By Bill Lattin, Orleans County Historian
MEDINA – This photo circa 1910 shows the Medina baseball team. It certainly represents a multi-racial group working together in a team effort more than 100 years ago.
Some of the players’ names have been written on the photo, but in no order. Those identified include: C. Bradly; F. Charles, SS; Myron Post, Mgr.; Bob Johnson, C-Field; Pete Slatterly, Catcher; Pitcher H.D.; L. Johnson, R-Field; and Ed Collins, 2nd Base.
By Bill Lattin, Orleans County Historian
CARLTON – The Town of Carlton owned this Brockway truck in 1919, when this photograph was taken. The two men in the open cab are not identified. We note a tool box on the running board and hard rubber tires on wooden spoke wheels.
By Bill Lattin, Orleans County Historian
This picture was found in a family photo album in 1863. The two teen-agers here are not identified. However, it is safe to say the photo is of the Civil War era considering their appearance.
These two guitarists were photographed in the studio of George P. Hopkins, an Albion photographer who was working locally in the 1860s. The photographer’s name is printed on the back of the picture along with advertising, noting a large assortment of albums and frames are available.
It is interesting to note that playing guitars has never really gone out of style for over 150 years.
By Bill Lattin
Orleans County Historian
HOLLEY – Our photo was taken around 1920 on East Albion Street in Holley. To the left is Dr. G.C. Kesler’s horse barn. It was out of here that he practiced his veterinarian work. (Note the horses looking out of each window in the barn.)
The house behind this barn marked with an X that faced White Street was Dr. Kesler’s residence. This structure was built in 1834 by Holley Baptists as a meeting house.
When the present Baptist Church was erected on Geddes Street in 1890, the meeting house then became a residence. The house to the right in our picture was also owned by Dr. Kesler. In front of this is a telephone pole with many lines strung on it.
By Bill Lattin, county historian
This photo, taken circa 1905, shows many people in attendance at the Orleans County Fair in Albion. The large building at the right with a cupola supporting the flag was known as Floral Hall. It was the main exhibition building where all kinds of displays were judged. In the distance is the Dining Hall and to the left of that another exhibition building. In the skyline looking east we see the steeples of the First Presbyterian Church (left) and the Albion First Baptist Church (right).
This picture was taken 110 years ago in 1903 on the race track at the old Orleans County fairgrounds. The photo was taken by Marc Cole and shows three fast-moving sulkies, all in a blur. The driver of the middle sulky, which is slightly ahead, is Jack Roach. The driver of the sulky to the right is Harry Lattin. Daily races at the fair drew huge crowds years ago, as seen here. Both men and women are shown enjoying this popular event.
This photo was taken in Sept. 1929 when Charles Howard had the idea for creating the world’s largest apple pie at the Orleans County Fair. Joseph Dibley is pictured with the rolling pin he made for the pie. The clipping is from a city newspaper.
Here is the report from the newspaper:
“To Use Huge Rolling Pin in Making World’s Largest Pie”
ALBION, Sept. 8, 1929 – A huge rolling pin is expected to keep some comic strip characters away from the Orleans County Fair which opens in two weeks. Those whose helpmeets have the rolling pin complex will undoubtedly be absent when this specimen is used to smooth out the dough for the world’s largest pie.
Shown with Joseph Dibley, local blacksmith, who made it, the roller is four feet long with eight-inch handles and it is eight inches in diameter. Made of fir, it is estimated that it weighs about 60 pounds.
Photo by Tom Rivers – The front entrance to Boxwood Cemetery includes mammoth sandstone pillars and chapel made of the local stone in 1903.
Press release
Medina Sandstone Society
MEDINA – Medina’s annual ‘Historic Walk,’ sponsored by the Sandstone Society, will take place at Boxwood Cemetery and will offer a generous slice of history surrounding some of the village’s most prominent people buried there.
The Aug. 10 event will begin at 2:30 p.m. at the cemetery on Route 63.
This is the fifth year for the Historic Walk with others having covered the downtown area of Medina, the Erie Canal basin, a historic residential district and three sandstone churches.
