A dozen historic buildings will be featured in Tour of Homes on Sept. 21

Provided photos: This year’s tour of homes sponsored by the Cobblestone Museum will feature a dozen historic buildings in the Albion area. Shown here are Mount Albion Cemetery chapel and the Ebenezer Rogers house on South Main Street.

ALBION – The Cobblestone Museum’s annual tour of homes this year will feature a unique variety of buildings.

When the tours started in 1961 they were originally just cobblestone buildings, said Doug Farley, director of the Cobblestone Museum. There were 20 cobblestone structures all located along Ridge Road, between Childs and Oak Orchard on the Ridge. Six of those sites offered indoor tours. The tours continued on and off for many years, and more recently, historic buildings with different construction materials were added.

Twelve stops are included in this year’s tour, all with indoor access and all located in a quick and easy short drive from each other, Farley said.

This year Sue Starkweather Miller was asked to help plan the tour, as it is centered in the Albion area.

“While planning this year’s tour we thought about adding homes and buildings in Albion that are historically significant, that many people may not know about or haven’t had the opportunity to visit,” Miller said.

The tour also includes the Joseph F. Hart house on South Main Street, and the Day and Day Building on North Main Street.

Some of those buildings are the Ebenezer Rogers home, the oldest home in the village and current home of Mr. and Mrs. John Gailie at 352 South Main St.; the Grand Army of the Republic room at the Day and Day Building; and the chapel at Mount Albion Cemetery.

Miller is a former board member of the Cobblestone Museum and the current historian for the village of Albion, so she is well versed on the village’s historical structures.

“As soon as you step inside the beautiful entryway of the Ebenezer Rogers home, you get a real sense of what a colonial home looked like in the 1820s,” Miller said. “Also, many people have never seen the GAR Room in the Day and Day Building, or even knew it existed, so it is a unique opportunity to enjoy and appreciate its historical significance.”

Participants in the tour will have to climb two flights of stairs to see the GAR Room on the third floor, but the end result is well worth it, Miller said. The Pratt Opera House will also be part of that tour stop.

Mount Albion Cemetery’s chapel was built in 1875 of locally quarried Medina sandstone. It is the focal point of the cemetery’s entrance. Tour participants will be able to peek into the chapel that has suffered water damage due to the original slate roof needing to be replaced. Miller will soon be announcing plans for a community campaign to help raise the funds for a new slate roof and necessary interior repairs.

“Back in 1976 the Albion community came together to raise funds to ‘Save the Tower,’ and I am hopeful our community will come together again to help us save the chapel, which is also an important Mount Albion landmark,” Miller said.

Other stops on the tour are the Cobblestone Museum’s Thompson-Kast Visitors Center at 14386 Ridge Rd., Childs; the Bullard/Lattin cobblestone house at 3178 Gaines Basin Rd.; Gaines Basin District No. 2 Schoolhouse, 3286 Gaines Basin Rd.; Orleans Chapter Daughters of the American Revolution home at 249 North Main St.; the former Presbyterian manse and Harriette Greaser home at 31 East State St.; Marti’s on Main (Kim and Neal Muscarella), 20 South Main St.; Christ Episcopal Church, 26 South Main St.; Joseph F. Hart House, home of Diana Kay Dragan Reed at 349 South Main St.; and Mount Albion Cemetery’s Soldiers and Sailors Monument Tower, all in Albion.

At the Day and Day Building, visitors are asked to park on North Main Street and enter in the front; at the Ebenezer Rogers house and Joseph F. Hart house, park at Oak Orchard Dental, not along Route 98.

The 2024 Tour of Homes is scheduled for Sept. 21. Tickets are $20 for Cobblestone Society members and $25 for non-members. They may be ordered online (click here) or by calling the museum at (585) 589-9013.