The tower, nestled in the southeast section of Mount Albion Cemetery, rises 68 feet from the hill it stands on. From the top, which can be reached by climbing the spiral staircase inside, visitors can admire Albion’s countryside and, on a clear day, see clear north to Lake Ontario.

ALBION – For 11 years after the Civil War, Orleans County residents fought to raise money for a memorial to 463 county residents who perished in the war.

Quarrymen cut the stone and hauled it to the heart of Mount Albion Cemetery. The community built a 68-foot-high tower, the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument, that has endured for nearly 140 years. An 84-step spiral staircase allows people to climb the tower, to enjoy a view above the trees.

The tower is a tremendous achievement, one of our most magnificent sandstone structures – and an overwhelming expression of grief.

The tower was built in stages. Several times, the community ran out of money for the immense project, County Historian Bill Lattin said.

But residents wouldn’t be denied a chance to pay their respects to the fallen. The monument was dedicated on July 4, 1876, the 100^th anniversary of the country.

This tower isn’t merely decorative. It’s a memorial to 463 Orleans County residents who died in the Civil War.

I’ve been researching Civil War memorials on-line, and taking pictures of ones from other nearby communities. I want to be respectful and not criticize other memorials. In fact, I admire every one. But I think it’s clear that the Civil War memorial in Albion is one of the most unusual and perhaps most magnificent of them all, especially in a small town.

Many of the Civil War memorials include a plaque with a retired cannon from the war. Kendall has one at Beechwood Cemetery. Bergen has a Civil War memorial with a cannon mounted on a big stone block. The memorial includes the names of the soldiers from the community who died in the war.

Bergen mounted a cannon on a stone block as part of its memorial to Civil War soldiers at Mount Rest Cemetery.

There are a lot of obelisks as monuments. Batavia has a 36-foot-high obelisk with a bronze statue of a soldier in front. A lot of the memorials include statues. Some of them are on stone pedestals that are elevated 50 feet or more above ground. Warsaw in Wyoming County has one like that in the middle of a traffic circle. It’s impressive.

But the Mount Albion tower can be experienced, not just admired. Climb into the tower and you’ll see the names of the local dead carved on nine marble slabs that hang on the walls. Many of the last names, such as Davis and Root, remain in the community.

The Upton Monument in Batavia depicts a Civil War hero and Batavia native, Maj. Gen. Emory Upton. The monument, dedicated in 1919, includes a 36-foot-high obelisk and honors Civil War soldiers and other Genesee County veterans.

A grieving Orleans County didn’t pick the highest-ranked solider from the community and commission a bronze likeness of that solider, and then offer a general comment about how the memorial honors all who died in defense of the union.

In Orleans, every solider who gave his life is remembered. Rank didn’t give a solider a loftier position in the memorial. I think that’s a radical idea, and different from many of the Civil War memorials.

The Civil War memorial in Warsaw features a statue on a pedestal in the middle of Route 19. There are four cannons at the base of the monument.

The Albion tower is one of only two (I think) made of Medina sandstone. Brockport built a 52-foot-high tower in 1893. The tower has crumbled and today partially stands on Owens Road. Calls to save the tower have met with apathy.

Due to safety concerns, the tower in Albion was off limits in the early 1970s. A group of high school students attended a Village Board meeting when one trustee suggested the tower be torn down. The high schoolers were outraged and spearheaded a “Save a Tower” campaign that raised $30,000 to strengthen masonry joints and repair the staircase. The tower was rededicated on July 4, 1976, the country’s 200^th anniversary.

The community raised $30,000 to repair the steps and masonry joints inside the tower in the 1970s.

“We saved something that is really important,” Lattin told me. “Out here in Western New York it is certainly one of the more outstanding monuments.”

Locally, we benefited from the close presence of so many sandstone quarries. That provided a superior building material for the memorial. And we had immigrant stonecutters who could shape the stone. They also loved their adopted country, and wanted to express their gratitude for the soldiers’ sacrifice “in defense of the union.”

Lattin said some communities spent more than Orleans County “with exotic memorials with statuary.”

Nine marble slabs bear the names of Orleans County residents who died in the Civil War.

But our tower shows what happens when regular people get together and give their best. A shared sacrifice resulted in a magnificent monument that should endure for decades to come.

I take visiting friends to the tower, and they are filled with awe when they reach the top. I’ve been asked to give tours of the cemetery recently, showing it off to Cornell graduate students last month and a Rotary exchange group from the Philippines last fall.

