Toll House
Over the "Genesee Pike" traveled tens of thousands of settlers, some staying to take up land in the Genesee Country, others going on to Ohio and Michigan. More importantly, agricultural produce could now reach the Albany market, bringing cash and a greater promise of prosperity to the Genesee farmer.
Quaker Meeting House
By 1803, a number of members of "The Religious Society of Friends," commonly called "Quakers," arrived from New England to settle a few miles north of Canandaigua in the small community of Farmington N.Y., where they organized a "Monthly Meeting."
Campbell House
The Peter Campbell House remains a work in progress, demonstrating early 19th-century building trades and an example of timber-framed construction. It served as the meeting place of the First Presbyterian Church in Caledonia for 23 years.
Schoolhouse
Genesee Country settlers from New England brought with them a century-and-a-half-old tradition of public education.
Land Office
The success of some Genesee Country land agents was not matched by other large-scale speculators in wild New York lands.
Pioneer Farmstead
Early framed barn c. 1820, Ontario County Corncrib c. 1830, Livingston County Log smokehouse c. 1810 Monroe County On the lea of Flint Hill, just below the village, are eight structures serving the needs of the pioneer farm family.
Blacksmith Shop
He might have been preceded by the innkeeper and the storekeeper, but 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.
Kieffer House
Martin Kieffer moved from a settled area of southern Pennsylvania to carve a farm out of the Genesee Country wilderness. And like Hetchler, he built his dwelling of logs, using the same dovetail-like joints favored by the Pennsylvania Germans. But Kieffer's Place is a house, not a cabin.
Grieve's Brewery
Beer was a welcome supplement to the Genesee Country pioneer's basic diet. Beer could be brewed on the farm or in the home, but by the middle of the 19th century, many villages in western New York included a brewery, a distillery or both.
Hop House
Beer was a welcome supplement to the Genesee Country pioneer's basic diet. Beer could be brewed on the farm or in the home, but by the middle of the 19th century, many villages in western New York included a brewery, a distillery or both.
Livery Barn
Before the 19th century all inns and hotels were required to have livery stables. Later, many towns had a boarding stable for people who lived in residential neighborhoods. Facilities normally included a loose box or stable and access for the horse to grass grazing.
Shaker Trustees' Building
In 1776, the Shakers founded their first community at Niskayuna (now Watervliet) near Albany, N.Y. There, rejecting the ideas of personal property and predestination, they followed Mother Ann's teaching: "Hands to work, hearts to God."
Jones Farm
Pioneer Ezra Jones arrived in the Genesee Country from Connecticut in 1805 and was able to purchase 120 acres of excellent land for wheat in what is now Ontario County.
George Eastman Boyhood Home
George Eastman (1854-1932), founder of Eastman Kodak Company, spent his early youth in and around this one-and-a-half story Greek Revival dwelling in Waterville, N.Y.
Nathaniel Rochester House
In 1810, Col. Nathaniel Rochester left his comfortable circumstances in Hagerstown, Md., to move north to the 155 acres in Dansville, N.Y., which he had bought on his first trip to the Genesee Country in September 1800.
Gunsmith and Cabinetmaker Shop
The gunsmith shop at Genesee Country Village was moved from Dalton in lower Livingston County, where Jonathan Thompson with his brother, Joseph, ran a general repair business when they were not busy farming.
Wagonmaker / Wheelwright Shop
There was work for the wagonmaker in the Genesee Country. He was not far behind the blacksmith in setting up shop in the larger villages, often locating near the smith on whom he depended for iron tires for his wagon wheels and iron runners for the sleighs and bobsleds he made.
Flint Hill Pottery
In the kitchens and pantries of the village are scores of examples of the Genesee Country potter's art, both lead-glazed earthenware (also called "redware") and salt-glazed stoneware. These relics survived generations of everyday use for food preparation and storage in the 19th-century before drawing notice from collectors, antique dealers and museum curators.
Drug Store
The drug store as a separate enterprise made a surprisingly early appearance in the Genesee Country. In the outlying areas, the only source of drugs would be the doctor, except for some herb concoctions or nostrums a wife or midwife might stir up. The doctor, for the most part, prepared his drugs in his own office and carried a supply of them in his saddlebag.
