More History to Share -

Since stuck indoors or home I decided to spread some stories on some history for all to enjoy!Pass these on to young or old and educate and enjoy!

Since so many have thanked me for information on the Old Madison County Home I thought I would add more to the story... Since this was one of the most serious health disasters to hit Eaton, a place that had to take people in during the Flu epidemic, this is pertinent!

The original site of the Home was a stone farm with many stone buildings including a stone hop house.  These structure probably pre-dated the 1806 Madison County forming.  The picture below in color is the "Home" made up of three sections that were joined.  Behind the building were two story outhouses.... The brick building that is still standing today was built after a fire...story below!

FIRE

It is on October 23, 1913 that the next chapter in the “Poor House Story” begins. One of the Curtis girls, who was musically inclined, left the building early as she often did to teach a music lesson.
Once outside, she noticed that the building was on fire. She ran into the building and alerted those on duty and rang the bell sounding a call of alarm to the sleepy village above. 

Though helped arrived from every corner of the county, the building turned into a raging inferno and burned to the ground. The pictures that we have of the “Home” at this time are directly related to the quick thinking effort of one of the help that threw her trunk of belongings out a window and who called for someone to come and take it. Other than that “All was lost.”

From Mrs. Partridges booklet on the Infirmary dated 1878-1979:

“Although it was never proved the fire was thought to have started in the lavatory of the men’s dorm in the wiring. A few days earlier electricians had been making repairs there.

One elderly resident reported having seen blue smoke there behind some of the plumbing but was not aware he should report it.”

The fire actually caught the roofs of a number of town homes ablaze.

It is recorded that men were housed in an adjacent building while the sick, women and children were put up in homes in Eaton Village until the building was completed.

All in the community helped to keep the many people involved in this terrible tragedy safe and cared for.

The Alms House fire of 1913 and the death of S. Allen Curtis left an amazingly large job for the next superintendent of the poor. After Curtis’ death, Lew Burden was doing the superintendent’s job.

After the fire, however, Republicans were pushing heavily to have Lewis Close of Lebanon made his successor. (An interesting note: George Lathrop who had been S. Allen Curtis,’ assistant and he married one of Curtis daughters.)

The new “home” was to be made of brick and arrangements were made to start the project immediately as the former and new inmates were being housed all over the village and in temporary quarters on the grounds. The new project was to be completed in two years, and it was! 

Memorial Day Monday at the Museum, a Traditional Event!

This is as usual "Eaton Day" or History Day in Eaton .(.in it 28th year)on Monday, Memorial Day.  This year the annual Pie Sale will be postponed a bit,  but festivities include new displays at the Old Town of Eaton Museum with Back Street Mary giving tours. The hours are from 11 until 3pm.  In the afternoon, there will be an ice-cream social.... and hopes are that the weather will cooperate.

The fun is the new displays... that include an intriguing look back at what the original Cobblers (shoemakers) room would have looked like.  A new piece of history, via a diary which proves Sprauge was there making shoes in 1802 is proof of the buildings original use...  Tools and stories of the old building abound and Mary will be there to spin them.

Also on hand for the sale will be newly done etchings of the Congregational Church, now the Community Church, as it looked in 1833 when it was built. Plus all of the books and artifacts of that building.

The new school exhibit has for sale copies of the photo taken for the last graduating class of the Brooklyn Street High School in 1934.  In the picture are so many of the mothers and fathers of current residents as well as grandparents of their children.  So come down ...get a collectable and help support the museum.

There will be refreshments at the museum ...as well as discussion on our upcoming year's exhibits and upcoming Wednesday, Summer Lecture Series, that was such a success last year.

So please come down and support your link to the history of the area.  Monday, Memorial Day from 11-3 pm. In the afternoon our Eaton Revolutionary War Re-Enactors will be at the Gerrit Smith Buildings Cemetery Site to fire the traditional Military Salute for all of the Revolutionary War Soldiers Buried there.  This is a stirring sight...

Chenango Canal and James Geddes

     On October 26, 1825, at the “Wedding of the Waters”, America’s first civil engineers became legend.  The NYS Historical Marker on the site of the house of James Geddes in the Town of Camillus, on busy Genesee Street near the Fairmount Shopping Center, cannot possibly tell the whole story of New York’s Canal system.  One of the most remarkable facts regarding the building of the New York State Canal system in the early years of the 1800’s was that there was no civil engineer in America at the time.

