Author: bleeckerhistoricalsociety

Over the past 150 plus years, Bleecker has been home to five different churches, including an early log cabin church in the mid-1800's. At the July meeting of our Society, Eleanor Brooks, Bleecker Town Historian, will enlighten us on the history of these churches down through the years using maps, photos, and deed information as well as documented history and legends.

Ice Cream Social AUGUST 16, 2016

1 to 4 p.m.

The Old School Museum

Lily Lake Road, Bleecker

Tickets $2.50

Bake sale with homemade items.

Entertainment by Durey Creek Band

PHOTO ARCHIVES

The Bleecker Historical Society is interested in acquiring a Photo Archives of Bleecker–from early times to the present.  We have the capability to scan your photos (or slides) on-site and return them to you immediately.  If you have any such photos of interest, i.e. old homesteads, mills, etc.; new construction…from home to public buildings to highways, lakes, etc., please contact us.  We can arrange a date and time agreeable with you. 

How does it work?

1. Bring your Bleecker photos or slides to the Bleecker Town Hall.

2. Tell us (or ask us!) about your photos: who, what, when, where.

3. Upon request we will scan your photos and return them with a copy on CD.

4. With your permission we will upload select photos to our web gallery. 

For further information, including a FAQ, donation form and photo info form, click on the buttons below:

Click on the link above to download a list of Frequently Asked Questions.

Click on the link above to download a photo donation form.

By day, Gabrielle Ellers is the most wonderful person you never hope to meet. She works as an oncology lab technician, a job in which her immense kindness, her quick wit and her down-to-earth humor sustain patients and their families through some of the darkest moments of their lives. In her off hours, Gabby expresses this same spirit of joy and humanity through her music. Gabby is a member of the Mohawk Valley Chorus, whose 2013 Pops Concert she opened with a solo rendition of Kris Kristofferson's "Me and Bobby McGee." She also performed recently at Mountain Valley Hospice in Gloversville, where she brought down the house with a collection of old favorites. Hear her haunting version of Concrete Blonde's "Joey" on Gabby's MySpace page, and join us on June 10 to give her a big Bleecker welcome. Please note that the Society meets the second Monday in June, as the Bleecker Town Hall is otherwise occupied on the first.

Thirteen years ago, Bob and Deb Landrio turned a personal passion for 1950s Americana into a small museum on the outskirts of Johnstown. The Town Line Museum, located at 3261 State Highway 29W, documents the postwar heyday of United States history through an array of memorabilia that began as a private collection in the early 1960s and blossomed into a series of cohesive exhibits, including an ice cream parlor and a barber shop. This year, they have published a companion book, replete with photographs of the exhibits. On May 6th, Bob and Deb will present a program recounting the challenges and rewards of building a museum from scratch, from the acquisition and care of artifacts to their arrangement and interpretation for a broad public. Please join us to learn about their accomplishment and remember the era it commemorates. Our regular meeting will begin at 7pm; the talk will commence at 8.

The Bleecker Historical Society starts off 2013 with a bang on Monday, 1 April, when we welcome guest speaker Bob Cudmore. Perhaps best known for his late-night radio show "Contact" on WGY from 1980 to 1993, Bob has written numerous articles for The Daily Gazette focusing on the history of the Mohawk Valley. He has also produced and narrated historical documentaries on topics from Mark Twain to his native city of Amsterdam. Today, Bob hosts a morning radio show on Lite 104.7 FM and 1570 AM WVTL, as well as teaching in the Department of Communications at the College of St. Rose. His most recent book, Stories from the Mohawk Valley: the Painted Rocks, the Good Benedict Arnold and More, was published in 2011. Bob's talk will begin at 7pm at the Bleecker Town Hall, to be followed by our regular meeting.

Our new year begins on 1 April; please stay tuned for an announcement of our 2013 program. In the meanwhile, our President's report summarizes our accomplishments and activities for 2012. Please click the link to open a PDF.

Join us for our annual Christmas Open House on Sunday, 16 December 2012 from 1pm-5pm. The Open House will be held at The Old School Museum, 114 Lily Lake Road in Bleecker (please see our Directions page for details). We'll provide the refreshments; you bring the memories and memorabilia to share! The Christmas Open House is free of charge. Tours of the 19th century schoolhouse will be available.

The Society will hold its Annual Meeting for members at 7pm on Monday, 26 November 2012 at the Bleecker Town Hall. This meeting is for members only, and there will be no program. The agenda will include the Society budget for 2013 and elections for three officers: President, Vice President and Secretary. Hope to see you there!

Women's labor is one of the hidden histories of the Adirondacks. In contrast to the delicate feminine ideal popularized by the media of the Victorian Era (and lingering through our own historical epoch), North Country women have undertaken a vast variety of arduous labors in factory and field, workshop and wilderness, household and heath. On November 5, speaker Hallie Bond will present a talk not only on the history of Adirondack women's work, but on its methodology and historiography. How can we discover women's labor beyond the typical historical methods of oral and archival research? To what extent can we learn about such work by recreating it, using the tools and methods employed by our ancestors? What can we learn about women's history through folklore, myth, and material culture?

Hallie E. Bond has been Curator at the Adirondack Museum since 1987. She has written extensively on regional history and material culture including Boats and Boating in the Adirondacks, published by Syracuse University Press in 1995, "A Paradise for Boys and Girls: Children's Camps in the Adirondacks," along with numerous articles in magazines and contributions to books. She has been a member of the Speakers in the Humanities program sponsored by the New York Council for the Humanities since 2010.  Ms. Bond has a B.A. in History from the University of Colorado, an M.A. in Medieval Studies from the University of York (England) and an M.A. in American History with a Certificate in Museum Studies from the University of Delaware. She lives in Long Lake, NY, with her husband Mason Smith and two children.

Our regular meeting begins at 7pm at the Bleecker Town Hall, and the presentation will follow. Please join us!

History buffs may have spotted Don Williams' Inside the Blue Line article in the September 23rd edition of The Sunday Leader Herald entitled "Ice Harvesters Had the Right Tools for a Cool Job" (page 3E). Following our October meeting at 7pm on Monday the 1st, the Society is pleased to host the person who literally wrote the book on Adirondack ice: author Caperton Tissot, who will present a program on the role of ice in Adirondack work and play. Caperton's publications include Between the Lines: Women's Lives and Saranac Lake Customs, Saranac Lake's Ice Palace: A History of Winter Carnival's Crown Jewel, and Adirondack Ice: A Cultural and Natural History. She has also contributed articles to Adirondack Daily Enterprise, Adirondack Explorer, and Adirondack Life Magazine. Before her retirement in 2005, she worked in diverse fields from health care to pottery. Please join us for an in-depth historical consideration of the phenonenon the North Country loves and dreads in equal measure: ice!