Bicentennial Snapshot # 40 – Growing up on Paddy Hill Farm

December 20, 2022December 31, 2023 by Pat Worboys and Maureen Whalen

Today we’ll share with you what it was like growing up on a farm on Latta Road.

The Whelehan farm at 1438 Latta Road is the last of the Irish family farms in the Paddy Hill community. In 1990, a volunteer with the Greece Historical Society interviewed Francis Howard Whelehan, who lived his entire 94 years there. He described his life growing up on the farm.

**Whelehan home on Allyndaire Farm 1438 Latta Road, photo by Bill Sauers**

Howard’s great-grandparents, Thomas Whelehan and Mary Ryan Whelehan, came to the Town of Greece from King’s County in 1836. Mary was Squire Nicholas Read’s grandniece. They had seven children, three sons, and four daughters. One of their sons, William, inherited the Read farm.

Thomas and Mary’s son, Patrick, born in Ireland in 1832, was Howard’s grandfather and his grandmother was Margaret Goodwin, from another Greece pioneer family; she was born in 1834 to Patrick Goodwin and Rosanna Beaty. Howard’s father, born in 1877 was John Patrick Whelehan. In this photo, which hangs in the living room of the Society’s museum, Patrick is the bearded gentleman in the front row; John Patrick stands directly behind him. Margaret Goodwin Whelehan is seated second from the left.

**Patrick Whelehan Family, circa 1880s, from the Office of the Town Historian**

**1902 Map from Rochester Public Library Local History and Genealogy Division**

As you can see from this map, members of the Whelehan family had farms along Latta Road and down Mount Read near Our Mother of Sorrows Church.

After Father John Patrick Quinn became pastor of Our Mother of Sorrows Church,

**Father John Patrick Quinn from Mother of Sorrows Church, 1829-1979**

Our Mother of Sorrows Church postcard, circa 1910, from **Rochester Public Library Local History and Genealogy Division**

his sister, Matilda (Tillie) Quinn, moved to Greece, became the organist and choir director of her brother’s church, met John Patrick Whelehan who was in the choir, and married him in 1899.

They moved into the home at 1438 Latta Road which was built for the newly married couple by Patrick Whelehan. Their first child J. Donald was born in 1903 and their second son, F. Howard in 1905. The farm was large and by 1908 they were expanding the number of barns to store hay and grains,

**Whelehan tombstone in Our Mother of Sorrows Cemetery, photo by Joe Vitello**

but shockingly, John Patrick died in early 1909. Tillie, a widow at the age of 38, was left with a six- and a four-year-old. As she said when she got home from the funeral, she had two things in life, two little boys and five dollars.

After their father died, Arthur Yates from Elmtree farm…

You can read more on the Yates-Thayer house in A Gentleman’s Country Estate and also check out snapshot # 31 – Iconic Homles in Greece

A Gentleman’s Country Estate

**Yates-Thayer home, 710 Latta Road, photo by Gina DiBella**

**Latta Road, 1910s, from the Office of the Town Historian**

sent the two little boys a pony.

Although Tillie grew up on a farm in Macedon, she was a school teacher before her marriage and knew little about managing a farm. In addition to the crops, the farm had chickens, pigs, horses, and cattle. Neighbors and family helped initially but she knew she’d have to get some permanent help. When she inquired around, she was told there were two or three men she might hire, but they all had “the same little trouble” Howard recounted in the interview “they liked to drink a little too much.” She did hire one of them, she needed the help.

**Dairy cow photo by Keith Weller USDA, www.ars.usda.gov**

**Chicken by William Baptiste Baird from the Library of Congress**

Farming under the best of circumstances was hard. Most of Tillie’s needs could be met from the farm itself, but when she needed to buy additional goods, she didn’t have ready cash. She would gather 10 to 12 dozen eggs and take them to the grocery store in Charlotte. The grocer always took her word for how many there were. He’d tally up the amount she was due, for example, $3.25. Tillie had her list and she’d walk around picking up coffee, tea, sugar, flour, etc. When the grocer told her, Mrs. Whelehan, you’re getting close to the $3.25, that was it; she had no more money.

Tillie would keep old papers and iron bits like plow points for the rag and scrap men who would come from the city to collect them. She stored them near the chicken shed.

Plow (ca.1938) by John Thorsen by National Gallery of Art is licensed under CC-CC0 1.0

**Ragpicker by Thomas Waterman Wood circa 1865**

One time a scrap man stopped at the farm, he weighed the paper and iron she had, and paid for them. But the next day, Tillie discovered that every one of her hens was gone. Most likely the scrap man had stolen them. Tillie depended on those hens for her grocery money. Soon all her neighbors each gave her two hens, and her hen house was soon replenished.

In the early decades of Howard’s life, there was no electricity or running water in the house. The house was heated by a cook stove in the kitchen and a pot-bellied coal stove in the parlor. Taking a bath was quite an undertaking which is one reason why they didn’t have one very often. If they were going to see the doctor or the dentist or before going to church on Sunday, Howard said, “naturally we would have to take a bath.” They would pump about two pails of water to heat on the stove. That could take up to 40 minutes. Then they had to haul the heated water down to the basement where there was a tub (chamber pots and washbowls) they could bathe in. The Smithsonian has a good collection of 19th and early 20th-century Portable Bathtubs that can be viewed at https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/object-groups/portable-bathtubs-tub-bathing-from-the-early-19th-and-20th-centuries.

Tin Bucket used as a portable bathtub from familyheritageliving.com

**Anthracite chestnut coal from northeastnursery.com**

In late summer or early fall, they would hitch a team to a box wagon and drive down to Greece Lumber on Latta Road (near the bridge over the parkway today, where the now-closed Latta Lea Golf was and a townhouse complex, built next to the parkway) which sold coal and lumber, they filled the wagon with two tons of chestnut coal. They’d store it in the cellar and use it all winter in the pot-bellied stove in the parlor.

In addition to growing potatoes, cabbages, and “every kind of berry” for themselves, Tillie also had a contract with a hotel on the Irondequoit side of the river. This was in the days before the Stutson Street Bridge. Howard and Donald would load up a wagon with potatoes and they and horse and wagon would cross the river on a flatboat called the Windsor that ran on a chain.

Windsor Ferry at Charlotte from **Rochester Public Library Local History and Genealogy Division**

Howard also recalled that there were two major parties during the winter. One was always at Leo Whelehan’s home next to Our Mother of Sorrows Church.

Also, Leo Whelehan had reported some of the unusual phantom stories written in Eight Miles Along the Shore. The story of the Phantom Man was featured in our Halloween special for the Bicentennial Snapshots in snapshot 32.

**Leo Whelehan home courtesy of Alan Mueller**

**Bell-Larkin-Janes-Beaty house at 543 Long Pond Road**

The other was the Janes family home on Long Pond (which was the former Peter Larkin home). Now home to the Lang Dental Group.

In summer they looked forward to going to the Farmer’s picnic every year at Manitou Beach.

**Swimming at Manitou Beach, 1917, from the Office of the Town Historian**

Distinguished guests at the centennial celebration, June 8, 1930, from the Rochester Times Union, June 9, 1930 (from left: Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt; Guernsey T. Cross, governor’s secretary; Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt; State Senator Frederick J. Slater, chairman of centennial committee.)

Another of his relatives, State Senator Frederick Slater, organized it every year. In this picture, Senator Slater is on the far right. On the way home he’d start making plans for the next year’s picnic, because said Howard “none of us had any pleasure between them.”

Howard also talked about the Big Freeze of 1934. They raised apples on their farm, some to be sold to Duffy-Mott. He recalled lying awake at night hearing the apple trees breaking; he said it sounded like a man was out there with a big board hitting the barn as hard as he could. The next morning when they went out, they could put an arm through any tree, because they had all split open. More on this in snapshot 33 extreme Weather Part 1.

**Damaged fruit trees in Greece, NY 1934**

**Snow on the ground at the Whelehan home and Allyndaire Farm 1438 Latta Road, photo by Bill Sauers**

Matilda never remarried. Even so, she successfully ran that farm for years and was able to send her oldest son, Donald, to the University of Rochester and Harvard Law School. Howard took over the farm.

The transcript of the interview with Howard Whelehan is attached below for anyone interested in finding out more about growing up on Latta Road.

FRANCIS HOWARD WHELEHAN Q&A

Thank you for joining us today; next week we go shopping at Northgate Plaza.

Bicentennial Snapshot # 39 – Paddy Hill, Read’s Corners, Latta at Mount Read

December 13, 2022December 31, 2023 by Pat Worboys and Maureen Whalen

Today our topic is Paddy Hill.

In 1878 Dr. Samuel Beach Bradley wrote in his journal “A miniature Ireland grew up here, free from the annoyances and the oppression of the Old Country. Industry secured prosperity. It has been a saying that if there is a good farm for sale, there is an Irishman with the money to pay for it.” The miniature Ireland he was referring to, of course, is what is still called today, Paddy Hill.

Between 1805 and 1830 the first stream of Irish immigrants came to Greece, some by way of Canada. They came from places such as County Fermanagh, King’s County, County Wicklow, and County Wexford. These immigrants were a relatively prosperous group of families who “left Ireland decades before the potato famines of the 1840s forced millions of Irish from their impoverished homeland.” Many of the men were skilled tradesmen such as stone masons, mechanics, and coopers.

**Aerial of Latta Road at Mount Read, 1960s, from GHS**

What they sought was land, something they were prohibited from owning in their native country. Unlike later generations of immigrants, these Irish farmers were able to purchase tracts of fertile acreage and establish themselves quickly as prosperous landowners.

By the second quarter of the century, orchards and grain crops crowned Paddy Hill and the farms prospered. Like The Rigney and the Whelehan Farm in the Picture to the right.

We will learn more about what Francis Howard Whelehan remembers about his family farm in next week’s snapshot.

Paddy Hill approached Mt Read Blvd., the 1920s, from GHS. On the left is the Rigney Farm, and on the right is a Whelehan Farm

Felix McGuire

One of the first Irishman to settle in the area was Felix McGuire. Born in County Fermanagh (Fer-man-a) circa 1770, he arrived in Greece between 1805 and 1807. He was a leading Catholic layman in his day in Monroe County and a “substantial figure in the history of the Town of Greece.” By 1810 he was elected as a path master for the town of Northampton. The Catholic tradition in Rochester and in Greece is that Felix was the man who brought the first priest to the Rochester district to celebrate Mass in 1818. He also was a founder of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Rochester in 1823.

Nicolas Read

Nicholas Read was a contemporary of Felix McGuire. A prosperous, well-educated Irish immigrant, he took up residence in Greece circa 1823. “Already a man of substance, he purchased a considerable amount of acreage on the crest and slopes of the highest point in the town of Greece between Ridge Road and the Lake, now called after him, Mount Read.” Maps labeled the intersection with Latta Road “Read’s Corners” before it was ever called Paddy Hill. A civic and religious leader, Read “served as justice of the peace for over twenty years, and for three years was one of the associate judges of the county. Many called him “Judge” Read because of his judicial positions. He was more widely known as “Squire” Read.”

**Nicholas Read from Greece Historical Society’s Collection**

Historical marker at Mt. Read and Latta, photo by Dick Halsey

The heart of the Irish community at Read’s Corner was their church and Felix McGuire and Nicholas Read were instrumental in its founding. Nicholas Read donated the land for the church and cemetery. Principally through their efforts, a frame building was begun in 1829. It was named St. Ambrose Church but was more commonly called “The Church in the Woods,” a name given to it by the local Native Americans. That was what the church was called before receiving the name Our Mother of Sorrows, It was the first Catholic church built in any rural area in New York State.

Diocesan historian Robert McNamara wrote: “The Irish were so numerous in the north part of Greece that for many years a long stretch of Latta Road on either side of Mount Read was flanked by an unbroken line of Irish Catholic farms. It is no surprise that the Mount came to be called “Paddy Hill.” But the Grecian Irish deeply resented this nickname, for “Paddy” was an ethnic slur.” But it is the name that lingers to this day. Judge Read was particularly active in fighting anti-Irish/anti-Catholicism sentiments.

The image on the right is a pen and ink original art by noted cartoonist Frederick Opper (1857-1937), noted for comic strips “Happy Hooligan, Alphonse And Gaston, Her Name Was Maud” and others. Opper also drew political cartoons for William Randolph Hearst’s “New York Journal.” This single-panel cartoon dates to c. 1885, during the height of anti-Irish immigrant sentiment in America, and features a man with a bucket and paintbrush standing outside of a wooden shack decorated with shamrocks and Irish harp, with freshly painted “Down Wid Toyrunts! No More Irish Paupers Wanted In The U.S.” text. Irish woman looks out of the window as goat w/painted shamrock look on. Nightshirt w/harp image hangs off the post over the door like a flag. Opper has signed at the lower right. The lower left corner has a .5×1″ corner tip-off (not affecting art) w/2″ corner crease. Artboard has evenly aged some corner foxing and scattered dust soiling.

Peter Larkin

Peter Larkin was born circa 1809 in Ireland and emigrated to this country around the age of 30. He, along with his good friend Joseph Fleming, succeeded Felix McGuire and Squire Read as leaders of the Irish Community of Read’s Corners. Before coming to Greece, both men worked on a number of canal projects around New York State and in Canada. In addition to his farm, Peter was a prosperous property owner around what was known as Greece Center—the Latta/ Long Pond intersection and where the Greece Town Hall campus is today. Peter was elected supervisor of the town three times: 1861–1862, 1872, and 1876.

Peter Larkin Home on Long Pond, is now home to Lang Dental Group.

Lang Dental Group Posing in front of Peter Larkin’s Homestead

**Peter Larkin Home on Long Pond, now Lang Dental Group, photo by Bill Sauers**

Joseph Fleming

We told you about Joseph Fleming and his home in Snapshot 31 – Notable Holmes in Greece NY.

Our Mother of Sorrows and Father Jean Louis Maurice

Larkin and Fleming recommended that a French priest, Father Jean Louis Maurice, or Father John Maurice as he anglicized his name, be made pastor of St. Ambrose and he was appointed in 1856. When it came time to construct a new church to replace the 30-year-old wooden frame church in 1859, Peter Larkin and Joseph Fleming were the general contractors and Peter personally built the lentils and windows of the church. They donated their labor. Father Maurice was the pastor for 39 years until his death on Christmas Day, 1895 at the age of 83.

**Our Mother of Sorrows Church, photo by Bill Sauers**

Peter Larkin designed the lentils and frames for the stained glass windows sit in as seen in this 1991 D&C Photo of Paddy Hill Library

"Gift of Peter Larkin and Joseph Fleming" — When you click on this image to view it full size you can see at the bottom in black text on this stained glass window it say *“Gift of Peter Larkin and Joseph Fleming”* on the glass

This church continued to be at the heart of the Irish community.

A highlight in the history of this community and its church was the centennial celebration in June 1930. Five thousand parishioners and former parishioners attended the ceremony. Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt and his wife Eleanor were among the dignitaries helping to mark the anniversary.

In 1968 it was replaced by a new church just south of the cemetery. The congregation outgrew the little church at the corner of the Latta and Mount Read Blvd building a new church could give them more room for more members to attend services and around 1950 they added a Private Catholic school on the grounds years later to help with the number of congregational members growing because the town’s population was booming. But in the 2000s Mother of Sorrows school started to see a decline in admissions of students to the school which forced the church to sell the school building and in 2017 Rochester Academy Charter School bought the building and serves as their high school.

**Our Mother of Sorrows Church from dorchurches.org**

Paddy Hill Library/Rochester Academy Charter School

Black and White 1990s Picture of the Inside of Paddy Hill Library

Greece Public Library before the expansion of the children’s library area on the Greece Town Campus

The old church was leased to the town of Greece for the Paddy Hill Branch Library, “with the understanding that any inside adjustments necessary could be made, but that the old red-brick Romanesque exterior would remain the same.” The library closed circa 1999 with the opening of the new library on the Town Hall campus in 2000. There is a second library branch that opened up in the Dewey-Stone area but since COVID it has not reopened the small storefront location.

Between 2000 and 2017 it was used by the Greece Central School District as well for a short period for certain programs and offices due to building constraints of the district at the time. Today the building is owned by the Rochester Academy Charter School.

After Greece Central School District was done using it for some of the programs the district had running.

Look at this 1902 map and you can see that Read’s Corners is still surrounded by Irish family farms.

Today, the Whelehan’s Allyndaire Farm is the last of them on Latta Road. More about them in our next Snapshot.

Paddy Hill School / Common School District # 5

Equally important to the community was its school, which was and is located across the street from Our Mother of Sorrows Church. The year after the Town of Greece was established in 1822, a new local public school, Common School District No. 5 Town of Greece was set up on the west side of the half-intersection of Latta Road and the present Mount Read Blvd. There has been a public elementary school at this intersection since 1839, either here or kitty-corner from the church, making it the second oldest continuous location in the county. The Greece Historical Society received a grant from the William C. Pomeroy Foundation to install this historical marker.

**Historical marker photo by Bill Sauers**

**Paddy Hill School courtesy of Randy Phillips**

With the school and their church established in 1829, the community “began to envision that intersection as the nucleus of a future village.” But the commercial hubs developed in Charlotte, and around the Dewey/Latta, and the Latta/Long Pond intersections. Even today the surrounding environs are predominately residential.

Our Mother of Sorrows Cemetery

Very few of the early settlers around Paddy Hill chose to leave for other places; there were many marriages among the tightly-knit families. One only has to walk the quiet paths of Our Mother of Sorrows Cemetery and read the names on the grave markers: McGuire, Read, Larkin, Fleming, Rigney, Bemish, Burns, Whelehan, McShea, Slater, Goodwin, Gallery, and Hogan. A who’s who of the early pioneers of the town. Many of the descendants of these families still reside in Greece.

