News and Views from the Empire State
A planned escape? An outing to visit family and friends? Or just for fun?
One spring day in 1937, Louis must have decided it was a time for a change of scenery and maybe the opportunity to get back to city life and family he once lived with.
But to travel off of Onondaga Hill, there are several ways. Unfortunately, all down hill. [Read more…] about Wheelchair Downhill Pioneer Louis’s Twists and Turns
As Rich Miller remembers, it was sometime around 1984 that a colleague at the bank where he worked first mentioned Onondaga’s Split Rock Explosion of July 2, 1918.
This was not the first time that Rich’s interest was piqued by the Split Rock Explosion. He had read former newspaper columnist Dick Case’s columns on that event, but this was the first time someone offered to take Rich up to explore Split Rock.
Over thirty years later, his research has lead him to write a four volume series about Split Rock – before, during and after the explosion that changed the lives of the people who worked there and the communities nearby. [Read more…] about Remembering Onondaga’s Split Rock Explosion
That particular summer’s day, July 2, 1918, began, or more like continued, like all the days before it as the munitions manufacturing facility at Split Rock in Onondaga was an around the clock operation.
The owners of the site, Semet-Solvay (better known to most as Solvay Process) knew the importance of this plant as it supported WWI efforts, at first filling the demands of the European powers – England, France and Italy – before the entrance of the United States into the war and its’ need for the products manufactured at Split Rock. This plant produced a variety of products important to the fight against Germany, such as T.N.T., picric acid, poison gas, and smokeless powder (gunpowder for shells). [Read more…] about Onondaga Historians Marking Split Rock Explosion
Aerial photos can be helpful research tools for historians. Google Earth, which provides access to a vast collection of aerial photography stretching back 20 years, is just a sampling of the many aerial photos that have been made since French balloonist Gaspard-Félix Tournachon, known as “Nadar”, took a photo over Paris, France in 1858.
Much of New York Sate was photographed with the camera pointing straight down, an oblique presentation that is less useful to some historians. An effort to capture all of New York in an orthophotographic perspective (corrected to a uniform scale) started in 1936 with a contract to C.S. Robinson of Ithaca, NY. These images are particularly valuable resources for historians of all stripes. [Read more…] about Aerial Photos: New York Rural History From Above
After six years of research Alethea “Lee” Connolly has published her book on “forgotten trailblazers” in early 19th Century Central New York. Connolly will present her research on her book The Seceders: Religious Conviction & the Abolitionist Movement in the Town of Manlius, 1834-1844 at 2 p.m. Saturday, July 26, 2014 at the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum at 5255 Pleasant Valley Road, Peterboro NY 13134.
As Barbara S. Rivette, Manlius Town Historian, states “The network of families and church affiliations involved in The Seceders spread through Canastota, Clockville, and Peterboro.” Seceders, like early Manlius settler Elijah Bailey, “believed the church had veered off the simple path of Bible religion into pride and folly.” [Read more…] about Manlius, Madison County, and Abolitionists Talk Planned
Discussing the importance of the history of Bridgeport, NY, is the newest addition to Arcadia Publishing’s popular Images of America series. The book titled Bridgeport from local author Judy Barrett boasts a collection of more than 200 archival images.
“Bridgeport is still a hamlet, which is another factor in the continuance of the uniqueness of our community,” writes author Judy Barrett. In her new book, Barrett celebrates the history of this unique hamlet, which lies in both the towns of Cicero, in Onondaga County, and Sullivan, in Madison County. It is divided only by Chittenango Creek, which was the main attraction for settlement in the early years. [Read more…] about New Photo History of Bridgeport, NY
After six years research, retired genealogist, one-time teacher, and journalist Alethea “Lee” Connolly has published The Seceders: Religious Conviction & the Abolitionist Movement in the Town of Manlius, 1834-1844 (2013). The book makes a significant contribution to our knowledge of the very early abolitionist movement in Onondaga County, and its interactions with similar movements in Madison, Cayuga, and Oneida counties.
Motivated by deep religious values of justice and human dignity, the men and women covered in this book defied local resistance and social pressures. They refused to be silenced in their anti-slavery beliefs. Town of Manlius Historian, Barbara S. Rivette, has called the book “an amazing feat of research.” [Read more…] about New Book Features Early Onondaga Co. Abolitionism
It’s helpful to know about the Matilda Joslyn Gage Center in advance or you might miss it when driving through Fayetteville, NY (Onondaga County) – even though it’s strategically located on the main street.
Fayetteville is a small upstate town in the “cradle” of New York’s women’s rights movement, centrally located for those activists who worked with Gage and others while seeking radical social change in the years before and after the Civil War. [Read more…] about Women’s Rights: The Matilda Joslyn Gage Home
Is resurgence in the interest in history a sign of the time? It seems so as two initiatives to promote the importance of history and heritage of New York both use signs as a means to the end.
At the 2012 conference of the Association of Public Historians of New York State on Long Island, the William G. Pomeroy Foundation used that opportunity to announce that their organization was taking their interest in historical markers statewide. [Read more…] about Signage Plans Focus on Local Historians
An obituary from 1865 led me to investigate the life of Ira T. Brum, who enlisted in the 185th New York Volunteers in June 1864. The regiment was full of young men from Onondaga and Cortland, and some few from elsewhere in the state. Company F contained mostly men from Cortland who enlisted together that spring.
The 185th participated in the siege of Petersburg and was part of the Appomattox Campaign, fighting at Quaker Road, Gravelly Run, Five Forks and at Appomattox Court House. There, on April 9th, 1865 members of the 185th saw the “white flag come out and was glad to see it.” First Lieutenant Hiram Clark of Marathon gathered his men and sang “Hail Columbia.” As the men settled against a fence, a shell came over and killed Clark, the “last man killed in the army of the Potomac.” [Read more…] about African American Men in White NY Civil War Units