ALBION – This snapshot was taken in the late 1920s in front of the Rialto Theater on Main Street in Albion.
The bus signage indicates: “Ride The Blue Bus – Rochester Batavia Buffalo.” The word “Special” is also displayed. This may have been a special excursion for Odd Fellows or Rebeccas as the 100F Temple was located next to the theater.
A storefront at the time in the Odd Fellows building has “Billiards” painted on a window.
Note a man placing luggage on top of the bus. Hope it didn’t rain!
By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 15 April 2014 at 12:00 am
Heritage Hero: Matthew Ballard
Photos by Tom Rivers – Matt Ballard serves as co-director of the Cobblestone Society Museum. He is pictured in front of a church built in 1834.
ALBION – Matt Ballard has fond remembrances growing up on Brown Street and being a part of the St. Mary’s community. Ballard was an altar server and his family was very active in the Catholic parish.
The Catholic Diocese closed the church in 2007. Our Light of Victory has since acquired the church property and has Sunday services there. But it is no longer St. Mary’s. The big mural of Mary was painted over.
Ballard didn’t want to see the history of the parish lost. He created a web site in 2010, www.albionpolonia.com, that first catalogued the art inside the building – the stained-glass windows and murals.
The site has expanded to include baptismal records, marriage licenses, and funerals of the Polish community. Ballard has photos of many of the weddings. He has a searchable database that helps people on a genealogical quest. He is up to 379 marriages and 736 funerals from the St. Mary’s community.
Courtesy of www.Albionpolonia.com – Albion Polonia started as an effort to catalog the art work inside St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Albion, including this mural of Mary.
In recognition of his efforts, Ballard will receive a “Heritage Hero” award on April 25 during the Civil War Encampment at GCC in Medina. He is one of five winners. At 26, he is also the youngest.
“It’s a labor of love,” Ballard said about Albion Polonia. “It’s a way to give back to a community that has given so much to me.”
Ballard said the parish was close-knit and loving. His father Bob Ballard was a long-time trustee at St. Mary’s. The Ballard family was connected with many other families in the parish. The younger Ballard felt that love growing up.
“It’s that saying, ‘It takes a community to raise a child,’” Ballard said.
The Polish immigrants settled on the east side of the village on Brown and Caroline streets. They built a church in the early 1890s at the corner of Brown and Moore streets. Ballard thinks the Polish community has been underappreciated.
Many of those immigrants worked in the local sandstone quarries and helped shape the stone in prominent buildings in the region and state, Ballard said.
He receives feedback about the sent from people in the community and around the country. They have shared photos and some details from the Polish community, helping to enrich the site. Ballard welcomes more contributions.
Ballard has been involved in other historical initiatives. He is a board member of the Orleans County Genealogical Society. He served on the Albion Historic Preservation Commission and also on the board of directors for the Cobblestone Society Museum.
Courtesy of www.Albionpolonia.com – This historical photo shows St. Mary’s Catholic Church and a school next door.
In February he was named co-director of the Cobblestone Society Museum. The eight buildings near the intersection of routes 98 and 104 are a National Historic Landmark, the only site in the county with that designation from the U.S. Department of the Interior.
Ballard praised the community that rallied to start the museum a half century ago, and their devotion in preserving the buildings and the artifacts inside.
“It’s amazing that we have something like that in our county that is so unique,” he said.
Matt Ballard said it is an honor to be a part of the Cobblestone Society Museum. He is co-director with Sarah Karas.
He commended Bill Lattin, in particular, for being such a devoted caretaker and champion of the historic site. Lattin served as museum director for 40 years.
Ballard works part-time as a library supervisor for Hilbert College in Hamburg. He shares the museum director duties with Sarah Karas.
The museum opens on Mother’s Day. Ballard said it’s an privilege to help promote a museum that includes structures dating back to the 1830s.
“It’s a continuation of the people who came before me,” he said. “A lot of well-respected people in the community spearheaded the museum and a lot of well-respected people in the community continue to believe it’s very important.”
ALBION – Former U.S. President William H. Taft paid a visit to Albion on March 8, 1920. Here, third from the left in the front row, is Taft pictured in front of the Orleans Hotel with members of the Albion Chamber of Commerce. (The Orleans Hotel was located at the corner of Platt and East Bank streets.)
Others in the photo include: Herbert Reed, Spencer Tanner, Wm Karns, Bernard Ryan, Thomas A. Kirby and County Judge Gerald Fluhrer at a far right.
Taft was given a reception at the Elks Club and later gave a forceful address in the High School Auditorium on why the U.S. should join the League of Nations.
Taft and Teddy Roosevelt are the only two former presidents who have visited Albion.
Who remembers Muggs? Mr. Thomas DePalma of Fancher was the owner of this mascot for different causes. He went to state and national Legion conventions and walked in many firemen’s parades back in the 1950s.
He was usually seen with a corncob pipe and sunglasses, his trademarks.
Muggs died in 1962 and is buried in the pet cemetery at Hornell. He will be fondly remembered by all who knew him.
RIDGEWAY – In this photo from the 1950s we see the District No. 5 Schoolhouse of Ridgeway. Our picture was taken after centralization into the Medina school system.
This school was located on Route 31 at the Culvert Road. Notice the outhouse which could be accessed easily by students from a side door.
A hand pump at a well appears by the side of the school for drinking water. In our estimation the teeter-totter appears to be located much too close to the highway for the safety of the children.
ALBION – This color post card from around 1910 shows the Orleans Hotel, which was located on East Bank Street and Platt Street in Albion.
