The Dansville Area Historical Society
Invites you to our Community Program
Early Women Physicians of the Genesee Country
To continue presenting programs, donations are greatly appreciated.
Sunday, March 8, 2015
The Dansville Area Historical Society appreciates new members at any time. Our 2015 membership drive has just started. Our non-profit group, established in 1961, grew out of an idea with the Dansville Women’s Civic Club. Indeed, the first donation to the new society was a $10.00 check from the high school’s Junior Historical group. In 1968, the Village Board offered the former St. Patrick’s rectory to the society: the Dansville Area Historical Society Museum became a reality.
DAHS operates your Museum at 14 Church Street, accepts and preserves artifacts, sponsors programs for all ages, and participates in community events. No fees are ever charged.
Joining the Dansville Area Historical Society will bring you our newsletter and support history in our area. You can click on the Membership Form below, fill out and return the form. All donations are tax deductible. Thank you very much!
Download form here: 2015 Membership Form
On January 14, 1858, the Dansville Seminary was incorporated by the New York State Regents, under the sponsorship of the East Genesee Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Classes began in September in a rented building, and later moved to the second story of the District No. 2 school building on Ossian and Spruce, while plans were made to construct a permanent edifice on the hillside. Over 200 pupils enrolled the first year; and for nearly 30 years, though troubled by periods of financial instability, the Seminary would be an important educational institution for the Dansville area.
On September 24, Ex-President Millard Fillmore paid his first visit to Dansville since his 1814 apprenticeship to Benjamin Hungerford. With his old friend William Scott, he visited the site in West Sparta where he had spent those several memorable months; the old carding mill was long gone, and the spot was overgrown with bushes. He also gave a speech for the students at the Seminary. A few months previously, the village had dedicated the newly-completed, three-story brick building on East Hill, behind the street which would, for a number of years, be called Seminary Street (now Health Street; the building itself later housed the King’s Daughters Home).
Ralph Waldo Emerson, the great poet and essayist, visited Dansville in January 1865, to give a speech before the Gentlemen’s Lyceum of the Dansville Seminary.
Dansville, in 1877, was a village with an educational system that was showing its age. Although there were 1344 school-age children in the area, the average attendance in the town’s six school districts totaled a measly 269. Talk of unifying the districts had begun, but nothing would come of it right away. In addition, the Dansville Seminary was in a perpetual state of near financial collapse. One of the Seminary’s newest teachers, Dr. Julian B. Hubbell, had come to Dansville in 1876 to help his brother-in-law, Samuel H. Goodyear, run the Seminary. In time, his destiny would be linked with that of another village newcomer…Clara Barton.
Not quite dead in 1880, but close to it, was the Dansville Seminary. The once-distinguished school was on its last legs, owing largely to a depletion of state funds and the withdrawal of patronage by the Methodist Episcopal Conference. In April a village meeting was held to attempt to save it from financial ruin. Clara Barton was among those who spoke on behalf of the Seminary, which was spared, at least temporarily, from dissolution.
By 1883 the old Seminary was now defunct; but the Seminary building became home to the new Union Free School. Late in 1882, the two village school districts had been combined, and the old brick District No. 2 school building on Ossian and Spruce was abandoned. Plans for a brand-new school-house were being considered.
Involved with the creation of the Dansville Seminary: Clara Barton, Asa Othello Bunnell, Charles Shepard (husband of Nathanial Rochester granddaughter, Katherine Rochester Coleman),…
December 5, 1933
Dansville “wet” for first time since 1917. As defined on Wikipedia.org, Prohibition is the legal act of prohibiting the manufacture, storage, transportation and sale of alcohol including alcoholic beverages. The term can also apply to the periods in the histories of the countries during which the prohibition of alcohol was enforced.
1917 marked ultimate victory for Dansville’s temperance advocates; in March elections, the sale of alcoholic beverages in the village was banned, 667-546, effective November 1. (A similar measure was passed in South Dansville.) Church bells rang the news of the victory over Demon Rum, which spelled bad news not only for those local concerns that sold liquor, but also for the local grape-growing industry, which was doomed to extinction. For the liquor-sellers in Wayland, however, this meant a business boom…at least until nationwide Prohibition kicked into effect in 1920.
As if to make up for the impending loss of beer and whiskey, brothers Steve and Chris Dromazos opened the Sugar Bowl on June 29, where ice cream sodas and milkshakes could be purchased.
Before 1920, 50% of Americans lived under Prohibition laws passed by various states; now everybody did, as the 18th Amendment went into effect the year before.
Further disillusionment came for those who had thought that Prohibition meant the end of alcoholic beverages in the U.S. If anything, alcoholism had gone up in recent years; and the rise in gangsterism, which thrived mainly on bootlegging, made the headlines with the “St. Valentine’s Day Massacre” between the rival gangs of “Bugs” Moran and Al Capone.
In 1933, after nearly 14 (about 17 in Dansville) disillusioning years, Prohibition in the U.S. came to end. Given how popular Prohibition was in Dansville back in 1917, the 785-326 local vote in favor of its repeal clearly showed how great the disillusionment was. New York State was, as a whole, heavily in favor of abandoning the “Great Experiment”; in some New York City area districts, the vote was unanimous. When, in December, Utah’s vote made the repeal official, Leo Curran lost no time in obtaining a license to open a liquor store on Main Street; and in Hammondsport, thousand of gallons of wine were on hand, which could now be used for something other than religious sacraments
The Dansville Area Historical Society Christmas Program
Presbyterian Church, Tuesday December 9, 2014 6:00 p.m.
