 Starts here in Voriceville in 1913. They moved from, they were an Italian immigrant family that came from some Marco de Cavolte in Italy. They came originally to Pennsylvania. My first two aunts were born in Pennsylvania in 1913. They moved to Voriceville and they lived here as a minority community. Eventually, my father was born in 1915 on Prospect Street by a midwife. In, there was an Italian area down there. So that's where my history comes from. Eventually, my grandmother had, she was a rickie. I don't know how much you know about the rickies. She was a rickie. There were at least three of her relatives living in Voriceville. And my father's Iuliano family had, my grandfather had two sisters living in Voriceville. Voriceville, the actual community of Voriceville was populated as a result of the railroad, which came in the middle of the 1800s to Voriceville. Most of the statistical data dates and stuff that I will be giving you come from Dennis Sullivan, who is the village historian's book, Voriceville, a sketch of the beginnings of a 19th century railroad town. Please keep in mind that yes, the, what Voriceville is today was a result of the railroad. Okay, the railroad brought much to the area so that it was populated to the village. An important date that you need to keep in mind is Voriceville did not become the official incorporated village of Voriceville until 1899. Okay, please keep that in your memory for the tour. Dennis wrote this book, Dennis is not a native Voriceville, and he came here, he was a professor and writer, and he wrote this book in 1999 for the 100th anniversary of the village of Voriceville. I have been told by the Historical Society, which is in New Scotland Historical Society, which is in New Zealand, that this book is available for purchase there in its, I believe it'll be its second edition. I have read this book three times and continue to refer to it. So I suggest if you're really, if you're really interested in the history of Voriceville, Dennis did a fantastic job with this book, and he still lives here in Voriceville. You put that in my, thank you. Okay, we are standing in what was originally the Tewiliger farm. According to evidence Dennis has, the Tewiligers were here in this area in the mid 1700s. Okay, and this was the Tewiliger farm, which eventually turned into the Severson farm, which the senior, the senior apartments out here still bear the name of the Seversons. Okay, the Severson, this was a dairy farm and an apple orchard, okay, back in those days. Okay, so us this street is St. Matthew's Church, St. Matthew's Church was, this church was built somewhere shortly after 1960, because I was in the first confirmation class here, and I believe that I was confirmed at 12 years old, so I was 12 years old in 62, so the church was here where I was confirmed. This is the second location of St. Matthew's Church. We will also be viewing the first location of the Catholic Church on our tour today. I'm not going to set a high pace, but I'd like to have you try to keep together, because I do have very verbose, so I have a lot of things to tell you about. At the at the beginnings, I think it's important, in the 1600s Henry Hudson came, Henry Hudson came up the Hudson River. There were probably Dutch in this area, okay. We know that in the late 1600s the English came in and took all of the political power and whatever away from the English, or from the Dutch, and established an English political system here. So this area I guess originally were settled by probably some Dutch here, but probably predominantly English. The religion of this area, I get a lot of my information from my relatives, and also from other people that I grew up with here, so maybe some of it isn't perfectly factual, but I sure can tell you the mythology. And this was predominantly a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant neighborhood in the early development of the village. We are going to proceed up the street here, and we're going to go to our next stop is going to be at the elementary school, where we'll talk about the history of, the short history of the school, and the school district, as we talk about the school, one of the first things that I find interesting is that when they decided that they needed a school in this area, so people or the fathers that be purchased a one-acre piece of land from the two-wheelers for ten dollars an acre. Smith. Hi Dennis. Good morning, Mr. Campbell. Hello, Dennis. Everybody in town knew me, and there was no problem with traffic. The history that I ran across in the 1980s, a couple of teachers from the high school decided to do a history of horizontal, which I have at home and have read. And according to that, there was a school right here was built, again, they were purchased from the two-wheelers, an acre of land for ten dollars, and they built a one-room wooden school here on the banks of the Vlai Creek in 1828. I also read that in 1824, the school in New Salem was built. That is now the New Scotland Historical Society, so if you know where that is, that school was there. I also have read that in the town of New Scotland or within the regions of New Scotland, which this was known as before it was known as Vorysville, there were 16 schools, probably elementary. Okay, probably elementary. As you can see, this was called New Scotland School 10, not Vorysville School 10. I read that at that time there were 48 students. The grades only went one through eight. After that, you were required to either go to, I believe, Gilliland Center had a high school and Delmar had a high school, or I read that many people went to Albany. How? On the train. Okay, my father went one through eight, graduated from the eighth grade here in Vorysville, somewhere around 1929. He took the train every morning from Vorysville to Delmar, got off the train and went to Delmar High School. He went to Delmar High School for three years and in his fourth year, when he graduated, his yearbook says Bethlehem Central, so it must have been 1934 that Bethlehem Central became the centralized district. In 1866, we have a brick building. In 1892, a second room was added to the brick building. In 1911, a third room was added to the brick building. And in 1929, a building plan was developed for this building, which would become the elementary and high school. Okay, this building had been added on to twice. It was, there's a plaque inside the door on the left that says 1930, so I assume the first class started in 1930 here. The building went, the original building went, this was a state of the art building in New York State. It went from here, past the second one, the second one. The office was up on the third floor and it's a tiny little office which we, when I worked here at school, I worked here for 30 years and taught. We call that the penthouse up there. It was added on to here once and they added all kinds of different things down in this area. In the 60s, it was added on, they added another room which we called the New Wing, which was used, I think it's still used for kindergarten, first and second grades are down in that area. But originally this was the high school. It only went one through eight at one time, then it got to one through 10. I believe 1941 was the first graduating class where they had a complete