history

A few weeks ago, I was chatting with Anne Barone who told me how her husband, City Councilman Sam Barone, has always wanted to know what happened with the "naked lady statue" that used to be in Austin Park. Wouldn't that be an interesting story to tell, she mused.

Such was the genesis of The Batavian's newest series: Mysteries of Genesee County's History. It has one goal: Search out the lost memories and forgotten stories from our county and find out what happened.

In order to find some answers to our first mystery—the naked lady statue that went missing from Austin Park—I recruited Batavia's City Historian Larry Barnes to sleuth about. Larry filed the following report this morning:

A couple weeks ago, I received a call from Philip Anselmo of TheBatavian who wondered if I knew what had become of the “naked lady” in Austin Park.  The “naked lady,” Anselmo explained, was a statue that Councilman Sam Barone remembered seeing in his youth but then disappeared from the Park.  I didn’t have an answer initially, but with some detective work I have discovered that the “naked lady” has gone to Cincinnati.

The “naked lady” of Barone’s recollections is a life-sized bronze statue of a pubescent female holding aloft a bowl designed to hold water from which birds can drink.  In fact, the statue includes a bird flitting by the arm of the young girl.  The girl herself is not actually naked, but her garment is so thin that her anatomical features including navel and nipples are fully revealed.

The statue is the creation of an internationally renowned artist, Bessie Potter Vonnoh.  It was given to the City in 1931 for placement in Austin Park by Frances Washburn, wife of the County Judge, Edward Washburn.  It was intended to be part of a bird sanctuary in the Park.  An identical figure is part of a fountain group in Central Park in New York City.

The City had great plans for Austin Park.  A design developed by landscape architect Harold Olmsted included a band shell, pool, tennis courts, playing field, playground, comfort station, winding paths, and elaborate landscaping.  Most of this never materialized; and by the 1960s, Austin Park had fallen into a state of deterioration hastened by recurring vandalism. It was about this time that the “naked lady” was rescued from an uncertain fate.

The statue’s rescuer was Rowena Atwater, the daughter of donor Frances Washburn.  Mrs. Washburn was now dead; and Mrs. Atwater took the statue home to her garden.  That garden was next to the white house on East Main Street now owned by GCASA.  The statue remained in its new haven until the death of Rowena Atwater.

In 1996, the adult children of Mrs. Atwater, Edward, James and Julian Atwater, donated the “naked lady” to the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester.  The Gallery placed the statue in the Fountain Court, located inside the main entrance to the Gallery.  Ordinarily, if you were to visit the Gallery, you could see the statue of Sam Barone’s memory standing in the left rear corner.

Today, however, the “naked lady” of Austin Park is on tour.  Currently, she is visiting the Cincinnati Art Museum.  So, you’ll have to travel some distance if you want an up close and personal view.  I can’t resist saying that this is what happens when a community doesn’t honor its cultural treasures.  The “naked lady” has gone the way of the Cary Mansion, the Richmond Mansion, and other wonders that once distinguished our fair city.  At least she hasn’t landed in a landfill.

Be sure to check back in a few weeks for our next Mystery of Genesee County's History.

Photo courtesy of the Memorial Art Gallery Web site.

Folks looking for a good haunting with a touch of local history will get several chances to tour the eerie side of downtown Batavia in the month of October, according to the Daily News. City Ghost Walks kick off this Friday.

Tours out of the east end of the city start at GO ART! Cultural Center and stop at the Masonic Temple, the Cary Mansion, the Mancuso Theater (now City Church), St. Joseph's Church and Richmond Mansion. From there, folks will head to Ross Street and learn about a few haunted houses at Nos. 20, 39 and 41 Ross St., then head on to Present Tense Bookstore at 101 Washington Ave. West end tours start at the Genesee County History Department on West Main Street, where County Historian Sue Conklin will show off her copper divining rods.

Joanne Beck writes of the west end itinerary:

Visitors will tour the former Engine House building and move onto 4 Mix Place, once granted a permit to be a burial ground. The tour also includes the Oak Street Specter and the first known graveyard on the corner of Oak and West Main Streets, where seven known hangings and the man "who was hung twice" occurred.

There's just too much great history and eeriness packed into these walks. Don't know about anyone else, but I'm darned excited.

East end tours will run on October 3, 17 and 24. Two runs will head out each evening, one at 6:00pm and another at 7:30pm. West end tours will run on October 10 and 24, also twice each evening at the same times. Cost is $10 per person. Visit the cultural center's calendar of events for more info.

