Orleans County Courthouse Historic District
Encyclopedia
The Orleans County Courthouse Historic District is one of two located in downtown Albion, New York, United States. Centered around Courthouse Square, it includes many significant buildings in the village, such as its library, post office
and churches from seven different denominations, one of which is the tallest structure in the county
. Many buildings are the work of local architect William V.N. Barlow, with contributions from Solon Beman and Andrew Jackson Warner
. They run the range of architectural style
s from the era in which the district developed, from Federal to Colonial Revival
.
Most of its buildings date to the 19th century, with some erected in the early 20th, a period when Albion was prospering not only as the county seat
but as a stop on the Erie Canal
, which passes through the village a short distance north of the district. A number of the buildings, including the county courthouse, use locally quarried Medina
sandstone
. In 1979 it was recognized as a historic district
and listed on the National Register of Historic Places
.
NY 98
), East State, South Platt and East Park Streets. On the southwest it continues along West Park to include all corners of the Liberty Street intersection, and likewise it continues along East State Street east of Platt to include all properties as far as Ingersoll Street.
This roughly 15 acres (6.1 ha) area includes 35 buildings, all but two of which are considered contributing properties
to the district's overall historic character, built between 1830 and 1910 in various contemporary architectural style
s. It is a densely developed urban core, on land sloping gently to the north. Albion's other downtown historic district, the more commercially oriented North Main-Bank Street
area, borders on the north and extends to the canal, now part of the New York State Barge Canal system.
Many of the buildings along South Main, the principal vehicular route through the district, are massed, bulky structures of stone or brick. The district's original focal point, the metallic dome of the Greek Revival
county courthouse, is set off by a similarly large county clerk's building of later construction to its south and the modern, non-contributing county jail to the southeast. Around the courthouse buildings is the only open space
in the district, planted in mature tall trees on the west (front) of the courthouse and taken up with a parking lot
to the south.
The neighboring streets complement the courthouse complex with large institutional buildings like the village's Swan Library and the seven churches. The 175 feet (53.3 m) spire of the Old English Gothic First Presbyterian Church to the north is a focal point for the region — as the tallest structure in Orleans County, it can be seen from 10 miles (16 km) away on clear days. On the far corners, the larger buildings give way to smaller buildings and houses.
was split from Genesee County
to the south in 1824, a group of state commissioners visited the new county to choose the seat
. At the time the choice was between Albion and Gaines
to the northwest, then the two largest settlements in the county and relatively centrally located within it. The commissioners were impressed when Philetus Bumpus, one of Albion's more prominent citizens, took them on a tour which showed its access to water power.
The next year the Erie Canal
was opened, putting Albion on a major trade route across the street, giving local farmers access to distant markets. On the remains of a former glacial drumlin
, a log cabin had been built in 1811, one of the first buildings in what would become Albion. The area around it began to develop. Two churches were built across the square, Christ Episcopal on South Main in 1830 and the First United Methodist Church at East State and South Platt. The Mahaney and Bullock houses, on South Main and Liberty respectively, were built around this time. The former, a three-bay
Federal style structure with elliptical arched entrance and saddleback roof, is typical of the application of the style around Western New York
at that time. The later, later home to Reconstruction-era Georgia Governor Rufus Bullock
, is possibly the oldest building in the district. Its recessed panels beneath the first floor's arches recall Charles Bulfinch
's influential second Harrison Gray Otis House in Boston.
In 1840 a large brick residence at the corner of Main and State streets was built in the Greek Revival
style. Along with another house to the south, today the Cornell Cooperative Extension
building, this marked that style's debut on Albion's Main Street. The First Presbyterian Church's original building, now its chapel, demonstrates how it was applied locally. Other than the cast iron
leaves of the front columns' Corinthian
capitals
, its brick exterior is devoid of ornament
. Similarly the interior is decorated only with a plaster ceiling medallion. This austerity may reflect both the conservative tastes of the congregation at that time and their possibly limited construction budget.
The house of Sanford Church, later lieutenant governor
and chief judge of the Court of Appeals, New York's highest court, also added Greek Revival elements to a Federal design. Located at East State and Ingersoll, it is the most prominent residence in the district. Its Doric
colonnade acknowledges changing trends, but their slenderness along with the house's elliptical fanlight
and clapboard
siding suggests that its builder was not yet ready to fully embrace them.
A few years earlier, quarries near the village of Medina
to the west had found a reddish-brown local variety of sandstone
. Soon quarries near Albion began producing it as well, and it became a major local industry, producing much of what was called brownstone
when used in New York City, as well as all the steps of Henry Hobson Richardson
's "Million Dollar Staircase" in the state capitol
.
It would take a while to be used for Albion's downtown other than curbs, steps or window trim. In the meantime, the Italianate
style quietly debuted in Albion with the Porter House at 33 Platt Street in 1855. Five years earlier the Preston House at 118 East State Street had been built in a consciously Colonial style.
, the Wayne County
seat, was impressed enough with the courthouse there that the board decided it should be the model for their new one. For the design, they chose William V.N. Barlow, a young local architect for whom the courthouse would be his signature building but also the first of many contributions to the district as either designer or builder.
