Mexico, New York
by Theresa St. John
I could almost hear the hushed whispers in the dead of night, conversations that quietly made arrangements to ‘transfer goods’ to the next station, another step towards freedom from slavery.
Starr Clark and his wife, Harriet Loomis Clark, arrived in the Village of Mexico during 1832. They moved into a modest home on Main Street, next door to a commercial building that quickly became his tin shop.
Because the property was set in the center of this little village and had easy access to three major routes, both the home and tin shop were invaluable to the abolitionist movement and Underground Railroad.
Walking through each room of Clark’s Tin Shop, I was able to take all the time I wanted, looking at many historic items and reading through so much fascinating information about the people and clandestine movement of the time.
Starr Clark’s Tin Shop became a gathering place for local abolitionists. It became home to Mexico’s first anti-slavery society, with all members intent on helping move slaves to a place where they could be free, no longer the property of another man.
There have been stories over the years, about a tunnel connecting Star’s private residence to the tin shop. Archeological digs and studies haven’t unearthed anything concrete to confirm those claims. There is proof, however, of other tunnels nearby, leading from private homes towards the Little Salmon River, beyond.
Starr Clark and his wife offered a temporary haven to fugitive slaves, in the attic of their home. They gave families, desperate for freedom, directions and solid contacts to the lake ports of Oswego, Cape Vincent, Port Ontario and Sackets Harbor. Once there, each could secure passage to Canada and a new life.
There were many handwritten letters available to read at the museum. They were stained with age, placed in simple frames and hung on the walls. The words were extremely moving to me. It was hard, not to start sobbing, when I read the words of Gerrit Smith.
The gentleman was writing the United Herald newspaper, letting the editor know how two fugitive slaves, Williams and Scott, had made their way to the safety of Canada, thanks, in part, to Starr Clark.
In recent years, the museum obtained funding and has undergone extensive work to stabilize the structure and return the building to it’s mid-1800s appearance. During my visit, I was told that the original wall planks and ceilings had been exposed and preserved.
The tin shop today is set up to show how things were way-back-when. A good tinsmith could fashion a tin pan in less than 20 minutes.
A shop like this was the heart of the community, a place where people could gather and talk about current events, a haven where escape plans and transportation routes could be secured for freedom seekers.
I stood still in the center of the room. It was so quiet, I could have heard a pin drop. But, I didn’t. I swear, instead, a group of voices, sighing together, “Thank you, Starr. Thank you, Mexico. We’re free now.”
If You Go:
♦ The Starr Clark Tin Shop and Underground Railroad Museum is at 3250 Main Street, Mexico New York,13114.
♦ Mexico also has walking tours and many other attractions that you can visit while there.
About the author:
Theresa St. John is a freelance writer and photographer based in Saratoga Springs, New York. Her stock photography images have appeared in many Japanese publications, educational posts and numerous restaurant, construction and other blogging sites. Theresa submits photo essays with any magazine article she submits, which has made many editors happy with her work. She has written for Great Escape Publishing, International Living Magazine, Vacation Rental Travels Magazine, Discover Saratoga, Saratoga Mama, Saratoga Living, Farming Magazine, Travel Thru History, Mapquest and a UK publication; Historic Gardens Review, to name a few. She has traveled extensively, but keeps adding places to her bucket list. Proud Mom of 2 sons, and Nonnie to 6 rescue dogs, 2 Chinchillas and a bird, she enjoys life’s little moments. Theresa loves to write about things that are local and adores all things ‘history.’
Photo Credits:
Starr Clark Tin Shop exterior by JaPaGaIII / CC BY-SA
All other photos are by Theresa St.John:
Interior of Tin Shop
Image of slave manacles and original copy of Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Examples of tin items that were made and used in the 1800s
Interior image of Tin Shop and actual mail room area
Usually in such a place, you may only view rooms from a doorway and snap a photo, so imagine my delight to find that for the same price as the Best Western a few blocks away, you can spend the night in this piece of living history.
Mr. Bandini was known for both his huge parties, and his political involvement. Guests travelled long distances to attend his famous 3 day fandangos involving food, drinks, music and a favorite of Mr. Bandini’s, dancing. Though known as a gracious host, it was not all fun and games for Juan Bandini. Many important political meetings that shaped the history of California were held right here in the salon. Here, along with other prominent Californios, Bandini planned revolts against more than one Mexican ruler of the day. During the Mexican-American war Juan Bandini was an American supporter and this home was the headquarters for Commodore Stockton. It was here that scout Kit Carson was sent by General Kearny to request aid in the battle of San Pasqual.
