Search Results for: hitching post

In Saratoga, horses are on parade (and so are dancing shoes)

By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 26 September 2013 at 12:00 am

SARATOGA SPRINGS – I visited Saratoga for a good part of Wednesday, and was happy to go exploring after giving a presentation in the afternoon about farmworkers.

The American Farm Bureau Federation has a three-day Promotion & Education Conference in Saratoga. I was asked to drive out and talk about my experiences in 2008, working with farmworkers from Mexico, Jamaica and Haiti.

I gave my presentation and headed out for a look around the city. Saratoga is home to a race track, and there is horse-themed stuff everywhere, including horses mounted on top of buildings. Many businesses work horses and horse-related logos into their names.

There are horse images on numerous city signs, including those for public parking (they put a horse logo on that). One of their bike racks utilized part of an cast-iron hitching post. It was mounted in the sidewalk. I thought that was pretty cool.

The city has 34 fiberglass horses sprinkled all over town and all in different themes. Batavia has some of these, too. They look nice, and every one seems to have someone gawking at it, taking a photo.

I think a lot of us associate Saratoga with horses. But I didn’t know the city is home to the National Museum of Dance. The museum wanted some recognition, and didn’t just want people to think horses whenever Saratoga was mentioned. So the museum this year did its own public art project.

There are 5-foot-high fiberglass pointe shoes all over the city, 24 in all and many have a funky painting pattern.

I drove around hoping to see the famous race track but I couldn’t find it and got sick of the traffic. So I wandered around on foot and came across a bronze jockey on a bronze horse. It’s right on the main street in the business district.

I thought that was a smart move putting the sculpture right on the main drag, rather than in front of the race track.

Saratoga also has a history steeped in minerals. They have some nice public displays about their mineral industry. I took photos, trying to get some ideas for how we could better show off our Medina sandstone roots in Orleans County.

There are several Orleans County officials in Saratoga for a few days this week. The New York State Association of Counties has its annual meeting, and the group picked a Saratoga hotel to meet and develop its agenda for the coming year. I happened to see Jay Gsell, the Genesee County manager, out for a walk on Wednesday evening. We chatted in front of the horse hitching post/bike rack.

Cobblestone building owners will open doors to public on Saturday

By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 12 September 2013 at 12:00 am

7 houses and cobblestone church will be on tour

Photos by Tom Rivers – This home owned by Ken and Mary Anne Braunbach on Zig-Zag Road in Gaines will be part of a tour of cobblestone houses on Saturday.

The Cobblestone Universalist Church on Route 104 was built in 1834. It’s part of a museum that is a National Historic Landmark, the only site in Orleans County with that designation.

GAINES – Between 1825 and 1860, early settlers in Orleans County, many of them farmers or quarry workers, used round stones on the exterior walls of their houses.

They set the stones in rows, using lime mortar. The buildings have proved durable, and unique to western and central New York where about 900 cobblestone structures still stand.

Orleans County has about 100 of them, including the Cobblestone Universalist Church built in 1834. That church and a house next door will be part of a tour this Saturday that also includes six other historic cobblestone homes.

The tour is a fund-raiser for the Cobblestone Society Museum. It also provides the public a chance to compare the masonry and architectural features of the buildings, and see how the property owners have worked to preserve the interiors or to make some modifications. Organizers believe this is the first local historic home tour that exclusively features cobblestone buildings.

Mary Anne Braunbach serves on the museum board of directors. Her home on Zig-Zag Road will be on the tour.

Braunbach and her husband Ken are both retired teachers from the Lockport school district. Braunbach, an Albion native, was looking for a house in the country about 19 years ago. She and her husband were looking for a house in either Middleport or Medina to stay close to Lockport.

Then they saw the house on Zig-Zag. It needed some work, but the two teachers liked the history behind the house, which was built in the 1840s.

They have filled it with antiques and other pieces that have a connection to the community. Braunbach also owns a historic downtown building. When she was cleaning out the basement of 138 North Main St., she found three empty glass bottles of beer from the 1800s. She cleaned the bottles and has them on display in her house.

