Cobblestone Buildings in Tompkins County, N. Y.

                          Ulysses Town Hall

    One of the most unusual modern examples of more contemporary cobblestone construction in upstate New York is the Ulysses Town Hall at 10 Elm St.  in the village of Trumansburg, Tompkins County. The original structure was a wooden frame and  cinder block building and had housed a tractor dealership. A second story was added.

    The idea of the unusual modern Greek Revival exterior originated with architect Mark Inglis who grew up in Wayne County and was descended from a cobblestone mason. He worked on the project with Trumansburg architect Peter Demjanic.

   There used to be large plate glass windows in the front that were closed in. Some 270  veneer panels of mortar and cobblestone were constructed and affixed to the exterior of the building. The building is about 60 feet square. It has no second story per se, but rather a large roof that was added sometime in the past. The building was elongated in 1996-7 with wood by about a third its length to its present size. 

    This project to cobblestone the building occurred in 1997-98 and was done by Paul Briggs of Lansing, N.Y., a mason long recognized for his knowledge in  cobblestone construction and restoration. The cobblestone five-inch thick veneer was added by Briggs in 1997. Work was completed in the spring of 1998.

   A local mudstone called "Llenroc" was used for the foundation, lintels, sills and quoins. All squared stones are about five inches thick. Many cobbles are that thick and many are not - just as in other cobblestone houses.  
    Some 3,000 stones collected in Genoa in Cayuga county were collected.  Briggs said: "I hired my neighbor Keith Hayes to help at times and taught him to do the jointwork and set cobbles. He did about 25 percent of them. Keith and I cast them into 12" x 24" forms, and did the joints after de-molding them. This was to save time but it was a marginal savings due to other complexities."

                 

                                       Main entrance fronting Elm Street.

                                                              Rear entrance

                                       Detail of side wall replicates early day
                                       use of rough field cobblestones.

            Side wall showing quoins. Photos by Richard Palmer

Cobblestone art still alive and well in upstate New York

by Richard Palmer

This new cobblestone structure is in the process of being constructed  by Jonathan Ferrari on the east side of Route 89 just south of Taughannock Falls in Tompkins County. Paul Briggs, a specialist in cobblestone construction and restoration, acted as consultant.

The building was originally an unfinished foundation below grade abandoned a few years ago. It is intended to be a garage and guest house and was constructed over a period of three years. They cast blocks with cobbles using flush joints with no attempt to hid the joints between the blocks.

Another photo shows an interior curved wall at a side entry breezeway or mudroom with interior cobblestone. Outside the same wall has black sealing tape over the top edge of the cobbles to protect them from the elements  through the winter.

Photos by Paul Briggs

Cobblestone Buildings in Genesee County

Batavia Daily Press, April 23, 1966 

Cobblestone Examples Noted in Genesee Recall Construction Over Century Ago

By Charlotte M. Reed

Genesee County Historian

    Genesee County, interested always in all forms of historic preservation, is especially proud that as the “Mother County" of Western New York it has been identified from the beginning with the extensive Cobblestone movement centered in Childs, Orleans County.

    Our own grouping of this unique architecture, though not numerically as large as in certain sections, is nevertheless praiseworthy and shows that we have been alerted to the importance of our own contribution to the valuable record.

    One recalls that with regret that today only the site remains of the once famous Cobblestone Block on Batavia's Main Street where was printed the first issue of the Daily News, June 25, 1878. This is true also of the county's cobblestone "Lunatic Asylum" - an adjunct of the County Farm, then known as the "Poor House" - built in 1828.

    We know definitely of two homes, at least, that are now gone; one in the town of Elba and another in the town of Pavilion. The latter - the Timothy Miller house - built by Jack Wallace 1831-1837 was on the Summit Street Road out of LeRoy and was destroyed by fire in 1930. Oakfie1d's oldest mercantile building, built in 1846, which successively housed a blacksmith shop, a laundry, pool parlor, garage, bicycle shop, and at the time of its razing in 1964, a shoe-repair shop, was another landmark now regretted.

   Likewise, what is said to have been the first school in Alexander, was built of cobblestone and stood on Church Street; several now living have told your historian of having attended it before it, too, was leveled. We are constantly finding evidence of other cobblestone structures; some torn down because of deterioration or a regrettable lack of understanding of their historical significance; others removed in the cause “progress.”