Thank you for joining us today, next week our Snapshot is about growing up on Paddy Hill.

Bicentennial Snapshot No 38: Our Town in World War II

December 6, 2022December 31, 2023 by Pat Worboys and Maureen Whalen

Today we’ll tell you about the town of Greece during World War II.

Panorama of the Opening of the World War II Exhibit – Presenting the Colors

**Aerial view of Long Pond Road at Latta where Wegmans supermarket is today, 1940s, from the Office of the Town Historian**

Encompassing more than 50 square miles, the town of Greece in 1940 was primarily made up of farms and the population was 14,925 as of the 2010 census the town of Greece’s Population was 96,095 people that’s 3,905 people shy of 100,000 people in the town.

The town was protected by a ten-member police force led by the town’s first police chief, Milton Carter, and four volunteer fire companies.

Aerial view of John Marshall High School Ridgeway Ave Rochester, NY

There were nine churches. However, there was no town public library, nor high schools; students attended Charlotte or John Marshall High Schools in the city.

That meant if you went to school at one of the many smaller elementary schools or 1 and 2-room schools in the town of Greece you by the time it came for 9th grade you would either end up doing trade by the 9th grade or attend High School at Charlotte High School on Lake Ave in the Villiage of Charlotte prior to 1916 and in 1916 it would have been under the City of Rochester or attended John Marshall High School on Ridgeway Ave in the City of Rochester. More on the education system prior to the modern education system in a 2 part snapshot coming soon.

There were 39 registered organizations for men, women, and young people including a large chapter of the American Legion, eleven PTAs, political clubs, Grange Hall, Boys and Girls Scouts, and Fireman’s Associations as well as 38 church-related groups.

**Grange Hall on Ridge Road, 1945, from the Office of the Town Historian**

That All changed on December 7, while it was just getting to lunchtime on the East Coast the sun was just coming, on that day Stanley Hwalek one of the veterans that we interviewed for the exhibit was stationed at Pearl Harbor here is a quote from him in 2015 for the exhibit and you can read his entire veteran’s profile by picking up a copy of Our Town in World War 2 book in the museum gift shop.

Picture of Stanley Hwalek taken in 2015 for the exhibit

“Well, December 7th was just a regular Sunday morning. We were up at 6:00 because on Sundays they let us sleep a half hour longer. Usually during the rest of the week, reveille was at 5:30, but Sunday you were able to sleep until 6 o’clock and they had breakfast from 6:30 until 7:30. After breakfast, I went out on deck with one of my shipmates and I had the morning newspaper. As I’m reading the paper there about 7:30 or so I looked up, we were near this Navy air station at Ford Island, I saw a lot of smoke coming out of the hangars. I said to my shipmate, ‘Look. The Army must be having maneuvers or something because they’re making a lot of smoke out there.’ All of a sudden a plane comes over our ship and starts strafing.”

Stanley was one of the many veterans that survived the attack at Pearl Harbor that December 7th, 1941. On Monday, December 8th, 1941 in a full joint session of Congress President Franklin Delano Roosevelt addressed the Nation and asked for Congress to approve the Declaration of War against Japan and to respond to the attacks at Pearl Harbor.

**Headline from Greece Press, December 12, 1941**

Grecians answered the call to join the war effort. By March 1942, 1500 men and women had volunteered for civilian defense positions.

By the end of 1944, town residents had collected 165.5 tons of scrap metal, 384 tons of waste paper, 3 tons of rubber, 4 tons of old rags, and 200 bags of milkweed. This gun, captured from Germany during World War I, was donated to the war effort for scrap metal. These stats are from Accept, Buy and Volunteer: The Homefront Experience of the Town of Greece, New York, 1941-1945 by Timothy Dobbertin.

You can read also read the following article that the Society’s President Bill Sauers wrote and published in the Greece Post titled “A German Gun Helps Win the War” about Police Chief Milton H. Carter, who acquired a 105 mm German Howitzer. https://greecehistoricalsociety.org/2008/11/13/a-german-field-gun-helps-win-the-war/

**Gordon Howe, Town Supervisor, lays a wreath on Memorial Day at the Town Hall, 1941, from the Office of the Town Historian**

**Victory Garden Enrollment Form, Greece Post, March 20, 1942**

Residents were encouraged to plant Victory Gardens with vegetables, but to also continue to grow ornamental flowers as they would be morale boosters.

**Headline, Greece Post, March 20, 1942**

By the spring of 1942, 300 had enrolled. By the spring of 1944, there were more than 25 acres of Victory Gardens under cultivation in the town.

The Odenbach Shipyard was the main employer in Greece during the war years, employing thousands of workers at the 4477 Dewey Avenue plant. They made cargo barges, Y-boats, and cranes for the United States Army. At the height of production, they averaged one ship every two weeks.

Kodak, Bosch & Lomb, were also employing workers from Greece and other parts of the community as well but because of the City Annexation of where Kodak’s Lake ave facilities were, they were no longer considered the main employer located in the town boundaries.

**Workers at Odenbach Shipbuilding Corp., 1943, from the Office of the Town Historian**

The flag of stars flew at Greece Town Hall to call attention to the number of Greece Men and Women in service during World War II. Additional stars were added as the numbers grew. From Left to Right Town Supervisor Gordon Howe, Police Chief Milton Carter, and Lucius Bagley World War I Veteran

Almost 2,000 town residents served in the military.

**War Mothers Service Organization, 1943, from the Office of the Town Historian**

Families waited at home hoping and praying for the safety of their husbands, sons, and brothers.

cemetery of fallen soldiers and veterans — Photo by Veronika Valdova on Pexels.com

Thirty-four Greece residents made the ultimate sacrifice for their county. They were:

Clip 45:

**Back Cover of Our Town in World War II**

Of the 16 million Americans who served in World War II, there are now only about 150,000 still living. In 2015 to mark the 70^th anniversary of VE day, the Greece Historical Society opened Our exhibit, Our Town in World War II.

In the Video, we Hear from William Sauers the President of the Greece Historical Society & Museum. Don Riely, was our Master of the Ceremony. Color Gaurd from VFW Post 468. 2015 Greece Town Supervisor William D. Reilich Speaking about what it was like on the homefront during World War II. Jack Foy talked out his tour of duty during World War II. Senator Joe Robach read the list of 32 soldiers. Finally Maureen Whalen the exhibit chair gave a brief overview of the exhibit. can view the entire program below.

Twelve veterans of the war were interviewed for the exhibit. Today, only one of them is still living. But their recorded interviews are available at our museum.

[Show thumbnails]

You can explore a digital copy of the museum exhibit that is located in the past exhibits section.

We had a great turnout for the exhibit and when the museum went to the Museum Association of New York the following year we received an award for the exhibit.

You may read about these vets and Greece during the war years in the Society’s publication Our Town in World War II by Maureen Whalen and Marie Poinan.

Our Town in World War II

Thank you for joining us today. Next week our topic is Paddy Hill, What a journey we have had so far exploring the History of Greece through each snapshot that Maureen Whalen and myself Pat Worboys, and thanks to Joesph Vitello, William Sauers, and many our other contributors to these snapshots. These help you learn what life was like through different eras in the town of Greece.

Bicentennial Snapshot No. 37: Unsolved Arson Case – The Holiday Inn Fire of 1978

November 29, 2022December 31, 2023 by Pat Worboys

Today we look back at the horrific fire at the Holiday Inn in Greece in which ten people lost their lives while staying at the Holiday Inn. Every year goes by when the generation of people who were are the scene of the horrific fire and the temperature was a balmy chilly 20°F (-6.7°C) temperature and winds out of the north around 10mph. Remember when we told you about the town of Greece didn’t join the 9-1-1 call center and operations until around 1986, before that time you would have to call the station directly or if the business had an alarm system properly wired up to the fire company’s alarm system to alert the firefighters that there was a fire at certain places of business, this also played a roll in the case of this tragic hotel fire that took the lives of ten people.

Even though the Ridge Road Fire District and North Greece Fire Department are celebrating their centennials this year there is one fire that has affected everyone at both. Every fire district in the town has battled large and small fires, auto accidents, attended training, practiced at the fire training grounds, routine fire inspections, community programs, and outreach, but never prepared them for what would become Ridge Road’s most unique fire they had to deal with in the companies first 100 years of service.

**Chase-Pitkin fire, August 30, 1980, courtesy of Matthew Pillsbury RRFD**

Ridge Road Fire Department has battled many fires,

large…

…and small.

**Greece Baptist Church courtesy of Matthew Pillsbury RRFD**

**Holiday Inn Fire, 1978, courtesy of Matthew Pillsbury RRFD**

But never anything like the Holiday Inn Fire on November 26, 1978.

On Sunday, November 26, 1978, there were about 200 people staying at the Holiday Inn in Greece. According to the report Fire Command, Volume 46. National Fire Protection Association, 1979 in that publishing it states there were 91 guest rooms at the hotel, but the exact number of guest rooms on November 28, 1978, is unknown due to the owner of the hotel began changing some of the guest rooms were converted into conference rooms. Among the guests were visitors from an Ontario, Canada bus tour here to take advantage of Thanksgiving weekend shopping specials, members of two wedding parties, a John Marshall alumna in town for her reunion, and attendees at the hotel’s Saturday night singles party.

**Holiday Inn postcard courtesy of Bill Sauers**

**Holiday Inn sign courtesy of Bill Sauers**

Around 2:30 am that frosty Sunday morning, a fire started among the paper products and towels stored in a closet area tucked under a first-floor stairway and that metal door for the closet area was not fire-rated or UL-labeled. The blaze spread quickly up the stairs where the fire doors had been propped open, raced down corridors, ignited the ceilings, and invaded the roof. And with strong winds from out of the north-north-west, and the temperature was hovering around 24.2°F (-4.333 °C) but with a wind chill, it would make it feel like 16.1°F (-8.333°C).

Two off-duty firefighters, one from the Greece Road fire department, the other an Albion FD fire chief, each driving on Ridge Road on the way home from a different workplace, spotted the orange glow of the flames approximately eight minutes after the fire started. The Greece firefighter radioed in the fire from his car and they both entered the building to start evacuating guests. Other people were calling from nearby payphones to report the fire. 911 wasn’t instituted until 1986 in Rochester (even later in Greece) and of course, cell phones hadn’t been invented yet.

Greece 1970 **Interactive Historic Data Map** Monroe County https://maps.monroecounty.gov/Html5Viewer2/index.html?viewer=Historic#

**Fighting the inferno, 1978, courtesy of Matthew Pillsbury RRFD**

Greece Ridge put in the call for mutual aid to help with the scene unfolding at the Holiday Inn on Ridge Road next to Corona Road. The companies that came to assist Greece Ridge were Barnard, North Greece, and the City of Rochester, who fought the blaze for two hours with more than 125 firefighters. Ten ambulances were needed at the scene. Gene Preston who was a member of Kodak Fire at the time, remembers that Kodak Fire did offer to lend assistance by connecting Greece Ridge trucks to Kodak’s water source on the ground of the Latona Road Complex, but Greece Ridge turned down Kodak Fire Department’s offer to hook up to their water source.

Rescue crews piloted 170 guests, most of them still in their night clothes and many barefoot, outside into the 16-degree cold.

As you can see on this map (Greece Ridge) Ridge Ridge had command of the scene and the Greece Ridge chief became the incident commander, he issued the call to request mutual aid as Barnard, North Greece, and City of Rochester companies arrived at the scene, Greece Ridge fire chief began assigning the assisting companies where to deploy their firefighting equipment at the scene. The blue lines on this map are hoses that ran to the water from the fire hydrants to the trucks and from truck to truck. The green lines on this map of the scene represent the hoses that were in the firefighter’s hands. A large contingent of the firefighting efforts was coming from pumper 253 on the west side of where the origin of the fire started. The red arrows represent the direction of where the fire was traveling outward from the origin to the shaded reddish, orangish zone was where the fire able to be stopped from consuming the rest of the structure.

What is a Squrt™️ fire truck? The Squrt™️ fire truck is a brand of fire truck Trademarked by SNORKEL FIRE EQUIPMENT COMPANY CORPORATION on November 4, 1969, as you can see in the Trademark filing on the USPTO website https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4810:yri038.2.3 and licensed to different manufacturers that built these kinds of fire trucks like the one in service in North Greece was built by Young Fire Equipment Corporation in Buffalo, New York.

map of units on scene — **Map of Units on Scene at Holiday Inn Fire courtesy of Matthew Pillsbury RRFD**

Here is a list of the abbreviations of each of the different trucks at the scene means after each of the different fire fighting apparatuses is the number of that engine.

E – Engine
- E-10
- E-11
L – Ladder
- L-221
- L-251
M – Medic
- M-220
R – Rescue Engine
- R-222

P – Pumper
- P-251
- P-252
- P-253
- P-254
- P-255
- P-273
- P-274
- P-453

T – Truck
- T-3
- T-8
Squrt™️
- Squrt 1

**After the fire, in 1978, courtesy of Matthew Pillsbury RRFD**

By 4:30 the fire was out, but the building was a total loss. A few guests leaped from second and third-story windows to save themselves. Thirty-five people were injured. Tragically, ten people perished in the fire from smoke inhalation.

We Remember the guest that perished that early morning on November 26th, 1978

List of Canadian citizens who died in the Holiday Inn Fire

They were: Rubina “Ruth” Cushinan, age 81, and her daughter Ruby Cushinan, age 61, from York, Ontario, Canada; four people from Etobicoke, Ontario, Maguerrette Duncan, age 57, 67-year-old Edward Farley and his 62-year-old wife, Lorene, and Pamela Sagriff, age 30, and from Bramalea, Ontario, Huguette Sundude, age 30.

Names of the remaining three people who died

Joyce Plumb age 42 from Arlington Virginia who had attended her 25^th high school reunion from John Marshall High School the day before; Stephen Gregory Ford, age 29, from Ypsilanti, Michigan who was in Rochester for his best friend’s wedding, and from Pompano Beach, Florida, Nancy Garrett, age 26.

white rose — Photo by Aidan Nguyen on Pexels.com

Results of the Fire Investigation

The hotel had a host of structural faults that contributed to the easy spread of the conflagration: The “primary factors that led to the fatalities in this incident were the combination of the highly combustible interior finish, [and] unprotected openings that existed in the stairway,” there was only one vertical firewall between the two wings and the firewalls in the buildings did not extend to the roof, allowing the fire to rip through the top floor of each wing.

**Aerial view of the hotel courtesy of Matthew Pillsbury RRFD**

The hotel was equipped with a fire alarm system that included manual-pull stations and combination rate-of-rise, fixed-temperature thermal detectors as initiating devices yet it failed to do what it was intended to do to prevent the loss of life. It lacked a sprinkler system and Emergency Lighting. The alarm system wasn’t connected to the Greece-Ridge Fire Department or any other security agency.

The alarm system consisted only of one bell in the middle of each of the two wings’ five floors. The alarm didn’t have a distinctive sound nor was it loud enough. Guests didn’t recognize it as a fire alarm; they thought it was a phone in the room or an alarm clock. Furthermore, when hotel employees realized the alarms were ringing, they rushed to get people out, but no one remembered to call the fire department.

Burned-out corridor, courtesy of Matthew Pillsbury RRFD

Greece Police Headquarters Precinct 1, 1983 Office of the Town Historian

As news of the fire spread, the police department was flooded with calls. One volunteer Doug Worboys, recalls that after the fire he arrived home at 10:30 am, grabbed a little sleep, and returned to work the noon to 11 pm shift at the police dispatch office desk with fellow dispatchers Ron Timmons and Jim Leary. “We had callers from throughout the US and Canada; the farthest away, I think, was Puerto Rico. We referred most of the Holiday Inn inquiry calls to the front desk officer who was assigned to take all those types of calls. The next day they had a special line set up for further calls. You hear things like that happening in other places, but you never expect one like that in your own town. That day was a very busy day with all those calls along with calls for normal situations that occur day to day. That day was a very somber day for us dispatchers and all people involved in this fire.”

Although at first it was said that the fire was accidental, Police Chief Gerald Phelan, when speaking to reporters at the time, said that “his gut told him the fire was nonetheless suspicious due to its speed and intensity.”

**Police Chief Gerald Phelan with Greece Town Supervisor Don Riley from the Office of the Town Historian**

John Stickever joins the case

**John Stickever, photo from his obituary New York Daily News, February 22, 2017**

Butanone. (2022, November 8). In *Wikipedia*. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butanone

John Stickever joined the FDNY in 1959 and was assigned to Engine Co. 231 in Brooklyn. He became a fire marshal six years later. Durning Stickevers first 37 years as a fire marshall where he investigated numerous fire scenes where some were arson, and some were just accidents. In 1978, John Stickever, a New York City Fire Firefighter was just promoted to the rank of Supervising Fire Marshall in July 1978 and was an Investigator who specialized in arson and “essentially wrote the book on fire investigation training,” which is linked below. Mid-week following the fire on November 26, 1978, is when then Greece Police Chief Gerald Phelan contacted Commission Augustus Anthony Beekman of the New York City Fire Department to see if the City could send someone to help the Greece Police and Greece Ridge Fire Department to examine the Holiday Inn fire scene. It was Commissioner Augustus Anthony Beekman who called Stickever at home and the commissioner said he was the one who was selected to head to upstate New York to help with a case in Greece, NY.

