Cobblestone Buildings in Wayne County, New York

Chapman house on Maple Avenue in Palmyra is immaculately
maintained by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
It is one of the finest examples of cobblestone architecture in
Wayne County.
* * *
(This very insightful letter tho the editor appeared in The Genesee Farmer, March 8, 1838, Vol. 8 No. 9)

BUILDING COBBLE STONE HOUSES

Mr. Tucker - I observed in the Monthly Genesee Farmer of February a request for some one who was qualified to answer the inquiry concerning the manner of building cobble stone walls, of their durability, the proportion of the mortar, the expense of building, &c.

Having had some experience in this business, I cheerfully transmit a few facts relative to the foregoing request.

Having erected two or three buildings each season, for several years past, I shall only mention one which I built last season. It is 40 feet by 60, four stories high. The foundation is three feet high, the first story 10 8-12 feet high, the second 11 2-12 feet high, the third 13 3-12 feet, the fourth story 10 3-12 high; making from the foundation to the plates 48 4-12 feet in height, with a wing 24 by 34, one story. The whole was built of cobble stone, (not of the first quality) the outside was laid in courses of cobble stone four inches in thickness, and larger stone on the inside.

It is a steam flouring mill and has been in operation three months. It stands perfectly well - it is situated in the village of Palmyra, on Canal-street. As regards their durability, if they are laid with good materials and in a workmanlike manner, I am perfectly convinced they will stand and their solidity will increase as their age increases.

The quality and quantity of sand with the lime is very essential. The coarser and purer

the sand, the stronger will be tho cement and the firmer the wall. As for the proper quantity of sand with the lime, it depends on its coarseness and purity. The proportion which I generally use is from five to eight bushels of sand to one of lime in the stone. As for elegance and taste, every one who has seen a cobble stone building built as it should be, will acknowledge that it surpasses quarry stone or brick buildings.

As for the expense of building, it is cheaper than almost any other kind of building.

If the above, after such corrections as you may deem expedient, will be of use to your readers, let it have a place in your paper; if not, throw it under the table; suit yourself and you will suit.

Your ob't servant,

Marion, (N.Y.) Feb. 27, 1838. Chester Clark.

Newark Courier-Gazette, December 15, 1955

C-G Publishes First in Series of Hoffman Contest

____

Verlyn Klahn, Contest Winner, Writes

On Cobblestone Homes Built in Wayne

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(First in a series of articles submitted by Wayne County high school students in the historical contest sponsored by the Hoffman Foundation Scholarship Committee is published in the Newark Courier-Gazette. Verlyn Edward Klahn, son of Mr. and Mrs. Edward Klahn of E. Miller St., who was graduated from Newark High School last June, won first prize in the contest and because of this, his entry has the honor of leading the historical series. His essay is being presented in two installments.

By Verlyn E. Klahn

With the advent of the building of the Erie Canal, great numbers of immigrants flocked to this territory.

One of the greatest and commonest needs of these people was a home, At first they built small log or frame houses. Later, as this region grew in prosperity and the natural desire for better homes resulted, cobblestone houses were built.

This region, as can be noted by our many drumlins, is a glacial area. These glaciers left many troublesome stones on many fertile farms. The pioneer farmers worked hard removing these stones, Sometimes they made fences of them, but more often, just put them in heaps or piles. As the farmer started to erect buildings, he could use these stones for foundations of his barns and house.

What could be more sensible then to build a place that had absolute sound-proof and fire-proof walls, a house that had resistance to the elements, that needed no paint, and that had , by its being built, provided a means for the removal of the many nuisance stones that had to be taken from the fields, Yet, here would be a house of awe-inspiring beauty.

This type house gave its would-be owners something to look forward to, to be proud of, and a useful hobby. The idea of stone houses wasn't new, but the laying of cobblestones in rows was.

As research seems to indicate, houses of cobblestone nature may be placed in three eras or periods.

These are started with the Early Period or First Period, which ranged from those built from the late 1820's till about 1835, when the Second or Middle Period is inclusive of the work between 1835 and 1845. The Third or Last Period dates between 1845 and 1868, These dates are approximate and are used for the sake of simplicity in the understanding of the art. By contrast, the Periods are not indicative of radical changes as a '55 car might differ from the same make of '54, but the masons gradually changed and improved upon their work. Since some didn't improve as fast or were not as skillful as others, as is the human trait, one can find cobblestone houses built in the 1840's that look as if they had been built in the 1830's, or vice versa.

The mason of the Early Period used stones of the fieldstone variety of no particular size or shape, his type ie exemplified in the Jackson Schoolhouse, where the stones range from 4 by 4 to 4 by 2, The horizontal and vertical Joints were almost flush and what outline there is, is a wavy "V", The joint is from 1 in. 1 1/2 in. wide, It was formed with a trowel.

As the work advanced, the masons selected stones that were nearly of the same rounded size and variety, laid the rows with more care, and made the "V" more distinct. As still more time passed, especially during the Middle Period when the greatest strides were made, smaller stones averaging from 2 inches to 4 inches long and 1 inch and 2 inches wide were used. Also during this period, the use of the beautiful red sandstones started and came into predominance, with the horizontal and the vertical joints were decreased in width, and greater sharpness and straightness were noted, ‘The use of a "V" in the vertical joint began during this period but this "V" was not allowed to cross, touch, or take away from the predominating horizontal “V”. Later, a pyramidal shaped vertical joint became dominant.

It was during this Middle Period that the bead, a half-circle projection produced by a tool especially designed for the purpose, was introduced. Although the bead is undoubtedly more interesting and attractive for the horizontal, only a small percentage of cobblestone houses have it. It was employed principally in the Late Period.

The stones used in the Late Period were smaller yet, and in this period, practically all cobblestone houses built were of stones of the "lake-washed" variety. Lake washed means those stones washed smooth by Lake Ontario. Here in Wayne County those “lake-washed" stones were taken from the shore at Pultneyville, the masons, according to my inspection, generally used long, oval-shaped stones instead of round ones. It is my belief that they were not sure of how their mortar would stand up under many years of weathering, so they selected long stones because they realized these would take a longer time falling out than shorter ones would.

Probably one of the most interesting tales that might be told would be about the masons themselves - those who built these structures. It has been said, and is the common local belief, that traveling groups of Scotch masons came through New York State from west to east about 1825, building here and there, wherever water-polished cobbles could be found. However, this report contradicts itself, because of the many building which are of fieldstone. Moreover, by the sampling of names of known masons, the percentage of Scotch names is only about average.

One fact is true, however: there would have to have been a great number of masons because of the time involved and the large number of cobblestone houses which were built in Wayne County alone. I have found 152 standing examples besides evidence of many other structures that have long since been torn down und hundreds of cobblestone foundations under brick or frame buildings. Unfortunately, it isn't possible to trace back a mason who built such a house, as you can its owner. The only way the few known masons have been made known is by diaries and accounts of the builder-owners which have been passed on to succeeding generations, and the name-plates usually attached to the front of the house, usually over the front door.

We in Wayne County can proudly claim the name of the first known builder and of the last known builder. Before this research, the first known man who built these houses was Alonzo Bradley, who built a house in Rochester in 1839. I have found a house near Zurich that was built in 1831 by Arthur Henry Van Der Bilt, The last known work is the addition to the Riker House in Ontario Township

by a Mr. Trimble in 1868.

Mr. George Chapman, since this winter deceased, to the last a possessor of an extremely recollective and nimble mind, stated that his grandfather never talked of how he built cobblestone houses or of their secret, even though he had built the Mormon house in Palmyra Township. Such are the cases where silence is certainly not golden.

Some say that the masons received anywhere from $.50 to $1.25 a day. It is known that Richard Stokes, who built Mr. Chapmen's house in Ontario Township, received $1.00 a day. It is, actually, indefinite as to how much a mason got, since there were several panics (depressions) between 1820 and 1860, The pay also depended on how good the mason himself was, One thing is known, however. The mason did put in long, hard, tedious hours for his money, since the eight-hour union day was still far away.

One cannot help but notice the many lime-kilns scattered through the county; no doubt some of these furnished the masons of the cobblestone era with burned lime needed in their mortar. Each mason had his own formula and way of making mortar. That is why one sees a vast difference in color, texture, and hardness of mortar on different places. In the mortar of many of these fine homes one can see

small lumps of white lime which wasn't thoroughly pulverized or dissolved when burned or mixed. Of course this detracts from the fineness but is an interesting feature nevertheless.

Such examples are the Southwell House and the Caldwell Place. One also will find that the mortar of many houses has been colored, in most cases by the gradually fading in of the surrounding lake stone. However, there are some cases where the mortar has been colored by the mason, such as in the Winters Place. The mortar on each cobblestone house seems to have its own individual characteristics.

Many are very sandy; in others, hardly a grain of sand can be noticed; few have large pebbles; while

some are very fine. and as I have mentioned before, the coloring and the fineness of mortar used vary greatly. Also, some mortar has had a tendency to crumble end weather away while other types of mortar have stood like the Rock of Gibraltar. As one might guess, the mortar had to have consistency.

From either the bead or the "V" one can tell that after the mason had laid a row, he went back along with a tool to shape the horizontal and vertical joints. Thus the mortar had to be such as to hold its shape yet manageable to mold easily, I have been told that road dust was collected to be used in the mortar. ‘his might explain how some mortars got their very fine and hard qualities.

An intriguing part of this art is the many patterns or designs used. One type exclusively used in the Late Period is the "herringbone”. The stones used in this were long slim red sandstone about 6" long and 33" high, These were laid diagonally at an approximate 50 degree angle. Every other row was laid the same way, but the alternate row was laid slanting toward the other sides On a good sunshiny day this creates a rich, impressive mingling of shadows on the stone that varies all day long.

Usually these different patterns are arranged in fours, such as in the Alton Church: two red, one white, one black. These color bands form definite patterns only on individual houses, not on these houses as a whole. Also, on several homes can be seen more red stones toward the bottom with more white toward the top, or vice versa. Many masons also seemed to favor stones of either brown, black, or yellow hue, or a mixture of these.

On the sides of a few places one will note that the stones slant toward one direction. These are the regular type stone used, but the mason for some reason desired to slant them. A mason had to have a vivid imagination in addition to his artistic ability.

These cobblestone houses erected in this period from 1820 to the late 1860's are found between Buffalo and Utica, from Lake Ontario to a distance of 50 miles south, The ingenious technique of building cobblestone houses has become a lost art since the Civil War. Yet it was only 130 years ago that the pioneers of the Lake Ontario Plains began using small, round, elliptical stones washed smooth by the waves as well as stones picked up from their fields for building homes, schools, churches, and various public buildings.

Stones were often hauled a distance of thirty miles. 3,500 to 7,800 stones were often required for the front facing of a single house, and it would often require three years’ work to complete a home, The cobbles were drawn in wagons to the site selected for the house, and then came the work of sizing them for the various courses. After the stones had been gathered, there might be a “grading bee" at which the whole community would gather to sort out the cobblestones of just the right size and shape by the simple expediency of passing each individual cobblestone through an iron ring of the approved size, or, in other cases, through holes in a board.

