By Bill Lattin, Orleans County Historian
ALBION – In this photo from the early 1940s, we see men from Orleans County leaving for service in World War II.
The picture was taken from the second floor porch of the Orleans Hotel on East Bank Street in Albion.
Note the old trucks down the street while “charter” buses wait for the men to board.
By Bill Lattin
Orleans County Historian
ALBION – “The Knave Hearts” was performed by these Albion youngsters, circa 1921-1922.
Seated on the floor is Jean Brodie. First row, from left: Kirke Hart, Katherine Hanley Bott, Marjorie Reed Mahoney, Bill Curtis and Margaret Dunshee Landfear.
Back row, from left: Edmund C.R. Lasher (Tweedle Dee), Jack Burbank (Tweedle Dum), LaMont McNall, Russ Scharping, Pricilla Bronson, Charles Owens, Marcia Brown Hart and Albert Mason.
The fantastic costumes would indicate it was an outstanding production.
By Bill Lattin
Orleans County Historian
ALBION – The Dye Hose firemen sat for this group photo June of 1884. In the background off Platt Street is the Albion Village Hall and Fire Department.
First row, from left: Wm Taylor, C. Dunning, P.W. Collins, secretary Warner Thompson, assistant foreman W. Stockton, E. Warner, E. Woods, F. Gould and M. Davis.
Second row: steward B. Butler, M. McLean, treasurer G. Shourds, J. Lewis, J. Bunn, John Bordwell, F. Taylor, J.C. Wilcox, J. Bradley, C.B. Lattin, B. Thurston and C. Higley.
Note the uniforms all have “DH” monograms embossed on them.
By Bill Lattin, Orleans County Historian
In this picture taken in April of 1943, we see Eugene Mahoney and Theresa Peck. He was the chairman and she was the secretary for the Red Cross War Fund Drive in Albion.
They are adding up the totals, which exceeded the quota of $14,500 by $1,150.51. Notice she is using the Burroughs adding machine with roll of paper. This looks pretty antiquated compared to today’s calculators.
When the Erie Canal was carved through Orleans County, Irish immigrants supplied much of the brawn to get the job done.
The Irish also worked in many of the local sandstone quarries, and one Irishman, John Ryan, opened the first commercial Medina sandstone quarry in 1837. There is a historical marker just north of Route 63 in Medina near the lift bridge that notes Ryan’s achievement. Later I will celebrate St. Patrick’s Day by lifting a pint in memory of Mr. Ryan.
The Irish also founded the St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Medina in the 1830s and in 1904 they built one of the great buildings in Orleans County – St. Mary’s Church. That church in December was named one of the six inaugural inductees to the Medina Sandstone Hall of Fame.
By Bill Lattin
Orleans County Historian
MEDINA – In this post card shot of Medina High School from around 1910 we see students leaving for the day.
The school was built in 1897 at a cost of $10,000 using Medina sandstone. In 1921, while classes were in session, the school was moved just a short distance farther west on South Academy Street.
That’s when a new high school facing east as the end of Pearl Street was built, using brick. The old sandstone school was used as an elementary building from 1923 to 1955 and later as the district offices.
In February 1967, a fire destroyed the interior and in the fall of 1967 the building was torn down to expand the parking lot.
By Bill Lattin
Orleans County Historian
This photo shows the first Orleans County Farm Bureau Board of Directors, which was created in 1918.
Bottom row, from left: Francis Hanlon, Chas. Porter, president; and Thomas Mack.
Top row: Ora Lee, Journal Salisbury, Frank Broadwell, G.E. Snyder, and L.J. Steel, first Orleans County Farm Bureau agent.
Offices were located in the Waterman Building on Main Street in Albion, then in a house on Platt Street and later in a house next to the Albion Post Office. Both the Waterman Building and the Platt Street house have been destroyed.
By Bill Lattin
Orleans County Historian
KENDALL – The information on the back of this picture notes: “Kendall School H.N. Stevens 2nd in right row, Early 1920s.”
The pupils posed with their hands all folded in the middle of the desk tops. Notice the cast iron sides of these desks.
The teacher stands in the back while one student is given the privilege to pose by the blackboard. George Washington’s picture was ever present in classrooms years ago as we see over the bulletin board.
These kids didn’t have computers but at least they could write in cursive in third or fourth grade.
By Bill Lattin
Orleans County Historian
ALBION – This image is an ambrotype, which is a positive picture made of a photographic negative on glass backed by a black surface.
It shows the graduating class of girls in 1858 from Phipps Union Female Seminary in Albion. Caroline Phipps Achilles operated this private school for girls from 1833 to 1874. It was located on the Courthouse Square and removed in 1882 when the county purchased it and built the County Clerks Office on the site.
Adelaide Murdock Pells from Ridgeway is in the top row, fourth from left. Thanks to Nelda Callard for the donation of this picture to the Orleans County Department of History.
By Bill Lattin, Orleans County Historian
MEDINA – In this photo taken from the Medina Canal Basin during the 1890s, we see the freight boat “Celina.” Stenciled on the boat it says, “The Buffalo Rochester Transit Co.”
The sign on the roof of the building at dockside states: “Buffalo and Rochester Steamboat Express Inc.” This was a fast way for local farmers and produce dealers to ship fruit at the time. Note the seven-story tower of the White’s Hotel in the background.