high school, you could get a complete high school education, K through 12. Okay, and that's kind of- Did I always have kindergarten back then? No, my father, my father always said that he did not speak English until he was, as his first language or as until he was six years old, so I'm assuming that that's when he started school here in Borisville, when he was probably first grade, because he said that's when, up to that point, Italian was his first language because he stayed with all his Italian relatives right within the community. We're going to proceed out in this direction. There's another picture you're going to want to take a look at. It could be passed around. One of the big things in Borisville was tourism after the trains and one of the things that was big time was swimming. That is a totally wooden bridge too. Which brought tourism to Borisville, which was called Windows Specs Grove. Windows Specs Grove. Windows Specs Grove was- Is that the name? Yes. Okay, I'm going to tell you. The pool was over. They put a concrete dam up. You know how the athletic field goes here? It was on the creek on the other end, just beyond the athletic field. They dammed it up into a big oval area which was called Windows Specs Grove. There was a pavilion because I broke into it when I was in high school and we used to go in there. It was at that time in the 60s, it was all shut up and everything was all organized in there. There were chairs and this and that and all the stuff was all in there the way they had packed it away after the season and it just sat idle and the dam was no longer in use. But at one point Windows Specs Grove was a very large swimming area and tourist area in Borisville. As you can see from the photograph, don't go without seeing that photograph. Swimming was a big deal around here. There was also little and big falls which is down farther off of Hilton Road and Norman Skill Road. There was a big fall there that you could actually see when you go around the bend on Norman Skill Road. And down farther there was another swimming area and there was actually a rope swing where you could go out and I think my father took me down there and we would go out on the rope swing and drop and actually one of my one of my classmates was paralyzed there because he went out on the thing and landed on some rocks or something. So Windows Specs Grove. Access to Dennis's book, my grandfather Nicola Iuliano. There's a picture of him but it's very small in the book. Dennis, when was the pool active and open? I don't know when it was begun. I assume during the 50s it was big and popular. I got a feeling before the 50s. I think probably all in the early 1900s and the early 1900s up to 1960 that that was a Windows Specs Grove was... Did you swim in it? No. It was not. It was not. It wasn't. Yeah so during it closed down somewhere in the 50s. The 8th, which brings us to kind of the beginnings of Vorizville. A man by the name of Alonzo Voriz was a lawyer in Albany. He was affiliated with the railroad. The first railroad came through Vorizville approximately 1863. It went from... A trip went from Albany to Central Bridge out 88. Okay and I guess they turned around and went back. Apparently Mr. Voriz had worked through his law firm with the railroad and became tight with them. He came to Vorizville in 1867 and built the house which we will see later on in Vorizville. In Dennis's book there is a picture of his application. He decided that this area needed a post office. His application is filled out there and in the place that says what shall this be called? He wrote Vorizville. So that's probably where the name Vorizville came from and as a result of the library or the post office all of the mail said Vorizville post office on it. So that's probably how it became a change from New Scotland to Vorizville. However an important piece of information is that even when the train started coming through here originally the station was known as New Scotland station. Okay and remember it wasn't until 1899 that Vorizville became officially an incorporated village. We're going across the street here. Okay now Wendell Specks Grove is going to be almost behind the current fire department on the opposite side of the creek. The railroads had made Vorizville into a tourist area, business area, the village actually by 1900 the village actually had three major hotels. This being the least major of the three hotels. This hotel had rooming at the second level. They had a beverage on the lower level and food and that was about all that this hotel that this hotel could offer but and it was the lower of the hotels. My history tells me that in that in this area many many people rented their homes and that there were like B for like B and B type things during the summer because even the hotels could not house all of the people that wished to come to Vorizville. Vorizville was very popular getaway summer retreat. There were the Helderberg mountains, the Indian Ladder Trail, the swimming areas and when we see the Grove Hotel was the Cadillac of hotels here by 1900 and it offered amazing things and we'll also see another hotel which was called Harris House which is more close to the center of town. This would later be they actually called it Brookview Hotel and then later it was brought out by the Smith family and the Smith family made it into a tavern in the tavern. At that time again everybody here called it smitties. There were two Frank Smiths the original Frank and his wife Lil ran it. My father was drafted into the service for World War II. He praised Mrs. Smith, Will Smith as being the mother of Vorizville because he said and there are copies of these letters at the Historical Society and the Vorizville Public Library has a whole Smith file up there that you can look at by inquiry you have to inquire make an appointment to see it but she wrote a letter I believe every week that said to every member of man who was in the service during World War II and she listed all the guys that she had gotten letters back from what they were doing where they were what was going on in town and he was very taken by her tribute that she paid to the service people. They that family started making pizzas I can't remember when but they my mother said she started getting some kind of a biscuit mix or something and started making pizzas and apparently they had one of the only TVs in Vorizville because they my mom said she and my father used to come here on Friday nights to see the Friday night fights on tv there was a building that was his maintenance that's what the building looked like that's this was where you got your car serviced and I believe this also before before one of the additions on the school over here that this became that this became they actually had the shop classes in this building here were held in this building um Clayton Boughton one of the fathers of the school district part of the school is named Clayton Boughton Jr senior high school that school opened in 1959 Clayton Boughton came to Vorizville in 1921 in those days you didn't need a big degree you needed a two-year degree at a normal school that was the normal way of getting an education to become a teacher Clayton Boughton had gone to school at St. Lawrence University so he had a four-year degree so he's a big-time