We encourage you to pick up a copy of the Daily News at your local newsstand. Or, better yet, subscribe at BataviaNews.com.

Charles Rand lands at Number 14 in the Holland Land Office Museum's countdown of The Twenty-Five Things That Made Genesee County Famous. Well, it turns out that The Batavian visited the museum a couple months back and put together a video with Museum Director Pat Weissend on that very subject

Don't forget to visit the museum Web site for even more on Rand and the other things that made Genesee County famous.

Richmond Memorial Library will host a book lunch today in the library's Gallery Room at 19 Ross Street in Batavia. Folks are encouraged to come by to hear Bill Kauffman talk about his new book (that's it here to the right) while they eat lunch. They call it "Books Sandwiched In," and it starts at 12:10pm and runs to about 1:00pm, long enough to get a healthy dose of culture, but not too long that you can't make it on your lunch break from work.

From the press release:

Bill Kauffman will talk about his new book, Forgotten Founder, Drunken Prophet: The Life of Luther Martin. The Friends of the Library co-sponsor this free program. Bring your lunch; coffee, tea and cookies are provided.  All welcome. For more information, call the library at (585) 343-9550, ext. 8 or log on to www.batavialibrary.org.

Coming in at No. 15 in the Holland Land Office Museum countdown of The Twenty-Five Things That Made Genesee County Famous is the only court case to have orginated in Genesee County that was heard by the United States Supreme Court. This was in 1857.

It all started when a representative of the Ogden Land Company, Joseph Fellows, tried to take the land of the Tonawanda Indian Reservation. Tonawanda Seneca Sachem John Blacksmith wouldn't have it. (A sachem is a sort of Native American king, by the way.) Blacksmith sued the land company and his case was eventually heard by the supreme court.

If you want to know what happened next, check out the full article by Museum Director Pat Weissend. While you're at the the museum's Web site, you can isten to podcasts of some of the other big things that made the list of The Twenty-Five Things That Made Genesee County Famous.

The building that became known to the world as the first-ever business incubator earns a spot in the Holland Land Office Museum's countdown of The Twenty-Five Things That Made Genesee County Famous.

Museum Director Pat Weissend relates the history of this famous plant:

In 1886, the Johnson Harvester Company of Brockport, NY moved to Batavia following a fire in the Brockport plant. Company officials chose Batavia because the railroad lines that came through the village would make the shipment of product easier. Also, local citizens purchased 14 acres of land along Cemetery Street and donated it to the company to build its plant. Cemetery Street was renamed Harvester Avenue.

In 1910, a controlling interest in the Johnson Harvester Company was acquired by the Massey-Harris Company of Canada. One of the more well known products of the Massey-Harris Company was the Clipper Combine.

In 1953, the company merged with Harry Ferguson Limited of England and became Massey-Harris-Ferguson. Five years later, the name was shortened to Massey-Ferguson.

After the plant closed a few years after the merger with Ferguson Limited, the city began the search for a new tenant. When no one could be persuaded to take over the enormous space—industrial plants all over the nation were beginning to close their doors at the time—Charles Mancuso was charged with the task of filling the space. So was born the business incubator.

Mancuso came up with the idea to rent portions of the building to small manufacturing firms until they were large enough to strike out on their own. This type of arrangement allowed startup businesses to save money and resources until they grew enough to go out on their own.

One of the first tenants to the Industrial Center was a chicken company. Mr. Mancuso was traveling around the US looking for other potential tenants and spreading the word about Genesee County. He used the chicken company as an example, and started calling it an incubator. Mancuso invented the world's first business incubator. Today, there are an estimated 5,000 business incubators in the world. In Anshan City, China there is a statue of Joseph Mancuso, the father of the business incubator.

Visit the museum's Web site for more about the business incubator and to keep up with the countdown of The Twenty-Five Things That Made Genesee County Famous.

This may be my favorite video at the Holland Land Office Museum so far—and Map Measuring Madness is not easy to beat! I won't say anything about this one. As Pat Weissend said to me: You don't want to ruin the surprise factor. Enjoy!

The Holland Land Office Museum continues its countdown of The Twenty-Five Things That Made Genesee County Famous with the recounting, at No. 17, of a tale of wartime heroism. This story provides a nice counterpoint to last time when Museum Director Pat Weissend told us the sordid tale of a cuckold who kills his wife's lover and gets off scot-free.