     The man offered the job of civil engineer of the proposed Erie Canal was William Weston of England.  He declined!  That left 4 men, three of whom were judges with limited surveying skill who had learned the craft of surveying in order to settle boundary disputes in court to do the job.  To this motley threesome was added Nathan Roberts, a teacher and mathematician. Some of these men, however, managed not only to learn their trade with hands on training alone.

     Geddes, who was an early entrepreneur in salt in the Syracuse area and a Court of Common Pleas judge by 1818,  moved from Pennsylvania to what became known at Geddesesburgh or Geddesville in 1794, Geddes who was appointed the Surveyor General of New York State, was given the job of finding the routes for the proposed Erie Canal, the lateral Chenango Canal and others.  Geddes was actually instrumental in getting the NYS Legislature to form a canal commission in 1810.

     Geddes limited knowledge of engineering and surveying but obviously good political connections landed him the job as one of the engineers (1816) to supervise in the construction of the proposed Erie Canal.  In 1825, after a bill was passed authorizing the surveying of lateral canal possibilities.  Geddes was sent to the proposed Chenango Valley canal route.  His survey proposed a route of 90 miles with 1,500 feet of lockage at a cost of $715,474.  The proposal of a Chenango Valley canal was voted down in successive years including after a 1827 survey by Nathan Roberts and a report put together by Forman.  The conclusion was there was not enough water. It was not until 1833 that the Act for the Construction of the Chenango Canal became law.

     Today, as then, the Erie Canal and the Chenango Canal’s remnants, stand as a marvel of early engineering in America and the feat of building them a testament to the early spirit of the workers many of them immigrants, who worked through inclement weather and unopened forests to build what was the most important commerce routes of the day.  There is no doubt that the Erie Canal was the single most important factor that made New York the Empire State and that the “Great Chenango Canal” certainly allowed for the villages and businesses along its way to spring up even though it proved to be a financial failure.

The Museum..an Event...History...and TROUBLE!

This has been another wild week of weather...unbelievable it was 33 this morning!!!  I am still trying to get caught up for our big museum opening.  Sure hope Monday is nice…

After fighting with my poor old PC I gave up and transferred the documentary I was working on to the Apple and from there it blossomed into more trouble. 

Everyone thinks that the country is quiet…ha!  I had to try and get up at 2 in the morning to record the voice over for the documentary on Leland and believe me every so often I still heard a truck rumble through town and of course, into my voice over.  Then my little video camera took a turn for the worse…rule 1 - never take your video camera on to Fourth Lake in a Kayak.   But all and all.. the documentary is together without a studio (which I need terribly) and without using my large camera in a space that is too small and…fighting the fact that sound travels for miles…and farther.

I then called the group together to set up the canopy frame that had been twisted into a pretzel by the storm that dropped a tree on the museum and had punched a hole in the roof.  It took three people exerting all their weight to bend that thing into submission.  Then the poles that hold it up had to be shortened to eliminate the bent ends….Now you say flimsy metal right?  Wrong!  It is 11/2 inch steel pipe.  Luckily I have a plumber on Front Street who came over and in a few minutes eliminated the problem.

Then on to the big problem….it is 33 degrees outside and they are predicting cold nights like this for the weekend!  So tomorrow it is get propane and set it up to heat building in the morning of our big “Event”!

Humorously… the person who is supposed to bring the ice for the event emailed that maybe she should bring hot coffee and tea!  Also  said, “Who do you think is going to want “Ice cream”!  Hmm….

Lastly but more importantly, since the tree also took out my electric service for the second time and I have not reconnected because of money…the generator won’t start!  So as a sidelight….generator repair 101!

Well there is one thing for certain …we are going to celebrate history!  And even though the historian who has only had 3 hours of sleep a night for two weeks is sleepy…the Revolutionary re-enactors will wake her up when their cannon fires the first volley of “Remembrance” behind the museum on Monday!

So come out and help us celebrate a Museum Opening, Revolutionary War Veteran’s and one of our founding father’s here in Eaton…Col. William Leland whose sword will be in the museum to liven things up!

Eaton’s Old Town Museum is located on River Road in Eaton, NY.  For more information visit www.historystarproductions.com.