed, and farmers found themselves with mortgages that were now horrendously overpriced, and produce prices so low that they could never get free and clear. Mob actions, petitions, and conventions finally led to revaluations.

*Things perked up once the Crooked Lake Canal opened in 1831. This ran from Penn Yan on Keuka Lake to Dresden on Seneca… and from Seneca, you could access the Erie Canal system. Suddenly regional farmers were back in the game, and steamboats started chugging across the surface of Keuka. Hammondsport became a true port, with goods hauled from as far away as Pennsylvania, transshipped to Penn Yan, and thence transshipped again by canal boat. Some visionaries even shipped experimental loads of grapes to New York City!

*Lake traffic was now running south-to-north, reversing the earlier pattern.

*The Southern Tier REALLY came to life again when the Erie Railroad opened its Lake Erie-New York City main line in 1851, right through Elmira, Corning, Addison, Canisteo, Hornell, and onward.

*That might have killed off lake traffic, BUT Penn Yan and Hammondsport still lacked decent overland connections. Glenn Curtiss helped create independent land tranportation with his motorcycles, but on at least one occasion got mired in mud on the shore road, arriving hours late, after dark, and absolutely filthy for a visit with his mother. In the early 1900s the post office moved mail in the Keuka region by steamboat, contracting overland routes only when the lake froze up.

*The three end points of Keuka Lake were never joined by rail, except for a trolley between Penn Yan and Branchport. But by the 1920s Governor Al Smith was having the highways paved, beginning with Keuka’s West Lake Road. The steamers and canal were gone by then, and the railroads mattered less and less. Keuka’s surface, once a busy commercial highway, became a pleasure place – just as it still is today.

The Amish and Mennonite Story

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Since 1990 or so, many of us have been aware of Amish and Old Order Mennonites moving into the area. The general name for Amish and Mennonite groups, and others, such as Church of the Brethren, is Anabaptists. These include “modern” people with business dress, advanced degrees, and jobs in finance, commerce, the professions, or high technology.

*Then there are groups often referred to as “Old Order” — the Amish, and those Mennonite groups that, like the Amish, maintain plain dress and abstain from most modern technology.

*All Anabaptists trace back to the turmoil of the Reformation… traditional date 500 years in November. Believing that Biblical baptism was the declaration of a mature commitment, they rejected the infant baptism that they had all received at birth, and baptized each other anew, sometimes right in the town fountain — Anabaptist means rebaptizer. They walked away from the churches practicing infant baptism (which was just about all of them), and started their own.

*Taking the teaching of Jesus both literally and seriously, they refused to swear oaths. They insisted that government had no legitimate power of compulsion in religious matters. They also refused to take up the sword, and adopted a non-resistant lifestyle, saying it was better to suffer wrong than to give it. The classic example was Dirk Willems, fleeing for his life across the ice when his nearest pursuer fell through. Dirk Willems returned, pulled the man from the ice, was captured, and was burned at the stake for the crime of being an Anabaptist.

*However, this non-resistance is not simply a passive thing; it is equally an active approach to life. In 1948 Eastern Mennonite College became one of the first two southern colleges to integrate racially. An even more modern example would be the West Nickel Mines school shooting in Pennsylvania in 2006, when a gunman barged into an Amish school where he killed five girls and wounded five more before killing himself. Members of the Amish community immediately… that day… went to the gunman’s family to extend their love and concern for THAT family’s suffering. Thirty Amish attended the gunman’s funeral. The Amish set up a charitable fund to assist the family of the killer.

*This has limits, when it goes beyond an offense to Anabaptists. When Dr. Myron Augsburger was growing up on a farm, their “English” neighbor was fiercely angry that people were stealing crops from the Augsburgers, but Mr. Augsburger refused to take any action — non-resistance. One day when the Augsbugers were off the neighbor spotted the thieves out in the field, fired a shotgun blast over their heads, or ordered them all to sit down, holding them prisoner until the Augsburgers returned. Mr. Augsburger told the neighbor to put up his gun and let them come out.

*It turned out, though, that one of the thieves was the sheriff. Starting that moment Mr. Augusburger dedicated himself, successfully, to having that sheriff thrown out of office at the next election — not because he had stolen from the Augsburgers, but because he had betrayed the trust of the entire community, and was not fit to hold public office, especially as a law enforcer.

*At 4 PM Friday, September 8, I’ll be doing a non-intrusive presentation on the history of Amish and Mennonites for Steuben County Historical Society. The presentation at Bath fire hall is free and open to the public. We hope to see you there.