In his later years, Juan Bandini’s fortunes dwindled and the Casa de Bandini fell into disrepair, but the purchase by Stagecoach owner, Albert Seeley and his wife in 1869 brought new life to the old Casa. The Seeley’s had a frame structure built right on top of the existing adobe, adding the second story with wrap around porch, creating a hotel to service Seeley’s growing stage coach business. This location again became the social hub of the town and one of the most important hotel-stage stops in Southern California. It is to these glory days that the current rooms have been restored.
Heading upstairs and walking along the expansive 2nd story veranda overlooking San Diego’s old town, it’s easy to daydream about what life might have been like in the hotels’ heyday. Close your eyes as the dry dust rises in small clouds from the dirt streets below. Listen for the clatter of the horses pulling the stagecoach up in front of the hotel to unload passengers, weary from the 35 hour passage from Los Angeles. Imagine the laughter of the saloon crowd, the bustle of the town, and the rustle of crinolines as women pass on their way to the haberdashery.
Opening the faux finished door from the veranda reveals a room filled with period furnishings. A globe shaped lamp, fashioned after the old kerosene style, sits on the table beside the dark, ornately carved bed. Wallpaper, in vintage patterns of leaves and vines form a backdrop for the thick red velvet curtains trimmed with large gold tassels. Double hung, wood framed windows on either side of the door look out onto the veranda and the town below. Each room has its own characters and features, like fireplaces or sitting rooms, though you will not find a TV in the room to distract from the authenticity of the place. The comfy cotton quilt seems like a perfect place to curl up with a book.
When Seeley built his grand stagecoach hotel with 20 guestrooms in 1869, it may surprise you to learn that it did not include indoor plumbing. Chamber pots and outhouses were the facilities of the day. Indoor plumbing was not added until 1930. Don’t worry though, although the 2010 restoration, overseen by teams of experts and historians, included the use of as much of the original materials as possible, the bathrooms are not original. The 20 rooms were converted into 10 unique guestrooms, accommodating guest bathrooms that include pull chain toilets, pedestal sinks, modern rain head showers and in some cases antique copper or wooden soaker tubs. It still has that 1880s feeling but with all the modern conveniences.
Leaving the hotel to explore, you are just steps from museums, interpretative displays artisans, shops, restaurants, and a theater. When night falls and the park closes, you are left with unique access to Old Town, to quietly contemplate what it was like for those early settlers of the Wild West.
All photos by Amy Muschik:
Quezada’s modest gallery is on the corner of the main street across from the historic, refurbished railroad line. As I enter, the artist, now in his early seventies, breezes in from the side room. Dressed in a faded tan cowboy hat, trim, medium height, bantamweight, looking fit as an Oklahoma rodeo wrangler, he welcomes me: “Buenas tardes, señor. Mi casa es su casa,” His rugged, suntanned face exudes a quiet humility and keen curiosity shaped by his many years of desert life. Later, he puts his arm around me, and Dick snaps my photo.
The pale sky-blue adobe walls in the front room are lined with ollas and vases, glazed in a rainbow of rust-red, brown, and eggshell hues and painted with intricate, geometric designs. Sunlight, streaming through the thin violet-blue curtains, casts an iridescent glow on them. I am mesmerized by their spiral, thin-walled shapes and meticulously painted and etched patterns.
My mind wanders as the room slowly fills with the lyrical beauty of Garcia’s baritone voice and guitar strumming. I gaze out the window. The heat glimmers over the parched, dust-colored land. Nothing seems to be alive except patches of creosote and agave clinging to the desert emptiness. How could such incredible artistic beauty come to exist in such a remote, hardscrabble place?
“The first time I saw those pieces,” Juan tells me in Spanish, “I knew I had found a hidden treasure. I knew that the ancient ones must have found the materials here.” Over many years, he has patiently experimented with different clays, pigments, drawing and firing techniques to make ollas or pots with the ancient culture’s iconography and design.
Like a tale out of the Wizard of Oz, it began in 1976 when MacCallum stopped off at a second-hand swap shop in the New Mexico border town of Deming where he bought three unsigned pots. Intrigued by their intricate beauty and wondering if they were pre-Columbian in origin, he embarked on an adventure south that would take him to Mata Ortiz and the unknown potter.
The homes, some humble brick adobes; others larger cinder-block buildings, resonate with an infectious warmth and vitality for work. Children breeze in and out as if flying on broomsticks. Pots and vases line oilcloth-covered tables. I look over the shoulders of men and women as they shape, polish and paint at tiny sunlit work stations. They shape the lower portion of the object in a plaster mold, place a single coil of clay atop it, and then by hand work the clay upwards to form their thin-walled bowls, jars, and pots.
Today, one of Quezada’s pots can sell for thousands of dollars. In 1999, he received the Premio Nacional de Ciencias y Artes, Mexico’s highest award given to a living Mexican-born artist.
