June 1991

About this Issue

Note from the Editors

A four-part series from the 1870 diary of Will Gerity begins in this issue. Professor Herbert A. Wisbey, Jr. has edited Gerity's journal of a two-week camping vacation on Keuka Lake in the summer of 1870, and added an introduction and notes. Thanks to Jill Middleton of Horseheads, who owns the three volumes of the Will S. Gerity diary, for permission to print these excerpts. A portion of this material was published in York State Tradition in the Fall 1973 and Winter 1974 issues. Dr. Wisbey is Professor Emeritus of American History, and College Archivist at Elmira College. He was the founding director of the Center for Mark Twain Studies at Quarry Farm and is co-editor of the Mark Twain Society Bulletin. Dr. and Mrs. Wisbey spend their summers at a cottage on Keuka Lake.

Robert G. Koch offers us Going Places Ever Faster, an article about the changes in transportation from the times of the first settlers here until today. Dr. Koch lives in Pittsford, New York. Since 1976 he has broadcast art and cultural interviews from WXXI-FM (Tuesdays at 7:45 am; Thursdays, 7:15 am), and for more than three years has presented history pieces from the same station (Saturday, 9:30 am). Dr. Koch was professor and chair of Language and Literature at R.I.T. from 1950 to 1970, and was Dean of the University College, and Director of Summer Sessions at The University of Rochester from 1970 until 1982.

We present the remainder of Bill Kauffman's Back to Batavia. The first half of this article appeared in the May issue. His essay is reprinted here by generous permission of The American Scholar and of Bill Kauffman. It appeared originally in the Spring issue of the magazine. Bill Kauffman lives in Batavia. His articles have appeared in Reason, Chronicles, the Utne Reader, and other national publications.

Edwin Harris contributes another selection from Harpending's Corners. Following his graduation from Dundee high school in 1935, Ed worked at a number of summer jobs, and then went to the Rochester Business Institute for a year. His business studies there led to jobs in Rochester and western New York. A lot more stories about them will come.

Those who remember the Schwarzenbach Memorial alongside route 21 between Loon Lake and Haskinville will be interested to know that a group is working to restore the fountain after it was badly damaged by an automobile. Bill Treichler writes about Schwarzenbach and the memorial built for him. Hornellsville Supervisor John Clifford is looking for persons to help rebuild the memorial. He provided much of the material for this article. Robert F. Oakes, who is Village of Hornell historian, supplied information about James Schwarzenbach and his brewery in Hornell.

This issue concludes with the beginning of another chapter from Mrs. Kirkland's A New Home. It is a story of sudden sorrow for a frontier family.

CLR Blog | Site Map | Contact CLR