   Among those still standing throughout our fair county - a delight to cobblestone connoisseurs of the mid-1960s, Genesee lists several outstanding treasures.  We find the town of Alexander the Town Hall housing the Yorker's Museum on the third floor, which was built in 1836 of field cobbles as the former Genesee-Wyoming Academy - one of Western New York's most important places of higher learning. It then served successively as a private school, a union free school, and a grade and high school until 1938.

   Three homes are still the delight of their owners: one on Route 98, built in 1837 and occupied by the Brown family; two, remodeled former school houses, are on the Dodgeson and Sand Pit Roads, respectively.

    Batavia boasts one on the Batavia-Oakfield Townline Road, built about 1850 - the home of Dr. and Mrs. Irving Wiswall. An 1830 home on the corner of Bethany Center and McLernon Roads in the town of Bethany, is now occupied by the Drew Lloyd family.

    Stafford has two buildings - one on the east side of Fargo Road, built in 1840 by Giles Miner. 

Distinguished by its smoke house, stepping block and hitching post, it is now owned by the Harry Trietleys, who have preserved these interesting features. On the west side  of the Fargo Road stands the William Hanson house built in 1831 of rather large farm stones of varying sizes, by John Warren who came from Bishop’s Taunton, Devonshire, England, in 1830. Extensively modernized by an addition on the north end, one notes that the original north and south walls were built with no window openings.

    Going to LeRoy from Batavia, we find the Champion-Barone home on the north side of Route 5 at the western edge of the village. Built between 1832 and 1836, this story and a half house was carried out in Greek Revival design. Time has brought little change other than a replacement of the original small square portico - enhanced by its Doric columns and a wide frieze which matched the architectural trim of the house - with a 20th century porch extending across the front.

    Darien has one quaintly small rectangular building on the Harper Road north of Route 20. Built in 1863 as Judge Ridley‘s “Court House,” it was later used from 1914 to 1937 for a Post Office, and for a time, for voting purposes. Now , it is used privately as a little home. And on the Alexander-Darien Townline Road, the Clifton Bailey’s are presently restoring to its original appearance (from photographs) their cobblestone home purchased four years ago.  

    The towns of Byron and Bergen, to our knowledge, claim not a single cobblestone; neither does the town of Pembroke. But Pembroke's neighbor on the northwest edge of the county, the town of Alabama, shows evidence of the stone - perhaps, we would like to think, even in greater numbers then the one remaining house which built prior to 1860, sports an addition. Its owners, the Scarboroughs, said that in- remodeling it for occupancy, hand-hewn beams and the outline of a fireplace and bake-oven were discovered.
  Almost opposite, at the corner of Maple Street and the Ledge Road, is a small school house, set in the midst of a tiny rural graveyard.  In recent years it has been plastered over and no trace of its cobblestone identity is visible.

    At 10 Forest Ave. in Oakfield we find another home of rather large field cobbles belonging to Mrs. Dorothy Hammond. Interestingly, its deed goes back to Colonel Alfred Cary, for whom the village was originally named Caryville and through whose philanthropy, the well-known Cary Seminary was established.

   The present John Martin house on the Judge Road in Oakfield was built 1825-1830 by two brothers, Daniel and Disbrow Calkins.  Working through the summer on the Erie Canal as stone masons, they are said to have brought the cobbles from Lake Ontario - and worked on the house in the winter. They built a second house which we understand was not cobble and planned a third - but never completed it. The pile of stones and a well are today’s mute testimony to the plan. 

     Going out the Oak Orchard Road from Batavia (Route 98), Elba adds four more to our list. The Moses True-Hartman home built in 1836 of cobbles of varied colors and shapes, stands with its front entrance facing Maltby Road. The old Ford home on the Ford Road (Route 262) two miles east of Route 98, is said to have probably been built by the same mason as the Underhill-Wiswall house because of the similarity of workmanship. It has recently been purchased and is slated for restoration. 

    And in the heart of Elba we find a little old blacksmith shop at the corner we find a little old blacksmith shop at the corner of Main and Mechanic Streets. [Note: moved to Genesee Country Museum]. Enticing in its promise of “untold stories,” the old Friends Meeting House at the corner of Quaker and Lockport Road - once known as Snoker Hill, has been used as a summer home for several years. Its entrances - one for women and one for men, as it was originally built in 1836, have been closed up with masonry. Only recently did it pass from the Staples family  - descendants of one of the founding members, William Weeks. It is now owned by State Police Investigator Ronald A. Butterfield of Attica.

