50 Objects for 50 Years

View Items: 1-12 | 13-25

#13

45-Star American Flag

The current American flag has had 50 stars since 1960, with the addition of Hawaii as the fiftieth state. The original American flag of stars and stripes dates to 1777, just after the start of the American Revolution. It had 13 stars and 13 stripes to represent the 13 colonies. After a muddled period where sometimes additional stripes were added and there was no agreed-upon arrangement for the stars, Congress decided in 1818 to maintain 13 stripes to remember the colonies and to add one star for each new state admitted to the union, with the new flag becoming official on the following July 4. In 1895, Utah became a state and the new flag had 45 stars. This design lasted for 12 years, until the admission of Oklahoma in 1908. Donated by Doug and Helen Austic.

#14

A Wreath Made of Human Hair

During the Victorian era, among the many types of “fancy work” women did was making elaborate creations from hair, including brooches, bracelets, earrings, and the intricate flowers seen in this hair wreath. Originally, these items were intended as mourning jewelry or remembrances of a loved one, with pieces of the deceased person’s hair included in the work. Eventually, wreaths were made for more sentimental reasons, gathering locks of hair from friends and family as keepsakes. Hair could also be purchased from catalogs or horse hair used to fill out the design. Over time, the black, blond, brown, and red hues mostly fade to a uniform brown, but the delicacy of the work and the talent of the makers remains. This wreath was donated by Marjorie Erickson and was probably from the Lovell or Bloomer family.

#15

Davis Swing Churn

One of the many chores in a farmhouse, well into the 20th century, was churning butter. It took about half an hour to turn fresh whole milk into butter. While the classic butter churn type that comes to mind is the dash churn, where a “dasher” is lifted up and down in a stoneware or wooden cylinder, the swing churn is one of the earliest types of churn. The Davis Swing Churn Company developed this standing swing churn, patented Sept. 9, 1879, where a brightly painted container is suspended from a wooden frame in the shape of an “x.” The churn in our collection came from the home of Robert McLallen.

#16

Taughannock Falls House China

The Taughannock Falls House was a hotel located near the present lookout over Taughannock Falls and dated back to before the days of the Civil War, when it was kept by J. S. Halsey. They hosted travelers, summer boarders, meetings, and picnickers. The dining room could serve 200 people – using these attractive transferware dishes. Once each summer there was a special event: A fancy old-fashioned carriage called the “Lafayette Coach” was brought out and guests rode to Trumansburg while dressed in late 1700s costumes. The coach was said to have been used by General Lafayette himself during his tour of this region in the early 1800s, but that was most likely just an entertaining story. The Taughannock Falls House burned in 1922.

Lafayette Coach

#17

A Blacksmith’s Accounting Ledger

One great resource for research about early businesses is the accounting ledger or day book. In the days before computers, merchants and tradespeople would manage their businesses in these books: items sold, work done, money owed, and money paid. One ledger in the UHS collection is this blacksmith’s day book, used in the 1820s and 1830s. The blacksmith shop was possibly located between Trumansburg and Covert. The book was donated to UHS by Seymour Vaughn.

#18

The Hyde Marionettes

In the late 1930s and early 1940s Trumansburg residents Erva and Albert Hyde performed their marionette shows in many states, as well as in the Trumansburg schools. The first marionettes were made by Erva Hyde and dressed by her mother. Later marionettes were carved and dressed by Nelson Grove of New Jersey. We were thrilled to bring these marionettes “back to life” in 2023 with a wonderful performance of “Jack and His Friends” put on by the amazing Encore Players. The marionettes were donated to UHS by Billie Campbell and Wanda Swift.

#19

Camp Family Dome Top Trunk

Before the days of luggage fees and weight restrictions, travelers used these enormous trunks, and the help of porters, when they moved from one place to another or just went on a long trip by land or sea. This trunk came from the Edward Camp family (Edward was the son of Hermon Camp of Camp House fame) and was purchased December 31, 1881, to be used on many travels. These journeys were documented in pen and pencil on the lid of the trunk insert, including what was probably a very stormy trip on November 6-9, 1890, from New York to Bermuda, or, as it is described on the trunk, “through hell to paradise.” The trunk was donated to UHS by Dale and Marie Bauman.

