Oliver's Travels

Sharing the true tales of Yates County history

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When two became one - for a time

By Jonathan Monfiletto

Does anyone remember attending the United Church of Dundee? If so, then you have a short memory. A sharp memory, but a short memory.

That is because the Dundee United Church – created from a merger between the Dundee Baptist Church and the First Presbyterian Church of Dundee – appears to have been in existence for a little less than two years, from the time the churches approved the merger until the congregations dissolved their union. According to the subject files of the Yates County History Center – and my interpretation of the timeline as laid out in newspaper articles – the leaders of each church agreed to merge in October 1974, the members of each church voted in favor of the merger in March 1975, and then the merger collapsed in September 1976.

According to an article in The Chronicle-Express of October 17, 1974, the churches “in separate sessions” agreed to merge their congregations after two years of study. The two denominations were to consolidate to become the United Church. I’m interpreting this moment to have occurred among the separate leadership boards of each church. “Rules of union and bylaws were adopted,” the article states. “One church council will govern both of the former denominations.”

It is immediately unclear what took place over the two years of study; however, a couple of unidentified but dated newspaper articles – one from February 15, 1973, the other from April 12, 1973 – shed some light on the process. In February 1973, the Rev. Stanley Skinner – associate executive director of planning and church development for New York State Council of Churches – met with the pastors of each church – the Rev. Benjamin Disbrow of the Baptist Church, the Rev. William Farnham of the Presbyterian Church – and respective church representatives. At the meeting the group “explore(d) the possibility of a combination of the churches to more effectively serve the needs of the congregations and the community.”

The group completed several forms with basic information about church statistics, property descriptions, area populations, and other aspects. Skinner would analyze the information from the churches and then prepare his suggestions, which he would present at a meeting on March 18. Whether that discussion actually took place in March, an informational meeting was announced to took place on April 16. At that meeting, Skinner was to present a plan for the United Church and congregations of other churches were invited to attend. “While at present the Baptist and Presbyterian churches of Dundee are the only formal participants, it is hoped that others of the Christian faith throughout the Dundee Area will attend and participate in the discussion,” the announcement read.

Whatever transpired from April 1973 to October 1974, the merger “decision came of long-standing practical problems centering on attendance and church use,” The Chronicle-Express noted. While “several operational details are still to be worked out,” according to The Chronicle-Express, Disbrow, of the Baptist church, was selected to conduct the joint services, as the Presbyterian church “has had no minister for several years,” according to The Geneva Times on October 19, 1974.

That article in The Geneva Times stated the combined congregation of the two churches amounted to 300 people. More than two-thirds of each congregation (of the leadership boards from each church, more likely, or of the representatives from each church on the merger committee) approved the merger plan. Each member of the new church would retain the affiliation of their present denomination, while new members could join the United Church or either the Baptist or Presbyterian denomination. However, the merger committee did not approve a second proposition for the Presbyterian church to be used for services. The question of a building for the United Church would be considered by a new committee that would consist of three members from each church.

There were four possible solutions: building a complex to include all local churches, building a new church for the two merging denominations, using the Presbyterian church, or using the Baptist church. Along with a decision on a building, there were more details to be worked out and the state parent denominations had to approve the merger as well. Perhaps those details were worked out, and the approvals received, over the next five months.

On Palm Sunday in March 1975, 76 members of the combined congregations “voted the merger,” according to The Chronicle-Express on March 27, 1975. Whether that is voted on or voted for is unclear; nevertheless, 76 people seems a far cry from The Geneva Times’ assertion that the merged churches had a combined congregation of 300 people. Nevertheless, the United Church of Dundee created by the merger and its approval would be incorporated immediately. Disbrow was named minister of the United Church, and the Presbyterian Church building was selected as the site of general services. The Baptist Church building would be used for school, social, and community functions. The corporate entity of the United Church would sever legal responsibilities to the respective denominational authorities – the American Baptist Churches of New York State and the Presbytery of Geneva, United Presbyterian Church – though church members would maintain their denominational affiliations as they chose.

“The merger follows a national trend to waning memberships and dwindling finances,” The Chronicle-Express stated, noting the combined membership of the two churches amounted to 200 people while at one point the congregations numbered 300 for the Baptists and 250 for the Presbyterians. The first annual meeting of the United Church was to take place on April 6, when the first slate of officers would be elected.

On Sunday, June 8, 1975, a large crowd gathered at the United Church of Dundee (was it at the Presbyterian church, used for services, or the Baptist church, used for celebrations?) “for a celebration of togetherness, spiritually uniting” the two merged churches, according to The Geneva Times of June 14, 1975. Along with the large crowd, the program aired on the WFLR radio station and attracted dignitaries from the two parent denominations as well as local ministers and church laity. Disbrow offered holy communion to those gathered, and the United Church choir performed during the service. Several pastors offered remarks and congratulations to the combined congregations.

Farnham, the former pastor of the Presbyterian Church who had participated in the original merger process, pointed out the new door installed in the Presbyterian Church since his departure. He noted it is “easier to open” and that it could be a symbol of “increased friendliness” of the United Church.

However, a little more than a year later, on August 7, 1976, The Geneva Times reported the merger had fallen apart and the two churches would go their separate ways. According to Disbrow, the merger collapsed the previous Sunday when the congregations could not agree on which building to use for services and which building to close up. Predictably, the Presbyterian members voted to use their building, while Baptist members voted to use their building. The vote needed a two-thirds majority in favor of one building to be approved. As a result, the failure to reach an agreement on the building meant the merger would automatically terminate in September.

Disbrow emphasized the building issue was the only point of disagreement among the combined congregation; there were no disputes over leadership, beliefs, or anything else. Thirty to 40 members had refused to make a pledge to the United Church until the building issue was resolved. Nevertheless, the churches would part; at that point, the Baptist members numbered between 150 and 175 while the Presbyterian church had approximately 80 members.

Toward the end of the year, The Geneva Times wondered how the two churches were faring since their separation, especially since low attendance and high building costs were cited as two of the reasons for the merger. Both churches reported “a renaissance, a reawakening this fall,” since the merger collapsed, according to the newspaper. While the Baptist Church had an average attendance at worship services of 54 each Sunday before the merger, the church was now seeing an average of 81 people each week. Similarly, the Presbyterian Church had a pre-merger average attendance of 34 and now saw an average of 62 people each week. Attendance for the United Church had seen a high of 77 people and a low of 51 worshipers.

Both churches pointed to younger adult member becoming regular churchgoers with their families as well as new area residents joining the churches. Both churches also offered Christian education classes from babies to high schoolers as well as adults. Each church held a monthly family dinner to encourage family participation in their congregations. Each church also had its own choir, active and flourishing, along with a junior choir. While Disbrow continued to lead the Baptist Church, the Rev. Robert Rochelle was appointed temporary supply pastor for the Presbyterian Church.

The Dundee Baptist Church remains open and active to this day, nearly 50 years after the merger attempt. However, the First Presbyterian Church of Dundee closed and dissolved in 2017.

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Get your kicks on Route 14A

By Jonathan Monfiletto

Around this time a year ago, I wrote an article – after as extensive research as I could muster – about the major construction project that took place in 1912 that transformed Main Street in Penn Yan from a dirt pathway through the village into a modern, for the era, brick-paved boulevard. I also discussed the other brick paving projects undertaken throughout the village over time, starting with Jacob Street (now East Elm) as the first brick-paved street in 1906 and continuing through the late 1920s with Chapel Street (the last remaining brick-paved street when it was paved with asphalt in 1988) and possibly into the 1930s.

I pinpointed Clinton Street in 1921 as the first Penn Yan street to be paved with asphalt, from its Main Street intersection east to the railroad and, three years later, to North Avenue to meet a designated state highway. However, I could not uncover the moment when Main Street was paved with asphalt for the first time. My research project began when a major construction project throughout the summer and fall of 2023 dug up and tore up Main Street down to those 1912 bricks; when a brand-new layer of asphalt went over the stop of Main Street, though, I still could not figure out when a layer of asphalt went over Main Street for the first time.

The best I could come up with at the time, as I mentioned in my article, is that Main Street was paved with asphalt for the first time in the late 1950s during a simultaneous project that rerouted New York State Route 14A through Penn Yan from East Main and Main streets to Brown and Liberty streets. When I mentioned this hypothesis to a couple of our Yates County History Center volunteers who would have been young children at the time, they did seem to have memories of a brick-paved Main Street. I have seen photographs of a brick-paved Main Street in the late 1940s, so it does seem to match up that Main Street would have been paved with asphalt for the first time in the following decade.

Still, I have not been able to confirm my hypothesis with any certainty despite my further extensive research. Nevertheless, in this article, I present the history of the rerouting of Route 14A through Penn Yan with the suggestion that Main Street was paved with asphalt at the same time. From what I can deduce, New York State crews oversaw the reconstruction of Route 14A through Brown and Liberty streets while taking care of paving portions of Main Street around the same time or before that project started and after it finished.

At least by 1953, according to articles from The Chronicle-Express, there was talk of improving and reconfiguring Route 14A by widening its Main Street thoroughfare. The street would be widened to 40 feet – already its width in the downtown area – from Chapel Street north to the Benton hill and Lake Street south to the East Main Street hill. However, the shade trees along the street in those areas would be cut down and electric poles replaced as a result of the work. By January 1955, as state engineer J.H. Thomas told the Penn Yan Kiwanis Club, the project had changed to constructing and transforming a 4.3-mile length of Brown and Liberty streets into the new Route 14A.

The project would involve building a brand-new road from the Raymond Cahill farm on what is now Old Route 14A to the end of Brown Street at South Avenue, with a sweeping curve into the south end of the village rather than a sharp hill. The same would be done on the north end of the village, with another sweeping curve from the point where Liberty Street met Grant Avenue to the William Linstead farm on Benton hill. Each approach to the north and south ends of the village would have three lanes of traffic – two for traffic leaving the village and one for traffic entering the village. There would be reconfiguration along the existing Brown-Liberty streets corridor, with the replacement of the Liberty Street bridge over the Keuka Lake Outlet and the installation of new traffic lights and crosswalks.

Before the work got underway, 1954 saw mention of the possible asphalt paving of Main Street – perhaps for the first time. On June 3, 1954, The Chronicle-Express reported, “The State Highway department is dressing the Main Street in Penn Yan, which is a part of the State Highway system.” According to the newspaper, “Fine gravel is placed on the paving with the oil, which fills low spots and seals the pavement to prevent water from working under the bricks or concrete.” Was this an asphalt pavement project on Main Street? Was this the first time for such a project?

Either way, plans for the reconfigured Route 14A continued on. A few weeks after the state engineer address the Kiwanis Club about the project, The Chronicle-Express noted the Penn Yan Village Board of Trustees and the Yates County Board of Supervisors had both, in 1953, passed resolutions requesting New York State relocate the state highway from East Main and Main streets to Brown and Liberty streets. The consensus was the project would ease congestion in the business district by redirecting through traffic and would also eliminate dangerous intersections at the hills. The relocation would also impact fewer homes and fewer trees. It also meant the state would replace – and take over maintenance of – the Liberty Street bridge over the outlet, which had become inadequate and closed to fire trucks, school buses, and other large vehicles.

In July 1955, the Board of Supervisors approved the state’s preliminary plans for what was called Penn Yan’s arterial highway – or the Liberty Highway or the Liberty Boulevard – as submitted and explained by Thomas. Village officials had already approved the project, of which the state would cover the actual road construction while the village would pay for and work on the relocation and rebuilding of utilities along Brown and Liberty streets. Village crews would update the water and sewer infrastructure to improve and extend service and possibly move the electrical wires underground. Officials estimated the road construction would cost $1.79 million, while the utilities work would cost a little more than $300,000. As part of the Route 14A project, the state would also widen Lake Street – State Route 54 – from the Brown-Liberty streets intersection to the village line at Red Jacket park.

The breakdown of the project dimensions is as follows: a new 1.75-mile road beginning two miles south of the village and connecting the highway to Brown Street; 1.76 miles of the Brown and Liberty streets corridor; and a new .75-road from the end of Liberty Street to rejoin Route 14A a half mile north of the village. There would be two travel lanes and two parking lanes through the village; the pavement would be cement concrete. The Liberty Street bridge would measure 69½ feet long and 48 feet wide; the work on Lake Street amounted to .58 miles. About 20 people learned more about the plans for the project, and had the opportunity to ask questions about it, during a public hearing on August 21, 1956.

The coverage of the public hearing in The Chronicle-Express seems to indicate Main Street was still paved in brick at this point, noting the “vast growth in the use of automobiles and trucks” since the 1912 project “has outmoded this road.” Brown and Liberty streets were likely still brick-paved as well before the reconfiguration of Route 14A.

On September 20, 1956, The Chronicle-Express reported the submission of the low bid $1,777,641.25 by Draicchio & Carardori Construction Inc. of Lancaster. The construction was expected to begin the following month, once New York State had checked all of the bids, declared the low bid acceptable, and officially awarded the contract. The work was anticipated to finish by November 1, 1958. In October 1956, the village board hosted a public hearing on its part of the project – improving and extending the sewer line in the amount of $180,000 and improving and extending the water main in the amount of $170,000. The village would pay for these improvements with a 30-year bond for the sewer and a 40-year bond for the water. In sum, village residents would see their tax rate increase by $2.69 for this project.

The relocation and reconfiguration of Route 14A began toward the end of 1956 and through the beginning of 1957; the first steps were the removal of the existing Liberty Street bridge and construction of new concrete abutments, work on the storm sewers, and removal of trees along the route. By early June 1957, it was expected the new bridge would open to foot traffic and some vehicle traffic by early July. At this point, all rough grading and placing of gravel on Brown Street had been completed; all grading on Liberty Street north of North Avenue would be completed in three weeks. That meant the entire new part of the roadway would be ready for concrete by August.

In July 1958, The Chronicle-Express reported state highway crews would soon resurface East Main Street from Lake Street south to the hill and Main Street from Clinton Street north to the hill – leaving out the downtown portion of Main Street in Penn Yan. Does this represent a moment in which East Main and Main streets – or at least a portion of them – were paved with asphalt or concrete for the first time? Had the downtown portion already been paved as a result of the work mentioned in 1954?

According to The Chronicle-Express of August 14, 1958, “Liberty Highway, which was once West Street in Penn Yan, marking the western boundary of the village, and is now a freshly finished, multi-million dollar bypass,” was ceremonially opened by New York Gov. Averill Harriman and a contingent of village and county officials. The ceremony involved quite some fanfare, with several hundred people attending a luncheon in the governor’s honor at the Hotel Wagner, then located on Main Street across from the Yates County Courthouse park. In the end, it was reported the new state highway cost more than $4 million, though I’m not sure how we arrived at that number from the original estimate and low bid.

YCHC’s own Stephanie Olsen – one of the aforementioned volunteers – and Lynn Ossont, young children at the time, were selected to help the governor cut the ribbon to open the highway that was completed ahead of schedule and had taken a little less than two years to build it. David Mortimer, the governor’s grandson, also joined the group. Stephanie, from Benton, whose father was the Benton town supervisor at the time, and Lynn, from Himrod, were chosen because they represented the communities on either end of the new highway. The way Stephanie tells it, though, she was chosen also because her father was the only Democrat (the governor’s political party) to be found in Benton.

A “Penn Yan Progresses” item underneath this main article noted state highway crews had finished blacktopping North Main and Main streets, Maple Avenue, “the approaches,” and “the streets previously covered” just prior to Harriman’s visit. “With some exceptions, Penn Yan’s main thoroughfares are now quiet and smooth,” the item states. It is still unclear exactly when it happened, but it appears Penn Yan’s Main Street had now changed from a brick surface to an asphalt or concrete one. That October, the newspaper reported state highway crews “finally managed to dump some black top material on the holes which have pitted the Main Street paving in the business section all summer.”

So, in almost one fell swoop, or so it seems, Penn Yan had seen both the reconfiguration of a major state highway through the village and the transformation of its Main Street from brick to asphalt. Both of these moments seem to point to the advent of modern-day Penn Yan as we know it today.

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History Learned on the Road: Benton United Methodist Church

By Paul D. Bullock

(The following article is an edited version of two articles that former Yates County History Center board member Paul Bullock wrote for the September-October 2022 edition of Yates Past, the bimonthly YCHC newsletter. In 2021 and 2022, the YCHC Imaging Team conducted a series of Scanning History Roadshow events in the nine towns of Yates County to scan historic, important photographs and documents from the people of those towns and add these items to our digital collection. In December 2021, the team hosted its Benton event at Benton United Methodist Church and collected a couple of items related to the church – a handwritten history of the church and a newspaper article reporting on the dedication of the church’s new building. With the recent news that Benton United Methodist Church is closing at the end of this year, I decided to publish Paul’s articles on the Oliver’s Travels blog).

On December 7, [2021], our Scanning History Roadshow met at 1 p.m. at Benton United Methodist Church in Benton Center. When I arrived at 12:30 p.m. to set up the equipment, I was warmly greeted by a member of the church, Caroline Warren. Caroline graciously helped carry my briefcase and backpack into the basement, then she helped organize the tables.

She was also the first in line to receive our services. Caroline brought in a three-page handwritten document. As I read it, it became obvious that the information in the document would be interesting to a wide audience.

Consequently, the document has been transcribed. The transcription follows:

Page 1 - researched and written by Mrs. Robert (Mary) Gardner”

The History of the beginning of the First Methodist Church in Western New York, at what is now called Benton Center in the year 1793, has to begin with the coming of the Colony of 32 people, who came here from Unadilla, in the year 1792.

The previous year a delegation of seven had been sent from Unadilla to spy out the land and a decision had been made at that time to settle in the center of township No. 8, which was later became [sic] the town of Benton.

Ezra Cole, an itinerant preacher, who had gained some knowledge of this section of the country and set on foot the expedition, his wife Sabra and seven children; Eliphalet Hull, considered to be one of the noblest of the early settlers and a man of great capabilities, his wife Huldah, a sister of Sabra Cole, and eight children; Cyrus Buell, whose wife Sarah was the Hull's daughter, and their son David; Cyrus Buell's father Samuel, his wife Susan and twelve children. Before moving to Unadilla, the Coles and the Hulls lived in Ballston and the two Buell families at Ft. Edward. Mr. Hull and the Buells served during the Revolutionary War.

Four large canoes were lashed together in pairs and covered over, making two respectable barges to carry the women, small children, household goods and 600 well rooted but small apple trees. The men and older boys drove the stock by land. They followed the Susquehanna to Owego, there taking the sleds and a cart, reached Ithaca on the 4th of July, having travelled a distance of twenty-nine miles, in four days and did not see a single house along the way. From Ithaca they made their way by barge on Cayuga Lake, to a place opposite their destination. Crossing the land between Cayuga and Seneca Lakes with their sleds and oxcart, then across Seneca Lake to Kashong Point.

George Wheeler Jr. came with his father to township No. 8 in 1791, and as a young man was considered to be quite a man of the world. After his marriage to Hull's daughter Sarah, he became converted and an ardent Methodist and defender of the faith. They settled on a farm south of Benton Center, later known as the Baldurn farm.

Page 2

Having arrived at their destination the families started getting established each in their chosen places. This was no easy thing to do in unbroken thickets of dense wilderness, their neighbors were bears, wild pigs, rattlesnakes, and stray Indians. They built cabins of saplings and bark, patterned somewhat after the Indian's dwelling. Later log cabins were built.

Next to a place of shelter, the families felt the need of a place to hold religious services. Levi Benton having come in 1790, to township No. 8, had a barn he had built in the field adjacent to what is now Benton Cemetery. He was approached for permission to hold services in his barn. Consent was given and services were held with Ezra Cole preaching. This then was the first Protestant Services held in township No. 8. This took place in the fall of 1792. In 1810, township No. 8 was given the name of Benton, in honor of Levi Benton, the first settler.

The first class of the Methodist Society was organized in 1793, consisting of the members and considered to be the first class in Western New York. The members were Ezra Cole and wife; Eliphalet Hull and wife; George Wheeler Jr. and wife; Mrs. Sarah Hull Buell; Matthew, Lois, and Delia Cole.

