larry barnes

While it may have been a foregone conclusion that former college professor Larry Barnes taught history while at Genesee Community College, given his proclivity for the stuff as long-running city historian of 16 years, those assumptions were not correct, he says.

Barnes cleared that up while accepting a certificate of appreciation for his service Monday at City Hall. 

“I taught classes at GCC for 37 years before becoming city of Batavia historian … I taught psychology courses,” he said. “How did I make the transition to history from psychology? When I retired from GCC, I started looking around for opportunities to do volunteer work in the community. Then I learned that the staff at the Office for the Aging helped to place volunteers,” he said. “Subsequently, with the assistance of OFA staff, I discovered that then County Historian Sue Conklin was actively seeking volunteers. Sue had received boxes of records from the years when Paul Weiss had served on City Council. And these records needed to be sorted and organized. So she said, 'would I be interested?' Well, why not? And soon I was off and running.

“In a nutshell, this is how I acquired the job as a volunteer in the County History Department,” he said. “Now let's cut to the chase. Long story short, the knowledge I acquired in working through these records fascinated me. Pretty soon I became a city of Batavia historian buff.”

All of that eventually led Barnes to author and co-author four books, write many monographs, and create several other oral presentations, all focusing on some aspect of City of Batavia history.

“In the 37 years I taught psychology classes I never imagined that here in 2024 I would be standing here in recognition not as a psychology instructor, but as Batavia’s city historian. I didn’t even know who Joseph Ellicott was,” he said, joking that he was certain all of the audience members knew. “I thought you might find this anecdote of interest. I also thought it might inspire a future historian.”

City Councilwoman Kathy Briggs read a proclamation to Barnes in honor of his service that began in 2008 and ended with retirement on Dec. 31, 2023. 

He has been an important resource for offering his knowledge of city history to any and all who has requested it, maintained historical records, compiled information, contributed useful data for historical records, has been involved with groups such as the Landmark Society of Genesee County, Batavia Historic Preservation Committee, Genesee County Historians Association, Government Appointed Historians of Western New York and the Association of Public Historian of New York State.

“Now, therefore, be it resolved the City Council of the City of Batavia does hereby congratulate Larry Barnes, city of Batavia historian, on his dedication and service to the city, and wish him and his family good health and happiness for years to come,” Briggs said.

Barnes wrote “Images of America: Batavia Revisited,” “A Polish Revolutionary in Batavia, His Wife & Descendants, & A House Divided,” and “Black Batavians: Who They Are, Their Local History, and Aspects of Our Larger Culture That Have Especially Shaped Their Experiences,” and co-authored “Genesee Community College: The First 50 Years” with Ruth Andes.

City resident and historian Larry Barnes studied the lives of Black people who lived, worked, and/or had gone to school in the city of Batavia at some point in their lives, and the resulting message was as much philosophical as it was statistical.

Barnes is grateful for the prior work of local writer Ruth McEvoy, who thumbed through news articles from 1880 onward, and developed a list of articles about people who were Black. “That was a starting point for me,” he said, “where they lived, what they were doing, if they were working.”

Those articles did more than record people’s actions and behaviors; they documented the limitations imposed on the Black population even after the slaves were officially freed in 1865, Barnes said.

There was discrimination, Barnes notes, by imposed and non-statutory means, including deed restrictions, employment restrictions, facility restrictions, such as at Godfrey’s Pond, land, mortgage, and property rental restrictions, and the deeply subjective problem of “driving while Black,” he said.

How did that impact the Black community? Less family wealth — three cents for every dollar of non-Blacks — and lower household incomes of 60 cents for every dollar, a shorter life expectancy, higher incidence of chronic diseases and a greater chance of dying in a pandemic, being shot by police, getting convicted of a crime and being imprisoned, he said.

One source that proved to be “very interesting” for his book, he said, was the local paper, which was quite specific in identifying people as being Polish or Italian or Black in news articles, especially when the tone of the piece looked unfavorably toward the person of color, he said. They would sometimes be boldly and crudely labeled, such as a “Black stick of licorice.”

Despite the obstacles, many Blacks have had notable achievements, he said, as documented on pages 14 through 19, including:

Lorraine Hansberry (1930-1965), a noted playwright and author whose plays were performed on Broadway and her best known work is “A Raisin in the Sun.”

Percy Julian (1899 to 1975), a research chemist and pioneer in the chemical synthesis of medicinal drugs from plants. His work laid the foundation for the production of cortisone and birth control pills.

Alain Le Roy Locke (1885 to 1954), a writer, philosopher, educator and patron of the arts who was a Rhodes Scholar and a significant contributor as a Black artist, writer, poet and musician to the Harlem Renaissance.