Built in the 1860s, it had a two-story porch at the main entrance. Parked in front of that is a hack (taxi), which provided transportation from the N.Y. Central Railroad Depot to the hotel. At the time of this picture it enjoyed a reputation for fine dining.
This building later became Henri’s Inn and was destroyed by a fire 20 years ago.
Shown here are Diana Dragon, co-editor of The Chevron, and Mrs. Marjorie Mahoney, who is presented with a copy of the 1962 yearbook.
The Chevron staff dedicated it to Mrs. Mahoney with the following statement:
“For your unflagging efforts in our behalf, for your sympathetic understanding of our problems, for your eternal smile which greets everyone and every situation, we dedicate to you, Mrs. Marjorie Mahoney, this issue of The Chevron.”
Mrs. Mahoney was a history teacher in Albion High School back in the ’50s, ’60s and early ’70s.
ALBION – Two men have a conversation under the awning of H.J. Bailey’s grocery store on Main Street. One of the men took a dog along for the trip.
This snap shot was taken in the late 1890s. There are some iron hitching posts at the curb.
The Waterman Building, which burned about 30 years ago, is seen in the upper right hand corner. The Burrows Block is the long building in center background.
CARLTON – The stained glass window entitled “The Light of the World” was originally placed in the Waterport Methodist Church in 1935.
It is now located in the Carlton United Methodist Church on Archbald Road at Route 18. This window and a program of human interest stories will be discussed by the county historian at 6:30 p.m. Saturday at the Carlton church. A variety of desserts will be featured with tickets available at the door.
The window is based on the famous 1853 painting by English painter William Holman Hunt (1827-1910) and was created by the Haskins Stained Glass Studio out of Rochester. The evangelical theme is based on Revelation 3:20 and St. John 8:12.
By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 31 March 2014 at 12:00 am
File photos by Tom Rivers – Al Capurso has been working for about a year to have the federal government name a creek in honor of Elizabeth Gilbert, a pioneer settler who moved to Ridge Road in Gaines in 1807. In this October file photo, Capurso is pictured on a walkway above the creek next to Gaines Carlton Community Church.
GAINES – For about a year Al Capurso has been working to line up support and evidence that an unnamed stream in Gaines and Carlton should bear the name “Gilbert Creek.” Those efforts could pay off soon with a formal decision of support from the U.S. government.
The Orleans County Legislature was the latest to back the effort of naming a creek for a pioneer settler along Ridge Road. The Legislature voted last week to support the naming. The Gaines and Carlton town boards also support “Gilbert Creek.”
The decision lies with the Board on Geographic Names through the U.S. Department of Interior. The group meets next month and Capurso believes he has compiled all the data to sway the board.
If the board approves the name for the local creek, Capurso plans to have a dedication ceremony at noon on May 24. A reception will follow inside the church fellowship hall.
He was driving along Brown Road last year with his son Kenny when they saw the stream and wondered about its source and if it had a name. They discovered the creek begins from feeder sources south of Route 104 near Brown Road. It then marries Procter Brook in Carlton, and then flows into the Oak Orchard River.
Capurso said it meets three standards for naming a creek: The feature is currently unnamed; The stream has an independent and distinct source of flow; and it is historically significant.
About 200 years ago the stream must have caught the eye of Elizabeth Gilbert and her husband, identified in historical records only as “Mr. Gilbert.” They arrived with their two children and a niece in 1807. They picked a spot next to a stream near where the Gaines Carlton Community Church now stands on Route 104, close to the intersection with Brown Road.
A historical marker by the church notes the efforts of Mrs. Gilbert as a pioneer settler.
Early settlers liked to build log cabins close to a source of water. The Gilberts chose the north side of Ridge Road, building their home where there was a rise in the land. The cabin is long gone, but a historical marker notes the pioneering efforts from Mrs. Gilbert. Her husband died in 1808, leaving her to raise the children, and tame the nearby wilderness.
“My passion is certainly pioneer history,” Capurso said today. His family paid to have a historical marker placed on the Courthouse Square last year for a pioneer settler in Albion.
Capurso is preparing a wooden sign for “Gilbert Creek” that would match the one for “Proctor Brook” by the Cobblestone Society Museum. He wants to complement the museum, which is a National Historic Landmark, the only site in the county with that designation.
ALBION – Don’t be fooled by this image. It is a trick photograph of the same man.
George Ball is pointing a revolver at himself on the other side of the table.
This “shot” was taken in the late 1890s at the studio of Pollo R. Stillman, a photographer in Albion.
Noted the painted backdrop often seen in old time group photos. Stillman gets an A-plus for this clever manipulation of two images into one in his darkroom.
KNOWLESVILLE – In this photo from around 1900 we catch a view of the railroad dock at Knowlesville.
Hundreds of barrels of apples are about to be loaded into the refrigerator cars on the sidings. These cars had ice boxes built into each end, which were filled with cakes of natural ice. Hence the fruit was preserved during shipment to far off destinations.
Note all of the barrels were hauled to the depot by horse-drawn wagons.
MEDINA – This 1890s Queen Anne style house was located on East Center Street in Medina.
For many years it was the residence of Mr. and Mrs. Adelbert J. Richards. He was for decades the leading professional photographer in Medina. A.J. Richards lived from 1868 to 1949.
In the early 1970s this house and one west of it were torn down for a super market, leaving the Richards’ house site for a parking lot.
The present business located there is an Ace Hardware. A Jubillee grocery store was at the site prior to the Ace Hardware.