Susan Holland and Mary Zangerle, co-leaders of the walk, met last week with Orleans County Historian Bill Lattin to start plans and they paid tribute to Lattin’s background.
“Bill has created great interest in all of our annual walks here and cemetery locations are among his specialties.”
Then the two added that the 2013 walk will be blessed with a full staff of history specialists.
“Helping Bill will be Todd Bensley, village historian of Medina; Adam Tabelski, who has made history a hobby, and Craig Lacy, an official of the Medina Historical Society. We can’t miss with a group of hosts like that.”
Boxwood in itself has a certain drama and its massive central hill displays some of the most striking monuments in the region. Added to those are numerous large mausoleums of stone, built to house the remains of entire families and fully inscribed.
One eye-catching point at Boxwood is the chapel sitting just inside the large iron gates. This century-old structure boasts some outstanding stone masonry and also a stained glass memorial window that will get a full description.
The co-leaders added, “There is no charge for this annual walk and the society offers it as a public service.” They said previous walks have drawn as many as 70 enthusiasts.
Following the Historic Walk the Medina Tourism Committee has announced that a special event will be held in the Canal Basin at Medina. At 4 p.m. a musical variety program will be presented right in the dock area and the main features will be Medina’s popular Dave Viterna blues group and a visiting Creek Bend Band offering Blue Grass music.
“The music will run from 4 to 8 p.m. as a free concert,” said Jim Hancock of the Tourism Committee. “All the crowd needs is to bring lawn chairs and enjoy the entertainment.”
As an added attraction a new Medina food business will be offering baby back ribs and other specialties at the concert site.
Photo courtesy of Al Capurso – The graves for the Bailey family were moved to Mount Albion Cemetery in 1865.
ALBION – The Capurso family is continuing its efforts to honor pioneer settlers in Albion. The family unveiled a bronze historical marker for William McAllister and his wife on July 8.
The McAllisters were Albion’s first settlers. The built a log cabin where the County Clerk’s Building stands on Main Street.
The Capursos now plan to dedicate a veteran flag holder for Lansing Bailey, a pioneer settler who fought in the War of 1812. The marker will be dedicated during a 10 a.m. service on Aug. 10 at Mount Albion Cemetery. The Honor Guard of the American Legion will be there to honor Bailey.
Capurso has been researching Bailey and discovered he came to Albion in 1811 with his younger brother Joel. Bailey owned land in Gaines where Bill Lattin now lives. Capurso was able to verify Bailey’s service with the local VA.
Bailey’s brother Joel died of a fever on August 10, 1813. While plans were underway for his burial, Lansing’s wife Loda became ill from the same fever and died on August 15, leaving three children, the latter two being 3 month-old twins born in the Bailey Cabin in May 1813, Capurso said.
“Lansing buried both his brother and wife on the same day at Bailey Cemetery (where the veterans office is now on Route 31 Albion),” Capurso said. “This is the bicentennial of that sad occasion.”
The 10 occupants of Bailey Cemetery were moved to Mt. Albion in December 1865. They are located on Bitternut Path. Bitternut is also the resting place of two of Lansing’s children and Lansing’s second wife, Sylvia Pratt Bailey. Lansing died in 1866.
Capurso said Lansing was instrumental in the forming of Orleans County in numerous ways and his life is chronicled in “Pioneer History of Orleans County” by Arad Thomas and echoed by J. Howard Pratt in “Saga of the Ridge.”
Lansing’s grandfather Samuel was a Revolutionary War Veteran.Samuel is buried in Oneida County.
By Bill Lattin
Orleans County Historian
CARLTON – This picture was taken in September 1888 at the Two Bridges in the Town of Carlton. It shows the delivery wagon for the country store in the background. Stenciled on the wagon is advertising including “General Merchandise” and “G.D. Fowler Carlton, NY.”
Country stores often ran a delivery service to rural people living on the back roads years ago, perhaps going over the route twice a week. A housewife could order something from the grocer and it would be delivered the next time around.
We notice the horse pictured here is wearing a fly net to keep the horse flies from landing on its body. The Fowler store is currently Narby’s Superette and Tackle at the Bridges.
Photos courtesy of Adam Tabelski – This barn on Route 104 is believed to be the oldest structure in Orleans County.