As may be observed by an inspection of some of the dwellings, every stone was set in a casing of mortar with as great care as if the wall were a work of art, as indeed it was when finished. Cobblestone houses were well-planned and were built to last. Time was of little consequence to the builders, so that there was no skimping of effort to produce a finished job. Materials were cheap, except for the labor of gathering and sorting them, it is said that boys of that day earned spending money by picking up cobblestones.

I have found the 152 examples of cobblestone architecture scattered throughout Wayne County. There are eleven in Arcadia, two in Butler, six in Galen, two in Huron, twelve in Ontario, fifteen in Palmyra, Four in Rose, one in Savannah, thirty-four in Sodus, five in Walworth, twenty in Williamson, and two in Wolcott. It is, of course, impossible to insure that this is all of them, but there are probably not more than a dozen others which I did not find.

There is a wealth of history connected with these houses and the people who built them and lived in them. One of these people was Bela Morgan from Connecticut, who, upon his arrival in Palmyra in 1818, purchased a tract of woodland, where he built a log cabin with a bark roof. Morgan was busy for a number of years clearing his land while his young wife assisted by lighting the fires and keeping them going to burn the timber, in the summers, he worked for his neighbor, Stephen Durfee, for fifty cents a day, or for a bushel of wheat.

Later, unable to make payments on the land or pay taxes, he returned to Connecticut, While there, he borrowed $500 from his mother and, on returning, built the cobblestone house with eight rooms, His trip to Connecticut, on foot, took six weeks and during this time his wife was alone except for a faithful dog, a cow, and the only horse in the area. The nearest neighbors were miles away.

Cobblestone architecture was primarily a rural movement, and the successful farmers and country squires who had these structures built were men of courage and character. Building such houses was not an undertaking suited to the fainthearted. This is amply demonstrated in an account from the memoirs of Henry Lee, grandfather of Mrs. Lois Welcher, who owns the beautiful cobblestone house on the Minsteed Road in Arcadia, I quote a part of his account of the building operations: "Father had accumulated a large quantity of stone and lumber including one very large Whitewood tree, about four feet in diameter, and thousands of feet of basswood and hemlock and had carefully piled up with sticks between each board and built a shed over it that it might be thoroughly seasoned, On the last sleighing that spring there was a "bee" and a large pile of sand was taken from back of the woods where Mr. Farnsworth’ s farm now stands, it being the first ever taken from there. It kept one or two men shoveling snow on the bare spots by thawing so fast.

“We got two or three loads of cobblestones from the lake for the facing of the wall. The capstones" (caps and sills) came from Phelps(then Vienna). The front door capstone and sill each made nearly a load.”

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Newark Courier-Gazette, December 22, 1955

Newark High Graduate Pens Winning Essay on Cobblestone Homes

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Diary Reveals Home Builder Traveled

To Lake Ontario for Many

Loads of Stone

(Verlyn E. Klahn, first prize winner in the Hoffman historical essay concludes his essay, “Cobblestone Structures of Wayne County,” in this issue of the Courier-Gazette. This is the first in the historical series by county high school students to be published. He was graduated from Newark High School last June. Funds for the contest are provided through. Donald Frey and the Lincoln Rochester Trust Co. as trustees of the Hoffman Foundation).

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“The job was let to a Mr, Skinner, not incuding the inside work, have forgotten the price, but I think it

was less than $200, They came and laid the cellar wall; then went away and did other jobs to let this harden; then returned and laid the first story; then went away again for several weeks and so on until it was finished.

“Meanwhile, the carpenters prepared the window and door frames, the sleepers and joists. As the walls were ready for them they did the plaining (sic) and matching the flooring (every board in the house being plained by hand) and nearly all but the floors were sandpapered, while they were absent father would have to draw more stones from Phelps besides doing a little farming and all the other work and business accompanying such building. He also went with two teams to Italy Hallow, south of Geneva, and got about 2,000 feet of pine lumber for about $10 per thousand, being about all of the pine used in the house.

“The first stone he drew from the lake, he took a man with the team and went to the bar off the bluff across the bay on ice. I went with him and we reached home about one o'clock in the morning, Father went about 20 times but sometimes being rainy he got only part of a load and often reached home 10 or 12 o'clock at night, Parkings the carpenter only did the work until it was inclosed, which was late in the fall.

“One of my jobs was to flatten the nail heads as there were no finishing nails then; also had to putty the nailheads after being driven. In laying the walls after getting out of reach from the ground there were poles set about 6 or 8 feet from the wall and about as high as the walls were to be, then long poles were lashed to them with hickory withes an inch or an inch and a quarter in diameter and six to eight inches long and then scantling laid across them to the wall and planks laid on them making a scaffolding all around the house.

“Then a crane and tackles and rope were fastened to the northeast post (it being larger than the rest). Buckets a little larger than a molasses cask cut in two would be filled with either mortar or stones and hoisted up, using a horse, to the scaffold and their contents distributed with a wheelbarrow.

“When they were above reach from a scaffold the staging would be raised again. The inside work was done by Ruel Taylor and his men. They did their work evenings and were here all winter.

“The doors were made by hand. Father went out southwest of Newark and bought a butternut tree for stair railings and all connected with them - the house was not ready for occupancy until may the next year. The frame part was not moved until fall, the crane and tackles were used in digging the well in the fall, which was in 1845."

According to Mr. Lee, his and his father's hands got so sore picking up stones that they had to bandage them. Sometimes the stones were so heavy that they had to dump some from their load. Also, since the horses wearied easily under the heavy load, they frequently had to stop and unharness the animals to rest them before completing the trip.

The story of the Stuart House on the corner of west and West Maple Avenues in Newark was told in a letter by Franklin J. Keller, grandson of Jacob Keller, the builder, to Mr. Stuart, quoted here from Mrs. Herbert Jackson's article in the Newark Courier-Gazette of May 14, 1953:

"Jacob Keller came to Newark from Columbia County when a young man and bought the farm that lies around and west of the stone house, He first lived in a log cabin but built the stone house about 1845 and 1846. It took two years to build the house. The lumber and stones all cams from the farm except the cobblestones that are in rows around the outside wall, and the sand. The sand was taken from a sandpit on West Avenue. The logs for the lumber were cut on the farm and were sawed in through at a sawmill that stood south of the Budd house, and about where the Header barn now stands, there was a dam and a pond of about thirty acres there.

"The sawmill was run by a man named Carl, who owned the Budd farm at the time. The lumber, to be dressed, was taken to mill on the Outlet at Phelps. That mill was later owned and run by, and known as, the Bigal's Mill. The moldings were burnt by e man named Horn, about two miles west of Fairville. The small round stones on the outside of the wall were drawn from the lakeshore north of Fairville by Dellavan Keller, son of Jacob and father of the writer. It used to take three days for a trip for a load of stones from the lake shore, if he had good luck, but sometimes longer as there was no road three miles north of Fairville, only a rough crooked trail."

The Eggleston House is just out of Palmyra on the right-hand side of the Palmya-Marion Road. Newton Eggleston, a native of Vermont, bought land for six dollars an acre and built a log cabin. In 1840-41, he had a stone mason Stephen Trumbull, his father, and two other masons build the lakestone house across the road. They drew nine loads of lakestones from the Lake Ontario shore, fourteen

miles away. The cornerstones were drawn from the Naples quarry, all by ox teams. It was on a trip to Naples that Mr. Eggleston saw his first train and because of the fog and the strange country, he was frightened as it came toward him.

Mr. Eggleston's son-in-law Frank Beyoe, while still living, recalled the construction of these cobblestone houses. A group of masons would work on one house until a foot of wall had been laid; then they were forced to allow the mortar to dry for a week. In order to keep busy, they usually planned to build more than one house at a time, which accounted for the long time required to complete a

house, Of course, some were forced because of finances to delay the building.

A note that is of interest: the Congdon House on the Marion-East Williamson Road, now owned by Ida Schultz, tradition says, was a station of the Underground Railroad. It has a Dutch oven and a large fireplace in the center of the house. There is a concealed cupboard near the fireplace big enough to hold a person, where it is said slaves were hidden until they could be conveyed to the next station.

Of the many, many homes I covered, there was only one of the Victorian style - - the MacLeod on Ganz Road. The woodwork is done in beautiful black walnut. There are lovely sliding doors, and a semi-circular stairway which is said to have cost $1,500. The attic itself is larger than many modern homes.

John Mogray's house on Ridge Road was built in 1839 and was first a Methodist Church. It was built with a double entry, one entrance for the men and one for the women. In past years it was common in.some churches for the men to be seated on one side of the church and the women on the other side.

The Parker Place on Parker Road was built for the Reverend Parker in the 1820's, He held his meetings in the unfinished upstairs and this was the beginning of the Methodist Church of East Palmyra, It took only $50 of actual money plus helping neighbors and barter to build this fine house. This house has never been owned out of the Parker family. The John Bestard House in Wallington was built in 1834 for an inn. The inn was the half-way point for the stage between Oswego and Rochester. It was famous for its food, wines, rooms, and dancé hall, and was probably one of the largest inns in this territory.

The Martin Harris Farm is now used by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints for their headquarters in this area. This house was built by Robert Johnson for William Chapman in 1849, Martin Harris had mortgaged the farm land in 1829 for $3,000 to E. B. Grandin, owner of the Wayne Sentinel, who in turn agreed to print the first edition of the Book of Mormon. For this first edition, five thousand

copies were printed.

Each house had its own individuality. The photographs and accounts of others of the 152 houses in the accompanying five notebooks will reveal many other interesting features not mentioned in this essay. No two of these houses were alike. In many of these places one will still find the original hand-blown windows, mainly around the entrance. Since hand-blown glass is wavy and contains small bubbles of air pockets, which tend to distort objects, it doesn't make a good viewing glass and therefore has been replaced in some homes, Also, because hand-blown glass does not have the strength of manufactured glass, it is easily broken, hence its rarity.

At the Thomas Place on the Jeffry Road, the lower front windows are of the Southern Terrace type. They are made to open on the porch like Hrench doors. These were incorporated into the house when it was built. All windows at the Franz Place are said to be of the same size, which unusual for an older type dwelling, for the upstairs windows were more often made smaller.

The woodwork of many of these old homes is of chestnut, such as is in the Jordon Place on Alderman Road. This is interesting to note because of the blight which has swept the chestnut trees in recent years.

On one of my trips I was told that the masons used a few large stones placed at intervals along one course which passed straight through the wall, not only to tie in the veneer of small stones but also to be used as a scaffold holder, It seems reasonable that they could be used for scaffold riggings because of their parallel position and the force they could withstand. A good example of these tie-in stones may be seen in the front of the Hanagan Place.

Apparently, the old time owners were happily contented with and liked their cobblestone buildings. This is evident because of the many cobblestone additions found on the near their cobblestone brothers. The Harrison House in Marion Township (where there are a great many out stone houses) is a cut stone house with a cobblestone wing.

The preservation of our stone dwellings and their adaptation to modern needs are well worth while, for they are one of the native architectural features of the lake counties. There will never be any more of them built, for even if modern masons rediscovered the lost art, it would not be economically feasible to build one. With today's union hours and labor costs, it would take a good-sized fortune to build such a house.

