ALBION – In the mid-1920s, Ross N. Wilson at left and Irving Weet, standing on the porch, established a fox ranch west of Albion.
This was located on Route 31 and backed up to the Phipps Road. Here they raised silver fox for their pelts when they were fashionable to wear on women’s coats.
In this picture they are showing off some fox pelts that are ready to be shipped to a furrier. The man at right is unidentified.
Ross Wilson in the 1940s served as Albion town supervisor. He was the grandfather to County Historian C.W. Lattin.
By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 1 December 2013 at 12:00 am
Fisher-Price made millions of toys in Medina
Photos by Tom Rivers – Fisher-Price started producing toys in Medina in 1970. This Pull-A-Tune Pony was among the first to be produced in the former Heinz factory on Park Avenue.
MEDINA – For nearly three decades the massive manufacturing space on Park Avenue was a major producer of toys.
Fisher-Price turned the former Heinz plant into a manufacturing center for toys, beginning in 1970. It employed 950 people here at its peak, earning Medina the nickname of “Toy Town.” In 1997, the company left town. It was a devastating blow.
The Medina Historical Society has some of the toys made in Medina as part of a display at the society museum, 406 West Ave.
When Fisher-Price came to Medina 43 years ago, the Pull-A-Tune Pony was a new product. One of the first Pull-A-Tune Pony toys is on display in the museum. It was made in Medina on April 1, 1970.
A decade later the company made topped 100 million toys made from the Medina site. The museum has that milestone toy: a ferry boat (pictured above). That toy was made on May 29, 1980.
I moved to Orleans County in July 1996. My first job was as a reporter at The Albion Advertiser, which no longer exists. It used to be part of the Medina Journal-Register.
I remember when Fisher-Price announced the last wave of closings. There was a sense of doom.
But Medina has bounced back. It has been a gradual process and the community is less tied to one major company these days. It is more diversified, with lots of small businesses. It still has some major manufacturers with Baxter Healthcare, Brunner and Associated Brands, all with several hundred workers. Another company, Worthington Cylinders, has nearly 200 employees, but it plans to close its Medina site in mid-2014.
The Fisher-Price workers must have been proud during the holiday season, knowing so many of the toys they made would be part of Christmas for children all over the world.
The Fisher-Price plant closed not long after the company was acquired by Mattel in 1993. Medina’s recent resurgence is a testimony to the community’s resilience after such a crushing blow.
By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 1 December 2013 at 12:00 am
MEDINA – Georgia Thomas remembers meeting William J. Gallagher when she was a little girl. Gallagher was known as a local eccentric, a businessman who liked to portray a clown.
Thomas is an active volunteer with the Medina Historical Society, which runs a museum in an 1841 house at 406 West Ave. I stopped by yesterday as part of Medina’s Old Tyme Christmas celebration.
The museum has a large framed portrait of Gallagher, hamming it up for the camera as a clown. Gallagher appears to be missing his front teeth in the photo and his hair is wild. He has a wide grin and expressive eyes. Thomas said the photo was likely taken in the 1930s.
Gallagher’s name lives on in Medina today. A hill near his former farm on Route 63, just a little south of Boxwood Cemetery, is still known as Gallagher’s Hill. The barn also bears his name: WM J. GALLAGHER.
There is a lot of good stuff in the museum, and I will have upcoming features on some other pieces of their collection. I wish more museums had pictures of people. I tend to like people stories. I would encourage everyone, as gift to your family, to get your photograph taken showing your true personality.
ASHWOOD – Our photo was take a little over 100 years ago and shows the Ashwood Dry House in Ashwood.
This was located on the Yates-Carlton Townline Road along the old “Hojack” Railroad. Back at this time there were more than 40 dry houses in the county producing dried apples each season.
Women were hired each fall during harvest to peel and slice the apples for drying purposes. This was one method of food preservation before freezing and more modern canning methods.
By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 29 November 2013 at 12:00 am
Photos by Tom Rivers
ALBION – Jim Panek saw it at a yard sale in Gaines, an old buggy with wobbly wheels.
The buggy likely dates back at least a century. You don’t see too many of them around anymore.
“I thought it was pretty cool,” Panek said.
He bought it and has given it shelter in a barn next to his family’s home at 13420 Countyhouse Rd.
I was at the barn today for a story on Panek’s daughter Katie Klotzbach, who opened County House Christmas Trees. She is selling about 300 trees from the barn. I tend to get distracted around old stuff, especially items that are part of the horse-and-buggy culture.
