history

This is the first of two videos on my recent visit to Rolling Hills Paranormal Research Center in East Bethany. Rolling Hills is the site of the old Genesee County Home, former "poor house," home for the "insane," and nursing home. In this video, Rolling Hills owner Lori Carlson gives us a brief overview of the facility, its past inhabitants and its current inhabitants... that latter would be the ghosts.

Tomorrow, we hope to get up the second video, which will consist entirely of footage from my tour of the facility between the hours of 11:00pm and 3:00am. While I wasn't fortunate enough to stumble into any ghosts, I got some great shots of an eerie, disquieting and utterly fascinating space.

In the meantime, let's learn a little about this place...

Be sure to check out part one of our Halloween countdown, posted yesterday: Cooking with the Dairy Princess: Halloween Special (Jell-O Eyeballs).

Looks like we need to do some catching up with the Holland Land Office Museum's countdown of The 25 Things That Made Genesee County Famous. We left off with Charles Rand back at the end of September, but Pat Weissend has posted a few more in the meantime. What's more, we're about to break into the top ten!

Clocking in at No. 13 was the Pembroke driver's ed accident: a tragic crash in 1987 that claimed the lives of three students and an instructor. That accident, relates Weissend, spurned folks to act and got the blood alcohol content lowered from .1 percent to .08 percent and made it illegal for anyone under the legal drinking age to even possess a drink.

Darien Lake Theme Park earns a spot at No. 12. Weissend tells us that over 1 million people visit the park each year.

Seneca Indian Ely Samuel Parker makes his appearance at No. 11 on the list. Here's Weissend:

Parker is arguably one of the most famous people ever born in Genesee County. He spoke in front of the Supreme Court, knew United States Presidents, was one of the only Native American Generals in the United States Army and was one of President Ulysses S. Grant’s first nominees for a federal appointment.

Be sure to check out the museum Web site for more on these and the other "famous things" and plenty of other fun stuff, such as podcasts, official Muckdogs merch, the wonderland of trees and more.

My parents are visiting from California this week. On Friday, I took them on a tour of Genesee County.

Of course, we visited the LeRoy Jello Museum, where on the spur of the moment, I bought a little guide to notable locations in and around LeRoy related to the Underground Railroad.

It's a fascinating 17-mile drive.

Here's a couple of pictures.

This is Brend Road, one of the routes north for escaped slaves.

This was the home of Elijah Huftelen, who assisted station master Daniel MacDonald during the brief time MacDonald helped escaped slaves with passage through LeRoy.  MacDonald's station house was somewhere in the vicinity.

If you're interested in taking the tour, the tour guide can be purchased at the Jello Museum for $1.

Emory Upton was a prominent Batavian, a Civil War general and a traveler to distant realms. Upton commanded men and feasted with royalty. He could charm a dame and pack a rifle with equal assurance. Throughout his voyages away from his native land, Upton sent home many letters home, to his sisters mostly, chronicling his adventures.

Two years ago, a gift was made to the Holland Land Office Museum of 75 letters that Upton wrote during the Civil War and after. Since then, Museum Director Pat Weissend and County Clerk Don Read have diligently and miraculously deciphered Upton's script, transcribing the letters that will, once the project is finished about a year from now, be published in a book. Every couple of weeks, Pat and Don get together early in the morning at Main Street Coffee to pick through another couple of pages. They've nearly finished their first run through of them all.

Pat was kind enough to invite me to their transcription session this morning where, bleary-eyed yet grateful, I produced this video:

Ann Gavenda didn't only talk about the Elba History Barn when we met a few weeks back. She had some great stories to tell me about working in the muck on the Elba onion fields back in the 1940s, when her and the other girls ran into snakes, cigars, highly articulate Jamaicans and more dimes than you can shake a stick at—and she had the blisters to prove it. Without further ado:

A few weeks ago, I paid a visit to the new History Barn in Elba, built to store all the ancient farm equipment and other relics that were locked up in who knew how many barns all over the town and its environs. Ann Gavenda was kind enough to come down and tell me a bit about the town's new treasure and the treasures inside it. Here's what she told me:

Were you able to make out the price of a gallon of gas on the old Esso pump?

Ann didn't only tell me about the history barn. She told me a lot more about growing up in Elba and working in the muck fields. Please be sure to check out that video which should go up later this afternoon.

A few weeks ago, I was chatting with Anne Barone who told me how her husband, City Councilman Sam Barone, has always wanted to know what happened with the "naked lady statue" that used to be in Austin Park. Wouldn't that be an interesting story to tell, she mused.

Such was the genesis of The Batavian's newest series: Mysteries of Genesee County's History. It has one goal: Search out the lost memories and forgotten stories from our county and find out what happened.