Being characteristic of Western New York, these old structures should be saved to serve as a reminder of bygone days when our pioneer fathers put in an honest day's work for a small wage. These are solid, substantial buildings which do not have to be painted, are warm in winter and cool in summer. The stone surface gives forth a beautiful pattern of light and shadows in the sunlight.

Unfortunately, however, one finds that some of them are showing signs of wear. Deterioration as exampled by white patches on the horizontal or vertical joints shows where mortar has begun to disintegrate. The late George Chapman found that this crumbling can be stopped by making a thin paste

of cement end water, applying this with a brush over such places where disintegration is noted, taking care not to touch the cobblestone with the paste, the cement will harden and after a while it will turn to nearly the same color as the rest of the wall, and only a close inspection will show where the mortar had begun to crumble.

Why was it that such an art as this should die out? A big factor, of course, was the jealousy with which the masons guarded the features of their individual techniques. Most masons would stop work when anyone was near enough to observe the details of the work. But as with most facets of history, economic considerations have been the primary cause for there being no cobblestone construction after 1868.

After the Civil War, the economic pulse of the nation quickened; work became more plentiful and rewarding so that masons could find work in industry and business. Wealthy landholders, instead of tying up their money in stone monuments, invested it in the growing and robust manufacturing concerns, railroads, and other financial enterprises, But despite this pat economic explanation, one is still not quite satisfied. What is strange is that the end of the cobblestone building era came at the time when the craft had reached as near perfection as man may come and did not experience any decline in workmanship. May way it be due to our American spirit of enterprise that, when something can no longer be improved upon, interest in it is lost? Or is it that perhaps what made cobblestone houses so desirable in the early part of the era - their uniqueness, variety of colors, attractive wall texture were, as the art of cobblestone masonry gave way to the craft, replaced by uniformity in form, in color of stones, and the machine-like precision in which the stones were laid?

These relics leave the same impression on society today that they did on people of the last century, the character of the past has been immortalized in stone to symbolize that which made America what she is today - patient, ingenious, progressive, and most of all, yet almost paradoxically, stable.

We are proud of what our forebears could accomplish with limited means. I know that I speak for the many owners of cobblestone houses when I say that we are going to preserve them as a standing monument to our past and a prophecy to our future.

During the past year, I have traversed hundreds of miles, dug into numerous yellowing newspapers, letters, deeds and old records, and have talked with hundreds of people. Everywhere I was received with the spirit of hospitality and cooperation which made a normally pleasant task just a little more so, it would be difficult to acknowledge the names of all those good people, but I am deeply grateful to everyone who helped in any way, no matter how trivial that assistance may have seemed to them.

I am particularly grateful to those who let me browse through their scrapbooks and take up their valuable time — Mr. Carl F. Schmidt, Mrs. Margaret Merhoff, Miss Dora Westfall, Mrs. Lois Welcher, Mrs. Howard Jeffrey, Miss Mary Ziegler, Mrs. George Ennis, Miss Gerda Peterick, and N.G. Klahamer.

In compiling a work of this scope it is unavoidable that a few errors will creep in here and there, although every effort has been made to be accurate. Sometimes it took nearly a day's time to get a picture and the history of one house, due to location, weather, daylight, and the tracing down of people connected with the structure.

But these hundreds of hours of labor were made worthwhile by the broadening experience which they occasioned and the sense that they would result in historically valuable information and pictorial documentation much of which was, during the course of this research, assembled in one place for the first time.

I found a poem which I think expresses our reaction to cobblestone architecture, It was written by Dorothy W. Pease and follows:

As I go wandering up and

down

New York State's Ridge and old byways,

I stop and chat with farmers

there

And hear the lore of bygone

days;

Of houses built of cobblestones

Brought from the lake by

oxen strong

Or harvested with patient toil

From the glacial fields where they belong.

These stones were sorted then

for size

By dropping through a beetle

ring.

And reddish ones were laid

aside,

To use where they'd attention

bring.

The mason patiently did lay

In row on row of mortar

hard,

Round stones or patterned

herringbone

Which we with wonder now

regard.

O houses, blessed with memory sweet,

Of busy housewives, farmers

strong,

Who round the family fireside

sat

To worship God with evensong.

Arcadia (including Village of Newark)

This impressive cobblestone mansion at 518 West Maple Avenue at the corner of West Avenue in Newark was built in 1840, (according to the date stone) by Jacob Miller who moved from Cherry Valley, where he was a hatter, to Newark in 1825 - the year the Erie Canal opened. He purchased considerable property here and became a prosperous farmer. The water-washed stones came from Lake Ontario. It ultimately became the home of Stuart family who were long involved in the costume jewelry business and later founded Sarah Coventry Inc.

View of the rear of the house. This is one of four cobblestone houses in Newark.

Detail of the remarkable craftsmanship of the use of washed Lake Ontario sandstones.
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The stately James P. Bartle cobblestone farmhouse was built on what is now West Miller Street in Newark in 1836. Bartle operated the first store in Newark He was a veteran of the War if 1812 and was a prominent businessman. The house was demolished in 1938 to make way for the new junior high school. Photo, taken in the 1870s, courtesy of Newark-Arcadia Historical Society.

928 North Main St., Newark

240 West Pearl Street

107 Maple Court, Newark

545 Vienna St. facing east

545 Vienna St. facing north

This house at 112 East Miller St. was built in the 1830s. It was demolished in 1964. According to an article in the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle of August 5, 1964 the property leveled also included the Crescent Theater. The gable end of the two-story house faced the street and had a two-story recessed wing shown at the right. Stones were a mix of water rounded and small field stones set four rows to a quoin on the front and three on the side. Some stones were set diagonally. The main part of the house had two windows up and two down with a grill-sized window centered above them in the gable which was complete with its own full sized limestone lintel and sill just as in the four other windows on the facade. The left elevation had a door with a window centered above it set toward the rear corner, otherwise no other openings on the wall. The recessed wing on the right was actually wider than the main block. It contained two (slightly smaller) windows up and a door and window centered below them. The roofline was unusual—it was basically a shed roof with a change of angle about a third of the way across the frontage, giving a slightly domed appearance. A roofed, open porch spanned the wing. For many years it was a doctor's office.

This house at 2659 Minsteed Road was built by Austin Lee in 1844. Its construction was a long project. Preparations were made for some time. Lee accumulated a large quantity of stone and lumber, including one very large Whitewood tree about 4 feet in diameter and thousands of feet of basswood and hemlock and had carefully piled it up, sticks between each board and built a shed over it that it might be thoroughly seasoned.

On the last sleighing that spring he had a ‘‘bee’’ and drew a large pile of sand from back of the woods, the first ever taken from that spot. There were two or three loads of cobble stones from the lake for the facing of the wall. The ‘‘cut stones’’ for the quoins and sills came from Phelps, then called Vienna. The front door cap stone and sill each made a load. The job of building was let to a Mr. Skinner, not including the inside work. Edwin Lee thought the price was about $200. They came and laid the cellar wall, then went away and did another job to let this harden. They returned and laid the first story then went away again for several weeks and so on until it was finished.

Meanwhile the carpenters prepared the window and door frames, the sleepers and joists as the walls were ready for them, planing and matching the flooring. Every board in the house was hand planed and nearly all were sandpapered. While the workmen were absent the senior Lee would draw more stones from Phelps, besides a little farming and all the other work and business accompanying such a building.

A trip was made with two teams to Italy Hollow south of Geneva and where about 2,000 feet of pine lumber was purchased for $10 a thousand. The first stones came from Lake Ontario. Two men with a team went to the bar off Lake Bluff across the ice of the bay to load the cobbles and reached home about 1 a.m. This trip was made about 20 times, though sometimes if the weather was bad only part of a load would be brought.

The carpenter only did the work until the house was enclosed in the late fall. The nail heads had to be flattened and this was Edwin’s job, he said. There were no finishing nails. He described in detail the scaffolding which was erected around the house for placing the cobbles. Ruel Taylor did the inside work.

He and his men worked evenings all winter. The doors were all made by hand at the farm. Austin Lee bought a butternut tree southwest of Newark and the stair railing and all connected with it were made of this butternut. A crane and tackle were used in digging the well in 1845. After the house was finished, attention was turned to beautifying the place by setting out trees and shrubbery. Adapted from PP 159-160, Historic Homes In and AroundArcadia. Wilprint, Lyons, N.Y. 1982 by Cecilia B. Jackson, Arcadia Town Historian

This house at 2467 Parker Road may be one of the oldest cobblestone houses in Wayne County. It was built by at least 1833 for the Rev. Preston Parker. Four generations of the Parker family lived here. Its original configuration was 14 rooms. There was a meeting room on the second floor where religious services for the local group of worshippers known as the Parker Neighborhood, which later was reorganized as East Palmyra Methodist Church.

The George Howland house at 301 Silver Road, town of Arcadia, Wayne county was built in 1835. It was a fine example of Greek Revival architecture until a former owner decided to replace the two original windows facing the road with a modern picture window that altered its original intended appearance. Some people, with little or no sense of history, go too far remodeling the exteriors which should be left alone. Howland, the original owner, was a successful farmer and one time supervisor of the town of Arcadia in the 1840s.

This cobblestone house at 3677 Heidenreich Road was built in 1834 which makes it one of the oldest in Wayne county.

Date stone on the house at 3677 Heidenreich Road.

5590 Pardy Smith Road

Butler

Built in the 1820s, the Roe school house in the town of Butler is believed to be the oldest existing cobblestone school house in North America.Now a museum, it is located at 12397 Van Vleck Road at the intersection of Route 89. It was built by Daniel Roe, an early pioneer. It was often referred to as the Watson Schoolhouse. It is believed to be one of the very oldest cobblestone buildings in the area. Rather than using the smooth-washed lake stones characteristic of later cobblestone buildings, it is constructed of rough field stones that were taken from the property on which it rests. Some of the stones were split in half because of their larger size. This structure is very early because of the 12 over 8 window panes.

This is the Roe school house in the early 1900s. It ceased to function as a school in 1932 and for years was a private residence. is now operated as a schoolhouse museum by the Butler Preservation Society, which also operates the Butler Church Museum.Both museums are open on the first Saturday of the month from May through October, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. For appointment to see it call Dorothy Wiggins at 315-594-2332 or Lori Howland at 315-594-1844. It has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 2009.

Galen

Robinson House, built 1831-32 by John Robinson, 8841 Lock Berlin Road

Thorn House, 10297 Turnpike Road, Galen (east of Marengo.

8880 Sunderland Road

Romyen House (Kyburg Black Angus Farm) 1018 Eyer

Road, Lyons. "T.T. Romyen 1841" over door.

Below is the smoke house in back.

790 Gansz Road, Lyons, east side Mansard roof added ca. 1875.

Huron

Upson-Brudage House, 10785 Ridge Road, north side of Old Route 104 about five miles west of Wolcott. Due to its location, some 20 feet below the highway, it is out of sight. It was built by Solomon Upson in 1847-48.

10699 Lummisville Road

Construction commenced on the Jackson one-room school house at 336 Pleasant Valley Road, Lyons, in 1829. It was completed in 1831 at a cost of $187. It was named for President Andrew Jackson. The walls are 21 inches thick. It is built of field stones and measures 24 by 28 feet. The children left their coats and lunch pails in the entry area. There were no desks. Instead the students used shelves attached to the walls with benches for seats. Clark Mason was the first teacher. It was used until 1947 and then became a private residence. It is currently (2017) the home local historian Mark DeCracker and his wife. Photo courtesy of Mark DeCracker.