Barnes lists several random Black achievers, but more to the point of the book, Black Batavians have overcome and achieved much in their own right, namely the adversity of frequently having been descendants of slaves with limited knowledge of the individuals from whom they came from or precisely from there their ancestors originated, he said. 

“They have been uniquely subjected to especially long-term persecution and discrimination, including being the target of Jim Crow laws,” Barnes writes. 

“And we also observed that, largely as the result of their history, as a group, American Blacks fare less well than most other groups in personal wealth, income, health, and encounters with our country’s justice system,” he states in the book. “Finally, and this needs to be stressed, despite these differences, Blacks have, again and again, excelled in all cases of life activities. I have provided five pages of examples to drive home a point often ignored.”

There’s Mattie Butler, born in 1865, who was a personal cook for President Benjamin Harrison, who served from 1889 to 1893, and was a housemaid at Harrison’s executive mansion in Indianapolis. After later moving to Batavia, she worked at Scott and Bean’s and Henning’s department stores, dying in 1935.

Rev. Raymond Walker graduated from Byron-Bergen Central School and enlisted in the Marine Corps, later becoming a Genesee County Sheriff’s deputy and earning a master’s degree. Walker taught history at Batavia Middle School and later was assistant principal at BHS until he retired in 2005. 

Dean Edwards, a BHS 1988 graduate, is an entertainer who works as a standup comedian, actor, singer, writer and musician who joined the cast of Saturday Night Live in 2001 for two seasons and has worked as a voice actor, staff writer and has appeared in commercials.

The late Dr. Diane London directed the medical response in 1994 when an Amtrak derailment injured 109 passengers near Batavia, and more than 500 volunteers responded. She was the emergency doctor and medical director at Genesee County Health Department, had a medical office in Batavia, and practiced emergency medicine at United Memorial Medical Center, St. Mary’s Hospital in Lewiston and Lockport Memorial Hospital. 

Want to know about more awesome Black Batavians? The book, “Black Batavians: Who They Are, Their Local History, and Aspects of Our Larger Culture That Have Especially Shaped Their Experiences,” is on reserve at Richmond Memorial Library and available at Holland Land Office Museum, and Genesee County History Department.

By studying the lives of Black Batavians, Barnes spotted a trend, he said. 

“What you find over a period of time, is that, before World War II, Blacks were employed in menial jobs that didn’t require much education, and after WW II, jobs were more evenly distributed, and Blacks began to move into positions that did require advanced education,” he said. 

By the 1970s, the Black population had grown rather significantly, he said, by 10 percent, in the city of Batavia.   

People from larger cities of Buffalo and Rochester were attracted to this area’s socio-economic, safety and physical attributes that came with a smaller, rural city, he said. 

What did Barnes glean from his research about the Black population? That, because of their association with slavery, Blacks bring a different perspective — one that shapes how much of the Black population looks at the world, he said.

“Many people are surprised to learn there were slaves in Batavia in the early 1800s,” he said. “If you were a descendant of a slave, you wouldn’t know who your ancestors were. People who are Black often came here from a part of the country where Jim Crow laws are in effect.”

Bryan Stevenson, a Black lawyer, Harvard graduate and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, asserts that “we will never achieve really good race relations in our society until we acknowledge and face up to our history,” Barnes said. “An attitude of white supremacy made slavery tolerable and, later, the Jim Crow era virtually inevitable.

“And it isn’t just a Southern problem, however, but an all-American problem. Racism permeates our society,” he said.

You can read more about Stevenson’s thoughts and Barnes’ reflections on the topic, and he leaves the reader with a challenge.

“In any event, it’s time for action,” Barnes said. “Each of us can play a part. What are you going to do to help end the legacy of slavery?”

He may not have been a City of Batavia resident for long before being appointed city historian, but whatever Larry Barnes may have lacked in residential longevity, he made up for with a growing passion.

It was while serving as an assistant to then County Historian Sue Conklin that Barnes became involved in researching city government — sifting through all sorts of materials and, as a result, becoming quite interested in the city.

That was more than a decade and a half ago.

“It’s been a tremendous experience, I’m really going to miss it,” Barnes said during an interview with The Batavian at his second-floor City Hall office. “It’s been a major part of my life for 16 years.” 

Since those humble beginnings, he has gone through a city centennial celebration, watched the unfolding process of the historic Brisbane Mansion — aka current police station — become a prospective boutique hotel or serve some other purpose as a new police facility moves toward final plans. He has researched several requests about homes that have physically been moved or relatives’ ancestors or other Batavia history, though he’s quick to tell you he’s not one’s personal genealogist. He has written books about the city’s most prominent people and places, and been quoted dozens of times over the years for news articles about the birthplace of western New York.

Batavia was once a village, founded in 1827, and became a city in 1915. Eight years ago, there was a grand centennial splash, despite a whirling blizzard that helped all ring in the New Year on Dec. 31, 2014.

