Monday, December 28, 2009

110 South Street



Arthur A.Boyd and his wife, Flore, occupied 110 South Street after Boyd, a retired naval officer, moved to Auburn to take over the Hayden saddlery hardware and home manufacturing business that had been established by his father-in-law, Peter Hayden. The company at that time employed convict labor, but later was to occupy a building with D.E. Clapp Maufacturing.

For several years, the Boyds held a cotillion at the mansion with the pit band of the Auditorium Theater providing the music.

Mr. Boyd in 1917. Then Mrs. Boyd lived at 66 South Street in the winter adn opend the mansion for the remainder of the year. Upon her death in 1928, her daughter Gladys sold the property.

The mansion was razed to make room for the Case Mansion and grounds. The stones of the mansion were recycled and used in the construction of the church school building of Second Presbyterian Church (today Westminster Church) on William Street.
School on the left


Today, First Presbyterian Church occupies the site of the former Boyd mansion, which later was the south lawn of the Theodore Case Mansion.


The First Presbyterian Church steeple had collapsed and the congregation decided to leave the corner of North and Franklin streets which had been home to them since the first wooden house of worship had been built there in 1816.

The South Street Church designed by John Y. Critchley was built at a cost of more than $550,000 on land purchased from the Carmelite Fathers.

In 1975, the Presbyterian congregation purchased the adjacent 40-room Case mansion from the Carmelites.

~ Information provided by Sheila Tucker, Cayuga County Historian

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Teaser Tuesday (December 22)

Teaser Tuesday is a meme hosted by Should Be Reading .


Bosch had never been a believer in coincidence. He wasn’t going to start now.

- Nine Dragons, page 162, by Michael Connelly

73 South Street



73 South Street


On this property was the home of Gen. John H. Chedell. Chedell was born in Otsego County. Upon the death of this father, Chedell apprenticed in the jewelry business. At the age of 21, Chedell moved to Auburn. Here Chedell opened a jewelry store at 103-105 Genesee Street. Chedell invested wisely in the Oswego Starch Co., and with this fortune, invested in the first Auburn and Syracuse Railway, as well as the Southern Central. Chedell served as president of the Southern Central and he served on the board of directors of the Leigh Valley and the New York Central railroads. Chedell was named brigadier general in 1857 of the 23rd Brigade and served in that capacity for 20 years.

Gen. Chedell donated land for the for St. John's Church as well as the bell tower and spire for St. Peter's Epiccopal Church in 1873. Chedell was a founding member of teh Orphan Asylum.

Upon the death of Gen. Chedell in 1875, the property on South Street remained in the family. In 1950 the South Street home was sold to Drs. Mary and Alan Koirkwood. The Kirkwoods razed the building and constructed the present-day building shown above. Today, 73 South Street houses the dentistry offices of Drs. William and James Elkovitch.

~ Information provided by Sheila Tucker, Cayuga County Historian

Tuesday, December 08, 2009

77 South Street



This house was built for Harold E. Hills and his wife, Caroline, in 1897. Harold Hills was a prominent Auburn attorney and the grandson of Eleazor Hills, who operated Auburn's first general store.



Harold Hills died at age 39 and the house was taken over by his brother, William, and his wife, Alice. William too was an attorney. The Hills home was the scene of formal dinner parties and multi-generational Christmas-night parties given by Mrs. Alice B. Hills for 48 years. With her gracious living style, formal dinner parties and gowns, Alice was the last of the South Street Victorians. Alice died in 1966 at the age of 98.



The Hills family occupied the home until the death of Alice's daughter, Mary Day Butler, in 1971. The home was left unoccupied by the heirs for a number of years. It is presently being restored.

~ Information provided by Sheila Tucker, Cayuga County Historian

Friday, December 04, 2009

A Christmas Memory



Joan and I with 200 other first-nighters attended the presentation of Truman Capote’s short story, “A Christmas Memory”.

Read Tony Curulla's review, Veteran Patricia Neal Still Delivers in Capote Story, as it appeared in the Syracuse Newspapers.

Back Story

Tuesday, December 01, 2009

"I got on the bus to go home."


The famous U.P.I. photo
actually on Dec. 21, 1956


Today, in 1955, Rosa Parks, a black seamstress, refused to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Ala., city bus.Parks was arrested, sparking a yearlong boycott of the buses by blacks.

Sit Still - Just Sit Still