Same structure as it appears today. Photo by Mark DeCracker

Rochester Democrat & Chronicle

Thursday, August 20, 1927

Centennial of Jackson School

To be Marked by Reunion Today

____

Little Cobblestone Building in Towns of Lyons

and Arcadia Still in Use, with but Few Repairs

to Exterior and Modernization of Interior

____

Lyons, Aug. 19. - The centennial of the erection of the cobblestone school house in District 6, known as the Jackson school, will be marked by a reunion tomorrow.

Among the early settlers in the community was Dr. Cyrus Jackson, who located about five miles southwest of this village in 1800. He was married and lived in a log cabin until 1821, when he constructed a more pretentious house near the site of his former home. This house, built in 1821, and now owned by Paul Seiling, stood with practically no reconstruction until two years ago when the siding began to give way on account of age and the outside was shingled.

In 1831 children in the neighborhood of the Jackson settlement began to reach school age and the problem of constructing a school house was brought to the consideration of the settlers. In March, 1831, Hugh Jameson of Lyons, then commissioner of common schools, called a meeting of the residents of the neighborhood at the home of Dr. Jackson. At that meeting a school organization was effected by electing Christopher Myers, Peter Ackerson and Reuben Penoyer as trustees, Dr. Jackson, clerk and Peter Lott, collector of taxes.

At this meeting it was decided to erect a school house. The plans provided it should be of cobblestone laid in lime and the building was 24 feet by 26 feet. The district was known as District 6 of Lyons and Arcadia, as the property is located partly in the two towns. The total cost of masonry and carpentry was $137. The school opened that summer with Clark Mason of Lyons as teacher. The tuition charged was that each family should furnish one-half a cord of wood split and ready to burn for each child sent to the school. The wood was used for heating the school house. As Dr. Jackson had ten children, it will be seen that he had to skirmish around and have five cords of wood ready.

Miss Carrie E. Jackson and Aaron Jackson, grandchildren of Dr. Jackson, still reside on the farm adjoining the school house which has always been known as the "Jackson School House," being named at its erection in honor of Andrew Jackson, then President of the United states, between whom and Aaron and Miss Carrie Jackson there is a well defined line of family relationship.

Today, 100 years after its erection, this little school house is still performing the duties for which it was built. The stone walls, two feet in thickness, in places show a slight separation, but aside from this and new siding from the roof to the stone wall, all remains as when first erected, even to the beams laid upon the stone walls.

Teachout House, Old Route 31, [old portion of Montezuma Turnpike
(abandoned). Teachout family lived here, 1847 - 1943.

A story persists of a young girl, Minerva Croul, who while observing construction of this house dreamed of one day living there. She eventually married the owner, Henry Teachout, who had a tannery in Lyons. This property also included a 212-acre farm. The land was heavily wooded and stony ant at the time took a great deal of effort to develop. Eventually tobacco was raised there. Minerva lived there until she died at the age of 90. Below is view of rear of the house.

This house at 8279 Old Route 31, Lyons was built for Elias Richmond in 1834. It has wooden lintels and transom over inset front door.

1961 Brandt Road

This house at 937 Route 14 was built by Thomas Dorsey in the early 1830s. It is built of fieldstones.

The Cobblestone Blacksmith Shop in Alloway

As the early settlers of Lyons began to clear their land, they faced a special problem. The recession of the glacier that covered much of New York State in prehistoric times, left small, round stones, known as cobbles, covering the farmland. These stones had to be removed before the fields could be planted with crops. The cobbles were gathered up and used for building and, as a result, Wayne County is the site of one of the most unusual and beautiful kinds of architecture in this country. Lyons has several beautiful cobblestone homes and buildings, but the most unique is the blacksmith shop in Alloway.

In 1832, Alfred Hale built a small two-story, octagonal, cobblestone blacksmith shop on Alloway Road. Each side of the building is 12 1/2 feet long, has walls three inches thick and is constructed of fieldstone cobble. The building was used for years as a blacksmith shop, and most recently as a machine shop.

There were many advantages of using cobblestones for a shop of this sort. Cobblestones are very strong and make a solid structure. They are fireproof; a very important consideration in the days before fire departments, and the thick walls kept the building warm in the winter and cool in the summer. The stone buildings required little outside maintenance and needed no paint.

Nearly one hundred seventy five years after its construction, the unique building retains its original charm and is often the subject for photographers and artists. The crack near the door was made when a car lost control and crashed into the building and one can still see the remnants of paint left from when the shop owner lost a election wager and the structure was painted red, white and blue.

Cleveland Frind bought the blacksmith shop, and the cobblestone house across the street, in 1918. The blacksmith shop closed in 1936, after the automobile had replaced horses. The building was then used as a machine shop until around 1960. Cleveland’s son and daughter-in-law, Ralph, and Helen Frind, lived in the cobblestone house across the street from the octagonal structure for many years. Shortly after Ralph passed away in 2008, the house and shop were sold to former Lyons resident Mary LaGasse Tatum.

Old cobblestone blacksmith shop and house, 827 Alloway Road

3532 Layton Street Road. Inscription on date stone over door is "A.H.V.D.B. 1831," initials of the original owner, Abram Henry Van Der Bilt. the original owner. This is believed to be the oldest dated cobblestone house in Wayne county.

3425 Middle Sodus Road

Macedon

Jordan house built in 1834, is at 1484 Alderman Road, Macedon.

This house, facing north at 5 West Main St., (Route 31) Macedon, was built in 1839 by Nathan Reed, a Quaker. Cobblestones came from the shore of Lake Ontario near Pultneyville. It is built of round washed cobblestones.

(Facing north)

(North and west side)

(Northwest corner)

Wayne County Historian

Another two-story cobblestone house nearby on Route 31, built by Walter Johnson in 1834, has been demolished. It was built of field stones.

Bullis House, 1727 Canandaigua Road, Macedon. Built ca. 1839 by
Charles Bullis.

Historical marker for Bullis House

______

Baker House, 815 Canandaigua Road. "J. & D. Baker 1850" on
date stone. Jacob Terry was the mason. It is of the Gothic Cottage
design.

North side of house with modern brick chimney.

Kitchen side of house

Fine herring bone design on Baker House.

Marion

This one and one-half story house at 3458 Lyon Road, sits on a cut stone foundation. It was built in 1834 with small mixed-colored cobbles. Each resident has made some interior changes over the years. Apparently, the front part of the house was erected first, as a cobblestone outside wall was uncovered in the kitchen during remodeling in 1974. The center front doorway has a lintel cut from a single piece of stone. Carriage lights adorn the front entrance.

4247 Eddy Ridge Road

District School #4 at 4430 Eddy Ridge Road still stands. It ceased
as a school at the end of the 1923 school year when Marion Central
School District was formed. The front wall is of herring bone design.

School house as it presently appears.

This was called the Eddy Ridge District No. 6. Teachers included Edith VanOstrand and Sylvia Lybart

From a paper by: Heather Redmond for the Hoffman Award (specific to Wayne County History) titled : "Tales, Triumphs and Tribulations of Marion's School Districts".

"District schoolhouse #6 is located on Eddy Ridge Rd of Marion. This cobblestone schoolhouse has also been converted into a home. Below is described a typical day at district schoolhouse #6 in the year 1915.

"School began at 9 AM and usually ended at 4 PM. If the children arrived at school early, they played various games outside until the teacher walked out ringing a sturdy handbell. This was the signal to start school, and the children would all rush in the schoolhouse to an outside hall. The boys were to hang their coats there, while the girls had a special closet in which to hang their belongings."

"During the winter months the children wore leggings and felt boots. The boots were put in a row along the back room most of the time, but occasionally the students were allowed to put the boots by the coal stove in order to dry a bit better. The school had approximately four or five rows of desks with aisles in between each row. The teacher's desk was situated in the front of the room upon a platform. Beside the desk was a pail of drinking water containing one tin dipper from which everyone drank. Years later this tin dipper was replaced with paper cups to prevent the spreading of colds. The students were to take turns fetching water from a well across the road at Mascle's farm to keep the pail full.""

"Behind the teacher's desk was the blackboard and on the teacher's desk was a desk bell which she used to signal the different classes up to the front of the room. This was done by grade levels starting with the first grade. The bell would ring and the first graders moved to the front rows of the classroom while the upper grades moved to the rear of the room. The older students were expected to work on specific assignments disregarding the noise from the front of the room. Concentrating was sometimes the most difficult thing to do in a one room school setting. The children always had something to work on though. The subjects taught were somewhat similar to today's subjects but were more concentrated in the basic courses. For example, school district #6 had no classes for band, chorus, wood shop, home economics or gym. Although they had no gym class, school district #6 was never without a softball team. One reason for this was there was never a shortage of boys. In 1915 the courses that were taught included geography ( in which there was a regents), reading, writing, arithmetic, spelling and some history.

"Once in a while there was a need for some discipline. The teacher took care of the problem without too much fuss. For example if a boy was not behaving as a young man should, he was simply seated on the girl's side of the room or told to move up to the front of the room. The same tactic was used on the girls, but problems did not occur as frequently with the girls as with the boys.

"The winter classes were much bigger than the summer classes, as true with most of the district schools, because it was during the summer months that the boys would stay home to help fathers with the work to be done in the fields.

"The bathroom facility was attached to the schoolhouse, but in order to get to the bathroom, you had to leave the schoolhouse and circle around to the side of the building. District schoolhouse #6 was surrounded by maple trees. Every Arbor Day the children planted saplings around the schoolhouse. Each tree had been named after the child who planted it."

"School district #6 had many school teachers. Some of these were Mary Content, Sylvia DeMay Liebert, Gertrude Luce and Gertrude Loveless. Some families that attended this district were the Dean, Allen, Ocques, Cook, Naeye, Boerman, Burbank, Crane, Bosse, Shipper, Mascle, Rice, Murphy, Johnson, Peck and DeRidder.

Herring bone design is evident on the building.

4398 Ridge Chapel Road

4092 North Main St., village of Marion

Date stone at 4092 North Main St., village of Marion

This house at 4057 N. Main St., Marion was built in 1833 as the parsonage of the Christian Church.

Cut fieldstone house at 3541 Parker Road. Built in 1823

by Peleg Sanford.

3456 Newark-Marion Road. This is said to have originally been a

well house on the Caldwell farm.

4398 Ridge Chapel Road

4413 Ridge Chapel Road

4851 Ridge Chapel Road

4513 Eddy Ridge Road

5330 Eddy Ridge Road

Wells House, 5137 Mason Road, pre-1833.

Built on cobblestone foundation

Facing north

Multi-colored washed lake stones

4735 Farnsworth Road

3713 Parker Road. Built in 1822 by Stephen and Peleg Sanford.

Cobblestone barn at 4154 at Marion-East Williamson

Road. Built 1840.

4471 Dormedy Hill Road. Date stone says "J.C. Green Erected A.D. 1849."

4685 Marion-East Williamson Road. Built by Samuel Barrett in
1840 (date stone between second floor windows). The Barrett
family lived here for several generations.