When Stickever arrived he started to have firefighters clear the floor and in front of doors and other areas in the hotel, he began to notice things that the Greece Police and Greece Ridge did not see at the time of the fire which stood out to him. Stickever concluded that an accelerant of some kind had been used in starting the fire and declared it arson and the ten deaths were now ten murders. Stickever with his knowledge found burn patterns, and damage to the kickplate on the fire doors, and when the results came back from the labs, they found traces of Methyl Ethyl Ketone (MEK) otherwise known as Butanone was used as an accelerant which made the fire grow quickly in the stairwell, and with the winds at 2 A.M. were at about 10 miles an hour out of the North which help spread the fire quickly through the hotel, with that information both Stickever and then Assistant Monroe County District Attorney Crane, during in 1978 knew it had to be someone with the knowledge of MEK. In 1978 Stickever and then ADA Crane believe that someone would have to have knowledge of MEK and firefighting skills to know that MEK according to ilo.org a website that has information on all different types of hazmat chemicals notes under PHYSICAL & CHEMICAL INFORMATION that the Physical State and Appearance is a colorless liquid with a characteristic odor from ILO and WHO 2021. The other types of accelerants would have been easily found but because MEK was used as the accelerant it made it more difficult for the firefighters to fight the fire. If the chief of Greece Ridge had requested the airport chemical fire truck from the airport which was a carbon dioxide, dry agents, or alcohol-resistant foam-based fire suppression agent in its tank would have halved the time for the first responders that day, but no one knew what accelerant was used to start it.

16×9 Program on Global News From Canada

According to an interview Stickerver did with Crime Beat TV’s 16×9 – Lost in the Flames: Legacy of historic Holiday Inn fire and aired April 30, 2012, on Global News a division of Shaw Media Inc., in Canada, he remembers the interview one Greece Ridge firefighter said on the news and the body language of that firefighter on video, it set off some signs that were a sign that Stickever could tell that he was the critical suspect because during that interview that firefighter said he was driving towards the My Apartment Bar when he called the fire in. Stickevers pushed for the state to give marshals “police officer” status so they can enforce just like the police officers but with the ability to issue tickets, fines, fees, and official notices on properties that violate fire codes, fire safety, or other aspects of a building that would make the fire marshals not want to give okay to open the building or had to close the place down until it was brought up to code to ensure that it was safe for the public to enter the said structure with that state approved this the bill that created and gave the power to create a program on fire investigation and arson in every municipality in New York State you can read the bill along with the supporters and documentation by reading the New York State bill jackets – L-1979-CH-0225 by clicking the link here to see the full text of that bill https://nysl.ptfs.com/aw-server/rest/product/purl/NYSL/i/f6d59c1f-e1a7-405a-9359-6f4fe1deacd8

Here is a link to the article that was written by John Stickever in the Federal Bureau of Investigation Law Enforcement Bulletin in 1986 that describes the way he does arson investigations https://books.google.com/books?id=d_dcT71FVsUC&lpg=PA1&ots=auNtB2w7hF&dq=john%20stickever%20new%20york%20city%20fire%20department&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q=john%20stickever%20new%20york%20city%20fire%20department&f=false

Phalen’s Arson Taskforce

Phelan formed a special arson task force, operating a command center out of the Pop-Lar Motel down the road from the fire site. The team of 23 local and state investigators conducted more than 400 interviews in the days after the fire. They settled on five “persons of interest,” but didn’t have enough evidence to bring charges against anyone. The two main suspects were the Greece Ridge firefighter who had radioed in the fire and a man who “had lived in two apartments that had caught fire, then, using insurance coverage, moved temporarily to the Holiday Inn. However, he had a confrontation with a staff member shortly before the fire, and was booted out of the hotel.” Monroe County Assistant District Attorney Crane along with his boss Monroe County District Attorney Lawrence T. Kurlander was given a list of 5 persons of interest and 2 main suspects that the Police gave to them as the possible suspects but without enough evidence from the fire scene and testimonial from guest, hotel employees, and people who lived around the area, it made the District Attorney office hard to pin a person to be held accountable for a change in one count of first-degree arson and ten counts of murder from the fire as well.

The are 5 degrees of arson that any person or persons could be charged with but Arson in the fifth degree is the lowest and is only a class A misdemeanor where as Arson in the first degree is a class A-I felony.

**Postcard of Pop-Lar Motel, 2976 Ridge Road West, circa 1960 from mcnygenealogy.com**

Section	Offense	Class
150.00	Arson; definitions.
150.01	Arson in the fifth degree.	A MISD
150.05	Arson in the fourth degree.	E FELONY
150.10	Arson in the third degree.	C FELONY
150.15	Arson in the second degree.	B FELONY
150.20	Arson in the first degree.	A-I FELONY

The different types of Arson based on its severity of the crime

Here is what the New York State’s statute defines Arson in the first degree in New York:

N.Y. Penal Law § 150.20 Arson in the first degree.
  1. A person is guilty of arson in the first degree when he
intentionally damages a building or motor vehicle by causing an
explosion or a fire and when (a) such explosion or fire is caused by an
incendiary device propelled, thrown or placed inside or near such
building or motor vehicle; or when such explosion or fire is caused by
an explosive; or when such explosion or fire either (i) causes serious
physical injury to another person other than a participant, or (ii) the
explosion or fire was caused with the expectation or receipt of
financial advantage or pecuniary profit by the actor; and when (b)
another person who is not a participant in the crime is present in such
building or motor vehicle at the time; and (c) the defendant knows that
fact or the circumstances are such as to render the presence of such
person therein a reasonable possibility.
  2. As used in this section, "incendiary device" means a breakable
container designed to explode or produce uncontained combustion upon
impact, containing flammable liquid and having a wick or a similar
device capable of being ignited.
  Arson in the first degree is a class A-I felony.

To read more about the different levels that some can be charged can be found in New York Laws › Penal Law › Part 3 › Title I › Article 150 > Section 20, which can be found in ARTICLE 150 Arson on the New York State Senate Legislation Bills and Law Section

**Assemblyman Roger Robach (right) with Governor Hugh Carey (center), 1979, from New York State digital archive**

Assemblyman Roger Robach, who represented Greece, co-sponsored a bill in 1980 requiring hotels and motels with more than 30 rooms to have smoke detectors in every room and in hallways. It passed unanimously in the Assembly and after it was passed by the Senate was signed into law by Governor Hugh Carey.

Although an open case, it had laid dormant until 2010 when the Greece Police Department, first under Chief Todd Baxter and then under his successor Patrick Phelan, gave new life to the investigation. Everything was reexamined and witnesses were interviewed again. They concluded that the firefighter was the arsonist. The Greece PD submitted its report to the Monroe County District Attorney in 2015. At the same as Cheif Baxter began his investigation, the Canadian Government want more answers from the hotel fire as well because this was an international issue and yet to date, the Canadain Government and the families of the seven Canadians that lost their lives have not gotten any answers and are left in limbo they wish this case could be solved.

**Press release from the Greece Police Chief Patrick Phelan**

The District Attorney’s office, however, was not convinced that there was enough evidence to prosecute anyone. In the years since the 1978 fire, the science of arson has evolved and she didn’t feel that it was still conclusive without a doubt that it was even arson.

So, the families and friends of ten souls lost in that fire may never see anyone brought to account. The Holiday Inn Fire of 1978 was not only the deadliest fire in the history of the Town of Greece but in all of Monroe County.

**Front page of the Democrat and Chronicle, November 27, 1978, clipped from newspapers.com**

Thank you for joining us today. Next week we pay tribute to “the greatest generation.”

Bicentennial Snapshot No.36: Centennial Celebration of North Greece and Ridge Road Fire District

November 22, 2022December 31, 2023 by Pat Worboys

North Greece 100 Years Service Patch

Greece Ridge / Ridge Road Fire District 100 years

Greece Bicentennial 200

Today we are spotlighting the two Greece fire districts that are celebrating their centennial years and they are the North Greece Fire Department and the Greece Ridge/Ridge Road Fire District

**Bucket Brigade from Monroe Historical Society**

As a rural agricultural community in the 1800s, there was no formal fire brigade or fire department in Greece. Fires were common “in an era when most buildings were made of wood, when candles and fuel lamps provided lighting, and when wood stoves were used for cooking.” Bucket brigades fought fires. Water was taken from whatever source was nearby—streams, lakes, ponds, or cisterns—and a line of men formed to pass the buckets from one man to the next until it reached the fire. It was an ineffective way to fight a fire.

In 1890, John Fetzner of Fetzner Carriage shop and Peter Knipper, owner of the Falls Hotel, (we told you about them in Snapshot 16), imported a chemical fire wagon from France. They stored the fire wagon in a shed on the hotel property next door to Fetzner’s carriage shop making it readily available to serve them and their neighbors. The apparatus was on a wheeled carriage base and had to be pulled by volunteers on foot. A chemical reaction between sulfuric acid and a premixture of sodium bicarbonate in one tank propelled water in the other tank through a hose; it could create a stream of flame retardant up to 30 feet high. This is the oldest piece of fire equipment in Greece, and one of the oldest in Monroe County. It is on display in our museum. You can read the full interview on how Society acquired the fire wagon from Bud Steeb by Kay Pollok.

Journey of the Fetzner Knipper Fire Wagon Story an Interview with Bud Steeb

**Fetzner-Knipper fire wagon photo by Bill Sauers**

Clip 3: Call for Service Map from Future of the Fire Service in Greece Evaluating the Existing Conditions in and Considering Options in the Town of Greece, June, 2020, prepared for: Barnard Fire District, Lake Shore Fire District, North Greece Fire District and Ridge Road Fire District by the Center for Governmental Research — Call for Service Map from Future of the Fire Service in Greece Evaluating the Existing Conditions in and Considering Options in the Town of Greece, June 2020, prepared for Barnard Fire District, Lake Shore Fire District, North Greece Fire District, and Ridge Road Fire District by the Center for Governmental Research

The Town of Greece does not have a centralized fire department; there’s no GFD on the back of our firefighters’ turnout coats. Rather the town is served by four separate fire districts: North Greece, Ridge Road (once called Greece Ridge), Barnard, and Lakeshore. North Greece and Ridge Road (once called Greece Ridge) have three stations, Lakeshore had three stations but decommissioned the station near in Braddock Bay Heights area, and Barnard has only one, which makes nine total in the town. Some calls may receive mutual aid from other fire districts they are Hilton, Spencerport/Odgen Fire, Gates Fire, and the City of Rochester, depending on the type of assistance that is needed.

North Greece Fire District

North Greece 100 Years Service Patch

Founded June 1922

In June 1922 the Carriage and Blacksmith shop once owned by Lewis Combs became North Greece Fire District’s first firehouse and the town’s first fire station and their…

**North Greece fire department testing Pierce Arrow truck, circa 1928, from the Office of the Town Historian**

…Pierce-Arrow truck was the first motorized fire truck in the Town of Greece. This is their centennial anniversary.

In 1958, North Greece added a second Station on Latta Rd at Mt. Read Boulevard. Up until the mid-1980s, the fire district had an all-volunteer force.

**Dedication ad from the Greece Press, July 24, 1958**

**Station 1, the 1960s, the Office of the Town Historian**

The North Greece Fire District Headquarters were moved from Station 1 at North Greece and Latta to Station 2 at Latta and Mount Read in 1970.

In 1983, a third station was opened on English Road.

**North Greece Fire District Station 3**

**North Greece Fire District Station 1 North Greece and Latta Roads, 2022, photo by Bill Sauers**

Encompassing more than 27 miles, today, the North Greece Fire District serves the largest geographic area in the town and a population of about 41,000. As of January 2020, the district had 45 career firefighters and 33 volunteers.

Between 2016 and 2018 they responded to an average of 3,539 calls per year; 62 percent were EMS-related. ^[1]

**Fire at Harris Dairy Farm, English Road, 1938, from the Office of the Town Historian**

**North Greece Fire District Headquarters, 2022, photo by Bill Sauers**

In 2019, the Insurance Services Office (ISO) rated the North Greece Fire District at a 2 which places it in the top 3% of fire departments in New York State.

Greece Ridge / Ridge Road Fire District

August 3, 1922

The Greece Ridge Fire Department, now Ridge Road Fire District, was established on August 3, 1922. It was first located at 2550 Ridge Road West, the northwest corner of Long Pond Road and Ridge Road. The building was shared with three businesses on the upper floor: H. A. Herrick Civil Engineer and Land Surveyor, J.V. Gallagher Realtor Real Estate Insurance, and A.R. Koerner Contractor Builder. At the back of the site was Buchman’s Dairy then a Walgreens and now an Orvilles Appliance store.

**First Greece-Ridge Fire Station at 2550 Ridge Road West, circa 1924, courtesy of Bill Sauers**

**RRFD fighting a fire at Fetzner’s Garage, 1969, from ridgefire.org**

By the way, Peter Knipper and John Fetzner also helped found this department.

Like North Greece, the Ridge Road Fire District is celebrating its centennial.

Long Pond Road sign, 2022, photo by Bill Sauers

Helmet of A.R. Koerner - 2015.03.01 — Helmet of A.R. Koerner – 2015.03.01

In 1922, A. R. Koerner besides being a building contractor became the first Fire Chief of the Greece Ridge Fire Department (Ridge Road Fire District). He served as Chief from 1922 to 1939, encompassing three different town administrations: Frank J. Mitchell from 1922-1927, William F. Schmitt from 1928 – 1933, and finally Gordon A. Howe from 1934-1939. Gordon A Howe was the Town Supervisor from 1934 to 1960. A.R. Koerner’s chief helmet was received into our collection in 2015 and has been on display since with the chemical fire wagon that is pictured at the beginning of this snapshot.

Like North Greece, Greece Ridge started with a Pierce-Arrow fire truck which was built in Buffalo, NY.

1st motorized apparatus 1924 Pierce Arrow pumper

Amelia & Frank Siebert, courtesy Kathy Gray via Facebook

In 1930 Frank Siebert, a co-founder, and volunteer with the department became the district’s first paid firefighter. The firehouse was remodeled and included an apartment for Siebert and his wife and children.

Amelia & Frank Siebert (Kathy’s Great-Grandparents) with Jack – Kathy Gray’s Father, courtesy Kathy Gray via Facebook

Firefighters are pictured here in front of the 1922 Pierce Arrow pumper, celebrating their 3rd Annual Field Day. The Greece Ridge Fire Department was incorporated on August 3, 1922. The first firehouse opened in 1924 on the corner of Ridge Road and Long Pond Road. Office of the Town Historian.

He was on duty 24 hours a day, with about 8 hours off per week. He was assistant chief and later chief commanding volunteer operations during fires. He and his wife continued to reside at that apartment above the station at least until 1953 and most likely until his retirement in 1959 at the age of 79. Frank and A.R. Koerner are in this picture to the left but without notes, on this picture, we are not sure who is all in this picture.

As the population of Greece soared, so did the demands on the department. A new firehouse was opened in 1962 at 1299 Long Pond Road. It is the district’s Headquarters. Today the district serves a population of 27,000 in an area of just under 14 square miles.

**Ridge Road Fire Station, 1299 Long Pond Road, 1967, courtesy Bill Sauers**

**Stoneridge Station, 2020, photo by Bill Sauers**

The Stoneridge Station (Station #2) was opened in 1971 and was renovated in 2001, while

Headquarters of Ridge Road Fire District

third district station at 2300 Ridgeway Avenue opened in 2007 – Matthew Pillsbury, RRFD Historian

The third district station at 2300 Ridgeway Avenue opened in 2007.

Quint 250 parked outside at Ridge Road Station #3 on Ridgeway Ave

A hallmark tradition of the Ridge Road Fire Department, begun in 1935, is that their fire trucks are white rather than the traditional red or even yellow.

**Frank Siebert and the Volkmars, Democrat and Chronicle, October 8, 1962, photo by Gordon Massecar**

It is often a family affair for Greece residents who answer the call to fight fires as it was for this Greece Ridge family. At the dedication of the new firehouse in 1962, three-year-old Stephen Volkmar receives a salute from his father Chief at the time John Volkmar, his grandfather, former chief Alfred Volkmar, and his great-grandfather, none other than Frank Siebert. Although the Ridge Road fire district started as a volunteer company, today it does not have any active volunteer firefighters and has not had any for the last 20 years.

You can read more about the Volkmars as well as the Fetzner and Knipper families in the Society’s Pioneer Families of the Town of Greece available in the gift shop.

Pioneer Families of the Town of Greece by Marie Poinan, and Joann Ward Synder

In 1947, Ridge Road responded to 52 alarms; in 1959 it answered 126 alarms. Between 2016 and 2018, the district had an average per year of 7,390 calls for service, 68% of which were EMS calls. ^[1]

RRFD is the only one of the four districts in Greece and one of three in New York state to be accredited by the Commission on Fire Accreditation International, CFAI. The District first achieved accreditation in 2005, and again in 2010, 2015, and 2020. In 2017 it also received a rating of 2, from the Insurance Services Office (ISO) which places it in the top 3% of fire departments in New York State.

With all the training and resources that these firefighters do on a daily basis from doing routine inspections of fire systems in every business, drills, learning new techniques to battle fires, rescuing you from a motor vehicle accident, providing assistance to medical facilities for lift assist and other services they provide, could not prepare them to save ten guests at the Holiday Inn on West Ridge Road, from the town’s deadliest fire at the Holiday Inn in 1978 even though the hotel had some of the fire prevention systems in place and yet it failed and Ridge Road Fire District had the equipment to fight the fire and resources to rescue the guest from the hotel and fire companies within a 6-mile radius of the hotel came to assist Ridge Road Fire District to get the fire under control, we will dig a little deeper next week into the Holiday Inn Fire.