The Albion and Gaines area is loaded with hitching posts, carriage steps and mounting blocks. I really think a trail of these artifacts could draw people out here and stir some community pride.
A dream some day for the community would be to turn one of these old carriage barns into a museum. There are a lot of these old barns behind some of the nicer houses in the community.
Before today I knew one local person who had a buggy from the pre-automobile era. I know of two sleighs. If we ever had a museum or historic site in a carriage barn, we really should have a buggy in there.
For now, the public can see one of these while they go hunt for a Christmas tree. The buggy is even decorated for the holidays.
Panek has rescued other horse-and-buggy artifacts. He moved the carriage step from his grandparents’ property on Route 18 in Lyndonville and now has it by his house.
He also bought a hitching post that was removed from a property in Eagle Harbor. Panek intends to set it up by the carriage step in front of his house. I’m happy the trail of these relics keeps getting bigger.
By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 28 November 2013 at 12:00 am
Photos courtesy of the Santa Claus Oath Foundation – Charlie Howard portrays Santa in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. He served in the role from 1948 to 1965.
Albion’s own world-famous jolly old elf Charlie Howard got his big break on this day in 1948, the first year he portrayed Father Christmas to cap off Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City.
In 1937, Charles Howard opened a school in Albion for Santas at the corner of Phipps Road and Route 31. Howard started the school after noticing many Santas didn’t have training, and didn’t always interact with children well or meet a standard for dress. He established decorum for Santas and his Santa Claus suits became popular.
The school, now in Midland, Mich., still bears Howard’s name. He ran it until his death in 1966.
The 1948 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade was a huge day for Howard. The parade for the first time was televised nationally and in color for those that had color TV sets. There was also an opening for Santa and Macy’s asked Howard to fill the role. They wanted the man who trained Santas to be part of their parade.
He would do it every year until 1965 and Macy’s took pride in having Howard in the parade. The company would have him play Santa at their stores in New York City and Kansas City.
This was the last time Macy’s went public with the name of the Santa in the parade. Everyone since has been anonymous, said Phil Wenz, a Santa historian. He has portrayed Santa in Illinois and the Midwest for about three decades. In 2010 he joined Howard in the inaugural Santa “Hall of Fame.” (Click here to see it.)
Wenz said Howard had a flare for publicity and entrepreneurship. The Macy’s Parade turned Howard into a national star.
By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 27 November 2013 at 12:00 am
Clifford Williams was 35 when he was killed at Normandy
Photos courtesy of Kevin Pawlak – Kevin Pawlak of Albion traveled to Normandy in France last March as part of a research project about Clifford Williams, one of 69 Orleans County residents who died in World War II. Williams was the only one from the county to die at Normandy.
ALBION – Kevin Pawlak, 21, looked through a list of 69 names of Orleans County soldiers who were killed in World War II. He was most interested in any names that listed deaths in June or July 1944.
Pawlak, a senior history major at Shepherd University in West Virginia, took a class last spring, a practicum on World War II that included a trip to Normandy, France.
Students were asked to see if someone from their hometown had died in Normandy. The students would research that soldier and go see his grave.
Of the 69 Orleans County residents who died serving their country in the war, only one perished at Normandy: Clifford J. Williams.
Pawlak had never heard of him. He needed to come up with a 20-page report on Williams. What started as an academic exercise became far more meaningful.
“I really felt like I started to get to know him,” Pawlak said Tuesday after giving a presentation at Hoag Library about Williams, who grew up in Holley and worked in Albion. “He was someone who was lost to the pages of history.”
Pawlak did much of his research at Hoag Library, looking at old newspapers from the 1930s and 1940s. He praised the “phenomenal collection of microfilm resources” at the library. He donated a copy of his report to the Hoag and also gave the presentation on Tuesday in appreciation for the library’s help with his project. Pawlak titled his presentation: “Albion’s Forgotten Hero: Clifford J. Williams.”
Clifford Williams
Williams volunteered to join the Army at age 34. He married his wife Lillith in 1935. She joined the WAC (Women’s Army Corps) and worked as a nurse at a hospital in Louisville, Kentucky. The husband and wife was the only couple in Orleans that enlisted during the war. It made them somewhat of a celebrity locally, Pawlak said.
Williams wasn’t interested in fame or attention, Pawlak said. Williams was a linotype operator for more than a decade, working for the Orleans American and Orleans Republican newspapers. When he joined the military, The Republican had to cut back from 8 to 4 pages. Eddy Printing helped the newspaper set its type in Williams’ absence.
