Digitizing a 19th-century village
Genesee Country Village & Museum is currently undertaking a large-scale digitization process that will provide new and exciting virtual access to spaces in our 19th-century Historic Village! Whether you are unable to visit GCV&M and want to learn about our buildings, cannot physically access some structures, or wish to learn more about these spaces before visiting, this new resource provides a plethora of fascinating information and opportunities for exploration!
As you explore each model, hosted on Matterport, you will see circles on the floor – click on the circles to move around the space. You will also see objects tagged with icons – click on the icons to learn more about these collections items! Interested in learning more about how to best utilize Matterport models? Click here to watch an informational video.
Project made possible by the Philip K. and Anne Wehrheim Endowment in support of the RIT-Genesee Country Village & Museum Partnership with Rochester Institute of Technology, and the Rochester Regional Library Council.
Questions about this project, or how to use these virtual tours? Please feel free to reach out to info@gcv.org
Explore the Village Square
Step into the 19th century
Grieve's Brewery
Brewery (reconstruction)- c. 1803 appearance; Geneva, NY Hop House- built c. 1870, Greece, NY
Genesee Country Village & Museum is the only museum in the United States to showcase a working 19th-century brewery. Its 1803 themed brewing demonstrations rely on gravity during much of the process, with liquids either pumped by hand or ladled into troughs throughout the building. From the pump logs that move water and wort to the dry barrels that hold the malted grain and the wooden mash rakes, everything in the brewery has been crafted by hand—including the 250 gallon copper brew kettle. Portions of Rochester’s old Enright Brewery (closed in 1907) and an early timber-framed structure near West Bloomfield, NY, were merged to form the present building.
Click here to learn more about Grieve’s Brewery.
MacKay Homestead
built c. 1814, interpreted 1840, Caledonia, NY
Unlike his fellow Scots who had settled in the “Big Springs” area (at the site of present-day Caledonia, NY), John MacKay, a Scot from Shamokin, PA, 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 Village Square.
The design of MacKay’s new house was as up-to-date as his ledger books. The American version of the modified Georgian style popular in the period is termed “Federal” or “Post-Colonial.” Its lightened and attenuated forms are seen in the architectural detailing of the MacKay House with its gable end turned toward the road. The elegant three-bay facade is articulated by four pilasters, linked by blind elliptical arches, and crowned by a full pediment. Positioning the short side of a house to serve as its front had an important effect upon its interior plan: the narrow end allowed for only a single room across the front, with the entrance moving to one side.
Click here to learn more about the MacKay House.
One Room Schoolhouse
built c. 1822, Rush, NY
Genesee Country settlers from New England brought with them a century-and-a-half-old tradition of public education. In 1788, the Adams family from New England built a log house along the trail leading from Canandaigua to the Genesee River. James Sperry, an early settler of Ontario County, recalled that when his family arrived in the same area in 1794, there was already a school near the Adams residence, kept by Laura, one of the Adams daughters. “The next spring,” Sperry recounted, “a seven by ten log schoolhouse was built one and a half miles southwest.”
Click here to learn more about the One Room Schoolhouse.
Dressmaker's Shop
built c. 1825, Roseboom, NY
The one-and-a-half story frame structure housing the Millinery and Dressmaking Shop was built in Roseboom, NY, about 1825. Like many small buildings in country villages, it was put to various uses over the years.
By the middle of the 19th century, a ladies’ hat trimming and or dressmaking shop might be found in a small New York State town. It would be a means for a widow or otherwise single woman to eke out an existence. In addition to the wares she made to order, she did alterations, and she would supply small items for the home seamstress.
Click here to learn more about the Dressmaker’s Shop.
DeLancey Stow Insurance Office
built c. 1825, interpreted 1870s, Clyde, NY
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, NY 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. The Erie Canal had just been completed when William Stow set up his ventures. Life insurance might come along later, but William Stow did well enough selling fire, accident, and marine insurance. After his son, DeLancey, was admitted to the bar in 1862, the two worked as partners for nearly 20 years. When the elder Stow died in 1880, DeLancey Stow carried on until his own death at age 83 in 1925 — ending just a century of “business as usual” in “The Oldest Insurance Office in the United States.”
Click here to learn more about the Insurance Office.
