#yatescounty

By Jonathan Monfiletto

Marine Corps Sgt. Maj. William Anthony wasn’t born in Yates County, and he isn’t buried here either. It seems the only time he set foot on Yates County soil was for a month-long stint picking grapes in Jerusalem in the fall of 1899; his wife was from Guyanoga, and his son settled in the Dresden area as an adult. Otherwise, Sgt. Anthony had no connections here.

However, the memory of Sgt. Maj. Anthony and the story of his heroic deed continue to live on in Yates County – whether modern-day residents realize it – in the name of a road bearing his surname. Anthony Road, which runs from Route 14 southward into the village of Dresden, honors the man who played the role of a tragic hero in the story of the Spanish American War.

While recent findings suggest the explosion aboard the USS Maine was caused by a spontaneous fire in the coal bunker, in 1898 fingers pointed toward the ship being blown up by a mine set by Spanish forces. What isn’t under dispute is, first, that the incident led directly to the Spanish American War and, second, that it was then-Pvt. Bill Anthony who sounded the alarm to the ship’s commander about the explosion.

According to an article in the Penn Yan Democrat of February 17, 1933, Anthony was acting as orderly to Navy Cpt. Charles Sigsbee, the Maine’s commander, on February 15, 1898. The ship was anchored in the harbor of Havana, Cuba, “and all was peaceful when the deafening, rending blast rocked the vessel,” the newspaper stated, at approximately 9:40 p.m. Eastern time.

According to historian John Creamer, it was an oppressively warm and humid evening. The Maine had been sent to Cuba on a goodwill visit to protect American citizens and interests on the island nation, while tensions between the United States and Spain – which controlled Cuba at the time – reached a boiling point after building up for years. The Maine’s presence was meant to encourage Americans and Cubans and challenge the Spanish.

Creamer described Anthony’s experience that evening this way: “Private Bill took a long stroll on deck to postpone retiring to his steaming hammock below. There was no air conditioning then – in fact, the Maine was the first US Navy vessel to have electric lights. It was just as well for Bill that he dawdled, for at exactly 9:40 p.m. he and a number of others, on board the Maine and elsewhere around the harbor, saw a sheet of orange flame envelop the bow of the battleship. The explosion that followed was so tremendous that an eyewitness on another ship said that the Maine was lifted nearly out of the water by its force. … In the aftermath of the explosion, Private Bill realized that he had to get a message to Captain Sigsbee. He ran to the captain’s cabin in the dark. … The captain, not unaware that something had happened to the ship (he said later that he thought they were being fired upon by nearby Spanish guns), emerged from his cabin just as Private Bill arrived. In the darkness, the two men collided. … Private Bill backed off, apologized, saluted, and spoke the words that would put him into the history books.”

Those words, according to the Democrat, were: “I have the honor, sir, to report the Maine has been blown up and is sinking.” Sigsbee commended Anthony’s action in the captain’s record of the event, as transcribed in the Democrat: “The special feature in the case of this service performed by Private Anthony is that on an occasion when man’s instinct would lead him to seek safety outside the ship, he started into the superstructure and toward the cabin, irrespective of the danger. The action was a noble one and I feel it an honor to call his conduct to the attention of the recommendator that he be made a sergeant.”

Indeed, Anthony was promoted to sergeant and then, rather quickly, to sergeant major. According to Creamer, Anthony – 44 years old at the time – had served in the Marine Corps for 28 years. It is unclear what he did in the military prior to February 1898 – his service predates the Civil War – and why he remained a private for 28 years. Creamer notes promotions came slowly in those days – but apparently rapidly in the face of heroic acts – and there wasn’t much opportunity for a private to distinguish himself.

The disaster aboard the Maine killed 260 of the 328 crew members; indeed, only 16 were left uninjured. Though Anthony was listed among these 16, he received splinters in his face and through his hand when a lifeboat disintegrated in the explosion. He managed to climb into one of the remaining boats and row about the ship – in a hail of shrapnel and exploding ammunition – to look for survivors.

With no ship to serve on, Anthony subsequently was transferred to guard duty at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and given the highest enlisted rank in the Marine Corps. Anthony retired from the Marine Corps shortly after, in June 1898. Entitled to retirement pay after nearly 30 years of military service, Anthony – out of what the Democrat described as “character modesty” and fear “that the application might reflect on his superior officer who had helped him to get his rapid promotion,” Anthony declined the benefit and left the Marine Corps with no job and nothing but his name and reputation as a national hero.

Someone was looking to cash in on Anthony’s 15 minutes of fame, however, and a group of promoters convinced the Marine to take part in a play about the recently concluded Spanish American War, titled “The Red, White, and Blue.” Anthony’s role consisted of his appearing on stage in his Marine Corps uniform and reciting, “Remember the Maine!” to thunderous applause from the audience. However, the production closed quickly, as people were not ready to view a reenactment of a war they had just witnessed.

So, Anthony was once again out of work. In the interim, he got married to Adella Blancet, of Guyanoga, in October 1898. Adella had written to the national hero to seek his autograph; though he had received many such letters, for some reason Adella’s letter stood out and he wrote back to her. They soon wed and then had a son, William Jr., born in July 1898.

Following the grape harvest in the fall of 1899, Anthony left Adella and William Jr. in Guyanoga and traveled back to New York City to try to find work. He wasn’t willing to pull strings with his reputation and mention his struggle, and he lacked marketable skills outside of his military service.

On November 24, 1899, Anthony was sitting on a bench in Central Park when two police officers noticed him acting strangely with agitated behavior but also recognized who he was. Suddenly, Anthony pulled a small glass bottle out of his pocket and swallowed the contents. The officers attempted to help him, but he told them he didn’t want to be saved. Sure enough, Anthony died within an hour from an overdose of cocaine extract.

While the national hero was mourned following his shocking death, his name and reputation were quickly forgotten. Adella stayed in Yates County, and William Jr. grew up there. The son of the national hero married, became a successful farmer and vineyardist, served as Torrey town supervisor, and lived on the road that bears his family name.

