MEDINA HISTORICAL SOC

MEDINA, NY

Vac-Eclipse-April 2024-112 4x3 Eclipse Vacation. Visiting our childhood home. April 2024.
Vac-Eclipse-April 2024-112 4x3 Credit: Gary Brownell

Medina Historical Society is a non-profit organization located in Medina, a village in the Orleans County of New York. The society is dedicated to preserving and promoting the history of Medina and surrounding areas. Founded in 1963, the society has been instrumental in collecting and showcasing artifacts, documents, and photographs that highlight the rich history of the region.

The Medina Historical Society has a museum that houses various exhibits, including the history of the Erie Canal, local businesses, and the Medina Sandstone. The museum also features a research library that is open to the public and contains a vast collection of historical resources.

Apart from running the museum, the society organizes various events such as lectures, walking tours, and workshops that educate the public about the local history. The society also publishes a quarterly newsletter that highlights the latest happenings in the museum, upcoming events, and other news related to the society's activities.

The Medina Historical Society is run by a board of directors and volunteers who are passionate about preserving the history of Medina and its surrounding areas. The society welcomes anyone interested in history to join and support their mission.

MEDINA HISTORICAL SOC is a Historical Societies, Historic Preservation in MEDINA NY. US MID #8403601640

The museum is classed as HSC (Historical Societies, Historic Preservation). It comes under American Alliance of Museums (AAM) region: Mid-Atlantic (District of Columbia, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania).