When American morale took a blow after the bombing by Japan of Pearl Harbor during World War II, Lt. Col. James Doolittle organized a counter-strike. His plan was to load sixteen B-25 twin-engine bombers, take off from the deck of the USS Hornet and bomb Tokyo. Batavia's Eddie York (née Edward J. Chichowski) was pilot of plane number eight.

Pat Weissend tells us the rest of the story:

York knew he didn’t have enough fuel to make it to friendly mainland China, so he headed to Siberia in the Soviet Union instead. He landed his plane near Vladivostok in the Soviet Russia and planned on refueling and heading to China. At the landing site, Russian troops took the crew into custody. A Japanese unit showed up shortly after, and demanded the American crew be turned over to them. The Soviet Union and Japan were not at war at that point, so the crew was held by the Russians. After 13 months of captivity the crew escaped through Persia and eventually returned to the United States.

For more on this tale and to keep up with the countdown, visit the museum Web site.

In February, Present Tense Books, hosted a talk by Josh on Patti Pacino centered around old photographs Patti's father either took or collected of old Batavia.

The collection of photos is posted here.

It contains a number of photos related to the destruction of the north side of Main Street to make room for the mall many people, including City Council President Charlie Mallow, call an eyesore.

Here is a video slide show I put together of from those old photos:

I haven't found anybody so far -- long-time resident or not -- who has good things about the mall.  Even Mitchell Chess, president of the Mall Merchant's Association, doesn't come across as a particular fan. With all of the conversation about the mall on The Batavian this week, not a single commenter has come forward to say it should be saved.

In a back-and-forth with Mallow over whether we were hyping his statement that parts of the mall (which, frankly, I too quickly turned into "all of the mall") should be razed, I quipped, "Mr. Mallow, tear down that mall," which was good for some comic relief.

But it can also serve as a rallying cry. 

Not everybody is pleased that there is so much heated discussion over the mall, but sometimes in such discussions a vibrancy can be found for finding new solutions to old problems.

Nobody has a plan yet, and the city and the MMA are spending way too much time on signs, bird poop and whether Bob Bialkowski has a conflict of interest, but the community needs to move beyond these trivial matters and focus on a long-term solution to the eyesore of a mall. 

A good plan will improve downtown, not waste taxpayer money, help the current merchants find new Main Street-facing shops and create jobs.

Mr. Mallow, tear down that mall.

Who is Edward Newton Rowell? And why is he so special that he warrants a place—at No. 18—among "The Twenty-Five Things That Made Genesee County Famous"? Well, he's a man at the center of a story of intrigue: a story of lies, trysts, jealousy... and murder. His tale is a tale of strange times past, and it's told brilliantly by none other than our very own paragon of local history, Pat Weissend, director of the Holland Land Office Museum.

Pat's done such a great job with this one that we won't even attempt a summary here. Just get over to the site and read it for yourself. While you're there, don't forget to poke around—the site is loaded with other fun facts, podcasts and virtual exhibits.

Genesee Community College lands at Number 19 in the Holland Land Office Museum's countdown of "The Twenty-Five Things That Made Genesee County Famous." Museum Director Pat Weissend tells us that when the county first imagined building a community college — back in the early 1960s — county leaders had little hope that it would ever be a success. In fact, explains Weissend, the Board of Supervisors at the time didn't think enrollment would ever exceed 75 students!

Along came the Batavia Area Jaycees, who were a little dubious of the results, and they put  together a survey of their own. Here's what they found out:

1.        A community desire for a two year college

2.        The need for a community college

3.        The financial ability to support the college

4.        Favorable economic growth in the region

5.        Population Increase

6.        A sufficient student population for a college

When the first classrooms opened in September, 1967, the first class numbered 378 full-time and 243 part-time students. Today, there are about 6,500 students enrolled at the institution that now offers nearly 60 degrees and certifcates.

Visit the Holland Land Office Museum Web site for more information on Genesee Community College and the other things that made Genesee County Famous.

Holland Land Office Museum Director Pat Weissend tells us why our forebears saw fit to end New York state at Lake Erie instead of just continuing on to the Mississippi... or on to the Pacific. Why not? Pat tells us. Also included in this third installment of our series on what's going on over at that museum is Pat's explanation of why Transit Road is called Transit Road. Really, this one's a gem, folks. Enjoy!

From muck to dirt, the countdown of the "Twenty-Five Things That Made Genesee County Famous" rolls right along.