4676 White Road, Marion, Samuel Smith, original owner. Built
ca. 1830-32. The 68-acre farm was purchased by James White in 1880.
It was surrounded by an apple orchard. Later it became a tenant house
and later it was used for storage. Restoration work began in
1948 by James and Carrie White, and later by Tom and Cindy Ikewood.

This house at 5336 Van Cruyingham Road appears to have been

overlooked by any cobblestone building surveys of Wayne County.

Ontario

407 Lake Road. Built 1844. Greek Revival, but hidden by bushes

and trees.

1695 Lake Road

7105 Fisher Road

1556 Lake Road, circa 1835

5668 Lincoln Road

7101 Knickerbocker Road

7325 Knickerbocker Road

7272 Ontario Center Road

Note the artistic herringbone design.

5952 Ontario Center Road

5708 Walworth-Ontario Road

5820 Walworth-Ontario Road

Palmyra

This house at 2095 Maple Ave., Palmyra, replaced a one and a half-story wooden

frame house that originally stood on this site. When Martin Harris, a follower

of Mormon leader Joseph Smith, left here in 1831, it was occupied by William

Chapman. The house burned to the ground in 1849 and was replaced by this

cobblestone house, built by Robert Johnson for Chapman. The stones were

collected from the shore of the lake by his son, Thomas Johnson, who was only

10 years old at the time. It was a three-day round trip to Lake Ontario and return.

Hauling back a load of stone was a slow process. It took one day go to the lake,

one day to gather the stones and one day to return home. The stones were then

sorted and sized, with the most uniform ones used for the front, and the less

desirable ones on the sides and back.

Fire place chimney, north side of house.

_____

The house, on the west side of Maple Avenue, is owned by the Church of Jesus Christ

of Latter-day Saints (Mormons). Once a visitors center, it now serves as the private

residence for missionaries.

This commercial building at 105 Market St., Palmyra, was built
in the 1830s by William Tilden, a local tinsmith. During the post
- Civil War period it was occupied by L. D. Sellick & Company,
basket-makers. It has a bracketed cornice. The facade consists
of varied-sized lake cobblestones. Some discrete alterations have
been made over the years. There are apartments upstairs.

Rear view of 105 Market St.

This residence at 2121 Walker Road, Palmyra was originally a typical five-bay farm house of the 1840s, built of field stone. It is believed it was built by Aretus Lapham, an early pioneer who came here from Providence, R.I. in 1810. Lapham originally resided in a nearby log house. Later it was occupied by his son, Nathan. In the 1870s the farm was sold to Charles C.B. Walker who may have added the third-story frame section and cupola of Victorian design. A 1904 map of the Town of Palmyra shows it as part of the Charles C.B. Walker estate. The caretaker for the Walker estate resided here, according to the present owner.

The William Luce House is situated at 2792 Shilling Road, Palmyra. It was built
of lake stone with a large chimney at either end. A marble plate over the door reads
"W. L. 1839. "The alternate slanting of the lake stones is an exclusive feature
of this house. The stones are very well graded, and the mason work is well done.

Date stone on Luce house

2873 Route 21

2822 Route 21

East Palmyra District 7 school house on the west side of the intersection of North Creek and Lyons roads was built in 1846. It is about a mile north of Port Gibson. It was closed in 1924 with the opening of East Palmyra Union Free School No. 2. In 1929 it was sold to Jacob O’Meal Jr. He used it to store farm implements. He widened the door by nearly six feet and replaced the wooden floor with concrete. After he built his new shop nearby in 1946 O’Meal let the East Palmyra Fire Department to use it to store a new fire truck. It was sold to Glenn Young in 1970 who continued to use it for storage. It is mostly constructed of lake washed red sandstone cobbles. The lintels and quoins are quarried limestone.

Jagger House, 2799 Lyon Road. Built 1840.

2631 Quaker Road, called "Tamerlayne."

Thomas House, 3313 Jeffrey Road

Rogers House, 4449 Hogback Road. Notice the use of field stones for
foundation and lake-washed stones for the rest of the facade.

Bela Morgan House, 3336 Hanagan Road. This is believed be one
of the oldest cobblestone houses in the town of Palmyra, built in
1832 or earlier. A later owner nicknamed it "Fiddlesticks Farm".
It is built of field cobbles.

Facing south

Facing north

3134 Hanagan Road, built 1834. Facing west

Also note cobblestone cellar entrance.

2775 Maple Ave.

2788 Quaker Road

The McKechnie house at 151 Church St. is the only cobblestone home in the Village of Palmyra. It was built in the 1830s by Alexander McKechnie, a native of Scotland. There was once a brewery and malt house on the property Robert McKecknie, 38, also born in Scotland; his wife and three children resided here in 1855. It has a two-story gable front with stones laid five courses to the quoin and those on the side, three courses to the quoin. The house is very plain. The windows are narrow and deep set, giving evidence of early construction. The left and the rear are of fieldstone construction while the front and right are built entirely of lake washed sandstones. There was a malt house in the rear.

In 1835 three one-room cobblestone schools were built in Palmyra. The village was divided into three districts. The one shown here was located on the north side of East Jackson Street, just west of Fayette Street. It was used until 1847 when Union School No. 1 was built nearby on Canandaigua Street. Later William Gardner and Julius M. McClain lived there. When McLain died the property was purchased by attorney (later County Judge) Charles McLouth. The school house was demolished and he built a mansion there that still stands. The other cobblestone schools were located at the west corner of Main and Carroll streets and on the east side of Throop street. The last resident of the school house on West Main street was Lydia Bogart. It was then demolished. John Mills bought the old stone school on Throop street which served both as his home and his shoe shop.

Original Baptist Church

The Baptists' first church in the village of Palmyra was a cobblestone building in 1841 erected at 100 West Main St. It was dedicated on January 28, 1841, measuring 40 by 60 feet with accommodations in the basement.-That building was razed to make way for the new, Romanesque Revival style First Baptist Church which wad dedicated on March 21, 1871. (P. 251, Palmyra and Vicinity by Thomas L. Cook, 1931). A reference to this is also included in Palmyra Village Historic District Cultural Resource Survey,The Clinton Brown Company Architecture, PC published in 2009, footnote 19, page 11.

In his column - “Palmyra of the Past” No. VI , published by the Wayne County Journal on May 27, 1915, Pliny S. Aldrich wrote: “The Baptist Church was a cobble-stone building, standing on the same lot as the present church. It was torn down and the later church built in 1870; the earth from the excavation was drawn into the Union School yard which before that time had been, each winter, a skating pond as the gutters from Canandaigua street flowed into the school yard.”

______

The Job Durfee House at 3175 Route 21 was built in 1840. An unusual feature is it has six rows of lake stones to the quoin. Most have only four.

2792 Shilling Road

Out building, 930 Vienna Road

Newton warehouse, Canal Street, Palmyra. Built 1845 to store apples and

potatoes to ship out on the Erie Canal. Owned by John S. Blazey Inc.

Maltby Clark and out building, 4698 Port Gibson Road, East
Palmyra. Built of field stones.

Paul Jagger House, 3142 Lyon Road

3049 Parker Road. Built by Caleb Avery in 1840 field stones. In
later years it was nicknamed "Cobble Nob."

Rose

4306 Route 414

11273 Maunder Road

This now-gone house, once owned by Chester Haviland on the Rose-Wolcott Road, was a small, one-story structured with a narrow gable facing the highway. A portion of the front had been stuccoed over. The front was faced with lake stones and the sides with field stones. The house was roughly built. The quoins were an irregular red or white and had striped stones. The lintels were wooden.

Savannah

Cobb's Corners Joint School District #1 at the northwest corner of Clyde-Hunts Corners Road and Hadden Road in the 1970s after it became a private residence. It served Joint School District No. 1, which was shared between Galen and Savannah. It was closed in 1940. It no longer exists. It appears Cobb schoolhouse was at 12079 Clyde Hunts Corners Rd. (Tax ID 75113-00-923894) just in the Town of Savannah with the west border of the 0.3 acre property on the town line, 664 feet from Butler Rd.. The tax records note that a building of no description was removed from that property in August 1997. This property and the adjoining 436 acre tract (on both sides of Clyde Hunts Corners Rd with an address of 3232 Galen Rd Tax ID 75113-00-7981617,) in the Town of Galen are owned by Madeira Associates, Syracuse. Tax records list both properties as private hunting/fishing. Based on the current property map, this evidence seems to concur with the 1874 map. Robert Roudabush photo

Clyde Herald, March 8, 1933

Cobb School, in Three Towns, is 100 Years Old

____

Cobb School, District No. 1, towns of Savannah, Galen and Butler, was built in 1833 at a cost of $1890 on land donated for school purposes by J.M. Cobb. This makes the Cobb School antedate the District No. 9 School of Rose. Cobb School has been in continuous operation ever since its establishment.

Among those present at the School Meeting of 1833 was Mr. Samuel S. Briggs, who had recently purchased the farms now known as the Hunt Farm. During the first 50 years either he or at least one of his descendants was present at every school meeting, generally as a member of the School Board. Until 1863, this District had three trustees, one being chosen from each of the three towns from which the district was formed. since then only one trustee has represented the district.

It is believed that there are few, if any, school districts which have a complete record of all meetings held in the district. This district has the clerk’s book used in 1833 and in it are the minutes of every annual and special school meeting from that time to date. It will be used again next May to record the minutes of the 101st Annual School Meeting since this building was erected.

Cobblestones Hauled by Oxen

The Cobb School was a 22’ x 28’ foot building built of water glazed cobblestones hauled by ox-carts from the shores of Lake Ontario. The cobblestones were set in mortar by masons whose workmanship apparently cannot be duplicated today. During the 100 years of existence, very little repair work has been required.

The long board seats were used in the school until 1904, when they were taken out to make room for 16 modern single seats. A new floor was laid at this time. During the past four years, an eight foot extension has been built on the south side of the building for a cloak room and wood house. Windows have been placed in the east side as recommended by the State Department of Education. Ten more new seats have been added to take care of the increased enrollment.

It is to be noted that the modernization of the Cobb School has taken place during the trusteeship of William Burke. Mr. Burke was trustee from 1093 to 1910 when he resigned to become road commissioner of the Town of Galen. It was at this time that new desks were installed. Mr. Burke was again elected trustee in 1926 and has served in that capacity to date. During this last incumbency, the building and equipment have been brought up-to-date. Due to Mr. Burke’s wise and efficient management and the personal interest he has taken in the betterment of local conditions, all of this modernization has been accomplished without increasing the tax rate in the District.

Although the assessed valuation of the district has been decreased almost $10,000 during the past ten years, the school tax rate for 1932-33 was the lowest for that period.

The writer knows of no other century-old district school in which wood is the only fuel that has ever been used, thereby making possible the retention of a considerable amount of school monies in the district.

A comparison of the school records of the 1830s with those of the 1930s is interesting. In 1836, the district received $42 in public money. It paid a male teacher $28 for a $16-week term during the winter months and $16 was paid for a lady teacher for a 12-week summer term. Wood for the fuel and board and lodging was furnished by the parents of children attending school.