Music by the Dansville High School Mixed Choir
Thursday, November 6, 2014
The Dansville Area Historical Society will sponsor a community program Thursday, November 6, 2014 at 7 p.m. in the North Dansville Town Hall auditorium. The program will be on the history of the DL&W Railroad, which ran along Dansville’s East Hill, where it had a depot.
The DL&W was completed to Dansville in 1882. The line that ran both freight and passenger trains, ran along picturesque East hill and continued to Mount Morris.
The program will be presented by Leicester town historian Tom Roffe, who himself worked for Amtrak for five years, and then left to work at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. before becoming a town historian. Roffe’s roughly hour-long Power Point program will cover the period from the 1870s to the 1960s. Roffe will discuss the railroad’s influence in York, Leicester, Mt. Morris, Groveland, and Dansville; and will include the railroad’s relation to the “Castle on the Hill” and the Phoebe Snow era.
The program is free and open to the public. Donations will be greatly appreciated.
Click here to see more posts about the DL&W in Dansville.
Dansville Area Historical Society and St. Paul’s Lutheran Church
Present
A Community Program Celebrating the Church being placed on the State and National Registry of Historic Places
September 28, 2014
St. Paul’s Lutheran Church
21 Clara Barton Street
Dansville, NY 14437
Program 2-3pm Reception 3-4 pm
Speakers – Reverend Virginia Mazzarrela, Gerri Waight (President DAHS), Cynthia Howk (Landmark Society), Barry Haywood (American Red Cross), Ken Mountzouros (St Paul’s), and Valerie O’Hare (Pike Stained Glass Studios, Rochester)
The Dansville Area Historical Society
Cordially Invites You to Attend
The Annual Pasta Dinner
Saturday, October 18, 2014
Cocktails at 6:00pm and Dinner at 6:30pm
American Legion Home
34 Elizabeth Street
Dansville, NY 14437
Program to Follow:
David Gilbert will MC a History Game
Winner receives a prize
Door Prizes
Cost of Dinner tickets is $8.00
Tickets are available at local banks, Historical Society Board members and at the Door
To continue presenting programs, donations are greatly appreciated.
Thank You
Food Panty Items are welcomed
June 20, 1972
When, in June 1972, the remnants of Hurricane Agnes paid a surprise visit to Upstate New York, the results were comparable to the great flood of 1935. Although the Kanakadea Dam protected the city of Hornell, other Southern Tier cities and villages–Corning, Elmira, Wellsville, Canisteo, Alfred, Almond–were subjected to major flooding from rivers choked by the 10 inches of rain that fell in three days. At least one drowning victim was reported in Corning. One can only speculate how the absence of the 20-year-old Mt. Morris Dam would have compounded Livingston County damage. As it was, nervous Army Engineers felt compelled to release some of the pent-up waters, flooding croplands in low-lying areas.
In Dansville, the flooding of Mill Creek forced the evacuation of Quay Street and the Tracy trailer court (where three trailers were swept away). A bridge at Stone’s Falls was washed out, taking a house and trailer with it. At Comminsville the overflow of Canaseraga Creek caused $750,000 in damage at Foster Wheeler, as it ran across Route 36, sent a foot of water across the parking lots, flooded the basement, and deposited 6 inches of silt in the Tube Shop. Cleaning out the shop required the borrowing of several high- pressure hoses from the fire department, and the efforts of some 300 local volunteers. Not so easily fixed was the damage done to crops and nursery stock in the Flats area, damage estimated in the millions.
These first two paragraphs come from a newspaper column series titled ” Dansville Turns 200″ that ran from 1992 till 1996 in the Genesee Country Express by David Gilbert. David is the curator of the Dansville Area Historical Society museum.
Foster Wheeler employees returned to their jobs this week. Their tools these days are high rubber boots, shovels, brooms and mops.
The parking lot was flooded again Monday morning — with cars instead of water.
The massive job of cleaning up tons of sludge and debris is expected to continue throughout the week. Help there Saturday and Sunday was on voluntary basis by employees. Now full wages are being paid by the firm.
A. J. Timmes, local works manager, said full assessment of damage and loss cannot be made until about a couple of weeks. Investigation into extent of electrical damage was started Monday. One of the most costly projects is inspection of materials covered with mud. “Every piece of tubing will have to be flushed and treated,” he said.
Timmes estimated damage at the cafeteria alone at between $50,000 and 160,000 and stated the entire area will have to be completely redone. He called last week’s flood “the worst in the history of the Dansville plant.”
Practice matches are scheduled throughout Livingston County. All are welcome to attend. Croquet equipment and direction provided.
05/27/2014 Conesus – Rickey Greene Memorial Park 7pm
06/03/2014 Lakeville/Livonia – Vitale Park 7pm
06/08/2014 Springwater – Springwater Town Park 11am – 1pm
06/10/2014 Groveland – The Fireman’s Field 7pm
06/17/2014 West Sparta -West Sparta Fire Hall 7pm
06/18/2014 Avon -Avon Spring Downs 2pm
06/22/2014 Dansville – Pioneer Park 2pm – 4pm
06/24/2014 Lima – Mark Tubbs Park 7pm
07/08/2014 Ossian (rec program) – Ossian Hill Road 9am
07/13/2014 Ossian – Ossian Hill Community 11:30am
