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HISTORIAN’S CORNER
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PHELPS HISTORY
1850's - Churches, Banks, Cemeteries (Chap. 14)
By John M. Parmelee
The 1850 census showed that Ontario County had a population of 43,929 with 5,542 of them living in the Town of Phelps. 1850 was the year when the St. Francis Roman Catholic Society was formed. They held mission meetings until 1856 when Father O'Connor organized the building of a church. This church was on the corner of Eagle and Main Streets where Katherine MacAniff now lives. The church was a longer building. When MacAniff bought it, he moved the back end off and made it into another house on Eagle Street, remodeling the rest of the building into its present shape as a home. In 1870, when the Presbyterians reunited and settled into the church on East Main Street, they sold the white church building on Church Street to the St. Francis congregation. The Catholics also bought the old school house next door and made that into a rectory. In 1930-31 the white Church was torn down and the present Catholic Church was erected.
In 1852, Phelps, like many communities in that area, held an Annual Fair and Cattle Show. It was an Ontario County affair which was held in various communities in the county in different years. At the 1852 event, an address was given by Dr. Caleb Bannister and later printed, recording much of the early history of Phelps. That year, there were still three person alive who were here in 1791. They were Mrs. Wells Whitmore (sister of Mrs. Philetus Swift and daughter of Seth Deane), John Salisbury of Melvin Hill and John Robison (son of John Decker Robison) of Gypsum. Horse racing was an important part of the Fair. Phelps had a race track near the outlet on the east side of Mill Street. (In winter, races were held on the ice in the Outlet, the track going from the bridge on Rockefeller Road to the bridge on Mill Street.) In 1854, the Ontario County Fairgrounds at Canandaigua were established and all fairs were held there from then on.
The B.M. Coon house next to the Town Hall was built in 1853. It is now the Harold Andrews residence.
Slavery had been prohibited in New York State since 1788, but in 1800 several people moved from Maryland to Phelps and brought their slaves with them. Before the Civil War, there were quite a few salves in the Township. As these slaves died, most were buried in the southwest corner of the Pioneer Cemetery. Several prominent persons in the town also harbored fugitive slaves who had run away from their masters in the South. Many had secret places in homes or barns where salves could spend time and not be found by the authorities. From here they would resume their journey to Canada. This area was part of the Underground Railroad movement in the 1850's, especially after the Supreme Court declared the Fugitive Slave Law unconstitutional in 1857.
In 1855 the village was incorporated with the name of Phelps. It was necessary to change the name from Vienna because there was another incorporated village in New York State already using that name. The name Phelps had been used before that time, but from then on it was official.
In that same year, Anson Titus bought the Gamewell and Athley Ax Company just east of William Street on Flint Creek where Agway now has a storehouse. Titus had a shop at his home on Eagle Street at that time. He was a skilled mechanic and inventor and started to make plows at the Titus Plow Company. His Number 9 Plow won international acclaim
An unusual incident took place in 1864 during the Civil War when Billy Titus, son of Anson, was fighting near Fredericksburg, Virginia. He was under fire from the Confederates and sought refuge in a field behind a plow which saved his life. He noticed that the plow was a Titus plow made in Phelps, New York. He was later killed in the Battle of Spotsylvania.
Titus made thousands of plows here until 1873 when he sold the business to L.P. Thompson, father of Robert Thompson who went to school in Phelps and grew up to become one of the most famous sons of the area. L.P. Thompson died in 1889 and the family sold the business to George Pond and his son-in-law, George H. Parmelee. Mr. Pond died two months later and G.H. Parmelee continued the business under the name of the Phelps Chilled Plow Company until 1902. He sold the business to the Zenith Stove Works, but that company soon failed and the Geneva Foundry Company took over. They sold it to the Andes Stove Company. By the time of Mr. Parmelee's death in 1923, the business was no longer operating.
Mrs. Parmelee sold the buildings to the Grange League Federation in 1924, and they are now used as storage space by Agway, the company who bought out G.L.F. G.L.F. had started making paint there in the 1930's, but soon discontinued. Theodore Flood, who had worked there, started his own paint business known as Finger Lakes Paint Company, which he is still operating, with his son Tom, in the old stone building on Exchange St.
The year 1856 saw the building of two new churches in the community - St. John's Episcopal Church on Church Street and the brick Methodist Church on Main Street. The Methodist Church was built on the site of the old Yellow Meeting House. The Episcopal Church, which now houses the Phelps Community Memorial Library, has been placed on the National Register of Historic Buildings. At one time, a building just southeast of this church was used as a roller-skating rink. When the Methodist Church was torn down in 1984, Phelps lost one of its main village landmarks. The Methodist and Presbyterian congregation combined in 1974 to form the United Church of Phelps, holding services in the Presbyterian building.
In 1857, Leman B. Hotchkiss II formed a bank. Thaddeus Hotchkiss ran the bank for years, followed by William B. Hotchkiss. Another bank was also operating at that time. Caruso Crane and Mr. Norton were bankers and brokers. Crane owned most of the land south of Pleasant Street, which he bought from Joel Stearns,
The land for the Rest Haven Cemetery was bought by Leman Hotchkiss in 1857. He sold burial lots and operated the cemetery for years. The Pioneer Cemetery was closed by that time as all grave sites there had been filled. Also in 1857, land was purchased for the Pinewood Cemetery north of the village on Pinewood Road.
The last years of the decade saw changes in the community. In 1858 the Eagle Mill burned to the ground on Eagle Street. The same year saw the brick church on East Main Street built by the Presbyterians. The following year brought a carding mill, owned by Francis Root, on Granger land, just east of North Wayne Street and north of the Outlet. A pea vinery stood there from the early 1900's until it was torn down in the 1920's.
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