guy he came here as a teacher later became principal in 1941 this officially became the central school district of Vorizville central school district the name of the town was voted on by the people of the area there were actually three different names I can't remember all of them one was heldeburb school one was something else which I can't remember but the vote was Vorizville school and it became the Vorizville central school district in 1959 also the new Salem school was closed it came here and there was a school in New Scotland by an elementary school where the town hall is that was once another of the new Scotland schools came very popular because of their economic layout they were very economically laid out they weren't very big but they were affordable and you could have three bedrooms and raise a family pretty well developed all those branches in there off of pine street were developed right after the war and you can see a really good example of the 50s school best friend sandy fewanders house they used to come here every day didn't know that that building in the back originally well i think home economics would have been and also i think the original first kindergarten was in that was housed in that building before there was an official area for that in the school those like shop and home economics and kindergarten didn't get added onto the school until after the next edition was put on that originally that brick that big brick building came into 30 in 1930 it had 17 rooms and it also had an exciting thing they had a theater gymnasium combination which was one of the first in the state of new york that building was visited constantly by people from all like educators from all over the state of new york because it was a state-of-the-art building people came from all over to see that 17-room building the father of orriesville's high school i guess uh clayton fountain an interesting anecdote that clayton told during he was became principal he was a teacher became principal and originally and ultimately became superintendent of the district and at one of the meetings that they had the thing he told the story of how early in his career on a halloween evening he was in his odd house and behind the behind his house and a bunch of kids came and turned over the odd house on it association no association for former attorney and in 1904 his wife started a organization called the bayview club which was a very high ritzy thing where they used to get together once a month and discuss that sort of things like Russian literature and Russian and other stuff and every month they had a different topic and all the members of the bayview club were expected to produce some sort of a document researched over the course of the month and present and be able to present and talk to it this was the bayview club and it was a i believe the central bayview was located in detroit michigan the central yeah and that was in the early 1900s here this is the site of the original i don't know if this was to williger built it or not but the steverson family which was the orchard and the dairy farm the original house sat right here where these senior living places are now condos i guess and the barns were all in the back along the creek ice harvesting was a big industry during the 1800s ice was harvested off of the creek here in this area and there were several locations that ice could be sold in the village there was before so i don't forget to tell you right behind this area where the old library used to be when i tell you about that behind it was an ice place where they sold ice there was a building there that you could buy ice out of during the 1800s for your ice box they kept what they did is they isolated it in the darkness and they kept it as long as they could and they packed yeah it was all packed in hey hey yeah well same difference across the street was vorriesville's first bakery okay uh in 1894 uh orph became orph way he started baking in this house both the steversons would deliver milk to your house we all had a little aluminum box and we would put it it was bottled and it had about three inches of cream on top my grandmother had a little ladle thing she'd stick in there and take all the cream off and she'd use it to make whipped cream and other specialties for her baking okay we get pasteurized milk they delivered it daily to your door you would leave your bottles in the box and whatever however many bottles you put in the box they would replace and they give you a bill and you'd put your actually would put your money right in the box for your weekly uh whatever you owed started baking and they would also deliver they would also deliver to your door now the interesting story about the bakery is orph way starts the bakery in this house and it's not he doesn't have the space or the ability to have an oven so he goes next door and they allowed him to put the oven to put the oven in the basement so he was actually having his bakery here but he was baking his stuff over here in this house is across the street the original building which you can see if you follow the roof from the front to where it ends the first part in the back the original bell tower this is the Methodist church in 1815 Methodism officially I guess becomes to Voriceville for this area it was called the Black Creek Methodist Society in 1815 uh check my notes on 1824 somewhere between 1824 and 1828 the original section of this church was built however the interesting part of it is it was not on this location that church was built on Altamart Road if you drive up Altamart Road as soon as you go past the fire department and turn off left to go to Altamart Road look quickly to your right there is a marker there that shows that tells you where the original Methodist church was there's also a cemetery that is still located in there which was original in 1890 this church was disassembled roll brought I don't know down here and put on to this location okay it has since been added on to I think it's been added on to a couple of times the social hall in the 1950s and 60s when I was younger every church community in this area had a dinner during the course of the season a very large a large production someone would have a roast beef dinner one would have a turkey dinner one would have a spaghetti dinner those were the Catholics and uh everyone attended I mean it was a large population politicians would come from all over the place to be seen to so that they could campaign and that's our Sam Stratton I can remember seeing Sam Stratton everywhere I'll tell you a little bit more okay again Methodism in early days was the primary primary religion of the area Clayton Bowden was a staunch a staunch Methodist it is I have had people tell me okay that Clayton Bowden was very big on Methodism as a matter of fact they told me one of the early teachers that came here uh was Catholic and she came on the train she had been hired apparently remotely and when she showed up and Clayton found out he said well you can become a Methodist or you can get back on the train and uh she became a Methodist and I remember the lady and she was a devout Methodist until she passed away and she taught it was also told to me by other folks that Clayton Bowden did not hire a Catholic to work in his school district until 1955 okay