25 years ago Cobblestone Museum dedicated harness shop
By Bill Lattin
Orleans County Historian
GAINES – Our color photo shows a small building in Gaines as it looked in 1987 when given by Rose Welles to the Cobblestone Museum.
This was moved in August 1987 from next to the Chatterbox Restaurant to Route 98 in Childs. It had been built in 1838 for a shoe shop by Starr Chester. Once at the museum grounds, the building was restored inside and out.
In the mid-1960s the children of John G. Peters from Lyndonville had given the Cobblestone Museum the contents of their father’s harness shop following his death at age 85 in 1963.
The black and white photo taken 25 years ago in July 1989 shows the dedication ceremony, when the small building opened as the John G. Peters Harness Shop.
Bill Lattin, director of the museum at the time, and the late William Nestle, president of the Cobblestone Society back then, appear on the front porch. Other participants at the dedication are seated on the porch of the museum print shop next door.
County Legislators Ronald Radzinski and William Vick are visible along with Rev. Hilda Spann and the Rev. Steve Devine.
