September 1995

About this Issue

Note from the Editors

This issue begins with a sketch of the life of Coates Kinney written by Herbert A. Wisbey, Jr. Coates Kinney gained fame during his lifetime as author of the poem, "Rain on the Roof." A granite monument erected in 1927 by the Gu-ya-no-ga Chapter of the Penn Yan D. A. R. at Kinney's Corners commemorates his birth there in 1827. Professor Wisbey was the founding director of the the Center for Mark Twain Studies at Quarry Farm near Elmira. He has a summer cottage on Lake Keuka not far from Kinney's Corners.

Robert Koch describes the early grist mills in the Genesee Country and flour milling in Rochester through periods of prosperity and expansion, and times of collapsing prices and failed crops until wheat milling moved on west. Robert Koch was Dean of the University College at the University of Rochester from 1970 until 1982. Since 1976 he has broadcast cultural interviews Tuesday mornings at 7:45 and Thursday mornings at 7:15 from WXXI-FM. For the last 8 years he has aired history pieces from the same station on Saturday mornings at 9:30.

John Rezelman continues his commentary on the diary of T. N. Smith for the month of September, 1888. Mr. Smith lived and farmed just north of Kanona. John Rezelman has been familiar with farming all his life: first on Long Island, then in Tomkins County near Ithaca, and for more than 50 years in Steuben County.

Barbara Bell contributes another chapter from Letters to Suzanna. Mrs. Bell created a fictitious letter writer as a way to describe typical life of the early settlers. In this "letter" Susahannah relates what her family and the other settlers in Reading Town bordering the southwest corner of Seneca Lake ate and drank. Mrs. Bell is editor of the Journal of the Schuyler County Historical Association and is Historian for Schuyler County. She lives in Irelandville close to the area Susahannah writes about.

Richard Palmer presents the first part of a 1922 series about the steamboats that plied Canandaigua Lake from the time the first one, The Lady of the Lake, launched in 1827, until 1922 when the articles were written, and the Onanda and the Oriana were still providing transport on Lake Canandaigua. The first story appeared in the August 9, 1922, Ontario County Times. Two more installments followed. James S. Lee of Boston is credited in the newspaper columns as the author. Lee's accounts and several pieces by other authors were collected in a scrapbook collected by Richard Palmer of Tully.

Next Month

Our October issue will feature Sig Sautelle: A Circus and an Era written by the late Curtis Harris, Historian of Homer, New York. Richard Palmer suggested this story for CLR readers.

There will also be another Letter to Suzanna by Barbara Bell, John Rezelman's review of T. N. Smith's October 1888 journal, and the second installment of the series about the steamboats of Canandaigua Lake.

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