We at the Greece Historical Society & Museum would like to congratulate the Ridge Road and North Greece Fire Departments on Celebrating their Centennial anniversary.

Thank you for joining us today.

Citations

^[1] source from Future of the Fire Service in Greece Evaluating the Existing Conditions in and Considering Options in the Town of Greece June, 2020, https://www.cgr.org/greece-fire/docs/GreeceFireStudyBaselineOptions.pdf

Bicentennial Snapshot # 33: Extreme Weather Part 1

November 1, 2022December 31, 2023 by Pat Worboys

Today we will be talking about some historic weather events.

1816 and the effects of Mount Tambora eruption in Greece New York

In 1815, the largest eruption of a volcano in recorded history occurred; Mount Tambora, in Indonesia erupted spewing so much ash into the atmosphere that global temperatures dropped dramatically in the summer of 1816 causing unusual cold and food shortages. 1816 became known as the year without a summer or “eighteen hundred and froze to death.”

**Mount Tambora can be seen via space using satellite imagery, by NASA**

The volcanic dust carried around the globe on the jet stream covered the earth like a great cosmic umbrella, dimming the Sun’s effectiveness during the whole cold year. The eastern United States, Europe, and China were hugely affected. It caused widespread crop failures, famine, and 90,000 deaths, many from starvation.

The 1815-1816 winter in the northeastern United States was milder and dryer than usual. However, just when it should have been getting warmer, at the beginning of spring, the weather turned colder and frosts were widespread. Farmers held off planting through April and May. By the first week of June, milder weather had returned and farmers rushed to get their crops sown. On June 6th a storm brought freezing temperatures and snow. Crops planted only a week earlier were lost to frost. Throughout the summer the temperatures swung back and forth; no sooner had farmers planted a crop than a frost would wipe out most of the plantings.

**Illustration from Pioneer History of the Holland Purchase of Western New York by Orasmus Turner 1849**

**Dead corn photo by G. Houston** **from** **Wikimedia Commons**

Cold weather and frost returned again in July. With temperatures in the 40s during the day, people began to worry about famine. On August 6th, another round of winter weather arrived. What vegetation had survived the previous episodes were now destroyed. Once again, another warm period followed but it was too little, too late. A killing frost came in late September, two weeks earlier than usual. Then the winter started again. Many families left New England and migrated west, including to the Genesee Valley.

Our area was still pretty much a wilderness in 1816 and accounts of that summer’s impact are sketchy. MacIntosh in his history of Monroe County says that “the cold season produced a partial famine.” Wheat couldn’t be cut until September and the corn crop was a failure. Henry O’Reilly in his Sketches said about wheat: “The “cold summer” of 1816 was not injurious to our crop.”

**First Settlement in Rochester 1812, engraving by Alexander Anderson, 1838**

Sunset at Braddock Bay Marina by Douglas Worboys

Q: What was our mitigating factor?

A: Lake Ontario of course. Then as now, the Lake impacts our weather.

The modifying effects of the lake on temperatures were particularly conducive to fruit farming and Greece had numerous orchards where farmers grew apples, peaches, and cherries.

**Orchard on Payne Farm, Elmgrove Road, 1910, from the Office of the Town Historian**

**Ice covering the Great Lakes on March 4, 2014 (second highest coverage since record-keeping began in 1970) from NASA**

Lake Ontario is the smallest of the Great Lakes in surface area, but the second deepest and so is the least likely of the five to freeze over completely. The Canadian Ice Service (CIS) has been keeping statistics since the 1970s and has calculated the likelihood of the lakes freezing to the point where 90 percent of their surface is covered in ice. Lake Erie is the most likely to freeze with a chance of 69%; Huron comes next at a 22-per-cent probability, followed by Superior at 17 percent and Michigan at 11 percent. Astoundingly, the CIS estimates that Lake Ontario has a mere 1% chance of having 90% ice coverage.

**The Great Lakes as seen from space by NASA, April 2000**

1934 Cold Snap Hits the Orchards Businesses

**Headline from Hilton Record, February 15, 1934**

This brings us to the winter of 1934. Temperatures in February of that year were icy. On February 9 the thermometer dipped to minus 22 or lower; the high temp that day was minus 3. That is still the official record low for the Rochester area.

They did not keep records of ice coverage back then, but anecdotal evidence from both sides of the lake, says that Lake Ontario froze over completely that month.

Blue is the Highs in 1934 the Green Line is the Lows

Called the Big Freeze by local farmers, it destroyed most of the fruit trees. Apple trees split in half. Never again would there be so many orchards in the town of Greece.

1934, of course, was the height of the Great Depression. Men on work relief earned 25 cents an hour chopping the dead fruit trees into firewood. They also got to keep some of the wood for themselves.

**Damaged fruit trees in Greece, 1934, from GHS**

**Firewood cut from former orchards, 1934, from GHS**

**Lake Ontario after March 13-14, 1993 snowstorm**

Surprisingly the winter of 1933-34 was not particularly snowy. We have certainly had some memorable snowstorms in this town by the lake. This photo was taken after the March 13-14,1993 blizzard which dumped more than 24 inches of snow on Greece. It was part of the larger so-called “Storm of the Century” which pummeled states all along the east coast from the Carolinas to New England with not only huge amounts of snow but hurricane-force winds. Let’s take a closer look at the Blizzard of ’66, which occurred in the days before modern snow removal equipment such as snowblowers.

Blizzard of 1966

The green line is the Snowfall in inches. The blue line is the Precip that is not Snow

The Blizzard of 1966 was a historic storm for Greece and all of western New York. Nearly 27 inches of snow fell on the last two days of January.

This was on top of about 18 inches of snow from the week before.

***Dewey Stone area Blizzard of ’66, 1966, photo by Bill Sauers***

**Snow on the roof meets snow on the ground, Blizzard of ’66, 1966, photo by Bill Sauers**

**“Snowhere” to go! Blizzard of ’66, 1966, photo by Bill Sauers**
“Snowhere” = Snow and nowhere put together as a pun meaning with the amount of snow non of the Town’s citizens could get anywhere in the town due to the amount of snow that was dropped on the city.

Winds whipped wickedly making for poor traveling conditions. Not only the schools but businesses and government offices were shut down for a week.

Town officials set up and operated storm headquarters at the Greece Memorial Hall at 2595 Ridge Rd. W. Ham Radio operators, Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES), Civil Defense Radio operators, as well as town officials, which included Supervisor George Badgerow, Milton Carter the Chief of Police, Civil Defense Administrator Walter Whelehan, as well as a representative from each of the four fire companies in the town.

Fun Fact the Monroe County 9-1-1 center did not begin operating until February of 1986 and Greece did not hook up to the system till years later, and on a side note in snapshot 37 the Holiday Inn Fire could have been prevented with an automated system that dialed 9-1-1 and sent the alert to first responders that topic is for another day, now back to the Blizzard of 1666.

Without the invention of Morse Code and Ham Radio, there would have been more widespread communication problems to get information in and out of the town of Greece to other parts of the region. For those that are interested in learning about what it takes to earn a ham radio license and become a member of your local ARES group check out the ARRL.org and ARRL.org/public-service, also check out the local club in Rochester, The Rochester Hams https://rochesterham.org/

***Greece Town Hall on Ridge Road, 1998, from the Office of the Town Historian***

**Cars buried in snow, Blizzard of ’66, 1966, photo by Bill Sauers**

The Greater Greece Post reported that “Snowmobiles were stationed at the Town Hall and Highway Department Garage to transport physicians on emergency calls. Two ambulances also were stationed at the Town Hall. A supply of milk and bread was kept available for delivery.” Some milk trucks and bakeries started selling their products to customers right from their delivery vans stopped at partially cleared street corners.

Toboggans were kept in readiness so that sick or injured persons could be removed over the deep snow. Standby snow-clearing crews were stationed near all firehouses to accompany fire trucks answering alarms.

**Snow clogged parking lot at Nick and Erwin Dry Cleaners, Blizzard of ’66, 1966, photo by Bill Sauers**

**Dewey Avenue near Barnard Fire Station, Blizzard of ’66, 1966, photo by Bill Sauers**

“Three drug stores were alerted so that medicine could be obtained and taken where needed. Fifty prescriptions for insulin alone were delivered by town personnel and volunteers.”

Some residents used an alternative mode of transportation.

**Horses on Dewey Avenue, Blizzard of ’66, 1966, photo by Bill Sauers**

This Cat is sick of the snow and wants to get farther than the edge of the driveway
Photo by Bill Sauers — **This Cat is sick of the snow and wants to get farther than the edge of the driveway**
Photo by Bill Sauers

**Mountains of snow, Blizzard of ’66, 1966, photo by Bill Sauers**

This person does not realize he is walking on top of a car
Photo by Bill Sauers

Fun Fact: The plow that is sitting in front of the DPW is from the Truck that plowed Long Pond Road during the blizzard of ’66.

On its 40^th anniversary, local meteorologist Scott Hesko still ranked the Blizzard of ‘66 in the top three worst storms of all time.

Thank you for joining us today. Next week we turn our attention to ice and wind events. Especially the 1991 Ice Storm and the Wind Storm of 2017.

Bicentennial Snapshot # 31 – Notable homes in Greece, NY

October 18, 2022December 31, 2023 by Pat Worboys

Today we will take a virtual tour of some of the other notable homes in Greece, New York.

Larkin-Beattie-Howe House – 595 Long Pond Rd

This beautiful vernacular 19^th-century farmhouse is home to the Greece Historical Society. Many of us have moved from one home to another, but this is a house that has moved twice. Circa 1924, when it was located at the southwest corner of Latta and Long Pond Roads, the Beatties didn’t like the noise from the neighboring tavern. So, they transferred the house onto oak timbers and rolled it back from the road to a new foundation. The house is significant because of its association with pioneer families in Greece, but more so for its connection to Gordon A. Howe. He lived in the house with his family from 1941 to 1965. This political legend was the supervisor of the town for 30 years before becoming the Monroe County Manager for eleven years. The Monroe County Office Building is named for him.

**595 Long Pond Road Larkin-Beattie-Howe home photo by Bill Sauers**

In 1966, Wegmans Food Markets purchased the property. They were going to demolish the house; however, in 1988, under the initiative of Town Supervisor Don Riley, Wegmans sold the house to the Society for $1.00 and generously funded moving it to what is now the Greece Town Campus. The cupola on the front lawn once sat atop the Ridge Road town hall. The Historical Society was founded in 1969 and when it was less than a year old, the society organized a historic house tour. There were four homes on the tour, but the beauty of a virtual tour is we can escort you to a few more homes all from the comfort of your own home.

Covert-Brodie-Pollock House, 978 North Greece Road

As stated in Snapshot 30, in October 1998, three years after being added to the National Register of Historic Places, the Covert-Brodie-Pollock House was the first designated landmark in the Town of Greece. There are three other homes that are also designated town landmarks. Also, you can check out our Landmark Page as well on the Covert-Brodie-Pollock House.

The Joseph Fleming House, 981 Latta Road

***981 Latta Road, Joseph Fleming House from GHS***

The house of Joseph Fleming, a town pioneer, is located at 981 Latta Road; it became a designated town landmark in October 2012. Fleming, who was a master stone mason before he turned to farming, built the house circa 1854. This beautiful Italianate-style home was the centerpiece of Fleming’s 300-acre farm. The main block is two stories high with a hipped roofed and is flanked on both sides by a one-and-a-half-story wing. Atop the roof is a widow’s walk with “a fanciful balustrade and pointed finals above each corner pedestal.” Did the residents climb to the roof to see Lake Ontario just 2 miles to the north? Joseph Fleming’s descendants resided here until 2008.

The Rigney-Feeney House, 1885 Latta Road

The Rigney-Feenney house at 1885 Latta Road stands on the western slope of Paddy Hill and is another designated town landmark, achieving that distinction in 2000. It was the home of the pioneer Rigney Family. Built around 1850, it is “a late example of the Federal style of residential architecture,” characterized by the beautiful front entrance, symmetrical windows, and louvered shutters. The house was built to last and endure fierce weather with “nine-inch square beams of oak set into a foundation two feet thick.” Patrick Rigney was a farmer and fruit grower with 250 acres surrounding the house. His children occupied the house until the early 1940s. In the 1950s, parts of the old farm to the west and south were developed into the Picturesque Acres and North Point housing tracts and the Greece School District purchased about 35 acres of the property for Paddy Hill Elementary School. The fourth owners of the house, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Feeney undertook to restore the interior of the house to its original floor plan updating amenities for themselves and their seven children. It was Mr. Feeney’s home for more than 60 years from 1952 until he died in 2014.

web History Page Buildings1885_Latta_Road-Rigney-Feeney-House — **1885 Latta Road The Rigney-Feeney House from GHS**

William A. Payne House, 505 Elmgrove Road

**505 Elmgrove Road William Payne House photo by Bill Sauers**

The William A. Payne House became a designated town landmark in October 2012 shortly after being listed in the National Register of Historic Places in June.

The home was built circa 1905 for William A. Payne who as Monroe County Sealer of Weights and Measures impacted local and state commercial practices. He was one of the founders of the statewide association that established fair and uniform methods of weighing and measuring products benefitting both merchants and consumers. He also developed education programs for fellow sealers.

**505 Elmgrove Road William Payne House from GHS**

This house, typical of several along Elmgrove Road, has aspects of both Queen Anne and Colonial Revival architecture, a trend at the turn of the last century. Queen Anne-inspired features include the asymmetrical floor plan, the complicated roof design, fish-scale shingles, and bay windows. Colonial Revival aspects are the cornice returns at the gable ends and the square posts of the front porch. The former carriage barn is now a garage.

Colby-Shearman House, 1777 Ridge Road West to 550 Latona Road

Just like the Larkin-Beattie-Howe house this house also moved from one location to another but this one move was shorter than the Larkin-Beattie-Howe House.

Zaccheus Colby, a prominent Greece farmer, built this 10-room, pink Dutch brick, Italianate-style farmhouse in 1855. In 1872 he sold it to his brother-in-law, Abner Shearman. The Shearman family continued to reside in the house until 1970. Construction of 390 threatened the house, so Miss Suzanne Shearman spent 75,000 dollars to move the house from its original location at 1777 Ridge Road West to 550 Latona Road.

**550 Latona Road, Colby-Shearman House, 2022, photo by Bill Sauers**

**550 Latona Road, Colby-Shearman House, 1968 from GHS**

That was quite an undertaking. The house had to be cut in half, moved on a flatbed truck, and set on a new foundation. Upon Suzanne’s death in 1970, the house was sold to the Bierworth family.

In 1979 the Wegman Companies, Inc. headed by Philip Wegman purchased the house for their headquarters. They realized the importance of this beautiful historic structure and have made every effort to preserve and maintain the building’s architectural integrity.

Yates-Thayer House Now called Holiday Fleming Point, 710 Latta Road

**710 Latta Road Yates-Thayer House, 1998, photo Greece Historical Society**

When the Western New York Landmark Society surveyed buildings in the town of Greece in 1994, it lamented that this home was in such derelict condition; indeed, it had been condemned by the town. When a developer planned a senior living facility on the property, he was going to demolish the barn and convert the house into apartments.

Fortunately, the Town’s Historic Preservation Commission, along with the New York State Historic Preservation Office (New York SHPO), stepped up and helped to save it. The developer of Fleming Point Senior Living Center, at the time when the building was being rehabbed the exterior of the house and the barn using recommendations from the New York SHPO (pronounced “ship-o”).

Gina DiBella, former chairperson, and the late Gloria Latragna, a former member of the Greece Historic Preservation Commission pose in front of the Yates-Thayer House to celebrate Historic Preservation Month.

**710 Latta Road Yates-Thayer House, 2006, photo Greece Historical Society**

This house was built for the coal and railroad industrialist Arthur Yates circa 1902 probably as a summer home. The site is the former Patrick Fleming farm; he was the younger brother of Joseph Fleming. The property became known as Elmtree Farm. The house is “an outstanding example of Neo-classical style” identified by the front façade dominated by a full-height portico with details such as carved wood ornamentation, both Doric and Corinthian columns and pilasters, and windows with six panes on the top and a single pane on the bottom. Although Neo-classical was a dominant style at the turn of the last century for public and institutional buildings it was not common for private residences.

A bonus is the gambrel-roofed barn with its large round-arch loft opening and twin louvered, cross-gabled cupolas.

**710 Latta Road Yates-Thayer House, 2006, photo Bill Sauers**

In 1914, the home was purchased by Samuel Thayer and remained in the Thayer family for 80 years. Over the years the house and barn were converted into several apartments. In 1994, it was purchased by Joseph Coco, who later sold the property to the developer of Fleming Point Apartments in the early 2000s. In 2007, the house and barn were purchased by Greece businessman David Wegman of the Wegman Group. Dave and his family rehabbed the interior into offices for their business and rented out space to other businesses.

FYI … The Thayers sold the property to Joseph Coco, who stripped the interior of all its details. (Joe Coco also purchased the Hotel DeMay and his wife Kim was one of the owners of the DeMay when it was demolished.)

FYI … The Wegman Group and WCI are NOT the same businesses. Gina DiBella believes WCI is owned by Dave’s brother Phil.

There is also a publication written by Marie Villone Poinan which is a 22-page book with illustrations and photos chronicling the history of the Yates-Thayer property.