Dressmaker's Shop
The one-and-a-half story frame structure housing the Millinery and Dressmaking Shop was built in Roseboom New York about 1825. Like many small buildings in country villages, it was put to various uses over the years.
Cooper Shop
Containers have always been a necessity in households. They were a matter of survival to the settlers. On the farm, baskets were handy for light, dry and loose things; earthenware jugs and crocks were fine for liquids; iron kettles contained the simmering stews and soups, heating milk and boiling ashes.
Tenant House
Spring Creek has a brief run — from the Big Springs in nearby Caledonia north for just over a mile, where it joins the Oatka Creek a short distance from Genesee Country Village. The creek may be short, but it has long been regarded as a premier trout stream. By the middle of the 19th century, its fame among sportsmen led to the establishment of several fishing clubs along its banks.
The Village Mercantile
(formerly Hart General Store) The Village Mercantile, from Hart's Corners, Monroe County, is an early 19th-century building which was recast in the 1840s with quaint and unconventional Greek Revival details.
Printing Office
A rural village was fortunate if there was a printer in its midst, particularly if the printer had the temerity and energy to print a newspaper. The printer was fortunate if he gained enough subscribers to support the paper. He was particularly lucky if at least some of his subscribers paid in cash.
Hosmer's Inn
In 1809, Sylvester Hosmer, one of five sons of physician Timothy Hosmer, married Laura Smith, one of the daughters of innkeeper Major Isaac Smith. The major's tavern was a log building alongside the Ontario and Genesee Turnpike, a few miles west of the Genesee River crossing near Avon, N.Y.
Humphrey House
Amherst Humphrey's c.1797 house, though of a type common for well over a century in his native Massachusetts, was ahead of its time in the Genesee Country. His ten-roomed "framed" house would remain conspicuous among the log houses of other pioneers then settling the area. Amherst Humphrey Dye Garden
MacKay House
Unlike his fellow Scots who had settled in the "Big Springs" area (at the site of present-day Caledonia N.Y.), John MacKay, a Scot from Shamokin, P.A., arrived at the Big Springs as an entrepreneur. By 1814, MacKay had prospered sufficiently to build the two-story brick-lined house that now looks out across the Genesee Country Village square.
Foster House
In 1826, Charles Foster brought his wife, four sons and four daughters to the Genesee Country in a horse-drawn vehicle. According to family tradition, two of the children rode in the potash kettle. The kettle would indicate that Foster expected to be clearing land. That the 58 acres he eventually purchased were on a hill would suggest that a better site was unavailable or beyond his means.
Altay Store
Storekeeping in the country was a challenging business. It is no wonder that many country stores were partnerships. Someone always had to mind the store.
Physician's Office
From the earliest days there was work for the scarce physicians in the Genesee Country. What few there were went about setting fractured limbs, stitching up slashes and cuts, mending broken heads, assisting at difficult confinements, lancing boils and carbuncles, and doing what they could for various other complaints.
Hastings Law Office
As soon as settlement built up in the Genesee Country, there was work for the lawyer. While many agreements were of the handshake variety, the clearing and conveyance of land titles required the service of a lawyer if there were any complicated issues involved.
Ward-Hovey House
The Ward-Hovey House (c. 1835) comes from Stone Church, N.Y. Unlike many of the other houses in the village, it has served as a dwelling since its construction.
Stow Insurance Office
The association between DeLancey Stow and, his father, William Stow, (both of whom also practiced law) and the insurance business began when the elder Stow built the one-story office for his legal practice and insurance business in the thriving canal town of Clyde, N.Y. in 1825. This was early enough for the Stows to call their quaint building "The Oldest Insurance Office in the United States," a claim subject to challenge, perhaps.
Boot and Shoemaker's Shop
As often as other members of his family went barefoot, the pioneer farmer himself, for the rough work of chopping and clearing the forest and to keep his feet from freezing in the winter, needed a pair of boots. While his wife could make him new clothing she could not replace her husband's boots when they gave way, and to repair a leather boot properly required special tools and skills.
Thomson's Tavern and Store
In 1807, Joseph Thomson, from Peru, Mass., erected a one-and-a-half-story building along the well-traveled road to Braddock's Bay at what is now Riga Center, N.Y.
Thomson Barn Activity Center
There are fun activities to do everyday and they change regularly!