    Of novel interest, we list two smoke houses which recently have been brought to our attention. One in the town of Darien, and the second, the “Tryon Smoke house,” the latter termed “an architectural gem” by our LeRoy historian. Standing a mile from the razed Timothy Miller house in Pavilion, it was presumably built in the 1830s.

    And thinking back, we recollect that the building that is now the Star Dry Cleaning establishment on East Main Street - once a huge home in Batavia’s elite residential section - has lost its identity with the cobblestone era. The lower half built of cobblestones has been plastered over with stucco.

   Almost daily Genesee’s Department of History finds new data for its cobblestone story - research for which had been in progress here in the Holland Office since the origin of the project. Any and all information and pictures are still welcome. The help of everyone is needed as well as that of the local historians. In 1965, a map locating Genesee’s known cobblestones was compiled and filed with the Cobblestone Society - as requested. Now in the foreseeable future, either 1967 or 1968- according to O. W. Shelgren Jr., new elected Society President - Genesee County is scheduled to play host one of the annual tours. 

                                             Alabama

                      

        Oakfield-Alabama Baptist Church and corner of Judge Road
        (Route 63)  and Maple Road was  built in 1838 with cobblestone
        foundation.

                                             Alexander

This place, called the Hastings-Brown house, is on Route 98, two miles north of the village of Alexander, was built about 1837 for Moses Page. The original owner is not known, but Moses Page who came to Alexander in 1810 lived there prior to 1854. His son, Albert, owned it in 1866. Sherman B. Hammond lived there in 1870 and by 1904 J.X. Hastings was living there and called it “Valley View.” C.H. Brown was living there in 1917. In the 1970s it was the residence of Norman Brown. The house is made of field cobbles and corner quoins and window lintels are gray limestone. It is a "Century Farm" of the New York State Agricultural Society, having been in the Brown family continuously since 1877.  The Century Farm plaque is proudly displayed on the front lawn. 


                                          

                                          

                            

The Thomas Cogswell  House, 11231 Maplewood Road. This is a very early cobblestone house with two unique wings. Note the uneven sized cobblestone, lack of straight lines, uneven quoins and rough limestone framing of the doors and windows.  Photos by Larry Warren.

                                            

       

Believe it or not this started life in 1835 as a one-room schoolhouse, this house is located at 3385 Dodgeson Road, Alexander. It has been extensively altered from its original appearance. Photos by Larry Warren.

This three-story building at 3350 Church St., Alexander, is thought to be the only three-story cobblestone structure in the U.S. It was constructed in 1837 as Genesee Classical Seminary by Hezekiah Barnard with funding from the Literary Society of the Alexandrian Library. It served as a school for 101 years. It is currently the Alexander Town Hall. The local historical museum is on the third floor. It is a fine example of New England Georgian style including the "widow's walk" and Georgian lantern.

                              Former school house at 11030 Sandpit Road near
                              the corner of Telephone Road is said to have been 
                              built about 1830. 

This cobblestone house at 11143 Chaddock Road was built in the 1830s by Luther Chaddock. It was stuccoed over after the walls cracked following an earthquake  in 1929. 

                                           

City of Batavia

                                      217 East Main St., last known as "Star Cleaners,"

                                 demolished in 1964. Photo taken in 1941 when it

                                 was being used as a church.

  Photo courtesy of Genesee County Historian's office.

Daily News, Batavia

October 30, 1937

Pictured above is a section of Batavia’s Main street of the post-Civil War era. It is the original site of the building on the south side of Main street and Exchange Place, later remodeled and now housing the Carlton M. Sleght and E.J. Beardsley stores and the Western Union offices and office of Allen G. Strong, optometrist.

                           ____

    One of Batavia’s  Main Street landmarks was the “Cobblestone Building,” shown in the 1880’s, so named because of the “cobbles” that constituted the face of the structure. [Note: It was razed in 1881]

    Indispensable fixtures of the business section of those days were hitching posts that can be seen in the foreground. They were spaced so as to prevent congestion and provide room for team-drawn wagons as well as single-horse carriages.

    At the time the picture was taken, Baker and Walkinsaw, operation of a combination bakery and drug establishment, occupied the store adjoining Exchange Place. Next door was Homer N. Kelsey’s jewelry store and the third store housed Mackey Brothers’ news-room.