#20

Trumansburg Street Dances

Starting in 1934, a popular Saturday night event in Trumansburg was the street dance, hosted by the Chamber of Commerce each summer. As shown in this photo, sections of Union and Main Streets were closed down and people traveled from all over Central New York (and beyond!) to dance to the music of a live orchestra. The photos in our archive are an important record of life in Ulysses covering over one hundred years, since the early days of photography.

#21

Trousseau Nightgown

UHS has an extensive clothing collection covering men’s, women’s, and children’s fashions extending back over 150 years. This trousseau nightgown is a recent addition, donated by Norman Culver. It originally belonged to Edith Culver and was made circa 1893 by her mother, Harriet Lambert Culver, as part of Edith’s wedding trousseau. It is a modest nightgown with pretty lace details around the neck and cuffs. A trousseau is the personal possessions of a bride, including clothes, accessories, and household linens and wares that she would bring to her new household with her husband. The garments were usually hand sewn by the bride and her close female family members and could start to be prepared long before the young woman had even met her future groom. Edith married William Sturdevant in 1894.

#22

Two Canes and the Civil War

These two canes both have a connection to the Civil War. The black gold-topped cane is engraved “Henry Rudy, Trumansburg, NY.” The Rudy family were among the earliest settlers in the area. Henry’s father was born near Curry Road and Rt. 227 in 1803 and the large brick house on Curry Road between Rt. 227 and Searsburg Rd. once belonged to the Rudy family. Henry Rudy served as an officer in the Civil War and later became one of the charter members of Treman Post 572 G.A.R. (like today’s Bouton American Legion Post). The cane marked with Gettysburg 1890 was likely made from wood from the battlefield and was a common souvenir purchased by veterans returning for reunion gatherings. The first Gettysburg reunion was in 1888, marking 25 years since the battle.

#23

Brighton Nurser Bottle

This bottle is an example of the wonders of “modern” technology that turned out to be a terrible idea in the end. To make life easier for mothers in the Victorian era and to persuade them to avoid breastfeeding (which was frowned upon), this kind of flat-backed bottle with a tilted neck was developed so that babies could be fed without someone having to always hold the bottle. The bottle could lie on a flat surface with a rubber tube extending from the bottle to a pacifier-like nipple for the baby to suck. The problem was that the rubber tubing and the bottle itself were very hard to clean, resulting in the growth of bacteria that sickened, and sometimes tragically killed, the infants.

#24

Glass Plate Negatives

The glass plate style of photography lasted from the 1850s to the 1920s, then was replaced by film. To take a picture on a piece of glass, a light-sensitive emulsion of silver salts was coated on the glass plate, which was then exposed to light, capturing an image. A paper print could then be made from the negative. UHS has a collection of glass plate negatives, many of local scenes and people. These plates can now be scanned, converted from negatives to positives, and saved as digital files or printed, something we hope to do with our own collection someday. The image in this picture is of the Masonic Temple on Main Street, then a hotel called Cornell House. The Masons purchased the building in 1914 so this photo predates that.

#25

Baptist Church Souvenir Bell

The building that is now the Trumansburg Conservatory of Fine Arts was erected in 1851 as the Second Baptist Society of Ulysses, later renamed as the First Baptist Church of Trumansburg. The previous 1826 Baptist church on this site burned in 1849. The steeple and its bell were removed in the 1950s because of structural instability, and the bell was melted down into small palm-size souvenir bells to pay for building renovations. (The Conservatory now has a new stage of renovations underway, something that is never-ending in an old building.) The Ulysses Historical Society has three of these bells in its collection.

View Items: 1-12 | 13-25

And more to come! Check back in a few months or follow our Facebook page.