In December 1942, the Navy remembered Anthony by launching the USS Anthony, a destroyer named in honor of the hero from the Maine. William Jr.’s daughters – Alice, a freshman at Keuka College, and Frances, a student at Penn Yan Academy – christened the ship bearing their grandfather’s name. In World War II, the destroyer saw action against the Japanese in the Philippines.

Interestingly, while William Jr. is buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Dresden – not too far from where Anthony Road enters the village – Anthony is buried in The Evergreens Cemetery in Brooklyn. Yates County continues to remember this non-resident who became a national hero.

By Jonathan Monfiletto

From furniture for stores and schools to carriages and buses to metal fixtures and more, the Penn Yan area has been the site of various industrial endeavors creating a variety of interesting products. One such venture was the Combination Vender Company, which was at one point located on Water Street in the building that is now the site of Water Street Wines & Spirits.

Though it seems to have begun with promise, the Combination Vender Company also seems to have come in like lion – putting out a roaring good product for the Yates County area and beyond – and seems to have gone out like a lion too, with a ferocious argument between the company’s founders. The Yates County Chronicle of August 31, 1904 features the first reference to the Combination Vender Company in a Yates County newspaper, though it is unclear when the company started. That edition of the Chronicle notes Combination Vender recently moved from the Commercial Iron Works, located on Commercial Avenue in the Lake Street corridor after the 1872 Jacob Street fire, to a building on Water Street owned by C.H. Conklin.

A few months later, on February 8, 1905, the Chronicle carried an article titled “Penn Yan’s New Industry” and subtitled “Davis Brothers and F.B. Townsend Doing a Rushing Business on Water Street.” The article describes Combination Vender as a new industry that opened on Water Street after beginning in Beebe’s carriage factory the summer before. The Water Street building had previously been occupied by the Penn Yan Wine Company but now was the home of a firm managed by brothers Jacob and Lewis Davis and Frank Townsend, who invented the machine the company patented on October 25, 1904 and produced in its factory.

Though newspaper accounts call the machine a slot machine, it wasn’t something you would see in a casino even though in practice it might work that way. In essence, the machine was – as the company’s name suggests – a vending machine. According to the Chronicle, the vending machines had four compartments to carry four different commodities, such as candies and peanuts and more. Items cost one cent each, so a person put in their penny and chose the item they wanted. The machine received the penny and carried it back to the drawer and retained it. Then, the desired item fell through the opening into the hand of the person.

Interestingly, the machine also had a magnet that attracted steel or iron or tin and thus prevented fraudulent coins from being used to obtain items. Since a penny is made from brass and not magnetic, it moved through the machine as intended.

At the time of the 1905 article, the company employed 13 people and and had 1,000 machines ready for shipment, with a total of 3,000 or more orders. The Chronicle detailed the company’s process for making the machines on Water Street: On the first floor, oak woodwork for the machines was cut to the right size by circular saws and into the right shape by a machine carrying different knives. Then, the wood was smoothed and polished by a revolving wheel. On the second floor, the iron and brass were prepared, with the iron cut into shape by metal dies. On the third floor, the machines were put together, varnished, and prepared for sale. At that point, every part of the machines was made on Water Street except for the enameled iron front – made by the Lisk works in Canandaigua – and one little casting made in Buffalo.

Combination Vender had moved to Water Street in 1904 to “largely increase its capacity,” according to the Chronicle, and indeed by the end 1905 the company was reported to employ “fifteen or sixteen men” and its machine was touted as “one of the best on the market and … finding a ready sale in all parts of the United States.” The company incorporated in early 1906 with a capital stock of $100,000, with the Davis brothers and Townsend among the directors. “These gentlemen have an excellent invention, a money maker, and are to be congratulated,” the Chronicle said.

In December 1908, the Combination Vender building was the victim of an apparent arsonist in the Penn Yan business district. The engine room, where the fire ignited, and another small building were significantly damaged, and the building sustained water damage. However, a little more than a year later, in the first Chronicle edition of 1910, an article headlined “Prospering Industries” highlighted Combination Vender along with other industries and interests throughout Penn Yan and Yates County. the sub-headlines boasted, “Penn Yan’s Factories and Mills Show Marked Progress During 1909,” “Railroads Show Increase Over 1908,” and “Northern Central Business for November and December Gains $14,200. Factories Nearly all Busy. Outlook for 1910 Very Promising in all Industries.”

For the article, Combination Vender reported an increase in business from 1908 to 1909 and had “every reason to be assured of a prosperous year in 1910,” with no decrease in its workforce during the winter despite such a cut being the rule in similar factories. “This firm has a great deal of competition to meet, but its machines are satisfactory and increased business naturally follows,” the article states.

However prosperous 1910 may been for Combination Vender, 1911 appeared to usher in the downfall of the company. On May 31, the Chronicle reported the factory was shut down and the employees put on vacation because of strained relations between Townsend, the company secretary, and Jacob Davis, the company treasurer. Davis had apparently fired Townsend, giving the secretary “a notice that his services were no longer required,” but Townsend refused to stop working. Davis delivered Townsend another notice, this time accompanied by a witness, yet Townsend still refused to quit. Townsend stated his firing by the treasurer required the consent of the board of directors.

Davis called a meeting of the board of directors, which voted to discharge Townsend. The secretary still refused to step down, claiming the notice of the meeting must specify its purpose. With the factory slated to reopen the following week, Townsend said he would be there while Davis said Townsend would not be allowed to work and the factory would be closed again if needed. It was noted Davis held the majority of shares in the company, while Townsend was a stockholder and was also superintendent of the factory for some time.

The Penn Yan Democrat of June 9, 1911 sheds more light on Townsend’s side of the argument, stating the secretary had asked the treasurer for a sworn statement of the condition of the company but Davis failed to do so. While Townsend said he made the request in writing that March, Davis said he had no recollection of it other than presenting a statement to the board and giving it to Townsend to examine. However, at that meeting, Townsend said he asked Davis to swear to the statement, but Davis would swear only to part of it. This argument apparently led to Davis seeking to fire Townsend.

