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Showing posts from February, 2016

How Times Change

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                                                  Lindley Town Hall -Post Office and Grange Hall - 1898-1972      Was built in 1898 along with the iron bridge (shown in first photo) after the major flood of 1889 destroyed many buildings ,etc  in this area.    Records from Steuben County Legislators' Reports show town officials receiving permission for bonds to pay for the bridge. It took several years to pay for it..        The first Post Office was in Judge Eleazer Lindsley, Jr.'s home. He served as the first  Postmaster and letters were addressed to Lindleytown , New York State.        Old histories report that when Col.Lindsley was elected to the New York  Legislature in 1792, Post Offices were few and far between -the main one in New York City. The Colonel was alerted by a friend of the availability of a position in the NYS Legislature. Since there was no media as known today, most voters in the Ontario County District (which Lin

Another View of Downtown Lindley

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In 1951, William Burr- born 1870  in Lindley wrote a History of Lindley. This is one of the photos in the book which was owned by Kathryn Loughridge. A copy is in the Lindley historian files at the  Lindley Town Hall. Mr. Burr -a lawyer attended Alfred University and Cornell. He practiced in Rochester, NY and worked in the oil business in Wyoming before retiring to Massachusetts .   Note       The barn is about where the Austin store-( built about 1953 ) was located next to the present Town Hall. The school ( #2) - the little white  building on left of the Church (#1) was located near the Tioga River. The 1972 flood  ended its existence.   Across the  river is the Middlebrook home now owned by the Squires family (the grove of trees to the right is the old Middlebrook Cemetery).    The extensive lumber industry of the 1840's-1850's left the denuded hillsides.   (#3 is the last house below the Church- Mr.Burr's birthplace . )