In true western or upstate, take your pick, New York fashion, it was a windy, blustery, snowy, icy cold — and certainly not cooperative — evening for the plans the centennial committee had made for the outdoor portion of the event. 

But Barnes had committed to do his part as city historian.

“I remember standing on a platform trying to give a talk to a very small audience,” Barnes said. “Most of the people had gone inside where it was warm.”

And now as we approach the city’s 108th birthday, and another eight years for Barnes since that frigid night, he couldn’t help but also recall how his predecessor didn’t think he had the chops for the job, having only lived in Batavia a mere few years and all. But he’s also well aware of the fact that it doesn’t take one’s personal upbringing to be a good historian. 

Not that Barnes didn’t bring an attractive portfolio to the position; he began teaching at Genesee Community College in 1968, lived in the towns of Batavia and Byron and built a home in the City of Batavia in 2005, where he had lived for three years before taking the job. 

The city’s first historian was William Coon, who seemingly fell into the role as the city attorney, and was appointed by the mayor in 1919. He died in office after serving until 1953, which is something Barnes most definitely did not aspire to, he said: “My goal was to not die in office,” he said.

The last historian was Corinne Iwanicki, who served from 1995 to 2007, and she was succeeded by Barnes, who was the sixth city historian and the first one to be paid, if only for a short time. The position was not paid until this past year, when City Council agreed to provide a stipend. 

There also was no formal job description until former City Manager Jason Molino and Barnes worked on one that was officially approved by City Council in 2010.

Over the years, Barnes has researched various landmarks, people and happenings, such as where the first bridge was located in Batavia, when railroads changed to their current location and why, what happened to certain houses in the city, including some formerly located where the Southside roundabout is now. 

Barnes received so many questions about relocated homes that he wrote a small book about 40 houses that have been physically moved to other locations. 

“If I get interesting questions, I will do that,” he said. 

His own questions piled up about a certain population in the city that seemed to go undocumented, and Barnes wanted to do something about that. While he noticed that quite a lot had been written about Italian, Polish and Irish residents whose families had emigrated to the United States, there was nothing about Black Batavians, he said.

The first simple but pointed question had to be; who is a Black Batavian? Do you go by the color of one’s skin, or facial features, or ancestors? Answer: the person is a Black Batavian if they or someone else defines them as such, he said. 

For more about his latest book, go to: “Black Batavians: Who They Are, Their Local History, and Aspects of Our Larger Culture That Have Especially Shaped Their Experiences.”

Larry Barnes — the go-to guru of all things related to the City of Batavia's history for the last 16 years — will be resigning his post effective Dec. 31, he says.

Barnes met with City Manager Rachael Tabelski Wednesday to personally deliver his letter of resignation and give an official 30-day notice. He decided to leave for a number of reasons, he said, including health issues and “it’s time to move on.”

“It’s been a terrific experience. I’ve learned a lot about the community in the process of doing the research for the books that I’ve written and the monographs that I’ve written, and just in terms of putting together talks and that sort of thing,” Barnes said to The Batavian Thursday. “State law requires that we have an appointed city historian.”

As of 2010, an official job description went into effect for the position, he said, which requires that the proper candidate live in the City of Batavia and is not allowed to keep city documents outside of the office maintained at City Hall.

City Code states that “there shall be a City Historian as required by Article 57 of the Arts and Cultural Affairs Law of the State of New York,” and that “the City Historian shall be appointed by the City Manager with a term of office of four years. The City Historian may be appointed to consecutive terms by the City Manager. The City Historian must be a resident of the City of Batavia.”

Barnes has authored several books, and more recently scripted a play about Brisbane Mansion, which has been a hot topic of late. City officials are mulling options for the property, currently housing the city police department, and a consultant proposed two possibilities of selling it to a developer for use of a boutique hotel or market-rate apartments.

Barnes has been a proponent of repurposing the Main Street site and not letting it falter or be demolished, paths that other pieces of city history have taken in the past.

“That building definitely needs to remain, it shouldn't be torn down like many other historical buildings have been. And the proposal that has just been presented, either a boutique hotel or apartments or a combination of the two, would be ideal, I think.”

Barnes, a retired educator, has been quite active in the community, either serving or having served with several history-related groups, including the Landmark Society of Genesee County, Batavia Historic Preservation Committee, Genesee County Historians Association, Government Appointed Historians of Western New York and the Association of Public Historians of New York State.

For nearly his entire city historian career, Barnes has done the work as a volunteer. City Council just approved a yearly pay of $5,000 this past year. 

He and his wife Jerianne plan to stay in the community, Barnes said. 

Always one to offer up tidbits of history, he added that Jerianne’s first name has not always been this. In fact, it wasn’t until five decades later that she changed her original name to Jerry Louise, he said.