His courthouse building, completed in 1858, was an ornate Greek Revival structure with a tall, gilded dome 36 feet (11 m) wide like its model. Its embrace of the style contrasted with the more restrained use of it on older buildings nearby like the Presbyterian chapel and Church House. The front columns were 50 feet (15.2 m) tall, and the dome top twice that height. The cupola
was once open to visitors, allowing for views to Lake Ontario
to the north in clear weather.
Two years later, the First Baptist Church on West Park Street matched the scale of the new courthouse with a structure combining Gothic (steep buttress
es and a tall hexagonal tower rising from the center of the front facade
) and Romanesque elements (round arched windows and corbel
tables). Also built that year was the first house of worship in the Free Methodist Church
, started by Abolitionists
, on East State Street. It too combined the styles, with Romanesque proportions and Carpenter Gothic
design touches. The building's vertical batten
s are topped with unmolded block capitals, suggesting the building's unknown architect was considerably refined in the use of the style.
After the Civil War
the village prospered. Since 1853, when the New York Central Railroad
had absorbed the Rochester, Lockport and Niagara Falls Railroad
, which ran through the village paralleling the canal to the south, its agricultural products and sandstone had been shipped to many distant markets. Growth in the district continued apace. The Methodists built an Italianate parsonage on Platt Street in 1865, and during the 1870s Barlow and others built new houses, introducing styles like the Second Empire and its mansard roof
on the 1879 White-Martilotta House at 134 East State Street, the largest home built in the district since Church's. Barlow also built the Italian villa-style brick rectory for St. Joseph's Catholic Church, which had been formed by Eastern Europe
an immigrants who had come to the region after the war.
In 1885, Barlow introduced two new styles to Albion. The Warner House at 21 East Park is the village's first Queen Anne
, and just down the street at 34 East Park he brought the Eastlake style
, where the decoration is made of the same material as the surface it is on, to Albion. Three years later, it got a higher-profile placement with the Surrogate
's Building just south of the courthouse. Rochester
architect Harvey Ellis dotted the faces of the building, made entirely of fireproof
materials, with inventive brickwork
. "From that point on", wrote a critic decades later, "his genius as a practitioner of the true fine art of building begins to sing".
Yet another emerging style, Colonial Revival
was brought to the district at the end of the decade by Barlow. In 1889 he oversaw the renovation of the 50-year-old residence at Main and State into the Swan Library. Most of the exterior was redecorated for the new style. Inside, its original Greek Revival woodwork remains intact except for a large reading room redone in Colonial Revival.
When former area congressman
Elizur Hart died in 1892, he left $60,000 ($ in contemporary dollars) for the construction of a new First Presbyterian Church. He specifically stipulated that the new church's spire be taller than the one on the Baptist church.
Andrew Jackson Warner
was commissioned to design the new church. He delivered the current building, made entirely of rusticated
stone, which he had become familiar with while working on Henry Hobson Richardson
's Buffalo State Hospital earlier in his career. The English Gothic style chosen was also well-adapted to the material, since the 13th-century churches used as models were usually made of local stone. Some aspects of the design, such as the placement of the tower, the rose window
and the placement of the details, suggest the influence of Richard Upjohn
, whose 1859 Third Presbyterian Church in Rochester Warner would also have been familiar with. The spire, when finished the following year, reached 175 feet (53.3 m), making it the tallest structure not only in the village but the county. A manse
squarely in the Colonial Revival style was also built that year.
The next year George Pullman
, the railroad-car entrepreneur who had lived in Albion as a young cabinetmaker around 1850, agreed to build a Universalist
church in the village (named Pullman Memorial Universalist Church
). He commissioned Solon Beman, who had designed his company town
outside Chicago. Beman saw that the Medina sandstone was particularly well-suited to the Richardsonian Romanesque
style, and produced a compact church of rough-hewn blocks of that material, with unmolded window trim revealing the thickness of the face. While it uses pointed arches instead of the round ones Richardson preferred, the tower evokes the older architect's Trinity Church in Boston. The interior echoes Richardson as well in contrasting the exterior's heaviness and seriousness with space and bright color, including the Tiffany
stained glass
window and golden oak ceiling beams.
The last of the three churches of the 1890s was a spite building
. William Stafford, a member of the Baptist Church, ran for county judge and lost. He felt his loss was partly due to his fellow congregants failure to sufficiently support him. He sold the land he owned next to the church to St. Joseph's, which was taking in more and more immigrants and needed to expand. In the deed was the condition that a new church on the property be built close enough to West Park Street to block the view of the Baptist church from Main Street. The Gothic Revival building, designed by an unknown architect, is smaller in scale and less decorated than the other churches, but does block the view to the Baptist Church from Main Street.
porch was added to the house now the Cooperative Extension Building, as well.
The industries that made Albion prosperous started to decline after that decade. The canal was enlarged and made part of the New York State Barge Canal system in 1918, which failed to stop the loss of traffic to railroads that were growing ever more efficient. By the 1920s Portland cement
had become common and cheap enough that the sandstone quarries were losing customers. The courthouse was renovated in the late 1920s. Late in the Depression
, in 1937, a new post office
in the Colonial Revival style was built opposite the courthouse and library, with two Greek Revival homes that had been there demolished in the process.
