Geneva Historical Society

Name: Geneva Historical Society
Address: 543 S Main St, Geneva, NY 14456
Phone: (315) 789-5151
Website: https://genevahistoricalsociety.com/

On Route 14 at the edge of Hobart and William Smith Colleges, you must find a place to park along the street in Geneva. Fortunately, spaces seem to be fairly open during the weekday afternoon that we visited. The houses along this street speak to being built and owned by Victorians of some means. The backyards of the houses on one side of the street overlook Seneca Lake and most properties probably extend to the shoreline.

The historical society is housed in a substantial brick house. The main floor and some of the basement has exhibits of the local area that are free to browse and the staff are very welcoming. Tucked into a corner of the basement is the brightly lit room with a simple sign over the entranceway “Archives.”

The research room is open Tuesday- Friday from 1:30- 4:30 pm. Photocopies are 25 cents each and there is a daily research fee of $5.00 for non-members.

The archives while having some material on Ontario County, is concentrated mostly on the city of Geneva. There are indexes that list the people mentioned in old newspapers and records of the cemeteries. Looking in one of these books, I was able to see where the unmarked graves of some distant relatives are located in the Washington Street Cemetery.

Among the records are some information about the old Geneva College that was once there as well as their most famous student. In a time when it was thought that the medical field was most unsuitable for women, Geneva College admitted a woman student and on January 11, 1849 she graduated at the top of her class. The woman? Elizabeth Blackwell, MD, the first woman to earn a medical degree in the United States.

Stephentown Historical Society

Address: PO Box 11, Stephentown, NY (Staples Road @ the Corner of Garfield-Nassau Road)

Phone: Call: (518) 733 6070

Website: https://www.stephentown-historical.org/

Email: SHS@Fairpoint.com

Hours: The Heritage Center is open from 1 to 4 p.m. on Fridays and by appointment. The volunteers will gladly make an appointment for you if they can.

Photocopies are readily made by the volunteers for a nominal fee. There is no charge to research at their facility, but donations are gratefully accepted.

Heading either east from Albany along winding roads or north or south along NYS Route 22, it doesn’t matter. Any route you take to Stephentown will find you on country roads winding up and down mountains and through forested areas until you feel you are somewhere in the wilderness. It is in this area close to the Massachusetts border that many of our ancestors settled for either a brief time or a generation or more. Here, nestled in a small community that was once a bustling place, is an old Methodist Episcopal church in the small country style that is now home to the Stephentown Historical Society. Tracks once carried passenger and freight trains through here including milk to New York City, but they have been abandoned since 1951.

In the 1790 census, Stephentown was listed as the ninth largest town in the United States. Looking at the town today, this is hard to believe, as it is a sleepy little rural area that is sparsely populated. However, I have found in researching, as I’m sure others have as well, that many more people have connections to Stephentown than you might believe. More than once, I have heard somebody comment that a family in the late 1700s or early 1800s was in Rensselaer County briefly. I have replied: “Let me guess, Stephentown.” and I was correct. Part of some of the major routes for westward migration out of New England crossed the Massachusetts border near here and headed on westward through small communities including especially Stephentown.

While at the historical society, I found more information about some of my family lines. The volunteer, Bill Zimmerman, who opened for us, was the son-in-law of one of the founders, Elizabeth McClave, who had been a font of information about the early families. Luckily, she wrote much of this information down on index cards that are used to locate obscure information on the early families.  Although not sourced, these cards have been found to be extremely accurate.

While at the historical society, Bill gave us not only information on the people I was interested in and the cemeteries they are buried in, but also directions to a hidden cemetery.  I don’t have any direct ancestors buried at the Tifft Cemetery, but the name derives from the family, as my 4^th great-grandfather’s brother and family are many of those buried there. The cemetery is about 500 feet off the road along a logging trail. The trail, barely discernable from the forest now, is all uphill to this little cemetery tucked into the woods so much that it has become a part of the woods itself. However, we found it and were able to see for ourselves these family graves. 

Bennington Museum- Bennington Vermont

Address: 75 Main St, Bennington, VT 05201

Phone: (802) 447-1571

Website: https://benningtonmuseum.org/

The Entrance

On the edge of the little town of Bennington, not far from the monument to the battle that actually took place in New York State is the little museum with a hidden research library. Tucked in almost behind the original cemeteries and just around the corner from where the Catamount Tavern of Ethan Allen fame stood, you might easily overlook the possibilities housed within there. However, if you have ancestors in this southern corner of Vermont, or just an interest in the area, do not forget to stop in to the museum.

The museum itself had a wonderful display of the life and art of Grandma Moses who lived in this area, a room devoted to the Battle of Bennington and other exhibits.

Hours: The museum is open June through October 7 days a week from 10 am to 5 pm. February through May, November and December Thursday through Tuesday, 10 am to 5 pm.

The research library is open Monday and Tuesday 1pm to 5pm, and Wednesday by appointment.

Appointments can be made through a phone call or email at library@benningtonmuseum.org

Admission to the library is free with the $10 admission to the museum itself.

Photocopying is done by the librarian and is 25 cents each. Many of the files must be pulled by the librarian as the bookshelves are open, but the file cabinets are restricted.

The library is tucked away in a corner of the second floor of the museum. Inside you will find the typical research for any area, cemetery listings, histories of the area as well as information on surrounding areas in both New England and New York.