Number 20 was announced this afternoon as the Hiscock Site in Byron. Holland Land Office Museum Director Pat Weissend explains:

Known locally as the Byron Dig, the site is an ongoing archeology dig in the Town of Byron. In 1959, landowner Charles Hiscock was digging a pond on his property when his backhoe pulled up a mastodon tusk. ... To date, less than one-quarter of the 52-acre Buffalo Museum of Science-owned property has been explored.

Visit the Holland Land Office Museum Web site for more information on the Hiscock Site and the other things that made Genesee County Famous.

Who knew muck could be a claim to fame... It's dirty. It sounds gross. It doesn't contribute anything to society. What has muck done for you and me?

But before we get to that bizarre question, let's start simple: What is muck? Holland Land Office Museum Director Pat Weissend takes up the question in his latest post in the countdown of "The 25 Things that Made Genesee County Famous."

As Pat says:

Muck? What is muck? That is a question often asked by visitors to our county. What is this land with such an unusual name? Muck is a black soil that is left behind after swamplands are drained. The soil is made up mostly of humus. The mucklands in northern Genesee County and southern Orleans are thought to be the largest continuous section of this type of soil in the world. To create muck, wetlands must be drained, and because of environmental concerns, it is unlikely that any more mucklands will be created in the United States.

Pat gets into much more detail than that on the museum's Web site, so be sure to check it out. Also, we here at The Batavian — inexcusably in my own estimation — forgot to post a reminder when Number 22 in the countdown was released a couple weeks ago: Iroquois National Wildlife Refuge. So go check that out, too.

Last week, the Holland Land Office Museum announced the first "thing" to make the list of the "Twenty-Five Things That Made Genesee County Famous," a six-month countdown of the oddities, happenings, dudes, dames, places and episodes in history that put our lovely county on the map — and you thought a cartographer did that, ha ha ha.

Some of us were a little surprised to find that the New York State Thruway eked its way onto the list, even if it was onto the bottom rung of the ladder. I don't know about the rest of you, but whenever I hear "thruway," I tend to cringe. I remember that it costs about a buck and a quarter to get from Henrietta to Batavia on that gum-stained stretch of barren road that has about as much of a personality as a sleeping Parisian. But even the not-so-pretty things sometimes warrant a niche in our collective history. Take Louis XIV, for example.

So... what is Number 24, you ask? Or should we say who?

Why, it's none other than Mr. John Kennedy, that paragon of pedagogy, that eponymous father to Batavia's grade school, that Englishman turned Midwestern calvaryman who came to Batavia in 1890 to take over as superintendent of schools.

As HLOM Director Patrick Weissend writes of Kennedy: "Visitors to Genesee County often think the elementary school on Vine Street in the City of Batavia is named after the 35th President of the United States, but even the kindergarteners attending the school will correct you and tell you its “JK” not JFK."

Be sure to visit the Holland Land Office Museum Web site to keep up with the other 23 "things" forthcoming. And be sure to check back with The Batavian next Friday to hear about Number 23.

So it begins... The Holland Land Office Museum kicked off its countdown of "The Twenty-Five Things that Made Genesee County Famous."

And what, you ask, was the first to make the list?

None other than that 500 mile stretch of bleached tarmac and costly tolls otherwise known as the Governor Thomas E. Dewey Thruway, "the longest toll road in America."

Visit the HLOM site for more info and to keep up with the countdown.

In Episode Two of our living history series at the Holland Land Office Museum, Pat Weissend tells us about a pair of Civil War medals on exhibit. Check it out:

We'll be back at the museum before long, so be sure to watch for the next episode!

For a short while in 1895, the newspaper that proudly proclaimed itself "a good organ" in service to farmer, merchant and tradesman alike shrunk its name from The Progressive Batavian to the simple yet stately: The Batavian. What a pleasure it was for us here at the contemporary Batavian — no less stately, no less of a service to farmer and citizen alike — to discover our progenitor in the drawers of microfiche at the Richmond Memorial Library.

As evidence of our continued service as a good and vital organ of the people, we have initiated this series of revisits to our shared past: that bizarre world of tonics, dames, davenports, milliners, philtres and... pugilists. So we turn back the clock 113 years to August 17, 1895, to peek in on the news of the times on that particular dog day of summer.

Before we delve into the tale of the wife of a pugilist, let us look at some of the other headlines from the day.