In 1932, under State Law which requires school districts to expend $1,500 in order to obtain the maximum amount of public money, the Cobb School received $999 from the State and raised $603 by direct taxation of property in the District. Of this amount, $950 is paid for teaching 38 weeks and the remainder expended for transportation of High School pupils, building new fence, book, maps, fuel, and the many incidentals required to properly carry on in a modern school.

In the 1830s, school attendance was not compulsory. Boys and girls attended school when they could be spared from farm work. Attendance was very irregular.

Pen and ink sketch of Cobb school house by artist Judy (Palermo) Shumway based on old photos.

26 Pupils Now

At present, there are 26 pupils attending this school, the largest number attending a district school in the town of Savannah. Of these, the following eleven have maintained perfect attendance so far this year:

Gracy Bellinger, Hilda Bornheimer, Mary Kane, Marjorie Secore, Junior Buckler, Leland Covill, Wesley Kane, Fred Secore, James Hall, Richard Hall, Robert Hall.

The school has 99 percent attendance.

In the 1830s, many teachers had not attended school more than three or four years. Today, the minimum requirements for a teacher’s certificate call for thirteen years of school attendance. The present teacher, Ethel C. Beecher, is a graduate of Rochester University.

This article would not be complete without mention of the credit due the District Superintendent of Schools, Mr. Frank L. Miller, for is tireless efforts to make the schools in this section of Wayne County models of efficiency in the training of our rural children. His thorough comprehension of all matters relating to rural school problems and his whole-hearted cooperation with both trustees and teachers have been of inestimable value, not only to this district but to all schools in the southeastern section of Wayne County.

2735 Wilsey Road. Built ca.1858

2976 Taylor Road

Sodus

8524 Ridge Road (old Route 104), Alton

Date stone: "1840 J. Collier"

6499 Middle Road

7147 Maxwell Road

William Swales Cobblestone Houses

William Swayles built 11 or 12 cobblestone houses for himself,

his children and for tenants on what later became Sodus Fruit Farm.

These included:

1. Preston house (Gaylord) for his daughter, Elizabeth, wife

of John Preston (Buried Sodus Rural Cemetery).

2. Maulendyke house (Dufloo Road) for his son, John,

(buried, Swayles Cemetery).

3. Gibson - Lake Road, for son, William Jr., buried Sodus Rural Cemetery.

4 - 5. (Two) Sodus Fruit Farm, for himself, buried Sodus Rural Cemetery.

6. Monar House, Lake Road (formerly Swales) built for son, George.

7. Miller's house, south of Preston's - not known for whom built.

8. Dearlove House - south side of Halcus Road for daughter Sarah,

now in ruins.

9. Three or four houses built on Sodus Fruit Farm, now gone.

(This information from his great-granddaughter, Emma Potwine, ca.1955).

Cemetery Records

William Swales ( Sept. 26, 1776, Hutten, Cranswick, Yorkshire, England -

Jan. 28, 1855 - Swales Cemetery)

William Swales Jr. (1806-1857 - Sodus Rural Cemetery)

Elizabeth Swales Preston (Born Sept. 18, 1813 - Died Dec. 26, 1903 -

Sodus Rural Cemetery)

John Swales (1815-1857 - Swales Cemetery)

William Swales Jr. (1833-1912 - Sodus Rural Cemetery)

Sarah S. Swales Gibson (1839-1927 - Sodus Rural Cemetery)

Maria Swales Nash (1843-1918 - Sodus Rural Cemetery)

Joseph Swales (1843-1907 - Sodus Rural Cemetery)

Elizabeth Swales Weeks (1841 - July 30, 1859 - Swales Cemetery)

Jame Ann Swales (1843- Jan. 2, 1845 - Swales Cemetery)

Ella G. Swales Vosburgh (1879-1976 Sodus Rural Cemetery)

William Swales Manor House, 8602 Lake Road, Sodus, Former Sodus Fruit Farm

Built about 1833
(This property has been abandoned for several years and is an advancing state of deterioration.

As it appeared in early 1900s.

Sodus Historical Society

Evidence shows house was stuccoed over cobblestone.

William Swales Manor House, in back of 8602 Lake Road, Sodus, in 1959.

Main stairway and hall of Manor House, 1959

Adjacent cobblestone barn is collapsing. A cobblestone house was located some distance to the north.

Adjacent cobblestone barn in 1959.

Abandoned Swales stone house about a mile north of Manor house. Photos by Glenn Hinchey

Monument to William Swales, Swales Cemetery, Lake Road.

( These houses were built by William Swales)

This house at 7570 Dufloo Road was stuccoed over

7552 Buck Lane

7752 Dufloo Road

Same house in 1959

6419 Lake Road

Old photo of 6419 Lake Road

This house at 7563 Lake Road was built in 1846. The original owners were John and Elizabeth (Swales) Preston. It is on the National Register of Historic Places. Reputedly, it was a station on the Underground Railroad.

Former carriage house behind the house.

_______

Ruins of cobblestone building, Beechwood State Park, Lake Road, Sodus Point.

Without Benefit of Architect

_______________

More Than Century Old Preston Farm House
Near Sodus Point Comes Alive Again
Rochester Democrat & Chronicle
August 31, 1952

By Lilah Henry

On the Old Preston Farm about two miles west of Sodus Point along the Lake Road, is one of the finest cobblestone houses in the area. Built without benefit of architect in 1845, the house has four levels and conforms to the slope of the terrain so closely that it gives the impression of having grown out of the soil.

It stands on a rise of ground like a sentinel scanning the horizon at the spot where a stream widening into a bay joins the waters of Lake Ontario. It has stood thus for more than 100 years, with its solid front door and wide flanking windows facing the oldest road in the township, which runs across the edge of the sloping front lawn and then dips downhill to cross the stream flowing at the side of the house.

One under and seven years ago William Swales bought this land and built the present cobblestone house for his daughter, Elizabeth, who 10 years before had married John Preston Sr.

The house which Swales built, with its smoothly rounded, uniform lake stones marching in straight rows back and forth across its walls from foundation to roof line, has been known simply as the Preston house from the beginning. The stream between is designated Salmon Creek on the maps, but no such name has ever been used in Sodus. It, too, has ben Preston's Creek now for more than a century.

With the exception of about 26 years, the Preston farm and its cobblestone house have been owned by descendants of the first John Preston who came from England in 1831. Today it is back in the same family again...owned this time by Preston Arms Gaylord Jr., the great-great-grandson of the builder of the house.

The present owner, better known as Buddy Gaylord and his wife, Mary Ellen, who i is the daughter of F. Ritter Shumway of 375 Ambassador Drive in Brighton, purchased the Preston farm this spring. Almost immediately the young couple set about the gigantic task of restoring a century old house, lived in and altered more or less by four or five generations of Prestons and as many other families.

Entering the heavy front door with its wrought iron latch and knocker, the visitor finds himself in a wide central hall. At the far end of the hall are two stairways ... one leading down to the big dining room and kitchen on the ground level and the other rising a few steps to the bedrooms in the back wing of the house, before turning to rise to the second floor above the main part of the house.

Opening off the front hall to the right is a long living room with twin fireplaces and deep windows, whose casings are unusual in that they slant or flare outward at about a 30 degree angle to join the interior walls of the room. The window panes, many of which are of "wavy" glass, came from England.

As for the twin fireplaces, which the Gaylords have opened and restored, the two flues join part way up and form one chimney. This is the room in which succeeding generations of Prestons have held parties and dances. Down through the years however, this large room has been used for various purposes by different occupants. One owner used it for a combination riding room and kitchen, building a half partition or counter across the middle to separate the two areas.

Across the hall from the living room is a smaller room, which the builder must have called the parlor. The Gaylords have opened the fireplace in this room and constructed book shelves about it. The wallpaper here is an early american design showing a repeat pattern of a Puritan girl, a hunter and his dog and a young lad playing a lute.

Directly behind the parlor is what must have been a parlor bedroom, the Gaylords have made a pine paneled den. However, the fireplace in this room could not be opened for use since it is now in some way connected with the heating plant chimney. This is the only one of the fireplaces to be restored.

Up a few steps aft the end of the front hall, to the next level are bedrooms furnished attractively with canopied beds, hand quilted coverlets and authentic old chairs. On the next level, which is the second story above the main part of the house, there are still more bedrooms. Here is the mast bedroom which has been decorated around the theme of the 115-year-old red and white hand-stitched quilt on the bed.

One of the most unique features is the ground floor level at the back which contains the old fashioned kitchen with its large fireplace and brick oven at the side, where that first Elizabeth Preston, (Buddy's great-great-grandmother) baked coarse bread, pies and cookies.

The large, sunny kitchen with its Dutch door at the grade entrance and its wide west window is one of the pleasant spots in the house. This Buddy and Mary Ellen are using for their dining room.

Adjoining it is the old milk room with its one-time brick floor, which has been made into a kitchen. Cupboards in natural wood finish line two sides of this long narrow room and a window at the north end looks out over the sloping lawns to the inlet and the lake beyond. With a bit of imagination the visitor can see on ledge big pans of milk waiting to be skimmed.

Stepping directly from the kitchen into the cellar which makes up the remainder of this level, two feet thick foundation walls can be seen and the base of the exterior walls which are 18 inches through. All the original partitions in the house are masonry walls, some measuring six and others 12 inches thick.

The Gaylords are furnishing the house in keeping with the period in which it was built. Some of the original wide plank floors have been restored and the doors have wrought iron latches, many of them the originals.

Down the slope from the house towards the waters of the inlet, stands a two story cobblestone carriage house and on the bank of the creek, the remains of an old grist mill, which was operated for 100 years by a huge wooden water wheel polished smooth by the waters of Preston's Creek pouring from the flume into the mill wheel basin.

Giant locust, horse chestnut and maple tress, apparently also centenarians, cast protective shade about the house, the carriage house and the old mill. The creek, less boisterous now than it was in the early days when shallow draft Canadian boats docked at the old mill to load flour, still flows smoothly past the house to the lake.

And thus old Preston house begins its second century with an air of pleased contentment at sheltering once again a descendant of that first John Preston.

Another Swales house at 6543 Lake Road, Sodus

6563 North Geneva Road

6242 North Geneva Road

6387 North Geneva Road

5821 Buerman Road

United Methodist Church, 8575 Ridge Road, Alton. The steeple is a later addition - a touch of Romanesque style while the church itself is Greek Revival. Lintels above windows are of wood.
_____
Alton Methodist Church Has Long History

By Arch Merrill

(Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, January 13, 1963)

Back of the old cobblestone meetinghouse that stands on Route 104 in Alton is

story of patient, painstaking labor on the part of its founders.

In the middle of the 19th century, so the story goes, men of the congregation carefully gathered cobblestones from Lake Ontario's shores in bushel baskets, which were loaded on stone-boats and hauled by oxen to the church site. In 1851 the stone church was completed.

It is now Alton Methodist Church but it began life in 1842 as the Christian Church of Alton. The principal organizer of the society was the Rev. Amasa Stanton; the first deacons were John Kelly and John Baker and the first clerk was George Gould. When the cobblestone church was built, the trustees were John G. Kelly, Frederick Utter and William R.K. Hone.

Around 1880 the church was taken over b y the Methodist Protestant denomination, an affiliation it retained until merger with the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1939.

