ALBION – This portrait is of John G. Sawyer, 1825-1898. He was the last person from Orleans County to be elected to Congress.
Sawyer was first elected Orleans County district attorney in 1862 and then county judge in 1863. In 1884, he was elected to Congress on the Republican ticket and served three consecutive terms ending in 1891.
He and his wife Eliza lived in a large house on South Main Street in Albion. This house was torn down in the early 1960s for the A & P store that is now the Sheret Post for the American Legion.
MEDINA – In the lower left corner of this picture we note, “Ideal Restaurant, Medina NY.”
The Niagara-Orleans directory of 1930 lists this as located at 112 East Center St., which would have been the Cooper Block.
The two women in white dresses are probably waitresses while the man in a white shirt is the cook. The tables are set with white linen tablecloths and napkins.
Notice the wild wall paper and exposed heat duct to another floor.
ALBION – In this photo taken around 1915 we see the main office in the administration building at the Western House of Refuge (now Albion Correctional Facility).
Miss Curtin, center, is the superintendent. She is shaking hands with a girl about to leave on parole. Standing at the door looking at the camera is Miss Capitola Grinnell, a parole officer ready to escort the former inmate to the railroad depot for her return home.
HULBERTON – This group of Italian stone-cutters from Hulberton posed for the camera in 1898. They chose to wear their Sunday best rather than their quarry work clothes.
Pictured from left: Michael Belmonte, John Melfi, Tom Vincelli, Joe Melfi, James Vincelli and Pasquale DeMarco. We can assume the youngest one in the picture was the water boy.
ALBION – This picture taken of the Albion Rotary Club in 1959 or 1960 is a literal Who’s Who of local business men at the time. Although I knew most of these men, my thanks goes out to Brad Shelp for help identifying several faces in the photo.
Front row, from left: Bill Monacelli, teacher/mayor; Don Nesbitt, farmer; Charles Martina, theater owner; unidentified; Harlan Harvey; Wells Harrison, car dealer; Jacob Schanels, Hunt Canning Factory; Dr. Bob Raemsch, veterinarian; Guido Monacelli, food store; Dr. Thomas Orlando, dentist; and George Brunelle, insurance agency.
Second row: Hon. Charles Signor, county judge; Charles Byrne, Birdseye Lab; Franklin Cropsey, attorney; Stanley Landauer, dry goods; Richard Fenton, Bemis Bag; Bill Snowden, Firestone Store; Sidney Eddy, printing; Dr. James Parke, MD; Bob Babbitt, hardware; and Ed Archbald, farmer.
Third row: Brad Shelp, car agency; Neal Beach; Winton Hatch, Department of Labor; Thomas Heard Jr., Marine Bank; R.E. Greenlee, Hunts; Carl Bergerson, Albion Central School superintendent; Roland Kast, service station; Dr. John Ellis, MD; and Dr. John Jackson, dentist.
Fourth row: Bob Root, insurance; Thomas McNall, furniture/funeral director; Arthur (Dick) Eddy, printing; Richard Hollenbeck; “Skip” Landauer, dry goods; George LaMont, farmer; Richard Bloom, insurance; Bill Host, school administrator; Albert Raymond, insurance agent; Francis Blake Jr., cold storage.
Fifth row: Lee Morneau, Liptons; Lee Maine, lumber company; Leonard Depzinski, sign painter; Daniel Marquart, appliance store; Homer Marple, furniture; Ray Severns, auto sales; Sam Shelp, auto agency.
Sixth row: Roy Merrill, funeral home; Gordon Gardner, pharmacist; Walter Martin; James Lonergan, journalist; Henry Keeler, construction; Carlton Wilkinson, electrical store; John Merrill, funeral director; Harold Farnsworth; Rev. Earle Hamlin; Frank Sachali, produce; and Rev. Jack Hillary Smith.
Inset: Homer Luttenton, who was sick at the time.
Years ago the Rotary Club met for lunch at the Presbyterian Church and then later at the United Methodist Church. It was an easy walk across the street to gather on the front steps of the Orleans County Courthouse when this photo was taken. The Albion Rotary Club was founded on April 20, 1922 with 21 charter members who adopted the constitution of Rotary International.
(Editor’s note: The Rotary Club now meets every Thursday for lunch at The Village Inn. Women were excluded from Rotary until a Supreme Court ruling in 1987 opened service clubs to women. Today, about 40 percent of the Albion Club’s membership is women. Brad Shelp remains part of the club today. He has perfect attendance for more than 50 years.)
