The Erie Canal Village, Rome, NY, Part 1

The Erie Canal Village is in Rome, NY. We were there for most of the day, on July 4th, and had an absolute blast.

You can see all the photos I took here at my Flickr site. I’ll showcase only the basic photos for the blog posts. I think our visit, which incorporated seeing and learning so many different things, may take up a few posts. First, some history about the Village. It’s a huge, outdoor living museum where time stopped almost 200 years ago. Really, if it wasn’t for the sounds of traffic on the main road, or the power lines visible behind the fields, you’d think you were really in the early 19th century.

On July 4, 1817, the New York State governor was in this booming town of Rome, NY. This area was the location of the official beginning of the famous Erie Canal, said to be the most incredible engineering marvel of all time. It had been the brainchild of various New Yorkers shortly after the Revolutionary War, who wanted to open up the NY wilderness. Transportation in NY in those days was over rugged country and thickly-forested hills. A man-made waterway connecting the Hudson River/Atlantic Ocean to Lake Ontario and Lake Erie was the dream. Very few leaders were willing to sponsor this “insane” idea. Thomas Jefferson, when hearing about the plan, refused to give any federal aid to the project, saying, “You talk of making a canal 350 miles through the wilderness… it is little short of madness to think of it at this day!” Long before the Erie Canal was bringing in millions of dollars into New York’s coffers, it was called “Clinton’s Folly,” or “Clinton’s Ditch.”

The Erie Canal was completed in 1827, and brought instant wealth to the state. It also proved to be the springboard for Western Expansion, as this area of New York was the only passable way west from the eastern seaboard of the United States. Not long after the completion of the Erie Canal, the railroad system surpassed the Erie Canal as the main method of east to west transport. With the development of the automobile and the interstate highway system after World War II (and accompanying perks such as Liverpool Victoria car insurance!), the canal and railroad system became less used.

The Erie Canal Village, opened in 1978 when Rome, NY, was going through an historical awakening of it’s roots, takes us back to that “boom” time of prosperity in New York. There are numerous museums you can explore– a few settler’s houses decorated as if the families would be back at any moment; a blacksmith shop and horse corral; a schoolhouse and Methodist church; the Harden Museum filled with various horse carriages and sleighs depicting transportation of that era; an ice house, general store, railroad station, and tavern (where you can actually buy food and drink); a museum inside an old cheese factory showing the cheese industry of New York; and more! Best of all– a 30-minute ride on the old Erie Canal packet boat, horse-drawn. What a great day!

We started off by exploring an interesting little museum Read more

Photo Hunters: Rocks!

This week’s theme is Rock(s). I’m going to go the traditional route this week and *just* do ROCKS! We’ve seen some pretty historical rocks.

Here’s the famed Oneida Indian Nation stone, dating before 1615 when “white man’s eyes” cast their gazes upon it. I wrote a lengthy post about the history and its location, if you are interested. It was on this site that Samuel de Champlain and his Huron Indian buddies (from Canada) came down to central New York State to attack the peaceful Oneida Indians. It was the first time the Oneidas heard and saw guns and gunshots. They vowed to always make the French and Hurons their enemies after this.

Read more

Forest Hill Cemetery, Utica, NY

Last week, I took the opportunity to drive to nearby Utica, NY, to visit the Forest Hill Cemetery in the city. Utica is an amazingly historic town, and walking through Forest Hill Cemetery is like stepping back in time. Many of New York State’s most notable citizens are buried here. I won’t list them all! but I’ll show you a few of the sites we found. Behind Forest Hill Cemetery is the Roscoe Conkling Park. I’d never even known this place was there! What a beautiful park, and it sits perched on a high hill overlooking the city in the valley below. Breathtaking. I took photos– keep reading.

Forest Hill Cemetery was founded in 1850. It is a huge plot of land, established when people were becoming more aware of sanitation for urban areas. It’s a beautiful cemetery. The Gothic-style gate opens into several small park-like islands.

I found the old resting place of the Oneida Stone, that famed stone of the Oneida Indian Nation! It was taken from the Oneidas in 1849 and placed here during the cemetery’s opening ceremony. The stone has been returned to the Oneidas since 1974. According to Anthony Wonderley in his book, Oneida Iroquois Folklore, Myth, and History, the stone now sits at the Oneida Nation council house, on their historic land given to them after the American Revolution (on the old Honyoust tract).

I’ve done a variety of posts about the Oneida Indian Nation: The Skenandoah Boulder in Oneida, NY, The Turning Stone Casino, and The Shako:wi Oneida Indian Cultural Center.

The cemetery, like I’ve said, is filled with the buried remains of hundreds of luminaries from New York State history. New York State governor and Utica native Horatio Seymour is buried here.

Roscoe Conkling, a long-term Utica mayor and national figure, is buried here, too.

Also among those resting here are James Schoolcraft Sherman (vice-president under William Taft), John Adams’ granddaughter, John Jay’s personal secretary, Jedidiah Sanger (who founded New Hartford, NY), Moses Bagg (an influential merchant) and local philanthropists James Watson, Thomas Proctor, Alfred Munson, and Rachel and Maria Williams. I also found a few famous folks from the American Revolution, including Captain Benjamin Walker who was an aide of George Washington and Baron von Steuben (who is buried north of here and whose memorial site we have visited).

And we also saw the burial site of Amariah Brigham, that groundbreaking doctor who believed mentally ill patients could be treated, and began his practice at the very famous Utica Insane Asylum. The link will take you to my post about that, and this link is my post about our visit there.

One thing that caught our eye was a very peculiar memorial in the more “modern” section of the cemetery. I’d never seen anything like it.

I did some reading and this is a memorial to Justus Henry Rathbone of Utica. He founded the Knights of Pythias, and became extremely influential in politics and business. The Knights of Pythias sounded occultic to me (the oracles at Delphi in Greece worshiped the fortune-telling snake, Pythias)! I did some quick research and found that the Knights of Pythias is from the Greek myth Damon and Pythias. Huh. Wikipedia says this of Rathbone:

Justin H. Rathbone was the founder of the international fraternal order of the Knights of Pythias. He was born October 29, 1839 in New York. He graduated from Colgate University and attended Carlisle Seminary. He was a music composer and actor. In 1863 he moved to Washington D.C. as a government clerk in the Treasury Department, where he founded the Knights of Pythias on February 19, 1864. Rathbone wrote the ritual for the Knights of Pythias which is based on the mythological friendship of Damon and Pythias. He died in 1889.

It was a very interesting visit, and I don’t think I even scratched the surface of all the history to be discovered. I’ll have more about our visit to the Roscoe Conkling Park up the hill, and about the Oneida Stone, in future posts.

Playing Detective for the Oneida Stone

I just got the book, Oneida Iroquois, Folklore, Myth, and History, by Anthony Wonderley, and it is amazing! I blogged about our journey to Oneida Castle to see the mysterious Skenandoah Boulder. I’ve decided to dig a little deeper about the Oneida Stone, apparently a huge stone that mysteriously moved to central New York State eons ago; the Oneidas followed it until it stopped. Some say it was a chunk of rock that was pushed along by a glacier.

The stone was taken from the Oneidas in the 1850s or so, by non-natives who believed the tribe to be ruined. It was like taking a nation’s marker or banner as a sign of conquering them. Really strange. New Yorkers placed the Oneida Stone in one of their cemeteries– Forest Hill in Utica, NY. Some say the stone is no longer there, but there is plaque about the stone.

Doesn’t this all sound so mysterious?? Where did the stone go? Who took it? Who put it in the cemetery, and why? What was the significance of the stone, besides the Oneida calling themselves “the people of the standing stone”? And how could New Yorkers be so cruel as to take away their national emblem, dump it in a cemetery, and then take the Indians land… and get away with it all thee years??

I hope this book explains some of these questions. The history of the Iroquois is steeped in vagueness and puzzlement. I’m planning on taking a trip to Forest Hill cemetery (only about 5 minutes from my home) and looking for this stone plaque. It’s a very historical cemetery– a New York governor is buried there, so I figure I’ll come back with loads of history! Stay tuned!

P.S. If you have a hankering for learning more about the Oneida Indian Nation directly, check out our trip to the Shako:wi Cultural Center in Oneida, NY. A great museum!