Vac-Eclipse-April 2024-112 4x3 Eclipse Vacation. Visiting our childhood home. April 2024.
April 17, 2023: St. Paul Evangelical Lutheran Church, Clarence, New York Built in 1962, the visually striking architecture of St. Paul Lutheran Church in Clarence, New York is a typical example of the forward-looking design philosophy of Highland & Highland, a firm based in the nearby city of Buffalo. If you're an architecture buff like me, you can read <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/198134987@N03/53580421142">more about St. Paul's</a> at <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/198134987@N03/">Western New York Architecture Deep Cuts</a>, my other account where I go deeper into the weeds about these sorts of things.
St. Paul Evangelical Lutheran Church, Clarence, New York, April 2023 St. Paul Evangelical Lutheran Church, 7720 Goodrich Road, Clarence, New York, April 2023. Built in 1962, the visually striking architecture of this building is a typical example of the forward-looking design philosophy of the Buffalo firm of Highland & Highland. At first blush, the wide expanse of abstract, geometrically-patterned stained glass on the façade, along with the sprawling slope of the enormous roof whose eaves reach nearly all the way down to the ground, might give the impression of the A-frame style that was up-and-coming on the architecture scene at the time. However, look closer and you'll see that the structure is based around a series of soaring parabolic arches: eight in all, each standing 60 feet high. Echoes of the same curvilinear pattern can be found throughout the spacious interior as well, specifically in the scalloped supports on the side and in the chancel itself. The overall effect, then, falls under the aegis of the Neo-Expressionist style in which the firm specialized. (Note, however, the sharp contrast presented by the straight lines of the south side annex, which also contains the narrow, oblong bell tower.) According to newspaper coverage at the time of the church's construction, the lofty dimensions of the structure (further emphasized by its placement atop a 10-foot man-made hill) was a key element of the architect's symbolic intent: namely "to reflect the spirit of achievement in the long history of the congregation", which traces its deepest roots back to 1840, when a band of Lutherans from what's now Germany who'd earlier fled the religious persecution of King Friedrich Wilhelm III found a home among the well-established German-American community in the hamlet of Wolcottsburg, in the northern part of the town of Clarence. They founded St. Paul's in 1855, and immediately set to work constructing a simple wood-framed chapel on a plot just south of the present church, at the corner of Wolcott Road. For far longer than most local Protestant congregations, St. Paul's held fast to both its ethnic and its physical heritage: services continued to be held in German as late as 1954, and replacement of the original church building wasn't envisioned until 1956, when deferred maintenance and modernization needs forced their hand. Groundbreaking ceremonies in April 1961 kicked off a fourteen-month, $125,000 construction program.
January 21, 2023: First English Lutheran Church, Lockport, New York One of Niagara County's oldest extant religious congregations, the First English Lutheran Church of Lockport, New York now meets in a 1956 building whose Gothic-styled design is markedly traditionalist even by the relatively conservative standards of Shelgren & Whitman, its architects. If you're an architecture buff like me, you can read <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/198134987@N03/53516597359">more about the church</a> at <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/198134987@N03/">Western New York Architecture Deep Cuts</a>, my other account where I go deeper into the weeds about these sorts of things.
First English Lutheran Church, Lockport, New York, January 2023 First English Lutheran Church, 185 Locust Street, Lockport, New York, January 2023. A work of the Buffalo-based firm of Shelgren & Whitman, the English Gothic-styled design of this handsome 1956 church complex is markedly traditionalist even by the relatively conservative standards of the architects. A prominent vertical orientation is furnished by the narrowness and pointed arches that crown the triple window that's centrally placed on the façade, which like the entrance below is framed by a Gibbs surround executed in cast cut-stone with a repeating pattern of Greek crosses engraved between. Note also the tall but spireless tower, with projecting parapets on the corners giving a crenellated effect. The exterior cladding of hickory brick contrasts with an interior appointed in sand-finished plaster, accentuated with oak trim, and featuring a ceiling with laminated trusses that, according to the architect, symbolize folded arms extending heavenward in prayer. Stained glass windows were imported from the Netherlands. In addition to the sanctuary, the complex also comprises a three-story, Modern-style north wing containing Sunday school classrooms <i>(left background)</i> as well as a parish house <i>(far right, only partly visible)</i>. Despite the relative newness of the building, the congregation actually figures among the oldest extant ones in Niagara County: founded in 1837, it was indeed the first Lutheran congregation in and around Lockport to hold services in the English language as opposed to German, but like the others, its congregation was principally German in ethnic origin, being composed largely of farmers who had been displaced from their previous homes in the eastern parts of New York and Pennsylvania during the War of 1812. The original church - the first of three that would house the congregation over the course of its existence - was a simple log structure built by the members themselves on a plot of land donated by local political figure, landowner, and Erie Canal innovator Jesse Hawley and now the site of Ida Fritz Memorial Park. Founding pastor Rev. John Seimser and his successors held services there until 1848, when a combination of the growth of the business district, the move of much of the population to the city's east side, and deferred maintenance on the building led the congregation to purchase the plot on the northwest corner of Locust and Walnut Streets and erect a magnificent large church building, which served the congregation through highs and lows - and several expansions and renovations, including a 1917 teardown of the original façade and its replacement with a fortresslike Norman Gothic structure - for the next century-plus. Plans for its replacement with the even larger present structure date to 1952, when - in light of increasingly cramped conditions at Sunday services caused by Lockport's steady growth into a satellite suburb of Buffalo and Niagara Falls - the congregation accepted the donation of the former site of the Charles Van Valkenburgh house five blocks north of the existing church, approved the appointment of a Building Committee headed by James Yost, and set about searching for a suitable architect. Fundraising proceeded slowly but steadily, with ground broken on the $250,000 complex in August 1954 and construction lasting two years.
September 8, 2022: St. Mary R.C. Church, Clarence, New York With a history dating back to the 1830s, St. Mary's (or, as it was originally known, St. Mary's of the Assumption) is one of the oldest churches in the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo, New York, and is the nucleus around which the hamlet of Swormville - long a rural colony of German and French farmers, now a wealthy exurb - coalesced. The current church building dates to 1865. If you're an architecture buff like me, you can read <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/198134987@N03/53496118028">more about St. Mary's</a> at <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/198134987@N03/">Western New York Architecture Deep Cuts</a>, my other account where I go deeper into the weeds about these sorts of things.
May 30, 2022: Crapsey Homestead, Lockport, New York The Moses Crapsey Homestead in Lockport, New York, built circa 1837, is one of the few remaining pioneer-era stone farmhouses in the town. If you're an architecture buff like me, you can read <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/198134987@N03/53417697020">more about the house</a> at <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/198134987@N03/">Western New York Architecture Deep Cuts</a>, my other account where I go deeper into the weeds about these sorts of things.
May 30, 2022: Crapsey Homestead, Lockport, New York, May 2022 The Moses Crapsey Homestead, 4878 Sunset Drive, Lockport, New York, May 2022. With a style that is best described as a vernacularized iteration of the then-trendy Greek Revival (though do note a number of unexpected high-style touches in the ornamentation, such as the original transom and sidelights framing the front entrance) appended to the classic gable-and-wing floor plan ever popular in America's agricultural interior, this circa-1837 residence is notable as one of the few remaining stone farmhouses in the Town of Lockport. It once stood at the center of a vast 163-acre expanse of orchards, vineyards, hayfields, cultivated crops, and dairyland belonging to Moses Crapsey (1802-1888), one of Lockport's most prominent and prosperous citizens of his era. Aside from farming, Crapsey held a number of local civic and institutional posts, such as board member of the Cambria-Lockport Plank Road Company and the Niagara Agricultural Society. He also used part of his land as an event space known as "Crapsey's Grove", hosting a wide range of public picnics, band concerts, and other community happenings. The house is now owned by Cozy Resort Cattery, a cat boarding facility.
January 31, 2022: A. M. Ives House aka "Stonehurst", Medina, New York Erected in 1861 using the less common pink variety of the superior-quality sandstone that made Medina, New York famous, the sumptouous A. M. Ives House - otherwise known as Stonehurst - functions almost as a primer on the principles of Italian Villa-style residential architecture. If you're an architecture buff like me, you can read <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/198134987@N03/53351610904">more about Stonehurst</a> at <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/198134987@N03/">Western New York Architecture Deep Cuts</a>, my other account where I go deeper into the weeds about these sorts of things.
October 6, 2021: First Presbyterian Church, Medina, New York Built in 1893 to a design by an unknown architect and now part of the Main Street Historic District, First Presbyterian Church in Medina, New York is an example of Romanesque Revival architecture. If you're an architecture buff like me, you can read <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/198134987@N03/53318999310">more about the church</a> at <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/198134987@N03/">Western New York Architecture Deep Cuts</a>, my other account where I go deeper into the weeds about these sorts of things.
A.M. Ives House aka "Stonehurst", Medina, New York, January 2022 Stonehurst, 304 West Center Street at Prospect Avenue, Medina, New York, January 2022. Erected in 1861 using the less common pink variety of the superior-quality sandstone that made Medina famous, this sumptuous mansion functions almost as a primer on the principles of Italian Villa-style residential architecture. The ornate brackets undergirding the widely overhanging eaves of the gently-sloped roof; the tall, narrow pairs of round-arched windows crowned by dentillated entablatures and flanked by stylized pilasters, and - of course - the corner tower with its ornately decorated belvedere cupola are all characteristic trademarks of the aesthetic. Born in Cortland, Augustus Miles Ives (1817-1889) moved to Medina around 1840 and quickly made a name for himself in the local business community, principally with the firm of Swan, Ives & Whalen, dealers in wholesale produce. He lived at Stonehurst until his death, and his widow Caroline stayed on for another nine years before selling the house to local banker Homer J. Luther (hence its alternate name, the Luther Mansion). It was empty and in deteriorating condition by 2018, when it was purchased by Talis Historic Restorations, who are currently renovating the property for use as hotel and event space.
October 2, 2021: Erie Canal at Medina, New York A pleasant view along the Erie Canal looking east from near the village center of Medina, New York.

Contact MEDINA HISTORICAL SOC

MEDINA HISTORICAL SOCIETY
233 WEST CENTER STREET
MEDINA
NY
14103

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MEDINA HISTORICAL SOC Information

MID # 8403601640
Name MEDINA HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Alternate Name MEDINA HISTORICAL SOC
Classification Historical Societies, Historic Preservation, , Mid-Atlantic
Federal Employer Identification Number (EIN) 166164216
NTEECC
Tax period of the latest return filed (YYYYMM) 201306
INCOME 0
REVENUE 0
LAT/LONG 43.220397, -78.388112
CODES FIPS State Code: 36
FIPS County Code: 073
US Census Tract: 040400
US Census Block: 2031