Previous: Lafayette Prepares To Enter The Greater Western New York Region
WNY portion of 1825 map published by H.S. Tanner, 177 Chestnut St. Philadelphia.
Remember how excited you were when you began a new school year, started a new job, or moved to a new place? Life fills you with promise and anticipation. You can’t wait to wake up and start the next day. Everything is sunshine and roses.
Then reality inevitably interrupts. Things get overwhelming. Despair and sometimes desperation set in. It seems as if you’re trapped. You can’t see a way out.
But, somehow, you find a way. You get over that hump. (Because, when you get over things, what once seemed like an overbearing mountain now appears as nothing more than a mere bothersome bump.)
Again, you look forward to tomorrow with an enthusiasm you thought you’d never again have.
Such was the state of Greater Western New York. It began as an enthusiastic rush into the Continue Reading “Lafayette’s Farewell Tour: The State Of Greater Western New York In 1825”
The Red Jacket Medal Mystery: Lost. Found? Still Unsolved.
Red Jacket, lithograph by Corbould from 1835 painting by C.B. King, printed by C. Hallmandel, via Wikipedia Commons
“Against Red Jacket Club,” blared the 1910 headline.1 Marking the beginning of the end, it referred to the exclusive Canandaigua social club that defined elite prestige in grand, well-appointed fashion for two decades. Everyone who was anyone sought an invitation to its annual party, which the group limited to 100 guests.
By 1910, its days were numbered. Unlike the earlier move to disband in 1908, this would be the final nail in the organization that had formed in 1888. The financial burden of operating with dwindling membership and maintaining the nearly century-old Federal-style mansion on the corner of Main and Gorham proved to be too heavy.2 Trustees representing the bondholders had no choice but to sell everything.
“All of the personal property of the famous Red Jacket Club, once the ‘swell’ organization of this village, was sold at auction… the club possesses among its relics a silver medal presented by President George Washington to the famous Indian chief, Red Jacket…”3
But the story of that shiny token goes back much further, well before the Club first laid eyes Continue Reading “The Red Jacket Medal Mystery: Lost. Found? Still Unsolved.”