By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 5 January 2014 at 12:00 am
First County Legislature took office in 1980
ALBION – In 1980, the first Orleans County Legislature took office after the former Board of Supervisors was disbanded. The new Legislature included front row, from left: Francis S. Nayman, District No. 3 (Albion and Gaines); James Murphy, administrative assistant; Stanley Dudek, at-large (west); Uldine Juhrs, clerk; and Arthur Eddy, at large (central).
In Back: Frank Berger, District No. 2 (Ridgeway and Yates); Raymond Cook, District No. 1 (Shelby, Barre and Clarendon); Thomas Young, attorney; James Piedimonte, at-large (east); and Lyndon Billings, District No. 4 (Carlton, Kendall and Murray.)
For more than 150 years, Orleans County’s government was run by a board of town supervisors. Each of the 10 towns had a town supervisor who not only was the chief executive officer for each town, but also managed the affairs of the county government.
Not everyone thought that was the best way for a county government to function. The bigger towns – Ridgeway and Albion – have about two to three times the populations as the smaller towns in Barre, Kendall, Carlton and Clarendon.
A lawsuit was filed in the 1970s that sought to end the Board of Supervisors and switch to the County Legslature.
I believe the lawsuit contended the Board of Supervisors wasn’t fair to the bigger towns, because the votes from those supervisors counted the same as the votes for the supervisors from the smaller towns. Some counties have a weighted-voting system to account for the population differences.
After the lawsuit in the 1970s, the county created a new seven-member County Legislature. The new setup created four districts that were nearly the same in population, plus three county-wide positions. The system allows residents to vote on the majority of the Legislature every election cycle because they vote for their district representative and the three at-large seats.
The legislative chambers in the County Clerks’ Building includes the photos of each Legislature team since 1980. (There are also many photos of the Board of Supervisors.)
I’ve heard a lot of people say they liked the Board of Supervisors better because the town supervisors seemed more connected to residents and aware of the goings on in the community.
Others have said that form of government clearly favored the towns and left the villages at a disadvantage. I’ve also heard some complaints that some of the town supervisors didn’t bring a countywide approach to decisions at the county level. Sometimes they could be parochial, trying to serve their respective town rather than the county.
ALBION – In this photo taken on May 7, 1959, we see the groundbreaking for the Orleans County Nursing Home and Infirmary, now known as The Villages of Orleans Health and Rehabilitation Center on Route 31 in Albion.
Pictured include, from left: Milton Bowen, Clarendon town supervisor; Justin Robert, Shelby town supervisor; Victor Hawkes, welfare commissioner; Harold Hill, Barre town supervisor; and William Knights, Ridgeway town supervisor. (At the time the county was led by the Board of Supervisors – the town supervisors from the 10 towns. The County Legislature replaced that board in 1980.)
Hill was chairman of the Board of Supervisors at the time while others in the picture served on the building committee for the project.
ALBION – Our photo illustrates a form of skiing that was popular in the 1920s. We do not advise anyone to attempt this dangerous sport.
Here we see the skier holding on to a tow rope, which is attached to the auto. We believe this photo was taken on Gaines Basin Road, looking north in the town of Albion between Allen and Phipps roads.
ALBION – This picture taken in the 1890s shows Shourds Brothers Icehouse at the end of East Park Street in Albion.
Here we see a crew harvesting natural ice off the old mill pond which was just south of East State Street.
The man in front is standing behind an ice plow used in marking out the pond in cakes which were then sawed with ice cutting saws as seen to his right.
Once cut, it was packed with sawdust in the icehouse and sold to homeowners in warm weather for their ice boxes.
ALBION – Christmas shoppers are seen here on Main Street in Albion in the 1920s. The Citizens Bank is decorated with garland, which shows in the upper right corner.
Note the winter fashions of the two women in our picture.
By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 26 December 2013 at 12:00 am
ALBION – For nearly 30 years Charles W. Howard ran a Santa Claus school in Albion, teaching the art of playing Santa and establishing standards for dress and conduct.
Howard was also a popular Santa, playing the role in the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade from 1948 to 1965. Howard played the part at many local functions as well, including his Christmas Park that was part of the school. Every year he had his friend Bill Coville of Waterport take a picture of him in the red suit.