    On the extreme left is the store occupied by Hewitt Bros. dry goods merchants, the present site of the west half of the Bank of Batavia. On the second floor were the offices of Seth Wakeman and William C. Raton. After the death of Mr. Wakeman, Mr. Watson continued to maintain offices there.

    Among the occupants of the upper floors of the “Cobblestone Building” were Knight’s Photograph Gallery, D. Hiland H. Benjamin, dentist, Bloomfield’s tailor shop and Luckle’s tailor shop. For a time The News had offices on the third floor.

   The late Daniel W. Toimlinson, father of Everett R. Tomlinson of the Bank of Batavia, bought the building  in the 1880’s, modernized and partially rebuilt it. Later, the late Postmaster John F. Ryan purchased part of the “Cobblestone Building” block. E.J. Beardsley and Carlton M. M. Sleght, the other stores.

Batavia Times, Saturday, March 29, 1919

    

                        Residents of Batavia 55 Years

    Dr. Hiland H. Benjamin, who is nearly 84 years of age, of No. 31 Center St., together with his wife came to Batavia 55 years ago Tuesday. In 1868 Dr. Benjamin entered the office of Dr. Nelson Stevens, who was the first dentist in Genesee County. In 1868 Dr. Benjamin opened an office at no. 63 Main St. in the Cobblestone building, but of late years has had his office at his home. Dr. Benjamin was born in Orleans county.

                                                      

                                       Town of Batavia

                                

                                             3319 Oakfield-Batavia Townline Road

                                                        Bethany

           

                                                                                                                                 Photos by Richard Palmer

                                                                         Photo by Larry Warren
The Rumsey house at 10105 Bethany Center Road at corner of McLernon Road was built of large field stones. It dates to the 1840s.

                                                       Darien
                                             

This structure at 10554 Harper Road in the village of Darien was built in 1863 as a post office. It was built of field stone of different sizes, shapes and colors. It is now a private dwelling.

                                  

                                                11230 Alexander-Darien Road
                                       

                                        Elba

               Cobblestone Blacksmith Shop
The Levi Rugg blacksmith shop was originally located on Mechanic Street in the village of Elba. It was built in 1839 and operated well into the 20th century. In 1976 it was dismantled and reconstructed at Genesee Country Village museum near Mumford, N.Y. It was reconstructed with cinder blocks and then the cobblestone facing was placed on the exterior and the interior. The original joint work was not reproduced. The original west wall cobbles were collected separately from the east, south and north walls. Each wall’s cobbles were put up on their respective original faces but obviously in their original exact rows or location on each wall. The interior cobbles were just put up where convenient and are naturally un-coursed, just like a barn foundation. The core of the wall is cinder block.

Note the old Conestoga wagon

  The blacksmith was the first tradesman to set up shop in the emerging village. He supplied goods and services basic to the welfare of any early community, large or small. Every village and hamlet had at least one blacksmith.

    The smithy shod horses, made hardware, and repaired wagons and plows — everything of iron that the farmer or the villager could not repair himself. His trade was often combined with that of the wheelwright, with whom he might collaborate in making wagons and carriages.

   Levi Rugg, whose shop is now at Genesee Country Historic Village, was engaged in the two related occupations — smithing and wagon repair. His wagon shop was handy to the cobblestone blacksmith shop, then owned by blacksmith William Bradley Rugg's own shop was across the street from Bradley's. This congestion of competing enterprises was common in the world of the blacksmith and illustrates some of the economics of the early 19th-century village. There may not have been a blacksmith shop on every corner, but in the average village there were more blacksmith shops than cobbler shops.

Rugg eventually purchased the cobblestone shop, moved his operations into it, and ran a general blacksmithing business there until his death in 1875. Two succeeding smiths worked in the shop until well into the 20th century.

Rugg's shop from Elba represents  a unique regional architectural expression — the cobblestone building.  Inside walls are of rubble masonry.

___

                           The Nathaniel Ford House at 4899 Ford Road, Elba
                           It was built in 1841 and is located two miles east of
                           Route 298. A one-story wing extension  may have
                           once served as a carriage house.