Swan Library itself was redecorated in 1952, only to have the original color scheme restored in 1975. Shortly before that the modernist new county jail had been built, the most recent construction in the district. An interest in preserving
the village's downtown culminated in the 1979 listing on the Register. The village created a Historic Preservation Commission to oversee its historic districts. It is charged with protecting and enhancing the landmarks within them and making the village more attractive to visitors in order to ensure growth and development.
is currently independently listed on the National Register. The post office, within the district, was listed after the district, but is not considered to be contributing to the district because it was built after 1910, the end of the district's period of significance.
U.S. Post Office (Albion, New York)
The U.S. Post Office in Albion, New York, is located on South Main Street in the center of town. It serves the 14411 ZIP Code, covering the village and town of Albion plus neighboring sections of the towns of Barre and Gaines....
and churches from seven different denominations, one of which is the tallest structure in the county
Orleans County, New York
As of the census of 2000, there were 44,171 people, 15,363 households, and 10,846 families residing in the county. The population density was 113 people per square mile . There were 17,347 housing units at an average density of 44 per square mile...
. Many buildings are the work of local architect William V.N. Barlow, with contributions from Solon Beman and Andrew Jackson Warner
Andrew Jackson Warner
Andrew Jackson Warner , also known as A. J. Warner, was a prominent architect in Rochester, New York.Warner was born in Connecticut and came to Rochester circa 1847 as an apprentice to one of his uncles, Merwin Austin, for whom he worked as a draftsman. He was soon made a partner in his uncle's...
. They run the range of architectural style
Architectural style
Architectural styles classify architecture in terms of the use of form, techniques, materials, time period, region and other stylistic influences. It overlaps with, and emerges from the study of the evolution and history of architecture...
s from the era in which the district developed, from Federal to Colonial Revival
Colonial Revival architecture
The Colonial Revival was a nationalistic architectural style, garden design, and interior design movement in the United States which sought to revive elements of Georgian architecture, part of a broader Colonial Revival Movement in the arts. In the early 1890s Americans began to value their own...
.
Most of its buildings date to the 19th century, with some erected in the early 20th, a period when Albion was prospering not only as the county seat
County seat
A county seat is an administrative center, or seat of government, for a county or civil parish. The term is primarily used in the United States....
but as a stop on the Erie Canal
Erie Canal
The Erie Canal is a waterway in New York that runs about from Albany, New York, on the Hudson River to Buffalo, New York, at Lake Erie, completing a navigable water route from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes. The canal contains 36 locks and encompasses a total elevation differential of...
, which passes through the village a short distance north of the district. A number of the buildings, including the county courthouse, use locally quarried Medina
Medina, New York
Medina is a village in the towns of Shelby and Ridgeway in Orleans County, New York, United States. The population was 6,415 at the 2000 census, making it the second most populous municipality in the county after Albion, the county seat. The village was named by its surveyor...
sandstone
Sandstone
Sandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains.Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any colour, but the most common colours are tan, brown, yellow,...
. In 1979 it was recognized as a historic district
Historic district (United States)
In the United States, a historic district is a group of buildings, properties, or sites that have been designated by one of several entities on different levels as historically or architecturally significant. Buildings, structures, objects and sites within a historic district are normally divided...
and listed on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
.
Geography
The district is square-shaped with two protrusions on its northeast and southwest corners. Its boundaries follow lot lines. The entire Courthouse Square is included, and all the properties facing it on South Main (state highwayState highway
State highway, state road or state route can refer to one of three related concepts, two of them related to a state or provincial government in a country that is divided into states or provinces :#A...
NY 98
New York State Route 98
New York State Route 98 is a state highway in the western part of New York in the United States. The southern terminus of the route is at an intersection with U.S. Route 219 in the town of Great Valley in Cattaraugus County...
), East State, South Platt and East Park Streets. On the southwest it continues along West Park to include all corners of the Liberty Street intersection, and likewise it continues along East State Street east of Platt to include all properties as far as Ingersoll Street.
This roughly 15 acres (6.1 ha) area includes 35 buildings, all but two of which are considered contributing properties
Contributing property
In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing resource or contributing property is any building, structure, or object which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic district, listed locally or federally, significant...
to the district's overall historic character, built between 1830 and 1910 in various contemporary architectural style
Architectural style
Architectural styles classify architecture in terms of the use of form, techniques, materials, time period, region and other stylistic influences. It overlaps with, and emerges from the study of the evolution and history of architecture...
s. It is a densely developed urban core, on land sloping gently to the north. Albion's other downtown historic district, the more commercially oriented North Main-Bank Street
North Main-Bank Streets Historic District
The North Main-Bank Streets Historic District is located along those streets in Albion, New York, United States. It is one of two historic districts in the village, comprising the commercial core of the village, developed during its years as a major stop on the Erie Canal...
area, borders on the north and extends to the canal, now part of the New York State Barge Canal system.
Many of the buildings along South Main, the principal vehicular route through the district, are massed, bulky structures of stone or brick. The district's original focal point, the metallic dome of the Greek Revival
Greek Revival architecture
The Greek Revival was an architectural movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in Northern Europe and the United States. A product of Hellenism, it may be looked upon as the last phase in the development of Neoclassical architecture...
county courthouse, is set off by a similarly large county clerk's building of later construction to its south and the modern, non-contributing county jail to the southeast. Around the courthouse buildings is the only open space
Open space
Open space may refer to:In urban planning and conservation ethics* Landscape, areas of land without human-built structures*Open space reserve, areas of protected or conserved land on which development is indefinitely set aside...
in the district, planted in mature tall trees on the west (front) of the courthouse and taken up with a parking lot
Parking lot
A parking lot , also known as car lot, is a cleared area that is intended for parking vehicles. Usually, the term refers to a dedicated area that has been provided with a durable or semi-durable surface....
to the south.