They act like tourists at Niagara Falls, especially at the top of the tower. They are overwhelmed, shocked by the achievement from 1876.

This group from the Philippines climbed the top of the tower in October.

We should promote the tower, include it as part of a community marketing plan with its likeness on gateway signs and tourism brochures. It could be the focus on a bigger “Civil War Trail” in Orleans County and perhaps Western New York. If we developed a “Sandstone Trail” with roadside markers of sandstone buildings and quarries in the county, the top of tower should be the iconic symbol for the signs.

The tower is absolutely incredible. No other Civil War tribute, at least locally, quite compares.

ALBION – In December 1810, William McAllister bought 368 acres in Albion, the east side of the village, from the Holland Land Company. The following year he built a log cabin where the current County Clerks’ Building stands next the county courthouse.

McAllister and his wife, known only in historical information as “Mrs. McAllister,” were Albion’s first settlers. In a few months a historical marker, with a log cabin logo, will celebrate their pioneering spirit.

The County Legislature approved the marker to be placed on the lawn in front of the Clerks’ Building, near a sidewalk and parking lot at the southwest corner of the grass.

The Capurso family in Albion is paying for the marker, which will be dedicated during a July 6 event at 1 p.m. There will be a ceremony inside the Clerks’ Building, and the dedication will include musical performances.

“It’s a historic first that has not been commemorated,” said Al Capurso of Albion. “They were the first settlers in the village and the town.”

Capurso tracked down the history about McAllister while reading about pioneer residents in Orleans County in books that were published in the mid-1800s. He also traced records in the Holland Land Company.

Capurso’s wife Chris is the daughter of the late Donna Rodden, a former Albion mayor who pushed to have several sites in the community listed on the National Register of Historic Places in the 1980s.

“She was very active and interested in historic preservation and she impressed that upon me,” Capurso said.

Old play advertisements, programs found from century ago

Photos by Tom Rivers

Programs and advertisements from theater shows in the late 1800s and early 1900s were discovered inside the Pratt Opera House in Albion on Saturday when a tin firewall was removed.

ALBION – The wall is covered with signatures of stage hands, and advertisements from comedy and theater shows in the 1890s and early 1900s. For more than a century, they were hid behind a tin barrier in the Pratt Opera House.

The tin was added around 1910 when the stage was expanded. Many visiting actors and actresses stuck advertisements and promotional cards on the wall behind the stage. They were sort of like business cards from that time. Many of the performers signed their names on cards with their photos and the name of their production.

“This is a treasure that is incredibly rare,” said Mark Scarborough, a professional theater manager and consultant who is working with Pratt owners Michael Bonafede and Judith Koehler. “The tin served as a time capsule that preserved everything.”

The tin was carefully removed Saturday afternoon while 33 Cornell University graduate students were in town, working on preservation projects in the opera house from 1882 on North Main Street. The theater was originally known as the Grand Opera House.

They re-glazed windows and repaired mortar on the sandstone walls of the third-story cavernous room. Bonafede was hopeful something historic would be behind the tin wall, and he wanted the Cornell students to be part of the unveiling.

But what was actually there wasn’t known until the metal was taken down. Bonafede was downstairs, working on the windows when he heard shouts of joy from the upper floor. The students were thrilled to see so many signatures and programs, dated from the 1890s and 1900s.

The theater advertisements still have vibrant colors, and remain largely intact.

“It was very exciting to see,” said Caleb Cheng, a Cornell planning student from near Oakland, Calif. “We saw the ’90s on the programs, and realized it was the 1890s, not the 1990s.”

The theater artifacts will be covered with a clear, fireproof material to be preserved long into the future and also stay visible.

Bonafede was in a buoyant mood Saturday evening.

“No one has seen this in 110 years,” he said. “It’s an incredible discovery.”

Bonafede and his wife are working to have the opera house, largely unused since the 1930s, upgraded to “theater in the rough” shape, which would allow performances without scenery and full-blown lighting effects.

“It will be like vaudeville,” Koehler said. “It will be carried by the quality of the performers.”

She and her husband have acquired curtains that they will soon to put up, and they plan to refinish the floor. They are working with an architect who specializes in historic preservation. Koehler said if they can secure a certificate of compliance, there could be performances in the theater later this year.

For now, they are happy with the discovery on Saturday, which Koehler called “a real gold mine of stuff.”