This class, continued to enlarge in membership and by 1797, decided to erect a frame building, finished with clapboards, without lath, plaster, steeple or means of heating except for iron kettles filled with hot coals and placed about the room among the rude seats. It was built on the south east corner of George Wheeler Jr.'s farm. This first Methodist church was supplied by circuit preachers who travelled the Lyons and Crooked Lake circuits. Services during the winter months were held in a log school house at the Center, which had a large fire place across one end. A church was erected in 1828 at Havens Corners and seven years later a parsonage was built near the Church, for the use of the circuit riders on the Crooked Lake and Lyons circuits. The Church at Benton Center was begun in 1835, and finished in 1837. It had a steeple and a bell.

A span of twenty-six years found the Church had grown in membership, so sixteen feet was added to the west end. But in no less than four years, on January 23, 1888 at 2 p.m. fire destroyed the Church building.

Page 3

This did not stop the Methodists in Benton Center. They enlisted the aid of the Grange, who allowed them to hold meetings in the "Good Templars Hall," a special committee was formed to consider the erection of a new Church on the site of the one that burned. With the help and generosity of the people of Benton Center, Church plans were initiated, with the results, they were completed on November 1, 1888. The Church was dedicated on December 13, 1888, with the Rev. Chancellor Smith giving the address.

The Benton Center Methodist Church became a two Church pastorate in 1889, when the Voak Methodist joined with Benton. This continued until 1945 when the Yatesville Methodist replaced Voak.

The Benton Church remained fairly stable throughout 1900, to the end of World War II. In 1946 the membership of the Church started to grow rapidly, as a number of people settled in this area.

Sunday school enrollment and attendance soon out grew [sic] available space. There were many concerned people, as well as the Board of Trustees, who felt something must be done. Rev. Paul Fattaruso was the minister, and under his leadership expansion of the Church facilities were planned. The work on these plans of expansion began in June 1954.

Rev. Fattaruso had left and Rev. Charles Moore had replaced him. During the summer of 1954, the excavation under the Church for a basement continued and due to volunteer work by the men of the Church, was completed by fall. In January 1955 the men pitched in once more, constructing partitions for Sunday school rooms, kitchen, dining room and furnace room. This was finished in 1963. New lights were installed in the sanctuary, from Memorial funds in 1966. In 1968 the upstairs Sunday school was remodeled, ceilings were lowered, indirect lighting and paneling was done, carpets were laid, all this transformed this area into a kindergarten classroom and a social room. At this time the sanctuary was redecorated, also the vestibule.

October 27, 1968 the Benton Methodist Church celebrated its 175th anniversary. Now eight years later the Benton Church can be proud of the good years of worship and service.

In the margin: May 14, 1961 - The Julia Stuart memorial was dedicated.

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Among other items, Caroline also brought in a clipping that appeared in a December 1888 issue of either the Yates County Chronicle or Penn Yan Democrat. This article was something we’d never seen since we have only a few 1888 issues of these newspapers in our archives.

This very interesting newspaper article follows:

The M. E. Church Dedicated

According to published notice, the dedicatory service of the new Methodist Church at Benton Center was solemnised on Thursday last, December 13th. Although the day was cold and forbidding and the roads very rough, a large congregation assembled. Chancellor Sims, of Syracuse University, preached a very able sermon, and officiated in the dedicatory service. Mr. Homer Mariner, Secretary of the Board of Trustees, gave the financial exhibit, showing the total cost of the church and furniture to be $6,078. Of this amount $5,800 had been raised by subscription, together with the insurance received on the old church. The contractors were very highly commended by the Trustees for their untiring zeal, for the very thorough manner in which they had performed their work, doing much more than required by the contract, and for the many ways in which they had relieved the building committee from care and anxiety, and as an appreciation of their services, a vote of thanks was proposed, which was unanimously adopted by the people. Chancellor Sims then proceeded to raise $500, to entirely liquidate all debt. The services closed at about 1 o’clock, and everybody was highly delighted with the future prospects. There were present a number of ministers from about, among whom was Rev. S. McGerald, editor of the Buffalo Christian Advocate, who also preached a very able sermon in the evening. Brother McGerald was pastor of the church eighteen years ago, and he was greeted with a large congregation in the evening, and warmly welcomed by many friends.

This church is considered by all as a model of beauty, utility and convenience. The seating capacity of the entire church is about 500, and divided into two parts by doors twenty feet wide, which makes it equally convenient for the ordinary congregation, or for extra occasions. The pews were placed in the church by the Globe Furniture Company, of Northville, Mich., are solid ash trimmed with cherry, and considered very fine. The organs are from the factory of Thomas Swoger & Son, Beaver Falls, Pa., and for richness and variety of tone are not excelled, if equaled, by any organ made. It is less than a year since the old church was burned, (having occurred on January 23, 1888) and the society has great reason to be thankful for the prosperity which has attended every effort to rebuild, and that they are again permitted, so soon, to congregate in the new sanctuary, dedicated to the one solemn service - the worship of Almighty God. May great prosperity attend all future efforts.

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Thanks to Caroline for sharing this remarkable story of disaster, struggle, and triumph so typical of events in the rich history of Yates County. To add to the story, here is a clipping from the January 25, 1888 issue of the Yates County Chronicle that reports on the church fire:

Fire at Benton.

Monday morning about 3 o’clock, the Methodist Church at Benton Centre was discovered to be on fire and although the most strenuous efforts were used to subdue the flames, the entire structure was burned to the ground. The church sheds were however fortunately saved. The loss to the Methodist congregation is a heavy one, as they had but recently finished extensive repairs on the building. We have not learned the estimated loss, but we understand that there was an insurance of $3,000 upon the property. What efforts will be made towards the erection of a new edifice, we are not aware; but probably some steps towards a new building will be made. The Rev. C. M. Eddy is pastor of the church.

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Others on the Scanning History Roadshow team in Benton were Andy Baus, Jim Wachob, Jim Hilton, Alex Andrasik, and Len Kataskas.

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Voyage of the Gold Star Mothers

By Jonathan Monfiletto

Ida Williams was a Gold Star Mother in Yates County before there was a Gold Star Mothers organization in Yates County. In fact, she went on a pilgrimage with other Gold Star Mothers before there was even a national Gold Star Mothers organization.

A Gold Star Mother is a woman who has suffered the death of a son or daughter during military service in wartime. Certainly, Mrs. Williams – whose only son, Alfred, was killed in action in France’s Belleau Wood during World War I – was not the only Gold Star Mother in Yates County, several others around the county having lost sons during the Great War and many more joining their ranks in ensuing conflicts. And she definitely was not the only Gold Star Mother in America.

But when Mrs. Williams traveled overseas to visit her son’s grave in France and the graves of his fallen comrades and to tour the battlefields of the war in which they gave their lives, she went as a representative of Gold Star Mothers in Yates County. Mrs. Williams took two such trips in her lifetime, first in May 1926 and again in May 1931, both times for about a month.

I previously mentioned Pvt. Alfred Williams in a May 2022 article titled “The boys (and girls) of Benton,” in which I wrote about the World I service members from that Yates County town, as documented in E.D. Harrison’s book “Yates County in the World War, 1917-1918.” Further research reveals more of Pvt. Williams’ story. According to an unidentified newspaper item, Pvt. Williams was working in Michael, Stearn & Co.’s clothing store in Rochester in March 1917 when he enlisted in the Marine Corps. The Great War had started, but America had not yet entered the conflict.

On March 28, 1917, Pvt. Williams went to Buffalo for an examination, and the next month he sent his mother a letter stating he was sending his clothing home because he was leaving for a long business trip. On April 18, his father – also named Alfred, a veteran of the Civil War – received a letter from the Buffalo Recruiting Station stating his son was on his way to Parris Island, South Carolina to train to become a Marine. Pvt. Williams officially entered the Marine Corps at Parris Island on April 24, according to Harrison.

On August 6, Pvt. Williams came home to Penn Yan (his family lived on a section of North Main Street that is in the town of Benton but still within the boundaries of the village of Penn Yan) for a 10-day furlough. On August 13, he returned to Quantico, Virginia, where his unit was stationed. On October 16, his unit – 73rd Company, 6th Regiment, 4th Brigade, 2nd Division – sailed for France from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

According to the newspaper item, these were Pvt. Williams’ last words to his family upon his departure from Penn Yan: “Father, it appealed to me so strong that I ought to go that I could not help it; I had to go.”

According to Harrison, Pvt. Williams and his fellow Marines landed at St. Nazaire, France on November 2, 1917. From November 14, 1917 to January 9, 1918, he was in Bordeaux, where he assisted American engineers on American docks and later served military police duty. From January 12 to March 15, he underwent intensive training to prepare to go to the front. In Verdun from March 17 to May 17, he experienced front line trenches for the first time. In Serans from Mary 21 to May 31, he trained behind the lines and then received a call to assist in checking the German drive on Paris.

Pvt. Williams served in Chateau-Thierry from June 3 to July 5, presumably seeing battle for the first time. He was in Soissons as part of the Aisne offensive on July 18, and on July 19 he was instantly killed by a machine gun bullet. While Harrison states Pvt. Williams’ place of death as Soissons, other sources state he was killed at Belleau Wood; both battles were part of the Aisne offensive. According to a letter 1st Lt. George R. Jackson – commanding officer of 73rd Company – wrote to Mrs. Williams, Pvt. Williams was “killed by a German sniper and died instantly, just north of the town of Vierzy when we ‘went over.’ This is near Soissons.”

“He was recommended for gallantry in action and would have been decorated,” Jackson wrote. “Your son was a good soldier and that is about the finest thing that can be said of any American.”

Mrs. Williams made her first voyage to visit her son’s grave in May 1925. She sailed from New York aboard The Republic on May 13 and returned a month later aboard The Leviathan. The Gold Star Mothers’ Association sponsored the three-week-long excursion through France especially for American citizens whose relatives were killed in action and buried overseas. Mrs. Williams and hundreds of her fellow Gold Star Mothers toured the battlefields and cemeteries of the World War in France, including her son’s grave among the 2,000 burials in the national cemetery in Belleau Wood, Aisnes, France. The group was received by Myron Herrick, the U.S. ambassador to France at the time, and Herrick arranged for the Gold Star Mothers to meet French President Gaston Doumergue.

Mrs. Williams traveled to France again in May 1931 – 13 years after her son’s death and a little more than a year after her husband’s death. The Penn Yan Democrat noted she was the sole Yates County resident on the trip that once again included several other Gold Star Mothers. This time, the invitation for the excursion came from the U.S. War Department, Office of the Quartermaster General. On May 13 – exactly six years since she left for her previous voyage – Mrs. Williams and 127 Gold Star Mothers sailed for France aboard The America. Upon their arrival, one item on their itinerary included the Gold Star Mothers’ placing a wreath at the tomb of the unknown soldier at the Arc de Triomphe. They would also travel to Brookwood American Cemetery in London, England, where they would visit the cenotaph that honors all British soldiers.

American Gold Star Mothers – the national organization – was established in 1928, while the Yates County Gold Star Mothers organization was founded in 1948. Mrs. Williams died on August 8, 1950 at age 85. She was survived by three daughters.

[yatescountyhistorycenter]

Explosion of a ship, implosion of a life

By Jonathan Monfiletto

Marine Corps Sgt. Maj. William Anthony wasn’t born in Yates County, and he isn’t buried here either. It seems the only time he set foot on Yates County soil was for a month-long stint picking grapes in Jerusalem in the fall of 1899; his wife was from Guyanoga, and his son settled in the Dresden area as an adult. Otherwise, Sgt. Anthony had no connections here.

However, the memory of Sgt. Maj. Anthony and the story of his heroic deed continue to live on in Yates County – whether modern-day residents realize it – in the name of a road bearing his surname. Anthony Road, which runs from Route 14 southward into the village of Dresden, honors the man who played the role of a tragic hero in the story of the Spanish American War.

While recent findings suggest the explosion aboard the USS Maine was caused by a spontaneous fire in the coal bunker, in 1898 fingers pointed toward the ship being blown up by a mine set by Spanish forces. What isn’t under dispute is, first, that the incident led directly to the Spanish American War and, second, that it was then-Pvt. Bill Anthony who sounded the alarm to the ship’s commander about the explosion.

According to an article in the Penn Yan Democrat of February 17, 1933, Anthony was acting as orderly to Navy Cpt. Charles Sigsbee, the Maine’s commander, on February 15, 1898. The ship was anchored in the harbor of Havana, Cuba, “and all was peaceful when the deafening, rending blast rocked the vessel,” the newspaper stated, at approximately 9:40 p.m. Eastern time.

According to historian John Creamer, it was an oppressively warm and humid evening. The Maine had been sent to Cuba on a goodwill visit to protect American citizens and interests on the island nation, while tensions between the United States and Spain – which controlled Cuba at the time – reached a boiling point after building up for years. The Maine’s presence was meant to encourage Americans and Cubans and challenge the Spanish.

Creamer described Anthony’s experience that evening this way: “Private Bill took a long stroll on deck to postpone retiring to his steaming hammock below. There was no air conditioning then – in fact, the Maine was the first US Navy vessel to have electric lights. It was just as well for Bill that he dawdled, for at exactly 9:40 p.m. he and a number of others, on board the Maine and elsewhere around the harbor, saw a sheet of orange flame envelop the bow of the battleship. The explosion that followed was so tremendous that an eyewitness on another ship said that the Maine was lifted nearly out of the water by its force. … In the aftermath of the explosion, Private Bill realized that he had to get a message to Captain Sigsbee. He ran to the captain’s cabin in the dark. … The captain, not unaware that something had happened to the ship (he said later that he thought they were being fired upon by nearby Spanish guns), emerged from his cabin just as Private Bill arrived. In the darkness, the two men collided. … Private Bill backed off, apologized, saluted, and spoke the words that would put him into the history books.”

Those words, according to the Democrat, were: “I have the honor, sir, to report the Maine has been blown up and is sinking.” Sigsbee commended Anthony’s action in the captain’s record of the event, as transcribed in the Democrat: “The special feature in the case of this service performed by Private Anthony is that on an occasion when man’s instinct would lead him to seek safety outside the ship, he started into the superstructure and toward the cabin, irrespective of the danger. The action was a noble one and I feel it an honor to call his conduct to the attention of the recommendator that he be made a sergeant.”

Indeed, Anthony was promoted to sergeant and then, rather quickly, to sergeant major. According to Creamer, Anthony – 44 years old at the time – had served in the Marine Corps for 28 years. It is unclear what he did in the military prior to February 1898 – his service predates the Civil War – and why he remained a private for 28 years. Creamer notes promotions came slowly in those days – but apparently rapidly in the face of heroic acts – and there wasn’t much opportunity for a private to distinguish himself.

The disaster aboard the Maine killed 260 of the 328 crew members; indeed, only 16 were left uninjured. Though Anthony was listed among these 16, he received splinters in his face and through his hand when a lifeboat disintegrated in the explosion. He managed to climb into one of the remaining boats and row about the ship – in a hail of shrapnel and exploding ammunition – to look for survivors.

With no ship to serve on, Anthony subsequently was transferred to guard duty at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and given the highest enlisted rank in the Marine Corps. Anthony retired from the Marine Corps shortly after, in June 1898. Entitled to retirement pay after nearly 30 years of military service, Anthony – out of what the Democrat described as “character modesty” and fear “that the application might reflect on his superior officer who had helped him to get his rapid promotion,” Anthony declined the benefit and left the Marine Corps with no job and nothing but his name and reputation as a national hero.

Someone was looking to cash in on Anthony’s 15 minutes of fame, however, and a group of promoters convinced the Marine to take part in a play about the recently concluded Spanish American War, titled “The Red, White, and Blue.” Anthony’s role consisted of his appearing on stage in his Marine Corps uniform and reciting, “Remember the Maine!” to thunderous applause from the audience. However, the production closed quickly, as people were not ready to view a reenactment of a war they had just witnessed.

So, Anthony was once again out of work. In the interim, he got married to Adella Blancet, of Guyanoga, in October 1898. Adella had written to the national hero to seek his autograph; though he had received many such letters, for some reason Adella’s letter stood out and he wrote back to her. They soon wed and then had a son, William Jr., born in July 1898.

Following the grape harvest in the fall of 1899, Anthony left Adella and William Jr. in Guyanoga and traveled back to New York City to try to find work. He wasn’t willing to pull strings with his reputation and mention his struggle, and he lacked marketable skills outside of his military service.

On November 24, 1899, Anthony was sitting on a bench in Central Park when two police officers noticed him acting strangely with agitated behavior but also recognized who he was. Suddenly, Anthony pulled a small glass bottle out of his pocket and swallowed the contents. The officers attempted to help him, but he told them he didn’t want to be saved. Sure enough, Anthony died within an hour from an overdose of cocaine extract.

While the national hero was mourned following his shocking death, his name and reputation were quickly forgotten. Adella stayed in Yates County, and William Jr. grew up there. The son of the national hero married, became a successful farmer and vineyardist, served as Torrey town supervisor, and lived on the road that bears his family name.

In December 1942, the Navy remembered Anthony by launching the USS Anthony, a destroyer named in honor of the hero from the Maine. William Jr.’s daughters – Alice, a freshman at Keuka College, and Frances, a student at Penn Yan Academy – christened the ship bearing their grandfather’s name. In World War II, the destroyer saw action against the Japanese in the Philippines.

Interestingly, while William Jr. is buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Dresden – not too far from where Anthony Road enters the village – Anthony is buried in The Evergreens Cemetery in Brooklyn. Yates County continues to remember this non-resident who became a national hero.

[yatescountyhistorycenter]

A father to the fatherless: Ray Travis reprised

By Jonathan Monfiletto

(An article similar to this one appeared on this Oliver's Travels blog in October 2022. However, at that time, I had only browsed the Yates County History Center's subject file on Ray Travis - containing newspaper articles and other documents - in order to write that article. Because of a recent research inquiry, I felt the impetus to browse our Ray Travis archival collection - containing his personal papers and letters - and write another article about this amazing man and his life and work).

Ray Travis never married nor had children, but it is said more than a million descendants can credit their existence to him. Not his direct descendants, of course, but instead the descendants of the more than a thousand Armenian children he – termed as “The humanitarian of Himrod” in a June 2016 article in The Chronicle-Express – helped protect and defend in Turkey in the aftermath of World War I.

The humanitarian of Himrod, however, was not a native of Yates County. Ray Paris Travis was born August 9, 1889 in Ionia, Michigan to Silas and Cynthia Lyford Travis, who had moved to Michigan from Yates County. When Travis was 3 years old, the family moved back to Himrod, where Travis and his two brothers, Jay and Claude, and his sister, Fanny, grew up on their father’s farm on Chubb Hollow Road. After graduating from Penn Yan Academy, Keuka Institute, and the Penn Yan Teachers Training Class, Travis began teaching in a rural schoolhouse in Himrod in September 1907 and taught school until June 1917.

At that point, although he was nearly 28 years old and well above the required age of conscription, Travis felt the call to serve his country and enlisted in the U.S. Army during World War I. He served in the quartermaster corps with Company D, 502nd Engineers at Engineers Camp, Base Hospital No. 8 in France. Serving from September 1917 until July 1919, Travis reached the rank of sergeant.

Following the war, Travis sought his discharge so he could support relief efforts in Europe and the Middle East through the YMCA and the U.S. Food Administration Grain Corporation. By November 1919, he became the director of an orphanage run by Near East Relief in Aintab, Turkey (now known as Gaziantep, the capital of Gaziantep Province and the most populous city in Turkey’s Southeastern Anatolia Region), using his experience as a teacher.

During World War I, the Ottoman Empire – which, until the end of the war, controlled Turkey as well as parts of Eastern Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East – had deported its minority Armenian population and committed a genocide against this group of people. After the war, as Travis took the helm of the orphanage, Armenians began returning to their native land, including orphaned children who had survived the genocide. Travis’ task as headmaster was to take care of these children and provide for their needs.