Penn Yan — A Place to Ride the Storm

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Last week in this space we took a look at the Pulteney Square Historic District in Hammondsport. (A moment of bragging… the folks pulling the nomination together asked me to take photos of the Square to support their nomination. Mission accomplished!)

*So this week I thought it would make sense to take a trip to Penn Yan and look at Keuka’s OTHER large district on the National Register of Historic Places, at the OTHER end of the lake.

*PENN YAN HISTORIC DISTRICT: THE HISTORY Penn Yan’s district is huge, with 210 historic buildings covering 65 acres. Ever since Yates County was created, Penn Yan has been its seat. And while industry, transportation, and tourism have all been tremendously significant here, Penn Yan still wears its 19-century mantle as a courthouse town… medium in size, conscientious in demeanor, well aware of its past without being marooned in it.

*Grand homes, once-proud hotels, busy commercial blocks, elegant churches, and dignified public buildings all welcome the visitor to Penn Yan. White encroachment started with followers of frontier prophetess Jemima Wilkinson, back when this ground was still in Ontario County (and Ontario itself was still very sketchy).

*The magnet for settlement was Keuka Outlet, the stream that drains Keuka Lake into Seneca. Water power was the name of the game, and mill wheels were soon turning all along the flow.

*THE VISIT. Right in Penn Yan itself you can walk the Keuka Outlet Trail, seeing the old industrial buildings from the river side. This includes the huge Birkett’s Mills, making buckwheat for 220 years. In fact, it runs 16 hours a day when it’s NOT busy, and it’s one of the world’s biggest buckwheat suppliers.

*You can pick up the Outlet Trail on either side of the stream and cross to the other via footbridge. Looking UPstream (toward the lake) you can see the area where the steamboats docked through much of the 19th century, bringing in grapes and wine to be shipped out via rail or canal, and taking out summer visitors who spent the season at hotels or resorts along the lake.

*Where the Trail passes under the Main Street bridge, you can find flight of steps up to street level. Wander across the bridge, look both ways along the Outlet and both ways up and down the street, and you can get some sense of how the town developed.

*Being a hub of lake, canal, rail, and highway travel… plus a courthouse town… demanded LOTS of hotel space… like the gigantic Knapp Hotel, with facade sprawling across two streets. Walk farther up Main to find the 1913 Colonial Revival post office. Another block or two and you’ll find Penn Yan Methodist church, “the castle on the corner” with its breathtaking 1899 stonework and rocket-ship steeple.

*The hotel, the post office, and the church are all signs of growing prosperity roughly between the Civil War and Prohibition. Oliver House (1852) is home to the Yates History Center. Keep walking and you’ll pass the contemporary-style 1959 Presbyterian church and the public library. The oldest section (1905) is one of two Carnegie libraries in the five-county region.

*Past the library is the white-columned Yates County Courthouse, anchoring what’s technically ANOTHER historic district. Many folks won’t consider old courthouses to be worth much more than a glance, but step into the green space in front, and spend some time by memorial after memorial to Yates County folks who went to our country’s wars. During one of those wars, in the 1940s, Arch Merrill wrote that Penn Yan was a good place to ride out the storm. I’d say he had it right.

Wanna Buy Some Books?

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More than half a millenium ago Chaucer wrote about the Clerk (or learned man) of Oxenford. He wears threadbare clothes, his horse is as thin as a rake, and he himself is so thin he looks hollow.

*Ah, but he has books… TWENTY books, in a day when every one was painstakingly copied by hand, and hardly anyone could read. Few institutions had twenty books back then. His “library” (kept right next to his bed) represented a fortune, and whenever he scraped up some money, or even when he could borrow some from friends, he bought even more… not as investments, but because “Gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly teche.”

*Books are far far cheaper today, but no less wonderful. If like the clerk (and like me) you like to prowl around ferreting out more books to buy, where can you go?

*Well, if you want the big-box big selection, complete with cafe, there are Barnes & Noble stores in Elmira/Big Flats, in Ithaca, and in Rochester. The Rochester selection is a little smaller, since it doubles as the U of R bookstore, but also includes a nice sampling of books by U of R faculty and alumni. Besides, you can just walk up the block from Strong Hospital, if you have someone spending time there. (This store also makes a good break if you have to drive up to Rochester to meet the train or do some business.)

*The only independent new-book store in the four-county region is Long’s, on Main Street in Penn Yan. If you like bookshops, take a ride out there. You’ll be impressed by their selection. There’s also a very good local-history section, and a large selection of cards, gifts, and office supplies. If you’re there on a summer Saturday, you’ll find a sidewalk farmers’ market out front.