Printing Office
built c. 1820-1830, relocated 1850, Caledonia, NY
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. The bargaining instinct was strong in country settings. Advertisers and subscribers alike were prone to bring the printer garden or orchard products, a chicken, or maple trees in exchange for notices of a cow for sale, a horse that had strayed, a new arrival of merchandise at the store, or a new line of printed cottons at the draper’s.
The two parts of the Printing Office were once separate shops along the main street of Caledonia, NY. They were moved in 1850 and joined to a larger house. There, one served as the dining room and the other as the kitchen. The Greek Revival front portion dates from about 1835; the rear section is older, c.1820. In 2002, the Printing Office was converted to that of an abolitionist newspaper, patterned after the American Citizen, first published in Warsaw and Perry, NY.
Click here to learn more about the Print Office.
Livingston-Backus House
built 1827-1838, interpreted 1850s, Rochester, NY
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.
In 1835, the house was sold to businessman Joseph Strong, who, three years later, sold it for $10,000 to Dr. Frederick Backus, a prominent figure in civic and cultural affairs and an elected official when the City of Rochester was formed in 1834.
Click here to learn more about Livingston-Backus House.
Blacksmith Shop
built c. 1830, Elba, NY
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.
Even the tiniest hamlet included at least one blacksmith. The smith 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 in the 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. And Rugg’s own smithy was across the street from Bradley’s. This congestion of like and 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.
Click here to learn more about the Blacksmith’s Shop.
Land Office
built c. 1835, Alloway, NY
The success of some Genesee Country land agents was not matched by other large-scale speculators in wild New York lands. Among the long-range losers were Oliver Phelps, his partner Nathaniel Gorham, and Philadelphia banker Robert Morris.
Land speculation was a hazardous business. Absentee landlords were soon disenchanted when their expectations for quick profits from wholesaling large tracts to land-hungry investors proved wishful.
Resident-agent Capt. Charles Williamson recognized that to boost sluggish sales, he would have to sell modest parcels to individual farmers. To expedite such sales, Williamson enlisted sub-agents to establish offices in other regions of his territory and to set about making “improvements.” But time ran out on the freewheeling Williamson, and he was replaced with a more conservative and practical promoter, Robert Troup.
One of Williamson’s sub-agents, who Troup retained, was 24-year-old Henry Towar. By 1794, he had built a gristmill, sawmill, and clothiery (for carding and dressing spun wool) on the Canandaigua Lake outlet — and raised a log house for his land office.
Click here to learn more about the Land Office.
D.B. Munger & Co. Confectionery
built c. 1840, South Valley, NY
Part exhibit, part true confectionery with fancy treats for purchase, the Historic Village opened its confectionery in June 2014, in the former Physician’s Office. (Dr. Frederick Backus is now taking care of patients formerly handled by the Doctors John Sterriker Sr. & Jr.)
Purchase freshly baked authentic or historically inspired delights such as Chelsea buns, fruit tarts, elderberry or other seasonal fruit hand pies, or the ever-popular rosewater currant cakes, sugar tea cakes, and maple cakes (cookies).
Click here to learn more about the D.B. Munger & Co. Confectionery.
George Eastman's Boyhood Home
built c.1840, interpreted 1854-1860, Waterville, NY
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. Eastman’s father, who had been a nurseryman in Waterville, moved the family to Rochester, where he founded a business school. At the elder Eastman’s death, young George and his mother lived for a time on Livingston Park (near the residence of Dr. Frederick Backus, which now faces the Village Square), where the widowed Mrs. Eastman took in boarders.
Click here to learn more about the Eastman Boyhood Home.
Brooks Grove Methodist Church & Churchyard
built c. 1844, Brooks Grove, NY
Where churches could so afford, housing was furnished to the ministers to help offset the generally low salaries they received. The Brooks Grove Church, because of its importance in the regional Methodist Church affairs, provided a house to be used not only as a residence for its own minister, but also as a place where the circuit leaders might hold meetings. On the lot immediately south of Brooks Grove Church stood this one-and-a-half story frame house. It was built by Henry Jarvis in 1835, and thus predates the church by several years. Although it was the church’s closest neighbor for a long time, there is no record of its use as a parsonage until it was set down to serve that purpose at Genesee Country Village & Museum.