According to the Democrat, Townsend sought a penalty for Davis for his violating a law that requires the treasurer of a company or corporation to render a sworn statement under certain conditions. Townsend also sought back payment for his prior work for the company. Indeed, Townsend filed a lawsuit against Davis for the violation of corporation law. The presiding judge dismissed the action, however, stating Townsend, as a director of the company, had “every opportunity to acquaint himself with the financial standing of the company,” the Chronicle stated on December 13, 1911.

As reported by the Chronicle on June 4, 1913, the Appellate Division ordered a retrial, with this time the jury deciding the case in favor of Townsend and the presiding judge awarding $680 (equivalent to $21,298 in 2023 dollars) to Townsend as a penalty to Davis. This verdict appeared to ring the death knell for Combination Vendor.

On January 9, 1914, the Democrat reported a man was looking for a suitable building to manufacture gas fixtures, and one place under consideration was “the brick building on Water Street until recently occupied by the Combination Vender Company, this company having moved into the adjoining wooden building,” formerly occupied by Sanderson’s coal office. A year later, on January 15, 1915, the Democrat reported a fire destroyed the three floors of the Combination Vender building. Baldwin’s Bank owned the building and had it insured for $3,000, while Davis had the machinery and company stock insured for $8,000.

By Jonathan Monfiletto

The L. Caroline Underwood Museum is named for the woman – whose given first name was Lucy, though she always went by her middle name of Caroline – who was a prominent, lifelong citizen of Yates County and a distinguished, longtime teacher in the Penn Yan school district. While she taught for nearly 50 years – reaching the mandatory retirement of 70 years old – and served as a substitute teacher for another year or two after that, Caroline had a vision to turn her home into a museum.

The Underwood Museum, of course, is not that home; throughout most of her adult life, Caroline lived in a home at 425 Liberty St. in the vicinity of the Yates County Courthouse. In the late 1990s, toward the end of Caroline’s life, when Yates County decided to expand its courthouse complex and construct an office building, the county gave Caroline the choice of selling her home to the county or forfeiting it through eminent domain. She did agree to sell her home to the county with the stipulation she could live in it until she died, which she did in December 1998 a week shy of turning 96.

Through Caroline’s bequest, the Yates County History Center established the Underwood Museum in the home at 107 Chapel St. to bring her vision to fruition and acquired her collections and belongings, which are on permanent exhibit on the second floor of the home. Being an only child and never having married nor had children, Caroline inherited many items through her parents, acquired possessions of her own, and purchased souvenirs on her travels across the country and around the world as well as at yard sales and estate sales.

Though Caroline Underwood is not a household name, even among the local history of Yates County and the Finger Lakes, her collections fascinate me. Particularly, there is a display case on the second floor of the Underwood Museum that houses souvenirs Caroline purchased on her many vacations. Having several of her travel journals in our collection, we at the Yates County History Center can match up many of the items in this display case to the several trips Caroline documented.

Still, one section of this display case has mystified me for the two and a half years I have worked at the History Center. That is Caroline’s ceramic or porcelain – it’s described as both in our collections database – pig collection. It stands out prominently on one of the lower shelves of the display case and typically draws visitors’ attention more than anything else in the exhibit. But I haven’t known as much about this part of Caroline’s collections as I would have liked to, and I still don’t.

Did Caroline acquire this collection for herself, or did someone purchase it for her? The 59 pieces all seem to be part of a related collection, but did other people – perhaps students – give her pieces of the collection at separate times? Why did Caroline like pigs so much? Did she even like pigs that much (I have a weird theory to go with this regard)?

Until now, the most I had known about Caroline’s pig collection came from former Yates County Sheriff Ronald Spike, whose father, George, was the sheriff before him at a time when the sheriff had quarters inside the county jail. Ron lived with his parents inside the jail on Liberty Street, near Caroline’s home. In his youth, Ron apparently struggled in school and needed extra help, so he would go to Caroline’s home after school for tutoring. Afterward, so the anecdote goes, he would tell his friends about seeing Miss Underwood’s pig collection and how the teacher told him not to touch it.

Recently, though, through a couple of visitors to the exhibit, I learned this collection may be examples of what are called fairing pigs, or fairings for short. Fairings were small porcelain or ceramic – again, the articles I found in my research describes them both ways – trinkets given away as prizes at fairs (hence the name) or sold for just a few pennies each. They were generally produced during the Victorian era, from 1840 to 1900, and they were German in origin – Germans believing pigs are a sign of good fortune or luck.

The figurines were usually 2 to 3 inches in height or width at a maximum, according to an article from the Polohouse. “Some where (sic) match holders with a match strike area, some were small banks, vases, or lidded boxes,” the article states. “And others were sweet little figural pieces without a purpose – many with a humorous inscription.” Indeed, one of Caroline’s figures features a mother pig peering into a cradle perhaps, with three piglets pictured on its side with the phrase “Triplets, O fancy.” Another of her figurines depicts a mother pig wearing an apron with a bell at her eye level and is labeled “The Dinner Bell,” as she calls her piglets to the table. Yet another of Caroline’s pigs, which is also pictured in the Polohouse article, shows a mother pig leaning over her piglet’s crib; the side of the pig reads: “Hush a bye baby, don’t you cry, you’ll be a sausage by and bye.”

An article from the Treasures in Your Attic column adds that fairings functioned as small dresser boxes, toothpick holders, chamber sticks, match holders, and ashtrays as well as small figures riding in early automobiles, playing piano, posed beside a bean pot, sitting on a sofa, or mailing a letter. Polohouse describes fairings as being painted with the same green paint and the same peachy pink paint for the pigs, along with metallic gold and deep orange-red and other colors. While Caroline’s pigs aren’t identified in our collections database as fairings, they certainly fit the bill with these color schemes on the figurines in her collection.