Pawlak combed through the old newspapers and found some details about Williams while he was stationed at Camp Croft, S.C. The newspaper noted that Williams received a medal for expert marksmanship. He would serve as a machine gunner with the 39th Infantry, arriving in England in December 1943.
Williams wrote to Bill Monacelli, a columnist for The Orleans Republican, and reported that London had suffered “considerable damage” from the war.
“Cars here are very small and drive on the left side of the road,” Williams wrote to Monacelli. “Money is a problem as it is so different from ours.”
Williams said he connected with a local soldier in England: his brother-in-law Melvin Reid from Holley.
Williams arrived in France on June 10, 1944, four days after D-Day. He would see fierce action, according to a letter dated July 13 that he sent home.
Kevin Pawlak shares the story of Clifford Williams and the 39th Infantry Regiment during a lecture Tuesday at the Hoag Library. The 39th was led by Col. Harry “Paddy” Flint, who died the same day as Williams, July 24, 1944. Flint is pictured behind Pawlak.
Williams was part of a regiment that captured 18,000 German prisoners, including a general and admiral in France.
Pawlak doesn’t know the exact circumstances of Williams’ death, but he was killed in the line of duty on July 24, the same day the 39th Infantry Regiment’s famed leader, Col. Harry “Paddy” Flint, died.
A white cross at the Normandy American Cemetery notes Williams’ life and death. Pawlak visited the grave site in March, where the marker is among thousands of white crosses. The cemetery includes 9,387 burials.
“It was a very moving experience, a very touching experience,” Pawlak said about visiting Williams’ grave.
Pawlak wants to keep researching Williams and others from the community during World War II. He said he is considering writing a book about it. The research on Williams made it very real to him the sacrifices from a small town, a family and a soldier during a time of war.
He said many other local soldiers and families played a role in this major world event.
“There are great individual stories that often come out of bigger events,” he said.
Photos by Tom Rivers – In 1927, the Daughters of the American Revolution put up this historical marker at the corner of Ridge Road and Transit Road in the town of Murray. It marks the eastern boundary of the Holland Land Company.
By Adam Tabelski
The Transit Line was run by Joseph Ellicott, agent for the Holland Land Company, in 1798 using a transit instrument. It marked the eastern boundary of the Holland Purchase and stretched from Pennsylvania to Lake Ontario.
In order to make the line semi-permanent, Ellicott’s surveying team cleared trees along the entire route to the width of four rods (one chain), or about 66 feet.
According to the“Pioneer History of Orleans County,” the long break in the forest resulted in “a convenient land mark to the early settlers in locating their lands, and serving as a guide in finding their way through the woods.” Indeed, the pioneers traveling westward 200 years ago crossed this noticeable break in the trees and knew they had finally reached the Holland Purchase.
The Transit Line is where the surveying of the Holland Purchase began, and when you drive down Transit Road today you are literally following in the footsteps of Joseph Ellicott and his team, not to mention the numerous pioneer families who first settled in our region.
Photo by Adam Tabelski – This photo taken in early fall shows modern-day Transit Road, looking north. On the left is Carlton, on the right is Kendall. The road separates many townships in Western New York.
By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 23 November 2013 at 12:00 am
Photos by Tom Rivers – Rollie Sanford’s property on Gaines Basin Road, about a mile north of the canal, is well known in the Albion area because of the collection of vintage gas pumps that have been restored by Rollie and his son Scott. Rollie has picked up other relics, including this hitching post and a toy horse.
GAINES – When he and his wife Elma retired from teaching in the early 1980s, Roland Sanford and his wife decided they wanted to have some adventures together.
The couple didn’t need to book a cruise. They went on treasure hunts locally. They are known in the Albion area for an impressive collection of old gas pumps. Orleans Hub featured the collection in a June 13 article. (Click here to see it.)
Mrs. Sanford passed away on Christmas Eve in 2005. Her son Scott has become a gas pump enthusiast. He has restored many of the pumps on the property. There are about a dozen of them, dating from 1915 to 1960.
Since that June article on the Hub, Scott has put two more pumps out by a barn on Gaines Basin Road, including one painted in honor of the Albion Fire Department. That old-fashioned fire extinguisher on wheels used to hold chemicals and was used by a fire department generations ago.
I was at the Sanfords’ last weekend for a story about the gas pumps for the “585” magazine that covers the Rochester region. I pitch the magazine some articles about Orleans County topics and sometimes they say yes. They wanted the one about the gas pumps. I can’t give away too much of that article.
