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    Hammondsport and Keuka Lake
    Hammondsport and Keuka Lake
    Hammondsport and Keuka Lake
    Ebook173 pages34 minutes

    Hammondsport and Keuka Lake

    By Charles R. Mitchell

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    About this ebook

    Discover the intriguing history of these Finger Lakes towns from wineries and aerodynamics to legendary people like Glenn Curtiss.


    This historical work covers the periods from the 1850s to the 1960s, the period of black-and-white photography in this area. At one time Keuka Lake was host to a number of wineries lining the lake's shores. Several no longer exist, but through the pages of this book, one may look back and share in the magnificence of these businesses' hey days. A chapter is devoted to Glenn Curtiss, an innovative man who was building and testing airplanes at the same time the Wright brothers were working in aerodynamics. Hammondsport has definitely had a number of interesting characters and momentous occasions.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateJun 1, 1998
    ISBN9781439621592
    Hammondsport and Keuka Lake
    Author

    Charles R. Mitchell

    Charles R. Mitchell, author of two other Arcadia books (Penn Yan and Keuka Lake and Hammondsport and Keuka Lake), is a professional photographer. He is associated with the Oliver House Museum in Penn Yan. Kirk W. House, a former teacher and school administrator, is directorcurator of the Glenn Curtiss Museum in Hammondsport. His writings have appeared in numerous aviation and general-interest publications. He is a historian member of the OX-5 Aviation Pioneers.

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      Book preview

      Hammondsport and Keuka Lake - Charles R. Mitchell

      Introduction

      The Finger Lakes, located across central New York, appear as if the hand of the Great Spirit had been laid upon the land. Such was the belief of the Senecas, the Iroquois tribe who lived around this area. Keuka Lake, central in the photograph opposite, lies south of the line of the other Finger Lakes. Because the Finger Lakes were a great barrier to east-west travel, Keuka came later to the attention of early settlers who traveled north and south of the lakes. The first white visitors to the Finger Lakes region were soldiers from the Clinton-Sullivan Expedition who had moved through the area during the Revolutionary War in an attempt to subdue the Iroquois, an ally of the British. After the war they were rewarded for their service with grants of land. These retired soldiers willingly returned to the lakes and valleys they had seen during the war. Some of these settlers, coming up the Cohocton River, landed in what became Bath and then moved on to the south end of Keuka Lake, founding Hammondsport.

      The early settlers named the lake Crooked Lake, and did not use the Seneca name Keuka until late in the nineteenth century. Navigation on the lake had a strictly local scope until the Crooked Lake Canal, opened in 1830, linked Keuka and Seneca Lakes. This provided Keuka with a connection by water with the Erie Canal and thence to the cities of the east coast. Within a short period of time, the Hammondsport lake front was lined with warehouses and docks filled with goods brought in from the outside world and the area’s products, predominately grapes and wine, were shipped out. Steamboats towing canal barges regularly utilized the lake from Branchport and Hammondsport to the canal in Penn Yan. The steamboat era continued into the twentieth century despite the closing of the canal and the building of railroads serving both ends of the lake.

      Hammondsport, with its water connection to the world, was not as rural as other small towns in the nineteenth century. The twentieth century, bringing with it more leisure time, motivated city folk to visit the lake on Sundays. Cottages and resorts around the lake lured tourists and summer people. The area blossomed when Glenn Curtiss with his aeroplane experiments attracted pilots, notable people like Alexander Graham Bell and Henry Ford, and tourists flocking to see flying machines. The wine industry, the lake setting, and Glenn Curtiss helped make Hammondsport and Keuka Lake more urbane than rural.

      Today the steamboats and Curtiss are gone, but the lake continues as a major attraction. The wine industry thrives although the wineries are small. Their number and variety draw more tourists to the area than when there were a few large wineries. Other attractions such as the Curtiss Museum, The Bully Hill Wine Museum, and the square in Hammondsport keep the area busy, especially in summer.

      I approached this book as I did Penn Yan and Keuka Lake, as a photographer, selecting the images and then writing the text. My feeling is that this provides a more interesting look at the times portrayed, 1850 to 1960, with the risk that the history may not be complete. With apologies to any serious historians who read this; even if the history is incomplete, I have made every effort to be accurate. One of the interesting facets of my research was the discovery of Harry M. Benner, Curtiss’s official photographer. I would assume virtually all the photographs in the Curtiss chapter and many others throughout the book, especially postcards, are Benner’s work. Other photographer’s works are acknowledged when appropriate.

      Some of the images in this book came from the collection of the Oliver House and the collection of my business, the Photographic Center in Penn Yan. I am most thankful to the Glenn H. Curtiss Museum and The Hammondsport Public Library for making their photograph archives available to me. Wherever possible, original photographs and negatives were used.

      On a personal note, I am indebted to Samantha Worden of the Curtiss Museum for her help in maintaining the accuracy of the history of Curtiss, to Elliott Vorce for his proofreading, and to my wife, Melissa, for her expert help with the layout. We made a great team; it would have been most difficult without their help.

      One

      Wine and Grapes

      The Finger Lakes wine industry began in Hammondsport in the 1830s when the Reverend William Bostwick planted Catawba and Isabella vines from cuttings he had received from the Hudson River area. In 1847, 50 pounds of grapes were shipped to New York. They were met with such success that

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