"This is Tough: Providence, a Lawyer and a Woman Make an Unhappy Combination for One Man" is a short tale of woe about a man who "had his eyes blown out ... in a lime-kiln explosion" and was then abandoned by his wife who subsequently hooked up with the man's attorney who had moved into his home and taken over his life.

"Grasshoppers Take Free Rides" is a quirky story about a "plague" of grasshoppers that rode a passenger train from Kansas to Denver and "made themselves disgracefully real" there, taking over the town.

"Girl Wife Sues Boy Husband" is mostly self-explanatory. While "Sheriff Sale on Execution" begs a bit more intepretation.

"Beats a Sea Serpent" tells of an 875-pound sea turtle that was believed to have already been an adult when Columbus discovered America. A state Senator purchased the creature for $25 and had plans to

"make the turtle a feature of the babies' parade on the board walk. He will place the monster on a float decorated in the national colors. Upon the back of the turtle will be a little girl dressed as a mermaid, holding ribbon reins extending from the turtle's mouth."

"Free Silver Charlatans Endeavoring to Humbug the People" artfully (and editorially) transposes the image of rainmakers sending dynamite-filled balloons into the sky and cheating Midwestern farmers with a group of citizens attempting to start a "coinage congress."

Near the end of the paper is a first-hand account of a boxer's wife titled: "Wife of a Pugilist: When She Met Him, Fame Knew Him Not. When Notoreity Came, Women Pursued Him — A Story With a Good Deal of Pathos Between the Lines." In it, the wife, a native of Amsterdam in New York, tells of why she decided to divorce her husband. She tells of how Jim went from a bookkeeper to a boxer and became adored by women, and how he was too "gallant" not to pay them attentions. She never wanted for anything, she says, though the couple barely spent a few months out of each year together. Still she kept with him. That is, until Jim began seeing another woman regularly and went as far pretending the other woman was his wife. She says: "To have such a creature as she be passed off for myself was outrageous. I felt no ill will toward her. He is a strange mixture, and few can understand him. I hope that he may be very happy with her, but I fear for him."

Previous "From the Vault" posts:

• Gold
• Sweet Girl Graduates

Look for the next installment in the coming weeks.

In today's Daily News, correspondent Kristina Greene Gabalski previewed the summer season for Genesee Country Village & Museum. It seems they've got more than ever going on at the Mumford living history museum this summer.

This year's annual Whirl — the museum's major annual fundraiser — will have a Kentucky Derby theme. The Sport of Kings Cotillion is planned June 14 and features a mock horse auction, jockeys moving wooden hobby horses around a giant  game board, a ladies' hat contest and live and silent auctions. The event is intended to capture the excitement of a Derby Day Ball at Churchill Downs.

Funny. Ladies' hats are the first thing that come to mind when I think of the Kentucky Derby — seriously. Have you seen these hats? They're about the size of a car hood, plumed with feathers or bows or nets or flowers. In an erotic swoosh, they curl and curve and dip around the head of a dame.

They're showy, posh — in a word, magnificent. My measly, paisley, Windsor-knotted tie is no match for their pretension.

But enough of ladies' hats.

What else can we find at the Genesee Country Village & Museum this summer? Well, just this month, for example, they've got:

• the Civil War by candlelight
• a birthday party for a pair of oxen
• a hike in search of bats, bugs and beavers
• and a birding expedition.

Visit the museum's Web site for dates and times of these and other events. Or call (585) 538-6822. The museum is located at 1410 Flint Hill Rd., Mumford.

Photo of the Derby hat borrowed from Hats by Nancee. Visit the site for more such hand-crafted splendors.

This morning, Pat Weissend was kind enough to show me some of what they've got over at the Holland Land Office Museum, where he serves as the director. I took a video camera and we stepped out onto the cold stone floor of the wood-walled museum addition that houses the 14-foot gibbet — a variation on the gallows. He tells me that the hangman's noose is the most popular artifact at the museum — no surprise, I guess, when you consider the morbid curiosity of children big and small.

This video will be the first in a (hopefully) long series of discovery-style episodes over at the museum, where they have thousands of other artifacts to scope and get the story on. So be sure to tune in regularly and keep an eye out for those. We'll try and get a new one up every couple weeks or so. In the meantime, and without further ado, The Batavian presents: The Hangman's Noose.

Visit the museum's Web site for more information, and to access links to Pat's podcasts on history. Or just head over to 131 W. Main St. and check out the collection.