The Cortland Historical Societies Centennial Celebrations Approach!

Mike Eves: [00:00:00] Good morning. It’s Mike Eves right here on X101 Always Classic. Time now for another edition of Meet Cortland County. In a, area historical society, the Cortland County Historical Society. Well, they’re celebrating a big milestone this year, 100 years. And, we’ve brought in the Executive Director of the Cortland County Historical Society, Tabitha Scoville. Tabitha, good morning. How are ya?
Tabitha Scoville: Doing good. How are you, Mike?
Mike Eves: Good. I know you’ve been pretty busy gearing up for this huge anniversary. Officially, it’s coming up here, um, not this Saturday, but the following Saturday. That’s May 17th. And you guys have a bunch of things planned too, don’t you?
Tabitha Scoville: Yes, we do.
Mike Eves: It’s pretty exciting when you think of a hundred years for a historical society. It’s, it’s pretty amazing and certainly you guys have a great, uh, facility over there, um, on Homer Ave.
Tabitha Scoville: Yeah, we have been in the Suggett House since 1967 is when we officially moved in. We got it a couple of years before that, but it took…
Mike Eves: Mm-hmm.
Tabitha Scoville: A while for us to get all our stuff together and packed up and, [00:01:00] moved over from the courthouse because that’s where we were located before.
Mike Eves: That’s right. And then you guys have also expanded a little bit. There’s the research library over there, which is really neat to see. You go, you walk in and you kind of see all the old maps of Cortland. And you guys are really the go-to source. A lot of this information is not available online either.
Tabitha Scoville: Exactly.
Mike Eves: It’s pretty localized right here in the historical society.
Tabitha Scoville: Exactly.
Mike Eves: With that said, are you guys gonna be doing anything special for your, I know you’re having a celebration. Anything special and specific kind of, kind of coming up for that or any specific plans?
Tabitha Scoville: Let’s see, May 17th, we’re gonna have the open house.
Mike Eves: Okay.
Tabitha Scoville: And, uh. Yeah. ‘Cause it’s only it, it’s coming right up.
Mike Eves: Yeah.
Tabitha Scoville: It’s snuck up on us. We’ve been working hard to get it done.
Mike Eves: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you were saying there’s some new exhibits, right? And there’s a new,
children’s area too. So, I mean, it’s really a good opportunity if you’ve never gone to the Suggett House on Homer Avenue. It’s kind of a good time to start. And a lot of these exhibits are gonna be through the summer too, right?
Tabitha Scoville: Definitely.
Mike Eves: Okay.
Tabitha Scoville: Yeah, we did a whole bunch of painting to freshen things up and [00:02:00] we’ve got new exhibits. One is, um. The County History from Early Years. There’s information about the towns.
Mike Eves: Mm-hmm.
Tabitha Scoville: There’s a small exhibit called Soil, Sap, and, uh, I can’t remember the last words.
Mike Eves: Yeah, that’s just yeah. You’ll just have to.
Tabitha Scoville: Sophie put it together. It’s agriculturally. Yeah.
Mike Eves: Yeah, agriculture. Of course, we know agriculture is huge for our area, so that, that’s kind of cool to see that. Yeah. What, what else are, what else is happening?
Tabitha Scoville: We have an exhibit that’s going to feature Nathan Mil-, Governor Nathan Miller, who was from Solon. He was born in Solon, only Upstate governor until Kathy Hochul.
Mike Eves: Oh wow.
Tabitha Scoville: And.
Mike Eves: Wow. That’s actually interesting when you think about it.
Tabitha Scoville: It’s pretty amazing.
Mike Eves: That is pretty amazing.
Tabitha Scoville: Yeah, he was a one term governor. Um, but he, he disrupted Al Smith. Uh, he took it from him and then Al Smith won it from him, so.
Mike Eves: Oh, okay.
Tabitha Scoville: And then Alton B. Parker is also gonna be featured, our presidential candidate.
Mike Eves: Yep.
Tabitha Scoville: And then in the dining room, we have a really special exhibit. We got a trunk.
Mike Eves: Okay.
Tabitha Scoville: Back in the 1990s that was loaded to the top with [00:03:00] stuff from the Carpenter Family from, Carpenterville or East Homer.
Mike Eves: Okay.
Tabitha Scoville: And this is not Francis Bicknell Carpenter. It’s Eli Carpenter Family.
Mike Eves: Okay.
Tabitha Scoville: And we have one of two bloomer costumes.
Mike Eves: Wow.
Tabitha Scoville: In the United States that were.
Mike Eves: Wow.
Tabitha Scoville: Made in the 1850s. So that’s on exhibit as well as artwork from this Carpenter Family and textiles and clothing. And they packed that trunk full. So it’s really cool.
