December 1994

About this Issue

Note from the Editors

Robert Koch relates the sensational events that occurred a century ago during the year of 1894. There were confrontations and there were innovations. Edison demonstrated motion pictures, and in Rochester the New Mechanics Institute that eventually became R.I.T opened. Dr. Koch was professor and chair of Language and Literature at R.I.T. from 1950 to 1970.

Jim Dierks invites you to a party on your kitchen table to recreate in paper the historic McCay-Balcom house that has stood fronting Pulteney Square in Bath for 175 years. His invitation continues on to the center pages where his drawings and directions enable you to construct a miniature facade of the house. Jim has been making similar paper projects as Christmas cards for some years. Usually a train or trolley is the subject. He is a very active member of the New York Museum of Transportation near Rush.

Richard Palmer shares more history about the Bath & Hammondsport Railroad. This time he writes about locomotive Number 11. Robert Groman of Baldwinsville, New York, furnished the photographs of No. 11. Dick Palmer is a regular contributor.

Paul Worboys provides other installment from his series on the chautuaqua era. In this issue, he tells of the time when William Jennings Bryan came to speak at the chautauqua meeting in Honeoye Falls. Paul Worboys lives in Honeoye Falls.

Warren Hunting Smith provides the concluding chapter of his book about Primrose and Candida Elliot and other Genevans who lived along Main Street sixty and more years ago. The Elliot sisters were patterned on real persons, but could anyone be more real than the characters Warren Smith revealed in The Misses Elliot of Geneva? His book was published in 1940 when he was 34 years old.

Our issue this month concludes with the diary of Cornelius Younglove for December 1826. He missed recording one day that month. At the end of one entry he wrote, "Most lost the day." Evidently he felt he hadn't accomplished enough. His great-great-great grandson Leonard Paul Wood of Pleasaant Valley has preserved his journals.

Next Issue

The January issue will again feature a genealogy course by E. R. Van Etten. This year it will be his fifth year 'teaching' us, so the course title is Genealogy 501. "Bim" Van Etten is the lead volunteer in the genealogy section of Steele Memorial Library in Elmira. Occasionally he conducts a series of classes there for people getting started in family history research.

Cornelius Younglove's diary will continue through January 1827.

Striking the Tents for the Last Time, the final segment of the chautauqua series by Paul Worboys, and more memories from along the south end of Keuka Lake by Robert Anderson will be in the January issue.

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