That task proved difficult. In early 1920, Turkish nationalist forces attacked Cilicia – then an autonomous Armenian republic occupied by the French military – and laid siege to several cities. In the YCHC collection are typewritten extracts from the diary of a YMCA Secretary Crathern detailing the siege of Marash from January 20 to February 14, 1920 and a diary – both typewritten and handwritten – from Travis covering the siege of Aintab from April 1 to May 30, 1920. Indeed, heavy fighting between Turkish nationalists and local Armenians, who organized their own self-defense forces when French troops left the city, broke out on April 1 and lasted until June with a brief ceasefire in between.

“This will give you an idea of what happened in Marash last winter when from 8,000 to 10,000 Armenians were massacred. And all this when French soldiers were supposed to be there for their protection! My diary of the Aintab trouble I will send soon,” Travis wrote to an unknown addressee on September 7, 1920 at the end of one copy of Crathern’s diary.

During the fighting, Travis used his military knowledge to barricade and fortify the orphanage and used his position to secure rifles, ammunition, and grenades from a French army base to defend the orphanage. He welcomed all Armenians who sought refuge inside the orphanage’s compound, and he moved children from another orphanage, located in the city’s Turkish neighborhood, to an American hospital in the Armenian neighborhood.

When the French military left Aintab on June 2, Travis and approximately 800 orphans of Near East Relief followed them on a journey that eventually led them to Beirut, Syria (whose territory then included Lebanon). Traveling by foot, truck, and train and staying in tents, a cave, and a ruined building, Travis, the teachers, and the children established a new Near East Relief orphanage in Jubeil, north of Beirut.

One of the children who came under Travis’ care in Aintab and trekked with him to Beirut was Karnig Panian, who captured his story as an Armenian orphan in his memoir, “Goodbye, Antoura.” Parnian recalled Travis as both a fierce protector and kind provider of the children.

“He had a bright smile, blond hair, and penetrating eyes, and when he walked, it was as if the earth shook beneath his feet. But this giant of a man had a soft, gentle soul. He would chat with us, crack jokes, and take part in our games. He loved us with all his heart, and he soon gained our confidence and friendship, becoming a surrogate father to all,” Parnian wrote. “During the day, he was almost always with us. At night, he looked into our bedrooms, covering the boys who had kicked off their blankets in their sleep. He often appeared in our classrooms, and he made sure we were clean and well groomed. He even tasted all of the food before it was served to us, ensuring that it was up to his standards.”

Once secure in Jubeil, Travis worked with the American University of Beirut to help the children under his care obtain a college education. He left his work with Near East Relief in the spring of 1925 – apparently amid the closure of the orphanage in Jubeil – and returned to America. He apparently tried to secure a teaching position, according to his papers, but instead found a position as an inspector with the Immigration and Naturalization Service, then under the U.S. Department of Labor and later the Department of Justice.

Stationed in Texas and Arizona in the start of his career, Travis sought a transfer to Niagara Falls to be closer to his family in Himrod – particularly his elderly parents – and later worked in Buffalo and Syracuse as well. He seemed to bring his stern but kind, serious yet caring, approach from his relief work to his immigration career. His papers include notes of appreciation for his efforts to help immigrants obtain their American citizenship and begin a new life.

On a special assignment, Travis was sent to the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, North Carolina, when German, Italian, and Japanese diplomats in America were detained during World War II. He subsequently received a thank you letter from the group of diplomats who stayed there. “During this period, your tireless efforts to alleviate our anxieties has touched us all profoundly. In spite of your official capacity, which held you within certain limits, we all felt that we had your wholehearted support, and your extreme kindness permitted us to approach you as a friend,” reads the letter, dated June 10, 1942.

During his immigration career, Travis visited his family in Himrod on the weekends, helping out with groceries during the Great Depression and once bringing new bicycles for the children for Christmas. After his retirement in 1954, Ray moved back to Himrod to care for his sister, who was widowed and blind. Ray died on September 21, 1965 at age 76 and is buried with his parents, siblings, and their families in Lakeview Cemetery in Penn Yan.

A Hometown Hero banner, installed by Johnston-Costello American Legion Post 355, honoring Travis and his World War I service recently went up on East Main Street in Penn Yan. While recognizing Travis’ military service, perhaps it also pays tribute to his service to the Armenian children, new immigrants to America, and many other people he encountered.

In the article in The Chronicle-Express, John Christensen conveyed Travis’ legacy this way: “Never having married and never having children, Ray Travis might have easily slipped away unremembered as those who know him pass on. But that is not true. … Ray Travis did have children, thousands of them, and all of them boys. And those children’s children owe their very lives to his life and the devotion he showed all those orphaned boys nearly a century ago.”

[yatescountyhistorycenter]

Are we there yet?

By C.J. Hartman Thompson

(The following article originally appeared in Bluff & Vine, a literary review featuring work created in and around the Finger Lakes region of New York State, and is published here with the permission of the magazine. This article also appeared in three parts in Yates Past, the bi-monthly newsletter of the Yates County History Center).

I vividly recall growing up in the 1960s and ’70s, as if it were yesterday. Two of my younger siblings, our parents, and me, sitting upon red padded chairs, separated as if by seniority around the outskirts of our chrome-legged Formica top table. There, as with most nights before, we conversed over our day’s events, with my mother monitoring our consumption, occasionally reminding us three kids, “Children in China would be grateful to have half the food we had on our plates!” This, a likely response to me chasing nasty whole beets about on my plate with a fork, while my sister pretended she liked the venison steak that she would eventually conceal in her napkin and later place in the trash. My brother, forever innocent, and the youngest at the time, would proclaim that my sister and I were staring at him, knowing full well that it would get us in trouble again.

We were all expected to clean our plates and leave the kitchen spotless or forfeit going for our nightly ride out on Bluff Point. Exiting our home toward the driveway, as if in response to the slam of our screen door, I recall yelling, “I have the middle,” as we piled into our 1972 green Pontiac Catalina in reckless abandon, absent of all regard for the use of seatbelts. None of us wanted to sit behind our father, because when he smoked his pipe, he would periodically empty it against his outside driver’s door handle, sending the ashes back into the rear window. Adorned with his corn-cob pipe, our father preferred a tobacco named Sir Walter Raleigh,  which came in a variety of red and black tins. Back then, there wasn’t any consideration given to children purchasing tobacco products, and so I remember biking to either Loblaws or Charles Bollen’s Super Duper to purchase tobacco, filters, or pipe cleaners for Dad. Our dad, having grown up on Pepper Road, could tell you about every nook and cranny on Bluff Point there was to know. My siblings and I never knew where we would end up on these nightly adventures, as we called them.

We would leave our home on the lower West Lake Road, which was behind Race’s Willowhurst Garage. Our grandfather Alton owned and operated the garage after being discharged from the Army, having served in World War II. We would head south to Keuka Park, and on the lake side going toward Keuka Park, Dad and Mom told us that this larger red brick building in Brandy Bay was once the electric generating plant for the Penn Yan, Keuka Park and Branchport Railroad. One of our great-grandfathers, Ray Kenyon, had been a conductor on one of the trolley cars.

Brandy Bay had been the hot spot back in the day, as just behind the tracks, closer to the lake, there had been a place called Electric Park, where folks would spend summer evenings listening to music and dancing in a community pavilion. Our parents were quick to mention that the railroad and Electric Park were way before their time, certain that the passenger service had stopped in 1927, while the railroad continued to transport freight for some years afterward.

In the early ’60s, the lower West Lake Road ran directly from Indian Pines to the Brandy Bay trolley stop, passing scattered family-owned cottages along the way. Remnants of the original track lie east of today’s Central Avenue, which wouldn’t be constructed until many years later. Minutes from Brandy Bay, we would be at the stop sign with the main entrance of Keuka College on our left. Ball Hall, Hegeman Hall, and Harrington Hall looked very impressive to all of us. An all-female college at the time, Keuka College became co-ed in 1985. Both my sister and I agreed that we would attend there following our graduation from high school, and the college would later graduate five members of our immediate families.

Turning right after stopping, our parents, pointing left, acknowledged the location of a general store and café owned by the Johnson family close to where the former Keuka Park Fire Department building stands, now a storage facility for Keuka College. A gazebo has been constructed nearby, a gift from a Keuka College alumni. Further up the road on the right was the community center, which is now the location for the Branchport and Keuka Park Fire Department. By this point in the ride and yet only minutes from home, one of us kids would ask, “Are we there yet?” to which Dad likely replied, “Pipe down, sit back, and enjoy the ride.”

Once out of Keuka Park, we headed southwest up Skyline Drive, where we were encouraged to look for deer, be they in a field or hedgerow, coming to a stop the moment any of us saw one. I kid you not, it wasn’t out of the norm to spot herds in excess of 60 deer milling about the fields of the bluff near dusk. If the deer were standing close to the road, Dad, placing two fingers in his mouth, would send a loud whistle their way, scaring them back into the impenetrable woods. In truth, I think he enjoyed watching them hop and dart back to the safety of the trees, while telling us how the motion of their tails would signal to the other deer in the herd if danger were nearby. I laugh now as I could not tell you the number of times we would stop, each of us pondering, “Are we there yet?”

The Herrick Cemetery, an old cemetery associated with the Bluff Point community, is soon pointed out to us, as our fourth-great grandparents, Elisha and Charlotte “Latchie” Knickerbocker Kenyon are both buried there. The cemetery itself sits back maybe 50 yards from Skyline Drive and looks majestic, as it sits higher than the fields surrounding it. I have in recent years gone there and walked around. Numerous markers made from old limestone have either toppled over or are not even marked. Elisha and Charlotte’s markers looked to have been repaired. It is a beautiful and tranquil spot, as one can overlook the valley, the rolling hills, and surrounding vineyards. Now the trees, once saplings 60 years ago, are large deciduous trees with the exception of a lonesome pine, all offering shade to those who rest in peace beneath them.

This particular day had been a hot one, and thankfully it was slowly cooling down. The evening sun was hesitant to disappear, and from our vantage point it looked to be like a red orange balloon in the sky way off in the distance. We knew tomorrow would also be another sweltering day. The smell of Coppertone Sun-tan Lotion, applied earlier in the day, still lingered, having been outside all day. Still near the cemetery, Dad might then point out the Pinnacle, which is about the same elevation of 1,400 feet above sea level as Bluff Point. The Pinnacle is a peak that overlooks Bluff Point and Branchport.

The Esperanza Mansion, in the distance, was perfectly placed close to the tip of the Pinnacle and was completed in July of 1838 by John Nicholas Rose, a wealthy farmer from Virginia. Upon further research, the Roses for the most part had many of the early indigenous people known to inhabit Bluff Point along with a retinue of enslaved people provide much of the labor in construction of the mansion. It is believed that they transported the limestone from near the end of the Bluff by canoe to the shores currently in care of Keuka Lake State Park. The limestone provided necessary support in the construction of its 11- to 14-inch thick walls, complete with internal shutters to cover the windows, given the potential for rogue arrows to be directed at them.

Unbeknownst to me, the Esperanza Mansion was also part of the Underground Railroad during the Civil War. Mind you, as kids, Dad was simply pointing to a huge hill beyond the cemetery that had a huge house on it. We were impatient of course to get to wherever Dad was taking us. Even with all windows down, just sitting next to one another we were weary of the heat and our knees and elbows bumping into one another for what we thought had been a monumental amount of time. One of us again asked, “Are we there yet?” Mom turned around and gave us the look as if to say, you best not ask that again.

Further up the road from the cemetery, we take a right turn at the “V” intersection, remaining on Skyline Drive. Should one choose the road to the left, you are on Vine Road. At this junction stands a small house, formerly a two-room schoolhouse my father attended. With additional research, I found the original structure was built in 1860 for $395. Its location was known as Jerusalem District No. 4, Fingar District. Several improvements were made between 1861 and 1903; a coal stove replaced the wood-burning unit, walls were plastered, a wire fence was built, new student seats, an entrance hall was added, new floor installed, and shade trees were planted in 1903. The salary for one teacher for the winter and summer terms was $5 per week.

My siblings and I were astonished to think that the little house could be a school and that Dad had to walk to school with his siblings. Dad smirks when he tells us that he along with some of his buddies would tip over the outhouse when other students were in there. Though the distance seemed like miles to us, it was less than a half-mile from his Pepper Road home, absent concern for the weather. My siblings and I make eye contact across the large backseat, grateful to hop on a bus only minutes away from our home, transported to a larger school complete with running water and plumbing.

Still on Skyline Drive, we have now gone by the northwest entrance to Scott Road, as we still call it today. There is a house that looks to be half in the ground on the left. Mom mentions the property the house now resides upon was once left to my dad’s mother when her father had passed away, and for whatever reason, my grandparents relinquished their ownership, though the cost of additional taxes may have been motivation at the time.

If we were lucky, some nights we would see the occasional flock of turkeys trot across the road, as they like to roost just before sunset. Tempted by the possibility of an ice cream cone from Seneca Farms, we were all encouraged to increase our focus out the windows, in search of wildlife running amuck. We were rubbernecking, as competition grew to spot the next animal or feathered friend.

Just down the road a piece is the John Hall Road, which was and still is a dead end. The only things we could see from Skyline Drive were a huge barn and a house down over the hill surrounded by vineyards that looked as though they may well go all the way to the lake. Our ride proved to be more interesting and fun the further we went out on the bluff.

Arriving upon yet another old schoolhouse, which I have researched as being District No. 5, the Kenyon District, Scott Settlement District, Bluff Point District. This schoolhouse is located near the southern entrance of the Scott Road and Skyline Drive intersection. Today, the most recent owner of the schoolhouse has taken the roof off of the building and placed a huge telescope in its place, making it the perfect spot for an observatory.

Fewer houses embellish our views out of the Pontiac, as we make our way to the end of the bluff, soon approaching the home of Marland (Dutch) Griffith and his wife, Izzy (Isabelle Walrath) on the left.

They were both dear friends of our parents. I believe Dutch and Izzy owned around 210 acres out on the bluff, which had two houses and multiple outbuildings. One of the homes, not visible from the road, was in fact Dutch’s childhood home, complete with a working hand-pump above its dug well and a three-holed outhouse east of the dwelling. A large red barn to the south stored his wooden bobsleds and countless wooden beer lugs used to harvest grapes by hand, prior to modern convenience.

The house visible from Skyline Drive also had a pole barn where firewood, tractors, and implements were stored, while a wood framed hangar lay tucked away in the corner of a hardwoods, secreting Dutch’s single-engine plane, complete with canvas wings and but one seat.

An avid private pilot, Dutch was a member of the Penn Yan Flying Club, having earned his license by bicycling once a week to Penn Yan and back in his teens. Our mom, more curious than our father, once went for a brief ride in the plane. She recalls sitting upon a turned over 5-gallon bucket for a seat.

Before takeoff, Mom recalls asking Dutch if the door handle was secure enough. There was what looked to be a water hose going out onto the upper edge of the windshield from within the plane, transferring fuel to the engine. Dutch took Mom as far as Bath and back, she having a death grip on Dutch’s shoulder during the flight’s entirety. Liking the ride, she was no less happy to be back on the ground, and still the three of us begged to ask, "Are we there yet?”

The Scott family lived across from Dutch and Izzy, while the Disbrow family home and property lay to the south and east side of Skyline drive, separated by a vineyard retained by the Scotts. The Disbrow family still owns much of the land on both sides of Skyline Drive, running all the way to the Garrett property on the east side of Skyline Drive but ending somewhat sooner on the west side.

Mom excitedly tells us when Dad and she were first dating they walked down over the hill near Disbrows and carved their initials into a tree. The slanting rays of the setting sun gave the surrounding landscape a stunning panoramic view. We felt as though we were on top of the world. One could see only the tops of other hills, Barrington to the east and Pulteney to the west. We could see deer everywhere in the fields on both sides of the road.

We pulled over on the east side near the little old stone spring house that still today feeds water to the Garrett Chapel. We all got out to stretch our legs and gazed in the direction of the Wagener Mansion, built by Abraham Wagener in 1833 on the southern tip of Bluff Point. Dad mentioned the stones used to build the foundation of the mansion were rumored to have come from the early indigenous ruins on Bluff Point. The mansion is not only intimidating by its size, but the grounds around the residence were well taken care of.

Dad was like an encyclopedia, full of information that he wanted to share with us. He then mentions our great-grandfather, Ray Kenyon, had been the manager of Paul Garrett’s vineyards for a time. Dad, along with his father and brother, all worked for the Garrett family, tending to their vineyards and fields, often using work horses to complete many tasks up and over the steep terrain, better suited to billy goats.

In writing this story, I interviewed my brother, who spent countless hours hunting with our dad on the bluff. I inquired as to whether I had forgotten any significant locations we may have heard tell of during the course of our rides, and he had several: Besides knowing the whereabouts of abandoned wells of grave importance to hunters, he mentioned places like the Hogpen, the Hole, and the Hairpin. The latter two, still visible on Google Earth, each name assigned to trails forged for farming or logging, all located on the west side of Skyline Drive.

Conversation momentarily turns to ice cream, and the debate ensues as to who wants what, with many, “I changed my minds,” in between. Both Dad and Mom settle on splitting a banana split. Returning North on Skyline Drive, Dad decided to take the first left going down Pepper Road.

I have found in old articles that Pepper Road had also been called Pepperville Road. The property immediately on the west side of the road had once belonged to the Pepper family. John William Pepper and Ruth Annie Kirk had immigrated from Leicestershire, England. They raised their family on Bluff Point. Dad went into great detail describing how the farm was huge, with a great big white farmhouse and a barn. He had never been in the house but was told by other Pepper family members that there had been a wood kitchen stove, and water needed for the kitchen was brought up by the pail from a pump down the hill in the gully. There was also an outhouse.

They owned several animals: cows, horses to pull the plow, rabbits, chickens, and pigs. Best known for their Concord grape vineyards, they also had assorted apple, cherry, and pear trees as well as black and red raspberries and strawberries. This property is now part of Keuka Lake State Park. Sadly, the Pepper home perished in a fire.

Our ride down Pepper Road continued, and we only had to cross over West Bluff Drive, which was perpendicular to Skyline Drive. This next property belonged to Herb Valentine; he owned around 114 acres, with his property adjoining the Gridley property. Both Pepper and Valentine properties went down the hill from Skyline Drive to Keuka Lake.

Dad and his father had been out hunting deer on a cold December morning when they heard cries for help coming from the Herb Valentine property. They found Herb lying on the ground near the wood pile. He had gone out to get wood for his stove the night before and fallen. Unable to get up, he had laid there overnight. Thankfully, Mr. Valentine didn’t suffer any great harm.

The Finger Lakes State Park, as it was known then, filed notice of acquisition and transfer of deeds, dated November of 1961 after the death of Herb Valentine. The Pepper and Valentine property totaled close to 500 acres.

I remember Dad parking the car at the top of West Bluff Drive in the winter, as the road was and still isn’t plowed in the winter. My parents, my siblings, and I would trudge through the snow part way down West Bluff Drive with our sleds in tow. We would be exhausted just going sledding down the hill two or three times.

[yatescountyhistorycenter]

Potter Swamp: From bird haven to farming center

By Jonathan Monfiletto

Throughout the 20th century, Potter Swamp was seen as either a haven for birds and other wildlife or a center for agriculture and industry or both, depending on one’s perspective. This 8-mile-long stretch of Flint Creek between Potter and Gorham – measuring one mile across at its widest and totaling 4,000 acres of land – has been known just as much for the diverse array of flora and fauna that could be found there as for the bountiful variety of vegetables and other crops that are grown there.

Nowadays, much of the swamp has been drained to become muck fields for farming and growing root crops such as onions, potatoes, and carrots as well as corn. According to an April 2007 article in The Observer of Dundee, eight producers owned and operated 1,500 acres of the muck fields in Potter – the site of the only muck fields in Yates County, with Wayne County to the north and Orange County downstate listed as other major muck fields in in New York State. Potter is so proud of its muck fields and the crops they produce that Franjo Farms, a prominent onion producer in the town, sponsored the Potter Onion Festival for several years both to celebrate the vegetable and to raise funds for the town’s park.

To create the muck fields, a canal-like drainage system – with tiles placed three to four feet underground – moves the water from the swamp into main lines that connect to cisterns, which carry the water into a drainage ditch and eventually into Flint Creek, which flows into Lake Ontario. Left behind is muck – “loose, light, and wet, closer in composition to peat moss than conventionally used soil,” the Observer article states. This kind of ground is suitable for growing the root vegetables that Potter is now known for.