Based upon the evidence in these articles and a few others I consulted in my research, I am almost certain (I feel like I cannot be fully certain without documentation) that Caroline’s pig collection is indeed a set of fairings. Now, my next is where and how did she acquire this collection or from whom did she receive these pieces?

By Jonathan Monfiletto

Penn Yan has had some sort of organized fire protection since shortly after its incorporation as a village in 1833. In fact, the Penn Yan Fire Department of today can trace its origins to an organization established in 1835.

That fall, after a fire destroyed an early Yates County courthouse building, a meeting took place at the American Hotel (the modern-day site of Long’s Cards & Books) in which Thomas Locke called for volunteers to join what was then called Fire Engine Company No. 1. With a certificate signed by Village President Abraham Wagener – the man considered the founding father of Penn Yan – the company purchased a brake and suction engine called the Neptune. The engine, stored in a building on Elm Street (coincidentally, likely near the site of the present firehouse), joined a hand engine called the Cataract, which was kept in a shack on North Avenue.

That Cataract was part of the village’s earliest firefighting efforts, which involved the mythical but real bucket brigade. During the earliest days of the settlement that became Penn Yan, the residents of the time sought a form of fire protection and organized themselves into a bucket brigade. Leather buckets were distributed to the 300 or so homeowners who lived in the Penn Yan area at the time, and when a fire erupted in the village they were expected to seize their buckets, head to the scene of the fire, and form a bucket brigade.

It was not just a sense of duty but a local ordinance that called upon residents to keep their buckets at the ready in their homes and respond to fires with their buckets, ready to take their places in the line and hand the bucket to fight the fire. Supporting these efforts, with the rapid growth in population and constant increase in buildings, was the purchase of the Cataract. However, the Cataract complemented rather than replaced the efforts of the bucket brigade, as Lewis Cass Aldrich describes the Cataract as “but little greater power than a large ‘squirt-gun’” in his 1892 History of Yates County. Nevertheless, the Cataract was the first piece of firefighting equipment in Penn Yan and was used for 20 or so years.

While Company No. 1, with Locke as the chief engineer, continued operating the Neptune, another group of volunteers formed Cataract Company No. 2 in 1838 to take charge of that engine. In the 1840s, a wooden building went up on the north side of Chapel Street to store the engine along with a homemade hook-and-ladder truck. In those days, firefighters drew water from the Keuka Lake Outlet with leather firehoses and had just enough hose to blast a stream of water 330 feet in any direction from the corner of Main and Elm streets.

Starting in the 1850s, and into the 1860s and 1870s, the village began installing underground pipes and reservoirs to improve the water supply. However, it wasn’t until 1894 – when the system was completed – that firefighters had ample access to this water supply. In the meantime, a group of citizens formed Keuka No. 1 in 1851 and Excelsior No. 2 in 1855. While Excelsior No. 2 was situated in an engine house at the corner of Main Street and North Avenue, Keuka No. 1 was located on Main Street at the firehouse that eventually burned in 1967. During this time, the fire department purchased its third brake engine – from Wright and Company, of Rochester – in 1856 and a Button and Blake machine from Waterford in 1858.

With the purchase of Penn Yan’s first steam engine in 1871, 83 members organized Keuka Engine Company that October. The steam engine was purchased from Silsby Manufacturing Company, of Seneca Falls, a renowned manufacturer of firefighting equipment of the time. The Keuka Engine members sought permission to take charge of Keuka No. 1 and Excelsior No. 2, and later they formed themselves into a hose company called Ellsworth Hose Company. Gen. S.S. Ellsworth, the namesake, was a Civil War hero from Penn Yan.

Meanwhile, the Hydraulic Hose Company – later and still called Hydrant Hose Company – began in 1866, initially using a force pump installed in the building that became The Birkett Mills to fight fires. A hose was attached to the force pump until hydrants were placed along downtown Main Street. Early on, fire hydrants were installed only on Main Street, so Hydrant Hose responded only to fires on Main Street while Ellsworth operated the steam engine throughout the rest of the village.

The Hunter Hook and Ladder Company – named after Yates County Treasurer Charles Hunter – started in 1880 with the purchase of the fire department’s first truck. The company also took charge of the department’s ladders and other equipment. While this company and Ellsworth met in separate rooms of the Main Street firehouse, Hydrant Hose had headquarters that opened in 1886 in Struble’s Arcade. Meanwhile, the Sheldon Hose Company – named after William Sheldon – formed in 1895 and occupied the engine house on Main Street and North Avenue.

In 1905, Hydrant Hose moved its offices from the Arcade to the municipal building on Maiden Lane. About a decade later, in 1916, the company bought the department’s first motorized equipment, a Brockway hose truck with attached chemical tanks.

These four companies – Hydrant Hose, Ellsworth Hose, Hunter Hook and Ladder, and Sheldon Hose, listed in order of establishment – still make up the modern-day Penn Yan Fire Department, with the main firehouse located on Elm Street that opened in June 1969. In 1914, Penn Yan historian Walter Wolcott noted the “(Penn Yan) department of today is an active, alert organization,” with a steam fire engine, a chemical engine, a hook and ladder truck, and three hose companies. With 60 hydrants and several outlying hose houses throughout the village, as well as the water supply from Keuka Lake, “the village is capable of successfully coping with the more serious fires.”

By Jonathan Monfiletto

His great-grandfather escaped from slavery in Virginia and worked for the Union Army during the Civil War. His grandfather made a family home on Cherry Street in Penn Yan and owned a blacksmith shop on Maiden Lane in the village. His father served during World War I as apparently the only Black soldier from Yates County in the conflict. And Stanley Clark followed in their footsteps and made his own history in a career of service to the military and the community.

