Draft Access and Public Use Plans for Hanging Bog and Canadaway Creek Wildlife Management Areas (WMAs) are complete and available for public comment. The draft Access and Public Use Plans’ objectives include maintaining existing features, such as roads, kiosks, parking areas, and gates. The draft plans are located on each property’s webpage. [Read more…] about DEC Releases Draft Plans for Hanging Bog, Canadaway Creek Wildlife Areas
Chautauqua County
America’s 250th Student Fellowships Funded In Western NY
The Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation has awarded SUNY distinguished professor of history Michael Leroy Oberg, the SUNY Geneseo Center for Local and Municipal History, and a consortium of six other colleges and universities, a three-year grant of more than $300K for American War of Independence Semiquincentennial student fellowships.
Several of the institutions in the fellowship program have committed $150K of matching funds for the project, bringing the total to over $450K. [Read more…] about America’s 250th Student Fellowships Funded In Western NY
The Strange Life of James Jesse Strang, New York’s Other Mormon Leader
“I prophesy in the name of the Lord God of Israel, unless the United States redress the wrongs committed upon the Saints in the state of Missouri and punish the crimes committed by her officers that in a few years the government will be utterly overthrown and wasted, and there will not be so much as a potsherd left.”
So it was that Sharon, Vermont native Joseph Smith, who supposed himself a prophet of God and founded what is now the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (informally the LDS or Mormon Church), rather mistakenly announced the demise of these United States on May 6, 1843.
It would be Smith however, who met an untimely fate, murdered and mutilated by a mob of vigilantes in Illinois on June 27, 1844. In the feud that erupted after his death, native New Yorker James Jesse Strang would proclaim himself Smith’s appointed successor. [Read more…] about The Strange Life of James Jesse Strang, New York’s Other Mormon Leader
New Book On Western New York History Published
Jacob Ludes, III, a western New York native and educator has published what he calls “a micro-history of America,” A Thread in the Fabric: The Chautauqua-Erie Region (Self Published, 2017).
The volume recounts American history from first people to 1865 through the lens of the Chautauqua-Erie Region of Western New York State. [Read more…] about New Book On Western New York History Published
Fenton History Center’s Pizza and Genealogy Project
Those of us in the local history museum business sometimes struggle to connect with the large segment of the general population that doesn’t see the relevance of history. They are busy with their everyday lives; schedules of work, family and leisure time. Trying to get their attention and then bring them to a history based event can be challenging.
A few years ago at a Fenton History Center Board of Trustee meeting (Fenton History Center is in Jamestown, Chautauqua County, NY) we were brainstorming about how to collect and disseminate more local Italian genealogy and the stories that go with the families involved. One of the Fenton History Center Trustees suggested we hold a pizza judging event. We tabled the idea until last year when we started the “Slice of History Pizza Challenge”. [Read more…] about Fenton History Center’s Pizza and Genealogy Project
History and Economic Development:
Some Lessons from Western New York
There are two regions which have Path through History plans listed on the ten Regional Economic Development Councils (REDEC) for New York State.
I’ve reviewed the Long Island region proposal here. As will be seen, there are certain overlaps and parallels in their respective plans and differences as well between their plans and those of the Western New York region, which I’ll cover here. [Read more…] about History and Economic Development:
Some Lessons from Western New York
What’s On Your New York History Reading List?
Another one bites the dust. That was the message of a recent article in the New York Times (Mourning a Cultural Hub Disguised as a Used Bookstore, November 28, 2011) about the closing of a book store in Metuchen, NJ. As one patron of the bookstore noted of the owner, “(H)e turned it into a kind of a clubhouse for the community [where everyone knew your name] and somehow it worked.” [Read more…] about What’s On Your New York History Reading List?