In order to find some answers to our first mystery—the naked lady statue that went missing from Austin Park—I recruited Batavia's City Historian Larry Barnes to sleuth about. Larry filed the following report this morning:

A couple weeks ago, I received a call from Philip Anselmo of TheBatavian who wondered if I knew what had become of the “naked lady” in Austin Park.  The “naked lady,” Anselmo explained, was a statue that Councilman Sam Barone remembered seeing in his youth but then disappeared from the Park.  I didn’t have an answer initially, but with some detective work I have discovered that the “naked lady” has gone to Cincinnati.

The “naked lady” of Barone’s recollections is a life-sized bronze statue of a pubescent female holding aloft a bowl designed to hold water from which birds can drink.  In fact, the statue includes a bird flitting by the arm of the young girl.  The girl herself is not actually naked, but her garment is so thin that her anatomical features including navel and nipples are fully revealed.

The statue is the creation of an internationally renowned artist, Bessie Potter Vonnoh.  It was given to the City in 1931 for placement in Austin Park by Frances Washburn, wife of the County Judge, Edward Washburn.  It was intended to be part of a bird sanctuary in the Park.  An identical figure is part of a fountain group in Central Park in New York City.

The City had great plans for Austin Park.  A design developed by landscape architect Harold Olmsted included a band shell, pool, tennis courts, playing field, playground, comfort station, winding paths, and elaborate landscaping.  Most of this never materialized; and by the 1960s, Austin Park had fallen into a state of deterioration hastened by recurring vandalism. It was about this time that the “naked lady” was rescued from an uncertain fate.

The statue’s rescuer was Rowena Atwater, the daughter of donor Frances Washburn.  Mrs. Washburn was now dead; and Mrs. Atwater took the statue home to her garden.  That garden was next to the white house on East Main Street now owned by GCASA.  The statue remained in its new haven until the death of Rowena Atwater.

In 1996, the adult children of Mrs. Atwater, Edward, James and Julian Atwater, donated the “naked lady” to the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester.  The Gallery placed the statue in the Fountain Court, located inside the main entrance to the Gallery.  Ordinarily, if you were to visit the Gallery, you could see the statue of Sam Barone’s memory standing in the left rear corner.

Today, however, the “naked lady” of Austin Park is on tour.  Currently, she is visiting the Cincinnati Art Museum.  So, you’ll have to travel some distance if you want an up close and personal view.  I can’t resist saying that this is what happens when a community doesn’t honor its cultural treasures.  The “naked lady” has gone the way of the Cary Mansion, the Richmond Mansion, and other wonders that once distinguished our fair city.  At least she hasn’t landed in a landfill.

Be sure to check back in a few weeks for our next Mystery of Genesee County's History.

Photo courtesy of the Memorial Art Gallery Web site.

Folks looking for a good haunting with a touch of local history will get several chances to tour the eerie side of downtown Batavia in the month of October, according to the Daily News. City Ghost Walks kick off this Friday.

Tours out of the east end of the city start at GO ART! Cultural Center and stop at the Masonic Temple, the Cary Mansion, the Mancuso Theater (now City Church), St. Joseph's Church and Richmond Mansion. From there, folks will head to Ross Street and learn about a few haunted houses at Nos. 20, 39 and 41 Ross St., then head on to Present Tense Bookstore at 101 Washington Ave. West end tours start at the Genesee County History Department on West Main Street, where County Historian Sue Conklin will show off her copper divining rods.

Joanne Beck writes of the west end itinerary:

Visitors will tour the former Engine House building and move onto 4 Mix Place, once granted a permit to be a burial ground. The tour also includes the Oak Street Specter and the first known graveyard on the corner of Oak and West Main Streets, where seven known hangings and the man "who was hung twice" occurred.

There's just too much great history and eeriness packed into these walks. Don't know about anyone else, but I'm darned excited.

East end tours will run on October 3, 17 and 24. Two runs will head out each evening, one at 6:00pm and another at 7:30pm. West end tours will run on October 10 and 24, also twice each evening at the same times. Cost is $10 per person. Visit the cultural center's calendar of events for more info.

We encourage you to pick up a copy of the Daily News at your local newsstand. Or, better yet, subscribe at BataviaNews.com.

Charles Rand lands at Number 14 in the Holland Land Office Museum's countdown of The Twenty-Five Things That Made Genesee County Famous. Well, it turns out that The Batavian visited the museum a couple months back and put together a video with Museum Director Pat Weissend on that very subject

Don't forget to visit the museum Web site for even more on Rand and the other things that made Genesee County famous.

Richmond Memorial Library will host a book lunch today in the library's Gallery Room at 19 Ross Street in Batavia. Folks are encouraged to come by to hear Bill Kauffman talk about his new book (that's it here to the right) while they eat lunch. They call it "Books Sandwiched In," and it starts at 12:10pm and runs to about 1:00pm, long enough to get a healthy dose of culture, but not too long that you can't make it on your lunch break from work.