While the largest and perhaps best known drainage project in Potter Swamp took place in the late 1940s, just after the end of World War II, it wasn’t the first time drainage was undertaken or at least discussed in the swamp. In January 1905, the Penn Yan Express carried a report from the Geneva Daily Times that a company that had leased land around the swamp for timbering discovered a peat bog in the swamp. As a result, the company then planned to drain the swamp and harvest the peat to market it – black peat for fuel and red peat for florists.

Five years later, the Yates County Chronicle reported that a group from Boston sought to purchase land in the swamp to mine the large deposits of marl within the swamp. The clay-like marl could be used to make cement, and the Portland Cement Company set up shop in the area. According to another report from the Chronicle, once word got around about the men seeking to buy property in the swamp, the price for land rose from $5 an acre to $35 an acre.

Another time, in November 1915, the Penn Yan Democrat reported Yates County Sheriff Bates planned to experiment in growing cranberries in the swamp upon his retirement a few months later. The climate and soil of the swamp apparently seemed fit for raising the perennial crop. This endeavor aside, and despite previous reports that the swamp could not be used for agriculture, the first attempt to farm the muck land appears to have been Frank Wyman and Peter Lackner’s truck garden on 25 acres.

In November 1921, the Dundee Observer reported the two men planted celery, head lettuce, carrots, and other vegetables and harvested 1,000 crates of lettuce – with approximately two dozen heads per crate – and anticipated harvesting 1,000 crates of celery – with about 80 to 100 heads per crate. Four years later, Wyman Gardens Inc. – as the company came to be called – shipped 40 carloads of vegetables from 55 acres of land the truck garden then comprised.

Against the backdrop of these projects, newspapers over the years carried coverage of the wildlife that could be found throughout Potter Swamp in the first half of the 20th century. This coverage included articles written by Verdi Burtch, Yates County’s resident ornithologist, on the bird species that he and others spotted in the swamp. Professors and students from Hobart & William Smith Colleges in Geneva made an annual trek to the swamp to enumerate the bird species and examine the other fauna and flora found in the area. In May 1922, Burtch wrote that his group during the trek saw 73 species of birds, while a group led by Dr. Eaton and Dr. Burgess found an additional 30 species – for a total of 103 different types of birds located that day. The following year, the Rushville Chronicle & Gorham New Age and the Dundee Observer both reported on wildcat sightings – perhaps bobcats or lynxes or a similar species – in the area around the swamp, with residents concerned about the wellbeing of their children, their pets, and their farm animals.

A July 1919 article about Flint Creek in the Express states Potter Swamp “once abounded in beavers, muskrats, and minks” and was also home to rare plants not found elsewhere in the region. Several years later, in June 1926, A. Flag Robson wrote an article for The Chronicle-Express titled “Canoe Trip in Potter Swamp,” in which he described the different animals and plants he saw in the wilderness during a group canoe trip through the swamp.

The 1930s witnessed an effort to turn Potter Swamp into a bird refuge, as the federal government sought to locate such a sanctuary somewhere in western New York. Oak Orchard in Orleans County and Montezuma Swamp in Seneca County were two other sites the government eyed. The bird species that once frequented the swamp were then rarely seen because much of the timber had been cut down, so the thinking was a refuge would help the birds and other wildlife of the swamp to thrive and increase if the wilderness were protected and preserved. The Lake Keuka chapter of the Izaak Walton League, the Penn Yan Chamber of Commerce, and local American Legion posts were among the groups advocating for a bird refuge in Potter Swamp.

For whatever reason, Potter Swamp lost out on the contest for a bird refuge, as the federal government chose Montezuma Swamp and established the Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge on the northern end of Cayuga Lake. Thus, in 1945, two Prattsburgh men – Barre C. Wood and E. Vincent DeZetter, described as a farm implement and produce dealer – purchased many acres of land in Potter Swamp and several properties, including Wyman Gardens. The men began working on a plan to develop the area by draining the swamp and converting it into muck land for agricultural purposes and expected to yield 2,500 acres of tillable land.

However, their plan met opposition from conservation-mind groups in the region – the Izaak Walton League as well as the Keuka Park Conservation Club, the Eaton Bird Club of Geneva, the Geneva Rod and Gun Club, and similar organizations, who still hoped to turn the swamp into a wildlife refuge to protect the birds and mammals that made habitats out of the land. On the other hand, the Yates County Board of Supervisors, the Town of Potter, and the Rushville Grange – representing residents of Potter and Gorham – were among the entities that voiced support for the drainage project because of the economic benefits to local agriculture and industry.

The work to drain Potter Swamp began in January 1946, with power equipment widening and deepening Flint Creek to draw water out of the muck. Previously, crews cut down trees in the swamp to make way for the equipment. Once the water drained enough for the ground to be firm enough to walk on, other crews began clearing the land to prepare it for cultivation. By that spring, 100 acres of muck had been planted with lettuce, onions, and carrots. Losing out on their attempt to stop the drainage project and protect Potter Swamp, the Yates County Federation of Conservation Clubs petitioned the New York State Conservation Department to declare an open season on beaver in the swamp so sportsmen could harvest the valuable hides that were otherwise being sacrificed during the clearing.

Four years after the drainage project began, 500 acres of the muck land DeVetter and Wood had developed was being cropped. On this land, Carl Hey remarked, he used to trap muskrats, and now he was raising onions. In fact, he was raising a bumper crop; Hey’s 10 acres of onions were producing 1,000 bushels to the acre. With his son, Kenneth, and Kenneth’s friend David Eames working after school, Hey farmed a total of between 35 and 40 acres of muck land and planted onions, potatoes, and carrots. They used such special equipment as a potato digger and an onion topper.

Three years later, and seven years after Potter Swamp was drained, muck farmer Wilson Damboise and contractor O’Neil Roy filled 31,000 50-pound bags of onions on 38 acres of muck land – a rate of 600 bushels to the acre. Fifty thousand crates of onions were to be stored in the 200-foot-long warehouse the men had built specifically to house their vegetables and those of neighboring farmers. In 1956, demand was down for the onions, potatoes, and carrots grown in the muck land, so the men decided to put up a warehouse to keep their abundance and await better prices.

According an article in the June 28, 1963 edition of The Chronicle-Express – information repeated verbatim in The Chronicle-Express of July 4, 1968 and again in the 1987 summer edition of The Chronicle-Express – Potter Swamp “is still a bird-watcher’s dream, despite the fact that about half of the some 4,000 acres of muckland have been drained and cleared for crop production,” and more than 200 species of birds had been found at one time. So, nearly 80 years after the Potter Swamp was drained for agriculture, it continues to be a paradise for both bird watchers and farmers.

[yatescountyhistorycenter]

The lost village street of Penn Yan

By Jonathan Monfiletto

From the site of a planing mill that produced grape baskets, caskets, and furniture to a short existence as an even shorter Penn Yan village street to a private driveway for a private residence – in a nutshell, that is the story of Hopkins Place.

You probably wouldn’t know it now by looking at the Penn Yan Public Library building, but once upon a time there was a street on the south side of the library – created when the library was built in 1905 – from which sprang a lively neighborhood in the first half of the 20th century. Before the library’s construction, though, the site was not any less lively, as it was the location of the Hopkins brothers’ works.

Elisha G. Hopkins was born in Whitestown, Oneida County, but came to Penn Yan as an adult and established his business along Main Street in 1828 on a parcel near the intersection with Chapel Street. The factory started out manufacturing cabinets and chairs and later produced grape baskets and then caskets for the Hopkins undertaking business.

Hopkins’ sons, Fletcher and Edward, succeeded their father at the helm of the business in 1868, just three years before Elisha died. At age 78, the elder Hopkins apparently died while working at the planing mill in 1871. In 1884, the brothers removed the old shop their father built and erected a new office and warehouse for the undertaking business, with the planing mill and lumber storage at the back of the shop.

Indeed, the 1886 Sanborn map of Penn Yan labels the parcel as the “Hopkins Bro’s Coffin Fac.” and depicts a frame building labeled “undertaker” on Main Street with a larger wooden building – labeled as containing woodworking on the first floor and storage on the second floor, with a stone addition – behind it. A frame dwelling adjacent to the undertaking building on the south side was the home of Elisha Hopkins’ widow until her death in 1894.

Edward Hopkins tore down the home in 1900 and replaced it with the current home, presently addressed as 210 Main Street. In 1903, the undertaking business was sold to the Corcoran brothers, and the planing mill was torn down. In 1904, the site of the undertaking building was chosen as the location for the public library – which steel magnate Andrew Carnegie had agreed to finance the year before – as the community banded together purchase the property and donate it for the library.

During the library’s construction, the undertaking building was moved to the rear of the property and renovated into a home that became addressed as 5 Hopkins Place. Two more homes were built behind the library to create a neighborhood on a street called Hopkins Place. The 1909 Sanborn map of Penn Yan shows the three homes behind the library but not the street; the 1922 Sanborn map appears to be the first to depict Hopkins Place.

All in a line behind the library, the homes were initially addressed as 1, 2, and 3 Hopkins Place, but later the addressed were changed to all odd numbers so the homes became 1, 3, and 5 Hopkins Place. All that remained of the Hopkins brothers’ property was a carpenter shop and a carriage house, but those were torn down in the 1930s to make room for a three-car garage at No. 5.

With the public library opened in 1905, the first newspaper reference to Hopkins Place as a village street comes from the Penn Yan Express of April 22, 1914 with a notice of a meeting of the Flower Committee of Penn Yan First Baptist Church at Mrs. Milton Rapalee’s home on Hopkins Place. The following year, the Loyalty Class of Penn Yan Presbyterian Church held its social and business meeting at Mrs. Clarence Messenger’s home on Hopkins Place. Another time, later in 1915, the Loyalty Class met at Mrs. William Snyder’s home, also on Hopkins Place; yet another time, in 1920, the Loyalty Class gathered on Hopkins Place at the home of Mrs. Titus.

Later on in the 1920s, Mrs. Lucy Price hosted a gathering of the Foreign Missionary Society of Penn Yan Methodist Episcopal Church at her home on Hopkins Place. Mrs. Price hosted several more meetings of the Foreign Missionary Society over the years, and meetings of the Dickens Club also took place in her home. The social and personal sections of the newspapers are sprinkled with references to the happenings on Hopkins Place – who was eating dinner with whom, who was going where on vacation, who was moving to and from the street, and other comings and goings of the people.

In a roundup of the village Christmas decorations in The Chronicle-Express of December 26, 1929, Hopkins Places was highlighted as “among the shorter thoroughfares which are gaily attired for the holidays.” The Dickens Club and the Foreign Missionary Society continued to meet at Mrs. Price’s house during the 1930s, and the Ladies Aid Society from the Methodist Episcopal Church met at Miss Ada Smith’s home on Hopkins Place in 1936.

In the 1940s, two sons from Hopkins Place went overseas for military service during World War II. In February 1940 – before America officially entered the war – 20-year-old Harold Jensen sailed to Hawaii aboard the USS Republic to be stationed at Hickam Field with the Army Air Corps. December 1940 found Fred Goundrey at Fort Jackson in Columbia, South Carolina with the Army. Jensen was a witness to the Japanese attack on the Pearl Harbor naval base near Hickam Field. Meanwhile, Goundrey, 28 years old, was killed in action in France on July 17, 1944. 1959, another Hopkins Place resident and fellow service member, Barbara Hoose, joined the Women’s Army Corps.

In 1971, the Penn Yan Pubic Library purchased the homes behind its building in order to demolish them and install a parking lot. At that point, Hopkins Place changed from a residential street to an entryway to the library. In December 1974, the Penn Yan village board announced a public hearing set for the following month to consider discontinuing maintenance on Hopkins Place, which had never been officially dedicated to the village. The library board, however, asked the village to continue maintaining the street since village residents use it to access the library. In April 1975, the library conveyed a strip of its property to the village so the village could widen the street and maintain it.

According to The Chronicle-Express of February 1, 1989, the village board once again set a public hearing to consider discontinuing Hopkins Place, calling it “a village-owned street that is no longer in use” and in fact was blocked off by two adjoining property owners. The village board appears to have succeeded in discontinuing Hopkins Place this time around, as this is the last mention of Hopkins Place in the newspapers and Hopkins Place is no longer a village street nowadays. What once was a village street is now the driveway for the home next door to the library on its south side, where the Hopkins family once lived.

[yatescountyhistorycenter]

The Carnegie hall of Penn Yan

By Jonathan Monfiletto

The philanthropic efforts of steel magnate Andrew Carnegie led to the construction of 1,687 public libraries in the United States of America between 1883 and 1929. Of these libraries, 41 were built in New York State outside of New York City – and 27 of them still operate as public libraries.

Of those libraries, only one is located in the Finger Lakes region – and it stands on Main Street in Penn Yan, within the historic district and just outside of downtown. With a $10,000 grant that Carnegie offered to the community in 1903, the Penn Yan Public Library went up on property that originally contained the Hopkins brothers’ furniture and coffin factory, and the library officially opened in June 1905.

However, efforts to establish a public library in Penn Yan precede the actual building by at least two decades. The Penn Yan Library Club formed in December 1884 with a goal of raising money and purchasing books. The members of the club, as listed in a “History in the News” article by Frank Swan in April 1960, constitute a “who’s who” of the Penn Yan community in the late 19th century. Library Club members would each have a book for two weeks starting on a Saturday, and at the end of that period on a Saturday, they would pass their book on to the next member in line according to a circulating list.

Starting with 26 members, “It was from this club that the inspiration for the Penn Yan Public Library developed and its members who gave the project its necessary impetus,” Swann wrote. The club even hosted fundraisers toward “the avowed purpose of eventually securing for the village the good which would arise from a public library,” a 1957 newspaper article states. This included the Grand Kirmess event at the Sheppard Opera House in February 1898.

Yet, the Penn Yan community’s literary and library interests date back nearly half a century before the Library Club organized and set its sights toward a public library building. According to an unidentified and undated newspaper article from the YCHC subject files – apparently written before the building’s construction, since it states, “Yates county has no library yet,” – the first incorporated association in Yates County, receiving a certificate of incorporation filed in the county clerk’s office, was the Yates County Library Association. The certificate refers to a meeting of 20 people on March 14, 1837. While no more details about the association are given, its trustees comprise another “who’s who” list of Penn Yan.

The Washington Association began by January 1833 as a literary society among the younger businessmen of the village for the purpose of bringing lecturers to Penn Yan to speak on some of the important subjects of the day. The record of its first meeting dates to 1840, so it is believed to have formed seven years before. Some of the speakers who visited the village through the association include Wendell Phillips, Ralph Waldo Emerson, James Russell Lowell, and Horace Greeley. The Washington Association incorporated in 1842 to conduct a public library as well as host literary and scientific lectures, but it seems to have fizzled out as a group by 1857.

When Penn Yan Academy opened in 1859, the principal doubled as the librarian, though that responsibility was later given a faculty member to combine with their teaching duties. However, circulation of the books was limited to the students of the school. According to Swann’s article, a gathering in November 1869 proposed a public library and named managers of such an organization, but nothing substantial seems to have come from that effort.

Penn Yan finally received its own public library in 1895 when the Board of Education allowed members of the Library Club to act as trustees of the Penn Yan Academy library and thus placed the Academy’s 1,400 books into public hands. According to an unidentified typewritten page from the subject files, the Academy library “became the nucleus of a collection,” in July 1895, “and book clubs, individuals and purchases from funds appropriated added to the collection.” At an annual meeting, the Board appropriated $200 for the public library. The public library received a charter on November 21, 1895, and Henrietta Hicks Kimball served as the unpaid librarian until January 1906. Until the library building opened in June 1905, the public library used quarters in the Academy and then – when old Academy was torn down and the “new” Academy built – in the Penn Yan Presbyterian Church, with a little more than 4,000 books moved to the annex of the church in August 1904.

On January 6, 1903, Carnegie offered Penn Yan $10,000 for a library building as long as a suitable site could be provided and $1,000 per year raised to support the library. According to a webpage for the Digital Public Library of America, towns would send requests for funding to Carnegie, and the philanthropist’s gifts were in high demand since few public libraries had dedicated spaces of their own. “Rather than endowing libraries, Carnegie required each town to contribute 10 percent of the annual funding to its library, supply its own building site, and provide free service to the public,” the DPLA states. A newspaper article marking the 70th anniversary of the library’s organizing and chartering notes Hatley K. Armstrong, the first president of the library, wrote to Carnegie in 1902 about the library’s lack of its own building. After “a year of red tape correspondence,” the article states, Carnegie made his offer.

That September, 580 school district residents voted 487 to 93 in favor of accepting Carnegie’s gift. A flyer circulated before the special meeting at which the vote took place – which took place Tuesday, September 15 from 4 to 7 p.m. – residents were being asked to support the library with $1,000 each year through taxation. Since residents were already paying $300 per year to cover the public library at the Academy, the flyer noted, they would now pay an additional $700 if they accepted the gift. That increase would amount to 32 cents per $1,000 of property value, “a trifling amount compared with the additional advantages secured,” the flyer stated. With the average home of the time costing around $3,200, that meant each property owner would pay another $1.02 in taxes each year to have a public library in its own building.

The community raised $300 to purchase the lot on Main Street – nowadays addressed as 212 Main St. –from the Hopkins brothers to place the library there. Albert R. Ross, of New York City, was the architect for the project, while local company Jacob Allington & Sons was the contractor for the work. The ground was broken in October 1904.

A newspaper article dated December 28, 1904 stated in its headline the foundation for the building had been laid and went on to describe what the finished product would look like. The building measured 50 feet along the front with a depth of 40 feet and was made of dark red brick with two courses of Indiana limestone above the ground. “… it is entered from a portico thro [sic] a single broad door, reached by five easy steps, and flanked by two dignified columns and brick piers,” the article stated. “From the vestibule six steps lead to the delivery room, in the center of the main floor, and on each side is a stairway to the basement.” Along with the delivery room were reading rooms, the book stacks with a capacity of 6,000 volumes, the librarian’s room, and the reference room. The basement had an assembly room for lectures, a historical room, and bathroom. The building would be lighted by gas and heated by steam.

“Good progress has already been made with the work, and it is going forward as rapidly as the weather permits,” the article states. “The brick are [sic] laid to the top of the basement windows, and the corner stone is in position.” A copper box was to be placed in the cornerstone containing a copy of the charter of the library; a copy of the letter from Carnegie offering the monetary gift; a list of the names of those who gave money for the building; copies of each of the village newspapers; copies of the petition for the submission to vote and the result of that meeting; a Penn Yan schools catalog; a list of the names of the architect of the building, the contractors, the officers of the library and of the school district and of the village and of the county, the state governor at the time, and the president of the United States at the time.

A dedication ceremony for the Penn Yan Public Library took place on June 22, 1905 at 3 p.m. in the Presbyterian church. The program included a series of music, prayer, Scripture readings, speeches, and presentation of and response to the gifts from Carnegie and other donors. “The library will be open at the close of the exercises, and regularly thereafter,” states a newspaper article listing the program. By the September, the library was open Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday evenings from 7 to 9 p.m., particularly to accommodate patrons who worked during the day and wanted a place to spend their evenings. Otherwise, the library was open from 2 to 4 p.m. daily.

With a parking lot added in the early 1970s and a building addition opened in the early 1980s – and many changes and improvements along the way – the Penn Yan Public Library continues to serve the community nearly 120 years later.

[yatescountyhistorycenter]

The first world-record pancake

By Jonathan Monfiletto

A visitor to Penn Yan – a former resident of Yates County, in fact – recently remarked to me that it was his custom during his periodic visits to stop at the Penn Yan Diner and order the buckwheat pancakes, “as one would when in Penn Yan,” he told me. When in Rome, do as the Romans do; when in Penn Yan, do as the Pennsylvania Yankees do.

Penn Yan sure is proud of its buckwheat pancakes and of The Birkett Mills, the 200-plus-year-old company and the remaining mill on the Keuka Lake Outlet, that produces buckwheat pancake mix and other goods from the grain-like plant that is technically a fruit and related to rhubarb. So proud, indeed, that for a period of time – from 1986 until 1999 – Penn Yan celebrated the Buckwheat Festival at the end of September.