I wound my way through the ruins on a trail which took me backward in time. Pueblo Grande began as a small settlement around AD 450 and grew to over fifteen hundred people. The mound village was one of the largest Hohokam settlements in the area. At one time there were over fifty mound villages in the Salt River Valley. They got their names from the platform mounds at their centre. The mounds were urban centres with large open plazas where ceremonies were likely performed and were built with trash or soil and then capped with caliche, a lime-rich soil found in the desert which makes a good plaster when mixed with water. Pueblo Grande also included residential “suburbs”, astronomical observation facilities, waste disposal facilities, and ball courts.
I walked past the remains of the platform mound, the ball court, special purpose rooms, and the Solstice Room. At summer solstice sunrise and winter solstice sunset, the sun’s rays passed through the corner door and onto another door in the middle of the south wall of the Solstice Room. Some researchers think the room may have been used as a calendar.
Pueblo Grande was built at the headwaters of a major canal system. The Hohokam cultivated many plant species, including maize, cotton, squash, amaranth, little barley, and beans. Unlike today, The Salt River ran year round during Hohokam days. But the arid desert environment did not produce enough rainfall to grow crops. The Hohokam built over one thousand miles of canals and engineered the largest and most sophisticated irrigation system in the Americas, no small feat considering the primitive tools they had.
Mesa Grande Cultural Park contains the ruins of a temple mound built by the Hohokam between AD 1100 and AD 1400. At first glance, I was not impressed with the site. Just a mound of dirt and a ditch. The site became more interesting as I walked through it and viewed it in context of the historical information provided on sign posts. The Park of the Canals contains no mound village but displays the remains of over four thousand feet of Hohokam canals in three different sections. Also located with the Park is the Brinton Desert Botanical Garden, a small garden containing plants found within the desert environment.
Canals remain important to irrigation within the greater Phoenix area today with nine major canals and over nine hundred miles of “laterals”, ditches taking water from the canals to delivery points. Paths alongside the waterways are used for walking, running and biking. Scottsdale, one of the other cities in the greater Phoenix area, has turned a canal area into a modern meeting place and tourist draw. The banks of Scottsdale Waterfront, in a revitalized area of downtown Scottsdale, are lined with palm trees, public art, courtyards, fountains, and walking paths. The area contains restaurants, outdoor cafés, specialty shops, and high-rise residential buildings, and hosts music and art festivals. It feels worlds away from its ancient Hohokam roots.
About the author:
There are places that tell your body and mind to slow down; to let the world come to you in unhurried steps. Places as beautiful as they are restful, as intrinsically informative as a guided tour yet far from the madding crowd.
Though frequent visitors to the island this trip was a first for we had rented an oceanside cabin at Overbury Farm Resort. Still in the family of the original 1909 homesteader Geraldine Hoffman the farm, which originally gained renown for its eggs, became a resort in the 1930’s and pursues that legacy with manored elegance to this day. Our self-contained, modern cabin was a short forest walk to the gracefully aging and carefully tended manor house on Crescent Point, which owns a magnificent setting and ocean view, set amidst lawn, gardens and trees.
Owner Norm Kasting told us of a short cut trail through the forest to St. Margaret’s Cemetery and from there to the Capernwray grounds which cut off a good 30 minutes in our trek to the Telegraph Harbour Marina and Pub. As it is our wont to walk and explore we found our way to the cemetery and read, amid the tended lawn setting, how it was donated as a cemetery by early Island resident Henry Burchell in 1927. Its turf was even earlier turned to welcome the remains of a Burchell in 1924. It has since become the final resting place of a number the Overbury Farm-owning family, including pioneering Geraldine Hoffman.
A gateway opened to the grounds of Capernwray and access to wide grinning Preddy Bay beach where you can wander and explore with tended grounds behind and Vancouver Island panorama before. Capernwray asks that if you wish to enjoy walking their idyllic grounds that you check in at their office behind Preddy Hall. The whitewashed hall stands singularly elegant at the centre of the grounds. And walking their grounds is worth it. There are cared-for lawns with gardens, ponds and visiting Canada Geese, sedate Holstein cattle dotting the greens and views out to Chemainus from whence you can spot the ferry leisurely making its endless crossing. Capernwray offers the opportunity to dine at their hall, which dates back to 1927, along with the students. (Call to reserve 250-246-9440).
A stroll along Foster Point Road to the south of the island takes you past a massive Arbutus tree compelling the road to go around it. Grand as it is it is but second best to another, which rests near the community hall, and is acclaimed the largest Arbutus in B.C. A spider network of paved and unpaved roads offers up miles of leisurely strolling and exploring.
A quiet inland hike can be picked up near the one room school house. Here the solitude of an enveloping forest can hush the busiest of minds.
All photos are by Glen Cowley:
