Written by Jim Farfaglia
Because I believe in the value of preserving local history, I’m always happy to hear about young people taking an interest in our past. Of course, we should all be mindful of where we come from, but this is especially true for the young because they will be responsible for the future of our cities and towns. Any chance for success can only happen when children understand and embrace their community’s history.
Knowing that, you can imagine my joy in learning about a student project that took place in the New Haven Elementary School. Granted, the project took place forty years ago, but it still makes me hopeful for today’s youth. I first heard of those students’ accomplishments from Helena Harbert, who was a teacher at New Haven during the 1981-82 school year.
I know Helena as a member of a writer’s group I facilitate at Springside at Seneca Hill. Every other week, group members share their writing, much of which is memoir or history based. Recently, Helena shared her recollections of facilitating the New Haven history program that resulted in a booklet called “Focus on New Haven.”
As Helena explained, the booklet was the end product of a months-long project by her students to research and record the history of New Haven landmarks. Here’s how Helena explained the project in the book’s foreword:
“During 1981-82, the group of Gifted and Talented students at the New Haven Elementary School researched the buildings of social and commercial significance in the village of New Haven. Each student selected a building. Then they interviewed citizens and read old books to produce a written report on the building. They each borrowed a camera and took pictures of their buildings. At one point, they journeyed to the Mexico Middle School to develop and print pictures for this booklet. When everything was completed, they compiled a display for the New Haven Bank.”
What a magnificent project those students completed! The twenty-two-page booklet reads like a friendly travel guide through an Oswego County town. Starting with a road map that pinpointed the town and a photo of the town’s main street (State Route 104), both from 1902, the students then presented their findings.
Corey Hanypsiak’s topic for the book was the Shepard Estate, also known as “La Bergerie” (Home of the Shepherd). An expansive property owned by a wealthy family in the late 1800s, it eventually became a home for wayward boys. Because the estate had declined over the years, Corey wrote, “no one would know that a millionaire’s summer home once stood there.” But being a good researcher, Corey did. “President Taft once stayed at the home,” he explained, “and Millard Fillmore’s papers were found there. Bulldozers can never tear down ‘La Bergerie’s’ wonderful history or our memories of it.”
Two churches in the community were profiled in the booklet: the United Church of Christ by Andy Gregory, and the United Methodist Church by Sammie Wilcox. In both cases, the churches started out as small meetings in people’s homes and then, through the dedication of the congregations, land was purchased and cleared, bricks were hauled to the churches’ locations from Gallaghers Brickyard in New Haven, and the buildings slowly rose to their towering steeples. As Sammie pointed out, “At first [parishioners] gathered without a stove or heat…They did not have a parking lot…East of the [Methodist] Church were sheds where people put their horses and carriages during church services.”
But all of those hardships were worth it, as Sammie recounted the many ways our local churches serve as meeting places for communities: church suppers, craft fairs, musical performances, Bible study, and just sitting in contemplation looking at the beautiful stained glass windows installed by those who loved their churches.
Maureen Davis has a particularly tough assignment when she chose the town’s gas station for her research project. The Sunoco Gas Station, located on the main Route 104, had been around for a long time, as long as everyone she talked to could remember. Though nobody could help Maureen track down the origins of when it was built or who built it, through her diligent research, she was able to compile a comprehensive list of who had operated the station over the years, beginning with 1939’s owners Fred and Leona Jerett. Maureen went on to list 28 different owners, taking the station up to 1982.
I bet that a frequent customer of the gas station would have been the New Haven Highway Garage, which was researched by Matthew Hertzler. Anyone who’s driven through New Haven during the winter months knows the town gets its share and more of lake-effect snow. Removal of all that snow is the responsibility of the Highway Department. Prior to 1946, when the new maintenance building was constructed, the garage’s vehicles and tools were kept in sheds. Then, according to Matthew, as the need for roadwork vehicles grew, the department moved up to a horse barn. When the new building went up, in 1946, two highway employees built it after hiring mason Perley Widger.
The New Haven School itself was researched by Robert Ferguson. Back in 1952, the residents of New Haven knew they needed a new school to handle its population growth. There were lots of discussions and blueprint reviews until finally, in 1954, it was built. Robert tallied up the dollars this investment required: “General construction of the building cost $83,184.90; heating and ventilation cost $18,222.25; plumbing and electrical cost $15,240.20.”
I like that Robert didn’t leave out the pennies that went into those figures. It’s important for young folks to know the value of New Haven residents’ hard-earned dollars. Robert acknowledged this by writing: “All of us should be thankful to the taxpayers of New Haven for giving the town the money to help our education in a nice school.”
I’ll add my praise for Robert, Matthew, Maureen, Sammie, Andy, Corey, Helena and the other students and faculty who included local history in their elementary school education. May they be an example for other curious young minds.
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