Thomas Baker and the Farrows if anyone remembers the Farrows were the first Catholics to ever work in the school district there were two doctors resident doctors they lived right here in the village and they were just general practitioners you could go and see them this was the office of one of them was it Dr. Graff no before him oh I don't know all right he was Casey was here yeah Casey came in the 50s because my father was a sister for the time he was from Del Mar he came to inquire about my to my father about opening a practice here because he was going to buy this out from the doctor that was actually here I think the name of the doctor before that was Dr. Graff then down in the village another we had another doctor um there was named Dr. Sutherland but he was in the village proper and in the 50s and 60s we had two two doctors right here in town that you could see quite easily Dr. Casey practiced I believe until he was about 80 years old yeah so he was just out of just out of but Dr. Casey remained on the staff of the medical college for many many many many many years afterwards was not a real park when we were young when Brenda and I were young it was just an open space um it became Hotelling Park uh later in time after George Hotelling there was a superintendent of public works here in town for years and years and years and a very dear man who did a lot for kids and other people in them several people the monument over there where the decorations are a mine as a monument to the fallen soldiers in Voriceville from World War II the Lockwood family had two brothers that were actually killed during World War II I think there were seven or eight members and that monument used to be down farther in the village in 1887 the village was pretty populated again the village came from the railroad and built out from the railroad okay you got to think of it in that in 1887 the Methodist got apparently their first live-in pastor and they built this uh parsonage this is the parsonage and by 1888 they were living in this parsonage which is the reason that the Methodist Church was moved from its original location down here uh because the Methodist decided that the church needed to be near the parsonage which needed to be more in the central location of the quote unquote village proper building across the street which is probably one of the most uh interesting buildings in the village the best I can find is that this building was built somewhere between 1900 and 1925 a very distinguished businessman I believe his name was his name was bunk but I think it was Oscar bunk lived in this building he ran a grist mill down in the village which was enormous which we will show you the site when we get there his son George vonk became became a mayor of the village of worriesville he lived in this house with his family um then it became the meisenheimer house and then it was built or was bought by riley and son and turned into a funeral home when I was a boy this fancy building was called the mayor's mansion because mr. vonk lived here so we used to be referred to it unofficially as the mayor's mansion the park belonged to the belong to the bunk family and then it was donated to the possibly the oldest house this is the oldest house in worriesville it has been remodeled and changed over time dates back to 1810 our village historian Dennis Sullivan who wrote the book I refer to constantly currently lives in this house and has been living here since he moved to the area so this is the oldest house approximately 1810 across the street let's see one two three doors down from the Methodist church there's a sign and the sign tells you that in 1787 there was a grist mill located over here now 1787 is actually two years before the u.s constitution so you can see I don't think there's no evidence that there was a house there but it was a grist mill there and it also later turned into a carding mill okay grist is great and it was it was developed because of the they could use the water power on the tree and then when it turned into a carding mill the carding is wool where they make the wool stuff all examples of the older dwellings were probably pushing 200 years on a lot of these buildings if not already there Dennis is trying to restore one of the original barns here positive in what this looked like but in 1895 the first telephone lines were brought into the village area and according to approximately 1917 in this building across the street maybe that building or something on that property became the telephone exchange when I was a boy we had to you had to pick up their phone and go Alice would you die a lot a lot and a lot of the a lot of the lines were party lines too so you could also pick up the phone and someone else may be talking on the phone because two or three families would share one line so you had to wait till they got off so you hopefully had people on your line that went to verbose the gentleman that owns Riley and son this is this is the son of the original Riley and now he and his sons run and his wife all run the Riley funeral home this began but somewhere this used to be the original village park where the monument to the world war two back there was also a house over here originally which is no longer around and the monument used to be right here and on Memorial Day we would have a parade down through the village we would stop here the veterans would present a wreath at the monument and then a select guard would actually fire a salute uh three or four shots salute to the veterans and it was very uh very interesting and dramatic funeral parlor not the first funeral parlor in Worriesville then Riley and son this was a funeral parlor it's now a apartment very important in 1902 the Worriesville hose company was established and in 1911 this building was built downstairs there was just one area they had their push cart thing that they did for their fire company okay that was down on the lower level up in the left hand window at one point was the Worriesville Public Library okay on the right hand side window was the Worriesville Savings and Loan Association okay that is not the first location however of the library now let me figure I think it's either the second or third location to the Worriesville Public Library okay let's say it now while we're here this is was originally the Masonic Temple it was built in 1908 this building was all the Masonic Temple on the area at the top not I'm sorry this was Odd Fellows Hall I'm sorry I'm this was Odd Fellows Hall which is like the Masons it was an organization like the Masons a brotherhood based on faith and they had on the roof I'm not sure of all of the the intricate I don't know the secrets and everything of it but they had a temple on top I have seen it and they had all kinds of rituals and things that they went through on there I would say that the building became the Worriesville American Legion sometime between 1945 after the war and 1950 my father was a charter member of the Worriesville American Legion after he returned from service in 45 so somewhere between 45 and 50 I would say this became the right the the Worriesville Legion American Legion this place was very important to Worriesville because it was able to provide many things they had theater in here the first baseball basketball game was