From the press release:

Bill Kauffman will talk about his new book, Forgotten Founder, Drunken Prophet: The Life of Luther Martin. The Friends of the Library co-sponsor this free program. Bring your lunch; coffee, tea and cookies are provided.  All welcome. For more information, call the library at (585) 343-9550, ext. 8 or log on to www.batavialibrary.org.

Coming in at No. 15 in the Holland Land Office Museum countdown of The Twenty-Five Things That Made Genesee County Famous is the only court case to have orginated in Genesee County that was heard by the United States Supreme Court. This was in 1857.

It all started when a representative of the Ogden Land Company, Joseph Fellows, tried to take the land of the Tonawanda Indian Reservation. Tonawanda Seneca Sachem John Blacksmith wouldn't have it. (A sachem is a sort of Native American king, by the way.) Blacksmith sued the land company and his case was eventually heard by the supreme court.

If you want to know what happened next, check out the full article by Museum Director Pat Weissend. While you're at the the museum's Web site, you can isten to podcasts of some of the other big things that made the list of The Twenty-Five Things That Made Genesee County Famous.

The building that became known to the world as the first-ever business incubator earns a spot in the Holland Land Office Museum's countdown of The Twenty-Five Things That Made Genesee County Famous.

Museum Director Pat Weissend relates the history of this famous plant:

In 1886, the Johnson Harvester Company of Brockport, NY moved to Batavia following a fire in the Brockport plant. Company officials chose Batavia because the railroad lines that came through the village would make the shipment of product easier. Also, local citizens purchased 14 acres of land along Cemetery Street and donated it to the company to build its plant. Cemetery Street was renamed Harvester Avenue.

In 1910, a controlling interest in the Johnson Harvester Company was acquired by the Massey-Harris Company of Canada. One of the more well known products of the Massey-Harris Company was the Clipper Combine.

In 1953, the company merged with Harry Ferguson Limited of England and became Massey-Harris-Ferguson. Five years later, the name was shortened to Massey-Ferguson.

After the plant closed a few years after the merger with Ferguson Limited, the city began the search for a new tenant. When no one could be persuaded to take over the enormous space—industrial plants all over the nation were beginning to close their doors at the time—Charles Mancuso was charged with the task of filling the space. So was born the business incubator.

Mancuso came up with the idea to rent portions of the building to small manufacturing firms until they were large enough to strike out on their own. This type of arrangement allowed startup businesses to save money and resources until they grew enough to go out on their own.

One of the first tenants to the Industrial Center was a chicken company. Mr. Mancuso was traveling around the US looking for other potential tenants and spreading the word about Genesee County. He used the chicken company as an example, and started calling it an incubator. Mancuso invented the world's first business incubator. Today, there are an estimated 5,000 business incubators in the world. In Anshan City, China there is a statue of Joseph Mancuso, the father of the business incubator.

Visit the museum's Web site for more about the business incubator and to keep up with the countdown of The Twenty-Five Things That Made Genesee County Famous.

This may be my favorite video at the Holland Land Office Museum so far—and Map Measuring Madness is not easy to beat! I won't say anything about this one. As Pat Weissend said to me: You don't want to ruin the surprise factor. Enjoy!

The Holland Land Office Museum continues its countdown of The Twenty-Five Things That Made Genesee County Famous with the recounting, at No. 17, of a tale of wartime heroism. This story provides a nice counterpoint to last time when Museum Director Pat Weissend told us the sordid tale of a cuckold who kills his wife's lover and gets off scot-free.

When American morale took a blow after the bombing by Japan of Pearl Harbor during World War II, Lt. Col. James Doolittle organized a counter-strike. His plan was to load sixteen B-25 twin-engine bombers, take off from the deck of the USS Hornet and bomb Tokyo. Batavia's Eddie York (née Edward J. Chichowski) was pilot of plane number eight.

Pat Weissend tells us the rest of the story:

York knew he didn’t have enough fuel to make it to friendly mainland China, so he headed to Siberia in the Soviet Union instead. He landed his plane near Vladivostok in the Soviet Russia and planned on refueling and heading to China. At the landing site, Russian troops took the crew into custody. A Japanese unit showed up shortly after, and demanded the American crew be turned over to them. The Soviet Union and Japan were not at war at that point, so the crew was held by the Russians. After 13 months of captivity the crew escaped through Persia and eventually returned to the United States.

For more on this tale and to keep up with the countdown, visit the museum Web site.

In February, Present Tense Books, hosted a talk by Josh on Patti Pacino centered around old photographs Patti's father either took or collected of old Batavia.

The collection of photos is posted here.

It contains a number of photos related to the destruction of the north side of Main Street to make room for the mall many people, including City Council President Charlie Mallow, call an eyesore.