She also has been collecting containers from the 1800s that were used to transport goods by canal boats. Those salt glaze pottery jugs were used to send hard cider great distances. Other containers held grains.

Braunbach has other local historical pieces, including artwork about the canal, including the Main Street lift bridge.

“This home is full of sentimentality,” she said. “That’s why I love this house so much. It has a story. I’m proud to be part of the area’s history.”

Cobblestone home builders set round stones in mortar as part of the exterior walls.

Braunbach and her husband put a cedar addition on the back of the house. People know they enjoy local history. One friend gave them a hitching post. They bought another one, giving their property three of those artifacts from the horse-and-buggy era. They believe one by the road is an original from more than a century ago.

The Braunbachs hope the house endures as a historic site for years to come. Mrs. Braunbach is exploring having it on the National Register of Historic Places.

Other houses on the tour include the Ward House owned by the The Cobblestone Society Museum, Bullard-Lattin House owned by C.W. “Bill” Lattin, Burgess House owned by Theresa Ames, Steward House owned by Sheri Egeli, Blood House owned by Dennis and Beth Thompson, and the Tolford House owned by William and Cecelia Feldman.

The tour runs from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Advance sale tickets are available at the Hoag Library and the Cobblestone Society Museum. On Saturday, tour programs and day-of-tour tickets will be available for pickup at the library and the Cobblestone Society Museum. Call (585) 356-5532 for more information.

The Braunbachs’ property includes three historic hitching posts. This one is unusual with its cube shape.

Albion Preservation Commission backs street-scape plan

By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 19 July 2013 at 12:00 am

Group also backs new doors for church, sign for Pratt Center

The Albion Historic Preservation Commission supported a street-scape plan that includes these bike racks, which will be painted blue and highlight Albion’s canal heritage. Design by DERO Bike Rack Company.

ALBION – The Albion Historic Preservation Commission has approved $50,000 worth of street-scape improvements, including new bike racks, trees in planters, benches painted as murals and other projects.

The Commission voted to support the projects on Thursday. The different projects now will be submitted to state preservation officials and the New York Main Street grant program for their approval.

The street-scape improvements are part of a $477,000 Main Street grant that was awarded for the downtown in December 2011. Most of the grant offered matching funds to property owners to work on their buildings.

The street-scape projects include 10 large tree planters made of concrete and stained pale red to mimic Medina sandstone and 18 smaller flower planters. The planters will be able to be moved by the village DPW and they will have drainage.

Twelve benches will be replaced and local artists will paint murals on them with local heritage themes, including apples, the canal, the trolley system and the quarrying industry, as well as many others.

Four bike racks, all with a tugboat theme, are planned for Main and Bank streets. There will be three smaller hoop-shaped racks and a larger rack that looks like a bicycle.

The street-scape subcommittee also wants to swap out the street signs in the Albion historic district with ones that would be blue with a upper box that says “Historic Albion.”

Those signs are targeted for portions of Liberty, Main and Platt streets, running between the canal and Beaver Street. The state DOT needs to approve those changes.

Two interpretive panels – cast-iron mounted signs – also are planned for the downtown. One is targeted for Waterman Park and would be focused on the downtown architecture. The sign also would have “teasers” about the four other nationally recognized historic districts in Albion: the Cobblestone Society Museum, Courthouse Square, Mount Albion Cemetery and the Erie Canal National Heritage Corridor.

Another panel is planned to go near the village parking lot, just north of the Presbyterian Church. The village is expanding the site for parking. There will be space to display two hitching posts. A panel will discuss these artifacts from the horse-and-buggy era and will note that Albion and the 14411 zip code is loaded with old hitching posts and carriage steps.

Other projects include a cast-iron historical marker that will note the downtown business district is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Main Street clock will have a sandstone base similar to the one in Medina. A sandstone bench will also be added to the sidewalk and that bench is planned to stay out year-round. The other benches typically are brought inside during the winter.

Mary Anne Braunbach and some of her gardening friends want to create a memorial garden for veterans in front of her building at 138 North Main St. The grant would fund a bronze plaque to be installed on a boulder, noting the garden is a veterans’ memorial.

