Marion NY 14505 - The Old Plank Turnpike to Palmyra

History - Marion

The Old Plank Turnpike to Palmyra
By the Rev. Philip J. Bull

(This account of memories of Marion was taken from The Marion Enterprise of Friday, August 27, 1926 and was written for that paper by the Reverend Philip J. Bull of Penn Yan. The retired reverend passed his early life in Marion, graduating from Marion Collegiate Institute in 1868. Later he entered the ministry and was once pastor at the Marion Methodist Church. Although suffering from ill health, he agreed to write this article in commemoration of Marion's Centennial.)

It comes as a surprise to me to find myself so nearly associated chronologically with the founding of Marion.

I was born at "Marion Corners", as the village was for a long time known, on December 23, 1848, and therefor am now far along in my 78th year. That is surely no inconsiderable wedge out of the centennial pie, and to narrow margin of less than a quarter of a century, to change the figure of speech, must have been bridged by the middle life of my father George P. Bull who no doubt is remembered by some as a skillful and honest wagon maker, doing business at his humble shop on Palmyra Street, long before these days of trusts, and combines and great monopolies.

As the editorial courtesy makes me a free lance, and as it becomes me to leave to others the complete and orderly annuals of the town, I am inclinded as I awake out of a sort of Rip Van Winkle sleep, to rub my eyes and, from the central point of that old wagon shop, indulge in some disconnected and desultory odds and ends of history which I hope may not be wholly unacceptable to the general reader.

If I were on The Board of Regents, conducting an examination, it would do my old soul good to fire this question at some more youthful auditory: Who can tell anything about the southeastern suburb of the village being once a mill pond with a pleasant little island rising, like Atlantis, from the surrounding waste of waters? Such topographical conditions are wholly unknown to many of the present generation. They may have seen the prominence which has later been designated as "Malcolm's Island", but the waters have long since disappeared or dwindled to the meager proportions of a brook inadeauate to the running of Charlie Seybold's mill without the help of steam power. Yet, over those fertile lands where corn and wheat have luxuriantly waved, some of us oldsters have witnessed baptism in summer time and skating carnivals in Arctic winters. Fishing from both the island and the main land have been enjoyed, and more fish have been taken there in one way or another, than President Coolidge will ever catch if he visits the Adirondacks for many an open season yet to come. So much for topography.

I am liable to come even to theology before I am done, like the book of Genesis in the Bible. How many remember Harvey Curtis' stone blacksmith shop on Mill Street? Wnile Borden Davis and Press Carey hammering out horseshoes next door to the old carriage and paint shop already mentioned, Mr. Curtis and two sons, James and Brainard ('Jim' and 'Brain' in the more common speech of people) were conducting another Longfellow's "village smithy" across there, or just around the street, triangle where the Second Reformed Church for some years now has stood. To this excellent location a large number of the faithful swarmed a long time ago, from their former spiritual home with the First Reformed Church, on Union Street.

Both of these are beautiful churches, finely equipped and enthusiastically sustained by Marion's very numerous and highly esteemed "Foreign element", the Dutch, or the Hollanders. It had been something of an ethnological mystery to me, how the little country of the windmills and the North Sea ever came to drop such a contingent of Hollander's into a little Western New York village.

Here in Penn Yan the racial division is along a different line, the Danes being as numerous in this neck of the woods as the Dutch in the more latitudes. A number of years ago I was informed that as many as 2500 Dutch people were living between Penn Yan and Geneva and there are possibly as many, or even more today. Both classes make excellent American Citizens, coming here as emigrants, for the most part, poor and toil hardened, but seeking and finding a place more promising - labor, and eventually buying out their former employers and riding around in high priced autos, as well dressed and burning up as much gasoline as their most prosperous neighbors of the New World. I have now glimpsed some of the local coloring of the place and people. But what about background and environment? Guarded Caldwell's Hill, Scutt's Hill, and Eddy Ridge, how shall we effect our entrances and exits to and from this delightful little theatre of human ambitions? You may go and come by way of Buffalo Street, East Palmyra road, or the Williamson Highway through the Upper Corners.

But that which has the greatest value reminiscently and historically is, beyond doubt, the old Palmyra road transformed now into little less than a Boulevard, as I understand.

Reverting to a period whereto, as perhaps I am warranted in saying, "the memory of man goeth not back," a Plank Road presented its inviting length of five or six miles, and in those good old times of primitive simplicity, 'Two-Forty on the plant,' as the old song had it, was considered as "going some", to borrow a bit from the immense volume of current slang. This route had become but a dirt road in my early day, so that I never saw more than the end of one plank that had been loosened from its bed of soil and gravel, but the wear and tear of storm and traffic. The Old Toll Gate, however, did not vanish into obscurity and oblivion until years after farmers out our way, and the traveling public more generally, began to doubt as to whether they were getting the value received for their money.

So that, as I well remember, what we would now call a "detour" was taken, and a few cents sometimes saved, by the thrifty and economical agriculturists going down or coming back over the parallel road, by way of Cory Corners and the old Hicksite Quaker Church.

An obvious replica of the two thoroughfares I used to hear of, over in Cayuga County, under the respective titles of "Turnpike" and "Shunpike", but, whether turned or shunned, I can still see in my imagination and memory both those roads thronged with farmer's wagons loaded with barrells of apples, or heaped with sacks of grain, lumbering along toward the marts and markets of Palmyra.

But all this was changed by the coming of the rail road, and the discoveries and customs of the people. Now, and for a long time past, heavy freight trains move down the valley eastward, bearing their tons upon tons of celery, onions, cabbage, lettuce and other country produce to Newark, the Southland, Europe and all parts of the World. The romance of the redeemed mucklands is familiar to all the countryside. The factory whistles are heard for miles and miles around. Marion, is on the map with its homes, industries, schools, churches, and all those institutions that make it a delight to be alive. A hundred years is a long time, and more than the allotted course of man upon the earth, gives a fellow many gallery and grandstand privileges.

Indeed there is more left unsaid than appears here in this imperfect manuscript. For instance, I had intended to mention the old Christian Church of stone construction at the Upper Corners.

I had planned to turn in a good printer's story of the coming to Marion long, long ago, of the eccentric Methodist Evangelist, Rev. Lorenzo Dow.

I had desired to get in a write-up of Rev. Abram Pryne, who lived about midway between Marion & Williamson, and who went south to debate with Brownlow on the live wire Slavery.

I had wanted to say something about the visit and labours of that famous Baptist preacher, revivalist, and church builder Rev. Thomas Sheardown.

Indeed it was in my heart to help celebrate by presenting a fine line of assorted incidents, "memories and impressions." But fearing that I may have already exceeded a reasonable space limit I close abruptly.

Only adding congratulations on the century gone, and best wishes for all the centuries.

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