Category: Glenville

  • The Markers Speak: A Former Lake

    Sometimes historical markers can be maddeningly vague. This marker from West Glenville Road in Glenville, NY, describes “A Former Lake – Just north of these gravel knolls is the basin of a postglacial lake. Here men of an Arctic type once lived and hunted.” So we’re commemorating what exactly? A former lake we can’t…

  • The Markers Speak: Aqueduct

    When the Erie Canal was originally constructed, it didn’t use any of the existing rivers – natural waterways didn’t work well with the need for predictable water levels and mule paths for hauling barges. But the layout of the canal required crossing rivers, and so there were aqueducts. One of them was at a…

  • Grandma Smith’s autograph book

    Just about this time of year a brief 108 years ago, my great grandmother Hazel Cath went about to family and friends in West Glenville with a tiny autograph book and had them give her messages. I don’t know if there was some occasion, or if this was a custom at the time. This…