Painted statue of ox honors early Orleans County settlers
Carol Culhane paints ox in honor of county’s bicentennial
Photos by Tom Rivers
CARLTON – A statue of an ox is painted to pay homage to early settlers in Orleans County, which this year commemorated its 200th anniversary.
Carol Culhane, a member of the Orleans County Bicentennial Committee, is nearly done with the ox. She has been working on it, on and off, the past three months. It will go in a county building or perhaps be displayed outside. The exact spot is to be determined. Right now it’s in the rec room at her house in Carlton. She has the first coats of paint on two other oxen as well.
The ox body is painted black. Culhane painted the county seal on one side and the bicentennial logo on the other. The seal has a gold color that Culhane also used for the horns and hooves.
The Bicentennial Committee picked an ox as a mascot and symbol for the county’s 200th anniversary. Oxen were critical for the pioneers, pulling wagons and helping to clear forests and plant crops.
Culhane read about many of the early settlers in a book by Arad Thomas in 1871, “Pioneer History of Orleans County.” Thomas interviewed many of the settlers. That book provides first-hand accounts of the tenacity needed to survive in the early 1800s when the settlers often lacked food for themselves and their livestock. Many of the settlers, including their children, died from disease.
Culhane has painted a portrait of a settler from each of the 10 towns and four villages. She included women, whose contributions often weren’t recorded.
Thomas featured some women in his book. But Culhane said Dee Robinson, a retired Gaines historian, wrote about the contributions of many local women in her book, “Historical Amnesia.”
The settlers highlighted by Culhane include:
- Nehemiah Ingersoll – Village of Albion
- Roswell Burrows – Town of Albion
- Lansing Bailey – Town of Barre
- Bathshua Brown – Town of Carlton
- Elizabeth Johnson – Village of Lyndonville
- David Jones – Town of Kendall
- Fanny Ferguson – Town of Murray
- Phoebe Sprague – Village of Holley
- Chauncey Robinson – Town of Clarendon
- Elizabeth Gilbert – Town of Gaines
- Peter Hoag – Village of Medina
- Seymour Murdock – Town of Ridgeway
- Matthew Gregory – Town of Shelby
- Horace Goold – Town of Yates
Arad Thomas’s book included photos of 12 of the 14 settlers painted by Culhane. She used AI to get a sketch for pioneers, Bathshua Brown and Elizabeth Gilbert. Culhane provided some details about their lives to help create the depictions from AI.
Culhane who like to see a display with information about each of the 14 people featured in portraits.
She marvels at women like Elizabeth Gilbert of Gaines and Bathshua Brown of Carlton. Both became widows and had to forge a new life in Orleans County without a spouse.
They endured the loss of children and faced intense hardships in trying to build new lives in Orleans County.
Brown and her husband moved to Orleans County, traveling by boat in 1804. Elijah Brown did not survive the trip and he was buried in the Brown Cemetery at the Bridges in 1804, the first marked burial in Orleans County. Elijah and Bathshua had 17 children, with 12 living to adulthood.
The Brown family continues to live and farm in Carlton – 221 years after Bathshua and her children moved to the area.
Culhane said the settlers had hard lives, and she wanted to honor their efforts in the early days of the county.
“Look at what they went through,” Culhane said. “All of them had strength and grace and courage to carry on.”
County Historian Catherine Cooper, left, commended Culhane for her vision for the ox and the artwork. Cooper said the ox’s face was particularly striking. Cooper said she would like the ox to prominently displayed by the county.
Culhane has long used her artistic talents to support veterans, Hospice of Orleans County and other causes. She created a bicentennial poster for the county, showing the modern Courthouse Square and an earlier log cabin that existed on the spot before the courthouse was built in 1858.
Culhane painted three horses for Rochester’s Horses on Praade in 2001 and a giraffe for the Animal Scramble in 2003. Culhane sees home those community art projects were fun and encouraged people to explore Rochester and Monroe County.
She thinks the painted oxen can have a similar impact in Orleans County. She has painted the third one. Stacey Kirby Steward painted the first one in 2024 during the Orleans County 4-H Fair. It included an agricultural scene on one side and fair scenes on the other side. That ox is at the fairgrounds.
Melissa Ierlan used decoupage to cover an ox with photos from Clarendon. That ox is at the Clarendon Historical Society.
Culhane has two more to do. Next up will be one with vignettes from Point Breeze and Carlton. She is painting that one for the Oak Orchard Neighborhood Association and Friends of the Orleans County Marine Park.
Then she will paint another one with scenes from around the county, some historic and other of the modern day.
The Genesee-Orleans Regional Arts Council approved grants for the upcoming two oxen by Culhane, while the one celebrating the early settlers was funded from the Orleans County Bicentennial Committee.
The Town of Kendall and Town of Carlton also are working on oxen for their towns. Culhane would like to see more added each year to celebrate the community and build a tourism attraction for the county.
“I think it’s a great asset for the county,” she said about the painted oxen.
Culhane said it was an honor to paint the ox for the county, which she said she loves dearly.
