140 attend first-time event as museum seeks more supporters for mission

Photos by Tom Rivers

ALBION – Andrew Meier, an attorney in Medina who has tackled several preservation projects, served as keynote speaker on Friday at a preservation awards celebration for the Cobblestone Society and Museum.

About 140 people attended the event at Maison Albion. Meier entitled his speech, “Preservation 101: A Brief Science Lesson.”

Meier has led the ongoing renovation of the former R. H. Newell Shirt Factory. He started that project in 2005, and continues with the work on the building from 1876. It has hotel rooms, a law office, the Shirt Factory cocktail bar, and for many years was home to 810 Meadworks.

Meier said the labor from the stone and wood artisans, and other craftsmen can’t be duplicated with new buildings, where the focus is often on speed and the lowest cost possible.

Those older buildings in the county were built with old forest trees that were 200 to 300 years old. The sites were often made of the incredibly durable Medina Sandstone, which was hauled to sites on wagons by powerful animals.

“There were no concrete trucks or cranes,” Meier said. “This was all brute force, muscle labor from men and horses,” he said.

Andrew Meier acquired the Robert H. Newell Building at 113 West Center St. in 2005, when he was 25 and starting out as an attorney. The 14,000-square-foot building for 86 years was home to the Robert H. Newell Shirt Factory, which manufactured custom-made shirts, including for many famous customers, including Winston Churchill and Bob Hope. The site was originally a hotel that opened in 1876.

Orleans County continues to benefit from the legacy of people who built for the long haul with downtown buildings, churches, residences, even cemeteries, Meier said.

Meier admitted preservation projects are often very frustrating, with unknown challenges and expenses. But he said the undertakings are well worth it. Reviving a historic site or an already-built structure is good for the earth by preserving existing materials.

“Retrofitting an existing building emits less carbon than building new,” Meier said.

Meier said the four villages in the county – Albion, Holley, Lyndonville and Medina – all have buildings from the 1800s and early 1900s that are marvels. Even the hamlets and countryside in the county feature many sites that have endured for generations.

Those buildings are tremendous feats and the residents today benefit from them, and are linked to the “giants” of the past, who put so much human capital into these buildings, Meier said.

That human energy remains stored and is ready to be unleashed, he said.

“Our built environment is waiting for that little nudge from the dreamers and risk-takers,” Meier said.

Andrew Meier speaks during Friday’s preservation awards program which was held at Maison Albion.

The community is seeing the benefit of projects in the historic buildings, from bustling restaurants in Medina, and several “boutique” hotels and small businesses in the region’s historic downtowns.

Meier said he is pleased to see so many people in his hometown of Medina take a chance on the older buildings, and give them new purpose that has been embraced by the local community, and increasingly many out-of-town visitors.

“Medina has become a different town,” he said. “There is more vibrancy, more restaurants. It would have been impossible without the buildings.”

He is thankful the county largely avoided the urban renewal movement that leveled many historic downtown sites in the 1960s and ’70s. He noted Albion has the wondrous Courthouse Square, downtown business district, and Mount Albion Cemetery with the Cobblestone Museum close by.

Holley has its Public Square which is seeing a resurgence in investment, and so is Main Street in Lyndonville. Kendall’s historic tavern has been a success in the year since it opened with new owners with a vision for the culinary arts, Meier said.

(Left) Brenda Tremblay, an Albion native and morning radio host for WXXI in Rochester, served as emcee of the dinner and celebration on Friday. She told the group, “You are surrounded by so much amazing historical stewardship.”

(Right) Matt Holland, a member of the Cobblestone Museum board of directors, urged the group to donate and support’s the museum’s mission, which includes breaking ground on a new visitors center next year.

The Thompson-Kast Visitors Center will be a new building next to an 1824 brick home that will be part of the visitors center at the intersection of routes 98 and 104.

The center will join the museum’s building inventory that includes the Cobblestone Universalist Church from 1834, Brick House (museum office) from 1836, Ward House from 1836, Peter’s Harness Shop from 1838, District No. 5 Schoolhouse from 1849, Farmers Hall from 1855, Hill’s Print Shop from the 1870s, Voting House (now used book store) from 1909, Vagg’s Blacksmith Shop from 1921-22, and the Vagg House from circa 1830s and then remodeled in the 1920s.

Doug Farley, right, is director of the Cobblestone Museum. He presents an award to Steve and Paula Nesbitt, owner of the Pine Hill School at 4757 Pine Hill Rd., Barre. They were one of six winners of preservation awards from the Cobblestone Society and Museum. The Pine Hill School was built circa 1835 of fieldstones.