Its Pastor since June 1959 has been the Rev. Victor L. Smith, who also serves the Methodist Church at Sodus Point where he resides. A graduate of Houghton College and Drew Theological Seminary, Madison, N.J., he previously previously held Methodist pastorates at McGraw and Lodi.

His predecessors have included the Rev. F. M. Purdy, the Rev. Henry M. Becker, the Rev. David Short, the Rev. L.J. Reed, the Rev. Alden Allen, the Rev. J.C. Walden, the Rev. Floyd C. Rogers and the Rev. Fay A. Wideman, who served from 1945 to 1959, the longest tenure of any pastor. During his pastorate an elaborate centennial observance of the church was held in 1951.

Mrs. Dayton Pitcher, now 82, has been attending Alton church since the age of six, and for more than 50 years was its organist and for many years taught its Sunday School. Other long-time members are Samuel VanderPool of Sodus who joined in 1905 and Mrs. Agnes Raymoor of Alton in 1906. The present membership of the society is 150.

This distinctive 112-year-old house of worship in the pleasant Wayne County fruit country is a tribute to the craftsmanship of the cobblestone masons, those artisans of many years ago.

_____

Abandoned cobblestone house, Shaker Road, Alton

District 22, Pulver school house at 6343 Kelly Road

7383 State Street, Sodus

6123 Ridge Road

Smoke house at 4917 Route 88

6507 Route 14, west side, near Sodus Point

5351 South Geneva Road. Now an Amish family home.

How it previously appeared in the 1970s.
Robert Roudabush photo

5577 South Geneva Road

Barn behind the house, west side of road.

Date stone on barn "J. F. Proseus 1849"

5893 South Geneva Road

Practically hidden from view is the cobblestone attachment to the wooden frame house at 5502 South Geneva Road just north of the intersection with Brick Church Road. Over the years it was owned by the Walhizer and Cornwall families. It is

constructed of multi-colored field stones. The wooden frame house was a later addition. As a note, there was once a cobblestone house on the west side of South Geneva Road near the intersection of Stell Road now gone.

5256 Route 14

5584 Main St., Sodus Center

5549 Main St., Sodus Center

5539 Main St., Sodus Center

6813 Maple Ave., village of Sodus

This house on the north side of 7851 Ridge Road, north side, Wallington. It was known as the Walling Cobblestone Tavern in Wallington, but has been heavily It was built about 1834 of fieldstone It is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Early Tavern Loses Its Romance

But Not Comfort as Modern Home

______

Stage Coach Once Rattled to Door of Turnpike House

Where Weary Travelers Rested or Made Merry:

Remodeled, It Shelters 20th Century Family

____

Rochester Democrat & Chronicle

August 25. 1929

Wallington, Aug. 24. - The days of stagecoaches and quaint-looking taverns where many years ago travelers along the main turnpike between Eastern and Western New York made merry over the flowing bowl as the village fiddler played "Money Musk," "Pop Goes the Weasel" and other old-tome airs are recalled in an old cobblestone house standing close to the Pennsylvania Railroad tracks here.

The Wallington Tavern, for as such it was known in stagecoach days, was built entirely of cobblestones in 1834 by William Walling, the village's honored sage. Shortly afterward the tavern became known as the halfway house between Oswego and Rochester. Here coach horses either rested or were exchanged and passengers whiled away the hours in rollicking pastime. Stories of merry holiday parties, especially around Christmas time, are still narrated and it is said that the jovial landlord spared neither the best of his wine cellar nor the most appetizing which his larder afforded to give his guests a welcome would insure their early return.

Many years ago a traveler stopped at the tavern to rest and refresh himself, according to a story which is still told in this village. He entered the tavern through swinging doors over which appeared the boldly painted sign: "Beer." After he had remained in the taproom for some time, he was struck with a blunt instrument by another guest and killed. The motive may have been robbery or revenge. That point has never been made clear in the narrative. After he was killed the body was taken to strip of woods near the village, a shallow grave dug and the body thrown into it.

Years later, his remains were accidentally unearthed, but his identity never was established definitely. Above the present front of the once old tavern, now an attractive dwelling owned and occupied by Charles E. Whiting, the marble stone sign bearing the words "William Walling, 1834," is sill plainly visible. Walling conducted the tavern, which he later called the Wallington Hotel, for many years, and its ownership subsequently changed several times until the Town of Sodus went dry under the local option law and eventually Gabriel Ackerman, the last proprietor, barred the doors.

New Family Home

With the coming of the automobile and interurban bus lines, this famous old landmark has been converted into an attractive and comfortable home by its present owner. There are other cobblestone buildings in this vicinity. Some of them are old, while a few of them existed when a war between the United Stages and Mexico never was dreamed of by early residents of the northern tier of Wayne County. The passing of the stagecoach has left many reminders of those romantic days in this section, but the old Walling Tavern will probably be known a long time hence as the popular rendezvous of weary but fun-loving travelers close to a century ago between the "Lake City" and the "Flower City."

View of the same structure in the 19th Century, looking east, showing modifications over the years. The current porch was added in the 1920s. Pole at left is a grade crossing warning sign for the Northern Central Railroad.

This one-room cobblestone schoolhouse at 5663 Lake Road, Wallington in the Town of Sodus was built in 1826-28 on land donated by Daniel Arms, founder of Wallington (originally called Arms Crossroads) and was used as a school until 1951. It is a museum owned by the Wallington Community Center Association. Students from through the area frequently visit here to experience “A Day in a Country School.". It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1994.

6172 Ridge Road, Sodus

6211 Route 88

6172 Ridge Road

Walworth

Evangelical United Brethren Church, 3960 West Walworth Road.
Built 1856.

Modernized cobblestone school house, 2677 Smith Hill Road at corner of Townline Road.

5656 Walworth-Ontario Road. Neo-classical

2427 Smith Road. Neo classical

House at 4090 Walworth-Ontario Road. Date stone
says "M. Padley 1844".

2209 Walworth-Penfield Road, Walworth

2203 Walworth-Penfield Road

2188 Walworth-Penfield Road

4625 Lewis Road, built 1835

3353 Daansen Road

Cobblestone smoke house, 3973 Canandaigua Road

3355 Autumnwood (formerly Gananda Parkway)

Walworth Academy

Original Walworth Academy building is on the right. Photo taken 1906.

Walworth Historical Society collection

The original Walworth Academy was legally incorporated as a private corporation by an act of the New York State Legislature on May 12, 1841 and was to accept both male and female students. Its capital stock was $2,500 with the privilege of increasing it to $5,000, in $10 shares. The original trustees were Jonathan Boynton, Amos Turner, Elias Knapp, Louis McLouth, John Lawrence, Lewis Eddy, John McLouth, Benjamin Hill and Vaniah Yeomans.

A year later, a school was constructed of cobblestone at a cost of $4,000 on Academy Street. Stones were hauled from Lake Ontario. Most of this money was paid for through the sale of stock in the Walworth Academy; each share of stock cost $10.00 and entitled the holder to one vote in the corporation. The building was divided into two departments with a qualified teacher in each area, accommodating a total of 100 students. Professor E. B. Wadsworth was the first Principal.

The Academy was similar to a high school. Entry requirement was a preliminary certificate, which was equivalent to an eighth grade education. Many of the Academy students boarded at the school or with families in town. A practice of “basket-boarding” was a common procedure and enabled many students to live cheaper than the $2 a week for room and board. Students who lived nearby walked, rode horseback, or drove a carriage – depending on the time of year and distance. Many students walked five or six miles one way to attend school.

A nine-member board of trustees managed the property and concerns of the corporation. Tuition payments were used to defray the expenses of the institution, most of which involved payment of salaries. The Principal of the Academy received a yearly salary of about $800, while teachers were paid about $400 a year. The Preceptress (the female instructor) received only half the amount paid to the Principal. The tuition also paid for fuel and light bills, which averaged around $49.22 a year.

The most noted Principal was Susan Cleveland Yeomans, sister of President Grover Cleveland, who came here in 1870. Another noted Principal was J. Carlton Norris, who taught there from 1874 to 1885. He so endeared himself to his students that a Norris Students’ Association was created in 1922. It was decided to form an alumni group of former Norris students. They annually held a reunion to reminisce about their days spent in the pursuit of education at Walworth Academy under the “dynamic personality of J. Carlton Norris.” The last reunion was held in 1948.

In July 1972 Charles Tuttle and Robert Wignall, president and treasurer respectively of the Norris Organization, presented a check for $2,697.82 to the Walworth-Seely Public Library. This amount was to be used to reduce the indebtedness for the library’s addition and was given in memory of sponsors and students of Walworth Academy 1840-1903.

The Second Academy

In 1856, a committee was elected by the trustees to consider the subject of enlarging the Academy. It was agreed that an additional academic building should be added the coming year. In 1857 a three-story brick structure was erected to the east of the first Academy. The new “Walworth Academy and Wayne County Female Academy” cost about $8,000. The principal was C. H. Dann. The older building was then used as a boarding home and residence for the principal. The classical course offered at the Academy prepared the student for any college in the United States.

In 1877 the original Academy was sold to the Patrons of Husbandry (Walworth Grange #289) and used by them as a Grange Hall. The second floor was remodeled into meeting rooms and a few years later the first floor was made into a dining room and kitchen. The grounds of the old Academy, combined with those of the new Academy, were ample for outdoor exercise of students and were well shaded with maple, elm, and locust trees.

The cost of the apparatus to equip this school totaled $800. The academic department was certified by the University of the State of New York as the Walworth Union Free School in 1903. Three years later the school received certification as a Senior School. In 1912 it received certification as a high school. The first graduating class was in June 1912.

Razing the Schools

The Academy continued with little change until 1929, when voters in District No. 1 approved a bond issue of $80,000 to build a new school building. In March, 1930 the old Academy buildings were demolished. Classes were temporarily held in the Grange Halll on Main Street. This was the former Pacific Hotel. The new Walworth School opened on September 8, 1930, with an enrollment of 182 students. For 50 years it served this area well until it was closed in 1980. It was demolished in 2014.

Sources

History of Schools in Walworth by Principal Roger S. Pembroke, February 16, 1977

School Daze: The Two Academies by Dorothy French. Walworth Historical Society Newsletter, Vol. 39 No. 1 July, 2014.

P. 162, Chapter 88, Laws of New York, 1841

Memoirs of Walworth Academy by Howard D. Joslyn Jr., 1962

Eighty-Ninth Annual Report, Regents of the University of the State of New York, 1876

Williamson

This house at 4184 Washington St., Pultneyville, was built 1832 by stone mason Washington Throop for his brother Captain Horatio Nelson Throop, a noted lake captain and steamboat magnate. It was completed in time for the marriage of Captain Throop to Mary F. Ledyard. Quoins, lentils and front door surround with transom window are red sandstone. The house features a wide frieze and crescent windows in the gable ends. Large cobbles were used which is unusual since the house is near the shore of Lake Ontario were lake cobbles were plentiful. In the early 2000s it was a bed and breakfast which has since been discontinued.

House at 3424 Ridge Road was originally the First Methodist Church of Williamson. Windows redone after church discontinued. Date stone inscribed: “Ridge Chapel 1839."

This stately house at 6405 Salmon Creek Road, Williamson, built by C.B. Adams in 1850. It was built with carefully-selected lake-washed red sandstones.