A Gentleman’s Country Estate

Carpenter-Toal-Latragna-Stauffer House, 3490 Latta Road

**3490 Latta Road photo by Bill Sauers**

We’ve already told you about the Carpenter and Toal families that lived in this home. The house started as a simple one-and-a-half story home when it was constructed circa 1840; it was expanded into its present-day late Greek Revival style about 1860. It has a porticoed temple front. Notice the elongated facade and narrow pillars and there is some unusual carved woodwork, such as the small diamonds at the top of the Doric columns. The Landmark Society survey said that the craftsmanship was outstanding. Lou and Gloria Latragna purchased the home from the Toal family and strived for many years to maintain the building’s integrity and share its history. After their deaths, it was sold to Fieldstone Capital in August of 2015 and then Fieldstone Capital sold it to Mark Stauffer on 09/08/2020 at the cost of $115,000.

According to Monroe county, property tax records the property had two new updates done to the property one was a machine shed in 1980, and in 1990 a ramp was added to the porch for access into the first-floor area of the house.

This photo is of the home’s living room, one of the few interior shots we have, to see some other interior pictures see the Democrat and Chronicle article for some other pictures.

**3490 Latta Road Living Room, date unknown, from GHS**

Here is an article written by Ernst Lamothe Jr. on the Democrat and Chronicle website on April 17, 2014, called Latta Road Home hosted lots of fun you read more by clicking the link below

https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/local/rocroots/2014/04/16/latta-road-home-hosted-lots-fun/7704273/

Thomas W Boyde, Jr. Designed House, 442 Edgemere Drive

Thomas Boyde 1930 NY Architects Office cropped to headshot

Not all notable homes in Greece are more than a hundred years old. The Greece Historical Society is sponsoring a historic resource study of the work of Thomas W. Boyde, Jr., Rochester’s first African American architect. This mid-twentieth-century house is on Edgemere Drive. Mr. Boyde designed at least three other homes in the town. You can learn more about Thomas W. Boyde, Jr and the research project we are sponsoring by clicking on the Boyde Project at the top of the page.

These are just a few of the beautiful, interesting, historic homes and buildings in our neighborhoods. Drive around the streets of Greece and see what you can find. Please comment on Facebook if you know of other Iconic Homes in the Town.

Thank you for joining us today; next week in our Halloween special we will tell you about some of the town’s ghostly inhabitants.

Bicentennial Snapshot No. 30: Cobblestone houses, Part 2

October 11, 2022December 31, 2023 by Pat Worboys

Today we continue our look at cobblestone structures in Greece.

Three Cobblestone Houses Featured are

Covert-Brodie-Pollock House, 978 North Greece Road
Westfall-Mercier House, 4350 West Ridge Road
Hartman-Foos Cobblestone House, 543 Mill Road

Covert-Brodie-Pollock House, 978 North Greece Road

The Covert-Brodie-Pollok House is located on a 14.95-acre site on the east side of North Greece Road in the southwest quadrant of the town. The designation area incorporates the main house (1832), an attached garage at the rear of the house (the early 1940s), a contributing well, a non-contributing shed, and a non-contributing storage barn. A 14-acre expanse of lawn surrounds the house on the north, east, and south. The property is historically significant for its long association with the Covert and Brodie families. The Coverts were early 19th-century settlers/farmers in the North Greece area and the builders of this house. The Brodie family and its descendants, also farmers, have owned the property since 1914. The Covert-Brodie-Pollok House is architecturally significant as an outstanding example of an early-19th-century, Greek Revival cobblestone farmhouse retaining a high degree of integrity of design, materials, and craftsmanship. Cobblestone architecture is unique to the Central and Western New York areas of the country. It developed in the late 1820s when settlers who were clearing land and preparing fields for planting collected cobblestones as building materials. It is one of four existing cobblestone buildings in the town of Greece.

The Covert-Brodie-Pollock House at 978 North Greece Road is a sterling example of cobblestone architecture. It was constructed in 1832 for William H. Covert and except for the years 1840-1850 when it was owned by Amos Trowell was occupied by members of the Covert family until 1892.

**Gillette’s map of Monroe County, 1858, from the Rochester Public Library Local History and Genealogy Division**

The 1858 county map indicates that the home belonged to J. B. Covert, that is Joshua Covert, and

**F. W. Beers, Map of Monroe County, 1872, from the Rochester Public Library Local History and Genealogy Division**

The 1872 map shows William R. Covert as the owner.

The home’s ownership passed through several other owners between 1892 and 1914, including Elmer Burlington, George Harris who maintained a 125-acre stock farm surrounding it, George Emerson who lost the house betting on a horse race, and Louis Zagata.

**Pencil Drawing of 958 North Greece Road from Cobblestone Architecture by Carl Schmidt, 1944**

**Illustration of Cobblestone pattern of 978 North Greece Road from Cobblestone Architecture by Carl Schmidt, 1944, p. 82**

The cobblestones for 978 North Greece Road were meticulously chosen: only a few are round, and the majority are oblong in style ranging from 1.5 inches to 3 and 4.5 inches long. They are primarily brown, yellow, or gray with very few rose-colored stones. The builder emphasized the horizontal in the rows and the quoins which are the masonry blocks at the corner of the walls. The cobblestones cover just the façade of the walls which are 18 inches thick.

The front façade features a wide frieze band (1) with four windows with decorative iron grilles (2), cornice returns (3), windows with limestone lintels and sills (4), and a front entrance with a gable-roof porch and Doric columns (5).

**Covert-Brodie-Pollock House from Office of the Town Historian**

Example of a Keeping Room: interior view, first floor, west wall of kitchen showing fireplace and doorway into keeping room Naylor House, Swift & Silver Lake Roads (Middletown Township), Langhorne, Bucks County, PA, from Library of Congress

The house at one time included a living room, dining room, bedrooms, a borning room (where mothers gave birth), a kitchen, and off the kitchen a keeping room. A keeping room was usually the warmest room in the house being next to the kitchen and its heat source whether a fireplace or a stove. While the cook prepared the meal, others would sit in the keeping room, close enough to talk to the people preparing a meal, but at the same time, out of the cook’s way. The Keeping room also served as a borning room where there wasn’t a separate room for that purpose and was also frequently used as the last resting place for the dying. Recently, having a keeping room became a trend in new homes being built.

In 1914, Walter and Katheryn Brodowszynski (whose name is horribly misspelled on this map) purchased the property. They changed their last name to Brodie in the 1920s.

**Environs of Rochester Maps by G. M. Emerson, 1931 from the Rochester Public Library Local History and Genealogy Division**

**Covert-Brodie-Pollock house, photo by Bill Sauers**

**Covert-Brodie-Pollock house from GHS**

After Walter’s death in 1946, Katheryn sold the house to their eldest daughter Helen (who went by the name of Kay), and her first husband, Robert Zielinski. Kay acquired sole ownership of the house in 1959.

**Headline from Greece Post, November 27, 1969**

Kay Brodie lived in this house all her life, and with her second husband William Pollock, was its loving caretaker. Many of the changes to the interior, including installing plumbing and mechanical upgrades and combining rooms, Kay did herself. It was always her desire to get the home listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

That dream was realized in 1995; in October 1998 it became the first in the Town of Greece to be designated a landmark. According to the Landmark Society of Western New York, “The Covert-Brodie-Pollok House is architecturally significant as an outstanding example of an early-19th-century, Greek Revival cobblestone farmhouse retaining a high degree of integrity of design, materials, and craftsmanship.”

Westfall-Mercier House at 4350 West Ridge Road

In contrast to the well-maintained beauty of the Covert-Brodie-Pollock home is this house located on West Ridge Road, not far from the West Greece intersection of Ridge and Manitou Roads.

Known as the Westfall-Mercier House, when it was evaluated by the Landmark Society in 1994, it was described as “a lovely, charming cottage on a beautiful site.” It is a fine representation of a Federal-style farmhouse and may have been constructed as early as the 1830s, but no later than 1852.

The earliest owner for whom there is the documentation for a J. Westfall; he’s named on an 1852 map. From the late 1940s to approximately 2000 the owner was Raymond W. Mercier.

**Westfall-Mercier House, 4350 West Ridge Road, 2007, photo by Bill Sauers**

**Westfall-Mercier House, 4350 West Ridge Road, 1980s, photo from the Office of the Town Historian**

Margot and Ralph Gram

***Headshot of Margot Gram from Hilton Record, November 11, 1943***

Margot and Ralph Gram owned the house for a brief interlude, the years 1946 and 1947 approximately. She was an interesting woman. As a vaudeville performer, she toured all over Europe collecting antiques. She transitioned to being a cabaret singer before becoming the first female radio announcer in New York City. Her husband, Ralph, was the voice of the Hearst-Metrotone newsreels that once were part of every movie showing. They came to this area, taking radio jobs with WHEC. She was the first person to sing George Gershwin’s Swanee; when she was working at a music store, the legendary composer came in and handed her the sheet music and asked her to sing it for him.

**Ad for Margot Gram’s antique business from Greece Press, July 17, 1947**

That old cobblestone house was the perfect venue for setting up an antique business. Although she didn’t live in Greece very long, Margot became a staple appraiser of antiques for many of the Greece churches when they hosted antique shows, including Our Mother of Sorrows, Aldersgate Methodist, and Bethany Presbyterian. This, of course, was considerably before the time of eBay.

**Pen and ink drawing of toy Manchester terrier by Paul Brown, 1950**

Margot also raised toy Manchester terriers.

Raymond Mercier

Mrs. Scott’s English Tabby “Coppa.”, First Prize at the Crystal Palace Show, 1886.
CATS AND THEIR FRIENDSHIPS. by W.H. LARRABEE,
The Popular science monthly
VOL. XXXVII. MAY TO OCTOBER, 1890. pg 90

Years later the last owner of the home, Raymond Mercier, operated Cat Nap on the premises, boarding up to 30 felines at a time. Mercier died in 2001.

Since then, the house has stood vacant. The 600-square-foot house sits in the middle of prime commercial property. The developer has tried his best to care for the house, but it has been subject to graffiti vandalism. He even offered it to anyone who would be willing to move it off the property, but there were no takers. So, for the time being, the fate of this little house is undecided. If you have the money and the skills to move this cobblestone house it could be yours.

**Westfall-Mercier House, 4350 West Ridge Road, 2016, photo by Bill Sauers**

Hartman-Foos Cobblestone House

The cobblestone house on Mill Road was home to the Hartman and Foos families for decades. It too was built between 1830 and 1852. From at least 1852 until the early 1900s, members of the Hartman family resided here. The Foos family occupied it from at least 1930 until 2016.

But on that August 11th day of 2016 at 15:23, it would be its last day as a cobblestone house.

On August 11, 2016, this historic home caught fire. According to an account written by Gene Preston of the North Greece Fire Department,

A person wearing a hat Description automatically generated with medium confidence

“Firefighters worked in 94-degree temperature August 11 to save the pre-civil war house. Said a neighbor: “In no time the road and lawns were covered with fire hoses as 7 engines, a rescue truck and an aerial ladder strategically positioned themselves on Mill Road.” The fire did significant damage to the structure. Firefighters had to deal with the fire and the extreme heat and humidity of the day. I took another walk through it before we firefighters left the scene nearly three hours after we were dispatched. Hopefully it can be restored, but it has some serious issues.”
Eugene Preston, North Greece Fire Department

Unfortunately, it could not be saved. The Foos rebuilt a house on that spot but it was not a cobblestone house. The new structure is a wood-built house

**Hartman-Foos cobblestone house photo courtesy, 2016, photo by Bill Sauers**

Building Style	Ext. Wall Type	Heat Type	Basement	Living Area	# Stories	Year Built
Ranch	Alum/vinyl	Hot air	R4-Full	1,252 Sqft	1.0	2017

So, now there are only three cobblestone homes left in the Town of Greece. There are other stone-based houses and brick buildings but as for cobblestones there are 3 remaining structures left and hopefully, the lessons learned from the Hartman-Foos fire could be used to preserve the remaining three buildings.

Thank you for joining us this week. Next week we will take you on a virtual tour of some of the other notable homes in the town.

Bicentennial Snapshot # 29 – Cobblestone Houses Part 1

October 4, 2022December 31, 2023 by Pat Worboys

This week and next we explore some of the cobblestones houses in the town of Greece. Did you know that when the mile-thick glaciers of the Ice Age melted and receded north thousands of years ago, they left unique marks on the terrain and interesting mountains, lakes, rivers, streams, valleys, and some rich and fertile land for growing crops, as well as boulders, cobbles, pebbles, field stones, gravel and sand deposits in different areas that make up different regions in the world? The glaciers left 5 big freshwater lakes behind, how many of the big lakes can you name?

Satellite image of Lake Ontario -November 2009 NASA Earth Observatory

We will go from the west to east starting with Lake Superior, and Lake Michigan, flowing into Lake Huron with Georgian Bay, a small lake between Huron and Eire called Lake St. Clair, then Lake Erie, at the Buffalo end of Lake Erie is the Niagara River which brings the water over the falls at Niagara Falls and in then into Lake Ontario after the water travels out to the Atlantic Ocean via the St. Lawrence River. But for this snapshot, we will be focusing on New York State. In New York State and more especially within minutes you could be at Lake Ontario from anywhere in the town or a 40-to-50-minute drive from Greece you could be in the finger lakes looking at the beauty that the glaciers left on this region. Remember when we explained in snapshot 11 The Ridge Part 1 about Lake Iroquois? Those who may not remember earth science class or other science classes and parts of some history classes when they talked about the Ice Age and how most of the region was covered in ice and glacial valley, also called glacial trough as seen in this map. Almost 13,000 years ago a large glacial lake, Lake Iroquois, as it is called by geologists, lapped the far eastern portion of what became the Niagara escarpment. When the waters of Lake Iroquois receded, it left a ridge of land 400 feet above sea level. You can see on this map, the dimensions of the prehistoric lake in relation to Lake Ontario today.

Notice the red line that is the Ridge Road portion from the Genesee River to Lewiston., the /// lines going from lower left to upper right that is the outline of Lake Iroquois, the cross lines ### in the pen are the ice sheet as the ice continued to recede north as the time when on from the ice age.

And in Bicentennial Snapshot # 19 – Henpeck, Hoosick, and Hojack, what’s in a name, part 2 we looked at some of the elevations in the town from its highest point to the lowest point the town and how the town has two natural ridges.

But that wasn’t all; hundreds of thousands of cobblestones, fieldstones, and gravel pits were deposited in the glaciers’ melting wake. Cobblestones have a round shape. Over the years water made boulders become cobbles, cobbles become pebbles, and pebbles become sand. According to the Cobblestone Museum, “Geologists classify cobblestones as being 2.5 inches to 10.1 inches in size. In lay terms, cobblestone is a stone that can be held in one hand.” This differentiates them from fieldstones, which were also used to construct houses.

During the Program “Set In Stone”: The History Of Cobblestone Masonry, on September 13, 2022, Douglas Farley mentioned that there was a least one cobblestone structure as far away as Colorado. This is mentioned at 12 minutes and 21seconds in the video. https://youtu.be/eJAgwjKHCcw?t=1286

closeup of cobblestone house photo Bill Sauers

Some of these cobblestones, fieldstones and gravel pits were found while excavating for the Erie Canal, some were found while farmers were prepping the fields to grow crops. The town has a few remaining cobblestone structures left. There are a couple of fieldstones and one other stone-style house in the town. One of the fieldstone houses in the town is on the grounds of Unity Hospital at 1563 Long Pond Road. Some of the cobblestone houses may have had the back walls built with fieldstones because beauty in the front and the so ugly back fieldstone was not seen from the front. Why wasn’t brick used for these buildings? Well, one writer said “In the early days of the western New York frontier, bricks were costly to transport. To make them locally was also costly since clay had to be procured and molded, kilns had to be built, etc.” The farmers and masons used the material they had readily available and that “material did not require painting or maintenance; and most important, was fireproof and weatherproof.”

School District # 9

District School # 9 area from The 1872 Map of Greece, NY
School district 9 school also Greece Methodist Church mid1800s GHS
District School # 9 With a class out site of the school
Cobblestone School in District 9
Another angle of the Cobblestone School in District 9
Old Cobblestone school in front of New District School Number 9
District School Number 9 with a larger class size in front of the school
No Classes out in front of the school
District School 9 Facing Southeast
Facing east
Rear of the School Facing West
This would be when Harold Tebo asked Arthur Korner to convert it into a private home
Front as of 1999 but it still looks like this today.

One out of the 17 district schools and the 2 joint districts in the 1800s were built using cobblestone the rest of the school districts were built with wood. The cobblestone school was in school district 9 on the 1872 map of the town of Greece and it was located at 980 Long Pond Rd. In 1917 it was replaced by a two-room schoolhouse. The cobblestone school was sold for $ 5.00. Arthur Koerner and Willis construction firm were awarded the contract to build the new two-room wooden school at 1048 Long Pond Road. Also, The Greece United Methodist Church formed inside School Number 9 on July 25, 1841, when Reverend William Williams met with a group of people to start the church, and then another group meeting at the Greece Center schoolhouse at district school number 17 on Latta Road and the church grew to 21 members. The current two-room schoolhouse was later sold at a district auction in August of 1949 and was purchased by Harold Tebo. Harold then hired Arthur Koerner to draw up plans to convert the schoolhouse into a private home and one of the features of the old school hidden above the now lowered ceiling is a tin ceiling that was used to reflect the heat and keep it in the building.

First Christian Church

The First Christian Church was a church that was built out of cobblestone, and it was located at 3194 Latta Road, it was close to the Larkin-Beatie-Howe House where that house used to sit where Wegman’s now sits. The Frist Christian Church used the church until 1866, then Greece Methodist Church used it from 1867 to 1874. Then Greece United Methodist Church built a new church with brick on Maiden Lane and has been there ever since. The former church at 3194 Latta Road was torn down around the 1950s.