The Birkett Mills would actually shut down its operations for a couple of weeks, with many of its employees involved in the planning and hosting of the festival, and the community would gather to pay homage to the key ingredient in the Mills’ processes. Held at the Yates County Fairgrounds, the festival consisted of comedy shows, music acts, crafts, animals, a midway with rides and games, and of course buckwheat-based foods – pizza dough, hot dog rolls, kasha, and even ice cream and candy bars.

While the lasting impression of the Buckwheat Festival may be the giant griddle – 28 feet, 1 inch in diameter, to be exact – that hangs on the side of The Birkett Mills building on the corner of Main and Seneca streets and was used to make the Guinness Book of World Records-verified world record pancake at the second festival in 1987, people nowadays might not remember that the first attempt at a world-record pancake took place at the inaugural festival in 1986.

The inaugural Buckwheat Harvest Festival (it is dubbed the “first annual” festival, and that terminology grates on me as a former journalist and lifelong grammar drill sergeant) took place on the weekend of Saturday, September 27 and Sunday, September 28. It started with a parade through downtown Penn Yan on Saturday morning with high school marching bands, area musical acts, floats from local businesses and organizations, and others entertainers, marchers, and participants.

The festival also included an arts and crafts show in which a jury selected the vendors for the craftsmanship and variety of items the vendors offered numerous categories of items for sale. Several Yates County churches, pastors, and congregants gathered to host a sunrise worship service on the Sunday morning of the festival. Entertainment acts included Nik and the Nice Guys, the Tamburitzans of Duquesne University, and Dick Solberg the Sun Mountain Fiddler.

The Birkett Mills allowed tours of its facility during the festival – something it doesn’t normally do – and Penn Yan Academy staged a football game against Palmyra-Macedon on Saturday. There was also a jamboree on Saturday featuring the bands Crossroads, Country Cousins, Southern Tears, and Union.

Yet, the highlight of the inaugural Buckwheat Festival undoubtedly must have been the cooking of the 10-foot-diameter buckwheat pancake. With some 20,000 people attending the festival over the two days, The Chronicle-Express states the fairgrounds “grandstand was full and the crowd five to six feet deep as the excitement grew,” while Craig McMinn distributed 800 pounds of pancake batter over a half-ton steel griddle.

McMinn, of CM Fabrication in Penn Yan, built the griddle along with CM’s Bob Kerrick, while Bruce Hansen, of City Hill Construction in Dresden, provided hydraulic equipment to help flip the pancake. Steve Graves, The Birkett Mills assistant plant manager, was given the challenge of making the world’s biggest pancake, though inquiries to London-based Guinness offered little direction on how big it had to be. So, while it was dubbed the world’s largest buckwheat pancake, it is unclear whether it actually was.

In the program for the inaugural festival, Graves noted maintaining an adequate and constant heat source would be a difficult challenge, and he planned to use good, old-fashioned firewood to cook the pancake. He also planned to use Puritan Buckwheat Pancake Mix, since Puritan already contained all of the ingredients in its mix so the addition of eggs, milk, salt, and other items would be unnecessary. The only thing added to the mix was Keuka Lake water. Afterward, New York State maple syrup and butter topped off the meal.

Described by The Chronicle-Express as “a little brown around on top and crispy on the edges,” the pancake was also dubbed “a giant success” and “a meal for thousands” for the spectators and workers at the fairgrounds.

“What will be attempted next year?” The Chronicle-Express wondered. “Everyone will want to keep their eyes and ears open because plans are already underway for the second annual Buckwheat Harvest Festival.”

[yatescountyhistorycenter]

Do you know Yates County?: Yates County Oddity No. 27 through No. 52

By Jonathan Monfiletto

Anyone who has conducted research either through Yates County’s digitized newspapers or the Yates County History Center’s subject files has likely come across items titled either “Penn Yan Oddity” or “Yates County Oddity.” These items – snippets might be a good word – provide information about various aspects of local history, seeming to answer some sort of question or mystery.

Seeing so many of these snippets – and finding the answers but seeming not to find the question – I decided to scour our digitized newspaper database to see if I could find all of them, the questions with the answers. It turns out the oddities – 90 Penn Yan Oddity items, 52 Yates County Oddity items – were part of an advertising campaign in the 1940s for Baldwin’s Bank, then located at 127 Main St. in Penn Yan, the present-day home of the Arts Center of Yates County.

  The Penn Yan Oddities ran in The Chronicle-Express in consecutive weeks from February 20, 1947 to November 11, 1948, and then the Yates County Oddities picked up right away in the newspaper from November 18, 1948 to November 24, 1949. So, for more than 2 and a half years, readers of The Chronicle-Express learned something about local history each week in the newspaper.

Each item started out as an advertisement for Baldwin’s Bank with the phrase “Do You Know Yates County?” at the top of the graphic followed by the question for the week. In the middle, the bulk of the ad, would appear information about the bank’s various services and offerings. The bottom would direct the reader to look for the answer elsewhere on the same page and then look for another Oddity the following week.

In this article, I present Yates County Oddity No. 27 through No. 52. Each question and answer has been transcribed exactly as it appeared in the newspaper, which changes made only for typographical errors and not for grammatical errors. The only time words have been removed from the items is in the case of references to photographs that appeared in the newspaper.

27) How many Lake Keuka cottages in Yates County?

There are 1,800 dwellings along the shores of Lake Keuka, according to the county made this past fall by John V. Stark, compiler of the new Lake Keuka directory. Of these 850 are in Yates county.

Here’s the breakdown: cottages (not lived in the year around) on Lake Keuka number 1,480; in Yates county 640. Year-around residences, either on Lake Keuka shore or on the lake roads, number 320, of which 210 are in Yates county.

28) How many miles of lake shore in the county?

More than half of the Lake Keuka shore line is in Yates county. Supervisor John V. Stark estimates 35 of the approximate 60 are in Yates. Some 9 miles of Canandaigua lake shore lie within Yates and some 20 miles  of the west shore of Seneca, which gives Yates a total of about 64 miles of shore line, much of which is available for summer homes.

Since there are 348 square miles in this county of about 17,000 population, there is a mile of lakefront for every 260 persons and for every five square miles of lake. Is there any other county in the Empire state with a greater lake frontage per square mile of area?

29) What Yates pioneer helped chain the Hudson?

With his two yoke of oxen, Eliphalet Hull helped in placing the great chain across the Hudson near West Point to prevent the British ships from sailing up the Hudson. Mr. Hull later became of the noted pioneers of Benton township, the first Methodist class leader west of Utica.

30) What Grange founder was born and buried here?

Francis Marion McDowell was born near Wayne, just beyond Yates county and died in 1894, his grave being in the Lake View cemetery, Penn Yan. He was one of seven founders of the national grange, holding the office of treasurer for 20 years.

31) Which town touches the most other Yates towns?

Milo township touches five other Yates county townships: Benton on the north, Torrey on the east, Starkey and Barrington on the south, and Jerusalem, for a short distance with a land-to-land boundary, on the west. If intervening lake were ignored, Jerusalem would also have five Yates towns touching.

But Jerusalem, along with Potter and Benton, each directly border four other Yates townships.

32) How many Yates towns have lake frontage?

All but two of the Yates county townships border upon at least one of the Finger lakes and Milo has frontage on two – Seneca and Keuka.

With Bluff Point jutting deep into Keuka to give her the characteristic “Y” shape, Jerusalem claims by far the greatest lake frontage of any township. Italy has the least, barely cutting across the southern end of Canandaigua lake. Potter town alone is landlocked.

Middlesex fronts on Canandaigua; Barrington on Keuka; Benton, Torrey, and Starkey on Seneca lake.

Before days of the railroad and auto trucks, convenient outlet to the lakes was all important as a means of transportation. Today it means resort business.

33) What four towns have the most population?

According to the 1940 census Milo, Starkey, Jerusalem, and Benton led the Yates county population count in that order. Potter, Barrington, Torrey, Middlesex, and Italy followed.

Work has already started on the 1950 census. Will the Yates county population of 16,338, as revealed by the 1940 count, be greater or less? It has been declining in recent years by small amounts.

34) How many mail routes are there in the county?

There are a total of 21 mail collection and delivery routes in Yates county, exclusive of the Star routes.

Of the six village routes five are Penn Yan letter carriers and the sixth is the carrier in Dundee. Of the 15 rural delivery routes, five emanate from the Penn Yan post office, three from Dundee, two from Branchport, and one each from Rushville, Middlesex, Himrod, Bluff Point, and Rock Stream.

35) Is Yates the smallest county in the state?

Yates county is not the smallest county in New York state, measured by population or area.

According to the last federal census Putnam, Schuyler and Hamilton counties had less population than Yates, whereas 11 other counties had fewer than the 343 square miles of area included within the boundaries of Yates. Among these smaller counties are most of the densely occupied areas of metropolitan New York – such as Kings, Queens, Bronx, Rockland, Richmond, Nassau, and others.

36) Where is the highest spot in Yates County?

The highest point in Yates county is in Italy township southwest of Italy Hill village, about where a bomber crashed during the war, killing the entire crew. The altitude at this point is given as 2,130 feet above sea level on some maps, a little less on others.

37) How many churches in Yates County?

There are 41 churches in Yates county in which services of worship are held regularly or frequently. This does not include the Garrett Memorial chapel or isolated and independent congregations which meet in halls or homes.

38) What Yates man invented milk tablets?

J. Robert Hatmaker of Paris, formerly of Milo township, 45 years ago was gaining fame as inventor of the process for reducing milk to tablet form. The German emperor had ordered thousands of these tablets and was sending quantities of them     to his troops in Manchuria.

39) Where is biggest rock in the county?

The late Berlin Hart Wright, local naturalist, believes that the big boulder on the east side of Italy valley is the largest rock in the county. Brought here by glaciers some 2,500 miles from the Laurentian mountains in Canada, it measures some 25 by 15 feet above the ground and weighs an estimated 350 tons.

40) Where is oldest cemetery in Yates?

City Hill cemetery on the west hill above Seneca lake, south of Dresden, established in 1788 by followers of the Universal Friend and early settlers of this area, is the oldest cemetery in what was then known as the Genesee country and is the oldest in the county.

41) What unique Yates monument honors a woman?

The boulder and plaque on the west shore of the West branch of Lake Keuka, just south of Branchport, at the time of its erection 16 years ago, was the only monument erected in the United States to honor an Indian woman. The mother of Red Jacket, famed Indian chief and orator who lived in thish section is honored by the unique monument.

42) What is our latitude?

Yates county is situated at 42.5 degrees north latitude, as far north of the equator as are: northern Spain, central Italy, Vladivostok, in Siberia, southern Manchuria and north central China.

43) Which railroad bridge is highest?

The highest railroad bridge in Yates county is the span which carries the Pennsylvania tracks over Big Stream at Glenora. At this point the tracks are 102 feet above the stream bed. The Rock Stream span is 71 feet high and the bridge over the Keuka Lake outlet at Penn Yan is 50.

The first bridge of pine timbers built in the (1850s), when the railroad line from Watkins to Canandaigua was put through was some 90 feet above the bed of the gorge. About 1893 the present steel span was erected just west of the old wooden structure, which was then torn down.

44) In what square mile of rural Yates lie the most roads?

The greatest concentration of public highways in anyway square mile of rural Yates county appears to be at the tip of Bluff Point where a car can traverse an estimated eight miles of different roads without going beyond the limits of a square mile area.

45) When was wheat first raised in Yates?

The first bushel of wheat grown in western New York is said to have been raised in Yates county.

A note in the old family Bible of Richard Smith, one of the followers of Jemima Wilkinson who settled on the west shores of Seneca lake, south of the present village of Dresden, reports grinding 10 bushels of winter wheat raised in this vicinity. This was in 1789 and was ground in the first grist mill in this part of the “pioneer west.” The mill, erected on the outlet, opposite of what is now Seneca Mills, was first ready for use July 4, 1790. Previous to then grain was taken by horseback to a mill in Pennsylvania for grinding.

46) Where was Yates County’s source of pearls?

The late Edwin C. Dinturff had some beautiful necklaces and jewelry pieces made from pearls which he took from clams that once thrived in Flint creek, where it entered Potter swamp near Potter Center. Edible fresh water clams are still found in some local streams.

47) What Elm Street residence was once situated on Main Street?

The residence of Mr. and Mrs. William D. Allison, 133 Elm St., was once situated in Main street. As a matter of fact, on April 5, 1911, it was located in the very center of the business section as it was being moved to make room for the present post office building.

By means of block and tackle and a team of horses, it was rolled down Main street to the four corners and thence on Elm to its present location, the second house west of the parking station. One of the biggest jobs was removing the trolley wire on Elm street and suspending trolley traffic to make possile moving the large dwelling. The other residence removed from the post office location is now used as a dwelling at the foot of Champlin avenue. A picture of the moving appears in the window of the Baldwins bank.

48) In Yates which was first – Italy or Naples?

In Europe, Naples was a part of Italy, but here Italy was a part of Naples. The township of Italy, Yates county, was organized by act of legislature Feb. 15, 1815, it being set off from the township of Naples, Ontario count. The origin of the name is not known.

Italy township grew in population to 1698 persons in 1845. Now, a century later, it is estimated at about 500 population.

49) Where is the smallest post office building?

Rock Stream residents have claimed that their post office, recently abandoned for one located in the community store, was the smallest in the United States. El Dorado, Calif., is one place which contends it has a smaller post office, but has not sent in the exact dimensions, as yet.

In the meantime the residents in the southern end of Yates county can boast of having had the smallest post office in Yates county. The building, which measures 12 by 24 feet and 9 foot walls, is now being converted into living quarters.

50) What Penn Yan home has hickory shade trees?

The shade trees in the lawn in front of the home of Miss May E. Decker, 203 Clinton street, Penn Yan, are hickory nut trees – so far as we can learn the only dwelling in the county seat which depends upon hickory nut trees for shade. There are maples, however, between the walk and the curb.

51) Is population mostly village or rural?

According to the last Federal census figures, Yates county’s population is more rural than village. The total population of the four incorporated villages – Penn Yan, Dundee, Rushville, and Dresden – was listed as 7,001, whereas the total population of the entire county was estimated at 16,338. These are 1940 figures.

52) How much will be paid out in Christmas Club checks?

When three of the Yates county banks send their Christmas club checks to the more than 1700 club members, which is being done in Penn Yan this week Saturday, the total amount of the Christmas club checks will be about $115,000.

[yatescountyhistorycenter]

Do you know Yates County?: Yates County Oddity No. 1 through No. 26

By Jonathan Monfiletto

Anyone who has conducted research either through Yates County’s digitized newspapers or the Yates County History Center’s subject files has likely come across items titled either “Penn Yan Oddity” or “Yates County Oddity.” These items – snippets might be a good word – provide information about various aspects of local history, seeming to answer some sort of question or mystery.

Seeing so many of these snippets – and finding the answers but seeming not to find the question – I decided to scour our digitized newspaper database to see if I could find all of them, the questions with the answers. It turns out the oddities – 90 Penn Yan Oddity items, 52 Yates County Oddity items – were part of an advertising campaign in the 1940s for Baldwin’s Bank, then located at 127 Main St. in Penn Yan, the present-day home of the Arts Center of Yates The Penn Yan Oddities ran in The Chronicle-Express in consecutive weeks from February 20, 1947 to November 11, 1948, and then the Yates County Oddities picked up right away in the newspaper from November 18, 1948 to November 24, 1949. So, for more than 2 and a half years, readers of The Chronicle-Express learned something about local history each week in the newspaper.

Each item started out as an advertisement for Baldwin’s Bank with the phrase “Do You Know Yates County?” at the top of the graphic followed by the question for the week. In the middle, the bulk of the ad, would appear information about the bank’s various services and offerings. The bottom would direct the reader to look for the answer elsewhere on the same page and then look for another Oddity the following week.

In this article, I present Yates County Oddity No. 1 through No. 26. Each question and answer has been transcribed exactly as it appeared in the newspaper, which changes made only for typographical errors and not for grammatical errors. The only time words have been removed from the items is in the case of references to photographs that appeared in the newspaper.

1) Where are there 10 different classifications of soil within ½ mile?

A Yates County soil analysis made in 1916 shows that at Fiveville, a little south of Italy Hill, there are 10 classifications of soil within a half-mile radius: Wooster, gravelly silt loam and stoney silt loam, Volusia flat phase silt loam and silt loam, muck, Holly silt loam, Papakating silt clay loam, Chenango gravelly silt loam, Lordstown stoney silt loam, and Genesee silt loam.

2) What farm still uses an “old oaken bucket?”

There is an “Old Oaken Bucket” well still in use on the old McFarren farm, Penn Yan, RD 4, now owned by H.M. Fulkrod. The bucket is lowered by a rope and there is a wood hand brake to slow the speed as it descends the well. When filled, the bucket is drawn up by turning the crank attached to the wooden spool.

3) Who was the first white child born here?

The great grandfather of Charles Beaumont, Penn Yan insurance agent and real estate brother, is said to be the first white child born in what is now Yates county. Joseph Hopeton Beautmont was born Sept. 26, 1798, to James Beaumont, native of England, and Mary Malin Beaumont, flollowers of Jemima Wilkinson. Their child was the first born in the New Jerusalem settlement. J.H. Beaumont died June 27, 1893, in the residence at 109 East Main street, now owned and occupied by Herbert Thayer. The old “Beaumont” horseblock may still be seen in front of the residence.

4) Bricks for what building were made of clay dug from the building’s cellar?

Sixty years ago this summer clay was removed when the basement for Ball hall of Keuka institute and college was being excavated. The same clay went chiefly into the making of the interior bricks from which the present structure was built.

5) What township was called Vernon?

From Jerusalem township of Ontario county in 1803 a new township, including what is now Milo and Torrey, was created and named Vernon. But Oneida county had created a Vernon township a year earlier, so confusion resulted. As a result on April 6, 1809 the state legislature changed the name of Vernon township, Ontario county, to Snell, honoring the state senator, Jacob Snell from Montgomery county.

Residents of this area apparently saw no reason for honoring a senator from another county, so assembled in a protest meeting at the inn of Luman Phelps, located at the corner of Main and Head streets in the young village of Penn Yan. The group petitioned the legislature to change the name to Benton township, honoring Levi Benton, the first settler in the region. On April 2, 1810, Albany nodded consent.

Milo township was set up and apart from Benton township in 1818 and Torrey township was separated from Benton in 1851.

6) What traditional birthplace of a people is in Yates?

Bare Hill in the western section of Yates county on the east side of Canandaigua lake is famous in legends of the early inhabitants of Yates county as the supernatural birthplace of the Seneca Indians.

7) What was the first name of Starkey town?

Both Starkey and Barrington townships were originally, along with Tyrone, Wayne, and Reading townships, now of Steuben and Schuyler counties, a part of Frederickton in Steuben county. Afterwards Reading was cut off and the Town of Wayne, including what is now Barrington, was organized. In 1822 Barrington was organized with the boundaries that define it today and in 1826, along with Starkey, it was annexed to Yates county.

8) Where was the nearest toll gate to Penn Yan?

A toll gate on the Penn Yan Branchport plank roead was near the site of the Allison and Daniels office – the old Hanford farm. The toll gate at the other end of the road was near Esperanza at the foot of the old road that ascends the hill west of the spacious mansion. Many older residents can remember the ruins of this toll gate house.

9) What surveyor was first settler of a town?

John Mower, 18, carried the chain, served as cook and was in charge of the pack horses for the crew which surveyed the new pre-emption line from Pennsylvania’s north border to Lake Ontario. In 1790 he settled in West River hollow, Italy township. Italy was originally part of Middletown township, organized in 1789, but changed to Naples township in 1808. Seven years later Italy township was set off. John Mower is quoted in history as saying that one spring he killed 314 rattlesnakes on the west side of the stream not far from the rocky ledges where they hibernated. The township was then rich in a dense forest of noble trees.

10) What rural cemeteries were once next to churches?

The cemetery near Swing’s or Ovenshire’s corners on the Penn Yan-Dundee road in Barrington and the Nettle Valley cemetery on the Penn Yan-Potter road, road were once adjoining churches. The church buildings have long since been removed and their location obliterated.