The photo above is believed to be among the last known photos of Howard dressed as Santa Claus. It was taken during the holiday season in 1965. Howard died in May 1966 at age 69.
The photo was obtained by Frank Zicari of Albion, a Charles Howard enthusiast.
“Growing up, everybody knew that Santa Claus lived in Albion just outside of town,” Zicari said.
Howard’s school was near the corner of Phipps Road and Route 31. It was a big attraction in Albion, drawing lots of out-of-towners. The school has since moved to Midland, Mich. It still bears Howard’s name.
Zicari has collected many artifacts from the school’s days in Albion. Many of them are displayed in the Erie Canal Schoolhouse Bed and Breakfast in Albion, the former St. Mary’s Catholic School on Brown Street.
Zicari also shared this photo of Howard in a signature pose as Santa.
By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 19 December 2013 at 12:00 am
File photo by Tom Rivers – Hoag Library in Albion in April honored three local historians for leading programs at the library for many years. The group includes, from left, Gaines historian Dee Robinson, Albion historian Neil Johnson and Bill Lattin, the Orleans County historian.
ALBION – Just when it looked like Hoag Library would have to shelve its local history lecture series due to budget constraints, donors have stepped forward in the past day to keep two local historians as regularly scheduled speakers at the library.
An anonymous donor has committed to paying Dee Robinson, the Gaines town historian, to prepare 10 lectures as part of a “Tea with Dee” series the first Tuesdays each month at noon.
Robinson, a reference librarian at Hoag, is a past president of a state association of historians. She often speaks about trail-blazing women in the community from more than a century ago. That includes Jennie Curtis of Albion, the first woman spy for the Union during the Civil War.
Robinson has researched women who worked as lawyers, doctors and nurses in the community in the 1800s. She has compiled many of those stories in a book, “Historical Amnesia,” about women’s role in local history.
The donor will cover the $650 expense for 10 presentations. Robinson and Neil Johnson, who also gives 10 lectures about local history each year, take the summers off when the library is busy with a summer reading program.
Johnson, the Albion village historian since 1982, will stay on the library schedule thanks to Debbie and Scott Dragon who are sponsors of Johnson’s “Take a Bite Out Of History” talks for 2014.
Johnson gives his talks on the third Wednesday of each month from 12:15 to 12:45 p.m., except in July and August.
Both Johnson and Robinson have developed a loyal following in recent years with the history discussions. The two historians, along with County Historian Bill Lattin, were honored by the library in April for leading many programs over the years.
By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 19 December 2013 at 12:00 am
File photo by Tom Rivers – Village Historian Neil Johnson gives a talk on Nov. 20 about the iron fireman that once was on top of the Hose Fire Company in Albion for three years before a Rochester Fire Company took it in 1890. Several fire companies stole the Iron Fireman from each other before it found a permanent home in Honeoye Falls.
ALBION – Village Historian Neil Johnson will continue to give local history talks at the Hoag Library after a donor stepped up to fund the program.
The library planned to cut Johnson from the programming budget after 2013 due to budget constraints. Debbie and Scott Dragon agreed to sponsor Johnson’s “Take a Bite Out Of History” talks for 2014.
Johnson gives 10 of the talks a year on the third Wednesday of each month from 12:15 to 12:45 p.m. He takes July and August off.
Johnson has given the talks for the past seven years and he draws a loyal following.
Johnson, an archaeologist with a doctoral degree, has been the village historian for about 30 years. He is paid $65 for each presentation at the library.
ALBION – This picture was taken around 1890 and shows the F.W. Butler jewelry store on Main Street in Albion.
This was located in the third store up from the four corners in the Royce Block at the southeast corner.
Arthur D. Bliss and Fred W. Butler are standing in the doorway. Note the advertising including the wooden pedestal sign made to look like a watch. The hands were painted at 8:20 to commemorate the time when Lincoln was shot.
Spectacles are also seen here to advertise eyeglasses. Watches, clocks and plated silverware fill the display window.
MEDINA – The BL & R trolley system was under construction when this picture was taken in 1908.
Looking south on Main Street in Medina tracks are being laid around the corner to Main Street from East Center Street. People on West Center Street did not want the trolley going by their homes. Hence the line turned at this corner and ran on to Commercial Street out to Salt Works Road, rather than a straight line through Medina.
The Buffalo, Lockport and Rochester trolley system ceased operation in April 1931.