I did see some other very interesting artifacts at the Sanfords, items I’ve never seen before.
Rollie has a nice old cast iron hitching post in his front yard with a toy horse laying on it. Rollie, 93, says he “picked it up somewhere.”
The retired history teacher likes artifacts from a different era. He has several old lanterns that used to line the canal at night. The lanterns were needed so boats wouldn’t ram into the canal walls. These old lanterns weigh about 25 pounds each. Sanford said the canal used to have employees who lighted the lanterns and also checked the historic waterway for leaks.
Rollie Sanford has collected canal lanterns that were used as markers along the canal when it was dark.
This lantern was used on the canal long ago.
“The lights were used as guides,” he said.
Rollie in some of his hunts for local relics also returned home with an old railroad cart that now sits in his son’s front yard.
Rollie also came across a millstone and brokered a deal to have it moved to the Sanford property, which has been in the family for six generations.
Scott and Julie Sanford have a century old railroad cart in their front lawn. In the back is a millstone that Scott’s father Rollie saved from being discarded years ago.
This image is from a tintype photograph, probably taken in the mid-1850s.
Here we see a man with a team of oxen hitched together with a neck yoke. It is possible the building in the background is a tavern.
At the time of this picture oxen were as common as horses. Notice the man’s attire, including hit hat and especially his boots.
These kind of boots when muddy demanded a boot scraper, which were frequently found by the entrance doors to dwellings in the mid-19th Century before roads were paved.
There are very few boot scrapers left. The photo below shows one behind the DAR (Daughters of American Revolution) House on North Main Street in Albion. The boot scraper is located next to the back door.
By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 16 November 2013 at 12:00 am
KNOWLESVILLE – Every night at the Orleans County 4-H Fair, teams attempt to climb a pole slathered in grease. It is a popular tradition at the fair.
Before the grease pole, the fair had a greased pig competition. Actually, the pig didn’t get greased – the competitors did.
“It’s hard enough to hold on to a pig, but when you’re all greased up you can’t hold on to anything,” said Ed Neal, who competed in the event.
I was at the fairgrounds on Friday, meeting with Jennifer Wagester, the new director of the Cornell Cooperative Extension. Wagester had a copy of an anniversary yearbook that I believe covered fair highlights from 1966 to 1991.
I flipped through it and spotted a picture of the pig-greasing team in 1969. One of the team members, Gene Smith, was my friend. Gene was on the Albion Board of Education for many years. He also served as the volunteer electrician at the fairgrounds, wiring most of the facilities and barns at the site in Knowlesville.
Gene died on April 14, 2010 at age 71. At the fair the following July, the Extension board dedicated one of the buildings in his honor. Until yesterday, I had no idea Gene was part of a greased pig team. I didn’t even know there was such a competition.
Neal, the current chairman of the board for the Extension, said the competition was short-lived, maybe for just two or three fairs.
“It was a lot of fun,” he said. “It was entertainment for the crowd. The entertainment back then was simple things.”
By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 15 November 2013 at 12:00 am
Photos by Tom Rivers
ALBION – This week I made a shocking discovery in Albion. There is an old boot scraper behind the DAR House in Albion.
I first encountered one of these last summer in Rochester at the Charlotte-Genesee Lighthouse, which dates back to the 1820s.
I like historic hitching posts and carriage steps. Orleans County has a lot of these, perhaps more than anywhere else.
I’ve been looking for an old boot scraper around here. I thought if we had one it could tie into a possible hitching post-carriage step trail. I hadn’t seen any until I stopped by the DAR House on Wednesday. Mounted in a stone block by the back door stands a cast iron boot scraper.
“They are really old,” said Bill Lattin, the county historian. “These things go way back and you just don’t see them around.”
Lattin knew about the one at the DAR House. He has one at his historic cobblestone house, mounted in a curb. He also has a mobile boot scraper. His two, plus the one at the DAR, are the only ones he knows of in the county.
“They go back to a time when there were a lot of muddy streets,” Lattin said.
Folks back then would scrape off the mud, and sometimes manure, from their shoes before going inside.
The boot scraper at the DAR complements one of the finest buildings in the county.
The DAR House was first built in 1840 on North Main Street at the Linwood Street intersection. The house was enlarged by Orson Tousley in the mid-1800s. The Greek Revival building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Tousley’s daughter Florence followed her father in owning the site. She married George Church, the son of Sanford Church, one of the most prominent people from Albion.