The commission approved two other projects on Thursday.

The Albion Free Methodist Church wants to replace doors on an addition to the building that was put up in 1985. The double-aluminum doors on the south side of the building and a steel side door will be replaced with bronze-colored aluminum framed doors.

Michael Bonafede and Judith Koehler, owners 118 North Main St., want to change the sign of the building from “Coffeehouse” to the “Pratt Center.” The current sign color, lettering style and signboard will be used.

Editor’s note: Hub editor Tom Rivers is chairman of the street-scape subcommittee.

Our sandstone heritage

By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 1 July 2013 at 12:00 am

Kent resident takes pride in cobblestone house, sandstone step

Photos by Tom Rivers – Pete Consler bought two hitching posts and a carriage step about three decades from a Hulberton man who didn’t want them. Consler keeps them in immaculate shape in front of his historic cobblestone home on Kent Road.

KENT – Pete Consler was driving through Hulberton about three decades ago when he saw buckled sandstone sidewalk panels. He thought they would be a nice complement to his home, a cobblestone house built in 1843.

Consler has just moved into his parents’ former cobblestone cottage home on Kent Road more than 30 years ago. Consler and his wife Joan would raise two sons in the historic house.

Consler’s father Art added sandstone steps a few years before Consler noticed the sidewalk panels. He stopped in Hulberton and the owner said he would sell them – if Consler took all the pieces.

Consler also noticed a carriage step and two hitching posts. He asked if they were for sale and the owner threw them in the deal. The owner was glad to be rid of them.

Consler had a friend help him move the heavy stone to his home, where Consler established two sandstone walkways and put the hitching posts and carriage step near the road, trying to recreate a setup from the horse-and-buggy days.

I was on Kent Road last evening to do a story on Chet Wheelock and his family’s hot air balloon ride. I drove past Wheelock’s farm and ended up at Consler’s. His property is a showcase of our cobblestone and sandstone heritage.

The house has been in his family since 1949, when his parents Art and Rose Consler bought it as a cottage. Consler remembers spending the summers in Kent, and working for a dairy farmer down the road – “Boy did I get an education.”

Consler worked as a union plumber and as a pipefitter for General Motors. He has used his skills and hard work ethic to keep up an immaculate property. He repointed all the mortar on the house and has kept many of the house’s interior pieces, including a cast-iron potbelly stove and pre-rotary phone. His wife has developed a garden that could be featured in a magazine. Pete’s mother secured the tops of two old Rochester street lights that her son fixed up and mounted in the front lawn with toned-down lights.

The hitching posts include Italian lettering. Consler would like to know the story behind the symbols.

Pete Consler is a proud owner of a cobblestone home, and a sandstone carriange step.

Consler has battled cancer five times in the past 22 years. He is thankful for each day, he said.

“I’ve been blessed to have the best doctors in the world,” he said.

Consler also traveled to Rome, and met the Pope. Consler even shook his hand. He thinks that experience has helped him survive cancer.

I told Consler about my hitching post obsession, how I’m trying to build a database of all these relics from the horse-and-buggy era. I think Orleans County may be home to more of these than anywhere else, and could be part of a draw for tourists, especially if the hitching posts and carriage steps are part of a bigger sandstone and cobblestone story.

Consler’s two posts have lettering in Italian. If anyone reads this and knows what it means, please send me a note. These are two of the most ornate posts that I’ve seen. I’d guess they were owned by a well-to-do resident of Hulberton.

Consler feels such pride in his home, he had his name etched in the carriage step, just like many families did more than a century ago.

I told him he has done a great job with the place.

(If you have a hitching post story to tell, send me an email at tom@orleanshub.com.)

Fanning the flame of historical appreciation

By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 16 June 2013 at 12:00 am

Blacksmith creates rings for hitching post project

Photos by Tom Rivers – George Borrelli works in his Carlton shop to make the ring that will be put in a hitching post.

The steel in the ring is heated to about 1,600 degrees.

ALBION – Here is something you may not realize about Albion: This community may have more century-old hitching posts, carriage steps and mounting blocks than anywhere else in the world.