By Adam Tabelski
RIDGEWAY – The oldest man-made structure in Orleans County that can be documented is not made of stone or brick. Rather, it is a wood-frame barn that dates to the early pioneer era, even before the construction of the Erie Canal.
This fact came to light during the recent bicentennial ceremony in the Town of Ridgeway, as several of the proclamations read during the affair mentioned the longevity of a barn on Ridge Road built for Seymour Murdock about the time of the town’s inception.
Sources agree that Murdock, his wife, and their many children settled on the Ridge in 1810, but they differ on whether the barn in question was built in 1813 or 1814. The latter year would seem to be correct if the story told in Landmarks of Orleans County (published in 1894) about General George Izard’s troops helping the Murdock family to raise the timbers is true.
It was in the fall of 1814 that Izard’s army moved through our section of Western New York on its way to participate in the tumultuous conflict along the Niagara River during the War of 1812.
One of Seymour’s daughters, Betsey, is reported to have taught school in the barn soon after it was built.Over the years many of the exterior boards have no doubt been replaced and many trimmings added, but the skeleton of the structure is believed to be original.
The Ridge Road Improvement Association erected a roadside monument in 1941, consisting of a bronze plaque affixed to a boulder. Keep your eyes peeled when driving along Route 104 just west of Marshall Road.
(Tabelski is a member of the Medina Historical Society.)
Photo by Tom Rivers – The Ridge Road Improvement Association put up this monument to George Washington and local Revolutionary War soldiers in 1932.
Photo by Tom Rivers
MURRAY – I noticed the big stone with the bronze marker for the first time yesterday on the way to the Kendall Firemen’s Carnival.
I had no idea we had a monument in honor of George Washington in Orleans County. But there it stands along Ridge Road at the Route 237 intersection, in front of a building across from the Murray Superette.
The marker was put up by the Ridge Road Improvement Association in 1932: “To honor and commemorate the 200th anniversary of the birth of George Washington and the men who fought in the American Revolution and sleep in the town of Murray.”
The marker list the names of Murray revolutionaries:
Robinson Smith, “Life Guard of Washington”
Asa Clark, “The Courier who carried the news to Washington of the attack on Throgs Neck.”
Captain Timothy Ruggles
William Jennings
Amos Frink
Captain Aaron Warren, “who built the first grist mill in the town of Murray”
The marker also notes that New York Gov. DeWitt Clinton stayed in a primitive log cabin near the spot during “an eventful horseback trip through Western New York in1810.” Clinton was the force behind getting the Erie Canal built.
There are several markers along Ridge Road. I’ll try to find out more about them.
By Bill Lattin
Orleans County Historian
MEDINA – This picture taken in 1913 shows, in the foreground, the top of the aqueduct in the bottom of the canal in which the Oak Orchard Creek flows through. This is just before the water tumbles over Medina Falls.
This photo is looking west into the Erie Canal Basin at Medina when the last enlargement to this historic waterway was under construction. The building with a smoke stack in the middle ground in the A.L. Swett Electric Light and Power Co. Behind the stack is the tower of the Bancroft House. It was a hotel and is now the NAPA store. In the distance to the left appears the steeple of the First Baptist Church.
Photo by Tom Rivers – Deborah Brundage, director of the Cobblestone Society Museum, holds one of 21 historic photos from the Erie Canal that are part of a new exhibit at the museum, 14393 Ridge Rd., just east of Route 98.
GAINES – The photos show laborers in the bottom of the canal, working to deepen and widen the waterway back in 1913.
The state moved to upgrade the canal, which was in decline 100 years ago. It was a massive effort to excavate and widen. The Orleans County History Department has many photographs of the work from a century ago.
They have been enlarged and professionally displayed in a new exhibit at the Cobblestone Society Museum. The 21 pictures will be displayed after this summer at Hoag Library in Albion.
“The canal is part of our local history,” said Deborah Brundage, director of the Cobblestone Society Museum. “The canal opened up the region for development and let farmers sell their crops more easily.”
The historic images show construction on the canal, boats using the waterway, and residents enjoying life in a canal town.
One of the historic images shows a family crossing a pedestrian bridge over the canal in Medina.