The award winners also received citations from the Orleans County Legislature and State Legislature.

(Left) Tim and Catherine Cooper of Medina restored the Wash Hotel, which goes back to 1852, when the Rochester, Lockport and Niagara Falls Company completed the railroad through Medina. The building was recently purchased by Rollin Hellner.

(Right) Harriet Greaser and her late husband Phil restored the Presbyterian Manse at 31 East State St., Albion. The site has now been privately owned for more than 30 years. The Greasers brought the site back to grandeur.

Diana Dragan Reed’s home at 349 South Main St., Albion, was built in 1876 and took seven years to build. Reed recently moved back to her childhood home and has made several changes more reflective of its historic character.

Talis Historic Restoration employees, Ian McAnn and Dan Totten, accepted an award on behalf of Roger Hungerford for the restoration of the Bent’s Opera House.

Hungerford restored three floor of a historic Medina Sandstone building at the corner of West Center and Main streets in Medina. The building opened in 1865. It is now home to a boutique hotel with 10 rooms, an upscale restaurant and events center.

Kim and Neal Muscarella were honored for their efforts to turn the former Cooperative Extension building at 20 Main St. in Albion into the Marti’s on Main art gallery.

Cobblestone Museum leaders said they are pleased with the attendance at the first-time event.

Children walked with mules pulling boats in canal’s boom days

Photos by Tom Rivers

ALBION – Graham Kirby, 10, of Albion served as a hoggee on Saturday in a boat captained by Veronica Morgan of Albion.

Morgan put together a program, “I was a hoggee on the Erie Canal.” She wanted to spotlight the role of hoggees, who were children who walked with mules that pulled boats on the canal.

The Orleans County Historical Association assisted Morgan with the event that included activities at the Gaines Basin cobblestone schoolhouse as well as the boat rides from the canal, going from near the Gaines Basin Road bridge to near the lift bridge in Eagle Harbor.

Graham Kirby looks to the boat captain to see if he is needed for any task. The hoggees would get the captain food and be sent for other chores on the boat when they weren’t outside walking with mules.

Bill Lattin, retired Orleans County historian, was in the canal boat and shared stories and history of the canal in Gaines and Eagle Harbor during the 40-minute boat ride. Lattin is also Graham Kirby’s grandfather.

Lattin said Eagle Harbor is largely a “ghost town” now compared to the 1800s and early 1900s when it had its own grocery store, and other merchants who were coopers and blacksmiths.

Eagle Harbor also had the third golf course in the United States, a 6-hole course north of the canal that operated from 1898 to about 1940.

Lattin shared how Gaines has the northernmost point of the canal, endured a big flood in 1927 when there was a breach on the waterway. The section also has a widewaters east of Eagle Harbor where boats could turn around. The widewaters was especially needed in the early days of the canal when it was only 40 feet wide and difficult for boats to change directions.

Arthur Barnes does a pen and ink drawing of the a log cabin behind the Gaines Basin Schoolhouse on Saturday.

The schoolhouse was open for people to relax and tour on Saturday. The school was built in 1832 and is among the oldest cobblestone structures in the region.

It served as a school until 1942. Bill Lattin said there used to be 144 schools in the county. After decentralization, the number of school districts dropped to five.

Veronica Morgan captains the boat. She steered it about 65 miles from Macedon for the event on Saturday.

She wants to offer the hoggee program again in 2025, on the 200^th anniversary of the Erie Canal and also Orleans County.

Morgan works as a lift bridge operator in Brockport.

The Genesee-Orleans Regional Arts Council supported the hoggee program on Saturday, covering the cost for the boat rides and other entertainers.

The boat approaches the lift bridge in Eagle Harbor. The boat rides on Saturday were for about 40 minutes, from Gaines Basin to Eagle Harbor and then back.

Graham Kirby sounds a horn, which hoggees did to let the lift bridge operator know a boat was approaching. The horn is in the schoolhouse’s collection of artifacts.

Photos by Tom Rivers

GAINES – Leo LeBerth, left, and Matt Holland work in the blacksmith shop on Saturday during the annual open house at the Cobblestone Museum.

This was the first time both men volunteered in the blacksmith shop at the museum. LeBerth has his own setup in Ridgeway. Holland is a member of the Cobbelstone Museum’s board of directors. He has been a blacksmith demonstrator before at another museum.

The blacksmith shop used to be operated by Joseph Vagg. The original shop burned down in 1921 but was rebuilt in 1922 with the help of many local farmers who were served by Vagg.

