Question: The building in this photo with the trolley tracks in front once stood near the Four Corners. Do you know where? Two different businesses used it as an office over the course of its years. Do you know what the businesses were?
Last week’s answer: The photos last week were of L. Pearl Palmer Elementary School on Hicks Road on the Cold Spring peninsula. The inserted photos show some types of Native American artifacts found on the site during the archaeological dig that was done previous to the construction.
Joshua V.H. Clark, noted early historian and author of the “History of Onondaga County,” published in 1849, described the remains of an old Indian fort on Lot 89. This was the site of the new elementary school that was being built in 1961. His history describes the remains of the old fort on that lot as being “circular in form and enclosing at least three acres of ground. When first discovered by the whites, it had a ditch around it about four feet deep. On the outside and on the inside of the ditch was an embankment, the one on the outside being a little higher. There was also a gateway.”
When excavation for the school was begun, archaeologists obtained permission to search for artifacts; unfortunately the heavy rain and the muddy soil limited their discoveries. However, over 500 pieces of pottery were found in the soil. There were also clay pipes, 10 bone awls some made from deer bone, hammer stones and a few pieces of flint and flat net sinkers and, of course, many arrowheads. Unfortunately, over the years they have all disappeared.
The present road going by the school is said to pass directly through the center of the old fort which was located one and a half miles from the Seneca River.
Much of this information came from Lysander’s noted historian and longtime teacher, L. Pearl Palmer, who was honored by having the school named after her.
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.
