Former Assemblyman donates trove of Albion mementos to Hoag Library

Charlie Nesbitt has scoured internet, estate sales for yearbooks, postcards, other Albion area artifacts

Photos by Tom Rivers: Charlie Nesbitt last week donated boxes of old Albion Chevron yearbooks, newspapers, postcards and other memorabilia from the Albion. Nesbitt has been collecting the items the past 25 years. He gave them to Hoag Library where they will be in the local history section. Pictured from left include Betty Sue Miller, Hoag Library director, Charlie Nesbitt, Vllage of Albion Historian Sue Starkweather Miller, County Historian Catherine Cooper and Dee Robinson, local history librarian.

ALBION – Charlie Nesbitt for the past 25 years kept up an intense hobby of collecting memorabilia from his beloved hometown.

Nesbitt, a retired state assemblyman, often searched eBay and other websites to see if there were postcards, old newspapers and other interesting items from Albion. He expanded that hunt to Barre, Gaines, Carlton, Waterport and Point Breeze.

He checked out estate sales, and bought old Chevron yearbooks from Albion, as well as the school literacy magazine. He has company reports from Liptons, Albion’s largest private employer until it closed in 1980, and the annual statements from Arnold Gregory Memorial Hospital.

Nesbitt filed protective sleeves with many postcards from the early 1900s, and throughout the past century, depictions of a vibrant downtown and a thriving community.

Nesbitt’s friends and others in the community heard he would eagerly accept their scrapbooks of newspaper clippings. Nesbitt knows many people, and he would gladly copy and share the clippings, which could include the team photo of the 1947 Albion football team.

But now Nesbitt is ready to share the massive collection. Last week he delivered about a dozen banker boxes full of Albion yearbooks and memorabilia. They were donated to the local history collection at Hoag Library. He was happily greeted by local history librarian Dee Robinson, and historians Susan Starkweather Miller and Catherine Cooper.

“It’s remarkable what we have here,” Starkweather Miller said about the collection.

Robinson said residents or former Albionites in the past have donated a few items to the collection, often a few letters or a book. Nesbitt by far has exceeded those contributions with the big trove of materials.

Charlie Nesbitt hunted down many old newspapers, including this copy of The Orleans Whig from July 11, 1827. The Whig was published every Wednesday in Gaines. “That’s a beauty,” Catherine Cooper, the county historian, said about the newspaper.

There are about 100 yearbooks donated by Nesbitt, going back to 1912. Those yearbooks plus what Hoag already had, should make for a complete collection, with duplicates. Those “extras” could be borrowed and taken out for people to comb through.

Robinson will work on cataloguing and organizing the materials.

“This is the largest collection that has ever been given by a citizen,” Robinson said.

Nesbitt said he wanted to share the materials with the community.

“I’ve collected it and someone should benefit from it,” he said. “Some of these treasures are so interesting.”

Cooper, the county historian, said the postcards includes quick remarks about life in the day. She enjoys seeing people reflections on their lives and what was going on in the community and world.

Nesbitt said he isn’t done gathering mementoes about the Albion area.

“It’s been fun,” he said. “I still look every day.”

County Historian Catherine Cooper, left, and local history librarian Dee Robinson look through the trove of items Charlie Nesbitt delivered to the library this past week.

The arch leading into Mount Albion Cemetery is featured here in a memento from the early 1900s.

The group shares a laugh over comments written in an old Chevron yearbook.