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T1860 was an eventful year across the country and around the world. Slavery was prohibited in the Dutch East Indies. In England, Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution was hotly debated at Oxford University. Charles Dickens began publishing Great Expectations in serial form, and Mary Ann Evans (also known as George Eliot) wrote The Mill on the Floss.
Here in the United States, William Russell, Alexander Majors, and William B. Waddell founded the Pony Express and began communicating with the Western world. The collapse of the Pemberton factory in Massachusetts killed hundreds of workers, many of them Irish immigrants. Abraham Lincoln was elected president and South Carolina seceded from the Union, creating a domino effect throughout the South. This year was supposed to be the last year of relative peace before the war, which divided the country in two.
In rural Yates County, newspapers advertised fire insurance policies, questionable treatments, stores offering “luxury goods,” and published death notices and lists of men selected for juries. A newspaper published a history of the Methodist Church in Western New York. These were standard notices and articles published in his mid-19th century newspapers.
A notice in the margin of page 3 of the February 2, 1860 issue. Yates County Chronicle But no. It read, “Old settlers of Yates County and their descendants, please keep in mind the meeting of the Yates County Historical Society to be held at the courthouse next Saturday. We expect a valuable and interesting address from Judge Lewis.” The organization of the Society may be completed at this time, and appropriate measures taken to collect all historical facts relating to the early days of white settlement and, as far as possible, all Indian occupation in this area. Everyone who can contribute to this important research will benefit the public by doing so.”
Another notice on the same page, posted by association president Russell A. Hunt and secretary John L. Lewis Jr., says much the same thing. In both notices, the association emphasized the importance of the region’s Native American history and the county’s “civil and religious history.” What is particularly noteworthy about the founding of this association is that it was founded in 1860. At that time, the county was only 37 years old. For very new communities to realize that they need to start preserving their history, especially at a time when historic buildings were being torn down to make way for new style homes and ruins were being stolen for souvenirs. It took incredible foresight. Founded on that day, February 4, 1860, the society is now known as the Yates County Historical Center and is her fourth oldest historical society in the state.
important memory
The organization of the association came into being at just the right time. Many of Yates County’s early non-Native residents are deceased or have recently passed away. Their children left some first-hand records, but they were getting older. Connections with the first wave of people who established farms in the wilderness were becoming tenuous.
Hunt and Lewis were integral parts of the county’s history.
Hunt (1795-1863) was the grandson of Adam Hunt, a member of the Public Universal Friends, who brought his family to Milo from Rhode Island. Perhaps it is thanks to Russell Hunt that the Yates County History Center will take care of Adam Hunt’s wedding costume, our oldest costume, his 1761 hand-woven wool three-piece suit. I guess it happened.
Lewis (1813-1889) was the son of John Lewis, who taught in a modest one-room schoolhouse in Benton in 1802 after graduating from Yale University. Lewis Jr. also taught school in Benton, and after reading law with William Oliver, twin brother of Dr. Andrew Oliver, who built Oliver House, he became a lawyer. He later became a judge. Lewis was an avid student of history and tried to learn to speak Seneca. Today, Lewis is best known for his large obelisk headstone in Lakeview Cemetery.
These bright and intelligent people will be grateful that we have evolved into the museum we are today. As the Society grew, we moved to the basement of the library. Then, Carrie Oliver generously donated her family home to the Village of Penn Yan, and we were given a room in the Oliver House, followed by the entire second floor. Eventually, our collection filled the entire Oliver House.
Now, the Underwood Museum and Scherer Carriage House are also located next door. As we grew and our building grew, so did our collection. We currently have the largest collection of public universal Friend artifacts and archival materials, including Friend’s 1790 Coachee. There are early portraits of Dr. Cornwell, the Oliver twins, Dr. Abraham Wagner, Dr. Joshua Lee and Dr. Sophia Lee, and many other early notables. We carry a wide selection of Oliver family books, glassware, furniture, and souvenirs from overseas travels. We have dozens of collections of his late 18th- and early 19th-century medical texts and equipment, a vast collection of textiles and costumes, photographs dating back to 1860, family documents, business ledgers, and other archival materials. We have it in our collection. We have a large collection of petitions signed by suffrage supporters in Yates County.
We are proud to have been collecting and preserving the memories of Yates County residents for 164 years. A meeting of several Yates County residents interested in 1860 history helped create this wonderful repository and educational tool that has been used for generations.
But we’ve now reached a point where we need to expand again. We are excited to finally be able to build a new structure that will allow us to provide even more accommodations to Yates County’s history. To complete this work, we are launching the Home for History Capital campaign. Thanks to generous donors, the project is just $150,000 away from its goal. The building will include climate control to provide the perfect environment for the crafts, and part of the building will be used to store larger items and serve as an exhibition space where the public can view these crafts. also works. This expansion allows us to keep your memories and history safe for future generations.
The history of the Yates County History Center is a lesson in how a few forward-thinking people can work with the community to create places of preservation and learning that benefit the entire community.
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