Stanley Clark was born January 21, 1935 in Penn Yan to Franklin and Lena Clark, who at the time lived on North Avenue in Penn Yan. Franklin, in turn, had been born in August 1894 in Ingleside, near Prattsburgh in Steuben County, to William and Sarah Clark and – at least by the time of his entrance into the military – raised in their Cherry Street home. Franklin served as a farrier sergeant – he took care of the horses, forging and fitting their shoes, among other tasks – with Battery D of the 349th Field Artillery, 92nd Division. Department from Camp Dix, New Jersey, Franklin served from his drafting in November 1917 until his discharge at Camp Upton, New York in March 1919.

Stanley Clark died at age 85 on December 21, 2020 – exactly one month before his 86th birthday – having served his country and his comrades in the U.S. Army for a full 20 years, as director of the Yates County Veterans’ Service Agency, and with the American Legion at the post, county, district, state, and national levels. Though he is recent in history, as I like to say of those who existed during living memory – I’m sure there is someone reading this article who knew Stanley – I wanted to write about him because I have written about the three generations in his family who came before him.

These generations include Nathaniel Clark – Stanley’s great-grandfather – and Franklin, whose military service I wrote about in honor of Black History Month on February 9, 2022, just the second article on the Oliver’s Travels blog. At the time, I hadn’t firmly connected the two men as relatives, but on November 23, 2022, I wrote about the two men and connected them through William, Nathaniel’s oldest child and Franklin’s father. Since that time, I have been researching Stanley – the fourth generation of the family to live in Penn Yan – and wanting to write about him to close the loop, so to speak.

A quick word about Nathaniel before I continue on with Stanley’s story: Born into slavery in October 1842 on a plantation near Port Royal, Virginia, he worked as a porter at a hotel in Bowling Green when troops under command of Union General Ambrose Burnside took him and other enslaved people and assigned them to different duties. Nathaniel worked for Col. William Clark (it is unclear if this is a coincidence or if Nathaniel eventually adopted Clark’s surname) as a cook and caretaker with the 9th Army Corps, 3rd Division, 2nd Brigade.

Three years later, during a battle at Suffolk, Virginia, Clark was taken prisoner by the Confederate Army and made a cook on a Confederate vessel. After six weeks on the ship, Clark and Uncle Joe, a fellow enslaved man, deserted the army, signaled a Union picket boat, and then helped sink the Confederate ship and free the Union prisoners.

Stanley followed his father and great-grandfather into military service while still a student at Geneva High School, enlisting in the U.S. Army at age 17 in 1952 and receiving his high school diploma while on active duty. He retired with the rank of sergeant first class 20 years later in 1972. In between, he served with the 2nd Infantry Division during the Korean War from 1952 to 1953. He later served two deployments during the Vietnam War, first from 1965 to 1967 with the 1st Infantry Division and then from 1969 to 1971 with the 197th Transportation Battalion. During his second tour, Stanley was the captain of a tugboat on the Mekong River. For his career of service, he received the Combat Infantryman’s Badge and the Korean and Vietnam Service Medals.

Two years after retiring from the Army, Stanley embarked on another 20-year career of serving his fellow veterans. In 1974, the Yates County Legislature appointed him as the county’s director of veterans affairs. At the time, Stanley was 39 years old and living on Main Street in Dundee. Upon his retirement in 1994, Stanley was the honoree of a testimonial dinner held at Johnson Costello American Legion Post 355 in Penn Yan. The 50 guests in attendance included the sitting State Assemblyman and a representative of the sitting State Senator, both of whom presented Stanley with citations; Yates County legislators, officials, and co-workers; members of the American Legion, VFW, and 40/8 as well as their ladies auxiliaries; and Stanley’s son James.

The following year, Stanley was named Humanitarian of the Year 1994-95 by the Seventh District of the American Legion. The Johnson Costello post had nominated him for that honor as well as for Legionnaire of the Year; the Yates County American Legion had awarded both of these honors to him and forwarded his nominations to the district level. He had joined the Johnson Costello post in 1972, after his own military career, and worked his way up to Post Commander for the year 1977-78. He served as Yates County Commander in 1985, District Commander Aide in 1986, and New York Department Sergeant-At-Arms in 1987.

“Stories of his assistance to veterans, their spouses, and family are endless and cover any hour of the day. He is just a very nice person, and I like him,” said Joan Byrnside, of the Dundee American Legion Auxiliary. These stories – largely during his tenure as veterans services director – range from transporting veterans to the hospital in his own vehicle after hours to assisting and comforting a dying veteran’s wife to serving as fiduciary for 15 veterans who were unable to handle their own affairs.

A decade later, for the term running from July 2005 to July 2006, Clark was elected American Legion State Commander, the first resident of Yates County to hold this position. Part of his duties included visiting every American Legion post home in the state, and as a result he logged 31,600 miles on his Legion-provided car. He visited Yates County posts in Penn Yan and Dundee in March 2006 for a homecoming celebration of sorts before he concluded his tenure a few months later.

In 2011, the Department of New York State elected Stanley as its Alternate National Executive Committeeman, one of two representatives of the state on the American Legion’s National Executive Committee, the organization’s policy-making board. With a two-year term as the alternate, Stanley once again became the first resident of Yates County to have this role and was in line to serve another two years as National Executive Committeeman.

By Jonathan Monfiletto

When Uncle Sam called, a young woman from Penn Yan – much like many of the young men all around her – answered. And she not only rose to the call but went above and beyond it during her nearly three and a half years of service in World War II.

Less than six months after the United States of America entered the global conflict following the attack on Pearl Harbor by Japanese forces, the U.S. government – through a bill approved by Congress and signed by President Franklin Roosevelt – established the Women’s Auxiliary Air Corps on May 15, 1942 “for the purpose,” officially, “of making available to the national defense the knowledge, skill, and special training of women of the nation.” In actuality, it took a Congresswomen – U.S. Rep. Edith Nourse Rogers, of Massachusetts, who introduced the bill a year before it became law – to ensure women would receive all the rights and benefits afforded to male service members when they supported the Army, after she had witnessed the status of women in World War I.

