Flower Memorial LIbrary

Name Flower Memorial Library

Address 229 Washington St, Watertown, NY 13601

Phone (315) 785-7705

Website https://www.flowermemoriallibrary.org/

 

Front Entrance

The Flower Memorial Library is the library for Jefferson County in northern New York. It is located just south of the major intersection of downtown Watertown on Washington Street. Surrounded by commercial and governmental buildings, it can be occasionally hard to find parking spots. However, I have often been able to find on-street parking in front of or very near the library. There are also public parking lots available as can be found on this map. The above shows the front entrance to the library; there is also an entrance on the right-hand side of the building that is accessible without any steps to climb.

Hours from their website:

Monday-Saturday: Noon to 4:00 pm

Or call us to make an appointment 315.785.7711

Sign in when you enter the local history room. Almost everything is available on open shelving and in old style card catalogs. These cards are being put into databases that will soon be available for in-house use. Last weekend I asked about the possibility of remote access to them, but it is not planned for at this time. Copies cost 20 cents each. While I imagine you can make copies yourself, I never have. Terry, who seems to always be there and eager to assist you, is very glad to make copies and knows the copier well. He is quite a treasure of the local history room, as he knows where everything is and a great deal of history of the area.

 

A view of some of the room

Although on a beautiful spring Saturday afternoon, my husband and I were the only visitors in the local history room, other parts of the library were busy. The Saint Lawrence chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution (SAR) had been by for a personal tour of the room on the day before. Often volunteers can be found in there working on various projects as well.

This library was opened in 1903 and was built in the classic ornate library architecture. While being very modern with microfilm readers and computers for your use, many areas of the library look like they are still in the early 20^th century. Reading rooms and exhibit rooms keep their classic look. Rather than trying to describe the beauty, I will let you see for yourself in pictures that I took there on our trip through on Saturday:  

One of the best things I find in this library are the family files. If you’re lucky, your family has an entire loose-leaf notebook full of information on them. Several of my surnames from the area do. Many others are just a small envelope in a file cabinet. Although less information, these likewise have some very special gems in them. There is a notebook readily available that lists the surnames alphabetically with a code to tell you which place to look.