The neighboring streets complement the courthouse complex with large institutional buildings like the village's Swan Library and the seven churches. The 175 feet (53.3 m) spire of the Old English Gothic First Presbyterian Church to the north is a focal point for the region — as the tallest structure in Orleans County, it can be seen from 10 miles (16 km) away on clear days. On the far corners, the larger buildings give way to smaller buildings and houses.
History
The district's active development can be split into two phases: the years from the creation of Orleans County to the construction of the new courthouse, when development was mostly residential and slower-paced; and the years after the current courthouse was built, when larger scale buildings were constructed at a faster rate. During the 20th century some renovations were made, and only two new buildings were added.1824–1858: Before the courthouse
When Orleans CountyOrleans County, New York
As of the census of 2000, there were 44,171 people, 15,363 households, and 10,846 families residing in the county. The population density was 113 people per square mile . There were 17,347 housing units at an average density of 44 per square mile...
was split from Genesee County
Genesee County, New York
Genesee County is a county located in Western New York, United States. As of the 2010 census, the population was 60,079. Its name is from the Seneca Indian word Gen-nis'-hee-yo meaning "The Beautiful Valley." Its county seat is Batavia.- History :...
to the south in 1824, a group of state commissioners visited the new county to choose the seat
County seat
A county seat is an administrative center, or seat of government, for a county or civil parish. The term is primarily used in the United States....
. At the time the choice was between Albion and Gaines
Gaines, New York
Gaines is a town in Orleans County, New York, United States. The population was 3,740 at the 2000 census. The town is named after General Edmund Pendleton Gaines, who defended the area during the War of 1812....
to the northwest, then the two largest settlements in the county and relatively centrally located within it. The commissioners were impressed when Philetus Bumpus, one of Albion's more prominent citizens, took them on a tour which showed its access to water power.
The next year the Erie Canal
Erie Canal
The Erie Canal is a waterway in New York that runs about from Albany, New York, on the Hudson River to Buffalo, New York, at Lake Erie, completing a navigable water route from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes. The canal contains 36 locks and encompasses a total elevation differential of...
was opened, putting Albion on a major trade route across the street, giving local farmers access to distant markets. On the remains of a former glacial drumlin
Drumlin
A drumlin, from the Irish word droimnín , first recorded in 1833, is an elongated whale-shaped hill formed by glacial ice acting on underlying unconsolidated till or ground moraine.-Drumlin formation:...
, a log cabin had been built in 1811, one of the first buildings in what would become Albion. The area around it began to develop. Two churches were built across the square, Christ Episcopal on South Main in 1830 and the First United Methodist Church at East State and South Platt. The Mahaney and Bullock houses, on South Main and Liberty respectively, were built around this time. The former, a three-bay
Bay (architecture)
A bay is a unit of form in architecture. This unit is defined as the zone between the outer edges of an engaged column, pilaster, or post; or within a window frame, doorframe, or vertical 'bas relief' wall form.-Defining elements:...
Federal style structure with elliptical arched entrance and saddleback roof, is typical of the application of the style around Western New York
Western New York
Western New York is the westernmost region of the state of New York. It includes the cities of Buffalo, Rochester, Niagara Falls, the surrounding suburbs, as well as the outlying rural areas of the Great Lakes lowlands, the Genesee Valley, and the Southern Tier. Some historians, scholars and others...
at that time. The later, later home to Reconstruction-era Georgia Governor Rufus Bullock
Rufus Bullock
Rufus Brown Bullock was an American politician.-Biography:He served as the 46th Governor of Georgia from 1868 to 1871 during Reconstruction and was the first Republican governor of Georgia. After various allegations of scandal, in 1871 he was obliged by the Ku Klux Klan to resign the governorship...
, is possibly the oldest building in the district. Its recessed panels beneath the first floor's arches recall Charles Bulfinch
Charles Bulfinch
Charles Bulfinch was an early American architect, and has been regarded by many as the first native-born American to practice architecture as a profession....
's influential second Harrison Gray Otis House in Boston.
In 1840 a large brick residence at the corner of Main and State streets was built in the Greek Revival
Greek Revival architecture
The Greek Revival was an architectural movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in Northern Europe and the United States. A product of Hellenism, it may be looked upon as the last phase in the development of Neoclassical architecture...
style. Along with another house to the south, today the Cornell Cooperative Extension
Cooperative extension service
The Cooperative Extension Service, also known as the Extension Service of the USDA, is a non-formal educational program implemented in the United States designed to help people use research-based knowledge to improve their lives. The service is provided by the state's designated land-grant...
building, this marked that style's debut on Albion's Main Street. The First Presbyterian Church's original building, now its chapel, demonstrates how it was applied locally. Other than the cast iron
Cast iron
Cast iron is derived from pig iron, and while it usually refers to gray iron, it also identifies a large group of ferrous alloys which solidify with a eutectic. The color of a fractured surface can be used to identify an alloy. White cast iron is named after its white surface when fractured, due...
leaves of the front columns' Corinthian
Corinthian order
The Corinthian order is one of the three principal classical orders of ancient Greek and Roman architecture. The other two are the Doric and Ionic. When classical architecture was revived during the Renaissance, two more orders were added to the canon, the Tuscan order and the Composite order...
capitals
Capital (architecture)
In architecture the capital forms the topmost member of a column . It mediates between the column and the load thrusting down upon it, broadening the area of the column's supporting surface...
, its brick exterior is devoid of ornament
Ornament (architecture)
In architecture and decorative art, ornament is a decoration used to embellish parts of a building or object. Large figurative elements such as monumental sculpture and their equivalents in decorative art are excluded from the term; most ornament does not include human figures, and if present they...
. Similarly the interior is decorated only with a plaster ceiling medallion. This austerity may reflect both the conservative tastes of the congregation at that time and their possibly limited construction budget.
The house of Sanford Church, later lieutenant governor
Lieutenant Governor of New York
The Lieutenant Governor of New York is a constitutional office in the executive branch of the government of New York State. It is the second highest ranking official in state government. The lieutenant governor is elected on a ticket with the governor for a four year term...
and chief judge of the Court of Appeals, New York's highest court, also added Greek Revival elements to a Federal design. Located at East State and Ingersoll, it is the most prominent residence in the district. Its Doric
Doric order
The Doric order was one of the three orders or organizational systems of ancient Greek or classical architecture; the other two canonical orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian.-History:...
colonnade acknowledges changing trends, but their slenderness along with the house's elliptical fanlight
Fanlight
A fanlight is a window, semicircular or semi-elliptical in shape, with glazing bars or tracery sets radiating out like an open fan, It is placed over another window or a doorway. and is sometimes hinged to a transom. The bars in the fixed glazed window spread out in the manner a sunburst...
and clapboard
Clapboard (architecture)
Clapboard, also known as bevel siding or lap siding or weather-board , is a board used typically for exterior horizontal siding that has one edge thicker than the other and where the board above laps over the one below...
siding suggests that its builder was not yet ready to fully embrace them.
A few years earlier, quarries near the village of Medina
Medina, New York
Medina is a village in the towns of Shelby and Ridgeway in Orleans County, New York, United States. The population was 6,415 at the 2000 census, making it the second most populous municipality in the county after Albion, the county seat. The village was named by its surveyor...
to the west had found a reddish-brown local variety of sandstone
Sandstone
Sandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains.Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any colour, but the most common colours are tan, brown, yellow,...
. Soon quarries near Albion began producing it as well, and it became a major local industry, producing much of what was called brownstone
Brownstone
Brownstone is a brown Triassic or Jurassic sandstone which was once a popular building material. The term is also used in the United States to refer to a terraced house clad in this material.-Types:-Apostle Island brownstone:...
when used in New York City, as well as all the steps of Henry Hobson Richardson
Henry Hobson Richardson
Henry Hobson Richardson was a prominent American architect who designed buildings in Albany, Boston, Buffalo, Chicago, Pittsburgh, and other cities. The style he popularized is named for him: Richardsonian Romanesque...
's "Million Dollar Staircase" in the state capitol
New York State Capitol
The New York State Capitol is the capitol building of the U.S. state of New York. Housing the New York State Legislature, it is located in the state capital city Albany, on State Street in Capitol Park. The building, completed in 1899 at a cost of $25 million , was the most expensive government...
.
It would take a while to be used for Albion's downtown other than curbs, steps or window trim. In the meantime, the Italianate
Italianate architecture
The Italianate style of architecture was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. In the Italianate style, the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian Renaissance architecture, which had served as inspiration for both Palladianism and...
style quietly debuted in Albion with the Porter House at 33 Platt Street in 1855. Five years earlier the Preston House at 118 East State Street had been built in a consciously Colonial style.
1858–89: The courthouse and after
In the late 1850s the county was beginning to outgrow its original courthouse. A committee of the county's board of supervisors that traveled to LyonsLyons (village), New York
Lyons is a village in Wayne County, New York, USA. The population was 3,695 at the 2000 census. The village, along with the town, is named after Lyon , France....
, the Wayne County
Wayne County, New York
Wayne County is a county located in the US state of New York. It is part of the Rochester, New York Metropolitan Statistical Area and lies on the south shore of Lake Ontario, forming part of the northern border of the United States with Canada. The name honors General Anthony Wayne, an American...
seat, was impressed enough with the courthouse there that the board decided it should be the model for their new one. For the design, they chose William V.N. Barlow, a young local architect for whom the courthouse would be his signature building but also the first of many contributions to the district as either designer or builder.
His courthouse building, completed in 1858, was an ornate Greek Revival structure with a tall, gilded dome 36 feet (11 m) wide like its model. Its embrace of the style contrasted with the more restrained use of it on older buildings nearby like the Presbyterian chapel and Church House. The front columns were 50 feet (15.2 m) tall, and the dome top twice that height. The cupola
Cupola
In architecture, a cupola is a small, most-often dome-like, structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome....
was once open to visitors, allowing for views to Lake Ontario
Lake Ontario
Lake Ontario is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is bounded on the north and southwest by the Canadian province of Ontario, and on the south by the American state of New York. Ontario, Canada's most populous province, was named for the lake. In the Wyandot language, ontarío means...
to the north in clear weather.