I’ve counted about 40 hitching posts in the 14411 zip code. There may be a hundred of the carriage steps and mounting blocks. Some of these are beautiful works of art carved by the quarrymen from generations ago.

The posts and blocks were the parking spaces in the horse-and-buggy era. Most communities took these out long ago. But in Albion many have endured along East State Street, Mount Albion Cemetery, Ridge Road in Gaines and a lot of the village side streets.

George Borrelli studied the rings on local hitching posts, including this one at South Clinton Street in Albion, to make new ones.

This hitching post is in front of a historic cobblestone house on Densmore Street.

They sit in front of some of the finest old homes in the community, sometimes only a few feet from the road.

Four more will soon join the local landscape in prominent spots along Main Street.

The Albion Main Street Alliance is coordinating the project that is targeting the courthouse lawn for two hitching posts, a spot in front of the former Swan Library and a Main Street sidewalk by Krantz Furniture. (The state Department of Transportation needs to sign off on the sidewalk.)

This project has a lot of people excited. Several of us donated money to buy four hitching posts from local contractor Fred Pilon. The sandstone posts didn’t have holes for the rings to tie up horses. These posts were likely property markers from long ago. But they look just like hitching posts, except for the missing rings.

We wanted rings and turned to a local blacksmith George Borrelli for help. Borrelli is a talented metal artist. I first learned about him when I admired the ornate coat rack at the former Elsewhere coffee house in Albion. (Yes, I marveled at a coat rack.) Borrelli turned a mundane piece of furniture into a piece of artwork.

Borrelli knows how to shape steel. Yesterday I picked up the four rings he made for the hitching posts. They are thick and about three inches in diameter. He also made a 4-inch long pintle that will go into a hole in the hitching post. (Tony Russo of Medina is helping us drill the holes. We also need to fill the holes with lead to hold the pintle.)

Borrelli, a machine builder and former tool-and-die maker, studied the rings on some of the old hitching posts to make a design for the new ones. He has a forge in his Carlton shop. He believes he made them using the same skills and techniques from the blacksmiths 100 years ago.

One difference in the new rings: They are made of steel instead of iron. Borrelli said iron is hard to come by these days.

He used a forge to heat the steel to 1,600 degrees and shape it into a circle. He used a hammer to flatten out the pintle.

“I’ve always loved the old machines and the old ways,” he said at his shop in Carlton on Saturday. “I enjoy trying to recreate something.”

Borrelli has a niche in making custom cabinet handles. He said there has been a renaissance in blacksmithing in the past decade. (Emil Smith of Medina is another skilled local blacksmith. His sculptures are on display on Route 63, just south of the village.)

I’m hoping the hitching posts are well received by the public and we can try to add some to downtown Medina and Holley, as well as a few more to Albion. I also think we should create a map with these horse-and-buggy artifacts. I’ve been taking pictures and jotting down addresses, but I’m sure I’m missing some. If you have one, send me your address so I can stop by and put you on the map.

Borrelli created a jig to wrap the steel around, creating a ring with a 3-inch diameter.

Borrelli bends and shapes the metal.

George Borrelli holds one of the new rings and pintles he created. He coated them in turpentine and linseed oil.

Medina native was Susan B. Anthony’s cousin, Kansas governor

By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 31 May 2013 at 12:00 am

Photos by Tom Rivers – Susan B. Anthony is depcited in this statue down the street from the Susan B. Anthony House on Madison Street in Rochester.

MEDINA – Before he became governor of Kansas, George Anthony led 240 soldiers from Orleans County into battle during the Civil War.

Anthony’s life – his roots in Medina, his leadership in the war and his service as Kansas governor – are noted on a historical marker on West Center Street in Medina.

He was also the cousin of famed suffragist, abolitionist and temperance activist Susan B. Anthony.

A historical marker on West Center Street in Medina notes the home of George Anthony, who went on to be governor of Kansas.

The cousins, who were raised by Quakers, were radical people in the mid to late 1800s.