Davis-Bagley-Hazen House

The first cobblestone house we will look at will be the Davis-Bagley-Hazen House at 149 North Greece Road it was built in 1845 in the Frisbee Hill area, and it was built by Edwin Davis. Lucius Bagley purchased the home from Edwin Davis in 1856 and the 100 acres surrounding the house. The house is a 3 Bedroom, 2 Bathrooms and 1 Half Bath the house has one fireplace. The property now sits on 2.61 acres out of the 100 acres that used to be farmland owned by Lucius Bagley, and the house’s living space is 3,376 square feet. It also has a cobblestone-built smokehouse in the rear of the house.

Davis-Bagley-Hazen home from Town Historian

One of Lucius’ children, Henry Joel, inherited the house and farm; he lived there all his life until he died in 1942, at the age of 90. A Bagley cousin remembered that “it was a standing tradition among the Bagley descendants to celebrate Christmas Day with grandfather Henry Joel at the old cobblestone farmhouse.” Bagley descendants also remembered watching their “grandfather salting and preparing bacon and hams to hang in the cobblestone smokehouse that remains by the driveway today.”

The next longstanding owners of the house were Stanley and Mary Hazen. After purchasing the home in 1958, the Hazens made substantial upgrades and improvements to the old cobblestone farmhouse; nevertheless it “retains its rural, exterior dress, yet tasteful planning has transformed the dwelling into a modern up-to-date home. There is a definite feeling of preservation from within with no sacrificing the conveniences of utility, interior decorations, and livability….” In 1989, the Finegans became owners of this historic house.

The Landmark Society considers this house “architecturally significant,” not only as “an outstanding intact example of cobblestone construction in New York State,” but also as a significant “example of mid-nineteenth century Greek Revival, rural domestic architecture in the Town of Greece.”

District School # 7

District School at 150 Frisbee Hill Road

Children attending District School #7 on located at 168 Frisbee Hill would come down the hill with pails to fetch drinking water from the pump by the front porch of the Bagley house. Their teachers were often boarded there during the school season. The schoolhouse was built for $700 on a quarter-acre plot of land leased by Edward Frisbee, a North Greece pioneer, in September 1833, and stipulated that the land was to be used for school. Mrs. Cancella was a teacher at the one-room schoolhouse. Lou Frisbee was the bus driver. The school had about 15 students and went from K – 10 or 11 grade. In 1899 the original schoolhouse on Frisbee Hill just past North Greece was torn down. District 7 lost its old school by Court rule. Florence Haskins at 150 Frisbee Hill Rd. sued Myron B. Kelly, serving as a trustee of the school district for possession of the schoolhouse and the quarter-acre of land her great-grandfather had turned over for school purposes. Dorothy Frisbee used to serve soup, sandwiches, and cookies to the kids if they didn’t bring any lunch says Ruth a former student. The most difficult time was in the winter on the bus because she said the winters were tough and it was difficult for the bus to get through the snow. The roads weren’t plowed like today and the drifts were quite high. She didn’t remember how they heated the school, but she said it got quite cold inside on occasions in the winter.

Next week

Next Tuesday will look at a few other cobblestone houses but for one it was not able to be saved and that is a tale for next week. Bicentennial Snapshot # 30 – Cobblestone Houses Part 2

For More on Cobblestones buildings from this Snapshot

The Cobblestone Church at the Cobblestone Museum in Albion, NY

Some of the information for this week and next week’s snapshot comes to us from the Douglas Farley and the Cobblestone Museum in Albion, New York you can check out their museum at https:/www.cobblestonemuseum.org/ as well as the program he did at our Tuesday program called “Set In Stone”: The History Of Cobblestone Masonry

Bicentennial Snapshot # 28 – Jerome Combs, The Cobblestone Baseball Catcher

September 27, 2022December 31, 2023 by Pat Worboys

Jerome Combs from RGE news September 1938

This week we introduce you to Jerome Combs, the cobblestone baseball player. Did you know that some baseball players would use cobblestones as baseballs?

Well, one player could catch cobblestones and played for the North Parma baseball team and practiced catching them, which people said could not be done.

This snapshot is dedicated to the late Tom Sawnor (1961-2021). We appreciated Tom’s contributions to the Greece Historical Society and Museum. We will miss him and may his love for sports live on.

Jerome A. Combs was born on September 12, 1861, to Lewis Combs and Sarah Anne Combs. His parents moved from the town of Middlesex, in Middlesex County, New Jersey, to North Greece, in Monroe County, New York around 1840 to 1850 based on census data dated 1855 for Lewis A. Combs. The birth of Lewis Combs’s first son born in 1855 in North Greece, coincided with Doctor Abdiel Bliss Carpenter living in the area as well. Dr. Carpenter may have been the doctor who helped Sarah Anne Combs deliver both Jerome A. Combs in 1861 and his brother Lewis A. Combs in 1855, or more likely it was his son, Dr. Abdiel Milton Carpenter.

Jerome A Combs property in 1902 North Greece

Lewis Combs owned two businesses and had a reasonable sized farm as well. The first one was the Blacksmith and Carriage shop where the North Greece Fire Department started in 1922 at the northeast corner of Latta and North Greece Road. The second business was a butter churn factory. He had a truck farm as well. His sons Lewis and Jerome helped worked the farm when they came of age. Both Combs boys went to School Number 6 on College Ave. Combs’s Truck Farm would take fruits and vegetables to local wholesalers or the Rochester Public Market in the city. They would load the truck or horse and wagon and be on the way by 4 am to the public market and would spend a good portion of the day selling what products they had from the wagon or truck depending on the day of the week. Some of the Combs’s fruits and vegetables may have been sold to H.C. Phelps General Store, Wagg’s General store on Lake Ave, or Anderson’s General store at Ridge and Greece Center Road (otherwise known as Long Pond Road). Also, the Larkin Hotel may have bought produce from the Combs to serve at meals for patrons at the hotel.

Directory of the Clio Lodge, 1927, from hipstamp.com

Jerome Combs was the town assessor for twelve years, and he was a volunteer with North Greece Fire Department for twenty years. Jerome Combs was one of the founding members of the North Greece Fire Department. He was a member of Clio Masonic Lodge in the village of Hilton once called North Parma.

North Parma Baseball Team, Jerome Combs is seated in on the left in the first row, from RGE News September 1938 — North Parma Baseball Team, Jerome Combs is seated on the left in the first row, from RGE News September 1938

But in the late 1880s and the early 1890s, Jerome Combs was the star catcher for North Parma’s semi-professional baseball team. In the team picture attached to the left here, Jerome Combs is seated in on the left in the first row. He propelled them through long winning streaks. But what was more interesting and made him legendary in the semi-pro leagues was his unique ability… What might that be? Was it his hitting stances? Was it his ability to communicate his signals to the pitcher?

cobblestone baseball — cobblestone used as a baseball

1887 Baseball Card from "The Baseball Glove Comes to Baseball, 1875," www.eyewitnesstohistory.com — 1887 Baseball Card from “The Baseball Glove Comes to Baseball, 1875,” www.eyewitnesstohistory.com

It was none of those. It was his ability to catch barehanded. Jerome would catch either baseballs or cobblestones (that were used as baseballs when no baseballs were available to use) with his bare hands. Seen here is an 1891 catcher’s mitt vs. a modern catcher’s mitt; look at how different they are in terms of how the glove sits on the hand and how the ball rests in the pocket of a modern baseball glove.

E. H. Decker's GATGHERS GLOVE — E. H. Decker’s Catcher’s GLOVE

Wilson A2000 2021 1790SS 34″ Catcher’s Mitt

If you want to learn more about the evaluation of catcher equipment can be found on the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) website. https://sabr.org/journal/article/the-evolution-of-catchers-equipment/

Jerome would catch baseballs thrown as far as 150 feet and as close as 3 feet, but for the pitching distance, it was 50 feet. One of Jerome’s quotes from the days he played baseball was

“I guess, I was the only man who had the reputation of being willing to catch any pitcher at fifty feet using cobblestones for baseballs. Folks who didn’t know me used to bet it couldn’t be done.”

Old Time Baseball played on the grounds of the Town Hall 5-14-16 — Old Time Baseball played put on by the Rochester Baseball Historial Society on the grounds of the Town Hall 5-14-2016 – https://rochesterbaseballhistory.org/

One day he was summoned from the fields where he was working to catch for John Smith, a pitcher with a Rochester team, one of those who said it could not be done. They started throwing at 150 feet. Then, it gradually shortened the distance to fifty feet. Combs, described as a gentle giant of a man, came through with flying colors as he always did.

Did his hands suffer any damage?

They did not. He explained his technique: “I learned to absorb the shock of the stones and the baseballs at fifty feet by pulling back my hands with the catch at fifty feet. Then I kept them in shape by soaking them in hot water after each game.”

And on the day, he died his obituary headline read “Former ‘Barehand’ Catcher, Jerome A Combs, taken by death” on August 30, 1940.

If you want to learn about some of our local hometown athletes that have gone on to the pro level or just had some records set at local high schools besides Jerome A Combs, then get yourself a copy of our publication written by Marie Villone Poinan the late Tom Sawnor.

Hometown Sports Heroes of Greece NY

Bicentennial Snapshot # 27: “The Cooper” Tom Toal

September 20, 2022December 31, 2023 by Pat Worboys

This week in our bicentennial snapshot for September 20th, 2022 we explore Thomas F Toal a cooperage owner, a barber, and a worker from Kodak who grew up on the Parma Greece border.

Topics Covered in this snapshot

Thomas F Toal
Carrie L Frisbee
What is a Cooper? And What is a Cooper nowadays
H. C. Phelps Connection with Tom Toal
Tom Toal and His other Trade
Tom’s Connection with Doctor Abdiel Bliss Carpenter

Thomas F Toal Bio

Thomas F. Toal was born on August 26, 1866, and grew up in Parma, Monroe County, New York. He was a cooper before going to work at George Eastman’s Kodak where he worked for 12 years and then retired back to the North Greece/Parma area to be back in the country. He died in 1948 and was laid to rest in Our Mother of Sorrows Cemetery at the corner of Latta Road and Mount Read Blvd.

Carrie L. Frisbee

Carrie L. Frisbee was born in 1864 in North Greece, Monroe County, New York she is a niece of Edward Frisbee the owner of the land that was leased to District School # 7 on the family land, the school was located on the north side of Frisbee Road, and east of North Greece Road. (Attach a Map of the location here). Carrie L. (Frisbee) Toal died on 1 January 1957 and she was laid to rest next to her husband Thomas F. Toal in Our Mother of Sorrows Cemetery at the corner of Latta Road and Mount Read Blvd.

This is a map of District 7 from the 1872 Map of Greece, New York you can see all the land that is owned by the Frisbee family

What is a Cooperage? What is it nowadays?

According to Wikipedia: A cooper is a person trained to make wooden casks, barrels, vats, buckets, tubs, troughs, and other similar containers from timber staves that were usually heated or steamed to make them pliable. Journeymen coopers also traditionally made wooden implements, such as rakes and wooden-bladed shovels. In addition to wood, other materials, such as iron, were used in the manufacturing process. The profession is the origin of the surname Cooper. A Cooperage was responsible for making the barrels that were used to store foods, wines, whiskeys, and other drinks or other items that needed to be preserved compared to canning or vacuum sealing or bottling of fruits, vegetables, and drinks in glass jars. A cooperage would make different size barrels depending on what was going in the barrel. Some of these barrels had gunpowder in the barrel, or maybe pickles, flour, crackers, dried beans, wheat, apples, corn, carrots, or other fruits and vegetables. Some were just used to hold umbrellas, tools, and other items to keep them organized.

Some of the barrels that Tom Toal made ended up in New York City to a buyer who either was for a big farm or a business in New York City that shipped products over to Europe and other places that wanted fresh goods from America in the late 19th century to the early 20th century. Depending on what the barrel was going to be used for the cooper would choose the right type of wood the most common wood was oak it depends on where in the world it was made. Modern wooden barrels for wine-making are made of French common oak (Quercus robur), white oak (Quercus petraea), American white oak (Quercus alba), and more exotic Mizunara Oak. All typically have standard sizes. Recently Oregon Oak (Quercus Garryana) has been used. The links next to each type of oak will take you to the Wikipedia page on each of the different oaks.

Cooper Tools

Here is a picture of the tools that a Cooperage would use to make the barrels.

cooper's tools from Pinterest — cooper’s tools from Pinterest

Below is a picture of the different size barrels that a cooperage would make the smallest for dry goods would be a Rundlet which was 1/14 tun, the next size up would be a Barrel at 1/8 tun, and the next size up after a barrel is a Tierce at 1/6 tun, the next size after a Tierce is a Hogshead at 1/4 tun, followed by a Puncheon, Tertian at 1/3 tun, then a Pipe, Butt at 1/2 tun, finally the biggest barrel would be a Tun. But for liquids, there would be a gallon-size barrel that held one gallon of liquid.

Types of barrels revolutionarywarjournal.com

Below are two charts from Wikipedia that explains the English Wine and Brews barrel storage and amounts:

Wine Cask Chart

gallon	rundlet	barrel	tierce	hogshead	puncheon, tertian	pipe, butt	tun
							1	tun
						1	2	pipes, butts
					1	1 1/2	3	puncheon, tertian
				1	1 1/3	2	4	hogshead
			1	1 1/2	2	3	6	tierce
		1	1 1/2	2	2 2/3	4	8	barrel
	1	1 3/4	2 1/3	3 1/2	4 2/3	7	14	rundlet
1	18	31 1/2	42	63	84	126	252	gallons (wine)
3.785	64.14	119.24	158.99	238.48	317.97	476.96	953.92	litres
1	15	26 1/4	35	52 1/2	70	105	210	gallons (imperial)
4.546	68.19	119.3	159.1	238.7	318.2	477.3	954.7	litres

English wine cask units

Brewery casks

English brewery cask units^[4]
gallon	firkin	kilderkin	barrel	hogshead		Year designated
				1	hogsheads
			1	1+1⁄2	barrels
		1	2	3	kilderkins
	1	2	4	6	firkins
1	8	16	32	48	ale gallons	(1454)
= 4.621 L	= 36.97 L	= 73.94 L	= 147.9 L	= 221.8 L	ale gallons
1	9	18	36	54	beer gallons
= 4.621 L	= 41.59 L	= 83.18 L	= 166.4 L	= 249.5 L	beer gallons
1	8+1⁄2	17	34	51	ale gallons	1688
= 4.621 L	= 39.28 L	= 78.56 L	= 157.1 L	= 235.7 L	ale gallons	1688
1	9	18	36	54	ale gallons	1803
= 4.621 L	= 41.59 L	= 83.18 L	= 166.4 L	= 249.5 L	ale gallons	1803
1	9	18	36	54	Imperial gallons	1824
= 4.546 L	= 40.91 L	= 81.83 L	= 163.7 L	= 245.5 L	Imperial gallons	1824

H. C. Phelps Connection with Tom Toal

When Tom Toal was 21 years old, he went to work for H. C. Phelps making barrels; some were used in H.C. Phelps’s General store or sold from Phelps’s Store. This is where Tom learned the trade of making barrels to be used for different types of goods. Within a few years of working for H. C. Phelps, Tom started his own cooper business making barrels and selling them. While Tom ran his own cooperage he had customers from local farms, general stores, breweries, wineries, and other businesses that needed barrels to store items in. In 1972 Frank Toal was interviewed and explained his dad’s cooperage and shared some of the stories with us, below are a few quotes from Frank Toal.

Phelps general store Latta and North Greece Roads sketch William Aeberli 1970 GHS

” … my Dad began making barrels in early, August. He bought his staves in the rough and once a year an agent from New York City came up to take the order for staves, ‘hoops and headings.”

“They were shipped out to North Greece in box cars on the old Hojack Line. We’d go down to the station with racks up on the hay wagons and load the supplies.”

“Dad’s business was spread clear down to the lake and over to the Parma town line. He even had a warehouse down at Braddock Bay…In those days the whole section was apple orchards and Dad would ride his bicycle all around the countryside and take orders from the farmers or collect his money—he never learned to drive a car!”

The most interesting thing that Frank said during the interview was that his dad never learned to drive a car.

Larkin Hotel William Aeberli Greece Post 1971 October 14 — Larkin Hotel William Aeberli, Greece Post 1971 October 14

Tom Toal and His other Trade

One of Tom’s other trades was being a barber; Tom was one of those men who believed in hard work and hardly allowed himself to have an idle moment, so he took up being the village barber. He worked two nights a week in a second-floor room at the Larkin Hotel charging the proverbial two bits (25 cents) for a shave and a haircut.

Tom’s Connection with Doctor Abdiel Bliss Carpenter

After 18 years as a cooper, Tom bought the old Conway land and became a farmer. His farm was next door to Dr. Abdiel Bliss Carpenter. Years before, when he was a lad in his teens, he would do odd jobs for the old doctor. The Doctor’s beautiful house and estate made a lasting impression on Toal. But you won’t believe this but after twelve years of city living, he decided to move back to the country but not to any house but the estate of Doctor Abdiel Bliss Carpenter and lived there the rest of his life.

