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  This week’s Main Street Monday is a triple hitter with the First National Bank building, Fireman’s Hall, and the County Clerk’s Office building. We must first review a bit of information from two Main Street Monday posts ago when I covered the history of the Calvert Block (30-34 Main Street); the portion of Main Street that now contains 36 and 38 was once part of the Josiah Hart estate, and in 1865 he gave a portion of the land over to the village, allocated for the building of a fire engine house at 38 Main Street. At the same time, a part was givenRead More →

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Central Avenue, c.1915, with the Burgess painted advertisement. We finally approach Central Avenue in our historical journey down Main Street! This time we are taking a look at 31-33 Main Street which has over the years been referred to as the Union Hall block, the Collins block, and the Burgess block. But its beginnings are believed to stretch back to about 1815 when Obadiah Boies presumably built his dwelling in that location. We are lucky enough this time to be able to include a story from when his house was being erected that includes a bit of drama: Nathan Luce and his crew were conductingRead More →

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The first known building on the spot that is now 9 Main Street was a wooden structure that shows up in the same photo depicting the corner of Main and Clinton that has been featured in past posts. The earliest I can trace the businesses back is to a gentleman named James Van Valen, who came to Cortland from Madison County and kept a “cash and barter” store in 1845. An ad from 1849 shows it came under the ownership of Daniel Schermerhorn who advertised his takeover of Van Valen’s “old stand” with a new  stock of dry goods, groceries, and hardware. In the 1860sRead More →

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The earliest building that appears on maps was an L-shaped brick structure that at the time was the residence of Robert O. Reynolds (1811-1855). Reynolds was partnered with Hiram Crandall as attorneys and counselors at law, and their office neighbored Reynolds’ home. By 1876 the house was reduced to a square shape and was owned by Julius A. Graham (1827-1902), who once ran the Cortland House and was involved in many different enterprises over the years. The residence underwent renovations in 1895 to form a new business block (#12) that would contain the drug business of Fred I. Graham, and an article from the HomerRead More →

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The beginning of the history of #3-5 Main Street overlaps with that of #1 covered several weeks ago (https://tinyurl.com/zd4y4h). Joshua Ballard is quoted in H.P. Smith’s “History of Cortland County” as saying: “The corner lot where stands the noble brick edifice of Major Aaron Sager and the Dexter House, was once occupied by a tavern building of ordinary size, owned by Grove Gillett, with whom Samuel Nelson, afterwards one of the judges of the Supreme Court of the United States, took board for a time.” This seems to be a reference to an earlier building, perhaps latter replaced by the Barnard block seen in theRead More →

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  The first structure at 1 Main Street for which we have decent documentation is the Bernard Block, which according to the 1863 map included a boot and shoe shop, a milliner’s shop, and a dry goods and grocery store. D. Morris Kurtz briefly describes the building in his book “Past and Present: A Historical and Descriptive Sketch of Cortland, NY” (1883) as being three stories high in front with a sloping roof and only two stories in the rear. It was apparently one of the most prominent buildings in the village at the time, although rather stunted when compared to the building that replacedRead More →

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The corner of Main and Port Watson Streets In 1812 the Randall brothers, William and Roswell, originally from Stonington, Connecticut, came to the little village of Cortland. The enterprising brothers immediately went to work and built a general store on the north corner of Main and Port Watson Streets. The brothers were astute businessmen. They painted the building yellow, and it was thereafter known as “The Yellow Store”. At first, Cortland was a market town but small businesses soon followed. The brothers established distilleries on South Main Street and they manufactured potash. At this time whiskey was a household necessity! It was 15⍧ a gallonRead More →