Less than three months after the WAAC was formed, in September 1942, Carlotta “Kirk” Crosier became Yates County’s first woman to enlist in this new military organization. Having been employed as a physical education teacher in Owego public schools at the time, she joined through the Binghamton recruiting office. In fact, though she taught at Owego Free Academy for two years by that point, a newspaper article from the time indicates she did not return for the 1942-1943 school year because she anticipated a call to service.

From Binghamton, Crosier reported to Des Moines, Iowa for basic training at the rank of private. With her experience in physical education, she helped the platoon leader teach the other recruits how to march. Perhaps as a result, she was one of two privates selected for the first officers training course for women.

Upon completion of this officer candidate school, 2nd Lt. Crosier served as executive officer for an all-female company stationed in Daytona Beach, Florida but preparing for duty in England. When the unit was transferred to Fort Devon, Massachusetts and then Camp Kilmer, New Jersey, Crosier was promoted to company commander. When Crosier and her fellow women reached England in July 1943 – the first WAAC battalion to do so, with three to five companies – they were assigned to the 3rd Division of the 8th Air Force. Here, Crosier worked as a company commander under Gen. Curtis LeMay.

Initially, WAACs worked only as clerks, cooks, drivers, and medical personnel. Indeed, a newspaper report quoting an article by Doris Fleeson in the Woman’s Home Companion speaks of female troops under Crosier’s command performing clerical communications and mess duties.

In September 1943, though, Congress and the President – again, through the work of Rep. Rogers – authorized the Women’s Army Corps (WAC), shortening the acronym by a letter and allowing women to serve overseas with the regular Army. Now, women began to take on roles as cryptologists, radio operators, photographers, mechanics, and more.

At this point, it seems, 1st Lt. Crosier was transferred to the 8th Air Force Headquarters Operations Section commanded by Gen. Jimmy Doolittle. Later promoted to captain, she served as the first female operations watch officer in the history of the U.S. military. In this role, working in the operations room in a bombproof, underground structure, Crosier helped coordinate the missions that sent U.S. warplanes on the attack.

Listening to pre-mission discussions among Doolittle and his staff, Crosier helped supply such information as the weather and direct such decisions as the target, the time, the bombload, and the number of planes. When the group made its final decisions for the mission, it was Crosier’s job to write the field order containing all of the pertinent information, send it out by teletype to the bomber divisions, and alert allied agencies of the upcoming attack.

A newspaper article, with the date of March 9, 1944 handwritten on it, calls to attention Crosier’s role in the bombing raids over Berlin, Germany. According to the article, the London Daily Sketch of February 23, 1944 carried a 12-square-inch photograph of Crosier and had this to say about her: “The girl who knows ‘The Gen.’ She is Lt. Carlotta Crosier, U.S. Women’s Army corps, operations watch officer at Eighth Air Force H.Q. On her accuracy depends much of the co-ordination that sends U.S. planes out on attacks. When her chief, Major-General Jimmy Doolittle, asks: ‘How many bombers will we be able to put up tomorrow?’ she supplies the answer.”

Another newspaper article, handwritten with the year of 1945, noted in its headline then-Capt. Crosier “Continues as Watch Officer” and indicated she was among the WACs “contributing considerably toward the successful completion of air attacks against Nazi Europe.” These women kept a constant check on each air mission as it was flown and kept records and plans for future information. Crosier specifically informed generals and other officers who planned air operations on the progress and reports of the current missions and prepared them for any emergencies in which information must be relayed to the proper channels.

Yet another newspaper article dates presumably from about the spring or summer of 1945, as it states Crosier had returned home to Penn Yan after two and a half years of service. Then, she didn’t expect to be out of uniform until almost another year. Indeed, she was discharged as Maj. Crosier in January 1946. Upon her return, she noted how her with bombing missions over enemy territory turned into such missions as dropping supplies over the Netherlands. Then, with little work for the WACs to do but wait to go home, Crosier volunteered to assist with the filming of a documentary about what she and her fellow women did in the European theater. In fact, she was in Paris the day the French held a parade to celebrate V-E, or Victory in Europe, Day.

In a V-mail letter home that was printed in a 1943 report in The Chronicle-Express, Crosier commented on receiving the hometown newspaper overseas and finding fellow soldiers with ties to Penn Yan and the Finger Lakes region. She also seemed to sum up the mission of her fellow women during the war.

“I believe I’m very fortunate in being over here and all of the Wacs are hard at work now and doing a fine job,” she wrote. “I’m very proud of the girls in my command. We are attached to the air force and are very proud of that. … I was very fortunate in being given an opportunity of going up in a Flying Fortress and it sure was a wonderful ship. As you know we are all part of the army of the United States and are regularly G.I.’s now.”

By Jonathan Monfiletto

A Yates County native who has collected pieces of pottery from various local stoneware manufacturers and researched the history of many of these companies recently reached out to me with a question about the succession of these producers in the Penn Yan area. She had found a stoneware batter pail marked “Conklin & Heimburger, Penn Yan” and wondered how this company might have related to the Mantell stoneware business.

This woman had previously sparked my interest in learning about Byron Ansley and Ansley’s Dairy after she asked me about the company behind an Ansley’s Dairy milk bottle she had come across. Naturally, she now sparked my interest in learning about stoneware manufacturers in Yates County; we have traded messages to share the information we have uncovered in our research, and now I present that research here.

In fact, my research into stoneware manufacturing overlapped with another topic I had begun researching at the time. You see, as it turns out, stoneware production in Yates County appears to have been concentrated around the foot of Keuka Lake – on the east branch, where the outlet flows out of the lake and heads toward Seneca Lake – because of “a choice bed of clay” in that area, according to a May 30, 1958 article in The Chronicle-Express. This area, now incorporated into the village of Penn Yan, was once its own separate settlement outside of the village proper. It was known as Summersite.

