Question: After World War II and the return home of many veterans who chose to settle in this area, the school-age population grew at an accelerated rate. This was the time of the erection of several of our school buildings. In 1961, the construction of an elementary school was started in the Cold Spring area. If you look closely at the school building in the picture, you will see what we now call L. Pearl Palmer Elementary School. How are the items inserted in the photo related to this event?
Last week’s answer: Haven Grove Farm was located in Stiles, the southeast corner of the town of Van Buren, just outside Camillus. Floyd Voorhees, a neighbor of farm owner John William Hughes, was peddling milk.
The wire carrier in Voorhees’ hand holds four empty glass bottles, a clue that Voorhees had a route whereby full bottles of milk would be delivered and the “empties” would be retrieved to be refilled and used again.
Glass milk bottles were patented first in New York state in 1884. Prior to that time, milk peddlers would dip milk out of huge cans and pour it into whatever receptacle the customer had in hand. Pre-filled bottles were both more sanitary and more efficient. Their development also signaled the beginning of a new era in milk production and distribution.
Hughes named his farm after a popular and well-known neighboring Methodist camp meeting ground, Haven Grove. Opened in 1881 on land purchased from John Ecker, Haven Grove honored nationally recognized Methodist Bishop Erastus Otis Haven, who had recently left his position as chancellor of Syracuse University to assume his new duties as a bishop.
Operated by the Syracuse District, the new Methodist camp meeting ground ran an eight-day program each August from 1881 through 1891. Located less than half a mile from the DL&W and S&O train stop, Haven Grove was readily accessible to folks throughout the Syracuse area. A canopy was built at the train stop and omnibus service was available to take participants directly to the meeting ground.
The grounds were thoughtfully laid out, the tabernacle being the focal point. Amenities included a boarding house, dining hall with kitchen, grocery and meat markets, a tent tabernacle (complete with pulpit, pump organ and amphitheater seating for 500), 75 set up tents to rent, spaces for those bringing their own tents and stabling for horses. Dining hall service was available at a cost of 25 cents each for breakfast and supper; dinner was 30 cents. Boarding for the season was available for $5.
All were welcome. Visitors came for the week, a few days, an afternoon, or just a couple of hours. Attendees numbered in the hundreds. They came from throughout the Syracuse area, from Skaneateles to Oswego Bitters, Baldwinsville, Liverpool, Lysander and everywhere in between.
The week was fully scheduled with prayer, meditation, music, guest lecturers and preachers. Programs were in place for everyone from children through adults. The day began at 5:45 a.m. and schedules were posted on the large trees that filled the grove.
A report in 1890 noted that, while attendance was still very good, there was “ample room for more.” A Syracuse reporter had noted “the number of regular attendees seem to grow less and less, and the time will soon come when old-time camp-meetings will be only a historical fact.”
The annual sessions continued for one more season. Aug. 24, 1891, marked the final day of camp-meetings at Haven Grove.
Contact Editor Sarah Hall at [email protected] or leave a message at 434-8889 ext. 310 with your guess by 5 p.m. Friday (please leave the information in the message; we are not generally able to return calls regarding History Mystery responses). If you are the first person to correctly identify an element in the photo before the deadline, your name and guess will appear in next week’s Messenger, along with another History Mystery feature. History Mystery is a joint project of the Museum at the Shacksboro Schoolhouse and the Baldwinsville Public Library.
