LeRoy Pennysaver & News

LE ROY PENNYSAVER & NEWS - SEPTEMBER 1, 2019 by Lynne Belluscio I suspect it has been quite a while since some of you have been through LeRoy House. I kiddingly say, that if all of the people who live in LeRoy and have never been through LeRoy House, show up on the same day, we’re going to be in trou- ble. So, I thought some of you might want an armchair tour. Welcome to historic LeRoy House, formerly the land office for the Triangle Tract. It was enlarged in 1822 into a resi- dence for Jacob LeRoy, the land agent for the Triangle Tract, and son of Herman LeRoy, the town’s namesake. Jacob LeRoy and his wife Charlotte, moved into the house in 1822. They lived here with their nine chil- dren and several servants until they moved back to New York City in 1837. From 1856 to 1864, Sam- uel Cox, the first Chancellor of Ingham University, lived in the house. His sixteen-year-old daughter Mary, wrote about her memories of living in the house and attending Ingham Univer- sity across the street. When his wife died in 1864, Cox sold the house and it became the boarding house for students and faculty for the LeRoy Aca- demic Institute. A large school building stood where the park- ing lot is now. Eventually the LeRoy Academic Institute was purchased by the LeRoy Union Free school and a large stone addition was built in 1898. This stone building is now the Jell-O Gallery and office and library for the LeRoy Historical Soci- ety. Allen Olmsted bought the LeRoy House and the school buildings and leased LeRoy House to the LeRoy Union Free School to be used as a home for the Superintendent and his family. In 1939, Superintendent Edward Spry, his wife and their two boys were the last family to live in the house. In 1940, Allen Olmsted donated the house to the Le- Roy Historical Society and it became a museum. Three floors are open to the public and the rooms are furnished in different periods which reflect the people who lived here. In the far corner is Jacob LeRoy’s desk with the inden- ture book for the Triangle Tract. His father Herman’s portrait hangs above the mantle. Her- man, a wealthy merchant and banker from New York City and his business partner, William Bayard, bought 87,000 acres of land known as the Triangle Tract in 1793. The point of the triangle was just south of here and it extended all the way north to Lake Ontario. Settlers would come to the office to register their land and sign an indenture. The indenture books and papers were stored in a small vault room off the office. On the table is a surveyor’s chain and compass. Land was measured in “chains” and “links.” The portrait above the desk is Dr. Sheldon, one of LeRoy’s first physicians and the town’s first supervisor. He was a veter- an of the War of 1812 and was the aide-de-camp to General Davis, who was killed at the Battle of Black Rock. Dr. Shel- don was captured by the British and held in prison in Montreal for almost a year. He retained a hatred for the British for the rest of his life. Daniel Webster’s portrait is right of the door. He was the Senator from Massachusetts. After his first wife died, Dan- iel married Jacob LeRoy’s sis- ter, Caroline. The Senator was known for living beyond his means, and Caroline came with a large dowry. The Websters visited here after their marriage in 1829. Jacob LeRoy moved his land office up the street – where the parking lot on the corner of Church Street is located. It is believed that this room con- tinued to be his private office and the entrance was located to the right of the fireplace. This provided access for his clients, separate from the private family front door. Jacob LeRoy invest- ed in the community to make it attractive to potential investors. He enlarged the flour mill and built another mill north of town and connected it by a mill race to the headwaters in the mill pond. He owned a distillery, so farmers could convert their corn into whiskey. He was a partner in a store that was locat- ed at the corner at the east end of the Main Street bridge and Wolcott Street. He was the first president of the Genesee Coun- ty Agricultural Society. When he collected samples of what he thought might have been gold he sent them to New York to be assayed. Unfortunately, he learned that he had discovered fool’s gold. Through the years, this room has been adapted for many uses. When the house was a boarding house, this room was connected to the bedroom above by a circular staircase and the two rooms were an apart- ment for the principal of the Le- Roy Academic Institute. The wall paper is a repro- duction of an early 19th cen- tury block print pattern. The 18th century English tall case clock was donated to the His- torical Society by the estate of Ernest Woodward, and strikes on the quarter hour. Original- ly the room was heated only by the fireplace – one of nine in the house. Later at the end of the 1800s, a steam boiler was built in the basement, and radi- ators were installed in most of the rooms. At some point, the kerosene chandelier, now elec- trified, will be replaced by a reproduction argand chandelier, more suitable to the era of the LeRoy’s. House Tour Surveyor’s Chain LAND OFFICE – circa 1822