August 1993

About this Issue

Note from the Editors

This issue begins with Warren Hunting Smith's history of the W. & T. Smith Nursery Company in Geneva, New York. Mr. Smith is a grandson of founder brother Thomas Smith.The view of the Smith nursery was furnished by the Geneva Historical Society. You can see more pictures and learn about the different nurseries that flourished in Geneva from an exhibit: To Dress and Keep the Earth—The Nurseries and Nurserymen of Geneva, New York in the Prouty-Chew House, 543 South Main St., Geneva. Warren Hunting Smith is also the author of The Misses Elliot of Geneva which is being serialized in our issues. The book was published by Farrar & Rinehart in 1940. The first part of chapter VII is in this issue.

Herbert A. Wisbey, Jr. provides an account of the memorials to Robert G. Ingersoll that have been started in Dresden, New York, commemorating Ingersoll's birth there in 1833. Herbert Wisbey has written books on the Shakers and Jemima Wilkinson, and was the founding director of the Center for Mark Twain Studies at Quarry Farm.

Robert Koch tells the story of apples in Western New York. Bob Koch was Dean at the University of Rochester from 1970 - 1982. He broadcasts every Tuesday morning at 7:45, and Thursday morning at 7:15, and Saturday morning at 9:30 from WXXI-FM.

We continue Thomas Cornell's series on the Hammondsport Glen with the the fifth essay. Tom Cornell teaches history of technology courses at R.I.T. and is a dedicated member of the Bath Area Writers Group.

John H. Martin contributes the second part of his account of the recovery of the flood-water-soaked books of the Corning Museum of Glass library . John Martin was administrative officer of the Corning Museum of Glass at the time of the 1972 flood and the successful salvage of nearly all the books and documents.

Richard Palmer concludes his report of commercial sailing on the Finger Lakes. Mr. Palmer is a reporter for the Cortland Standard. He writes about transportation history. Canandaigua—A Stage Coach Town from his book Old Line Mail appeared in our September 1992 issue.

Our issue concludes with the second part of A. G. Hilbert's presentation on the Williamson Road. Mr. Hilbert was a historian for the town of Elmira and a member of the board and the staff of the Chemung County Historical Society. He died in September 1991. Because Mr. Hilbert's talk tells much of the history of early Bath, our serialization of excerpts from The Centennial of Bath, 1793-1893 is omitted this month.

Next Issue

Our September issue begins a three-part series by Robert Koch, "Education in Earlier Times." The first installment features Daniel D. T. Moore's weekly agricultural, literary and family journal, Moore's Rural New Yorker that was first published in Rochester.

Edwin Harris returns with another story, this time about his son and daughter-in-law's running the Dundee Observer newspaper, and Ed's looking on, in the late 1960s.

Also appearing in September will be the first chapter from a book-in-progress by Hannah Lapp of Cassadaga about rural family living in these times in Western New York.

We will conclude chapter VII from The Misses Elliot of Geneva; print the final essay, Journey into the Pleistocene, from Tom Cornell's Hammondsport Glen series, the last part of the tale of the Williamson Road, and publish more excerpts from The Centennial of Bath 1793-1893..

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