Town and Gown at the Geneva Historical Society

John Marks, Curator of Collections

Our collaboration with Hobart & William Smith Colleges has slowly developed over the past 12 years. The occasional intern has grown into classes visiting the exhibits, students researching in the archives, and staff guest-lecturing on campus for classes and alumni events. I think there are several factors:

• Leadership. President Mark Gearan is committed to community service, which begins with students understanding where they live. This has flowed down to the course level.
• Turnover. New professors bring new ideas, among them an emphasis on using the community as a teaching resource.
• The “reformed sinner” ethos. At least one instructor with whom I work attended William Smith and knew no more about Geneva at graduation than when she had arrived. When she returned to teach, she vowed to make her students learn about the city around their campus.
• Word-of-mouth. As we work with professors, they may be telling others about their positive experience.

A common refrain among older people is, “Young people don’t care about history.” It’s fun to test this theory as I work with HWS students. Generally speaking, their interest and attitude corresponds to the reason they’ve come to the museum. First-year students coming to Geneva’s Changing Landscapes for orientation tend to talk amongst themselves rather than actually look at the exhibit. When a visit or lecture is somewhat related to the class, students pay a little more attention. The most engaged groups are research methodology classes in anthropology, women’s studies, and English. Learning to do archival research is the reason they took the class, rather than an assignment beyond their control. They like looking at primary sources – letters, journals, photographs, maps, etc. – and they’re often researching for a final project.

My new favorite anecdote comes from an anthropology research class that visited in February. I broke the class into small groups and gave each table a variety of resources related to a topic. Every group had questions for me, but the most excited students were looking through Sampson Naval Base/ World War II files. The four William Smith students found a love letter from a sailor stationed at Sampson to his sweetheart in Massachusetts. They needed to know “what happened next.” Did they get married? Did they settle in Geneva? How could the students find out? I had to explain why it was very unlikely we could answer those questions, but it was nice to see them become invested in the story so quickly.

Our HWS outreach extends to alumni and parents of students. The Colleges offer mini-college classes during Reunion in June and Parents’ Weekend in the fall, and I have presented local history lectures for several years. Most parents see Geneva twice a year for four years, and that may be limited to hotels, restaurants, and the campus. Alumni have little memory of Geneva beyond campus and the bars. The common denominator is that everyone who chooses my lecture wants to learn more. That’s the root of “caring about history”, regardless of age; one needs to have a question and the desire to look for an answer.

John Marks presents "You Are Where? An HWS Guide to Geneva History"

So, what does an Archivist really do? (Or Spelunking in the Basement of Doom)

By Karen Osburn, Archivist and City of Geneva Historian

Tip of the ice burg!

I love it when people ask me what an archivist does.  I tell them it is like being a Time Traveler, a Detective and a Treasure Hunter every day.  When I arrive for work, I never know which hat I will have to put on.  It depends on what our patrons research needs are that day.  If I tell people I take care of rare manuscripts, letters, and old photos and papers some folks think I am stuck in a moldy old basement with lots of dusty old files.  (Actually, it is like that some days, but more about that later.)  Really it is much more exciting. 

In my “Sherlock Holmes” role I had the opportunity to reunite a widower with the scrapbooks his beloved wife, now deceased, made early in their married life.  A good Samaritan found the books in an antique market in one of the southern states and felt they were too personal not to be reunited with a family member.  This generous soul purchased the books and brought them to her home in New England and called me to help her find the family of the scrapbooks creator.  I put on my detective hat and began searching for a relative.  I had several volunteers working on the “hunt” with me.  Eventually we located the surviving spouse who was very excited and happy to get the books back.  He had no idea how they got to the Carolinas, but he stated he had missed his wife every day since she had died and he was delighted to get this wonderful reminder of her.  The woman who had rescued the scrapbooks, sent them to him at the senior living facility where he resided.  I had the warm feeling of having made two people very satisfied.

In my role as “Time Traveler” I get to explore old letters and documents that take me back in time and place me on steamships or trains, in parlors and kitchens, at weddings and funerals, in theaters or in stores.  I sit in meetings with Village Trustees when I read the minutes of the discussions held in 1812.  I watch the soldiers enlist and march off with their units in the Civil War.  I once had the privilege of “sitting on the deck of a Seneca Lake steamship in 1849” as a man wrote to his wife about seeing a woman working on a cadaver at the Geneva Medical College who could only have been Elizabeth Blackwell.  Wow! 

Enter the basement of doom at your peril!