Florence was one of the founding members of the Daughters of the American Revolution in 1925. She left the house to her son Sanford T. Church, who sold the house to Emma Reed Webster in 1929. She then donated it a few months later to the DAR, which remains an active local organization.
I did a Google search for boot scrapers, and found these interesting articles (click here and here). If anyone knows where more of these might be locally, send me an email at tom@orleanshub.com.
MEDINA – When Genesee Community College hosts the Civil War Encampment at its Medina Campus Center next spring, organizers want to recognize the efforts of dedicated citizens who work hard to preserve the county’s history.
GCC is accepting nominations for “Heritage Heroes Awards.” Nominations will be accepted through Jan. 31, 2014.
“Residents of Orleans County take great pride in their heritage,” said Jim Simon, Associate Dean of GCC’s Orleans County Campus Centers in Medina and Albion. “We want to recognize the time and investment of individuals who are tireless advocates for local history.”
Nominees for Heritage Heroes can be any age but posthumous nominations will not be accepted. History professionals and GCC employees are also not eligible for the award, nor are those who serve on the awards selection committees. Nominees must be Orleans County residents. Nominations will not be retained for future consideration.
Derek Maxfield, the Encampment coordinator, pushed to create the award for local Heritage Heroes.
“We’re excited to initiate these awards,” Maxfield said. “When we held the Encampment in Medina last year, it became obvious how this county values its history and embraces its preservation. These efforts often go unnoticed. This is a way to shine a light on those who make many personal sacrifices in order to preserve history for future generations.”
The Heritage Heroes will be recognized during a ceremony at the annual Civil War Encampment at GCC in Medina in April 2014.
To nominate someone for the Heritage Heroes Awards, write up a brief statement outlining the person’s contributions, projects, and community affiliations. Include his/her name (anonymous nominations will not be accepted), address, phone number, and email address.
Submit the nomination to:
Genesee Community College
ATTENTION: Heritage Heroes Committee
11470 Maple Ridge Rd.
Medina NY 14103-9675
Nominations may also be emailed to Jim Simon at jsimon@genesee.edu. Please write Heritage Heroes Nomination in the subject line.
A screening committee made up of community members, history professionals, and GCC students will review the nominations and select finalists. From those finalists, a committee including GCC Associate Dean Jim Simon, Assistant Professor and Encampment Coordinator Derek Maxfield, and Orleans Hub Editor Tom Rivers will choose the Heritage Heroes.
By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 14 November 2013 at 12:00 am
Photos by Tom Rivers – Frank and Rocco Sidari look at the gravestones carved by their grandfather Francesco Spada in St. Joseph’s Cemetery on Brown Street.
ALBION – Frank Sidari wanted to show me something in St. Joseph’s Cemetery, the Catholic burial ground on Brown Street. He knows I’m interested in the community’s quarrymen heritage.
I met Frank, 88, and his brother Rocco, 91, there today. They were waiting by a row of gravestones carved out of Medina sandstone. Their grandfather, Francesco Spada, was the stonecutter on the projects.
Spada lived from 1864 to 1933. He came to Albion as a boy, moving here from Alfedena, the hometown for a lot of the local Italians.
His grandsons – the Sidari brothers – both served in World War II and then worked long careers as carpenters. They have lived on East State Street most of their lives. That is the street where many of the Italians settled. They had quarries a short walk from their homes. Some of the quarries were in their back yard.
The gravestones for two of Spada’s children, who died young from the flu.
The Sidaris remember their grandfather carving stone. Today, they looked at the carvings and the artwork on the stones in the cemetery.
“How in the Hell did they do all that fancy work?” Rocco said.
Spada somehow carved holes in the top of the gravestones and then set a cross on the top. Rocco, who was chief steward for 990 carpenters on the hydroelectric power project in Lewiston in the 1950s, is impressed by the talent of the stonecutters from a century ago.
“I don’t know how they did it,” he told me.
Spada etched a spade design on the gravestones. He added images of an anchor, the moon, diamonds and other symbols. The names and words on the stones are written in Italian.
Frank said the Italians were close-knit and a lot of fun while he was growing up.
He also said the flu and other illnesses claimed a lot of people when they were young. Looking at the garvestones today for his teen-age children, you could feel Spada’s grief. He poured his heart into the gravestones for his children.
occo and Frank Sidari are brothers and life-long friends. They posed for a picture in St. Joseph’s Cemetery.