One picture shows a group trying to cross a pedestrian bridge in Medina. Another picture shows a woman standing in front of the Canal Culvert in Ridgeway.
Albion eighth-graders researched the images and wrote the labels that will describe the images. The museum will have a reception for the exhibit at 3 p.m. on July 20.
The Erie Canalway Corridor provided a $7,000 grant to create the display, and offer programming about the canal.
The Cobblestone Church will host four free lectures about local canal history. Those events are at 2 p.m. on Saturdays.
The lectures include the following:
Jeff Donahue, director of the Holland Land Office Museum in Batavia, on Saturday will discuss “Joseph Ellicott and the Holland Land Office Purchase.”
Gretchen Murray Sepik on July 20 will portray Erie Canal Sal and sign copies of her book about the theatrical character, a cook on a canal boat.
Orleans County Historian Bill Lattin will give an overview of the canal and its impact locally on Aug. 3.
Gaines Town Historian Dee Robinson will discuss life on a canal boat, “from a female perspective” during an Aug. 10 lecture.
Hoag Library Director Susan Rudnicky, who is also president of the Cobblestone Museum board, wrote the grant for the canal exhibit and programs.
Orleans County is sprinkled with numerous cast-iron and bronze markers, giving a glimpse into local historical events, notable residents and buildings.
Yesterday, the county dedicated its newest marker in memory of William McAllister and his wife, who were Albion’s first settlers in 1811. They built a log cabin on the site where the County Clerk’s Building now stands next to the courthouse.
The Clerk’s Building is also home to first the historical marker that was put up in Orleans County. The marker was dedicated 100 years ago, in May 1913. The alumni of the Phipps Union Seminary, a school for girls, had the marker put on a sandstone wall next to the front steps of the building.
Phipps Union Seminary was established in 1833 and operated until about 1870. The school was torn down to make way for the Clerk’s Building, which was constructed in 1882-1883.
Photos by Tom Rivers – Orleans County Legislature Chairman David Callard unveils a marker in honor of Albion’s pioneer residents.
ALBION – Long before there was a lush lawn and some of Orleans County’s most treasured buildings, the Courthouse Square was wilderness.
In 1811, William McAllister and his wife arrived in Albion and began the daunting task of settling the area. Mr. McAllister chopped down trees and cleared a spot for a log cabin where the County Clerks’ Building stands today.
His wife likely made his clothes, prepared the meals, and even concocted medicine for her husband. That was the role of the pioneer wives from two centuries ago, said Dee Robinson, town of Gaines historian.
“It was her job to keep him healthy to carry on the settlement,” Robinson said this afternoon during a dedication ceremony for a marker in honor of Mr. and Mrs. McAllister.
Many markers in other communities honor pioneer residents, listing the names of men, where they came from and what their job was locally. But Robinson said the new marker in Albion is unusual in recognizing McAllister - and his wife, whose first name is not known.
“When we look as pioneers, remember there was always a woman behind the man,” she said.
Orleans County Historian Bill Lattin talks about Donna Rodden and the former Albion mayor’s efforts to preserve local history. Rodden’s daughter, Chris Capurso, is second from back right.
Mr. McAllister purchased 368 acres from the Holland Land Company in 1810. That was land on the east side of the village. The couple arrived in 1811, all alone.
Mrs. McAllister would die in 1812, and her husband would then move out of the area. She was buried near where the County Clerk’s Building stands today. That building was constructed in 1882-1883.
Her skeletal remains were discovered in 1957, when the county was doing a project at that building.
When the marker was unveiled today on the lawn of the Clerk’s Building, County Legislature Chairman David Callard lifted the cover to show the new marker. It features a log cabin logo.
Callard marveled at how quickly the area changed after the first settlers arrived. The Erie Canal opened a couple blocks away in 1825. Albion became a boomtown from the mid-1800s to the early 1900s, with quarrying and farming major industries.
Most of the buildings that went up in that era – the Courthouse, churches and downtown business district – remain.
“You can see what’s happened in 200 years with people working together for the common good,” Callard said during the dedication ceremony attended by about 50 people.