Two years later, the First Baptist Church on West Park Street matched the scale of the new courthouse with a structure combining Gothic (steep buttress
Buttress
A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall...
es and a tall hexagonal tower rising from the center of the front facade
Facade
A facade or façade is generally one exterior side of a building, usually, but not always, the front. The word comes from the French language, literally meaning "frontage" or "face"....
) and Romanesque elements (round arched windows and corbel
Corbel
In architecture a corbel is a piece of stone jutting out of a wall to carry any superincumbent weight. A piece of timber projecting in the same way was called a "tassel" or a "bragger". The technique of corbelling, where rows of corbels deeply keyed inside a wall support a projecting wall or...
tables). Also built that year was the first house of worship in the Free Methodist Church
Free Methodist Church
The Free Methodist Church is a Methodist Christian denomination within the holiness movement. It is evangelical in nature and has its roots in the Arminian-Wesleyan tradition....
, started by Abolitionists
Abolitionism
Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...
, on East State Street. It too combined the styles, with Romanesque proportions and Carpenter Gothic
Carpenter Gothic
Carpenter Gothic, also sometimes called Carpenter's Gothic, and Rural Gothic, is a North American architectural style-designation for an application of Gothic Revival architectural detailing and picturesque massing applied to wooden structures built by house-carpenters...
design touches. The building's vertical batten
Batten
A batten is a thin strip of solid material, typically made from wood, plastic or metal. Battens are used in building construction and various other fields as both structural and purely cosmetic elements...
s are topped with unmolded block capitals, suggesting the building's unknown architect was considerably refined in the use of the style.
After the Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
the village prospered. Since 1853, when the New York Central Railroad
New York Central Railroad
The New York Central Railroad , known simply as the New York Central in its publicity, was a railroad operating in the Northeastern United States...
had absorbed the Rochester, Lockport and Niagara Falls Railroad
Rochester, Lockport and Niagara Falls Railroad
Incorporated December 14, 1850. This company rebuilt and opened in July 1852, the road originally incorporated April 24, 1834, as the Lockport and Niagara Falls Railroad. The original line was opened in 1838 and sold June 2, 1850. Consolidated into the New York Central Railroad under the act of 1853....
, which ran through the village paralleling the canal to the south, its agricultural products and sandstone had been shipped to many distant markets. Growth in the district continued apace. The Methodists built an Italianate parsonage on Platt Street in 1865, and during the 1870s Barlow and others built new houses, introducing styles like the Second Empire and its mansard roof
Mansard roof
A mansard or mansard roof is a four-sided gambrel-style hip roof characterized by two slopes on each of its sides with the lower slope at a steeper angle than the upper that is punctured by dormer windows. The roof creates an additional floor of habitable space, such as a garret...
on the 1879 White-Martilotta House at 134 East State Street, the largest home built in the district since Church's. Barlow also built the Italian villa-style brick rectory for St. Joseph's Catholic Church, which had been formed by Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
an immigrants who had come to the region after the war.
In 1885, Barlow introduced two new styles to Albion. The Warner House at 21 East Park is the village's first Queen Anne
Queen Anne Style architecture
The Queen Anne Style in Britain means either the English Baroque architectural style roughly of the reign of Queen Anne , or a revived form that was popular in the last quarter of the 19th century and the early decades of the 20th century...
, and just down the street at 34 East Park he brought the Eastlake style
Eastlake Movement
The Eastlake Movement was a nineteenth century architectural and household design reform movement started by architect and writer Charles Eastlake . The movement is generally considered part of the late Victorian period in terms of broad antique furniture designations...
, where the decoration is made of the same material as the surface it is on, to Albion. Three years later, it got a higher-profile placement with the Surrogate
New York Surrogate's Court
The Surrogate's Court handles all probate and estate proceedings in the state of New York. All wills are probated in this court and all estates of people who die without a will are handled in this court...
's Building just south of the courthouse. Rochester
Rochester, New York
Rochester is a city in Monroe County, New York, south of Lake Ontario in the United States. Known as The World's Image Centre, it was also once known as The Flour City, and more recently as The Flower City...
architect Harvey Ellis dotted the faces of the building, made entirely of fireproof
Fireproofing
Fireproofing, a passive fire protection measure, refers to the act of making materials or structures more resistant to fire, or to those materials themselves, or the act of applying such materials. Applying a certification listed fireproofing system to certain structures allows these to have a...
materials, with inventive brickwork
Brickwork
Brickwork is masonry produced by a bricklayer, using bricks and mortar to build up brick structures such as walls. Brickwork is also used to finish corners, door, and window openings, etc...
. "From that point on", wrote a critic decades later, "his genius as a practitioner of the true fine art of building begins to sing".
Yet another emerging style, Colonial Revival
Colonial Revival architecture
The Colonial Revival was a nationalistic architectural style, garden design, and interior design movement in the United States which sought to revive elements of Georgian architecture, part of a broader Colonial Revival Movement in the arts. In the early 1890s Americans began to value their own...
was brought to the district at the end of the decade by Barlow. In 1889 he oversaw the renovation of the 50-year-old residence at Main and State into the Swan Library. Most of the exterior was redecorated for the new style. Inside, its original Greek Revival woodwork remains intact except for a large reading room redone in Colonial Revival.