This house at 4048 Maltby Road was started by Moses True, a Scotsman, in 1836      and took to years to build. Most of the stone came from the shore of Lake Ontario. On December 28, 1859 it was sold to Nathan S. Godfrey. Subsequent owners included Melvin E. Pease, Elmer E. Norton, Albert Burr and F.M. Russell. 

Leroy

The Baron House, 7175 Route 5, LeRoy.

                       

Smoke house at rear of 8029 Route 219

                           Ruins of collapsed smoke house at 8500 Harris Road. It

                           was built 1846.

                                                Oakfield

                                 10 Forest Ave. in village of Oakfield

                           

For more than a century Emanuel Isaac’s blacksmith and wagon shop was located at the corner of Water and Main streets in the village of Oakfield.  It was razed in 1964.  Photo courtesy of Darlene Warner, Oakville Town Historian.

Rochester Democrat & Chronicle
December 4, 1964

   New Owner Razes Oakfield Landmark
   OAKFIELD - An old Oakfield landmark, the cobblestone building at Main and Water Streets where Joseph DiFillipo conducted a shoe repair shop for 35 years, has disappeared from the village scene.
   The structure was razed by the new owner, Meiser Chevrolet Inc. for an expansion of its property. The structure was built in 1846.
   DiFillipo retired last October, but will continue to do some shoe repair work at is home, 1 Dodge St.

                                         2810 Route 63 (Judge Road)

                                 The Calkins Homestead

By Helen E. Caton, Historian, Town of Oakfield, 1964

    The Calkins homestead, a cobblestone structure built on the Judge Road, just west of the United States Gypsum Company, was built about 1825-30* by two Calkins brothers, Daniel and Dlsbrow. They came to Oakfield from Connecticut when in their early twenties. They had worked on the Erie Canal as stone masons. When this was completed, they secured a grant of land from the Holland Land Company and decided to build a home.

    In the spring and fall, when the work lessened or was unfavorable for farming, they drove their teams (and it has been said they were oxen) to the shores of Lake Ontario to pick the water washed type of cobblestone until they had a goodly supply toward the building of a house. However they did use some field cobblestone found on their own farm.

    The house was beautifully built, deep window and door casings, an  four fire places, two upstairs and two down. Just inside the front entrance gas a very pretty stairway.

    After the two brothers married, they split up, Daniel living in the cobblestone and Daniel in the red brick house which they built together on the opposite side of the road. The red brick was manufactured at a brick factory the boys owned on the site of the present U. S. Papermill. This house was eventually sold to Oscar Holcomb, to Nathaniel Macomber, to Wilbur Reed, to the U.S.G. Co., then to the

L.L. Reed. Upon his death when the estate was settled, it was purchased by Virgil Phelps in 1964 along with the other L.L.Reed farm.

    Getting back to the cobblestone house, 1885, it was purchased by Parley V. Ingalsbe from the Calkins family and at his death was left to his son Seward Ingalsbe. While in the Ingalsbe estate it was made into a two family unit, front and back, until purchased by Arthur Martin in March l954.

    Since Mr. Martin purchased it the interior has been completely remodeled in to a one family dwelling. His son and wife, Jack and Lillian Fltzsimmons Martin and children now reside there. Not long ago the front entrance was in need of repair. and instead of keeping the original front entrance plan it was sorrowfully changed into just an ordinary entrance.

*These dates are erroneous. This house is of the 1840s period.
             
                      

                               

                                     Pavilion

                                                      11129 River Road

                                                        Stafford

This house at 9180 Fargo Road was known for many years as the William Hanson house. It was built of field stones in 1831 by John Warren who came from Bishop’s Taunton, Devonshire, England, the previous year. It features a modern addition designed by famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

This house at 9295 Fargo Road was built by Giles Minor, a prominent farmer, in 1840. He came here in 1826. He died on February 14, 1883 at the age of 80. Later the house was occupied by his son, Henry Clay Minor, who was the inventor of Minor's patent automatic stanchion for cattle.

                  

              

Detail of design of wall at 9295 Fargo Road. This is a technique called "piping,” where as a final step in construction, raised mortar joints are added between the stones.  The mortar was applied using a tool made from a piece of pipe cut lengthwise  and bent slightly.  In this case, the tool had a flat bottom instead of rounded.  It is unusual to find this technique employed in the 1840s. It is usually found on a few late-period cobblestone buildings, but continued in use on other masonry (like foundations and chimneys) on late Victorian buildings.