performed in the village here at this but apparently the Odd Fellows didn't like them playing basketball in the building so not only was tourism important in Worriesville but sports were very important in Worriesville there is in 1914 there is evidence that there was a professional basketball team and a professional baseball team and one of the teams actually won a championship it was not unlikely to have 500 to a thousand people viewing a baseball game in town down in town where the laundromat is there was a house there or a building there that was called the Worriesville athletic association okay the Worriesville athletic association there is a story of how they played on the second floor and it was not uncommon for disputes or fisticuffs to break out during a game and apparently one of the fans actually fell through the floor in the building when we were when Brenda and I were kids in the American Legion owned the place for 25 cents on saturday night they put in a movie theater they had a big projector and up where the state there were vaudeville no not vaudeville yeah actually they told there was here but they used to do oh what were the blackface things called minstrel shows were performed here for years in the American Legion and we could go for when we were kids for 25 cents you could go in there and they give you a ticket for the saturday night movie and you get a red cushion to put on your hard chair when catholics first came to the village they were apparently required to go to one of the two churches that were already available the Methodist church and the Presbyterian church which we're going to pass shortly in 1916 my family the italians the polish and a few irish decided that it was time for a church to be built they started a building fund prior to that time the Worriesville athletic association allowed Catholics to meet in their building and a a priest from st lucy's church in altamount would come down and say his service there in 1916 the building fund was able to fund the church on the hill this was the first church i was probably back i know i was baptized in this church if you look carefully at the steeple you can actually see from this location from the picture that colleen's passing around that they're the wellman family donated the steeple and the wellman family had clocks arranged on the steeple you can actually see one of the remaining clocks on my right there's a clock on that side there's a clock facing that way and there's a clock facing that way you'll notice there's no clock facing this way because when mr wellman gave the money to the village since the Protestants of the neighborhood did not really respect we weren't very respectful to the catholics in the area he told them that he was not going to give them the time of day station of albright's butcher shop which was the first i guess butcher shop in all and uh worriesville um this butcher shop turned into when we were kids this was the main drugstore in town it was johnny heller's drugstore the front part of the store was his drugstore and he had various other things you could purchase in the back of the store was a soda fountain it was really neat and you know i don't know if you guys remember those little stools that had the red thing on the seat and they spun around well there was a there was a counter back there with those little stools and things and you could go in there and order ice cream or get an ice cream soda and spin around which was the best part of the deal dennis do you know of this street main street and this street which one was the oldest street the first row i don't know all i can tell you is this was probably original because again you have to remember that the village expanded outward from the train station okay a little on each one exactly i'm sure all of these were basically just dirt paths okay and in the originally in the 1800s it was horse and buggy there were before i forget there were actually two um blacksmiths in worriesville early in the 1800s okay store at crossing when the two went in just when i was a kid this was a this actually was a department store mr nautic owned this department store and we used to buy we used to call it we used to call him no tick because his name is n o t i c k s so it was nautic store but we kids always referred to him as mr nautic and we could buy our gym suits and stuff in here they had dry goods you know they had everything from candy to dry goods you could buy material for you're making clothes and you could also buy already fabricated shirts and pants and that kind of stuff in nautics department store um at one point the village had four had four grocery stores not like the hannaford okay these were small privately owned groceries okay and the rickies are my my grandmother was a ricky so i am a ricky okay they were one of the four uh stores that were grocery stores in town i guess at this point it's also a good time to tell you about industries just to tell you about after the railroads came vorriesville had a canning factory a cannery okay somewhere in that location around the railroad they had a cigar making industry here didn't last long but there was cigar making there were actually two ironworks in the village one burned down and the other one stayed until it went out of business there was a shirt and collar and buttonholes uh store hardware hay coal all that kind of stuff was sold right here in this area and location there were two blacksmiths hay and straw coal lumber uh feed and grist mills um citer and vinegar works uh much hardware and as i told you ice industry also there was a lot of work with ice um and probably several other things that i'm not remembering to tell you about but there was a lot of commerce commerce in the area because of the railroad the railroads the railroads picked up and dropped off products it probably ended well the cider mill went out of the cider mill went out of business in 1954 they moved to utica because my father was a shop steward at that and they offered him to move to utica and he said he didn't want to leave his family so he stayed here in borisville and was unemployed for a while actually he was waxing cars at domtark's gas station for quite a while until he got in a proper town which was very religious and the founding fathers of the town were very religious people particularly protestants so i got a feeling that there was probably some of that going along but it was a well kept secret it was hushed my grandmother was a method my grandmother was a methodist and she always used to say you know the methodists play cards but they always pull their grapes i don't remember that actually well the big it's possible now i'm not sure you're saying the same thing or not but i'll tell you yeah well no it's on pro uh it's on um grove street i'll tell you about it in a second the only thing was built as the presbyterian church this was the presbyterian church it was borisville's second religious um second in the village it would become the library it was the borisville public library uh for many many many many many many moons and the library today where it is located moved from this location to the location it is at now which i think is their fifth or sixth location within the village of borisville again back at the firehouse was the second location