Do you know of any others in Yates county?

11) What was the first barn west of Seneca Lake?

In 1791, according to tradition, Caleb Benton built a barn 30 by 40 feet, starting on Monday morning with trees standing in the woods. These, it is said, were felled, hewed, and framed and the barn enclosed so that wheat was drawn into it by Saturday.

This was reported to be the first barn built west of Seneca lake.

12) Is there a battle ground sites in Yates?

The nearest any part of the present area of Yates county came to becoming a battleground was Sept. 9, 1779, when 400 of General Sullivan’s riflemen were sent along the west side of Seneca lake from the site of Geneva to what is now Kashong point and there wrecked the Indian settlement. Resistance of the [Native Americans] was insignificant if not entirely lacking.

The power of Indians had been broken in the battle of Newtown, east of Elmira.

13) What is Lake Keuka unlike other lakes?

Lake Keuka is unique, but not because it is shaped like the letter Y.

Geologists say that it is perhaps the only body of Y-shaped water with one of the upper branches an inlet and the other an outlet. Elsewhere nature has made the two top branches inlets and the base branch an outlet. Early glacial action, say geologists, created this freak. Water flows in at Hammondsport, the south end, also at Branchport, one of the north ends, and flows out through the other north end by way of the East or Penn Yan branch.

14) How old is the Friend house?

While commonly referred to as 150 years, the actual age of the Jemima Wilkinson house in Jerusalem is a matter of dispute. Arnold Potter, descendant of the early Friend settlers, believes the dwelling was some five years in the building and was completed in 1815. Her death occurred four years later. The Friend joined her followers near City Hill, Torrey township, in 1790 and there built the first frame dwelling in western New York. This would have been 25 years before completion of the Jerusalem home which still stands.

15) Where is there a Kentucky coffee tree?

On the east side of Route 14, the Dresden-Geneva state road, just before crossing the bridge over Kashong creek as one drives north out of Yates into Ontario county is a Kentucky Coffee tree – a rare sight in this vicinity. The tree is conspicuous because of its large leaf and uniquely shaped seed pod.

Does anyone know of any others in Yates county?

16) Through what bay does Yates rainfall reach ocean?

Practically all the area of Yates county drains into Canandaigua, Keuka, or Seneca lakes or into Potter swamp and runs eventually through the St. Lawrence river and bay into the Atlantic ocean. But a very limited section of South Italy and Jerusalem townships drain into the Cohocton and a bit of southern Barrington into Waneta and Lamoka lakes from when the water may flow through the Susquehanna system into the Atlantic by way of the Chesapeake bay, some 1,000 miles south of the St. Lawrence.

17) How many Yates places use Old World names?

At least four Yates county townships – Italy, Jerusalem, Milo, and Middlesex – have names which were long famous in England or on the continent of Europe. Also two villages – Dundee and Dresden.

Do you know of any other Yates community names borrowed from other countries?

18) What famous orator was born in this county?

Some of the addresses of Red Jacket, famed Indian orator, have been included in printed collections of the famous speeches of the years. But Red Jacket may or may not have been born in Yates county. Historians disagree upon the place of his birth. It may have been near Branchport or at Canoga, in Seneca county.

Robert G. Ingersoll, agnostic and brilliant orator, was born in Dresden Aug. 11, 1833. His birthplace is being preserved in his memory.

19) Where is the highest spot in Yates County?

The highest spot in Yates county is 2,130 feet above sea level and includes a few acres on the high plateau just west of the Jerusalem township line in Italy, about six miles west and a bit north of Branchport. It was in this area that a bomber crashed during World War II, killing all occupants.

20) Where is the lowest spot in Yates County?

The lowest spot in Yates county is above sea level – and is located somewhere in the bottom of Seneca lake this side of the Seneca county line which is in the middle of the lake.

Within the last few years Yates county has “settled” a great deal – some 400 feet roughly. Up to that time the eastern boundary of the county was highwater mark on the west shore of Seneca lake, which is listed as about 444 feet above sea level. This boundary caused much confusion. Game Protector Clay White, for example, apprehending a duck hunter or fisherman off the Yates county shore for some violation, had to take his man all the way around the end of Seneca lake, possibly 40 miles, to bring him before a Seneca county official. Assemblyman Vernon Blodgett introduced a bill a few years ago placing the county boundary in the middle of the lake.

In spots Seneca lake bottom is said to be even a bit below sea level.

21) How may lakes are there in the county?

There are no lakes in Yates county – entirely within the county, that is.

More than half of the Lake Keuka shoreline is within Yates, about seven miles of the Canandaigua shore line and over 20 miles of Seneca lake’s west shore. Lakes Waneta and Lamoka are just beyond the county boundaries.

22) How many railroads are there in the county?

Three different railroad companies operate lines in Yates county: the Pennsylvania, the New York Central, and the Lehigh Valley, the latter running diesel motors over the Middlesex Valley line between Geneva and Naples. These are the first diesels to be used in regular service in the county.

23) How many schools are there in the county?

While there are 50 rural school districts in Yates county, according to Superintendent Stephen Underwood of Branchport, but 26 of them maintain a school. Of the remaining 24 districts, 8 have sold their buildings; the others being idle, actually there are 32 schools in Yates county, if you add to the above 26 rural schools, the Middlesex Valley and Dundee central schools, St. Michael’s Parochial school in Penn Yan, the Penn Yan Union school (which has five buildings), Lakemont academy, and Keuka college with its several buildings.

24) How many miles of state road are there?

According to George Havens, county superintendent of highways, the total public highway mileage in Yates county is 1,813.44. Of this total 149.18 miles are in county highways, 109.16 state roads, and only 55.10 of town roads.

25) How many post offices are there in Yates?

Two of the Yates county townships, Italy and Barrington, have no post offices. Three townships have one post office each: Rushville in Potter, Dresden in Torrey, and Middlesex in Middlesex township. Milo and Benton have two post offices each: Penn Yan and Himrod in the former, Bellona and Gage in the latter. Jerusalem township with three offices, at Branchport, Bluff Point, and Keuka Park, and Starkey with  four, at Dundee, Rock Stream, Starkey, and Lakemont, bring the total number of post offices now operating in this county to 14. Years ago there were many more.

26) How many public libraries in Yates County?

Branchport, Keuka Park, Dundee, and Penn Yan now have the only libraries which are open to the public.

All of these are included as participants in the Yates County Community chest.

[yatescountyhistorycenter]

Do you know Penn Yan?: Penn Yan Oddity No. 61 through No. 90

By Jonathan Monfiletto

Anyone who has conducted research either through Yates County’s digitized newspapers or the Yates County History Center’s subject files has likely come across items titled either “Penn Yan Oddity” or “Yates County Oddity.” These items – snippets might be a good word – provide information about various aspects of local history, seeming to answer some sort of question or mystery.

Seeing so many of these snippets – and finding the answers but seeming not to find the question – I decided to scour our digitized newspaper database to see if I could find all of them, the questions with the answers. It turns out the oddities – 90 Penn Yan Oddity items, 52 Yates County Oddity items – were part of an advertising campaign in the 1940s for Baldwin’s Bank, then located at 127 Main St. in Penn Yan, the present-day home of the Arts Center of Yates County.

The Penn Yan Oddities ran in The Chronicle-Express in consecutive weeks from February 20, 1947 to November 11, 1948, and then the Yates County Oddities picked up right away in the newspaper from November 18, 1948 to November 24, 1949. So, for more than 2 and a half years, readers of The Chronicle-Express could learn something about local history each week in the newspaper.

Each item started out as an advertisement for Baldwin’s Bank with the phrase “Do You Know Penn Yan?” at the top of the graphic followed by the question for the week. In the middle, the bulk of the ad, would appear information about the bank’s various services and offerings. The bottom would direct the reader to look for the answer elsewhere on the same page and then look for another Oddity the following week.

In this article, I present Penn Yan Oddity No. 61 through No. 90. Each question and answer has been transcribed exactly as it appeared in the newspaper, which changes made only for typographical errors and not for grammatical style. The only time words have been removed from the items is in the case of references to photographs or other information that appeared elsewhere in the newspaper.

61) Where was the Post Office before the present building?

The present federal post office building was erected at a cost of some $60,000 in 1912. Two houses were moved to make room for the building. Before that time the federal department was housed in the central rear area of the Arcade building, ground floor.

Does anyone remember what houses were moved to make room for the present post office and where those dwellings are now?

62) What building is now on site of first Catholic church?

Perhaps without a magnifying glass you will be able to see in the picture of the Lake Keuka outlet on this page the steeple of the first Penn Yan Catholic church on Pine street, now Keuka street. It is in the left background of this picture. And very faint against the skyline in the extreme left is the steeple of the present St. Michael’s church on Liberty street. The Wemple Phalen residence was built some years ago at 118 Keuka street on a lot which was filled in over the basement and foundation of the old church, which remained there in ruins for many years.

63) What building now stands on site of old casket factory?

The light and life around the Penn Yan Public library today definitely do not suggest the historic fact that it stands on the site of the Hopkins brothers’ planing mill in which were made grape boxes, caskets, and furniture.

Until 1905, the embryonic Penn Yan library nested in one small room of Penn Yan Academy. Andrew Carnegie funds erected the present library building on a lot donated by patriotic local citizens. The collection of books immediately grew, their use increased, and Penn Yan became proud of its library.

Learning this, it is still difficult for many to believe that within a half century a yard of logs and the planing mill occupied the location of what is now Hopkins place, the short street with three dwellings at the rear of the library. The home at No. 5 Hopkins place, occupied by Arthur R. Wright and family, was originally a portion of the mill office. Later it was moved towards Main street, then again moved to its present foundation to make way for the library building. The planing mill was razed.

Elisha G. Hopkins, to dip a bit into local history, was born in Whitestown, Oneida county, Nov. 8, 1792, living his adult life in Penn Yan and dying here March 22, 1871, while he was at work in the planing mill. Mrs. Bertha Parker, his granddaughter and a resident at 210- Main street, the first house south of the library, is the proud possessor of a chair and other articles of furniture which he made in the mill. He erected a square house on the site of the present dwelling, in which Mrs. Hopkins’ sister, Mrs. Jasper (Effie Grace) Smith passed away April 8.

Elisha Hopkins had two sons. Fletcher Hopkins built the dwellings at 111 and 113 Chapel street after the hitching barns were torn down. These sheds served members of the First Methodist church, which then stood about where Dr. Barbara Strait’s home and the Episcopal parsonage are. Mrs. Fred Whitaker of Court and Liberty streets and Edward G. Hopkins of 128 East Main street are his daughter and son.           

The other brother was Edward Gilbert Hopkins, who lived in what is now the Fred Beard residence, 424 Liberty street. About 1900 he tore down the house of his father had built, south of the library, and erected the present residence. The Hopkins brothers operated brothers operated an undertaking business, making some of the caskets in their own planing mill and buying others when customers wanted something more ornate.

Hopkins place – one of Penn Yan’s shortest streets – today bears no trace of the log piles and three story planing mill which made it a busy center of industry before the century turned.

64) What streets are named after men who were killed?

Garfield, McKinley, and Lincoln avenues, all three grouped just east of East Main street, were named after three presidents who were assassinated.

65) Where does East Main Street begin?

Or, let’s put this week’s Penn Yan Oddity question this way – Where does Main street begin?

Some will say at the corner of East Main and Lake street. Others, at the outlet. And some, at the Water-Seneca street intersection. There has been general confusion on this point and the numbers on the Quenan and the Blakesee blocks at the Main Street bridge are misleading.

Actually, Main street starts at the Water-Senecan street intersection and runs north to North avenue where it becomes North Main street. East Main begins at the Lake street intersection. All addresses between Lake and Water streets are correctly described as Main Street bridge.

Recalling Penn Yan history supplies the reason. For years only a low bridge over the Crooked Lake canal, outlet, and mill races linked Main with East Main. After abandonment of the canal on the north side of the outlet and the building of the railroad on the south side, the present red brick structures were erected 60 years ago, now known as the Quenan, Blakeslee, and Chronicle buildings. These, together with the mills, and other structures in this section are therefore correctly addressed as Main Street bridge.

66) How many streets in Penn Yan?

There are 51 official streets in the village and 14 non-official, besides several that are on real estate development maps and laid out more or less formally.

While the village may do some maintenance work on the 14 unofficial streets, no deed has been turned over to Penn Yan for the land which they use.

67) What Penn Yan streets have no houses on them?

Only two of the official streets in Penn Yan have no houses – they are Central avenue and Bason street, both of which connect Seneca and East Elm streets in the business section – unless you call the village lockup on Basin street a residence.

The old Delano home on Delano place is now being used as an office by Rapalee Auto parts. But Delano place is one of those much travelled thoroughfares that is not an official street. It is owned by the New York Central railroad.

68) What Penn Yan streets bear the same name as New York counties?

Four of Penn Yan’s official streets carry the same names as New York state counties: Clinton, Hamilton, Franklin, and Seneca.

69) How many cemeteries in Penn Yan?

This week brings the lively question – how many cemeteries are there in Penn Yan? The answer is easy. There are two.

Or are we wrong?

The west boundary of the Lake View cemetery and the Village of Penn Yan coincide in part. So after all, St. Michael’s cemetery is not in Penn Yan.

But still the correct answer is two, for the old Catholic burying ground southeast of Five Points along the banks of the ravine still contains numerous graves and is a cemetery, through badly overgrown.

70) How many miles of streets are there in Penn Yan?

There are between 18 and 19 miles of official streets maintained by the Village of Penn Yan, according to Street Commissioner Jay Rice.

71) How many miles of paved streets in Penn Yan?

Of the 19 miles of streets in Penn Yan 8½ miles are paved with curb gutters and the balance is resurfaced and macadamized, according to Jay Rice, superintendent.

72) Where were the old Penn Yan fairgrounds?

Early maps of Penn Yan show the fairgrounds located west of Pine (now Keuka) street.

73) How many fire alarm boxes are there?

There are 41 fire alarm boxes in the village in the six districts, including the two in the engine houses.

74) [Question missing from Baldwin’s Bank advertisement].

This week we’ve asked a question about Penn Yan which we aren’t sure we can answer correctly ourselves.

Work on the early Academy building was finished in the summer of 1859, the original public school building then cost $8,000 to erect. In 1905 the structure was rebuilt and enlarged to make the present Penn Yan Academy or senior high school building at a cost of $24,000. Pictures of the original and the rebuilt buildings would indicate that the same cupola or belfry, with minor changes, has topped the edifice for the past 89 years. If so, the same bell may have hung there to call students to school up until this last year when it was no longer rung.

Can anyone tell us if the 350-pound bell just lowered into the school attic as the cupola was removed has been hanging there ever since 1859?

75) Where was the first Yates County Court House?

The first session of Yates county court convened the first Tuesday of June, 1823, in the residence of Asa Cole, Penn Yan. As a matter of record the first meeting of the supervisors of the new-born county as held in the same residence.

76) Where was Penn Yan’s first post office?

Penn Yan’s first “post office” was a hole in a convenient tree in which the stage coach driver deposited the mail. And the first “postmaster,” was the mail carrier as well, toting the letters in his hat.

77) What was the first railroad to serve Penn Yan?

The first railroad service in Penn Yan was started nearly a century ago. It was in September of 1851 that the Canandaigua and Jefferson railroad, now the Pennsylvania, was completed to connect Canandaigua with Watkins Glen. At first it was a broad six-foot track. Later a third rail was added to accommodate the present standard gauge of 4 feet, 8½ inches. With the three rails trains of both gauges could operate over the route.

When the service opened there were five trains daily each way, with extras during the state fair at Elmira.

78) Where was the first engine house?

Penn Yan’s first fire engine house was located near the present Sheldon Engine House No. 2. It was a wooden building on the south side of North avenue, between Main and Jackson streets.

The first fire company was organized in 1835 and Thomas H. Locke, a bookbinder and justice of the peace, was elected the first fire chief. By direction of the board of trustees he purchased in Rochester Penn Yan’s first fire engine. The “Neptune” was worked by brakes and was the reason for construction of the first engine house near the center of Penn Yan’s business activity, a century ago.

79) Where was the first school held?

In 1820 there was a rude school house on the Main street site of the present Penn Yan Academy. It was 39 years later before the first academy building was erected there, Penn Yan schools using several different buildings and locations during the intervening years.

80) Where was the first bank located?

The Yates County bank was the first banking institution in Penn Yan and it occupied the location now used by Lown’s store. It was organized in 1831, but later failed.

81) Where was the first grist mill?

The first grist mill in Penn Yan was established by David Wagener on the south side of the Lake Keuka outlet in 1796. Five years earlier he had joined the Friend settlement near City Hill and become a part owner of the first mill in this area – erected by the followers of the Universal Friend on the Lake Keuka outlet. The first mill in Penn Yan became the Andrews mill and was located on the east side of the Main Street bridge, and it was known also as the Jillette or White mill. It was burned July 19, 1913, and was never rebuilt. Foundations of this mill may still be seen between the railroad tracks and the outlet. The mill straddled the main race from which it derived power.

82) Where was the first frame dwelling?

Abraham Wagener (popularly known as Squire Wagener) built the first frame house in the village and moved into it Jan. 1, 1800. It occupied the present site of the Dr. G. Howard Leader residence, 173 Main street. The next year he erected the second mill on the outlet at the Main street bridge location, north of the first one erected by his father, David Wagener. The second mill is now the Birkett Mills.

83) Where was the first tavern located?

The first tavern in Penn Yan was located on the site of the present residence of Mrs. Minnie L. Ayres, corner of Liberty street and Maple avenue. North and Maple avenues followed the highway that went through the early community of Penn Yan connecting the original Friend settlement at City Hill with the later and permanent location in Jerusalem township. Dr. John Dorman, who came here in 1795, erected this second frame house in the village and opened the same as a tavern. In an addition built on his son, Joel, started a store.

84) Where was the first show held?

The first show given in Penn Yan is said to have been the display of an elephant in a barn the first residence south of what is now the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial hospital. This was on the Zachariah Wheeler place, 128 years ago, in 1820.

85) What was the first newspaper in Penn Yan?

Abraham H. Bennett 130 years ago last May established a Democratic newspaper – the Penn Yan Herald, predecessor of the Penn Yan Courier, formerly the Penn Yan Democrat.

This was the first newspaper in Penn Yan and Yates county.

86) Who started the first band?

Six years after Penn Yan was organized as a village the first band startd with A.M. Cobleigh, “key-bugle” player, as the leading figure. Benjamin L. Hoyt, Charles Lee, William Sears, and Edwin C. Gillett were among the players in the 10-piece band.

87) What was the first transportation service?

So far as we can determine the first scheduled transportation for passengers between Penn Yan and other communities was the Bath to Geneva stage coach service which came through Penn Yan by way of the Bath road. John Magee of Bath operated the stage coach line. The present Bath to Geneva bus route, however, follows the West Lake Keuka road from Hammondsport to Penn Yan.

88) Which was the first church?

The First Presbyterian church of Penn Yan was the first to organize (Feb. 18, 1823) in this village.

89) What was the first Penn Yan military company?

Keuka Rifles, Co. I, 33rd Regiment, New York Infantry, was the first military company organized in Penn Yan.

90) Whose driveway contains an historic tombstone?

In the driveway at the rear of the Paul R. Taylor residence, 342 Main street, is a piece of tombstone bearing the notation – “Died 1807 at 55 years.” Mrs. Dudley Griffiths of Clifton Springs, formerly of this community, says the dates agree and believes this is a particle of the headstone over the grave of Thomas Hazard Potter, who married Patience Wilkinson, sister of Jemima, “The Universal Friend.”

His grandson, Jeptha Potter, is supposed to have moved the remains of his ancestors to the Penn Yan cemetery when he moved here and took over the stone house on Main street, erected by Morris Fletcher Sheppard. According to a date on the cornerstone, Mr. Potter in 1878 did some remodeling. It is presumed that the piece of tombstone was brought to the present Taylor property then.