St Feehan's Roman Catholic Church
In Chili, N.Y. a farming community west of Rochester, a group of Catholic families were for many years dependent for their spiritual needs upon masses conducted by a priest in their homes, or by traveling to Rochester or Scottsville, several miles away. In 1854, the men of these families set about building a church. Within a year, with their own hands and without architect or contractor, they had completed St. Feehan's Church, and affixed a simple wooden cross at its peak. The cross remains there today at the church's new location in the museum's historic village.
Brooks Grove Methodist Church
In 1844, Micah Brooks and his wife, Elizabeth, deeded to the trustees of the Methodist Society of Brooks Grove three-quarters of an acre of ground on which to build a church. The Society's church rose that year, its strong Greek Revival lines topped off with a three-stage bell tower. In the recessed entrance, a heavy entablature is supported by two Doric columns.
Parsonage
In 1844, Micah Brooks and his wife, Elizabeth, deeded to the trustees of the Methodist Society of Brooks Grove three-quarters of an acre of ground on which to build a church. The Society's church rose that year, its strong Greek Revival lines topped off with a three-stage bell tower. In the recessed entrance, a heavy entablature is supported by two Doric columns.
Livingston-Backus House & Gardens
One of the entrepreneurs who fashioned a fortune from milling, banking and speculative ventures in Rochester was James Livingston, a descendant of an old Hudson River family. In 1827, Livingston built one of the first grand mansions in Rochester's Third Ward, soon to be full of other columned monuments to their newly wealthy owners.
Romulus Female Seminary
Beginning early in the 19th Century, private (sometimes referred to as "select") schools for girls were established in many western New York State villages and towns, as well as in the cities. This was, in part, to give the girls educational opportunities equal to those offered at the boys' private academies, and in part because of the concern of church groups to provide what they considered appropriate instruction for young ladies.
Town Hall
The first wave of settlers in the Genesee Country had been colonists, living under a king who ruled by hereditary right. Now the Genesee Country settler had a president who was elected by representatives of the people, and who ruled without any royal trappings. The new constitutional government was by definition "of the people," and public policy was shaped by public opinion, as expressed through elected representatives.
MacArthur House
Practical considerations guided Scotsman Duncan J. MacArthur, who, in 1833, brought his bootmaking trade, his wife and a one-year-old son to the Genesee Country. His house was small and in a form that looked back to one of the earliest houses of New England — the "salt-box."
Post Office / Store
Regular mail service crucial to the well-organized community did not come to the Genesee Country until roads were sufficiently improved to permit the passage of mail stages. During the first years of settlement, mail service was casual and unreliable, the mail sometimes carried by ordinary traveller and sometimes by post riders under federal contract.
Tailor Shop
Tinsmith Shop
Among the "workmen of the road" who made their peripatetic way about the Genesee Country were the candlemaker, the tailor, the weaver, and the cobbler. Another nomad appeared as soon as the condition of the roads permitted - the tin peddler, the original "Yankee peddler."
Hyde House
In 1848, Orson Squire Fowler, a native of the Genesee Country village of Cohocton, published A Home for All, or a New, Cheap, Convenient, and Superior Mode of Building in which he announced that the octagon house, with its eight sides. Hyde House "Picturesque" Garden
Hamilton House
John Hamilton arrived in the Southern Tier town of Campbell, N.Y., in 1843 as a shoemaker. But by 1870, Hamilton was the owner of tanneries, a leading figure in his community and proud possessor of a grand new house.
Carriage Barn
Davis Hall
Called “opera houses,” buildings like this provided a cultural hub for a community, offering a broad range of entertainment from concerts and plays to performing bears. The first floor served for years as a general store; upstairs is the theater with a stage and elaborate stenciling on the ceiling and walls.
Pavilion Garden Restaurant
During the late 1800s, the Thousand Islands region, with its grand riverfront hotels, became a popular get-away. This open-air restaurant was modeled after a similar building destroyed by fire at the Thousand Islands Park.
Garden
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Trolley Stop
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Trolley Stop
Restroom
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Food
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Vending Machines
Vending Machines
Vending Machines
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Museum Shop
Museum Shop
Air Conditioned Building
Air Conditioned Building
Air Conditioned Building
Air Conditioned Building