The Museum is Open on Saturday!

The Old Town Museum on River Road in Eaton, will be open on Saturday from 1 - 3 pm.  Come Down and learn some History!....

You know history does march to a different drummer in Eaton.  I live here and marvel at the fact that on every corner of the Hamlet... once called “Eaton Village”… history lived.

The very spot where we usually host our event on Memorial Day Monday - Eaton Day…and our lectures…is one of the town’s historic places…a place  of national importance actually…for it is the site of the birth of the Camelback Key and Sounder for Morse’s telegraph!  Yup.. in old Eaton, New York.

Early Sounder

If you go behind the old auction barn building you will find the spot where Samuel W. Chubbuck did all his experiments … a place that was his father’s Mechanic Shop.  Samuel Chubbuck and his family moved to Eaton, then called Log City, very early and his son Samuel it was said could fix anything.

Samuel eventually became noted for his many ideas, which include not only telegraph equipment but also the modern battery post used in our cars, lift bridges, and so much more.  If an idea came to him in a dream he took no patent on it as he believed in came from God.

His camelback key is actually patented to his cousin Charles Chubbuck?  I have always wondered if he gave it to Emily Chubbuck’s father to give him some income… (His family was very poor.) Oh yes did I mention Emily Chubbuck Judson…the missionary known also as the famous writer “Fanny Forrester”… was his cousin. And yes, the brook that wanders behind Samuel’s work spot is the brook that she made famous in her “Alderbrook Tales!”

Anyway Samuel went on to become a very famous and rich man who gave lectures all over the USA as Professor Chubbuck.  It is interesting to note that one of the men he influenced with his theories on “electricity” who gave him credit was Thomas Alvah Edison.  Chubbuck’s company made all of the early equipment for Morse’s Telegraph…something that modernized news and communication.

A humorous piece on his family is noted in Luna Hammond’s history of Madison County:

“After the Skaneateles turnpike went through, there was need of better tavern accommodations; Mr. Samuel Stow, therefore, built and kept a tavern on the corner opposite the lower hotel. Samuel Chubbuck, living opposite to him, carried on a blacksmith shop. These two men had by some disagreement become violently opposed to each other. In a spirit of competition, Mr. Chubbuck was a staunch Democrat, and this was a time soon after the war of 1812; so upon one side of his attractive sign board was displayed the dying words of Commodore Lawrence, as a motto, --- "Don't give up the Ship!" --- and on the other side, "Free Trade and Sailor's Rights!" Mr. Stow immediately erected another blacksmith shop to match Chubbuck's, which stood very near where Coman's store is, and swung out his sign directly opposite to Chubbuck bearing these words: "Don't give up the Shop!" and on the reverse side, "Free Trade and Mechanic's Rights!" --- alluding to his neighbor's giving up blacksmithing for tavern keeping. Those unique signs hung out for many a year. “

PS   If you didn’t ever hear of this piece…it was because S F B Morse was and ego-maniac and took credit for everything he could!

The Memories, with thoughts of History, Community & the Future!

Today here in Eaton we say Eaton Day or “History Day” as we originally called it and celebrate it on Memorial Day, but for many years it followed the tradition of a “community day” every year on the 4^th of July.  Today of course, Hamilton has stolen the 4^th as their big day… but in the past it was Eaton’s Day and people came for miles to strut their stuff and catch up with the community and it people.

In those days the event even included horse racing at breakneck speeds through town and across.  The local stable was a noted hang out to “star” horses and one of its ‘overnight” guests was the incredible horse Dan Patch.  Flora Temple once graced the small paddock on what was then the Hamilton Skaneateles Turnpike, a road whose cost the Morse family of Eaton half paid for in 1811.

The Eaton Band and the Military Band beat the drums and blared martial music as the merchants (then many) put out their wares. The bandstand was located next to the place we hold Eaton Day each year on what was then the Skaneateles Turnpike today’s route 26.   The spot we set up is actually the spot where Samuel Chubbuck invented the key and sounder for SFB Morse’s Telegraph!  It is his equipment that sent the first message. Chubbuck’s father was noted for running a hotel and more than one Tavern.

The ladies aid put on supers and the lunch business thrived.  A dance and suppers were often held in the Masonic Hall, a building that is dilapidated today but still standing in town with a roof that once extended over gas pumps.

 The ladies of the churches put on meals for visitors… and their famous preachers including Grover Cleveland’s brother, and Nathaniel Kendrick… would have tried to tone down the activities. One of Eaton’s historic churches still stands with its historical marker out front. Families of the Churches would have included the famous missionaries to be, Emily Chubbuck Judson, Jonathan Wade, Andrew Bigelow Morse, and more.

Wood. Taber & Morse's new Steam Engines would be there in front of the factory...all shined up ready to impress, Melville Landon "Eli Perkins" might be up from New York or Washington to summer and relatives from far and near would return to enjoy the community they sprung from.

Gone is Davenports Store that was noted for its wares and for its owners who were loved by the population and were successful for many years.  That store is still standing is now a residence with its large white pillars on the side…. not in the front!

Paddy Miles firing not a cannon but his anvil for many years jolted the town awake.  Yes, an Anvil…. that had a hole in it where black powder was poured and a fuse lit.  Today we have Jim Monahan and his cannon crew who dress in Revolutionary War era costume and fire a real cannon on occasion.  This tradition being brought down since the majority of founding fathers served in the Revolution.

And for the holiday itself, the Eaton Cemetery is spruced up and over 200 flags grace the graves of men and women who served their country in all conflicts of the past including some that were at Bunker Hill, Lexington and Concord.

Old times and memories to be sure, but pieces of history that should be celebrated, and people who should be honored for their service in this the 221^st year of the community.  In order to protect their history and the artifacts that remain… we the Friends of the Old Town of Eaton Museum... beg you to come out and enjoy the day. Talk to each other, eat, get involved in the raffles, bake sale, white elephant sale… join the "Friends" and support a museum that preserves the history of the area and the “Community.”

Future generations will thank you for it!

Old Town of Eaton Museum