[yatescountyhistorycenter]

Do you know Penn Yan?: Penn Yan Oddity, No. 31 through No. 60

By Jonathan Monfiletto

Anyone who has conducted research either through Yates County’s digitized newspapers or the Yates County History Center’s subject files has likely come across items titled either “Penn Yan Oddity” or “Yates County Oddity.” These items – snippets might be a good word – provide information about various aspects of local history, seeming to answer some sort of question or mystery.

Seeing so many of these snippets – and finding the answers but seeming not to find the question – I decided to scour our digitized newspaper database to see if I could find all of them, the questions with the answers. It turns out the oddities – 90 Penn Yan Oddity items, 52 Yates County Oddity items – were part of an advertising campaign in the 1940s for Baldwin’s Bank, then located at 127 Main St. in Penn Yan, the present-day home of the Arts Center of Yates County.

The Penn Yan Oddities ran in The Chronicle-Express in consecutive weeks from February 20, 1947 to November 11, 1948, and then the Yates County Oddities picked up right away in the newspaper from November 18, 1948 to November 24, 1949. So, for more than 2 and a half years, readers of The Chronicle-Express could learn something about local history each week in the newspaper.

Each item started out as an advertisement for Baldwin’s Bank with the phrase “Do You Know Penn Yan?” at the top of the graphic followed by the question for the week. In the middle, the bulk of the ad, would appear information about the bank’s various services and offerings. The bottom would direct the reader to look for the answer elsewhere on the same page and then look for another Oddity the following week.

In this article, I present Penn Yan Oddity No. 31 through No. 60. Each question and answer has been transcribed exactly as it appeared in the newspaper, which changes made only for typographical errors and not for grammatical style. The only time words have been removed from the items is in the case of references to photographs or other information that appeared elsewhere in the newspaper.

31) Where were the Lake Keuka steamer docks before the railroad connected Penn Yan and Dresden?

… the steamers on Lake Keuka at one time docked at the foot of Keuka street, then called Pine street, across the channel from where the docks were later constructed when the railroad replaced the canal and the unloading of freight on the same side as the railroad was an obvious advantage.

32) Where is the residence of a former U.S. Consul to Honolulu?

Philip Ogden, residing at the corner of Hamilton and Clinton streets, lives in the house once owned by his grandfather, Darius A. Ogden, editor of the Penn Yan Democrat, village postmaster, county assemblyman and consul to Honolulu, Hawaii. President Franklin Pierce appointed him Aug. 4, 1854. The residence is a century old

33) Where is there a tree grown around a two by four?

At the corner of North avenue and Main street by the home occupied by Frank Wheeler, a maple has grown around a piece of two by four which years ago was placed in the crotch.

34) Where is there still in use the home of a former German baron?

The residence at 324 North avenue, set far back on the north side of the street and used by the Newark State school for one of its colonies, was the home of Baron Oscar Theobold von Lingke, wealthy and eccentric music teacher, who went to Germany and brought back his bride to live in this village, later moving to Pennsylvania. Baron von Lingke dabbled in chemistry. Once, during the some five years he lived here, he set fire to the old house while mixing a chemical concoction.

35) Where is the fountain that once stood near Birkett Mills?

Rev. Thomas C. Kane of St. Michael’s Catholic church is viewing the heavy metal fountain that once held water for thirsty horses. For years it stood at the corner of Main and Seneca streets now occupied by the Birkett Mills filling station.

Can anyone tell us when the watering “trough” was removed to St. Michael’s cemetery and transformed into its present task of adding a lovely touch to the landscape?

36) What residence once served Penn Yan as a hospital?

The apartment house at the end of East Main street, No. 248, was once the Hatmaker hospital.

Laurence E. Carey purchased it in early 1946 from Ed Smith. There are four apartments in the former hospital building. … As the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial hospital was being constructed on North Main street, the Hoyt residence, now the nurses’ home was used temporarily for a hospital.

37) Where is there an old school with an iron picket fence in front?

In front of the Wagner, Penn Yan hotel, still stands the iron picket fence. This building was erected by Ebenezer B. Jones. Mrs. Hebe O. Ellsworth, wife of General Samuel Stewart Ellsworth, the next occupant, erected in the front yard a fountain and the fence. The property was once used as the site of a tavern and a school. In 1824 an English sea captain, Elijah Holcomb, built the tavern, “Washington House.” Business was poor and it soon became a school – “The Yates Academy and Female Seminary,” opening its doors the first Monday in January 1829. In 1834 there were over 340 boys and girls attending, but the school closed after 10 years. The frame of the old building was moved across Main street and is now the jail barn, at the rear of the courthouse.

38) What street in Penn Yan bears the family name of the late U.S. president?

Delano place, running from Liberty street to the old boat docks, now the Keuka Lumber company, was named after a cabinet maker. His daughter, Miss Anna Delano, was an accomplished artist and gave painting lessons to many in this community until her death 35 years ago. The Delano residence is now occupied as an office and salesroom by Rapalee Auto Parts company. In shape the dwelling still appears much as it did in the old days when the Delano family owned most of the land in that part of town.

39) Where are the biggest and heaviest shears in Penn Yan?

Walter J. Calhoun, junk dealer, 226 Keuka street, has motor-driven shears which weigh, six and a half tons. They are used for cutting salvage metal, preparatory to shipment and sale. These shears snip pieces of steel off from an auto frame as if it were but a match and yet can also cut a piece of silk ribbon.

40) What Penn Yan residence was once used as a school?

Some 90 years ago N.W. Ayer conducted a private seminary in Penn Yan for what were designated at that time as “young ladies and gentleman.” He was assisted by Mrs. Ayer, and they not only taught the rudiments of education but were painstaking in teaching their pupils proper deportment for all occasions. In classes they always addressed those who attended their school as “Miss” and “Mister,” never becoming familiar enough to call them by their first names. The pupils were supposed to address each other with the same formality.

The “Young Ladies Seminary,” as it was called, was conducted for many years in the Shoniker house which is now 105 East Main street. From there the school was moved to the present home of Oliver Sheppard at 169 Main street. It was quite successful for a time, but after the founding of Penn Yan Academy in 1859, its patronage was materially lessened.

Mr. Ayer went to Philadelphia in 1868, where he established the famous N.W. Ayer & Son advertising agency which ahs become one of the largest and most prominent in this country.

41) What two streets bear the names of apples?

Stark Avenue

Wagener Street

Abraham Wagener, “founder” of Penn Yan developed the Wagener apple in an orchard at the rear of his Mansion house, now the Knapp hotel.

42) How many streets bear the names of former presidents?

Lincoln Avenue

Garfield Avenue

McKinley Avenue

43) Do you know that Penn Yan’s “natural bridge” has just been cut down?

The maple tree in front of the Methodist parsonage, 219 Main street, Penn Yan, has just been cut down. Limbs growing together bridged across a fork in the tree to make the oddity.           

44) What streets are named after some of the Finger Lakes?

Two Penn Yan streets are named after some of the Finger lakes – Keuka and Seneca.

45) What Penn Yan streets are named after kinds of trees?

Five Penn Yan streets carry the names of kinds of trees:

            Elm and East Elm street

            Walnut street

            Cherry street

            Chestnut street

            Maple avenue

46) What business block was erected on old canal locks?

… it marks a big step in the development of Penn Yan – the abandonment of the village as a port on the inland water system carrying commerce via the Erie canal and its further development as a center served by railroads. A branch of the Fallbrook railroad, now the New York Central system, was constructed between Penn Yan and Dresden to replace the six-mile canal. A total of 27 locks to lift and drop boats 267 feet during the short winding course paralleling Lake Keuka outlet made the canal inefficient, and it was abandoned after serving from 1833 to about 1877.

Barges loaded with grain and produce on Lake Keuka entered the canal’s first lock under what is now known as the Chronicle annex, formerly the Hasson block, 108-10 Water street – occupied by the Modern Beauty shop and Penn Yan Business services. Twenty years ago this spring workmen dug up the sill of the first lock under this building to help establish legal questions as to water levels in Lake Keuka.

The tow path crossed the outlet about where the railroad trestle now spans the stream above the state damn. At one time, however, the dam was some 100 feet further upstream than the present structure. In 1834, a year after the canal was opened, the dam was raised six inches to better serve the canal, but since then it has not been raised or lowered.

The rear of a portion of the Birkett’s Mill warehouse on Water street, viewed today from Main Street bridge, clearly shows the second story overhanging, so as to easily permit gravity feed of grain into canal boats which would be tied up in the basin beneath the building.

After negotiating the first lock, canal boats would proceed to Dresden passing directly under what is now the Chronicle-Express office, under the Main Street bridge span and along the outlet side of Seneca street on their tedious way down towards Seneca Lake and Dresden. A short spur of the canal carried barges to the rear of the buildings on the east side of Main street, which gave Basin street its present name.

47) What hotel was replaced by a movie theatre?

Yes, it’s true, folks, in case you don’t happen to remember – the Shearman house, one of Penn Yan’s hotels, was transformed into what is now the one and only movie theatre – the Elmwood on Elm street. See any resemblance?

In March of 1921 the late Harry C. Morse, famed Lake Keuka steamboat pilot and captain, purchased from the Odd Fellows Building association the Shearman house and the adjoining business block … and converted them into a movie theatre, which he named the Elmwood. Five years before Mr. Morse purchased the Sampson theatre, on East Elm street, now Jewett’s garage. Dr. Franklin S. Sampson erected this large structure in 1910 and it was widely used for stage shows, movies, and basketball games, also as a miniature golf course. Mr. Morse for a time operated both theatres. The old Cornwell Opera house, now the Grange hall, was showing a bill of movies at the same time – making three in all competing for business. Following the death of Mr. Morse in 1936 the Elmwood was sold to the Schine chain and the Sampson theatre ceased to be used for entertainment.

48) How many Penn Yan streets were named after U.S. generals?

Three Penn Yan streets bear the names of famous United States Generals – Jackson, Sherman, and Grant.

49) What streets bear the names commonly used for boys’ first names?

Four Penn Yan streets bear names commonly used as first names by boys – Clinton, Henry, Lawrence, and Franklin.

50) Where is there a house built at an angle to the street?

The residence of Mrs. Delos Sprague, 231 East Main street, is built at a marked angle to the sidewalk and street which it faces.

51) How many streets bear the names commonly used for girls?

Two Penn Yan streets bear names commonly used as the first names of girls – Violet and Myrtle.

52) Where is there a meteor?

In front of the Fred Carroll homestead, corner of Ogden street and South avenue, now owned by Mrs. Lena M. Snyder, is a meteorite about the size of a bushel basket and weighing 976 pounds. Mrs. Alfred Carroll saw it fall on the farm in Potter in the year 1887. It was been exhibited for many years on the Penn Yan place, the property, 151 South avenue.

53) Where does the sidewalk make a detour to avoid a tree?

In front of the former Christie Briggs residence at 214 East Main street, the entire sidewalk swerves wide to avoid a large oak tree; also in front of the Gilbert Smith residence, 223 East Main, the walk detours around a big elm. In numerous other places the sidewalk is indented to permit room for a tree and its roots but this is one place where the walk makes a detour.

54) How many stone houses are there in the village?

There are, we believe, but two stone houses within the village limits – the field stone Wagener house, owned by Paul Ritchey on Highland drive, and the Paul R. Taylor residence on Main street. The latter was built of stone quarried practically within the village.

Do you know where that quarry is? …

Dr. Waddell, years ago, erected four masonry houses on Hicks street and Waddell avenue, but these are really cement houses in which stone was merely used for filling.

55) How many former street names can you identify?

Following are two lists of Penn Yan street names. The first list contains names used today. The column to the right contains the names of the same nine streets used years ago …

            East Elm                   Jacob

            South Ave.                Boundary

            Chapel                       Church

            Garfield                     Sheridan Place

            East Main                 Jillett

            Keuka                        Pine

            North Ave.                Head

            Seneca                       Canal

            North Liberty          Quarry

56) Where is there a house not built “on a square”?

While there are several street intersections in Penn Yan which are not made at right angles, the buildings on the corners are usually “on the square” with the line of one wall at a 90-degree angle with the intersecting line of the next wall.

The north and west sides of the Bush house at the corner of North avenue and Jackson street, are an exception, however, and form an angle of less than 90 degrees. The same is true of the Guile apartment building containing the Market Basket store at the corner of Main street and North avenue.

57) Where was the Gas House?

Penn Yan’s first gas house was on Jackson street, completed by the Penn Yan Gas Light company Sept. 25, 1860, when gas was first turned on in the Yates county seat. In June of 1888 William T. Morris bought controlling interest in the company and rebuilt the works on Jackson street.

Nine years later the corporation purchased the Tuttle malt house on Water street … and in 1899 built the stone gas house now used by the Penn Yan winery, along Lake Keuka outlet, and the large steel gas tank familiar to many adults. This storage tank was razed by the New York State Electric and Gas corporation seven years ago since pipelines had earlier replaced the huge container. Gas was first piped to Penn Yan from Geneva Jan. 16, 1929.

The original gas company, organized May 11, 1860, was incorporated by Darius A. Ogden, L.O. Dunning, George McAllister, Samuel H. Wells, and Charles Stark, with a capital of $10,000. The company, serving the public from the Water street plant, was headed by Mr. Morris with Morris Tracey as secretary and Michael F. Buckley as superintendent. The plant was moved downtown since by the first of this century most of Penn Yan’s business had been firmly established in its present location rather than at the location of Head and Main streets.

One of the first Penn Yan Oddities in this series revealed one of the original gas street lamp posts still standing in front of the Elias Wallace residence on East Main street. Others were found transplanted to support clothes lines at the rear of the Frank E. Monnin residence and the Gilbert Smith home on East Main.

Mrs. Ernest Pierce of Keuka Park recalls that her uncle, Harrison (Phinney) Brown, once chief of police in this village, for years was the official lamplighter, starting first with kerosene lamps and then progressing to the newer gas lights over 80 years ago. Mr. Brown lived at 122 Clinton street, reaching his house by a series of steps leading from the sidewalk up the bank on the north side of the street. The late Carl F. Brunt built the present dwelling on the site of the Brown home. Mr. Brown met a tragic death when struck by a train some 60 years ago between Clinton street and the Pennsylvania depot.

58) Where was the Stevens steam engine built?

Pearl Simmons used one of the popular Stevens steam farm engines for powering his farm jobs years ago. These were made in extensive shops which spread out on both sides of Head street, just west of the Main street intersection. The Harry O. Bennett and Dr. Glenn Hatch residences occupy land entirely used by the once thriving engine making plant. Later the industry moved to Auburn.

59) The village corporate limits lie in how many townships?

The Incorporated Village of Penn Yan is in three townships – Milo, Benton, and Jerusalem.

Most of the village lies in Milo, but from the center of North Avenue to the north is Benton township, and a very small portion of the village lies within Jerusalem township at the west end. As a matter of fact, the main drive in the Lake View cemetery roughly marks the Milo-Jerusalem boundary line.

60) What structure is being built on site of early movie house?

George Miller is creating a new building at 118 Elm street to accommodate the Gordon Allen lunch and pool room, replacing the old frame structure which stood on the site since Civil War days. When it was torn down recently workmen found wooden pins holding the front frame work and a sign dated 1871.

For over 60 years it was operated as a blacksmith shop, Charles Wren being the last smithy to hold forth in that location. About 1908 it became one of Penn Yan’s first movie theatres. William Wickham of Salamanca first brought movies to Penn Yan, recalls Nathaniel P. Sackett of Elm street, operator for the Elmwood theatre. Mr. Wickham’s first theatre was located where the New York State Electric and Gas corporation office is now. Business was good so he rented the old blacksmith shop on Elm street and started a Nickelodeon there. The row of electric lights which illuminated the front could be seen until the structure was razed a few days ago.

In this building Mr. Sackett having purchased from Mr. Wickham, first introduced novelty or vaudeville acts between films, while the operator was rewinding and changing reels. John Roche, local boy who gained recognition and wealth in Hollywood, got his start here with a song and dance routine.

A later occupant of the building was John Hoban’s meat market, which moved there from the White building, replaced by the Jolley Chevrolet structure. Hoban’s market remained there until April 1, 1925, when it exchanged locations with Mike Roche’s restaurant, moving to its present location, which George Miller had owned previously.

[yatescountyhistorycenter]

Do you know Penn Yan?: Penn Yan Oddity, No. 1 through No. 30

By Jonathan Monfiletto

Anyone who has conducted research either through Yates County’s digitized newspapers or the Yates County History Center’s subject files has likely come across items titled either “Penn Yan Oddity” or “Yates County Oddity.” These items – snippets might be a good word – provide information about various aspects of local history, seeming to answer some sort of question or mystery.

Seeing so many of these snippets – and finding the answers but seeming not to find the question – I decided to scour our digitized newspaper database to see if I could find all of them, the questions with the answers. It turns out the oddities – 90 Penn Yan Oddity items, 52 Yates County Oddity items – were part of an advertising campaign in the 1940s for Baldwin’s Bank, then located at 127 Main St. in Penn Yan, the present-day home of the Arts Center of Yates County.

The Penn Yan Oddities ran in The Chronicle-Express in consecutive weeks from February 20, 1947 to November 11, 1948, and then the Yates County Oddities picked up right away in the newspaper from November 18, 1948 to November 24, 1949. So, for more than 2 and a half years, readers of The Chronicle-Express could learn something about local history each week in the newspaper.

Each item started out as an advertisement for Baldwin’s Bank with the phrase “Do You Know Penn Yan?” at the top of the graphic followed by the question for the week. In the middle, the bulk of the ad, would appear information about the bank’s various services and offerings. The bottom would direct the reader to look for the answer elsewhere on the same page and then look for another Oddity the following week.

In this article, I present Penn Yan Oddity No. 1 through No. 30. Each question and answer has been transcribed exactly as it appeared in the newspaper, which changes made only for typographical errors and not for grammatical style. The only time words have been removed from the items is in the case of references to photographs or other information that appeared elsewhere in the newspaper.

1) Where do autos now park on what was once the site of the village school?

The Maiden Lane Parking station was once the site of the Maiden Lane school where many of Penn Yan’s citizens received their education when they were children during the span from 1842 to ’93. Younger adults will recall when the school house was converted to a hitch barn by the late Owen Hoban, father of Leo and Owen Hoban; later sold and known as McConnell’s hitching barn for many years, finally being razed to make way for parking.

2) Where is there an octagon barn?

At the rear of the residence of John Andrews, 312 Clinton street, purchased from Mrs. Charlotte Becker, is an eight-sided barn, built in 1855 by Myron T. Hamlin. The builder sold the place to Darius Adams Ogden, first U.S. Consul to Honolulu and grandfather of Philip Ogden of Clinton street. Mr. Ogden built the house which Mr. Andrews now owns and gave it to his son, Darius Adams Ogden, jr., as a wedding present. The octagon barn may easily be seen on the north side of Clinton street as one drives along.

3) Where is there one of the old gas street lamp posts in original position?

In front of the Elias Wallace residence, 118 East Main street, Penn Yan, standing in its original position and now serving as trellis for a trumpet vine, is one of the old gas street lamp posts – the kind they have been singing about over the radio.

Can anyone tell us when they were installed, who was the last person employed to light them, when were they abandoned for the old style carbon electric arc lamps?

4) Where did Lake Keuka boats dock at Penn Yan in days before the dam and canal?

Before the dam made the outlet of Lake Keuka navigable for large boats and when horses forded the stream at Indian Pines, the boat dock for the north end of the East Branch was located near what is now Red Jacket park. In fact, the narrow drive which marks the north boundary of the park is a public highway leading from Lake street to Lake Keuka and the old dock. Horse drawn vehicles after fording the outlet would use this right-of-way to gain the Bath road, rather than driving into Penn Yan and crossing where the Main Street bridge is now located.

5) Where in Penn Yan is there still standing an iron hitching post?

In front of the Arthur Putney residence, 121 North avenue, is a metal hitching post – a pair of horses’ heads holding the two rings convenient for hitching. For years this was in Penn Yan’s business section and Park’s carriage works until some 35 years ago occupied the site of Dr. Glenn Hatch’s present residence, immediately next door to the Putney home.

There must be other hitching posts – metal or stone – still standing between the sidewalk and curb in Penn Yan. Where are they? If there is one in your neighborhood phone the Chronicle-Express – phone 123 – and for the fun of it, we’ll see how many still remain in Penn Yan.

