When I was growing up in rural Rhode Island, many of our neighbors were Pratts and Wheelers. That’s one of numerous reasons I feel at home here.

*Silas Wheeler, who founded the Town that bears his name, was also from Rhode Island. Joel Pratt, first white resident in Prattsburg, had New England roots.

*(Both Towns were part of Bath when Towns were created in 1796, and have been separated out since then.)

*Mr. Pratt and his family are buried in the Pioneer Cemetery on State Route 53, at the southern edge of the unincorporated settlement of Prattsburgh (with an h, unlike the Town), on land he gifted to the community.

*The settlement itself (part of the larger Town of the same name) grew up around the Pratt farm, a little before the War of 1812. It lies at the foot of a steep slope to the north, toward Naples, Ingleside, and Canandaigua. I speculate that this slope led travlers to overnight in Prattsburgh, or at least to change to a fresh team of horses, mules, or oxen. Assuming I’m correct, this would have meant steady business.

*Mr. Pratt saw to it that a church was soon established… Congregationalist, later changed to Presbyterian. Baptist, Methodist and Catholic churches followed, and an academy was established in 1823.

*This was an extraordinary institution, for it offered what amounted to a high school education at a time when many communities were still struggling to set up one-room schools. Narcissa Prentiss (later Whitman) and Henry Spalding are perhaps the school’s most famed alumni, being early explorers and missionaries in the American northwest, where Narcissa and her husband were killed. Franklin Academy would eventually become the public central school.

*The original Academy building burned in 1923 (exactly a hundred years after its founding), along with the next-door Presbyterian church. Both were rebuilt and reopened with considerable fanfare, and both are still in use almost a hundred years later (with additions and alterations).

*Also still in use (with considerable alteration) is the 1860s St. Patrick’s church. It’s no surprise, given the name, that the original congregation was largely Irish-American. They built the church themselves, and it’s now the oldest Catholic church edifice in Steuben County.

*It’s located maybe a quarter-mile down the street from the Baptist church. A hundred years ago there must have been considerable tension between the two, as the Baptists welcomed a Ku Klux Klan delegation during a service in the 1920s.

*Prattsburgh has the original (and still operating) Air Flo location (manufacturing truck equipment) and is also home to Empire Access, the telecommunications provider. It has a library and a small supermarket (with ice cream stand), a Dollar General, a gas station-convenience store, and a large grassy tree-lined town square.

*On Friday, August 10 I hope to be leading a free historic walk of Prattsburgh, sponsored by Steuben County Historical Society. This was put off one week because of weather, but we expect to gather at the bandstand at 4 PM. Maybe you’d like to join us.