By Bill Lattin, Orleans County Historian
Pictured here around 1940 is Fred Canham next to his huge tractor used as the power source for a threshing machine.
This was a Huber painted green with hard rubber tires. It’s now believed to be in someone’s collection of early tractors.
He purchased this in the mid-1930s and did grain threshing for many local farmers. Later, Mr. Canham’s son-in-law, Howard Bigger, ran this business until about 1956 when combines had taken over.
By Bill Lattin, Orleans County Historian
ALBION – In this picture taken around 1920 we see Weston Weatherbee’s homemade telescope.
The photo was taken behind his house on Ingersoll Street in Albion. Shown here are, from left: Wilbur Phillips, John Gilmore and Weston Weatherbee, whose special interest was comets.
Weatherbee served as Orleans County sheriff from 1905-06.
By Bill Lattin
Orleans County Historian
CLARENDON – Our picture shows the Clarendon Cheese Factory in the 1930s. It was built by Herb Keople in 1914 and started operating in 1915.
Thousands of pounds of cheese were produced a day during the peak season of May and June. Demand for the Clarendon Brand Cheese was so great that Keople even sub-contracted work.
Local farmers supplied the milk. When they could get more money for their milk than Keople was willing to pay, he closed the cheese factory in 1943.
The site was located on Hulberton Road and was later converted into a house.
Photos by Tom Rivers – In the mid-1970s, the community launched a “Save The Tower” campaign to make repairs to the Civil War memorial. Here is one of the buttons that was used as a fund-raiser.
The tower at Mount Albion Cemetery was built as a memorial for the nearly 500 Civil War soldiers from the community who perished in the war.
Orleans County Historian Bill Lattin holds a memorial created for Major Gen. George Gordon Meade. Residents in the Civil War era seemed obsessed with death and mourning, Lattin said.
ALBION – Other communities put obelisks or bronze statues of soldiers on blocks in the town square as memorials to the men who died in the Civil War.
Orleans County considered putting a monument on the Courthouse Lawn as a memorial to the nearly 500 people who died in the war from Orleans. The monument probably would have been an obelisk, County Historian Bill Lattin said during a lecture Thursday at GCC.
But community leaders in the 1870s would settle on a different tribute and location. They opted to build a 68-foot-high tower at the highest point of Mount Albion Cemetery.
The Orleans County Monument Association raised $3,000 for the project. That left the tower about half done. It secured $2,000 more to finish the job. The tower was dedicated on July 4, 1876, the 100th anniversary of the country.
It was built 33 years after the cemetery opened. Mount Albion is a rural cemetery, designed in a park-like setting. Mount Albion was intended to be “a mansion for the dead,” Lattin said, quoting one of the cemetery leaders during a Sept. 7, 1843 dedication ceremony.
The tower was built in the Gothic Revival style. It fits the Victorian flavor of the cemetery. In that era, people were “obsessed with death,” Lattin said, due the heavy losses of the Civil War and the many infant deaths.
“They were obsessed with death because it was so commonplace,” Lattin told a packed room Thursday as part of GCC Civil War lecture series.
He showed artwork from the era that showed grieving widows and orphans at the graves of soldiers. Lattin showed a tear catcher, a long thin glass bottle that was used to catch and hold tears that would then be sprinkled on the grave of a loved one.
He showed a homemade memorial created for Maj. General George Gordon Meade. Lattin purchased it from an antique store. It includes Meade’s portrait surrounded by a circle of symbols, including grapes that represent Christ and a butterfly for the Resurrection.
After the Civil War, Orleans County residents needed to express their sorrow for the 463 who died from Orleans at a time when it had 23,000 people, about half the current population.
This blank ribbon was worn by a member of the Grand Army of the Republic to a funeral for a fellow GAR member.
The tower was built with Medina sandstone ashlars, which weren’t cut smoothly. That gave it a rough appearance. Inside the tower, the names of the dead were all carved in nine marble slabs.
The tower is more than a Medina sandstone marvel, a 68-foot-high landmark in a small town. The tower is a symbol and expression of “guts and grief,” Lattin said.
The war cut short the lives of nearly 500 people in Orleans, depriving families of husbands, fathers, brothers and sons.
The families of the dead “suffered terrible unrelenting grief,” Lattin said.
The tower proved an attraction, drawing 1,000 people on many Sundays in the summer. They would climb to the observation deck.
About a hundred years after it was built, the community raised $20,000 to repair the tower. Lattin was one of the leaders of the “Save The Tower” effort, which included enthusiastic support from high school students. Lattin showed buttons and brochures from that effort, which culminated with the tower being rededicated on July 4, 1976.
He knows many romances have blossomed at the tower, which has been the site for many marriage proposals. Today, the tower may not be viewed as a symbol of grief.
“I think we can look at it as comforting,” he said.
By Bill Lattin
Orleans County Historian
In this picture from the 1930s we see the Exchange Hotel, which was located on Main Street in Albion.
Next to it was a barber shop and next to that building was the Liberty Diner. In the 1940s, these buildings were torn down. A gasoline station was built where the hotel was and a restaurant where the other two structures are in this picture.
The building to the far right was removed in the last few years. The land is now owned by the village and serves as a parking lot. The roof on the Presbyterian Church shows in the upper right corner.