*Across the street is a used bookstore, Belknap Hill Books, though in my experience the hours there can be whimsical. A block or two down Main is Books Landing, a friendly used-book place in a welcoming space, with a great selection of used jigsaw puzzles.

*Also on the used-book side, try The Paperback Place on Main Street in Canandaigua, or Autumn Leaves on The Commons in Ithaca. Autumn Leaves has a magnetic effect on me whenever I’m in town. It’s a large store for used books in a university community. There’s ALWAYS something interesting.

*That’s also true at Book Barn of the Finger Lakes, out between Dryden and Ithaca. Just prowling through the place is half the fun.

*Over on Geneseo’s Main Street, Sundance Books has held its own for decades.

*Henrietta Library has a year-round book sale room. Dormann Library in Bath has its Wednesday “book barn” on the grounds whenever weather suits. Libraries in Corning, Ithaca, and Hammondsport have significant sales from time to time.

*If you want graphic novels, go to heroes Your Mom Threw Out (Elmira Heights), Comics for Collectors (Ithaca’s Collegetown) or Pulp Nouveau (Canandaigua).

*Each of these towns is interesting in and of itself, and there’s always someplace not too far away to get ice cream. Take a ride. See the sights. Buy some books.

Good Places to Hike, With Easy-On/Easy-Off: Part I

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Suppose you want to take a walk or a hike in our area. There are LOTS of places where you can do it. We have the Finger Lakes Trail system, state and county lands… we’re really blessed with opportunities.

*But sometimes the great places to hike are a pain to get to, depending on the time you’ve got available. So here are two GOOD places to walk or hike, outside the urban spaces, that are easy-on/easy-off trails.

*(1) Sperr Park, on Kahler Road near Big Flats, has the easiest trail… the former rail trail is straight as a die and almost perfectly level, except for a humpback where it crosses the road. Off east of Kahler Road, the Big Flats Trail runs through wooded space, and trees form a vaulted bower overhead as you stroll along. Here you might find chickadees, robins, grackles, and wood thrushes.

*Cross the road and you walk through the little park space and along the pond. I’ve found beaver and muskrat work in there, plus of course there’s plenty of waterfowl and also such water-loving birds as red-winged blackbirds.

*If you want to divert off the trail, you can cross a wooded causeway between the two ponds, then either double back, or circle the smaller pond. If you’re lucky you might spot a kingfisher, while in the west pond there are often great blue herons and other wading birds. Herds of turtles lounge on both sides when the sun shines warm.

*Back on the main trail, your walk takes you past the pond on one hand, and brush or meadow on the other. I often see American goldfinches here, and occasionally bluebirds – not to mention the geese and other birds in the pond and wetland. While this is a good walk, and an easy walk, some people might find it a strain on their attention span. Once along the second pond the terrain and the vegetation don’t change much, and you can look straight ahead down the trail about as far as the eye can see. No problem, though… when you’ve had enough, just turn around and walk back.

*WHAT’S NEARBY: Big Flats, Arnot Mall, the Consumer Square area, Harris Hill Park.

*WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW: (a) You must approach from the north – the little humpbacked bridge on the south is still out. (b) Kahler Road has its own exit on I-86. (c) An existing space was developed and named for Trooper Andrew J. Speer, who confronted and was killed by two bank robbers here. He wounded them both, leading to their prompt capture.

*(2)Keuka Lake Outlet Trail, from Penn Yan (on Keuka Lake) to Dresden (on Seneca Lake) is also a rail trail. There’s a little more upping and downing than there is on the Big Flats Trail, but not much. There are several different surfaces – dirt, gravel, asphalt, boardwalk – and none are truly challenging. On the other hand, it’s a lot of fun.

*In this case there are several sites at the Penn Yan end where you can park the car and step right onto the trail. You’ll be walking along the Outlet, which drains Keuka Lake into Seneca Lake, and thence up to Lake Ontario. Pioneer prophetess Jemima Wilkinson sent disciples up to spy out the land where she was thinking of founding her own Jerusalem. Those were water-power days, and the scouts instantly recognized the industrial potential of the Outlet. So did Jemima, who came with the rest of her followers.

*The trail runs beside the Outlet, along the old railbed, which itself ran along the track of the even older Crooked Lake Canal. There are pools where you can watch ducks, and spots where you can stand to watch falls or rapids pounding away. There are also traces of the old industrial and canal infrastructure, making this to some extent a historical walk.

*You may not spot the beavers, but keep an eye peeled for their work. Squirrels and woodpeckers play in the trees, frogs peep or croak the summer long, butterflies flit around, snakes and turtles bask in the sun. Given that a good part of the trail lies in Penn Yan, at times it seems like a (narrow) public park… families with small kids, teens on bikes, Old Order folks taking short cuts to and from the store, joggers, bird watchers, people walking dogs… you name it. Some long-distance folks are really concentrating, but otherwise I’ve found it a friendly smiling place.