Her parents had planned to name their impending child Jerry Lewis for a boy and instead named their baby girl Jerry Louise. Hating all of her life, Jerry decided to give herself a 50th birthday present and had her name changed to Jerianne Louise.

While not really a part of Barnes’ retirement, Jerianne has been part of his life, and therefore the history indeed belongs with the historian.

Press Release:

Richmond Memorial Library will host its Spring program of History by the Hearth on Thursday, June 8 at 7 p.m. 

City Historian Larry Barnes will share his research as presented in a new monograph:  "Black Batavians: Who they are, their local history, and aspects of our larger culture that have especially shaped their experiences."

Deborah Wood, Special Collections Librarian at Richmond Memorial Library, will finish the evening with Within the Collective Memory: Why now? And a sneak peek at the exhibit Juneteenth: A Day of Celebration, on display June 15-21.

Richmond Memorial Library is located at 19 Ross Street in the City of Batavia. Find the library online at batavialibrary.org. 

If all goes according to the plan laid out by City Manager Rachael Tabelski, the date April 11, 2022 will be one for the record books.

That’s when the Batavia City Council will vote on a resolution introduced by Tabelski to compensate Larry Barnes for his work as the city historian – a job that he has performed with zest on a volunteer basis since 2008.

Speaking at Council’s Conference Meeting tonight at the City Centre Council Board Room, Tabelski acknowledged the fine work by Barnes, a retired educator who has written several books about local history. If passed at the next Business Meeting on April 11, Barnes would receive an annual stipend of $5,000 for his efforts.

“(Barnes) is an author who is working on a book now about Batavia during the (COVID-19) pandemic,” said Tabelski, noting in a memo to Council that Barnes recently was reappointed to a four-year term.

Council member Robert Bialkowski threw his support behind Barnes, noting that he is “a very conscientious person, and we’re lucky to have him.”

Barnes has been or currently is involved with several history groups, including the Landmark Society of Genesee County, Batavia Historic Preservation Committee, Genesee County Historians Association, Government Appointed Historians of Western New York and the Association of Public Historians of New York State.

In other developments, Council moved the following resolutions to the April 11 meeting:

• An extension of the School Resource Officer contract with the Batavia City School District for two more years, through June 30, 2024, with Officer Miah Stevens expected to continue in that role. Provisions of the agreement call for the school district to pay 100 percent of the officer’s salary and benefits, including overtime.

“I believe the program has gone exceptionally well,” said Tabelski, referring to the communication with school officials over parking and traffic issues. “The officer (also) provides services to the students, administration and faculty.”

Police Chief Shawn Heubusch said that Stevens “loves her job … and they love having her. It’s a win-win on both sides.”

• Creation of a temporary full-time detective position to keep the police department fully staffed when a current detective retires, likely this summer.  The temporary post carries an increase in pay of $15,000 to cover the promotion, Tabelski said.

City Council President Eugene Jankowski Jr. applauded the idea, stating that “it will save us time, effort and money” while the new detective works along side the current one to learn the ins-and-outs of the job and create a smooth transition.

Another resolution – awarding a contract with Pace Analytical for analysis of potable water and wastewater -- was approved during a Special Business Meeting tonight.

Pace, the lone bidder, will receive $9,414 for laboratory services at the Water Treatment Facility and $10,010 for similar services at the Waste Water Treatment Plant.

Representatives of Arcadia Publishing have been traveling to communities across the country for at least 10 years for their "Images of America" series, and last winter they approached Larry D. Barnes, Batavia's resident historian.

According to Barnes, the South Carolina-based publishing company, which published another book on Batavia -- simply titled "Batavia" -- about 10 years ago, wanted to "take another look" at the city and its history.

Barnes' book, "Batavia Revisited," will explore different topics and feature different photos -- of which there are about 220 in all -- from the first book. It covers many of the major events that reshaped the city's appearance, including:

• The relocation of the railroad tracks to the outskirts of town;

• The construction of the Oak Street Bridge; and

• The Urban Renewal of the 1960s and early 1970s

As a book that relies heavily on the use of photographs, "Batavia Revisited" is mainly focused on the period from 1860 onward. However, Barnes includes an introduction dealing with Batavia's earlier history, which goes back to the early 1800s.

"I also try to straighten out some misinformation over the years (about Batavia's history)," Barnes said. "For example, I've found over and over again in my research, that the person most people think built the Old City Hall had been dead for two years (before it was built). It was his son who built it."

Barnes is a retired Genesee Community College professor and a volunteer with the Genesee County History Department. He taught psychology, but describes history as a "second career."

"It's a personal interest of mine," he said. "I do a lot of (historical) writing and research."

The book will be on sale starting Jan. 17, and will be available for purchase at Present Tense books on Wasington Avenue (and probably at the Holland Land Office Museum as well).

For more information on the book, please visit its page on Arcadia Publishing.