I was in Rochester today and swung by the Susan B. Anthony House on Madison Street. I’ve driven by the bronze statues of Anthony and Frederick Douglass up the street, but never took the time to stop and experience them until today. They are the centerpieces of the Susan B. Anthony Square Park.

Anthony and her friend Douglass, a noted abolitionist, are depicted having tea together. One resident saw me taking photos, and exclaimed about the beauty of the statues, which were erected in 2001. They certainly give a lift to the neighborhood.

Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass are depicted in “Let’s Have Tea,” statues in the Susan B. Anthony Square Park.

This is an old street in Rochester and I couldn’t help but notice sandstone foundations on the houses, a couple hitching posts in front yards, and sandstone posts to hold up the sign with the park’s name.

I’d like to see some bronze statues honoring the quarrymen who built the canal villages in Orleans County. I like how the Susan B. Anthony Square Park doesn’t have Anthony by herself. She appears very much engaged with Douglass.

The quarrymen’s job involved a lot of teamwork. I hope as a community we could come up with a memorial site that would give a glimpse of that difficult work from more than a century ago.

Regarding George Anthony, Tom Taber of Albion features the Medina resident in “The Orleans Battery – A History of the 17th New York Light Artillery in the War of Rebellion.” Taber published that 320-page book last year. It’s a remarkable research effort.

He found a letter that Anthony wrote to his brother on April 9, 1865, the day of the Confederate surrender. Anthony was outside the Appomattox Court House only a few yards away from the where General Robert E. Lee surrendered.

“This is a glorious hour, and will live in history,” he wrote his brother Benjamin Anthony of Medina. “The work is done. Gen. Ord announces to us the surrender of Lee, and the entire army under his command, and that are present. Thus ends the Army of the Virginia, and, virtually, the Rebellion.”

After the war, Anthony moved to Kansas, working as a newspaper editor. He was elected the state’s governor, serving two years from January 1877 to January 1879.

Cornell students experience Mount Albion

By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 20 April 2013 at 12:00 am

Photos by Tom Rivers – Cornell University students climbed the Civil War memorial at Mount Albion Cemetery this afternoon.

ALBION – I had the pleasure this afternoon of leading a dozen students from Cornell University on a tour of Mount Albion Cemetery, which I consider one of the great marvels of Orleans County.

I talked about the impressive sandstone structures at the cemetery – the arch, the chapel, the office across the street, and the collection of hitching posts and carriage steps. It all culminates with the 68-foot-high tower at the back of the cemetery.

That tower, built in 1876, is a memorial to the 463 soldiers from Orleans County who died in the Civil War.

Thirty-three Cornell students, pursuing graduate degrees in historic preservation and city planning, have been touring Albion sites and working on preservation projects since Thursday.

The students pose on the sandstone steps leading to Mount Albion Tower.

NY takes steps to fight spread of spotted lanternfly, which is a threat to agriculture

Posted 2 October 2018 at 2:18 pm

New quarantine will restrict movement of goods brought into NY from 4 states

Press Release, NYS Department of Agriculture and Markets

Photo by Lawrence Barringer, Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture

The New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets is implementing new actions to protect New York, and its surrounding states, from the establishment of the invasive spotted lanternfly.

The Department, working in collaboration with the State Department of Environmental Conservation, issued a quarantine that will restrict the movement of certain goods brought into New York from Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, states impacted by the spotted lanternfly. The first SLF findings were reported earlier this month in New York State in Yates and Albany counties.

“The spotted lanternfly is a major concern for us when it comes to our agricultural crops and our forest land, so we can’t take any chances that this invasive species will become established here in New York State,” said State Agriculture Commissioner Richard A. Ball. “The goal of the quarantine we have implemented is to help reduce the opportunities these pests may have in hitching a ride on firewood, plants and other common outdoor items and entering our state in the first place.”

SLF, which is known to do significant damage to agricultural crops as well as plant nurseries and the forest products industries, was first discovered in Pennsylvania in 2014. Established populations of SLF have since been found in New Jersey, Delaware and Virginia.