State Assemblyman Steve Hawley presented a proclamation in honor of the McAllisters and their grit in the community’s beginning.
Al Capurso and his son Dan performed three songs as a tribute to the pioneering spirit of Mr. and Mrs. McAllister, the community’s first settlers in 1811.
The Capurso family in Albion paid for the marker and organized the dedication ceremony to honor those early settlers. Al Capurso and his son Dan performed three songs in their honor: “Whole world round,” “See the sky about to rain,” and “After the storm.”
Al’s wife Chris is daughter of the late Donna Rodden, a former Albion mayor who was influential in getting the Courthouse Square listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.
“She recognized the importance of our local history and heritage and passed it on to the next generation,” said County Historian Bill Lattin.
He has worked to have many of the local historical markers placed in Albion and around the county.
“These few lines are just the tip of the ice berg,” Lattin said about the markers. “Volumes could be written about each one.”
Many of the markers note the contributions of prominent residents or provide a short vignette about a church or other significant public building. Lattin is pleased to see a marker for the first folks who chose Albion to live.
“It highlights the earliest aspect of our local history,” he said.
The Capurso family poses in front of the historical marker not long after it was unveiled this afternoon.
Courtesy of Tom Taber/Library of Congress
LEADERS OF THE BATTERY: Tom Taber restored and colorized this photograph from May 3, 1863 of the leaders of the 17th New York Light Artillery. The photograph was taken at Camp Barry, Washington, D.C. The group includes, from left: an unidentified Camp Barry officer who wasn’t in the 17th NY; 1st Lieut. Irving Meade Thompson of Albion; 2nd Lieut. Edwin Joel Barber of Lyndonville; Capt. George Tobey Anthony of Medina; 1st Lieut. Hiram Edwards Sickels of Albion; and 2nd Lieut. Hiram D. Smith of Medina.
ALBION – As nation reflects on the 150th anniversary of the Civil War and continues to celebrate the July Fourth holiday, I thought it was a good time to highlight the efforts of Tom Taber, an Albion man who worked dutifully for 15 years to track down stories about Orleans County men who fought in the war.
Taber’s book, The “Orleans Battery” – A History of the 17th New York Light Artillery in the War of Rebellion, details the service of 240 men from Orleans County who served in the war. The book came out last year and is available in local bookstores.
The Orleans Battery includes biographical sketches on nearly every soldier in the 17th. Taber also found 60 photographs of the soldiers that he included in the 320-page book.
He found a black-and-white image of the officers in the 17th through the Library of Congress. Taber restored the image, filling in cracks in the old negative. He used Photoshop to meticulously restore the image.
“There are problems all over with these old negatives,” Taber said. “There is stuff stuck on them and cracks.”
He uses the Photoshop computer program to fill in the cracks and recreate a scene. It takes numerous hours of research and painstaking detail.
Although the book came out a year ago, Taber has kept working to highlight the service of the local group of soldiers. After initially restoring the image of the officers in black-and-white, Taber has added color to the historic photograph taken at Camp Barry, Washington, D.C.
“My goal is to make it look like you’re sitting next to the photographer when he took the picture 150 years ago,” Taber said.
He added skin tones, dark blue coats and hats, lighter-colored pants and numerous other details.
“I want people to look like they did,” he said.
Taber, who retired in 2005 as a training coordinator at the county’s Job Development Agency, feels like he has adopted the soldiers from the 17th. Many returned from the war and led distinguished lives.
The leader of the local group of soldiers, Capt. George Anthony of Medina, would later move to Kansas and become governor of that state.
While hunting down images of soldiers from the 17th, Taber came across a scene from Appomattox Court House. A group of people includes soldiers and civilians by the famed red building where the Confederate Army surrendered.
Taber has been working on the restoration and “colorization” of the photograph. He studies the contrast from the sun and works to shade in intensity of color in trees and on the ground.
The Library for Congress image that doesn’t give the precise date of when it was taken. Taber said it could be the day of the surrender on April 9, 1865 or it may be a few days before or after.
The surrender at Appomattox ended a war with 620,000 deaths, including about 500 soldiers from Orleans County.
Tom Taber has restored and added color to this photo in April 1865 at Appomattox Court House, Virginia.