Eliya Cooper of Hamlin gave tours of the Vagg House, which is next door to the blacksmith shop. The Vagg house was added to the museum in 2019. It is decorated to be a typical of a middle class 1930s home when electricity became more common.

Joseph Vagg and his with Nellie lived in the house. Nellie was very active in the temperance movement. She died in 1975 and donated the blacksmith shop and its tools to the Cobblestone Society.

Cooper has been volunteering at the museum as a docent for eight seasons.

LeRoy Neeper of Medina demonstrates equipment in the wood shop next to the blacksmith. The wood shop includes a band saw, wood saws, drill press lathe and an International Harvester engine from 1922.

Jan Brauer of Lewiston weaves a basket outside the Ward House. Brauer has been a basket weaver since 2002.

“It’s very meditative,” she said. “And it’s a useful craft that you can put your stuff in.”

Cat Holland of Medina, left, and Sylvia Goodstine of Kent gave turs of the Ward House which was constructed in about 1840 in the Federal style.

Holland said her favorite artifact in the house is a horsehair couch. Goodstine said she most enjoys a Wheeler & Wilson sewing machine from 1863.

Reuben Rivers chats with Georgia Thomas and Maarit Vaga. Rivers gave tours of the Farmer’s Hall, while Thomas did a butter-making demonstration and Vaga showed the harness shop next door.

The Farmer’s Hall was built in 1855 as a Universalist Church. It was then used by German Lutherans as a church beginning in the 1870s. It later became Kendall’s Town Hall. The building was given to the Cobblestone Museum in 1978. It was dismantled in Kendall and brought to the museum where it was rebuilt and now functions as an exhibition hall for 19th and early 20th century farming implements.

The museum’s entire campus was open for tours on Saturday. The event concluded with a concert in the Cobblestone Church by the Fiddlers of the Genesee.

Provided photo: Jim Bonafini, left, and Bill Lattin greets visitors watching the blacksmith in Vagg’s Blacksmith Shop at the Cobblestone Museum Complex. A blacksmith will be among the artisans demonstrating their trade at the open house Sept. 9.

CHILDS – The Cobblestone Museum’s campus will be buzzing with activity during their annual Open House Sept. 9.

The event will run from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and feature live demonstrations by volunteers in the blacksmith and print shops. Activities in other museum locations will be scheduled throughout the day.

“Volunteers have kindly accepted our invitation to demonstrate their skills associated with crafts that would have been popular in the 19th century,” said Sue Bonafini, assistant director of the Museum. “Visiting artisans from the Genesee Country Lace Guild will bring a try-it pillow for those who would like to experience the bobbin lace technique, and a seasoned volunteer will invite guests to help make butter from cream at Farmer’s Hall, where our butter churn collection is displayed.”

Other activities scheduled for the day include chair caning, basket weaving, quilting and weaving on a portable loom.

Photos by Tom Rivers: Georgia Thomas shows young children how to make butter at last year’s open house at the Cobblestone Museum.

All campus buildings and exhibit rooms will be open for public viewing free of charge with a complimentary wrist band. Current exhibits feature Victorian Mourning Art and Sundries and a historic coverlet collection made by Orleans County weavers in the 1800s.

A food tent will offer a barbecue chicken meal with salt potatoes, baked beans and dinner roll from 58 Main BBQ in Brockport for al fresco dining or takeout. Chicken will be available from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. or sold out. Presale tickets are $17 for a $2 savings per meal. Fruit pies from Partyka Farms in Kendall will be sold by the slice.

To top off the day, fiddlers from the Fiddlers of the Genesee will play toe-tapping old-time fiddle music in the Cobblestone Church at 3 p.m. Free will donations will be accepted. For additional information or to purchase chicken barbecue tickets, call (585) 589-9013.

The Fiddlers of the Genesee perform during last year’s open house in the Cobblestone Church. They will be back for another concert on Saturday.

Photos by Tom Rivers

GAINES – The Cobblestone Museum held its annual flea market on Saturday with 20 vendors and about 200 people stopping by. The top photo shows Adrienne Kirby at right selling used home-school curriculum.

Chris Sartwell in back sold fishing tackle and excess household items. “I don’t have much left all all,” she said about her inventory at the end of the afternoon.

Brian Stewart, left, Craig Ernewein and Bie Bradley were giving away New Testaments. Stewart and Ernewein are in The Gideons International and they estimate they have given away 1,500 to 2,000 New Testaments so far this year at the Holley June Fest, Albion Strawberry Festival, county fairs in Orleans and Niagara counties, and National Night Out in Medina.