Carpenter House sketch by Wm. Aeberli Greece Post 1972 February 17

Bicentennial Snapshot # 26 – Doctor Abdiel Bliss Carpenter

September 13, 2022December 31, 2023 by Pat Worboys

Dr. Abdiel Bliss Carpenter from W.H. McIntosh, History of Monroe County, New York, 1877

Abdiel Bliss Carpenter was born in Seneca, Ontario County, New York, on May 11, 1809. He was the son of Daniel and Lydia Smith Carpenter. He attended one of the small one or two-room schoolhouses in the town of Seneca in Ontario county, then went on to attend Geneva Academy which now is the home of Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, New York. At the age of 17, Abdiel Bliss Carpenter was certified to teach in Benton, Yates County which is 15 minutes to the south and west of Hobart and William Smith Colleges by taking Pre Emption Road south. But Abdiel was more interested in becoming a doctor and practicing medicine; he wanted to care for people instead of teaching people. So, he began an apprenticeship with Doctor Anthony Gage in Ontario County before moving to North Greece. In 1827 he moved to North Greece / Jenkin’s Corners and continued his training with Doctor M.B. Gage who lived in North Greece.

In 1830 at the age of 21, Abdiel Carpenter married Jane Louesa Rowleyof North Greece. They settled down in a small house behind the brick church on the northwest corner of Latta and North Greece Road.

Jane Louesa Rowley grew up on the southwest side of North Greece Road not far from Jenkins’ Corners. Her family’s farm is now home to North Greece Fire Station and its North Greece Road entrance. The Rowley homestead was located directly across from the entrance to College Ave. This photo of the Rowley homestead was in a photo album recently donated to the Greece Historical Society and which we were thrilled to receive.

As you can see on this 1858 map of North Greece there are two Rowley properties one is the S.S. Rowley the other one is the H. Rowley property. The Rowley homestead in the picture to the right is that of H. Rowley.

The Rowley homestead in North Greece, from GHS

Fairfield Medical College, Fairfield, NY — Fairfield Medical College, Herkimer, NY

Abdiel Bliss Carpenter Degree to be a Doctor

It was common practice at that time for someone who wanted to be a doctor to attend medical school after acquiring some medical training. The year after his marriage, the twenty-two-year-old Abdiel Carpenter went to the Fairfield Medical School in Herkimer, New York. Fairfield Medical College closed in 1840, due to competition from other medical colleges opening in New York and surrounding states. This is when many of the other colleges and universities like Syracuse University and the University of Rochester were founded.

He attended Fairfield Medical College college 10 years before the school closed for good. He graduated and earned his degree to practice Physic and Surgery on January 3, 1830.

Abdiel Bliss Carpenter returned to North Greece upon receiving his degree to practice Physic and Surgery and purchased Dr. M.B. Gage’s practice and started practicing in North Greece. His career as a doctor spanned 34 years. During that time, he would keep a record of all the children he assisted into this world just like Doctor Samuel Beach Bradley did in Hoosick.

Doctor M.B. Gage was a Commissioner of Common Schools from 1827-1831.

Carpenter ledger from Edward G. Miner Library

sketch of Abdiel Bliss Carpenter Greece Post 1972

double-breasted Prince Albert frock coat

Frank Milton Carpenter son of Abdiel Milton Carpenter, described his grandfather Doctor Abdiel Bliss Carpenter as “a serious practitioner, a self-made man of no-nonsense personality.” Frank remembered that his grandfather always wore a Prince Albert Coat and top hat.

What is a Prince Albert Coat?

A Prince Albert coat: “a double-breasted frock coat usually with a flat velvet collar, becoming in vogue after a visit to the U.S. by Prince Albert in 1876.” The Prince Albert coat is a variant of a Frock Coat.

What is a Frock Coat?

According to Wikipedia, A frock coat is a formal men’s coat characterized by a knee-length skirt cut all around the base just above the knee, popular during the Victorian and Edwardian periods (the 1830s–1910s). It is a fitted, long-sleeved coat with a center vent at the back and some features unusual in a post-Victorian dress. These include the reverse collar and lapels, where the outer edge of the lapel is often cut from a separate piece of cloth from the main body, and also a high degree of waist suppression around the waistcoat, where the coat’s diameter around the waist is less than round the chest. This is achieved by a high horizontal waist seam with side bodies, which are extra panels of fabric above the waist used to pull in the naturally cylindrical drape. As was usual with all coats in the 19th century, shoulder padding was rare or minimal. Learn more on Wikipedia.

Doctor Abdiel Bliss Carpenter served two one-year terms as town supervisor once in 1843, and then again in 1848.

Grave marker of Jane Louisa Rowley Carpenter in Falls Cemetery from Find-a-grave — The grave marker of Jane Louisa Rowley Carpenter in Falls Cemetery from Find-a-grave

Abdiel Bliss Carpenter and his first wife Jane Louesa Rowley Carpenter had seven children together but she passed away in 1859. Abdiel remarried Caroline Elizabeth Carpenter and had three more children.

These are 4 of the 9 children

Two of the seven children born to Abdiel Bliss Carpenter and Jane Louesa Rowley

Abdiel Milton Carpenter
Frank Irving Carpenter

These are two of the three children that Abdiel had with Caroline Elizabeth Carpenter

Charles A. Carpenter
Helen E. Carpenter

Etching of Dr. Abdiel Bliss Carpenter, his wife Caroline, and their home on Latta Road from W.H. McIntosh, History of Monroe County, New York, 1877

Doctor Abdiel Bliss Carpenter owned land on both sides of Latta at 3490 and 3491 Latta Road. As you can see in this 1887 map below, it now shows the land is owned by Doctor A.B. Carpenter and his son Doctor A.M. Carpenter who lived right across the street from each other. Their office was on the south side of Latta Road. Eventually, Abdiel Bliss Carpenter retired to devote his time to farming and turned his practice over to his son, Abdiel Milton Carpenter, or Dr. Mit as his patients called him.

Both houses still stand today. The original house at 3490 Latta Road was built around the 1840s as a story-and-a-half rectangular edifice; the small porch on the west is most likely a remnant of a porch running across the front. The house had 15 rooms after the second floor, front addition, and pillars were added in the early 1860s.

On the north side, on land that was once owned by Lewis Combs, he cleared a hundred acres and planted wheat; the first year of farming produced such a bumper crop, Dr. Carpenter was able to pay off all his debts.

agriculture arable barley blur — Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Abdiel Bliss Carpenter passed away on January 9, 1896, at the age of 86, and his remains are buried in the Falls Cemetery on West Ridge Road at Latona Road on the southwest corner.

Bicentennial Snapshot # 25 Hotel De May

September 6, 2022December 31, 2023 by Pat Worboys

Bicentennial Snapshot No 25 - Hotel DeMay

This week we finish looking at the hotel of many names at 3561 Latta Road. It started out as the North Greece Hotel in 1908, then went by the name Moerlbach Hotel, back to the North Greece Hotel, followed by the Domino Inn and Cosmo Inn during Prohibition, the Corner House Hotel post-Prohibition, until it finally and lastly became the Hotel De May in 1946.

How many ate at Hotel De May, for Ray’s birthday, for the restaurant anniversary, or at the end of baseball season picnic in the parking lot? Some of you may have parked here when you had to respond to North Greece Station One to put out a fire or even just operate the desk and work overnight to handle the fire calls, car crashes, brush fires, or routine fire inspections.

Raymond Archibald De May was born on 17 March 1919, in Rochester, New York. His father, Jacob Jannis de May, was born in Holland and immigrated to the USA at age 3. Both his father and his mother, Stella Lovisa Miller, were 35 when Ray was born. They lived in Rochester’s 21st ward. Ray graduated from Rochester Institute of Technology with a degree in management and then went to work for Kodak for eight years before getting into the hotel business. He married Irene in 1941.

According to the U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007, Irene Marie Reiser was born on 03 May 1916 in Rochester, New York to parents Frank J Reiser and Cecelia Bertzman. Her parents immigrated from Austria to the United States. Based on the United States Census, 1940, Irene Marie Reiser and Raymond Archibald De May met while working at Kodak. Irene Marie Reiser married Raymond Archibald De May in 1941.

In 1946 Ray and Irene De May purchased the hotel property and building. It took the De Mays nine months to remodel the entire property, starting with modernizing and redecorating the interior to make it livelier for patrons to enjoy live music and dancing on Fridays during the winter. The De Mays upgraded the kitchen to a 1946 state-of-the-art kitchen, completely fireproofing the kitchen separately from the rest of the hotel and dining area.

Raymond installed a new 49-foot bar, enabling more patrons to sit at the bar. He could better display the different kinds of whiskey, vodka, wine, sherry, port, brandy, rum, gin, tequila, hock, vermouth, absinthe, rye, beer, ale, champagne, cognac, and saké. These were laid out in a way that Raymond felt best encouraged customers to buy lots of drinks.

Most bars and restaurants that serve a wide assortment of alcohol-based products would have a selection of what the industry calls top-shelf items. These are your higher-end priced beverages or have better ingredients, compared to your mid-tier and low-tier drinks. They did serve some of the local brews from the Genesee Brewery and others that survived prohibition.

This rough, not-to-scale hand-drawn sketch by Bill Sauers, circa 2016, shows the layout of the first floor of the DeMay Hotel. As for a ladies’ room, it probably had none for Women before the De May’s purchased the property and upgraded the plumbing. They added a ladies’ room just at the end of the bar before heading to the Ballroom / Banquet space. The men’s room was your old school trench on the edge of one wall and ran the distance of the wall with partitions for privacy, they also had some Water Closets (aka toilets) if a gentleman needed to use one. On the door was a silhouette of what appeared to be that of Clark Gable at a publicity photoshoot at MGM in 1938.

DeMay floor Plan sketch drawn by Bill Sauers, circa 2016

Clark Gable's MGM Publicity Still 1938 — Clark Gable’s MGM Publicity Still 1938

Hotel De May dance ad Greece Press 1947 January 2

DeMay Hotel Greece Press 1948 September 23

DeMay's Beer Night ad — DeMay’s Beer Night ad

Based on the text of an ad in the Greece Press on January 2, 1947, the was a men’s bar. The first line on the right is “Always a Lively crowd at DeMay’s,” in the middle of the ad, it says “Western New York’s Largest Dance Floor”, followed by “Our Cocktail Lounge and Bar” and then finally it says “Where Good Fellows Get Together.” seemly to indicate it was a Men’s only bar and cocktail lounge. The woman or spouse accompanied a gentleman to the hotel but on Fridays and Saturdays from 9 pm to 1:30 am would be served drinks in the dining area or dancing in the ballroom area.

In 1948 Raymond A De May and the Hotel were charged with being a public nuisance. Raymond De May was arrested on September 10; the warrant was for maintaining a public nuisance and creating an environment that negatively affected the neighbors that lived around the Hotel De May. He was arraigned before Justice W. Arthur Rickman. Raymond pleaded not guilty to the charges and the case was adjourned to September 13, and then adjourned a few more times until the case was settled out of court.

Here is a link to the current wording of the town of Greece, NY Nuisance Law on the Town of Greece’s ecode360

Chapter 144: Nuisances

In the following years after the charges were settled out of court Ray, Irene, and their hotel would be at the heart of the North Greece Community.

Fire at Hotel De May

Hotel De May was almost destroyed by a fire that started in the hotel’s coal bin, on December 18th, 1953, it took North Greece, Greece Ridge, and Barnard Fire departments to put out the blaze. There was damage to a kitchen and rooms overhead the southwest wing of the hotel. Luckily no one was injured in the fire. Even though there were 2 1950s Seagrave pumpers and a 1950s Mack Fire Truck from North Greece Fire Station. The manpower of the North Greece Fire Department was not enough to put it out. That is why Assistant Fire Chief Raymond asked the chief to call for mutual aid from Greece Ridge and Barnard to assist with the fire discovered during dinner time around 5:30 pm at the hotel. It appears that the Fireproof kitchen was not completely fireproof as Ray and Irene thought it was. The total damage and repairs cost the hotel suffered was $ 4,500. The $ 4,500 they had to rebuild the southwest wing and repair the kitchen and bring it up to the Town of Greece’s building and fire codes of 1954.

Annual Events Held by Hotel De May

These are the most common Events that the Hotel De May hosted:

In October it was the annual steak dinner to mark the hotel’s opening; the annual dinner was a six-course steak dinner that ran from 1 pm to 9 pm and cost $ 6 per person according to this ad to the right in the Greece Press printed in the September 19, 1968 paper.

Every March they would celebrate Ray’s birthday and they served corned beef and cabbage for free. The bash started at 7 pm and they had an orchestra for dancing from 9 pm to midnight. As seen in this ad in the Greece Press paper on March 13, 1969.

DeMay Hotel annual steak dinner, Greece Press 1968 September 19

Raymond A DeMay Birthday ad Greece Press 1969 March 13 — Raymond A DeMay Birthday ad in Greece Press 1969 March 13

Raymond A De May’s role as a civic leader

While operating the hotel, Ray got involved in the North Greece Fire Department and served five years as an assistant fire chief. Since he owned the hotel across the street, he let the firefighters park their cars in the hotel lot and also let them park the trucks in the lot sometimes as well. Ray was a life-long member of the New York State Fire Chiefs Association.

Ray was photographed conducting a bike safety program for kids in the North Greece Area in which members of the North Greece Fire Department took part. He fastened reflectors to spurs of kids’ bicycles to help make the bikes visible to drivers at night. The attached article shows Ray installing the reflectors on David McCarroll’s bike at North Greece Fire Department Station 1. The Bike safety program also took place at 5 other points in the town besides North Greece Fire department at 3552 Latta Road; one was probably at the town hall or at Greece Ridge at the Ridge, another one was held at Barnard Fire Department, and then 3 other locations where most of the population of Greece was located during the 1950s.

Ray was also a member of the Greece Volunteer Ambulance Corps. (GVAC), which has since been disbanded in the last few years due to the four fire companies changing providers to Monroe Ambulance and the rising cost of Emergency services which the volunteer corp could not afford anymore.

50s 2 seagrave pumpers with Mack — In this picture, you see two 1950s Seagrave pumpers with Mack parked in the De May Hotel Parking Lot

Greece Volunteer Ambulance Corps Equipment, 1970s, from the Office of the Town Historian — Greece Volunteer Ambulance Corps Equipment from circa 1970s, from the Office of the Town Historian

Raymond’s Connection to Baseball and Softball

DeMay Hotel North Greece softball league 1970 July 9

Each year Raymond would sponsor a very competitive men’s softball and baseball teams, as well as a junior league for boys aged 7-12 that lived in the North Greece area. At the end of the season, the De Mays would host an annual picnic for the members of the junior softball league and the little league baseball players. They also let the North Greece Playground youngsters join in as well as their parents and friends. The De Mays wound up serving 500 plus people each year with free hot dogs (more than likely the hot dogs were Zweigles brand hot dogs) and soft drinks could have been either Coke or Pepsi or a local soft drink vendor.

Raymond’s Battle With Pneumonia

In 1974 at the age of 55, Raymond passed away at Rochester General Hospital fighting a battle with pneumonia. According to his obituary in the Democrat and Chronicle, he was survived by his wife, Irene, and Raymond’s last living brother Robert J. de May (1922–1984), and his wife Ruth Marie Stillman (1918–2020).

Irene De May Takes over Operations

In the neighborhood around Hotel De May, Irene was known as Mother De May, that because she would take in boarders who had nowhere else to go, those who worked as migrant workers at the nearby farms, and in 1991 she opened the hotel for those who needed a place to stay warm while they did not have electricity, heating oil, wood or other heating sources to keep warm during the 1991 Ice Storm. More on the 1991 Ice Storm to come later in a future snapshot on Extreme Weather that affected the Town of Greece.

Irene De May kept the tavern and Hotel running until her death in 2000.

Irene De May, 1977, courtesy of Gina DiBella — Irene DeMay, 1977, courtesy of Gina DiBella

The Fall of Hotel De MAY

Come What DeMay tee shirt — Come What DeMay The tee shirt

The hotel sat empty for many years; those who cherished this historic building hoped it would be restored to a functional community asset. However, developers were more interested in tearing it down and replacing it with a (Crosby’s) gas station and convenience store.

Gina DiBella led a grassroots movement to convince the town to preserve it and make it into a functional hotel, restaurant, and party house again or take on another form of business even if it was not used as a restaurant, hotel, or party house. The group had a slogan printed on shirts that read “Come What DeMAY this Hotel Stays!”

But the grassroots movement could not sway the town board and supervisor that the De May Hotel could return to life and in Early 2017 the Town approved the demolition in favor of a Crosby’s Gas station with a Dunkin’ Donuts attached. The demolition of Hotel DeMay occurred on November 17, 2017. Still, to date, nothing has been built on the site. As of this post, the current value has dropped from nearly $ 250,000 to $ 50,000. Below is the current information on the lot according to Monroe County Records for the parcel; the last table is from propertyshark.com which says it was sold to another property broker or developer, but no records are available to verify this information only the property details, lot size, and current tax and land value have been verified using the Monroe County Tax assessment page.

At Least one part of the Hotel DeMay lives on it is the 49-foot bar that Raymond DeMay installed at the hotel, which survived demolition, and has a new home at the My Apartment bar on West Outer Drive off of Mount Read Blvd. Other “parts” of the Hotel DeMay also live on at The Stutson House. Several hotel room doors were used to make the bar at that location. You can still see the room numbers on the bar panels (doors).

The Landmark Society of Western New York named the Hotel DeMay to it’s Five to Revive list in October of 2017 here is what they wrote:

“The Five to Revive is a list that calls attention to five properties in Western New York that are in need of investment. They are considered significant historic aspects of our shared built environment whose redevelopment can become catalytic projects for the neighborhoods and communities that surround them.”