i think this house was my grandmother's my grandmother's brother lived in this house my grandfather's sister lived in this house i don't know if this is an interesting story i don't know if you want to know about me or the history of borisville but anyway my grandfather was working in pennsylvania in the early 1900s in 19 somewhere around 1909 he went back to italy to san marco de gavote and said i want a wife and the ricky family fixed him up with a 19 year old girl my grandmother grazia juliano grazia ricci and they got married in 1909 in italy got on a boat and in new year's eve 1910 came to vor not the borisville they came to new york i believe went to pennsylvania um their first children were born in pennsylvania and in 1913 they came to vorisville and uh because i uh my grandmother's family a guy by the name of michelle ricci was working on a railroad and he was getting their family members jobs on the railroad as laborers and it's really interesting because my grandmother was a ricky my grandfather was a juliano grandfather's sister was also fixed up with a ricky so the rickies and the julianos had two people married back and forth across and this was where my uh my grandmother's my grandmother's brother and my grandfather's sister lived here in vorisville also and again they had two or three of each side living here in the village and i lived there and you lived there once too did they build a house i don't think they built this house okay the ice one of the ice houses one of the ice houses was located behind the presbyterian church okay and that's called pleasant street which is also known as high street i guess that's unofficial yeah and you can get a really nice look at the village somebody had a picture on facebook a little a couple weeks ago facing down from up there that it was taken years and years ago which was really nice and i think it had in the picture a picture of a water tower which was on the railroad because originally there were steam engines so you had to have water for original funeral home in vorisville oh okay this one right here 31 31 no i don't really i don't think 1895 charles loyd ran it in here it also fits into my family because charles fields bought this building in altomah for a thousand dollars and he had it and charles was married to my father's cousin um which is ricky and yeah he brought this building down here had it taken brought down here from altomah it was put on this property i think it was added on to him i'm pretty sure it's been added on to and the left hand door was charlie fields barbershop and the right hand door was the forest will post office yeah i still remember this building being truck they're brought down from altomah he paid a thousand dollars for the building picture of this but this was when i was a kid this was vunks feed mill uh i think they were actually perina dog chow but the history goes back that this was originally a gristmill it was an enormous construction okay a big big building and in the fifties the thing burned down it was a huge all alarm fire this thing burned i can still remember the sirens going off we had fire companies from all of any and all over the place putting this fire out i'm not sure exactly the date of that but i was born in 1950 so i had to be four or five or some years old uh to remember all of this going on george vunk built the mill back up again but it burned again shortly within at least five years of that it burned again and it was totalled and after that he never rebuilt the service but trains used to come in and out of here uh for all kinds of pet foods and stuff uh brought in stuff took out stuff um it was a big business big operation in worrisville worrisville savings and loan was in the firehouse this was when i was a kid this was worrisville savings and loan this was their big building this is where my parents had their mortgage and my mother used to walk up worrisville avenue once a week or once a month i can't remember which because i come with her and she pay her mortgage off here because they spent two thousand three hundred dollars for their house on worrisville avenue it's the second doctor in worrisville this was dr southerland's place his office was right here under the porch from behind the porch there was his office there dr southerland was a character for a doctor i think he smoked cigarettes 24 hours a day and he was so overweight that his eyes bugged out and his son donald thudson jr with my best friend will do high school grocery stores when i was a kid it was pretty small and eventually or at some point one of my grandfather my grandmother's sisters and her family went out of business it has a killer's hardware uh that is hey coal hey coal lumber was once badgerley's hardware then it became cornell's hardware and the cornell family still lives in town the badgerley one of the badgerley ladies still lives in town because she has a different name at this point uh so there was big industry in this area somewhere in this area the borysville athletic club was also located somewhere around the fact that sports were enormous in borysville somewhere i believe in 1914 um the basketball team had a had a obviously not a big professional like the nba or anything like that but they had a basketball pro team here and they were champ league champions at one point and uh people came to see those games where on mains on south main street there was a creamery located here also okay after the railroads came there was a creamery here which did big business grocery stores it was originally owned by the swift family originally owned by the swift family then it was bought out by my family which is the ricky family it became ricky's market i believe i got a feeling that the grandfather ricky was michali ritchie i theorized that he was the railroader that worked on the railroad that brought my grandfather and many of the ricky family to borysville to work on the railroad the son charles ricky was my grandmother's um my grandmother's brother he had a butcher shop and meat market here in this building and also an altamott because he taught my father when my father got out of high school how to be a butcher and my father ran the butcher shop in altamott for many years and that's how he met my mother who was working for the doctor in altamott so this was swift and ricky's meat market and grocery and the ricky family kept this you may have known young mike ricky who passed away just a year or so ago and he ran this uh for many many years oh uh was grand union yeah i think i think he worked at grand union yes he did or whatever he worked at a lot of meat markets around he actually worked at the one down at uh my new scotland here stonewell for a while and then he came up all right this location here the jozzlin family was very big in borysville as a matter of fact they owned the property um where scotch pine drive is now they actually sold that property to the developer that built in there the jozzlin's we had a hardware store here there was also a shirt and buttonhole collar place in this location here uh early in the days of the village um when i was younger schultz has had an appliance store in this in this building too so this is and this now we're looking at the village proper this is where the village started extending out from the location