*Even though a mile or so of trail lies pretty much within Penn Yan, most of it’s overgrown enough that you’d still think you’re in the woods… and where that’s NOT the case, you get an interesting water-level view of the village.

*WHAT’S NEARBY: Penn Yan, Keuka Lake, Yates County Fairground (west end), Dresden, Seneca Lake (east end).

*WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW: (a) There are stretches where uncivilized people have used the slopes leading down to water level as a junkyard, so at least if the leaves are down you may see litter, tires, appliances. (b) There are spots where the trail crosses a street or road, but the traffic’s not heavy. (c) Yates County History Center has some very interesting exhibits on Jemima Wilkinson. (d) Apart from a couple of outhouse/latrines, there are really no “facilities.” There’s a seasonal ice cream shop at the Dresden end – hikers find it very welcome!

The Little Land Between the Lakes

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Yates County has shoreline on Keuka Lake… and Seneca Lake… AND Canandaigua Lake. How cool is that?

It’s never had a magnet attraction like Watkins Glen State Park, or Watkins Glen International, or Corning Museum of Glass. But all that lakefront means that Yates gets plenty of company anyway, all summer long.

There’s a long-standing story that Red Jacket, the charismatic Seneca leader, was born in the Penn Yan area, where we even find Red Jacket Park. And we know that his mother lived nearby at the end of her life, but actually no one knows where Red Jacket was born.

Sullivan’s invasion rampaged through the region in 1779, killing and burning indiscriminately. Some of the first Europeans to muscle in permanently were followers of pioneer prophetess Jemima Wilkinson, the “Publick Universal Friend.” They came to Torrey in 1778, but later moved the center of their community to Jerusalem. Claiming to be (or at least, to have) a divine spirit, she ruled her flock imperiously until she “left time” in 1819, after which her following withered away.

They had worked hard and well, though, and Penn Yan grew largely from their labors. Lying at the foot of Keuka Lake, it became a busy transshipping town. By 1833 a canal, and then later a railroad, connected with Dresden (still in Yates) on Seneca Lake, and thence to the Erie Canal system and the entire world. Penn Yan and Hammondsport (in Steuben County) became rivals (sometimes friendly), but neither could get along without the other. Each was a vital link in Keuka’s transportation chain.

Yates was set off from Ontario County in 1823, and uninspiringly named for the governor who signed the enabling act. The county later gained land from Steuben, but lost to Tompkins and Seneca.

There are nine towns in Yates County (Starkey, Barrington, Torrey, Milo, Benton, Potter, Middlesex, Italy, and Jerusalem), including four incorporated villages, (Penn Yan, Dresden, Rushville, and Dundee). Branchport and Bellona are unincorporated communities.

Penn Yan is the largest town, the county seat, and a fun place to visit. The county fairgrounds are here, and Main Street is a good place to stroll and shop. There’s a “new book” store (Long’s Cards and Gifts) and two used book stores. Millie’s Pantry offers lunches and gifts, with proceeds making sure children get enough to eat.

Yates County History Center has, among other things, notable Jemima Wilkinson memorabilia, including her coachee (a cut-down carriage – she liked her comforts). Penn Yan also has a movie theater and a very nice Carnegie Library (one of very few in the region). This library has recently undergone significant renovations, though it still retains space for buggy parking. Branchport recently completed a brand-new library, plus there’s a library in Dundee and reading centers in Rushville and Middlesex.

Jerusalem is home to the dramatic Keuka Bluff, that high formation that juts out into the lake to form the East Branch and West Branch, both of which lie largely in Yates. The Bluff is home to Keuka Lake State Park and also to the jewel-box Garrett Chapel, a beautiful stone structure hidden in the forest overlooking the East Branch.

Yates County has two weekly newspapers (the Observer and the Chronicle-Express), not to mention Keuka College (founded 1890) and a public-use airport. As traditional family farms have gone out, conservative “plain-dress” anabaptists have moved in. It’s no surprise that vineyards line much of the lakeshores. The wonderful Keuka Outlet Trail stretches from Penn Yan on Keuka Lake to Dresden on Seneca.

Yates is a small county, and sadly easy to overlook. Lacking a magnet attraction it’s not necessarily the place people visit for short stays. But people make homes there. And they stay the summers. The little land between the lakes is not Brigadoon. But in the depths of World War II Arch Merrill observed that Penn Yan was a good community – the kind of place where you could ride out the storm.