Cortland County Historical Society

The Telethon is Live: https://youtu.be/GovS5gvm1UA Center for the Arts is presenting 24 Hours for Cortland County Livestream Telethon! beginning at noon today. Our Director, Tabitha Scoville, appears during the 5:00 pm segment to talk about the great work Cortland County Historical Society does. Tune in throughout the telethon for some amazing entertainment and to learn more and support our community non-profit organizations. The link below includes more details and the sch...edule of organizations, sponsors, and entertainment. 5:00pm Sponsored by: First National Bank of Dryden Community Partner: Cortland County Historical Society Entertainment: Ian Craft of The Howlin’ Brothers

Today we received word that we came in second place for the highest number of donations received in the Cortland Community Foundation's Annual Philanthropy Challenge! We received 101 donations this year (last year we received 58) and raised $27,518!!! This annual challenge helps us to raise a significant portion of our budget each year, and we can't thank you enough for coming out to support the important work we do! Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!!!

Then and Now, No. 1: The William J. Greenman Home at 27 North Church, Cortland, NY; built in 1896 from catalog design no. 1 by renowned architect George Franklin Barber; a 2 1/2 story Queen Anne - Romanesque painted lady; placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2011. Barber’s pattern book plans were used to construct homes in every state; over four dozen are individually listed on the National Register. Image Sources: Grip’s Historical Souvenir of Cortland, 189...9, p. 151; History in Your Backyard, 2020; and American Homes, Jan. 1895, p. 31. Update: Mary surprised me with the ornament of the Greenman house. She found it on eBay yesterday after she saw there was an ornament in the post comments! Wow! It’s beautiful! by Liz Wavle-Brown #cortlandhistory #cortlandcothenandnow #experiencecortland #ewavlebrown #historyinyourbackyard #bringbackthesundaydrive

Have you been enjoying seeing Cortland County Historical Society’s photos from A Journey Through Time, History in Your Backyard, and Bring Back the Sunday Drive in our posts over the past several months during this most unusual of years? While we have not been able to welcome you to the Suggett House Museum or Kellogg Research Center for several months, we have been busy, responding to research requests, and researching and writing stories about the people, events, places, a...nd artifacts that tell Cortland County’s History. We have been working on planning for the installation the new Children’s History Discovery Center in the museum and look forward to opening later in 2021. Cortland County Historical Society has produced a photo-filled 2021 calendar, A Journey Through Time 2021, featuring collages designed by Liz Wavle-Brown, with photos from A Journey Through Time: Cortland County, 1958-2018, by Jean Edwards and Elizabeth Wavle-Brown, lead authors and co-editors, 2019, Cortland County Historical Society, as well as a couple of new collages, with some of Liz and Mary’s photos from their Sunday drives around Cortland County. The calendar is $20.00 ($18.00) for CCHS members, plus 8% tax for New York State residents ($1.60; $1.44). CCHS will be happy to ship this for an additional $4.00 (shipping and handling) to anywhere in the United States. If you would like to purchase the calendar, please call Tabitha or Sophie at CCHS at (607) 756-6071 (Tuesday-Saturday; 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM) or email [email protected] and they will be happy to assist you. #bringbackthesundaydrive #experiencecortland #cortlandcounty #cortlandhistory #historyinyourbackyard #ewavlebrown #cortlandhistoricalmarkers #historyhappenedhere #historydetective #shoplocal

Fastenings, trimmings, and boning oh my! I am sad to say that we do not possess much information on this bodice, but at least as an object of fashion history it is a fantastic find in our collections. From what I could gather, it was part of the estate of Miss Mary H. White, daughter of Dr. Asa J. White. She was born in 1873, and since this bodice is dated from the 1870s it is not likely she wore it, but perhaps came from her mother, Sophia Bishop White. Mary lived and died i...n her home at 58 Port Watson St, and left generous legacies to a number of local institutions including the hospital, the library, the children’s home, and the Y.M.C.A & Y.W.C.A. This particular article of clothing caught my eye because of the fascinating buttons! They are so incredibly unique, and I would be tempted to say that perhaps they were hand-crafted. Boning provides for a neat, straight silhouette that gathers around a rather tiny waist. There is a matching skirt, replete with layers, ruffles, bows and other trimmings which perhaps I will focus on in another post. I only wish we knew more of the story behind such a lovely piece of clothing. ~Sophie, Collections and Research Assistant #cortlandcountyhistory #cortlandny #centralnyhistory #experiencecortland #cortlandcountyhistoricalsociety #historicalclothing #history #19thcenturyfashion #1870s

History in Your Backyard #13: Get a Grip(s) - Then & Now Many of the posts shared on our local remembrance sites feature photos from the book I have known most of my life simply as Grip’s. From the mid-1890s to mid-1900s, Grip (pseudonym for Edgar Luderne Welch) published over twenty books in his Grips Historical Souvenir Series. The Cortland Grip’s (No. 7) was published in 1899 and Marathon and Vicinity (No. 9) in 1901. Nearby Oxford (No. 5) was published in 1897; Grot...Continue reading