where that car is turning all around this united neurotrax was the original village square this is where parades would start and stop i might as well tell you the story i read in denise elevins book in 1893 there was a fourth of july celebration here in borysville at that time borysville had according to denise approximately 300 residents um at the parade the parade numbered between two and three thousand visitors who had come to borysville to view the parade participate in all of the activities that took place they had races for children they had all kinds of athletic events there was baseball game behind the grove hotel which had a beautiful baseball park among other things and they had evening fireworks now i don't know if you can believe this you know where the tennis courts are in borysville right back here where we came by in the fifties when i was young on our memorial day parade in the evening we had fireworks there the fireworks are right along the railroad tracks we would stand up on the top of the hill watch all the fireworks over the over the village this building here might have been the first grocery store in borysville this is a very old building it's been added on to but it's the original it's one of the original freight houses for the railroad that building right there which is now lion's construction company i think it's been added on to okay the village i told you had three hotels the Cadillac gold metal hotel is located over where the pavilion is now in the shape of the original railroad station that was uh fryer's grove hotel that place was a showtime center they had i believe 50 rooms the grove in the back was had a reputation for being immaculately kept up people came out here to get married there were there's talk of thousands of people like teachers associations and other business associations would come by train to stay at the grove hotel to have their conventions and conferences also in the summer tourists from all over albany and around surrounding areas would come to the station which was located over in that area the grove was the Cadillac of hotels this you are looking at was the second elegant hotel in borysville it was called harris house harris house had beverage they had food they had vaudeville like acts singing music it was a place that people like to come to okay there was my father used to tell me that each of the towns and local localities would have things like they would sponsor a boxer and a lot of the taverns had their own fighter that they would promote and each they'd go to each other's place and they'd fight it out and there would be lots of bedding and all kinds of stuff like that uh was another of the sporting activities of borysville along the track mic mic mic michael's another yes mic michael's was married into the ricky family and he owned this as a tavern and his family actually lived upstairs after it became here after was harris house and he ran the tavern here for years and then he turned it into an ice cream we shot the softball team out here in 1960 i never heard of borysville and i've been here and i have a pool table when you walk around and then a train went by then here there was an original ice cream shop somewhere in here also several longer railroad tracks with all of these restaurant big-time hotels and everything here in the central location a man by the name of alborst decided it was time for borysville to have a restaurant that was not a hotel it was just a family restaurant where you could come and give real food or regular food and he built the restaurant in this area um which is called alborst's restaurant somewhere in the 1890s i guess and you could just go there and get something but the interesting part about alborst's restaurant was the joslin's who had a hardware here were very big-time people in the area and the mr joslin decided that we needed to have a library and the first library that mr joslin sponsored was located in alborst's restaurant so that was the first library okay the second library oh and i also forgot to tell you in the apartment building this halfway down main street on the left there's an apartment building the last door on the on the left was also the borysville public library so the library has been moving around borysville for many years okay and that is at least the fifth location of the library where it is today i don't know i have no knowledge as to why it was shaped in that flat iron type shape but you know in new york city there's several buildings that are alonzo borys built this house in 1867 alonzo borys only lasted in borysville in that residence four years four years okay however there is tale of that 1893 celebration i told you about he was a major speaker at that fourth of july celebration he built this house in 1867 and that location it lasted until then after he left it became a boarding house after he left it became a boarding house now the interesting thing is in 1868 he established the borysville post office and up until 1890 let me check my notes here yeah 1890 some guy in slingerlands by the name of dudley farlan was a railroad freight guy and apparently he had been in the railroad freight business for eons or something and for some reason to honor him they changed the name of the borysville post office to farlan it was known as the farlan post office and in the book that denis has read you can actually see a couple of letters or things that are addressed to somebody in farlan through the library website and it's also available through the library and it's also available at the historic society i guess for fundraiser or whatever um so borysville was known as farlan for a couple of years from 1890 to 1892 and then again you remember 1899 borysville becomes the incorporated village of borysville officially you'll never guess why it's called foundry road because at the end of the foundry road was all many castings company which actually had another name prior to that they made ironworks it was an ironworks down there i lasted probably into the sixties and then it was uh it went out of business down between pine street on borysville avenue where the railroad trail is there was another foundry there before this one and that foundry uh burned down and it was never replaced but this i guess foundry down here took the place so that was a big industry here they called spaghetti lane at one point my family my family lived down there my family my italian family that came to borysville were basically peasants my grandmother and grandfather did not read or write but they were totally self-sufficient they had a half acre of land that they developed for food that they grew their own food each of the italian families many of the italian families had an outdoor oven where they baked it was that they built they had their own grapes my grandma yes right here in this country right here in this country i my grandmother grew grapes right on her property in her basement i probably is no longer there in the left hand corner i still remember the grape or they stamped on the grapes and she made her own thing my grandfather had a big counter in the basement we had kegs this tall wooden kegs he made his own wine every year and there was always one that was tapped in the basement my grandmother i'd walk in and she'd go we're going to have