Little Falls Historical Society Museum Events
This day in history: July 26
1848
Village Trustees contracted with J. Clark Company of Cazenovia for a town clock for $250. It was to be placed in a church designated by the trustees. The clock was to run without winding for eight days, and strike loud enough to be heard two miles away.
1895
The Alumni Association of the Little Falls Academy raised money for the library. The subscription netted over $1,000 and the Regents Department added $500 for the fund.
This day in history: July 27
1802
From the diary of Rev. John Taylor of Deerfield Massachusetts: “… a small village, called Little Falls, by which the canals built in 1795 containing six locks pass. The village is built upon a ledge of rock and promises to be a place of business as to trade. They have a new and beautiful meeting-house, standing 40 rods back on the hill, built in the form of an octagon. The appearance of the falls is sublime.”
1854
Sanford’s Minstrels were at the Temperance Hall Admission 25 cents.
1885
Farmers who were selling their cheese on Albany Street were ordered off the street by Sheriff Abbott after a couple of residents claimed their teams were a nuisance. After the sellers threatened to go to Utica, better accommodations were found for them on Bridge Street.
1998
Six bicyclists making a 3,741, seven week trip across the country from San Francisco, Califiornia to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, stopped today in Little Falls – the 3,445 mile marker. The group is making the ride in support of Habitat for Humanity
This day in history: July 28
1892
A public spirited citizen, Mr. P. W. Casler, having watched hundreds of boys swimming in the river from the point of Hansen Island, has generously donated some bath houses to be located there. In the name of decency and cleanliness, a small fee might be charged for the use of bathing suits and towels.
1895
It is said that Little Falls has more pneumatic tired carriages than any other place of even double its size in this section of the state.
1921
A grateful community turned out at St. Mary’s church for the funeral of Deloir A. Marco, the first of its boys to make the supreme sacrifice on the battlefields of France, and the first whose body was brought home to its final resting place.
This day in history: July 29
1913
Stones, undoubtedly the walls of the 1796 Octagon Church, were unearthed by workmen employed on a drainage and heating system project for the Church Street School.
1923
The Italian Roman Catholics in Little Falls now have their own parish. The wood-framed church at the northeast corner of East John and South Mary streets was opened today under the leadership of Rev. Anthony Spina.
From the Cooney Archives
AN ELEPHANT NAMED BIMBO AND A FUNERAL by Darlene Smith
/by Little Falls Historical Society MuseumMost people usually don’t have an elephant attend a family member’s funeral, but then most other families didn’t have a grandfather who loved the circus the way Milo Smith did.
CITY AND HISTORICAL SOCIETY CONTINUE EFFORTS TO RECOGNIZE AFRICAN AMERICAN BURIAL GROUND
/by Little Falls Historical Society MuseumIt all began sometime in the early-2000s in the mind and heart of deceased former City Historian Edwin Vogt.
“Bellcamp” The Magician by Ann E. Schuyler
/by Little Falls Historical Society Museum“Uncle Archie, can you make me disappear?” I asked. “Yes,” he said, “Go in the other room.” I was expecting something like levitation.
My First and Last Train Rides by Ann Eysaman Schuyler
/by Little Falls Historical Society MuseumIn 1944 I took my first train ride – all the way to Utica, NY. Having lived in Little Falls all my life, some of it on West Main Street at the foot of Glen Avenue, I knew about the railroad.
LOCAL AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY REFLECTED STATE AND NATIONAL EVENTS
/by Little Falls Historical Society MuseumThe primary purpose of this piece of writing is to chronicle a history of African American presence in Little Falls from the time of slavery up to the 2015 dedication of a monument in Little Falls Church Street Cemetery recognizing what was once known as the “Colored Burial Ground.”
The Underground Railroad In And Around Little Falls
/by Little Falls Historical Society MuseumThe Underground Railroad (URR) was a loosely organized network of people, (men and women, African American and white,) dedicated to helping people escape from bondage in the slave-holding states of the South to freedom in the antislavery states of the North and ultimately to Canada in the period before the Civil War.
MEMORIAL SERVICE NOTICE FOR ARTHUR WITHINGTON
/by Little Falls Historical Society MuseumThere will be a Memorial Service for former Little Falls native Annette (Eysaman) Withington’s husband, Arthur, on July 22, 2023, 11am, at the Cornerstone Plymouth Bethesda Church in Utica.