The role of Treasure Hunter is really exciting.  Of course I am not talking about gold, silver or diamonds, but the “treasure” of information.  I was recently asked to put on my “Indiana Jones fedora” and go spelunking for artifacts in the basement of an old building.  Grabbing a flashlight I took my first hesitant steps into the dark cellar by walking on a plank (shades of Pirates of the Caribbean), then made my way down some stairs, holding a rickety railing, that ended at a hole in the floor.  Gingerly making my way around the hole I tiptoed carefully through the dust of ages (and crushed bricks) until I stood in a room peering at piles of dusty books.  The floor sparkled where mineral crystals had leached up from the ground.  I had made it safely without encountering rolling boulders, spikes in the floor or hordes of tarantulas!  These books were business ledgers and recorded the history, not only of one business, but many.  They held names and information from well over 100 years ago and many of them were in remarkably good condition.  For a researcher or an archivist this is comparable to finding a gold nugget when you stoop to pick up after your dog, a totally unexpected surprise. 

           

This is what being an archivist is like, each day is a surprise.  Who will be delighted with what you discover today? Will you thrill some small children, please your employer, reunite a researcher with memories, help a person find a lost sibling, solve a family mystery, answer the unanswerable question?  Perhaps you will find a photo for a publisher or locate the famous or infamous in the archive vertical files.   The possibilities are endless.  I have provided images for authors in England and Japan, photos for the sets of television shows, maps for surveying companies, house histories for home buyers, and recipes for grape ketchup to aspiring cooks.  Where else can a person get so much variety in just a couple of hours of work?

Mark Twain Comes to Geneva

By Kerry Lippincott, Executive Director

There is no use denying it any longer – I’m suffering from Twain withdrawal.   Before coming to the Geneva Historical Society, I worked at the Chemung County Historical Society in Elmira and Mark Twain is pretty popular guy in Elmira.  Twain’s connection to Elmira is due to his wife Livy Langdon, who was born and raised there.  The couple courted and were married in the Langdon family home on Church Street (which sadly is longer standing).  Three of the couple’s four children were born in Elmira.  Between 1870 and 1889 the family spent all but one summer in Elmira at Quarry Farm, the home of Livy’s sister.  It’s at Quarry Farm where Twain wrote most of Roughing It, first half of Adventures of Tom Sawyer, all but three chapters of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Prince and the Pauper, parts of A  Tramp Abroad, Life on the Mississippi, and portions of A Connecticut Yankee at Kings Arthur’s Court.  Twain and his family are also buried in the Langdon family plot at Woodlawn Cemetery in Elmira.  It’s safe to say that I have spent so much time with Twain, Livy and their daughters that I feel as if I know them.

Since my move to Geneva I’ve been wondering, did Twain ever visit Geneva?    And the answer is, yes he did.

As part of a lecture tour, Twain made an appearance in Geneva on December 4, 1871 at Linden Hall.  In era before major mass media, like many celebrities in the mid and late 19^th century Twain traveled the country making appearances through various lecture circuits.  During his lifetime Twain was almost as well-known as a public speaker as he was a writer.  In fact, lecture tours served as a major source of his income.

His stop in Geneva was part of his October 1871 to February 1872 tour.  Over the course of five months, Twain had 76 performances in over 15 states (from Maine to Illinois and the District of Columbia).    For his Geneva appearance the topic was Artemus Ward (pen name for American humorist Charles Farrar Browne).  After presenting a brief biography of Ward, Twain recited a medley of Ward’s stories.

Linden Hall

Throughout the tour crowds were typically large and enthusiastic, but newspaper reviews were mixed.  Here’s what the Geneva Gazette reported: “Mark Twain” was favored with a good house – good in numbers and appreciative character – on Monday evening last.  It was his first appearance before a Geneva audience and doubtless many had formed a higher estimate of his personal and oratorical characteristics than was borne out by the introduction and lecture itself.  Mr. Clemens is not an electric, high strung clown life George Francis Train, who amuses as much by his antics as by his language; but in action appears very – tired, some might denominate it even less complimentarily.”

In Twain’s defense, in 1871 he was just beginning to make a name for himself as a writer and lecturer.  At the time he had published several short stories and two books (The Jumping Frog of Calaveras County and Other Stories and Innocents Abroad).  The Adventures of Tom Sawyer would not be published until 1876 and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn would follow eight years later.  He had yet to become the Mark Twain we know today.

Robert Swan Becomes a Farmer

By Anne Dealy, Director of Education and Public Information

Robert Swan was born in 1826, the fifth child of New York City merchant Benjamin Swan and his wife Mary. According to a family history written by Robert's youngest brother Fred, he attended a private school in New York City and went to work at about 15 as a clerk in the dry good business. He was promoted to be a salesman and spent several years working in business in the area that is today the Financial District. Due to poor health and under the advice of a doctor, he gave up the mercantile business to become a farmer. He spent two years living and learning with John Johnston, then a farmer well known for his innovative methods.

In 1848, he began his study of farming at the age of 22, writing of his first day at the Johnston farm:

On the 31st day of July 1848 I left home via Albany to go to Mr John Johnston's farm to learn farming of him at which place I arrived on the 2nd of August in the morning. I found Mr J at home and was much pleased with him and his family. In the course of the morning (Mr J's soninlaw) Mr Swabi & his wife came to pay a visit at the house after a little while Mr J. Mr Swabia and myself went over the farm and on this occasion Mr J showed me how to bind wheat.

His second day proved more challenging:

Aug 3rd Thursday. I arrose [sic] this morning at 5, dressed and went down to breakfast at six. After breakfast I went to help thrash [sic] wheat in the upper barn this day we did upward of Fifty Bushels, in an hour which Mr J. said “was great work"

On the 7th he was still threshing and "dirty as a sweep." The threshing continued until August 14th, when they started ploughing for the planting of the next year's crop of wheat.

For several men to thresh 50 bushels of wheat in an hour, they were likely using a horse-powered machine, like this one.

Robert's description of his days over the two years that he lived at Johnston's farm are typical of farming in this period and exhausting sounding to the modern reader. Long days of hard work dictated by the weather and the season, interspersed with time free to write letters, visit with neighbors, attend church and read the Bible, and discuss farming with Mr. Johnston and other farmers. Here is a partial list of the activities he engaged in during his two years at Johnston's farm: fed cattle, fixed fence, helped fill ditches, planted corn, altered lambs, hoed potatoes, shot crows, sheared sheep, helped raise shed, hoed corn, cleaned harness, cultivated fallows, cut clover hay, cleaned Timothy seed, cured clover seed, sowed seed, learned to treat foot-rotted sheep and blow fly, took in corn stalks, loaded and spread manure, threshed barley, hauled in buckwheat, drove steers. He also killed a skunk found in the family well, and on another occasion repeatedly had to chase a strange bull off the farm at three in the morning.

Fields east of Rose Hill, once part of the Swan's farm

Of course, as the son of a wealthy man who was learning from, not working for Mr. Johnston, Robert did not have to work in the same way that the paid farm laborers did. When he had problems with his foot he was laid up for a couple of days, and when his family came to town to visit he had the leisure to spend time with them. This would not be an option for a man who only got paid when he worked, as was the case with most farm laborers. Still, Robert was working hard and getting hands-on experience with one of the best farmers in the state.

Robert's decision to take up farming was apparently not unusual. At one point in his diary he writes: Nov 6th Monday. This morning I went over to Geneva to the post office where I found a letter from Father informing me of Mr Halsteds son Roberts intention of being a farmer.  Robert also mentions Herman Ten Eyck Foster several times in his Johnston period diary. Like Swan, Foster received several premium awards from the New York State Agricultural Society for his Seneca County farm. He too was born the son of a NYC merchant and learned farming from a Mr. Owen near Trumansburg. After establishing his farm, he married and had three children, one of whom, Pauline, married Henry A. DuPont, and was the mother of Henry F. DuPont, the founder of the Winterthur Museum in Delaware. The museum has Foster's diary for 1842-43. Based on this document, he spent his time at the Owens' much as Robert did at the Johnston's.

Robert Swan's professional choice agreed with him: Sunday August 13th How unlike the City where all is confusion is the country where every thing seems quiet thus quieting the heart of man. Based on his writings and the letters of his family members, the Swans were well-off, but not ostentatious or overly concerned with society and station. Robert's father Benjamin was very wealthy and prominent, but seems to have been mostly a self-made man (if you take his son Fred's description literally, and that may not be wise), whose primarily concerns were family and religious matters. He took a genuine interest in the farm and was a life member of the New York State Agricultural Society, watching Robert's progress in improving the farm every summer when he and his wife came for a month-long visit.

Next time we'll look more closely at how Robert Swan managed and farmed his own land at Rose Hill.

New York City Draft Riots

By Alice Askins, Site Manager of Rose Hill 

In July of 1863, Congress created a military draft and New York City men rioted in protest.

Most of the rioters were working-class Irishmen.  They were angry about several things:  they resented being required to go to war; they resented that wealthier men could pay a $300 fee and hire a substitute for the army; they feared having to compete with freed slaves for jobs; and they were aggrieved because black Americans (who were not considered citizens) were not subject to the draft.  The draft protest soon turned into an ugly race riot.  The police were overwhelmed.

President Lincoln sent several militia and volunteer regiments to control the city.  Unfortunately the soldiers did not arrive until the third day of violence, when mobs had looted and destroyed fifty public buildings, churches, and houses.  Rioters especially targeted black peoples' homes and the properties of abolitionists.  Nobody knows the numbers for sure, but at least 100 African Americans were murdered, and at least two thousand people were injured.  The rioting started on Monday, July 13, and was finally put down by the arriving troops on Wednesday and Thursday.

Here in Fayette, Robert Swan wrote to his father Benjamin  in New York on July 27, 1863, about the draft. 

The Draft has taken place in Auburn Cayuga Co. for this District & quite a number of my neighbors have been drawn, vz Mr. Faster & his hired man, two of Mrs Stacey’s sons, William & George, one of James Rogers sons, & one of the Kimes boys & both of Mr Noyes hired men.  There was no disturbance all was quiet down at Auburn.  At Seneca Falls they were beginning to be very noisy & they sent for the Sheriff & his posse who went down & soon made order and good feeling.  The Draft in Ontario Co at Canandaigua takes place for the Town of Seneca. . .they have a good military force stationed at Canandaigua to repress any disorder that may arrise & which ought to have been the case in the City of N. Y.  No one on this farm was Drafted.

Benjamin Lincoln Swan, ca. 1863

Robert Sawn

It is difficult to decide exactly what Robert thought about the Civil War, from what he said about it in a letter to his brother Edward in February of 1861:

. . . I think the South has committed wrong and is doing all she can, yes more than all the Rabid Abolitionists, to free their slaves and to improve themselves. . .  Mr. Lincoln will be inaugurated on the 4^th of March next and then we will see what they will do.  Already the Northern rodes and cities are being benefitted by the insane and suicidal policy of the Seceding States, poor and starving, making war upon the Federal Government is all nonsense and it really makes me vexed to see Northern men go on and make such fools of themselves about the South. . . [Southerners] are not honest or they would have like men stated their grievances and taken a constitutional mode of redress.  No it is the slave trade. . . they are after, and that the border states know and will never, no never permit. . .

 The best interpretation might be that Robert saw faults on both sides of a complicated issue, and that he assumed that Edward would follow his thinking even if he (Robert) did not explain himself with careful clarity.

Why Save It?

John Marks, Curator of Collections and Exhibits

One aspect of the historical society is presenting exhibits and public programs. Another is serving as a repository for Geneva’s history. People ask, “What do you do with all that stuff?” and the short answer is, “Save it.”

When we accept a photo, a diary, or a Tarr’s Dairy milk bottle, we agree to preserve that item in perpetuity. We may not display an object or a photograph for years but it doesn’t diminish the importance of preserving it. When people do come looking for an image or piece of information, and reach a dead end, they may ask, “Why don’t you have it?!” Again with a short answer, “Because no one gave it to us.”

One section of our collections storage area; this has items used at or produced by local factories.

The first step in the museum food chain is someone must acquire something; second, they must save it. I really want to see a photo of the Carrolls hamburger joint that was on Hamilton Street around 1970 (it became Burger King a few years later, which is now gone as well), and I can’t find one. Maybe no one thought it was worth photographing; if they did have a shot of their friends in front of Carrolls, maybe they threw it away 30 years later. (When I ask for things from the 1970s and 80s, people say, “Why? That stuff’s not old!” I always reply, “It will be if you hang onto it long enough.”)

This homemade panorama from the 1970s isn't sophisticated but it effectively documents a section of Seneca Street.

The third step is for folks to donate stuff to us. Occasionally we purchase items at auctions, antique stores, or yard sales, but we don’t have the budget to pay for everything. We don’t have time to go door-to-door asking if people have things that we would like, and we don’t have authority to seize possessions in the name of the historical society (and that’s a good thing).

Given these three factors, it surprises me that we have as much material as we do. I’m reminded of this tenuous chain every time I can’t find something I want to know: the photo no one took, the name that wasn’t written on the back of a photo, the huge historical event that wasn’t mentioned in a dairy. If you have Geneva history (defined as anything relating to Geneva, including current events), please consider sharing it with us. If your family doesn’t have an interest in your history, we’re happy to preserve it; if they do, we can make copies and leave the originals with you. If you don’t save local and family history, now is the time to start –fifty years from now someone will be glad you did.

Please call John Marks, curator of collections, at 789-5151, if you are interested in donating or loaning items to the historical society.

From Lake to Table (Fish Dinner from Catch to Table)

By Karen Osburn, Archivist

I was very young when I learned not all the food my family ate came from a store.  My maternal grandfather had operated a small farm before I was born and by the time I arrived on the scene he still kept a few chickens around.  I was the type of child who was fascinated by any 4 legged or 2 winged animal and I loved going to visit Grandpa Henry.  I knew eggs came from those chickens not the grocery store. 

Later, I learned corn, tomatoes, lettuce, beans and squash were grown in our garden, along with some other vegetables I distinctly did not enjoy.  I even got to visit a barn full of sheep and later pigs.  I discovered that you should not bother the sow (female pig) and piglets unless you were able to outrun the pig and the rest of the children who helped you tease her.

Still, the best part of my fresh food experience involved fish.  My father and his father were hobby fisherman.  They loved spending the day by the water, any body of water, and casting in a line with the hope that some large (or medium size) denizen of the deep would deem their bait worthy of a taste.  If the bobber dipped below the surface the battle was on!  Since they fished exclusively fresh water the hook could hold any number of surprises; largemouth bass, small mouth bass, muskellunge, pike, pickerel, bullhead, trout, perch, black bass, rock bass, sunfish, carp or even eel.  Every strike was an adventure for a 6 year old. 

As my family was Roman Catholic and I grew up in the days of no meat Fridays, fresh fish was our alternative.  If there was no fish in the refrigerator we were forced to eat the dreaded creamed canned salmon on potatoes or worse…EGGS!  To this day I seldom eat eggs unless I am out at a restaurant for breakfast.  I became a fish connoisseur early knowing that I favored the fish with fewer bones over the ones with many.  Fish lightly floured and sprinkled with salt and pepper then fried in hot butter was a highly prized luxury for me.  Some of my favorite fish were smelt.  Small finger length fish that could quickly cleaned and prepared. 

With all fish, once the catch is on the hook, in a net or in the boat the next step to a fish dinner is cleaning.  This is where I balked.  I had often watched my dad scale and clean various types of fish, but when he wanted me to help, oh no!  Dad’s explanation was pretty clear.  My mom had cut her finger and if I wanted smelt instead of eggs this Friday I had best sit myself down and toughen up.  Sigh, I wanted smelt so I sat and gulped.  My dad, who often couldn’t figure out how to deal with the 3 women in his house, had an inspired moment using this “food preparation event” to teach me about fish anatomy.  Since you catch smelt in the spring around spawning time it was the perfect time to teach me how to tell a male fish from a female based on their insides.  Before I knew it the cleaning was over, fish were ready for Friday dinner, and I learned something!

So what, you ask, does this story have to do with the Finger Lakes or even the Historical Society?  The answer is multi-faceted.  First Seneca Lake is called the “Lake Trout Capital of the World” and each year the Lake Trout Derby is held on Memorial Day weekend.  Second, most of the fishing my father and I did years ago was in the Finger Lakes, mainly Hemlock and Canadice.  However, from time to time we did manage to go to some of the other Finger Lakes like Honeoye, Seneca, Canadaiqua, Otisco, and Conesus.   I loved them all and considerd myself very fortunate to be able to live in this beautiful spot.  Finally, one of the stories concerning Rose Hill involves a muskellunge (often called a “Muskie”), which Robert Swan bought while in Geneva and brought home for their cook to prepare.  A letter about the meal states the fish was very large, the cook served the fish boiled and nobody cared for it very much.

Well, of course they didn’t!  Muskellunge is a game fish that can grow upward of 50 inches and weigh 30 or more pounds.  It has some “y” shaped bones that need to be removed before cooking, unless you want to take a very long time to pick over your meal.  The fact that the fish grows so large means you should clean any visible fat off it to enhance the flavor and discard the pollutants which collect in the fat.  Of course the cook probably looked at the fish and thought “what will I do with this thing?”  Still, I can’t imagine serving it boiled.  I checked the internet for Muskie recipes and found recommendations for pan frying, baking, grilling and poaching, but not boiling.

I had the opportunity to cook a “Muskie” once and lightly floured it then cooked it with a sprinkle of salt and pepper in hot butter.  It was “WONDERFUL” even though I had to watch extremely carefully for bones.

I think it really is sad that so many children today don’t understand where our food originates.  I doubt many of them have been chased by pigs, ridden a tractor with their father to plow the garden or had the chance to learn about the internal organs of fish while sitting by the sink cleaning smelt.  The Swan children of Rose Hill knew who produced their food and how it arrived on the table.  Many times when I give a tour at Rose Hill and mention the muskellunge I hear, “What is that?”  Thanks to my childhood, I can tell our visitors.

Miss Trout