Mike Eves: Wow. Yeah. So it. Take, take a step back in time to, to see things too. Um.
Tabitha Scoville: Yep. And the children’s room, we’ve got that updated, so the little store is now a bakery.
Mike Eves: Oh, nice. Yeah. No, I know.
Tabitha Scoville: So it was a flower shop.
Mike Eves: I know my girls are gonna love it. Yeah, no, I love how you guys are keeping that fresh too. You know? It’s a kind of a good thing to do on a rainy day or, you know, if you’re looking for something to do. You know? Come down there and see what you guys have. Especially, you know, as we said, you know, a hundred years, that that’s a pretty, that’s a pretty bigmilestone, Tabitha.
Tabitha Scoville: It is. And I, I’m kind of excited and honored [00:04:00] that it fell during, my tenure there.
Mike Eves: Yeah.
Tabitha Scoville: And trying and just to just do the best we can.
Mike Eves: Yeah.
Tabitha Scoville: I’ve got some plans, hopefully this summer, to do some oral histories with some of the past trustees that are still around and…
Mike Eves: Oh, nice.
Tabitha Scoville: Try to get as much of our history documented as we can. Because I’ve been going through minutes and…
Mike Eves: Yeah.
Tabitha Scoville: It’s there, but it’s not.
Mike Eves: Yeah.
Tabitha Scoville: You know, we need some of those interviews.
Mike Eves: And you know, and, and we kind of always say, it’s kind of, you know, we wanna plan for the next 100 years. You know?
Tabitha Scoville: Yes.
Mike Eves: How do we kind of, you know, we’ve talked about this, how do we kind of want to preserve some of the history that we’re making now in the last few years? And, you know, even recently and things too.
Tabitha Scoville: Exactly. And, you know, we just, we wanna have it all, tied up with a bow for the next people to take.
Mike Eves: Yep. Yeah. We wanna quote unquote, “Make it a little bit easier.”
Tabitha Scoville: Exactly.
Mike Eves: But although, you know, it’s pretty amazing they had the wherewithal, you know, a hundred years ago to say, “Hey, you know what, we’ve, there’s some big. You know, things that have happened in Cortland here and obviously they’re making history at that time too.” We talk about that.
Tabitha Scoville: Right. Yep.
Mike Eves: You know, for them to have the wherewithal, you [00:05:00] know, that’s pretty amazing in itself too, Tabitha. And then in the Sixties to say, “Hey, you know this, we’ve gotten this Suggett House here.” And it was donated, I believe, wasn’t it?
Tabitha Scoville: Yes, it was.
Mike Eves: From the family?
Tabitha Scoville: Yep.
Mike Eves: So, you know, it’s kind of, it’s kind of smart that they were kind of, you know, doing that things too. And you guys, and Sophia, you guys do a great job over there and.
Tabitha Scoville: Thank you.
Mike Eves: Really. I think, you know, now’s the, you know, now’s the time to certainly check it out and, uh, we’re looking forward to the, the freshen up too.
Tabitha Scoville: Yeah, and you’re gonna be there too.
Mike Eves: Yep.
Tabitha Scoville: So that’ll be great.
Mike Eves: Yeah. Yeah. No, it’s gonna be a lot of fun. Yeah. Tabitha, we’re almost outta time this morning.
Tabitha Scoville: Okay.
Mike Eves: But anything else you wanna say before we, before we wrap things up, anything that we may have missed here?
Tabitha Scoville: I would say that if you have any questions about time, if.
If you didn’t catch it. Uh, always go to our website or our Facebook page. We keep those up to date and you can always give us a call too.
Mike Eves: Yep, yep. And I’ll, I’ll put this, I’ll share this information up on our website too.
Tabitha Scoville: Okay, perfect. Thank you.
Mike Eves: Of course, you can always google Cortland County Historical Society and yeah. You guys are such a, it’s such a good resource and things too. And of course, we always talk about, you guys have been posting all the pictures, 100 pictures for 100 years.
Tabitha Scoville: Yes.
Mike Eves: And, from all over [00:06:00] Cortland County, and it’s pretty cool to see that too.
Tabitha Scoville: Definitely. Sophie’s been doing a good job going through boxes, and files.
Mike Eves: No, no. I can’t even imagine how many photos she’s been going through.
Tabitha Scoville: Yeah, trying to find good stuff.
Mike Eves: No, it’s kind of cool to see that. No, that’s awesome, Tabitha. Well, we want to thank you for coming in this morning here on X101. For Tabitha Scoville from the Cortland County Historical Society, I’m Mike Eves right here on X101 Always Classic.