dendista go to the basement get it a wine she'd hand me the picture in italy you did not drink the water the water was contaminated so consequently you drank your own wine and they continued their process this hotel had a reputation for its elegance and for the beautiful grove that went beyond in the back i read my father told me that there was a beautiful baseball park and that was originally where baseball was played in borysville on the park behind there the grove was supposedly elegantly upkept and people would come to spend time at the at the grove weddings were extremely common at the grove hotel it was called fryer's grove hotel because mr fryer a farmer and big shot in town sold the land to be the hotel or i guess started the hotel there was a racetrack in the back for horses for horse racing this was a real it was a resort it was a very upscale well it was stories say that it was no uh surprise to have a thousand people here for conventions and and other things so borysville was again they had three hotels with lots of entertainment and uh all kinds of things going on uh it also was i think sometimes called the wedding hotel the station was located right in this triangular area right here somebody told me that i think was colleen had read somewhere that the they stopped passenger service in 1930 not true i personally took the train from borysville with my grandmother from borysville to albany i personally rode that train many times from here during the fifties to go downtown to shop so it was still operating early in the fifties i know that where'd you come into union station which is now a bank owned by a bank i and i also went to my grandmother's cousin in altamount on this train so i know like i know the train was working doing that the train went all the way to onyanta this this line not that line this line went west which is the one that's now the rail trail that line went from albany and it went west i know it went to onyanta because my other grandfather on my other side of the family worked for that railroad he was stationed in um central bridging and later he was at the roundhouse in uh in um onyanta so and i think it went even farther west and i know it went through uh binghamton and probably farther west the railroad once had us the railroad once had a siding that came off from the main tracks it went down here and crossed the street because it went over into the cider mill which was when i was a boy it was called at one point i guess it was empire cider mill and when i was a boy it was called duffy mott which was the father of mott's apple groups they made vinegar and cider and other things here at the place it was enormous i don't know do we have a picture there's a picture of that now yeah there's a picture of it so please take a look at that we're going to be passing it we're going to be passing it on our left as we go down the rail trail look out for bicycles yeah and then it became duffy mott's cider mill it was a big time affair here in the village actually there was another cider mill in this looked in this area but it was you know where the light is at the end of worrisville avenue by johnston road that area there was one uh off to the left there there was another cider mill there back on foundry road at the end of foundry road somewhere in that location there there was a canning factory also and you can see everything was kind of pushed in around the railroad area the building the building that has been put up over there um to begin the rail trail the top roof of that building is in the same silhouette as the original railroad station here in town that has the same roof design it's in the same shape the tower was located somewhere up in this area and at one point at one point in the fifties maybe early sixties there was a cement works here also on that side of the railroad track the cider mill was located here it took up all the area here went pretty far back deeply that way and it went all the way to the end of this of grove street and if i remember by the time i get there i'm getting old the uh there is part of the original building is still there but the rest of it has all been torn down to my knowledge but one of the later parts was built it was all a concrete building it was the offices the administrative offices and that's still there but is now i believe a storage house a pair of located approximately right here where the trains would back up to the mill and they would deliver and pick up vinegar and cider that was produced here and take it on to other locations and i used to come up i used to live on boroughsville avenue when i was a kid and i would come up here sometimes with my mother because she'd bring my father his lunch and we dad and i would sit on the loading dock and have lunch together out on the cider mill this right here this big thing this was all made out of concrete block this was all made out of concrete block and i believe it was the administrative offices it's still in existence it's been upgraded by the people that bought it out and i think you can rent storage area in it there was a foundering right here at one point that burned down i think now i'm i don't have the very total verification on this but if you head down boroughsville avenue and go one two three houses there's a big white house that used to be a farm farm and i think that was fryer the original fryer house that gave the owned all this land in the fryer farm that careful for the bikes that sold the land or began began the land began to grow a hotel because it was originally called fryer but i think the original fryer farm is a farm house is still located several i can't confirm that he was related because he moved here he was not originally a boroughsville and dick farm roadways now in the 1800s were probably just dirt paths because there were i have read of places liveries where you could rent and find carriages and horses in town class graduating class and we went to school all over so this was not always a car a walk place if the reddish way here we live in society and remember rich getting in one of those awards is very bright i also understand that honest mike who if you ever knew him you would never believe this but honest mike was a college graduate and he ran this store looked like craze used to take all these beat up old cars fix up these old cars you put them out here for sale we had we had a driver ed instructor herald mead who was a lifetime resident of boroughsville and also and also an athlete in all of the activities around boroughsville he was a character coach mead and he used to tell a story of all right you and driver ed class you go all right you guys you know you can buy a used car from honest mike you get the honest mike warranty that's 500 miles or if you can get it off the park alton mark road and we had just got a new driver and my friend jeff and we had a three speed on the column and we took off from the curb and jeff's going through the gears and he's watching his hands and the car is going farther and far left and there's a dump truck coming down the street and we're headed right at it coach road reaches over grabs the wheel pulls us over to the side of the street opens the door gets up puts his foot out and he looks at jeff and he says when you see me do this you know you're on your own