Here is a video slide show I put together of from those old photos:

I haven't found anybody so far -- long-time resident or not -- who has good things about the mall.  Even Mitchell Chess, president of the Mall Merchant's Association, doesn't come across as a particular fan. With all of the conversation about the mall on The Batavian this week, not a single commenter has come forward to say it should be saved.

In a back-and-forth with Mallow over whether we were hyping his statement that parts of the mall (which, frankly, I too quickly turned into "all of the mall") should be razed, I quipped, "Mr. Mallow, tear down that mall," which was good for some comic relief.

But it can also serve as a rallying cry. 

Not everybody is pleased that there is so much heated discussion over the mall, but sometimes in such discussions a vibrancy can be found for finding new solutions to old problems.

Nobody has a plan yet, and the city and the MMA are spending way too much time on signs, bird poop and whether Bob Bialkowski has a conflict of interest, but the community needs to move beyond these trivial matters and focus on a long-term solution to the eyesore of a mall. 

A good plan will improve downtown, not waste taxpayer money, help the current merchants find new Main Street-facing shops and create jobs.

Mr. Mallow, tear down that mall.

Who is Edward Newton Rowell? And why is he so special that he warrants a place—at No. 18—among "The Twenty-Five Things That Made Genesee County Famous"? Well, he's a man at the center of a story of intrigue: a story of lies, trysts, jealousy... and murder. His tale is a tale of strange times past, and it's told brilliantly by none other than our very own paragon of local history, Pat Weissend, director of the Holland Land Office Museum.

Pat's done such a great job with this one that we won't even attempt a summary here. Just get over to the site and read it for yourself. While you're there, don't forget to poke around—the site is loaded with other fun facts, podcasts and virtual exhibits.

Genesee Community College lands at Number 19 in the Holland Land Office Museum's countdown of "The Twenty-Five Things That Made Genesee County Famous." Museum Director Pat Weissend tells us that when the county first imagined building a community college — back in the early 1960s — county leaders had little hope that it would ever be a success. In fact, explains Weissend, the Board of Supervisors at the time didn't think enrollment would ever exceed 75 students!

Along came the Batavia Area Jaycees, who were a little dubious of the results, and they put  together a survey of their own. Here's what they found out:

1.        A community desire for a two year college

2.        The need for a community college

3.        The financial ability to support the college

4.        Favorable economic growth in the region

5.        Population Increase

6.        A sufficient student population for a college

When the first classrooms opened in September, 1967, the first class numbered 378 full-time and 243 part-time students. Today, there are about 6,500 students enrolled at the institution that now offers nearly 60 degrees and certifcates.

Visit the Holland Land Office Museum Web site for more information on Genesee Community College and the other things that made Genesee County Famous.

Holland Land Office Museum Director Pat Weissend tells us why our forebears saw fit to end New York state at Lake Erie instead of just continuing on to the Mississippi... or on to the Pacific. Why not? Pat tells us. Also included in this third installment of our series on what's going on over at that museum is Pat's explanation of why Transit Road is called Transit Road. Really, this one's a gem, folks. Enjoy!

From muck to dirt, the countdown of the "Twenty-Five Things That Made Genesee County Famous" rolls right along.

Number 20 was announced this afternoon as the Hiscock Site in Byron. Holland Land Office Museum Director Pat Weissend explains:

Known locally as the Byron Dig, the site is an ongoing archeology dig in the Town of Byron. In 1959, landowner Charles Hiscock was digging a pond on his property when his backhoe pulled up a mastodon tusk. ... To date, less than one-quarter of the 52-acre Buffalo Museum of Science-owned property has been explored.

Visit the Holland Land Office Museum Web site for more information on the Hiscock Site and the other things that made Genesee County Famous.

Who knew muck could be a claim to fame... It's dirty. It sounds gross. It doesn't contribute anything to society. What has muck done for you and me?

But before we get to that bizarre question, let's start simple: What is muck? Holland Land Office Museum Director Pat Weissend takes up the question in his latest post in the countdown of "The 25 Things that Made Genesee County Famous."

As Pat says:

Muck? What is muck? That is a question often asked by visitors to our county. What is this land with such an unusual name? Muck is a black soil that is left behind after swamplands are drained. The soil is made up mostly of humus. The mucklands in northern Genesee County and southern Orleans are thought to be the largest continuous section of this type of soil in the world. To create muck, wetlands must be drained, and because of environmental concerns, it is unlikely that any more mucklands will be created in the United States.

Pat gets into much more detail than that on the museum's Web site, so be sure to check it out. Also, we here at The Batavian — inexcusably in my own estimation — forgot to post a reminder when Number 22 in the countdown was released a couple weeks ago: Iroquois National Wildlife Refuge. So go check that out, too.