The parlor serves as the pastor’s study and a place to receive visitors. All other activities of daily life in this small house are crowded about the kitchen. Like the Foster House of similar date, the house that Jarvis built declares its architectural debt to the widening Greek Revival influence, while retaining features, such as the fan light in the gable, associated with the earlier Federal style.
This church can accommodate 175 people and is available for wedding rentals all year long.
Click here to learn more about Brooks Grove Church.
Altay Store
built c. 1848, interpreted 1852, Altay, NY
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. The Altay Store stocked most of the same staples as the old frontier trading post and sold or, like the old trading post, bartered them away. However, operations like those of the partners in the little hamlet of Altay were many times more complex than those at the early settlement trading post.
Click here to learn more about the Altay General Store.
Hamilton House
built 1870, Campbell, NY
Hamilton’s towering mansion displays the full flowering of the Victorian Italianate style. The L-shaped structure has a flat, pitched roof and eaves projecting outward on console-like brackets, possessing tall chimneys with corbelled brick molding. The verandas and bay windows all fit the Italianate formula and the all-important tower, its base embracing the paired entrance doors and its middle stories containing stairway access to the upper level, is appropriately crowned with a mansard roof.
From its dressed-stone foundation walls to the iron cresting upon the tower, Hamilton’s house is every inch a fulfillment of the dictum of the influential Victorian architect, Samuel Sloan, that a man’s dwelling was not only an index of his wealth, but also of his character.
Click here to learn more about Hamilton House.
"Duck, Duck, Shoot! The Story of American Waterbirds"
On view 2021 - 2023 in the John L. Wehle Gallery
This exhibit explored the hunting of waterbirds, moving from sustenance hunting to excessive hunting, from near destruction of waterbirds to an environmentally conscious and sustainable American pastime. Wildlife artists, public awareness of waterbirds, advancements in hunting technology, legislative efforts, and a taste (literal) for waterfowl underpin this evolution across the centuries. Duck, Duck, Shoot! was on view May 2022 – October 2023.
Exhibit sponsor:
"Becoming Gendered: Garment as Gender Artifact"
On view 2022 - 2024 in the John L. Wehle Gallery
This multimedia exhibit explores how 19th-century Americans performed and navigated the changing landscape of gendered fashion. Becoming Gendered offered guests a wide variety of historic gendered garments for men, women, and children spanning over a century. Hegemonic gendered clothing for adult men and women was compared to the development of recreational and leisurewear. Understructures for men, women and even children were exhibited as evolving tools worn to achieve gendered ideals. Challenging these 19th-century gendered norms in fashion and garment are the Dandy, the Bloomer, Dress Reformers and Women’s Rights advocates, the lady cyclist, female impersonators, and religious leaders such as the Public Universal Friend. Hodinöhsö:ni’ garment was also exhibited as an entry-point into the discussion of how the Western gender binary system directly affects the gendering of 19th-century Hodinöhsö:ni’ clothing.
Exhibit sponsor:
"Perceived Realities: Wildlife, Land, and Myth"
On view 2024 - in the John L. Wehle Gallery
This semi-permanent exhibit features some of the finest pieces of sporting and wildlife art collected by John L. Wehle himself.
Visitors will explore works by notable names such as John James Audubon, Bruno Liljefors, Carl Rungius, and Bob Kuhn and their elevation of animal art into the realm of wildlife fine art. The exhibit also delves into the changing landscape of 19th-century Rochester, NY, through oil painting, and invites visitors to reconsider the concept of the American cowboy.
"Everybody's Going to be There: The American Rural Cemetery Movement"
On view 2024 - 2026 in the John L. Wehle Gallery
The concept of a rural cemetery challenges the notion of burial spaces as being gloomy or frightening places. Rather, the rural cemetery acts as a social center with a living ecosystem – a place for scenic respite.
This exhibit explore how 19th-century Americans managed public health concerns, developed a new appreciation for green space and wildlife, and ensured their memorialization in a newly established public space: the rural cemetery. “Everybody’s Going to be There” presents a wide variety of fine wildlife art, maps, memorial art, natural animal and geological specimens, mourning jewelry and stationery, and cemetery tourism ephemera of the 19th-century.
Exhibit sponsors:
