GORHAM HISTORICAL SOCIETY

GORHAM, NY

May 6, 2023: Junius Ponds as seen from just off Route 318, Junius, New York A view of one the Junius Ponds, as seen on a spring afternoon from just off State Route 318 in the town of Junius, New York. Long used as a source of drinking water for the nearby village of Lyons, this series of mecromotic glacial ponds is today maintained by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation as a habitat for a wide variety of rare flora and fauna, including one of the last remaining Upstate New York populations of the critically endangered bog turtle <i>(Glyptemys muhlenbergii)</i>.
May 6, 2023: Junius Ponds as seen from just off Route 318, Junius, New York Credit: Carrotflower Productions International

The Gorham Historical Society is a non-profit organization located in the town of Gorham, New York. The society was established in 1972 with the mission to preserve and promote the history of the town and its residents. The Gorham Historical Society is dedicated to collecting, preserving, and interpreting the history of Gorham and its surrounding areas.

The society operates out of a historic building, which was once the town hall. The building serves as the society’s museum and houses a collection of artifacts, photographs, and documents that tell the story of Gorham’s past. Visitors to the museum can learn about the town’s early settlers, the agriculture and industry that shaped the community, and the notable figures who have called Gorham home.

In addition to the museum, the Gorham Historical Society hosts events and programs throughout the year. These include lectures, presentations, and walking tours that explore different aspects of local history. The society also maintains a research library, which is open to the public and provides access to a range of historical materials.

The Gorham Historical Society is an important resource for anyone interested in the history of Gorham and the Finger Lakes region. It is staffed by volunteers who are passionate about preserving and sharing the town’s rich history.

GORHAM HISTORICAL SOCIETY is a Historical Societies, Historic Preservation in GORHAM NY. US MID #8403602292

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).