Why would a Vermont library have much information on New York? Well, the actual battle of Bennington took place in Walloomsack, NY about 16 miles to the northwest. And of course, heading directly west on Rte. 9, you will be in NYS in less than 4 miles, so many of the families in this area lived and worked in both states. Also, Vermont was originally disputed territory, claimed by both New York and New Hampshire.

While there I found out some more information on a distant cousin of mine- a half first cousin of one my ancestor’s. Even though distantly related, I have been interested in this man, Stephen Fay and his family, because it is an example of how even though we think our families are totally ordinary and maybe not that interesting, there are connections to famous events scattered throughout. Often, this is the best way to peak the interest of someone not into genealogy as well. For those not familiar, Stephen Fay owned a tavern in Bennington known as the Catamount Tavern. Today, a statue of a catamount (a large wild cat) stands in front of the site. During the time of the Revolutionary War, this tavern was a popular meeting place of Ethan Allen and it is from here that the Green Mountain Boys set out to battle for freedom. A son of Stephen’s, Dr. Jonas Fay, was a close friend of Ethan’s and even named a son after him.

Site of Catamount Tavern

Additionally, I found some tidbits of information on another old tavern. This one is across the border in the town of White Creek in New York State. Seth Chase, a 5^th great-grandfather on another line owned a tavern here before the Revolutionary War. In the library I found information that mentioned the owners of the property in the 1950s. More research needs to be done on this property, but with some of these leads I have been able to locate where the inn was and a house that sits there today may actually be the same structure.

Columbia County Historical Society

A view of the Catskills in the area

Address:   5 Albany Avenue Kinderhook, NY 12106

Phone: 518-758-9265

Website: https://www.cchsny.org/home.html

Email: Library@CCHSNY.org
Hours: Saturdays and Sundays only from noon to 4pm.

Library | Reading Room Admission: $5.00

Situated in the historic village of Kinderhook, the society is in a period building just a short walk away from the village commons, which also has a Farmer’s Market on Saturdays in the summer. The research room itself is small, but is filled with books and notebooks on various topics relevant to Columbia County.

If you want to contact them to do the research for you rather than visiting, a flat fee of $25 is charged for all research inquiries.  This includes up to 10 copies of research material and postage for response packages

In this archive are books, maps, architectural drawings, diaries, personal correspondence, scrapbooks, broadsides, business records, pamphlets, programs, ephemera, photographic prints, glass and film negatives, cased images, and albums.

When you are researching here, photocopies are made by the staff only and are 25 cents each.

The day that I visited, I was looking for a needle in a haystack. I had a family that according to a history of Cortland County had migrated from Columbia County. This is all I knew about the Ingalls family in the area other than the specific names and the time period of just after the Revolutionary War. The volunteer at the desk was undaunted by my search and jumped in to help me find any evidence I could about the family and their supposed origins. Even after I had given up, satisfied that the history was incorrect, he continued on determined to help me find some evidence that they had been there. Additionally, he gave me suggestions of other places I might look based on his extensive research knowledge of the area.

I should note that later research proved that this family likely was in the Columbia County area, BUT only in transit as they moved from nearby Berkshire County, Massachusetts across into New York State on their way to Cortland County. The book had gotten the place of origination wrong. They had never lived there. However, the volunteer at this society went above and beyond to try to find a needle in a haystack and find evidence of their living in the vicinity.

Jefferson County Field Trip

Seneca Falls Historical Society

Inside the mansion

Seneca Falls Historical Society

Address: 55 Cayuga St, Seneca Falls, NY 13148

Phone: (315) 568-8412

Website: sfhistoricalsociety.org

Hours: 9am to 4:30pm Monday through Friday

Pulling into the driveway of a mansion on Cayuga Street, the main thoroughfare in Seneca Falls, one might imagine that they have arrived for a visit at a millionaire’s mansion. In a sense, you have. Wilhelmus Mynderse, the founder of Seneca Falls, first built the 23 room historic mansion. He was in his time the equivalent of a millionaire today. A visit to see the home or a tea party or other activity is still a possibility as this is now the home of the Seneca Falls Historical Society.

A subsequent owner had it for sale for $40,000 in the 1960s when she found out the historic society was interested in owning it and moving their offices there. Seneca Falls Historical Society was offered it and bought it for half price- $20,000 since they would be preserving the home as a museum.

The building is a museum, but also has a research room open to the public that has books and other resources about the local area. There is parking in the gravel driveway behind the mansion and an entrance off of the driveway takes you into the back of the house where the gift shop and office for the society is. The research room is located on the second floor and contains a wide assortment of materials on the history of the village and the people that inhabited it over the years.

For the research room you need to pay $10 or if you don’t want to visit and instead would like to contact them to do research for you, they charge $25. Once you find something you are looking for, it costs 50 cents if you want to make a photocopy of that page.

The British Red Coat

The first room on our tour of the mansion itself had a display of Revolutionary War era clothing including a red coat. A red coat? It was one of the infamous red coats worn by the British during the war! Thus we began. Room after room of not only the furnishings of a typical Victorian mansion, but also many oddities that had been collected as well as items that are unique to the area can be found within the mansion. One room contained various items once (and sometimes still) manufactured in the area. There were pumps galore. Something you might not often think about unless yours isn’t working, but once there were multiple manufacturers in Seneca Falls, most well-known being Gould’s Pumps. One thing that Seneca Falls is famous for which there was little of in the museum was information and items about women’s suffrage. Of course, just a little way down the street is a whole national park site dedicated to that subject!

Just a few pumps

A tour of the museum itself with all of its displays gives you much background on the area in a fun expedition.

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