1890s: Three churches
The 1890s saw three of the district's churches, among them two of its most distinctive, built through the generosity of local benefactors, two of whom had some personal issues with the First Baptist Church. All used Medina sandstone, reflecting the prosperity of the region at the time.When former area congressman
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
Elizur Hart died in 1892, he left $60,000 ($ in contemporary dollars) for the construction of a new First Presbyterian Church. He specifically stipulated that the new church's spire be taller than the one on the Baptist church.
Andrew Jackson Warner
Andrew Jackson Warner
Andrew Jackson Warner , also known as A. J. Warner, was a prominent architect in Rochester, New York.Warner was born in Connecticut and came to Rochester circa 1847 as an apprentice to one of his uncles, Merwin Austin, for whom he worked as a draftsman. He was soon made a partner in his uncle's...
was commissioned to design the new church. He delivered the current building, made entirely of rusticated
Rustication (architecture)
thumb|upright|Two different styles of rustication in the [[Palazzo Medici-Riccardi]] in [[Florence]].In classical architecture rustication is an architectural feature that contrasts in texture with the smoothly finished, squared block masonry surfaces called ashlar...
stone, which he had become familiar with while working on Henry Hobson Richardson
Henry Hobson Richardson
Henry Hobson Richardson was a prominent American architect who designed buildings in Albany, Boston, Buffalo, Chicago, Pittsburgh, and other cities. The style he popularized is named for him: Richardsonian Romanesque...
's Buffalo State Hospital earlier in his career. The English Gothic style chosen was also well-adapted to the material, since the 13th-century churches used as models were usually made of local stone. Some aspects of the design, such as the placement of the tower, the rose window
Rose window
A Rose window is often used as a generic term applied to a circular window, but is especially used for those found in churches of the Gothic architectural style and being divided into segments by stone mullions and tracery...
and the placement of the details, suggest the influence of Richard Upjohn
Richard Upjohn
Richard Upjohn was an English-born architect who emigrated to the United States and became most famous for his Gothic Revival churches. He was partially responsible for launching the movement to such popularity in the United States. Upjohn also did extensive work in and helped to popularize the...
, whose 1859 Third Presbyterian Church in Rochester Warner would also have been familiar with. The spire, when finished the following year, reached 175 feet (53.3 m), making it the tallest structure not only in the village but the county. A manse
Manse
A manse is a house inhabited by, or formerly inhabited by, a minister, usually used in the context of a Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist or United Church...
squarely in the Colonial Revival style was also built that year.
The next year George Pullman
George Pullman
George Mortimer Pullman was an American inventor and industrialist. He is known as the inventor of the Pullman sleeping car, and for violently suppressing striking workers in the company town he created, Pullman .-Background:Born in Brocton, New York, his family moved to Albion,...
, the railroad-car entrepreneur who had lived in Albion as a young cabinetmaker around 1850, agreed to build a Universalist
Universalist Church of America
The Universalist Church of America was a Christian Universalist religious denomination in the United States . Known from 1866 as the Universalist General Convention, the name was changed to the Universalist Church of America in 1942...
church in the village (named Pullman Memorial Universalist Church
Pullman Memorial Universalist Church
The Pullman Memorial Universalist Church of Albion, New York was constructed and dedicated in 1894 as a memorial to the parents of inventor and industrialist George Mortimer Pullman. The structure, built of red Medina sandstone and featuring fifty-six Tiffany stained glass windows and a Johnson...
). He commissioned Solon Beman, who had designed his company town
Pullman, Chicago
Pullman, one of Chicago's 77 community areas, is a neighborhood located on the city's South Side. Twelve miles from the Chicago Loop, Pullman is situated adjacent Lake Calumet....
outside Chicago. Beman saw that the Medina sandstone was particularly well-suited to the Richardsonian Romanesque
Richardsonian Romanesque
Richardsonian Romanesque is a style of Romanesque Revival architecture named after architect Henry Hobson Richardson, whose masterpiece is Trinity Church, Boston , designated a National Historic Landmark...
style, and produced a compact church of rough-hewn blocks of that material, with unmolded window trim revealing the thickness of the face. While it uses pointed arches instead of the round ones Richardson preferred, the tower evokes the older architect's Trinity Church in Boston. The interior echoes Richardson as well in contrasting the exterior's heaviness and seriousness with space and bright color, including the Tiffany
Louis Comfort Tiffany
Louis Comfort Tiffany was an American artist and designer who worked in the decorative arts and is best known for his work in stained glass. He is the American artist most associated with the Art Nouveau and Aesthetic movements...
stained glass
Stained glass
The term stained glass can refer to coloured glass as a material or to works produced from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant buildings...
window and golden oak ceiling beams.
The last of the three churches of the 1890s was a spite building
Spite house
A spite house is a building constructed or modified to irritate neighbors or other parties with land stakes. Spite houses often serve as obstructions, blocking out light or access to neighboring buildings, or as flamboyant symbols of defiance...