May 6, 2023: Junius Ponds as seen from just off Route 318, Junius, New York A view of one the Junius Ponds, as seen on a spring afternoon from just off State Route 318 in the town of Junius, New York. Long used as a source of drinking water for the nearby village of Lyons, this series of mecromotic glacial ponds is today maintained by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation as a habitat for a wide variety of rare flora and fauna, including one of the last remaining Upstate New York populations of the critically endangered bog turtle <i>(Glyptemys muhlenbergii)</i>.
March 28, 2023: Seneca Lake shoreline from Lakefront Park, Geneva, New York Looking eastward along the northern shore of Seneca Lake from Lakefront Park in Geneva, New York on a beautiful early spring day.
February 18, 2023: New York State seal and mottos on interior of window, Finger Lakes Welcome Center, Geneva, New York At the Finger Lakes Welcome Center in Geneva, New York, a large window in the main hall is decorated with the New York state seal and the state's and country's official mottos.
January 17, 2023: A Gaggle of Geese at Keuka Lake, Penn Yan, New York A gaggle of Canada geese <i>(Branta canadensis)</i> hover over, and float in, the frigid waters of Keuka Lake as seen from the lawn behind the Hampton Inn on a gray, drizzly winter morning.
January 2, 2023: Delancey Partridge House, Seneca Falls, New York Dating to 1875, the stately Delancey Partridge House in Seneca Falls, New York is notable as a late-period example of Second Empire architecture, but even more so as what is generally agreed by cinema historians to be the inspiration for the "drafty old house" purchased and restored by George and Mary Bailey in the 1946 film <i>It's a Wonderful Life</i>. If you're an architecture buff like me, you can read <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/198134987@N03/53516343458">more about the Partridge 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.
Delancey Partridge House, Seneca Falls, New York, January 2023 The Delancey Partridge House, 54 Cayuga Street, Seneca Falls, New York, January 2023. Built in 1875, this stately two-and-a-half-story mansion is a contributing property to the NRHP-listed Seneca Falls Village Historic District and is significant as a late-period and somewhat atypical example of Second Empire architecture: the stark color contrast between the red brick and the light-colored stone trim, the narrow round- and segmentally-arched windows with dressed stone voussoirs, the tall central tower, and of course the straight-sided, slate shingle-faced mansard roof are all trademark features of the style, while the irregular massing and Eastlake-inspired woodwork on the veranda are far more unusual. Its original owner was Delancey Erastus Partridge (1844-1879), a noted local financier who was the founding president of the State Bank of Seneca Falls. He built the house as a wedding gift to his wife Marian <i>née</i> Morris, importing brickmasons from Canada to construct the exterior while furnishing the interior with numerous items he purchased during his extensive travels through Europe, but sadly died only a few years after the house was completed. It remained in the hands of his widow until her death in 1926. The Partridge House is generally agreed by cinema historians to be the inspiration for the "drafty old house" that George and Mary Bailey bought and restored in the 1946 film <i>It's a Wonderful Life</i>, and its later history closely echoes the storyline of the movie: it was likely in a similarly dilapidated condition when director Frank Capra visited Seneca Falls in December 1945, but has been thoroughly and magnificently restored by its present owners since their purchase of the property in 1997.
September 17, 2022: Van Cleef Lake, Seneca Falls, New York A view eastward over Van Cleef Lake from the foot of Fall Street in Seneca Falls, New York. This 44-acre man-made lake dates to August 1915, when a low-lying district known as The Flats - home of a teeming collection of industrial works as well as the 50-foot cascade that gave the town its name - was intentionally flooded so as to create a reservoir that would feed water into Lock 2 of the Cayuga-Seneca Canal, which was being enlarged and modernized for incorporation as a link in the New York State Barge Canal network. Today the lake is known locally as a fishing spot, where largemouth bass, bluegill, and black crappie are among the popular catches. The lock itself is seen in the background, as well as a tall water tower on the premises of the former Rumsey Pump Company manufacturing plant (now owned by Seneca Falls Specialties & Logistics).
August 6, 2022: St. Patrick R.C. Church, Seneca Falls, New York Unusually among Catholic churches, St. Patrick's in Seneca Falls, New York has a floor plan that's laid out on a north-south axis: reportedly, the intent of architect Joseph B. Flynn was to allow a frontal view of the façade from across the Cayuga-Seneca Canal. If you're an architecture buff like me, you can read <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/198134987@N03/53486272374">more about St. Patrick'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. Patrick R.C. Church, Seneca Falls, New York, August 2022 St. Patrick Roman Catholic Church, 97 West Bayard Street at Toledo Street, Seneca Falls, New York, August 2022. A 1931 design of Rochester-based architect Joseph B. Flynn, this Gothic Revival design features rusticated exterior walls of randomly coursed sandstone blocks, a cruciform floor plan, and a symmetrical façade centered on an imposing crenellated tower. The tower containing the building's main entrance, which is recessed behind a bluntly pointed compound arch which, in turn, is crowned with stone relief carvings in heraldic motif and a niche statue of the church's namesake saint. This typical Gothic ornamentation scheme rules the day elsewhere as well: numerous stepped buttresses are intercalated between tall, narrow stained glass windows on the side elevations, while double louvered windows perforate the belfry on all four sides. The Norman influences of the exterior contrast with the interior, which what designed in imitation of 13th-century English churches, with the nave finished in dark wood and accented with more richly colored stained glass to contrast with the lighter tones at the apse, symbolizing the placement of the pastor and altar "in the light of God". The nave was also intended to be lined on each side with statues of saints, but financial considerations after the onset of the Great Depression forced the replacement of that element with fresco paintings of the Stations of the Cross. Unusually, the church is laid out on a north-south axis, reportedly to allow a frontal view of the façade from across the Cayuga-Seneca Canal. Originally known as St. Jerome, the parish was founded in 1831 to serve a community immigrants from Ireland who had arrived shortly earlier to help dig the canal and stayed on afterwards as workers in a variety of canal-adjacent industries. Father Francis O'Donoghue said Mass at first in a modest wood-frame church on nearby Swaby Street, then at a second church on the current site, which was renamed St. Patrick in 1863 in honor of the patron saint of the parishioners' native homeland. The current building, whose cornerstone was laid in October 1929 only a few days before the stock market crash, is their third home. St. Patrick soldiered on as an independent parish until 2013, when a decline in the local Catholic population combined with a shortage of priests compelled a merger with St. Mary's church in neighboring Waterloo. The combined parish, now known as St. Francis and St. Clare, continues to use both buildings for worship.
July 7, 2022: Calvary Lutheran Church, Seneca Falls, New York A visually striking presence on the western edge of the town of Seneca Falls, New York, Calvary Lutheran Church is a fine example of the "A-Frame" school of architecture that, at the time of its construction (1960), was becoming ever more popular Stateside after its post-World War II importation from Europe. If you're an architecture buff like me, you can read <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/198134987@N03/53482419712">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.
Calvary Lutheran Church, Seneca Falls, New York, July 2022 Calvary Lutheran Church, 2414 Mound Road at Balsley Road, Seneca Falls, New York, July 2022. A work of the Auburn, New York-based architectural firm of Beardsley & Beardsley, this striking church is a fine example of the "A-Frame" sub-school of Modernist architecture that, at the time of its construction (1960), was becoming ever more popular Stateside after its importation from Europe at the end of World War II. Here we see all the hallmarks of the style: a massive sloping roof whose rafters reach straight down to foundation level, a massive window dominating the façade (in this case, stained glass with geometric tracery), an open and airy interior, and a rustic look achieved here by the use of wooden slats as siding over the concrete-block walls. Note also the detached tower at left, which achieves a Modernist take on the open-work model through the use of steel bars and tubes. An affiliate of the Missouri Synod of Lutheranism, Calvary was founded in 1951 and met for its initial years at the former Salvation Army citadel on Miller Street in Seneca Falls' town center. Ground was broken in July 1959 for their $60,000 permanent home on Mound Road near the Waterloo town line, followed by a cornerstone-laying ceremony in October of the same year.
April 16, 2022: Wrigley's Spearmint Gum ghost sign, Ovid Street at Fall Street, Seneca Falls, New York A faded "ghost sign" on the side wall of the Sharpe Block at the corner of Ovid and Fall Streets in Seneca Falls, New York advertises Wrigley's Spearmint chewing gum.

Contact GORHAM HISTORICAL SOCIETY

THE TOWN OF GORHAM HISTORICAL SOCIETY
PO BOX 90
GORHAM
NY
14461

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GORHAM HISTORICAL SOCIETY Information

MID # 8403602292
Name THE TOWN OF GORHAM HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Alternate Name GORHAM HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Classification Historical Societies, Historic Preservation, , Mid-Atlantic
Federal Employer Identification Number (EIN) 510244891
NTEECC
Tax period of the latest return filed (YYYYMM) 201112
INCOME 0
REVENUE 0
LAT/LONG 42.799025, -77.131368
CODES FIPS State Code: 36
FIPS County Code: 069
US Census Tract: 051300
US Census Block: 2043