County Courthouse, completed in 1858, was a source of rivalry between Albion and Medina

Photo by Tom Rivers: The Orleans County Courthouse has been a landmark in Albion for nearly 170 years.

By Catherine Cooper, Orleans County Historian 

“Illuminating Orleans” – Volume 6, No. 31

Cain and Abel, New York and New Jersey, the Yankees and the Red Sox: we are familiar with these examples of rivalry – sibling, geographic, sports.

We can add Medina and Albion to that pantheon of longstanding rivalries.

In a 1925 issue of the Albion High School publication, the Chevron, we found an account of a football game between “the fighting Albion” team and Medina, it’s “ancient foe”. Since Albion was incorporated in 1828 and Medina in 1832, the use of the adjective “ancient” seems a little exaggerated, but we infer the primal nature of the competitiveness.

We recently chanced upon a newspaper article which verified this “ancient” enmity. Apparently, the following article appeared in the Medina Tribune in 1857, in response to the approval of a Bill to provide for the building of a new Court House passed by the Orleans County Board of Supervisors on Feb. 18, 1857. The tone is so blistering, we had to share it in its entirety:

New Court House

The fogies from Fogyville – alias Albion – are in high spirits.

There is a prospect that the sound of the hammer and trowel,

the saw and the jack-plane will again be heard in that cemeterial

hamlet. The Board of Supervisors has voted them a new Court

House and appropriated $20,000 to cover the cost.

Why shouldn’t the people of Fogyville feel elated and proud

with this windfall? They have forgotten how new shavings

look. It is years since they have listened to the music of a

hand-saw. Brick and mortar, masons and hod-carriers,

carpenters and glaziers, have faded from their memories.

Besides all this, the old Court House, which the old fogies

of Fogyville have used during the last twenty years for

concerts, lectures, political speeches, caucuses, Ethiopian

dances, “stated preaching” and prayer meetings, is getting

shabby.

A new one should be built.

Fogyville cannot get along without it.

They have no public hall, no dancing room, no place for a

public lecture, speeches or concerts, except the aforesaid

old Court House.

Therefore, Fogyville should have a new Court House, with

                  a public hall in one corner, a schoolhouse in another, and a

                  prayer and conference room in a third and the County should

                  be taxed as heretofore to furnish them with wood and lights

for all public doings. Hurrah for Fogyville!”

Naturally, the Albion folks at the Orleans Republican did not take too kindly to this. Their response appeared in the March 27, 1857 issue:

                 “The above specimen of sarcasm is from the Tribune,

                  published at Medina, a place where so intense a silence

                  reigns that a sneeze in the streets alarms the population, and

                  when two teams (horse and carriage) enter the town in close

proximity, people rush to their doors “to see the show go past.”

Now, we don’t pretend to deny that Albion has been slightly

“crusted over,” we’ve preached that for a long time. But the

crust is fairly broken and the coming season will witness greater

progress here in one year than a single year ever brought out before.

We would take it kindly if the Tribune would stop “stirring up

the animal” It would save us some trouble.”

The term “stirring up the animal” may be unfamiliar. It refers to the deliberate provoking of rowdy behavior. This reprinted exchange provides a background for subsequent exchanges between the communities and for the later rivalry between the Albion and Medina sports teams.