Two cases of a single reported bug have been confirmed in New York. Given the proximity to the Pennsylvania and New Jersey infestations, NYS is at high risk for infestation. While these insects can jump and fly short distances, they spread primarily through human activity. SLF lay their eggs on any number of surfaces such as vehicles, stone, rusty metal, outdoor furniture and firewood. They can hitch rides on any outdoor item and be easily transported into and throughout New York.

“The newly designated exterior quarantine is part of the State’s aggressive effort to protect our natural resources from the destructive, invasive pest spotted lanternfly,” said DEC Commissioner Basil Seggos. “If this insect becomes established in New York it would threaten our agricultural and tourism industries, including outdoor recreational activities. DEC will continue to work with our state and federal partners to prevent the introduction of this pest into New York State and do what we can to help educate and prepare communities for spotted lanternfly.”

SLF is a destructive pest that feeds on more than 70 plant species including tree-of-heaven (Ailanthus altissima), maples, apple trees, grapevine, and hops. SLF feedings can stress plants, making them vulnerable to disease and attacks from other insects, and cause significant damage to New York’s agricultural industry. SLF also excretes large amounts of sticky “honeydew,” which attracts sooty molds that interfere with plant photosynthesis, negatively affecting the growth and fruit yield of plants. SLF also has the potential to significantly hinder quality of life due to the honeydew and the swarms of insects it attracts.

To help slow the spread of SLF into New York, the quarantine requires certificates of inspection issued from the impacted states on the following regulated articles entering New York State:

• Any living life stage of the SLF.

• Brush, debris, bark, or yard waste.

• Landscaping, remodeling, or construction waste.

• Logs, stumps, or any tree parts.

• Firewood of any species.

• Packing materials, such as wood crates or boxes.

• All plants and plant parts, including but not limited to nursery stock, green lumber, fruit and produce and other material living, dead, cut, fallen (including stumps), roots, branches, mulch, and composted and uncomposted chips.

• Outdoor household articles, including, but not limited to, recreational vehicles, lawn tractors and mowers, mower decks, grills, grill and furniture covers, tarps, mobile homes, tile, stone, deck boards, mobile fire pits, and any equipment associated with these items, and trucks or vehicles not stored indoors.

• Any other article, commodity, item, or product that has or that is reasonably believed to be infested with or harboring SLF.

New York’s order requires travelers transporting any of the above items to have documentation listing the origin and destination of shipments. It also prohibits unnecessarily stops while traveling through the quarantine area. The State Department of Agriculture and Markets will operate compliance checks at strategic locations around the State to enforce the regulations.

The State’s quarantine order was developed in consultation with representatives from the forest products industry, including manufacturers and harvesters, and nurseries/landscapers, orchard and vineyard owners, and others potentially impacted by the restriction. New York also collaborated with other states where quarantines have been enacted to slow the SLF’s spread.

Earlier this month, the Department of Agriculture and Markets and DEC confirmed that SLF was found in Albany and Yates counties. A single adult insect was discovered in a vehicle in the Capital Region and a single adult insect was reported on a private Keuka Lake property in Penn Yan, Yates County.

Following both reported cases, the Department and DEC immediately began extensive surveys throughout the area. The public is encouraged to continue to report any potential sightings of SLF and to send a photo to spottedlanternfly@dec.ny.gov. Please note the location of where the insect was found, egg masses, and/or infestation signs. The public is also encouraged to inspect outdoor items such as vehicles, furniture, and firewood for egg masses. Anyone that visits the Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and Virginia infested areas should thoroughly inspect their vehicle, luggage and gear for SLF and egg masses before leaving and scrape off all egg masses.

A Smartphone application is also available to help citizens and conservation professionals quickly and easily report new invasive species sightings directly to New York’s invasive species database from their phones. For more information, visit New York’s invasive species database.

The Department, DEC, New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation and the US Department of Agriculture will continue to survey throughout the Capital District and the Finger Lakes focusing on travel corridors and high-risk areas. Extensive surveys will continue to be conducted in high-risk areas throughout the state as well as inspections of nursery stock, stone shipments, commercial transports, etc., from Pennsylvania. Education to the public as well as industry personnel will also continue. For more information on spotted lanternfly, visit DEC’s website.

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