(Date Stone above front door, "C.B. Adams 1850")

____

6520 Townline Road at corner with State Route 104. Built by J.R.
Willard 1848.

7127 Townline Road, built of small red cobbles.

5445 Route 21

This original cobblestone house at 4051 West Main Street (Ridge Road) in village of Williamson was constructed in 1838 as the home of Dr. Josiah Bennett, who died in 1850. He was succeeded by Dr. Westel Willoughby Ward, who had his office in an adjacent wooden building east of the house. About 1931 the house was altered to become a gas station. It is now abandoned and in greatly deteriorated condition.

This photo was taken in 1920 and shows Dr. Ward and his wife, Mary.

               Photo courtesy of Williamson Town Historian Perry Howland.

Same location in the 1940s. In a brief interview published in the Williamson Sun on December 1, 1948, Ed Ver How said, “I’ve laid up a few cobblestones, but I don’t know anything about it!” He said he had never seen a real cobblestone mason a work, but at the request of the owner, head had constructed the cobblestone peak on the local Cobblestone Service Station by simply following the pattern of the main building. Demonstrating with pencil and paper, he showed how the little egg shaped stones were laid in rows with lines of mortar above and below as well as between the individual stones, so that they would protrude a bit to give that characteristic cobblestone texture. The masons in the old days must have had a special to to do that with, he said. “Just how they laid the stones all so perfectly, I don’t know! Of course the cobblestones were just used as facing, with the main part of the wall behind them constructed of common field stones and mortar.” A subsequent scrutiny of the facade of the cobblestone service station on West Main Street, one could not tell the difference between what was done a century before and what Mr. Ver How had added.

Britton - Santee House

3653 Ridge Road Photo by Gene Bavis

Williamson Sun, July 28, 1949

118 Year Old Homestead

To Change Hands Here

An old cobblestone homestead which has been in the same family for four generations is about to be sold. This will be the first time that the house has been offered for sale since it has been in the Britton family or its descendants ever since it was built back in 1833 when cobblestone architecture was popular in this area.

It was 118 years ago Richard Britton and his wife, Ann, bride of only two years, left their naive England to undertake a seven week voyage across the Atlantic, at the end of which they sailed down the St. Lawrence River into Lake Ontario and landed at Pultneyville.

Almost immediately this first Britton, who according to “Landmarks of Wayne County” was a veterinary surgeon and farmer, purchased a tract of land just west of the village of Williamson on the Ridge and built there one of the early cobblestone houses in this area.

To Richard and his wife was born a son Joseph in the fall of 1833, to whom in his 28th year the father deeded the cobblestone homestead and its surrounding farm lands. Joseph, is in turn, had a daughter, Carrie M., who was born, lived most of her life and died in the old homestead. It is her son, Howard Santee, who is the present owner of the old place.

Howard Santee, who, of course, is the great grandson of the original Britton, now plans to dispose of the old homestead, which will be the first time in 118 years that the property has changed hands. It was originally purchased from Sir John L. Johnstone of England through Joseph Fellows, an early land agent.

The Wayne County Historical Society and Museum at Lyons will benefit by the selling of the old Britton place, in that the great grandson of the builder of the homestead, has presented to the Museum his mother’s (Mrs. Santee’s) beautiful ivory faille wedding dress, complete with veil and slippers, which she wore on here wedding day, February 18, 1892 when she was married from the old cobblestone homestead. The present owner also gave the Museum the suit in which his father was married and a most unusual pair of honeycomb pattern glass communion cups which were used in the old Wesleyan Church of Williamson where the Britton family worshipped. (Old timers of the Williamson area will remember that this old Wesleyan church building is now the West Main Street home of Mr. and Mrs. Albert Young.)

The old Britton home contains many antique pieces of furniture, some of which came from England. These and the tall grandfather clock, which has even in the family for many years, the great grandson will keep in the family.

Adams-Graboswki House, 2871 Ridge Road

Rochester Democrat & Chronicle

February 13, 1953

A Century Old Landmark

An old cobblestone farm house on the Ridge Road west of the village, is being restored. The "old Adams house," as it is called, has stood with its shoulder toward the Ridge since Zachary Taylor was president.

It has seen the Ridge Road change from a dusty trail to a busy modern highway and has watched surrounding woodlands and muck swamps change to productive farm lands.

The narrow end wall which faces the Ridge is made up with smooth cobblestones of uniform size, while the two side walls which extend back quite a distance are fashioned of cobblestones of a slightly larger size. The thresholds are huge slabs of gray stone. The second story windows under the sloping eaves are the small rectangular grill windows usually seen in cobblestone houses.

A little over a year ago this house passed out of the hands of the Adams family, afer being owned by it for well over 100 years. The new owners, Mr. and Mrs. Louis G. Clemens, who are now deep n the process of restoring the house.

Clemens, a former tin can manufacturer, has retired twice ... once in 1945 after which he went back to work again after a few months of leisure time, and again in 1952 after which he bought the 92-acre Adams farm and began seriously to learn to be a farmer, and to remodel the cobblestone house.

Two form front rooms have now been converted into a large sunny living room, dominated by a stone fireplace, whose attractive and rather unusual stones were picked up on the farm by the masons to lend a variety to the stonework.

Each window has a deep ledge and most of the windows have been restored with 13 lanes in the too sash and eight in the lower sash.

Huge square hand-hewn beams are built into the house and here and there hand-forged square headed nails are to be found. All these will remain to add to the beauty and sturdiness of the old house, although much of the old-time lath and plaster has been been removed from the interior walls and replaced by modern lath and plaster. Thus another Williamson landmark is being preserved for generations to come.

This two-story cobblestone building known as “The Beehive” once stood on East Main Street on the site of what was later the Hart Store building. It was called that because it was always a “beehive of activity.” It house a flour mill, undertaking establishment, flour mill and dried apple packing plant. Families lived on the scone floor. Its was torn down in the mid 1900s by Isaac Moon, Jacob Ver How and M. O. Engleson while preparing to build the Moorman-Ver How block, later the Hart block - From article, “The Beehive and the Band Stand,” Williamson Sentinel, August 24, 1950. This is now the site of Williamson Hardware Store, 4101 Main St.

4965 Main Street, East Williamson

4535 Ridge Road

First Baptist Church, 4214 Ridge Road, village of Williamson, built 1843.

It is surrounded by a wide frieze.

5621 Ridge Chapel Road

5875 Eddy Ridge Road. Cobblestone house with larger wooden

frame house built as later addition.

5810 Eddy Ridge Road. Stone house with cobblestone cobblestone
addition, probably original kitchen.

3520 Eddy Road

6554 Salmon Creek Road

6934 Bear Swamp Road

7076 Bear Swamp Road

3530 Shepherd Road, built 1834.

4442 Jersey Road

5149 Middle Road

This house at 4025 Lake Road was built in 1850 for Zimri Waters whose parents, Zimri and Mary, came from England in 1811. They were farmers. The house exterior is of water-washed stones gathered from the nearby shore of Lake Ontario. Philip Wemesfelder and a man named Cottrell are both mentioned as having been the mason. The carpenter was Rufus Moses. An account book states the house was built for $500 including labor and materials. The front porch was added about 1900.

4025 Lake Road

4092 Lake Road, Pultneyville, schoolhouse built in 1845.

As it appeared in 1955

Aaron Brewer's blacksmith shop at the end of Jay Street in 1902. That area has long since eroded away into Lake Ontario.

Another view of the blacksmith shop, courtesy of Perry Howland, Williamson town historian

Brothers Aaron and Cornelius Brewer operated this blacksmith shop at the foot of Jay Street and employed three to four men. Brewer lived at the corner of Washington and Jay streets in Pultneyville. His blacksmith shop was across from his home. He later sold out and moved to a farm near East Williamson.He committed suicide on March 14, 1899 at the age of 70. He adjusted a rope around his neck and then shot himself in the head with a revolver.

The point of land where the shop stood was gradually worn away by the action of the waves, until the water began to undermine the foundations of the building. As a result it cracked and sagged and finally had to be demolished. David Benedict was the last blacksmith to use the building. There was space enough between the building and the lake for a roadway for a team of horses. There was an outside flight of steps on the east side of the building.

Old timers recalled the big mill stone in the front yard, where the blacksmith would lay a wagon wheel, while he hammered the red hot iron tire into position on the felly, after heating it in the forge. The ringing of the strokes against the iron tires was as much of the sounds of the village as the pounding waves of the lake and rattling of anchor chains of ships.

This old mill stone originally came from the grist mill which stood near the bridge in Pultneyville. Later it was on the lawn of a house at the corner of Jay and Washington streets.

Wolcott

This cobblestone house once stood at the corner of Auburn and Oswego streets in the village of Wolcott. It was built in 1833-4 by Levi Smith Sr., an early settler in the area. A small store was located in the west end. It burned on February 2, 1909.

Lake Shore News

Wolcott, N.Y.,

September 6, 1906

Furnace Village School House

A correspondent writing of the Furnace village schoolhouse says no one knows who built it. It was built by Levi Smith, the same man who built the Foster cobblestone house in Wolcott. We have this on the authority of Wesley Hendrick, of Sterling Valley, who lived there when the school house was built.

Syracuse Post-Standard

Tuesday, February 9. 1909

Old Landmark Laid in Ruins

___

Cobblestone House at Wolcott

Succumbs to the Elements

___

WOLCOTT, Feb. 2. - The recent cold weather has proved too severe for one of the oldest landmarks of Wayne county and the old cobblestone house at the top of Mill hill in Wolcott village has become a heaped mass of stones and mortar. The building has served in turn as a tavern, a store and a dwelling, being finally vacated about five years ago by the late Mrs. Kimplin.

The building was erected by Levi Smith, one of the pioneer settlers of Wolcott, in 1833. Mr. Smith bought the land on which it stood from Johnston Melvin, being a part of a 500-acre tract which was granted to Melvin by the government in 1804. This parcel of land is now the northern part of Wolcott village.

It was built by Smith for a "cold water" tavern. Mr. Smith's enterprise failed and he turned the building into a country variety store, for which purpose it served many years. Later when the mercantile establishments of the village became located on the opposite side of Wolcott creek the building was converted into a dwelling and has since retained that appearance.

The cobblestones with which the wall was faced were carefully selected along the lake shore. They gave the appearance of being almost uniform in size and were laid with extreme regularity.

6583 Route 104A, Red Creek

6583 Route 104A, Red Creek, in 1955

The Furnace Village District 10 cobblestone school house is located at 6760 West Port Bay Road in the town of Wolcott. It has been extensively remodeled over the years. The Lakes Shore News of Wolcott on September 6, 1906 reported: “Furnace Village School House - A correspondent writing of the Furnace village school house, says no one knows who built it. It was built by Levi Smith, the same man who built the Foster cobblestone house in Wolcott. We have this on the authority of Wesley Hendrick, of Sterling Valley, who lived there when the school house was built.” Furnace Village, located north of Wolcott, at one included an foundry that produced farm implements, a saw mill and a dozen houses. It was first settled in 1805.

The school house as it appeared in 1955.

Wayne County Historian

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Cobblestone Buildings in Wayne County

Cobblestone Buildings in Wayne County, New York

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