. William Stafford, a member of the Baptist Church, ran for county judge and lost. He felt his loss was partly due to his fellow congregants failure to sufficiently support him. He sold the land he owned next to the church to St. Joseph's, which was taking in more and more immigrants and needed to expand. In the deed was the condition that a new church on the property be built close enough to West Park Street to block the view of the Baptist church from Main Street. The Gothic Revival building, designed by an unknown architect, is smaller in scale and less decorated than the other churches, but does block the view to the Baptist Church from Main Street.
1900–present: Decline and preservation
A few more buildings were added to the district in the early 20th century, and some others were renovated. A tower with the board-and-batten siding was added to the Free Methodist Church in 1900, and St. Joseph's built a school in 1905. Later that year the Pullman church built a parsonage of its own. Its Colonial Revival design, featuring a delicate half-ellipse, evoked the very same Federal and Greek Revival buildings that had been built in the nearby blocks when the area was first developed. A DoricDoric order
The Doric order was one of the three orders or organizational systems of ancient Greek or classical architecture; the other two canonical orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian.-History:...
porch was added to the house now the Cooperative Extension Building, as well.
The industries that made Albion prosperous started to decline after that decade. The canal was enlarged and made part of the New York State Barge Canal system in 1918, which failed to stop the loss of traffic to railroads that were growing ever more efficient. By the 1920s Portland cement
Portland cement
Portland cement is the most common type of cement in general use around the world because it is a basic ingredient of concrete, mortar, stucco and most non-specialty grout...
had become common and cheap enough that the sandstone quarries were losing customers. The courthouse was renovated in the late 1920s. Late in the Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
, in 1937, a new post office
U.S. Post Office (Albion, New York)
The U.S. Post Office in Albion, New York, is located on South Main Street in the center of town. It serves the 14411 ZIP Code, covering the village and town of Albion plus neighboring sections of the towns of Barre and Gaines....
in the Colonial Revival style was built opposite the courthouse and library, with two Greek Revival homes that had been there demolished in the process.
Swan Library itself was redecorated in 1952, only to have the original color scheme restored in 1975. Shortly before that the modernist new county jail had been built, the most recent construction in the district. An interest in preserving
Historic preservation
Historic preservation is an endeavor that seeks to preserve, conserve and protect buildings, objects, landscapes or other artifacts of historical significance...
the village's downtown culminated in the 1979 listing on the Register. The village created a Historic Preservation Commission to oversee its historic districts. It is charged with protecting and enhancing the landmarks within them and making the village more attractive to visitors in order to ensure growth and development.
Significant contributing properties
None of the district's 33 contributing propertiesContributing property
In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing resource or contributing property is any building, structure, or object which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic district, listed locally or federally, significant...
is currently independently listed on the National Register. The post office, within the district, was listed after the district, but is not considered to be contributing to the district because it was built after 1910, the end of the district's period of significance.
- Rufus Bullock House, 36 Liberty Street. The future governor of Georgia lived in an 1830 house typical of Federal style homes in the region.
- Sanford Church House, 4 Ingersoll Street. A large Federal style home built around 1840 with some Greek Revival decoration, it was the largest early home in the district.
- First Presbyterian Church, 29 East State Street. Andrew Jackson WarnerAndrew Jackson WarnerAndrew Jackson Warner , also known as A. J. Warner, was a prominent architect in Rochester, New York.Warner was born in Connecticut and came to Rochester circa 1847 as an apprentice to one of his uncles, Merwin Austin, for whom he worked as a draftsman. He was soon made a partner in his uncle's...
's 1894 building with its tall spire is the largest church in the district. - Free Methodist Church, East State Street. The Mother Church of the Free Methodists is an 1850s Carpenter GothicCarpenter GothicCarpenter Gothic, also sometimes called Carpenter's Gothic, and Rural Gothic, is a North American architectural style-designation for an application of Gothic Revival architectural detailing and picturesque massing applied to wooden structures built by house-carpenters...
-style building. - Orleans County Courthouse, Courthouse Square. William Barlow's 1858 Greek Revival centerpiece to the district is considered his most important building.
- Pullman Memorial Universalist Church, South Main and East Park streets. Solon Beman's 1894 stone church, endowed by his patron George PullmanGeorge PullmanGeorge Mortimer Pullman was an American inventor and industrialist. He is known as the inventor of the Pullman sleeping car, and for violently suppressing striking workers in the company town he created, Pullman .-Background:Born in Brocton, New York, his family moved to Albion,...
, has been described as the finest in the village Pullman once called home. - Surrogate's Building, Courthouse Square. Harvey Ellis's 1888 structure brought the Eastlake styleEastlake MovementThe Eastlake Movement was a nineteenth century architectural and household design reform movement started by architect and writer Charles Eastlake . The movement is generally considered part of the late Victorian period in terms of broad antique furniture designations...
to center stage in Albion. - Swan Library, 4 North Main Street. Barlow oversaw this 1840 house's conversion into the library it still serves as today.
- White-Marilotta House, 134 East State Street. Barlow's 1879 commission for a local judge marked the Second Empire's debut in the village.
External links
- Orleans County Courthouse Historic District, Albion, New York - U.S. National Register of Historic Places on Waymarking.com
- First Presbyterian Church, East State Street, Albion, Orleans County, NY: 3 photos, 2 data pages and 1 photo caption page, at Historic American Building Survey