“The irreplaceable historic resources listed in Five to Revive become priority projects for Landmark Society staff and programs. The Landmark Society works collaboratively with owners, municipal officials, and developers to facilitate investment and foster rehabilitation so that these structures can again play an active role in their communities. Five to Revive selection criteria include: architectural/design integrity, historical significance, degree of endangerment, potential catalytic impact, and likelihood that inclusion on list will help facilitate a positive outcome.”

Unfortunately, we never had a chance to work with The Landmark Society, owners, municipal officials, or developers and The DeMay became the first and (to-date) only building named to the Five to Revive to be demolished.

Property Details

Property Address:	3561 Latta Rd, Rochester, NY 14612
County:	Monroe
Parcel ID:	44.40-1-1
School district:	264001 – Hilton

Lot Size and Property Type

Acreage:	0.75
Frontage:	274
Depth:	119
Property Class:	Vacant Land Located in Commercial Areas (330)

Current Tax and Land Value

Tax year:	2022
Property tax:	$ 1,973

Land value:	$50,000
Market value:	$50,000

Reported Last Sale of Lot

Sale date:	8/9/2019
Sale price:	$595,000

This is not referenced from Monroe County records this record is from propertyshark.com

Bicentennial Snapshot # 24 The Hotel of Many Names

August 30, 2022December 31, 2023 by Pat Worboys

This week we continue looking at the hotel/inn/speakeasy/tavern that occupied the southeast corner of Latta and North Greece Road. This establishment went thru at least the same amount or more owners as the Larkin Hotel. The spot where the Larkin stood became this hotel’s parking lot when the Larkin Hotel was demolished.

This hotel would be a bit bigger than the Larkin Hotel/Tavern the Larkin would have been the same size as the Rowe Tavern this one was feature in both Ada Ridge and the Ridge Part 1 and Streb Tavern on the ridge which would have been approximately 1,514.47 square feet compared to the Hotel Demay at the end of its life was approximately 8,046.63 square feet. The North Greece Hotel had less than 50 rooms that travelers would stay in to enjoy food and drinks, then rest and set off on their next leg of their travel to either Niagara Falls or heading east towards Syracuse or other points east along the lake shore. It appears that the North Greece Hotel opened its doors around 1900 1912 at the corner of Latta and North Greece Roads. Because by opening day, January 5, 1910, it was called the Moerlbach Hotel after the new Rochester Brewery that provided the hotel with the beer it served. The Moerlbach Brewing Company opened its doors in 1909 at the corner of Emerson and Norman Steet where T & L Automatics Inc stands today just a few buildings down from where a descendant of Giddon King grew up and that descendant would be Helen Slocum. To learn more about when breweries abounded in Rochester, in the article Rochester aims to recapture its rich brewery history check out this article from Brain Sharp and Will Cleveland on the Democrat and Chronicle website at 8:21 am on April 6, 2018, which features some more information on the Moerlbach Brewing Company.

Morelbach’s ad in the Democrat & Chronicle Tuesday, January 25, 1910

https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/2018/04/06/rochester-genesee-craft-beer-history-trail/996876001/

Now back to more on the Hotel with many names as we noted it was named Morelbach and its first proprietor was Frank Pye but he passed away in 1910. The hotel was sold to William “Bill Carroll of Frisbee Hill Road a near neighbor to Edward Frisbee who we will get to in another snapshot or two. When William Carroll bought the hotel he moved his family to North Greece four corners. William Carroll was born in 1872 and his family was a pioneer family that settled in the Parma Braddock Bay area in the early 1800s. In this picture, you can see William Carroll and his son in front of the hotel.

The Odenbachs owned a hotel and an ice cream stand out at the end of Manitou Beach Road where William Carroll worked before he became the owner of the Moerlbach Hotel it was at the Manitou Beach Hotel where he introduced Sherrif Albert Skinner to the Ice Cream Cone no details of what flavor it would have been either Chocolate or Vanilla ice cream. It wasn’t until 1915 that he decided it would be best to revert it to the North Greece Hotel. The Frist Manitou Beach hotel was lost in a suit between Skinner and the Odenbachs, so the Odenbachs had to rebuild the hotel over and some distance from the now Elmheart Hotel that the Skinners now owned more on the Manitou Beach and the Elmheart Hotels in a future snapshot.

The Carrolls served meals at the hotel but only to guests, they could only serve 18 to 20 people in the dining room due to the size it was. One of the most served items in the dining room was claimed to be “The Best New England Clam Chowder in the town of Greece.” It cost only 20 cents. But the neighbors around the hotel would bring kettles to the back door to the kitchen to get them some of Mary’s Clam Chowder.

William Carroll had some strict rules in his hotel. One of the rules was No Children in the Barroom and that included his own children this was probably due to the drinking, smoking, and language of the older gentlemen. One of his other strict rules was towards women, if he saw or caught a woman smoking anywhere in the hotel, he would ask her to leave the hotel.

The was Dancing every Friday night in the dance room otherwise known now as a banquet room these days, each week it could be square dancing, rounds, fox trots, or waltzes, or thru out the night, it could change depending on the music, or who was playing on the stage playing the music. It cost each couple 50 cents to dance the night away starting at 9 pm sharp and ending at 3 am but with drink service cut off at 11 pm in accordance with New York State Law for serving your wines, beers, spirits, and hard drinks, minus water though that they could keep serving after drink service was cut off to the patrons. At intermission during the dances, a table would be set up with refreshments and Hors D’oeuvres in the dance room.

In the Bar room area, there were two pool tables its uncertain if they were for the game of snooker style billiards table or if it is the common pool style billiards table that people would try the game of billiards whether it was a round of 8-ball, 9-ball, 7-ball or the game of snooker billiards at least the tables were not the bumper style table, and if you are interested one of the many types billiard games you can play by going to your local library and checking out a copy of Billiards: The Official Rules and Record Book 2021/2022 edition or any of the other Billiard books in the library.

In the barn behind the hotel, he would have livestock auctions featuring local cattle owners for locals to buy the livestock to have it slaughtered for meat, or those new owners could raise the cattle themselves and have a pasture of their own for their farms. There were a number of different livestock at these auctions. Some were cows, bison, deer, chickens, pigs, sheep, lamb, and even horses that were auctioned off at these cattle auctions the bidders did have to watch out for diseases. Once in a while, there might be regular auctions like household gear, and artwork as well.

That’s Carroll and his son in front of the hotel in this photo

More on the Elmheart Hotel where Carroll worked before coming here.

The Elmheart Hotel

Manitou Hotel, 1920s, from the Office of the Town Historian — The cover of a promotional booklet for the Manitou Hotel, the 1920s, or the cover of a menu from the 1940s
from the Office of the Town Historian

Lady Smoking a cigarette 1910s from ebay — Lady Smoking a cigarette 1910s from eBay

William Carroll sells hotel to Wilson HIlton Record 1921 July 28 — William Carroll sells hotel to Wilson
Hilton Record 1921 July 28

On January 17, 1920, Prohibition was a nationwide constitutional ban on the production, importation, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages from 1920 to 1933. Led by pietistic Protestants, they aimed to heal what they saw as an ill society beset by alcohol-related problems such as alcoholism, family violence, and saloon-based political corruption. Nowadays you can still see side effects of people that get drunk or have too much to drink, from Alcohol poisoning to DUI/DWI and other Alcohol related issues. It forced restaurants, bars, saloons, and other establishments to stop selling and serving alcohol products except for those that decide the Protestants did not have the best interest in their mind that Alcohol was like any other addiction, like smoking, chewing tobacco, gambling, and others. Some of the backers of prohibition were soda/pop, tea, and coffee makers, as well as the Protestants. Opposition from the beer industry mobilized “wet” supporters from the wealthy Roman Catholic and German Lutheran communities, as well as the local breweries like Moerlbach, and Genesee just to name a few as well as local restaurants, taverns, hotels, inns, saloons, and bars. But on July 28th, 1921 William Carroll decides to sell his hotel to Harry “Spike” Wilson and Louis Imhoof. Harry Wilson ran another hotel in the Brighton Twelve Corners neighborhood for several years. Harry received possession on August 1st, 1921 and on September 1st, 1921, Harry “Spike” Wilson and Louis Imhoof set to open the North Greece Hotel as the Domino Inn. Sometime during prohibition, it changed owners again and this time it became the Cosmo Inn. More on the Domino Inn and the Cosmo Inn will appear in a snapshot about prohibition.

On March 22, 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt signed an amendment to the Volstead Act, known as the Cullen–Harrison Act, allowing the manufacture and sale of 3.2% beer (3.2% alcohol by weight, approximately 4% alcohol by volume) and light wines. The Volstead Act previously defined an intoxicating beverage as one with greater than 0.5% alcohol. The 18th amendment was repealed on December 5, 1933 as part of the ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. This was 6 years before the beginning of the second World War. At this time the hotel was remodeled again and opened as the Corner House Hotel and in this ad here look at the line after good food notice it says All Legal Beverages this meant any legal beverages that the State of New York allowed them to serve after prohibition was over. In 1939 World War would break out and it would cause companies to ration gas and other products that were needed for soldiers on the front lines both on the European and Asian fronts this caused the Corner House Hotel to close its doors in 1941. But just one year after the end of World War II in 1945 it would be sold again but this time to Ray and Irene DeMay, it would stay open until the early 2000s, and in November of 2017 it would be demolished for a proposed Crosby’s Convenience store and gas station but nothing has been built there as of this Bicentennial Snapshot published on August 30th, 2022. More On The DeMay Hotel and Banquet space in Snapshot # 25 – The DeMay Hotel.

Corner House ad Hilton Record 1938 October 13

Bicentennial Snapshot # 23 – The Larkin Hotel

August 23, 2022December 31, 2023 by Pat Worboys

This week and in the next two snapshots we look at the Tavern / Hotel / Inn / Speakeasy that occupied the southeast corner of Latta Road and North Greece Road. The first hotel we will look at will be named after its last owner Joseph Larkin, not its first owner or subsequent owners. Back in the early years of the country and in some really rural communities the hotel, tavern and post offices, and general stores were all in one building or sometimes in separate buildings depending on the size of the community it was located in. But for North Greece, it appears that on the map in 1858 the Post Office was located in the store that belonged to Mary Phelp, and across the street before H.C. Phelps had a store it was A. W. Dickerson General Store.

The Background of the Hotel and its similarities to the H. C. Phelps building

The Larkin hotel was build sometime before the civil war, based on research and architectural details that William Aeberli and Shirley Cox Husted found based on similarities between the design of the H.C. Phelps General Store and the Larkin hotel.

Phelps general store latta and north Greece roads sketch William Aeberli 1970 — Phelps general store Latta and north Greece roads sketch William Aeberli 1970

The owners of the location

From what we can tell there could have been as many as 4 or more owners of the hotel the list of people we have based on available data and records is Mary Phelps, then we have a record of Archaeus Johnson (A. Johnson) buying it from Henry and Melvina Hazen on April 1, 1869, after that its a mystery, and without any other information and the information that children of Joseph B Larkin had with them when they passed away, so we will never know its full past or what made it a thriving spot for stagecoaches to stop and rest for the evening.

Peter Larkin

Born: 1810 in Ireland no date or month available other than based on the year of death and the text on the grave which reads DIED 14 Mar 1884 of 75 years.

Rose Larkin

Born: 1816 in Ireland

Died: April 25, 1881, at 65 years of age

Peter Larkin was a successful farmer, entrepreneur, and three-term supervisor of the Town of Greece, as well as a member of Mother of Sorrows. In the 1870 census, it lists him as owning nearly $ 500,000.00 in real estate. We have a record of him owning a hotel near Latta Road and Long Pond Road, but he was not the proprietor of the hotel. Also in the 1870 census, we learn that his nephew Joseph was living with him and his wife Rose Larkin.

Peter Larkin 1870 census — Peter and Rose Larkin, and Nephew Joseph in the 1870 census

Larkin, Joseph 1880 census — Peter and Rose Larkin, and Nephew Joseph in the 1880 census the year after this entry Rose would pass away.

Joseph B. Larkin

Born: September 1855 in New York

Death: 15 April 1907

Married: Elizabeth Anna Slater

In the 1870s we learn that Joseph moved in with his uncle in North Greece and started out attending what would have been District School Number 6 and then went on to Charlotte or John Marshall for high school or entered the workforce sometime between the 1870 and 1880 census

Children

Rose Mary Larkin
- 1882–1955
Anna G. Larkin
- 1884–1954
Elizabeth M. (Larkin) McKenna
- 1886–1961
- This was the only daughter that got married but had no heirs
- Married Frank J. McKenna
Frances J. Larkin
- 1889–1971

Joseph Larkin, and family entry in the 1900 Census

Based on the Monroe County Sheriff’s deputies and the newspaper report below:

Larkin’s Hotel Burglarized

The hotel of Joseph Larkin at North Greece was entered by burglars last Tuesday Night and Mr. Larkin’s watch was stolen. Money was also taken from the clothing of both Mr. and Mrs. Larkin. No trace of the thieves has been discovered.

In 1891 we learn that Joseph was the proprietor of the hotel and he and Elizabeth were either out or asleep when the Larkin Hotel was burglarized by thieves, and from the records show an undisclosed amount of cash was taken from the clothing of Joseph and Elizabeth Larkin, as well as Joseph’s watch which could have been from his Uncle or another family member or one that he saved up and bought we will never know.

We do know that both He and His Uncle were both Democrats and the hotel was used as a site for Democrat Political Caucuses.

The Larkin Hotel was demolished around 1912, that was probably because the four daughters did not want to take it over or could not take over the hotel.

A Farewell to Frear’s Garden Center

August 21, 2022April 12, 2023 by Maureen Whalen and Pat Worboys

Frear’s Garden Center

1892 to 2022

130 Years of Local Gardening Expertise

Gallery of photos at the end of the story

The Frear family has been part of the Greece landscape for 130 years, 93 of them over four generations as proprietors of one of the town’s iconic businesses. In May of this year, Warren and Lynn Frear announced that Frear’s Garden Center was closing.

Pat Worboys and I visited Frear’s on June 13 and interviewed Warren and Lynn for a future Bicentennial Snapshot. Lynn explained that a series of misfortunes led to the difficult decision. First, a windstorm on March 6 of this year seriously damaged their greenhouses; they lost over 350 panes of glass and consequently, the plants that were growing in the greenhouses, particularly all their Easter lilies, died. Parts of the roof of the garden center and shingles on the barn were torn off as well. That was followed by a customer-caused small fire that produced enough smoke that they needed to hire a cleaning service to come in and thoroughly clean everything. On top of that were the supply chain problems created by COVID-19 (their vendors were telling them Christmas merchandise wouldn’t be available until January or February!). Lynn said, “it seemed like someone was trying to tell us something.” Their last day was July 31, 2022.

Left is Kerry In the Middle is Lynn and to the Right is Warren.

november 9 1861 — Notice on the beam here it has the date of November 9, 1861.

E. Frear & Sons. sign in the section that housed the Farmall Super A.

Warren’s grandfather, Ernst Frear, a German immigrant, purchased the property on Stone Road in 1892. He was a truck farmer initially, selling vegetables to wholesalers. In the 1920s Clarence Frear, Ernst’s son and Warren’s father expanded the business, then known as E. Frear & Sons. They acquired greenhouses “from Barnard Crossing,” Warren said, (they may have been from Vick’s nurseries) and expanded to fruit trees and flowers. After Ernst’s death in 1937, the west side of the farm was being used for Frear’s Chevrolet, started by Arthur Frear in 1931. Clarence’s east side was the farm and Frear’s Florist. Clarence’s wife, Gwendolyn, took a course in flower arranging and like other florists provided arrangements for weddings, funerals, and other occasions. The public was also invited to visit their greenhouses for a wide variety of bedding plants.

It was in this barn here that Arthur Frear started Frear’s Chevrolet in 1931.

In 1958, they announced another expansion—it became Frear’s Farm Market. In addition to the bedding plants, fruits, and vegetables, they began selling garden accessories and opened a deli.

5000 gallons of oil — This held 5000 gal of oil that heats the greenhouse compared to lots of coal.

This is where a coal conveyer belt ran before switching to oil.

An ad in the Greece Post in 1965 publicized another change, Frear’s Lawn, Garden, and Greenhouse Center. That same year, Frear’s started their Christmas Tree, Trim, and Gift Center, a modest beginning to what would evolve over the years into Christmas Fantasy Land with 6000 square feet devoted to every imaginable Christmas decoration including artificial trees, lights, and creches. Eventually, it became simply Frear’s Garden Center.

Warren and Lynn took over the business in 1976; their daughter Kerry was the fourth generation involved in the Center.

Warren and Lynn escorted Pat and me around the property. Only Christmas items and indoor plants remained. The greenhouses were mostly empty. They showed us the barns, one still full of boxed Christmas trees. Built around 1902, these barns date back to Warren’s grandfather. On Stone Road not far from the garage where Art Frear started his auto dealership, stands the family homestead, Warren’s grandparents’ house. No Frears have lived there for some time, but no one resides there now due to a fire.

To the Far Left was the Slaughter Room, To the left, is where all the Christmas Trees and where a fire in the 1960s or 70s was to the right is where a Farmall Super A stored and the picture above with the beam with the date of 11-9-1861.

From their many years at the Center, Warren and Lynn recall what was best about doing business in Greece: the many young employees who became knowledgeable about plants and serving customers well and those customers who were loyal to Frear’s and appreciated the individualized service and advice they could get from people who had been in the plant business for decades.

It was Frear’s for years. Thank you. You’ll be missed.