Gertie Motulli, left, of Sweet Treats by Gertie and Beth Miller of Wild Flour Deli & Bakery served up tasty snacks and food.

The museum also served more than 200 hot dogs and 100 ears of corn. That corn was donated by Partyka Farms in Kendall.

The flea market used to be an annual event at the museum. It returned last year after about a 20-year absence. There were about 40 vendors signed up but about half decided not to attend to the threat of bad weather on Saturday.

69 trees, 34 varieties on museum property in Gaines

Provided photos: A Norway maple grows next to the gallery and office of the Cobblestone Museum.

CHILDS – The Cobblestone Museum has been accredited as an Arborertum Level 1 by ArbNet, an interactive, collaborative international community of arboreta.

The ArbNet Arboretum Accreditation Program is the only global initiative to officially recognize arboreta based on a set of professional standards.

The legwork and planning for the accreditation are attributed to Willem DeRuysscher, a senior at Albion High School and summer intern at the Cobblestone Museum.

He spent hours mapping and labeling all of the trees on the Cobblestone campus, according to director Doug Farley.

The mission of the Cobblestone Museum Arboreta is to educate visitors and attract new guests, which ultimately benefits all new visitors, Farley said.

There are a handful of notable trees on the Cobblestone’s property, and a total of 69 trees and 34 species.

A flowering crabapple is in full bloom next to the Cobblestone Museum’s Ward House.

A leaning white walnut tree is located behind the National Historic Landmark Cobblestone Church. A very large catalpa tree has the thickest trunk on the campus. There are also two sets of twins, two sycamore trees planted next to each other and two horse chestnut trees – one next to the church and the other next to the Visitors Center.

The smallest tree is the dwarf Alberta spruce. A resilient shrub native to most of the United States, the Cobblestone’s is only five feet seven inches tall. By contrast, the tallest tree is a Norway pine approximately 87 feet tall, making it taller than the bell tower of the church.

Other trees include a Norway maple next to the office/gallery, a trumpet vine next to an outhouse and a flowering crabapple next to the Ward House.

To receive the arboretum accreditation, the Cobblestone Museum has devised a Museum Arboretum Master Plan. The mission is to provide a recreational and educational experience and beauty that will attract more visitors to the museum.

A trumpet vine is one of the many species of trees and shrubs on the Cobblestone Museum campus.

Objectives are to care for new species native and exotic, educate visitors on basic tree maintenance and care, celebrate trees within the arboretum and in the surrounding community, educate visitors on the characteristics and origin of the trees on their campus and engage with the community by allowing donations and holding an Arbor Day event.

As director, Farley will oversee arboretum development. Maintenance will be performed by staff and volunteers.

A catalog of arboretum trees and an electronic map will be kept in a computer by the director and is available on the arboretum website. The electronic map utilizes GPS technology and an excel sheet documents the attributes of each tree, such as species and origin.

Annual patriotic service set for July 2 at Cobblestone Church

Photos by Tom Rivers: There are about 20 coverlets from the 1830s and 1840s on display at the Thompson-Kast Visitors Center for the Cobblestone Museum.

CHILDS – The Cobblestone Society and Museum have two special events planned in the next several weeks.

First is the fifth annual Summer Solstice Soiree, titled “Gathering of Friends” on Friday (June 23) at the Thompson-Kast Visitors Center.

The event will begin at 5 p.m. and last until dark. The public is invited to join in the celebration for an evening of music, art and conversation.

The coverlets were all donated to the museum by families in Orleans County.

Currently at the Visitors Center is a display of 1830s to 1840s coverlets, along with Victorian paintings by local artists and art by Tom Zangerle of Medina.

Visitors can also stroll through the expanded Victorian Mourning Art exhibit in the Upper Gallery across the road.

Presale tickets to the Soiree are $20 or at the door, $25 and include a complimentary glass of wine and scrumptious nibbles.  There will be a wine cash bar.

All donations benefit the Cobblestone Society Museum. Tickets may be ordered on the back page of the newsletter or by contacting the museum.

The second special event is the annual patriotic service at the Cobblestone Church on July 2.

The service harkens back to its early roots, with patriotic songs, poems and readings designed to make attendees proud of America and all that is stands for, said Museum director Doug Farley. The service will begin at 11 a.m.

Maarit Vaga and Bill Lattin have planned an outstanding event, Farley said. At noon, the crowd will move outdoors to enjoy a good old-fashioned picnic with hotdogs right off the grill. Hotdogs and beverages will be provided.

Those attending should bring their own lawn chair. A free will donation will be accepted.