In 1832, George Campbell founded the first pottery at Summersite – in modern-day terms, think of the intersection of Lake Street and South Avenue and the location of Red Jacket Park – after possibly working at potteries in Manhattan before arriving in Penn Yan. Another source states John Campbell established a redware pottery in the area before 1830, while his son George took over the business by 1850. This source indicates John and George came from New York City. However, a newspaper advertisement dated February 20, 1832 announces George Campbell producing earthen water pipes, candle molds, and other earthenware at his factory at the foot of Crooked Lake.

The 1958 article, written by former Yates County Historian Frank Swann, mentions the firm of Savage & Knapp operating around the same time in the same area. That appears to have been a partnership of Joseph L. Savage and Samuel Knapp, who advertised in 1846 the sale of flint ware, bricks, and earthenware pieces. According to a chapter titled “The Dundee Connection” in a book titled Stoneware of Havana, NY, Savage also enjoyed a partnership in making stoneware in Dundee with James Holmes, of Barrington, who had discovered a bed of clay on Washington Street in Dundee. The Holmes & Savage partnership lasted just a short time – as did, presumably, the firm of Savage & Knapp – as Savage formed another partnership in the village of Havana (the former name of Montour Falls) by August 1850. In 1848, Holmes had already acquired another partner by the name of Purdee, and they continued making stoneware in Dundee.

Meanwhile, George Campbell sold his pottery in 1855 to James Mantell, who had come to Penn Yan from Lyons the year before. Mantell had been a potter in Lyons from 1840 to 1853 and thus was well prepared to keep Campbell’s business going. For a brief time, Mantell had a partner in Shem Thomas, who had arrived in Penn Yan in 1853 but moved on to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in 1856. Mantell continued his business on his own until around 1876, apparently concluding his work with his death. By this point, Swann states, the original clay deposit had been exhausted and “suitable supplies for pottery were brought from New Jersey as ballast in canal boats.”

Nevertheless, the pottery industry in Summersite remained strong, with Oscar Conklin, Mantel’s son-in-law, taking over the business. He worked with at least three partners during this time in business – his firms were known as Conklin & Patterson, Conklin & Mingay, and Conklin & Heimburger. F.J. Elliott & Co. purchased the business sometime in the 1880s – a handwritten note in our subject file dates this purchase as May 1883 – though I have not uncovered an end date for this firm or a successor to this business. At some point, this may have represented the end of the stoneware pottery industry in the Summersite area of Penn Yan.

Much like this major industry in the area, the end of Summersite is also not clear to me. I assume the settlement melded into the village of Penn Yan over time as the village grew up, but I have not yet found concrete evidence for this. What I have found, though, is concrete evidence for the start of this lakeside settlement.

According to Stafford Cleveland in his History and Directory of Yates County, the first settler at the foot of Keuka Lake was John McDowell in 1803 on land belonging to Abraham Wagener, building a double log house on the bank of the lake on the east side of the outlet. A year later, William Wall purchased a tract of land on the west side of the outlet – the present-day Indian Pines area – and took steps to form a village, including surveying the ground into lots. However, Wall died soon after, Wagener took possession of the property, and the proposed village never came to fruition.

However, on the east side of the outlet, a village did come into being with the name of Elizabethtown. By 1817, Meredith Mallory had built a flour or gristmill in the area at the head of the outlet, depending on the low fall of water near that location. However, during the construction of Mallory’s mill, Wagener raised the level of the dam at his mill at the foot of Main Street so there was insufficient water to turn the wheels at Mallory’s mill. By September 1818, Gilman Lovering was operating the Bath, Painted Post, and Geneva stagecoach line. The construction of the highway led to the establishment of several taverns in this area. Zara L. Walton purchased the line on January 1, 1819 and kept it going. Exactly one month after Walton’s purchase of the highway, on February 1, 1819, a group of citizens met at Peter Heltibidal’s tavern and approved a resolution naming the community Summersite.

No matter the name of the settlement, it did seem to hold promise for a major village. In addition to the taverns – Wallace Finch started the first one and was succeeded in its ownership by Heltibidal, George and Robert Shearman, and William Kimble – there were mechanics and a grocery, both presumably serving the stagecoach passengers and workers. In addition to the potteries, other industries sprang up in the area. Isaiah Kimble manufactured augurs and bits; later on, Azor Kimble established a carriage shop. When the Crooked Lake Steamboat Company was incorporated in April 1826, there were hopes for a boom in the village. However, the company never got off the ground – or out on the water.

By Jonathan Monfiletto

For more than 100 years – from the 1870s until the early 1980s – and largely in a time before nursing homes and assisted living facilities, the Penn Yan community hosted a home for elderly women from Yates County and the surrounding area to spend their golden years and maintain their independence. For the first 40 or so years, the home was located on North Main Street and then Chapel Street, operated by the Penn Yan Methodist Episcopal Church, and called the Old Ladies’ Home. For the next 70 or so years, the home was located on Clinton Street, operated by the Pratt Foundation, and called the Guertha Pratt Home.

The title to this article asks two questions, and both of them have interesting answers. The first is interesting because Guertha Pratt had no apparent involvement in the home that was named for her. The second is interesting because, while the answer is simple – the home was located at 224 Clinton St., on the corner with Hamilton Street – the home was not “her” home. According to her husband Seneca’s obituary, Mrs. Pratt “was greatly interested in the Old Woman’s Home in this village,” though it isn’t clear whether she was actively involved in the home. Meanwhile, the Pratt family home – where Seneca died – was located on East Main Street.

What became known as the Guertha Pratt Home started out in either 1870 or 1873 – different sources vary between the two years – as the Old Ladies’ Home. Whatever year it happened, it began when several women from the Methodist Church raised $400 (approximately $9,500 today) and purchased a home on North Main Street to rent out to several needy Methodist women at low rent. According to a typewritten document in our subject file, it was especially meant to be a permanent home for Salinda Soper, an elderly teacher who had kept a private school in the building.

With a charter secured, the organization was officially known as The Old Ladies’ Home of the Methodist Church of Penn Yan. Darius Ogden’s wife, Judith, served as the president from the beginning until her death in 1894.