6) How many other places are named Penn Yan?

There is only one Penn Yan in all this shrinking world – and that is in little Yates county, New York. Michigan once had a Penn Yan, but that Penn Yan shrank, too, until finally the post office name was withdrawn. In fact, the name has disappeared entirely in that section today. Nearest to “Penn Yan” is Pingyang, Korea, or Penang, an island, just west of the Malaysian peninsula, which the Japanese took in their early hop-skip-and-jump invasion south along that Asiatic protrusion.

7) What street is in the shape of a circle?

Wagener court, which opens onto and lies directly east of Benham street, is circular in shape. Four houses, erected by H. Allen Wagener, are on the street, built in 1918.

8) Where is there a residence in Penn Yan with 11 outside doors on the ground floor?

The residence at 155 North avenue, formerly owned and operated by the Turner sisters, has 11 doors opening from various parts of the house to the outside and all on the ground level. Two of the outside doors open towards the street on the front porch.

Recently this big old house was purchased by Fred Russell. Mrs. Elsie Reed Haney, who is in charge of the school cafeteria, rents the home.

9) Where in Penn Yan is there a tree with two limbs grown together forming a bridge?

A maple tree in front of the Methodist parsonage, 219 Main street, has two limbs which have grown together forming a perfect bridge and loop of wood.

10) Where is there a tree tied in knot?

A horse chestnut tree in front of 112 Benham street is thriving even though its main branches grow in a hard knot, some seven feet above the ground. About 50 years ago the late Richard Danes tied the twigs in a knot as a prank, never expecting the tree to live.

11) Which Penn Yan church occupies the site once used by a furniture factory?

The Curtis Chair factory once stood at the corner of Main and Clinton streets, the site now being used by the St. Mark’s Episcopal church and the late Seward McDonald residence. Samuel F. Curtis, grandfather of late Mrs. John Howard Perkins of Clinton Street, made furniture and coffins there until July 3, 1867 or 68, when the factory burned, along with the several houses between it and Jacob’s creek. The fire also destroyed the chain bridge across the brook. Approach to the second story of the houses back of the factory was direct from the elevated walk. After the fire the Johnson wagon repair shop occupied the location. Later the Episcopal Church moved from Main street, opposite Penn Yan Academy, to its present location.

12) Where are there old canal locks in Penn Yan through which railroad trains pass?

The trains of the New York Central railroad pass through locks of the old Crooked Lake canal near Cherry street, as well as at numerous other places during its eight-mile serpentine route, following the outlet from Penn Yan to Dresden. First used in October of 1833, the canal continued to carry boat traffic between Keuka and Seneca lakes until about 1877. Over two dozen locks were required to lift and lower the boats the difference of 265 feet between the lakes. The mason work of several of these locks is still in good condition and easily seen.

13) What Penn Yan church was once a public school?

The Free Methodist church on North avenue, just east of Main street, was a public school erected about 1843 or a dozen years after the first brick school house on the Liberty street site. After use as a school for a number of years it was transferred to the Free Methodists.

14) Under what buildings would excavators find the remains of an old canal tug boat?

If excavators were to work under the rear of the Armstrong restaurant, formerly Heath’s, and also under the Corcoran hardware they would very likely find the remains of a tug boat, which was sunk there in a spur of the old Crooked Lake canal before the latter was abandoned about 70 years ago. This spur, running a short distance north of the main canal, was handy for loading and unloading cargoes consigned to and from Penn Yan. Local industries along the canal or outlet banks had their private wharves. The waterway carried much traffic from the entire Lake Keuka community into Seneca lake and the Erie canal system to the Hudson and New York City.

15) What Penn Yan residence was once a thriving hostelry?

The Ottaway house at 210 North avenue was once one of the best-built hotels in Penn Yan. Operated by Mr. Pierce, it served guests when the corner of Main and Head (North avenue) streets, was the center of Yates county and Penn Yan commerce. Early in the 19th century there were three inns doing a brisk business there. This was before Vernon township, which then included Milo and Jerusalem townships as well, was named Benton. In 1818 the meeting at which Milo township was organized was held in one of those inns. Until recently a horseblock covered a liberal flowing spring which once supplied a watering trough in front of the building.

For many years the edifice has served as an apartment house.

16) Where did the original outlet leave Lake Keuka?

Before the present channel was dug, the mouth of the Lake Keuka outlet was about 50 feet further west, toward the West Lake road, than now. A little swale in back of the beach shows where the original outlet bed was. The stream then meandered in a wide curve through the present march, which at that time was a wooded area. The delta across the outlet at the mouth of Kimball creek now directs the Keuka water flow into the marsh where it follows somewhat the original stream bed.

17) What Penn Yan apartment house was built for and used as a church?

The dwelling at 300 Main street, now occupied by five tenants and owned by Mayor Mervin J. Rapalee, was originally a Wesleyan church and is shown as such on the Penn Yan map printed in 1854. Another map in 1896 indicates that it was then the residence of C.B. Struble.

Rev. Benjamin Bradford served as pastor of the church at one time. His grandson, Rev. Arthur Bradford, is now pastor of the strong Congregational church in Providence, R.I., and his wife is a sister of Mrs. Walter A. Hendricks of Penn Yan.

18) What house has a front door opening directly on one street and back (or opposite) door opening directly onto another street?

Two or three houses near Five Points have front doors facing on Seneca street and rear doors, at the opposite end of the house, facing on East Elm street. The last village directory lists the Seneca street entrances as the front doors with Seneca street numbers.

19) In what nearby city is a rose garden named for a former Penn Yan man?

Sunday the Syracuse Rose society presented its annual rose show and the crowning of a Rose queen in Mills Memorial gardens of Thornden park, located near the Syracuse university campus.

These rose gardens were originated and managed by Dr. Edmund M. Mills, who served as pastor of the First Methodist church in Penn Yan from 1881 to ’84, leaving the local pulpit to become district superintendent. Rose culture was his hobby and as a plaque in the park indicates, he was a recognized authority on roses. Dr. Mills died in Santa Ana, Calif., March 15, 1933.

20) Were are numbers from 1 up cut in the stones of the sidewalk? And why?

The walk on the west side of Elm Street running along the Lake View cemetery is comprised of stones into which on the inside edge has been cut, about every 100 feet, numbers running from one up. Can anyone tell us when the numbers were put there and for what purpose?

21) Where is Penn Yan’s old steam powered fire engine pumper and the old hand pumper?

The old Silsby steamer, made in Seneca Falls, went into salvage during the last war. It was purchased in the fall of 1872, the year of the Big Penn Yan conflagration.

Stored in a shed on the north edge of Lake View cemetery is an old brake engine, Excelsior No. 2. The Excelsior company was formed in 1854, the year the downtown engine house was erected, and the break engine, the third purchased by this company, was then acquired.

22) Where is the oldest house in Penn Yan?

The dwelling at 105 Cherry street, owned by Miss Ida Caviston and now occupied the past nine years by Mr. and Mrs. Rufus Burley, is supposed to be the oldest residence in Penn Yan. It was built by Samuel Lawrence about 1810 for his bride.

23) Where is the official marker showing Penn Yan’s altitude?

The only official bench marker in the series, running from Dresden to Bath, that is located in Penn Yan is a bronze plate embedded in the limestone water table of Penn Yan Academy. Under the windows of Principal Donald Grants office. The reading on the marker indicates that it is exactly 767 feet above sea level but Owen Hoban, civil engineer and contractor, says recent maps correct the reading for that particular marker to 768.497 feet above sea level.

24) Where is the public drinking fountain that stood at the four corners years ago?

On the side of the Deckerman residence, 127½ East Main street, next door to the office of the New York State police, is a small fountain – rebuilt from the public drinking fountain erected at the corner of Main and Jacob (East Elm) streets just 50 years ago as a community service by the Loyal Temperance legion. The fountain was an ornate affair intended to serve both man and canine. Difficulty with the valve led to discard of the fountain from its conspicuous place at the four corners and eventually it turned up, greatly changed in appearance, as now, in the lawn of the Deckerman brothers.

25) Where was there a movie studio?

The E.R. Ramsey property at 414 North Main street, just acquired by the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial hospital for its expansion program, provided the studios for the Penn Yan Film corporation. Buildings of the pliaduct factory, started in January of 1910 … provided studios for the local branch of the infant movie industry five years later. The feature-length film, “Wheat and Tares,” shown at the Elmwood last fall, was one of the products of the local studio. Several others were scheduled for production when Mr. Ramsey’s death in an auto accident June 13, 1916, halted all plans for future filming.

Students and friends of the old Keuka college and institute as well as the public will have an opportunity to view the 32-year old film showing many Keuka college and Penn Yan scenes as background and numerous present residents as actors and extras. This courtesy screening of the film will be at the Elmwood theatre at 5 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 16.

26) Where is Penn Yan’s subway?

Penn Yan’s subway extends under the sidewalk from the corner of Main and Water streets to the Main Street bridge and dam. It is used only by workmen, but has ample room since Main street from Water to the bridge is many feet higher than when it first spanned the old Crooked Lake canal and outlet and there were no buildings where the Chronicle-Express office and neighboring blocks are now situated. The “subway” is some 60 years old.

27) Where and when was Penn Yan’s first grade crossing elimination?

Before 1883 Hamilton street entered Jacob street, now called East Elm, just east of what is now the Pennsylvania apartments and Market Basket store run by Harold Seager. The crossing over the railroad, built in 1851, was eliminated after some 22 years of use by swinging Hamilton street a bit east, starting at the junction of Chestnut street and making the intersection with Jacob just east of the tracks, as at present. The remaining small section of Hamilton street on the west side of the tracks and station is therefore known as Hamilton place.

28) What was the first street to be paved and when?

Jacob street, now East Elm, was the first street paved with brick in Penn Yan, the work being done in 1906.

The old picture of Jacob street … was taken shortly after the paving was completed. A circus announcement on the Central house porch dates the showing as June 13. Merrill Beach transformed the Central house into the present Universal building about 1920. That forced Henry Ross to give up the open-air peanut, fruit, and candy stand which he had been operating for some 30 years. Frank Wheeler’s tire shop is at present using as an approach the location of this stand, which Mr. Ross took over years earlier from James Lord.

Immediately beyond the fruit stand was Abe Masten’s book store, now the American Legion building and the location being taken over by Deckerman brothers. Careful study of the picture shows that Dr. Frank Sampson had not yet erected the Sampson theatre, now Jewett’s garage, and that the Masonic temple, built in 1914, was still a dream only.

Conspicuous, of course, is the “Toonerville.” Tracks for the Penn Yan, Keuka Park and Branchport Electric Railway were laid on Jacob street in the spring of 1897 and torn up in the fall on 1936.

29) What early Penn Yan school was once located in the business section?

In the Chronicle-Express window is a seat, owned by Henry Carey and used in the Maiden Lane school. The old school is now but a memory. Once, however, it was the mecca of young Penn Yan at this time of year. The seat was found in the cupola when the building, long used as a hitching barn, was razed to make room for the present parking station.

When Thomas H. Lock, a bookbinder, came from New York city to live in Penn Yan, he named the short thoroughfare connected Main and Liberty streets, after the famous Maiden lane of New York. In 1842 the school was erected on the south side, serving to educate many of the early residents during the next half century. In 1893 it was abandoned as the present Liberty Street school was erected.

The late Owen Hoban converted it into a hitching stable, which in later years was run by Ed McConnell. … E.G. Hopkins then bought the barn and razed it to make the Maiden Lane Parking station. The big elm recently cut down was the last of the trees that furnished shade on the school playground.

30) What variety of apple was started and named in Penn Yan?

“Believe it or not” the Wagener apple was developed in an orchard planted by Abraham Wagener, “founder of Penn Yan.” When he built his “palatial” residence, known as the “Mansion House,” at the foot of Main street – the orchard spread from the rear of the home, now the Knapp Hotel, to Elm street. Erected in 1816 as a home, the “Mansion House” later became an inn and was rebuilt into the present structure in 1897 by Oliver C. Knapp.

The State Department of Agriculture in its report, “The Apples of New York,” says concerning the Wagener apple: “in the spring of 1791 George Wheeler brought with him from Dover, Dutchess county, N.Y., to Penn Yan, Yates county, a quantity of apple seeds which he sowed that spring in the nursery upon his farm which he was then reclaiming from the wilderness.

“In 1796, Abraham Wagener, from whom the name of the apple is derived, brought this seedling nursery and planted trees from it upon his place in what is now the Village of Penn Yan. In 1848 it was remarked that the old tree was producing an annual and abundant yield of beautiful and delicious fruit. It continued to bear full crops till about the year 1865. After it was brought to the notice of the State Agricultural society, the Wagener soon began to be propagated quite extensively, and it was since become widely disseminated throughout the country.

“In 1892 Wagener was being offered quite generally by nurserymen throughout the country except in the Northern Mississippi valley, the Rocky Mountain region and the plains from Nebraska to Texas. It is generally known throughout New York but is not planted extensively in any section of the state.”

[yatescountyhistorycenter]

The curious case of the short-lived Combination Vender Company

By Jonathan Monfiletto

From furniture for stores and schools to carriages and buses to metal fixtures and more, the Penn Yan area has been the site of various industrial endeavors creating a variety of interesting products. One such venture was the Combination Vender Company, which was at one point located on Water Street in the building that is now the site of Water Street Wines & Spirits.

Though it seems to have begun with promise, the Combination Vender Company also seems to have come in like lion – putting out a roaring good product for the Yates County area and beyond – and seems to have gone out like a lion too, with a ferocious argument between the company’s founders. The Yates County Chronicle of August 31, 1904 features the first reference to the Combination Vender Company in a Yates County newspaper, though it is unclear when the company started. That edition of the Chronicle notes Combination Vender recently moved from the Commercial Iron Works, located on Commercial Avenue in the Lake Street corridor after the 1872 Jacob Street fire, to a building on Water Street owned by C.H. Conklin.

A few months later, on February 8, 1905, the Chronicle carried an article titled “Penn Yan’s New Industry” and subtitled “Davis Brothers and F.B. Townsend Doing a Rushing Business on Water Street.” The article describes Combination Vender as a new industry that opened on Water Street after beginning in Beebe’s carriage factory the summer before. The Water Street building had previously been occupied by the Penn Yan Wine Company but now was the home of a firm managed by brothers Jacob and Lewis Davis and Frank Townsend, who invented the machine the company patented on October 25, 1904 and produced in its factory.

Though newspaper accounts call the machine a slot machine, it wasn’t something you would see in a casino even though in practice it might work that way. In essence, the machine was – as the company’s name suggests – a vending machine. According to the Chronicle, the vending machines had four compartments to carry four different commodities, such as candies and peanuts and more. Items cost one cent each, so a person put in their penny and chose the item they wanted. The machine received the penny and carried it back to the drawer and retained it. Then, the desired item fell through the opening into the hand of the person.

Interestingly, the machine also had a magnet that attracted steel or iron or tin and thus prevented fraudulent coins from being used to obtain items. Since a penny is made from brass and not magnetic, it moved through the machine as intended.

At the time of the 1905 article, the company employed 13 people and and had 1,000 machines ready for shipment, with a total of 3,000 or more orders. The Chronicle detailed the company’s process for making the machines on Water Street: On the first floor, oak woodwork for the machines was cut to the right size by circular saws and into the right shape by a machine carrying different knives. Then, the wood was smoothed and polished by a revolving wheel. On the second floor, the iron and brass were prepared, with the iron cut into shape by metal dies. On the third floor, the machines were put together, varnished, and prepared for sale. At that point, every part of the machines was made on Water Street except for the enameled iron front – made by the Lisk works in Canandaigua – and one little casting made in Buffalo.

Combination Vender had moved to Water Street in 1904 to “largely increase its capacity,” according to the Chronicle, and indeed by the end 1905 the company was reported to employ “fifteen or sixteen men” and its machine was touted as “one of the best on the market and … finding a ready sale in all parts of the United States.” The company incorporated in early 1906 with a capital stock of $100,000, with the Davis brothers and Townsend among the directors. “These gentlemen have an excellent invention, a money maker, and are to be congratulated,” the Chronicle said.

In December 1908, the Combination Vender building was the victim of an apparent arsonist in the Penn Yan business district. The engine room, where the fire ignited, and another small building were significantly damaged, and the building sustained water damage. However, a little more than a year later, in the first Chronicle edition of 1910, an article headlined “Prospering Industries” highlighted Combination Vender along with other industries and interests throughout Penn Yan and Yates County. the sub-headlines boasted, “Penn Yan’s Factories and Mills Show Marked Progress During 1909,” “Railroads Show Increase Over 1908,” and “Northern Central Business for November and December Gains $14,200. Factories Nearly all Busy. Outlook for 1910 Very Promising in all Industries.”

For the article, Combination Vender reported an increase in business from 1908 to 1909 and had “every reason to be assured of a prosperous year in 1910,” with no decrease in its workforce during the winter despite such a cut being the rule in similar factories. “This firm has a great deal of competition to meet, but its machines are satisfactory and increased business naturally follows,” the article states.

However prosperous 1910 may been for Combination Vender, 1911 appeared to usher in the downfall of the company. On May 31, the Chronicle reported the factory was shut down and the employees put on vacation because of strained relations between Townsend, the company secretary, and Jacob Davis, the company treasurer. Davis had apparently fired Townsend, giving the secretary “a notice that his services were no longer required,” but Townsend refused to stop working. Davis delivered Townsend another notice, this time accompanied by a witness, yet Townsend still refused to quit. Townsend stated his firing by the treasurer required the consent of the board of directors.

Davis called a meeting of the board of directors, which voted to discharge Townsend. The secretary still refused to step down, claiming the notice of the meeting must specify its purpose. With the factory slated to reopen the following week, Townsend said he would be there while Davis said Townsend would not be allowed to work and the factory would be closed again if needed. It was noted Davis held the majority of shares in the company, while Townsend was a stockholder and was also superintendent of the factory for some time.

The Penn Yan Democrat of June 9, 1911 sheds more light on Townsend’s side of the argument, stating the secretary had asked the treasurer for a sworn statement of the condition of the company but Davis failed to do so. While Townsend said he made the request in writing that March, Davis said he had no recollection of it other than presenting a statement to the board and giving it to Townsend to examine. However, at that meeting, Townsend said he asked Davis to swear to the statement, but Davis would swear only to part of it. This argument apparently led to Davis seeking to fire Townsend.

According to the Democrat, Townsend sought a penalty for Davis for his violating a law that requires the treasurer of a company or corporation to render a sworn statement under certain conditions. Townsend also sought back payment for his prior work for the company. Indeed, Townsend filed a lawsuit against Davis for the violation of corporation law. The presiding judge dismissed the action, however, stating Townsend, as a director of the company, had “every opportunity to acquaint himself with the financial standing of the company,” the Chronicle stated on December 13, 1911.

As reported by the Chronicle on June 4, 1913, the Appellate Division ordered a retrial, with this time the jury deciding the case in favor of Townsend and the presiding judge awarding $680 (equivalent to $21,298 in 2023 dollars) to Townsend as a penalty to Davis. This verdict appeared to ring the death knell for Combination Vendor.

On January 9, 1914, the Democrat reported a man was looking for a suitable building to manufacture gas fixtures, and one place under consideration was “the brick building on Water Street until recently occupied by the Combination Vender Company, this company having moved into the adjoining wooden building,” formerly occupied by Sanderson’s coal office. A year later, on January 15, 1915, the Democrat reported a fire destroyed the three floors of the Combination Vender building. Baldwin’s Bank owned the building and had it insured for $3,000, while Davis had the machinery and company stock insured for $8,000.

The last mention of the Combination Vender Company in Yates County newspapers came on December 3,1924, when the Chronicle reported a fire at Clumm’s Accessory Store – apparently located in the wooden building once the home of Combination Vender – in which 500 of Combination Vender’s machines were destroyed. Davis, then living on Rochester, stored the machines there until they could be distributed in nearby areas, and some of the machines were recently purchased by a Rochester man. Instead, “all of these, charred by the fire and soaked with water, were dumped down through the two stories to the ground floor,” the Chronicle wrote.