Over the years, the group struggled along and received small donations to keep the home going. In 1890, a $1,500 gift from the estate of Johanna Sheldon enabled the group to sell the North Main Street property and purchase a residence on Chapel Street. At this home, two or three rooms were rented to “several worthy individuals,” Frank L. Swann terms it in a 1959 “History in the News” column, to raise money to pay taxes and cover repairs. Each resident, however, had to pay her own living expenses.

In 1910, Mr. Pratt – “one of the most active and enterprising of our business men,” according to his obituary – proposed giving the organization $5,000 if the group could raise another $2,500 for an endowment fund. In exchange, the home would become known as the Guertha Pratt Home in memory of his wife, the former Guertha Wolcott, who had died June 8, 1909 from complications related to appendicitis. Mr. Pratt had started out in the shoe business with his father, Harvey, and then became a member of the Andrews, Pratt & Co. flour mill whose name later changed to Russell, Fox & Company. Mr. Pratt began to manufacture grape baskets in a large factory at the foot of Monell Street on the site of what became Guile & Windnagle when Mr. Pratt sold out and retired.

Two ladies from the organization’s board went out and began raising money toward the $2,500 goal. People responded and stepped up, giving anywhere from $50 to $200 or even smaller amounts. However, the final $500 was not raised until three years later. Mr. Pratt waived his stipulation on raising the money, especially since a board member promised to pay 6 percent on the remaining $500, $30, per year until the entire amount was raised.

The Chapel Street property was sold for $1,500, and Maurice Andrews offered his home at 224 Clinton St. for $5,500. The board agreed to pay $4,500 down and 6 percent on a $1,000 mortgage. The board bought the home April 1, 1911 but allowed Mr. Andrews to remain in his home until May 1. In addition, the board sold 88 feet of the property on Hamilton Street, with a barn, for $600. Before the home opened, the Theodore Hamlin family decorated the two parlors and completely furnished the front parlor, including a library of a hundred books. They wished to maintain the library and established a fund for the purpose.

The Guertha Pratt Home officially opened May 24, 1911, with Belle Stebbins as the first matron and Sarah Butterfield as the first resident. The community showered the new home with housewarming gifts: table linen, dining table and chairs, dishes, silverware, a kitchen stove, and food supplies. Henry Underwood gave a rug for the back parlor. A few months after the home opened, about a year after his initial donation, Mr. Pratt made another donation to the residence now named for his wife. Seeing the home up and running and convinced it would succeed, he presented a total of $15,000 – $10,000 from himself and $5,000 from his mother. Coincidentally, Mr. Pratt died a few weeks later of a stomach ailment.

The residence was not officially known as the Guertha Pratt Home until 1919. Though the trustees of the Methodist Church had released the home to the board of what would now be the Pratt Foundation, a lack of funding and assets had caused the charter not to be changed. Thus, on paper at least, the home was still known as the Old Ladies’ Home. With the high cost of living brought on by World War I, it was thought best to get a new charter under the name of the Guertha Pratt Home and make it, though it already had been, an nondenominational institution. Reorganization of the charter called for the board to include 12 directors, three each from four of Penn Yan’s churches – Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopal, and Baptist.

In 1928, the dining room was redecorated and refurnished in memory of Sophia Eva Wise by members of her family. The family also created a trust fund to maintain the room in its complete condition. In 1929, an endowment fund was created and placed in trust with the Rochester Trust and Safe Deposit Company. Many people, including the late New York State Senator William Carson, contributed to this fund during its existence. Also in 1929, while residents initially paid what they could to live there, the home set a one-time charge of $400 for anyone over age 75, $500 for people from age 65 to 75, and $600 for anyone from outside of Yates County. That fee never increased until the last few years of the home’s operation.

Many renovations took place over the years: exterior painting in 1938, removal of the cupola in 1946, interior redecoration in 1949, exterior painting in 1950, remodeling of the kitchen in 1951, modern heating plant in 1955, and landscaping in 1959. Effective September 1960, a state law made other changes mandatory – complete sprinkler system, railings in corridors and bathrooms, and corridors for alternate exits. Continued gifts from individuals and families – such as the Pratts, the Hamlins, and the Wises – aided these improvements.

At full capacity, the residence could house 18 people. Over the years, a laundry room, an enlarged kitchen, and bedrooms were added to the rear of the home.

In 1961, the Guertha Pratt Home recognized its 50th anniversary with an open house to “show people of this area that retirement for women can mean more than a rocking chair,” according to a newspaper article promoting the event. The article noted the home operated independently through resident fees, gifts, and an endowment. Two hundred people attended the open house, with the ladies living there ready to greet them and praise their home.

A newspaper article covering the event stated each resident had her own room, “surrounded by treasured items from their past,” and had the use of two living rooms downstairs to entertain guests and a large dining table for meals. The ladies were free to enjoy church and local affairs and move about the community and could help in the kitchen or with the cleaning if they so chose. “Throughout the years, the Board of Directors has aimed to make the home truly a home and not an institution,” the article stated.

The Guertha Pratt Home remained opened for two more decades. In September 1982, Elizabeth Vaughn – the last of the residents – moved out. Then, the home was empty and listed for sale. Because of rising costs of maintenance and decreasing need because of a number of nursing homes and low-rent apartments now in existence, the home’s board of directors decided that January to close the home. Another problem was keeping up with stringent state safety and health regulations in operating a retirement home. A newspaper article of the time called it “the last of a vanishing breed – the women’s retirement home.”

Minnie “Aunt Min” Presler summarized the spirit and the legacy of the Guertha Pratt Home when she celebrated her 97th birthday in 1972, having lived at the home for 13 years by that point. The oldest of the home’s 14 residents at the time, she helped out by ironing napkins and tablecloths, washing her own laundry, and putting the clean dishes away.

“The best thing that ever happened to me was coming here. Here is home,” she commented in a couple of newspaper articles. “I can’t ask for anything nicer than my home here. I’ve never regretted having come.”