Sony dslr-A700 – Michael Stephen Wills Photography

19th Century Enfield Falls

A Bit of History

February 11, 2023December 14, 2022 MichaelStephenWills

“Enfield Falls, like many other towns, grew around its grist and sawmills. Farmers coming to this mill about the middle of the 19th century could do errands while waiting for their grain to be ground. In Enfield Falls at that time, there were two sawmills, a shingle mill, cooperage, tannery, carding factory, store and hotel. By the late 19th century there was also a post office.”

“As farmers turned asway from growing wheat, Enfield Falls evolved from a busy milling center to a place appreciated for scenery and a quality hotel. Robert and Henrietta Wickham build and ran the hotel for many years during the middle of the 19th century. The hotel hosted popular dances in its ballroom. Guests could also dine and rest at the hotel.”

This placard from the Mill Museum at Treman Park is the source of much of today’s information. I used italics and quotes to attribute this source.

The sign in the heading of this post “hung near the hotel at least as early as 1883. In that year, D. Morris Kurtz mentioned it in his “Ithaca and Its Resources”: “At the foot of the hill is the Enfield Falls Hotel, but you look around in vain for the falls or even any sign of them. Upon the side of the stable into which our horses are driven is nailed a small board, on which is painted ‘Admission to the Falls, 10 cents.’ In reply to our inquiry the bright little urchin that takes charge of the team says, ‘Down there they are,’ pointing to the rocky wall which apparently forms the eastern and an unsurmountable boundary to the valley. And to ‘down there’ we proceed……“

Treman Gorge Trail from the Old Mill enters a narrow gallery looking here southeast along Enfield Creek, passing over a stone footbridge. This was the control point in the 19th century for collecting the ten cent admission fee. Here are some photographs of the entrance as it exists today. The retaining wall, footpath and stone bridge were constructed in the 1930’s by the Civilian Conservation Corps. The site was far rougher for those earlier visitors.

The Gorge Trail next to Enfield Creek on a midsummer morning. Robert H. Treman State Park, Ithaca, Tompkins County, New York

Photograph captured on a midsummer morning. Robert H. Treman State Park, Ithaca, Tompkins County, New York

Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills

Underground Railroad

Autumn Wonder

October 17, 2021October 13, 2021 MichaelStephenWills5 Comments

We have often travelled Lower Creek Road as an alternate route to visit my son and his family who live in Freeville, a village named for the activity of the Underground Railroad. After noticing this sign in passing for years, this week we stopped on a glorious autumn morning to capture it. I had packed the Sony Alpha 700 dslr for just such an opportunity.

Just off the road, under a maple tree in full autumn color (yellow), ground covered with fallen leaves (brown) on a fine early October morning, the sign reads, “New York, UNDERGROUND RAILROAD, HOME OF WILLIAM HANFORD AND WIFE ALTHA C. TODD, WHO SHELTERED FUGITIVE SLAVES ON THE WAY TO CANADA AND FREEDOM, STATE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT 1932”. These dark blue background, bright yellow letter signed are found throughout this region and much appreciated.

An added plus for me is the acceptance of both photographs by Getty Istock. Click this link to view a selection of my Getty photography in and around Ithaca, New Yor k .

Copyright 2021 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

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A Dangerous Game

January 3, 2021January 2, 2021 MichaelStephenWills5 Comments

Hard on the Ithaca City Cemetery is our version of the crookedest street. Cascadilla Park road ascends East Hill as a series of switchbacks, charming homes cut into the hillside. A foot path overlooks the gorge, seen here.

Today, two young teens used the hill bottom for skateboarding. Taking turns on watch, each sped onto intersecting University Avenue. A dangerous game.

A brass plaque commemorates Daniel D Tompkins on eponymous Tompkins County courthouse. When the county was formed, 1817, Daniel Tompkins was a former governor of New York and Vice President to James Monroe. Tompkins never visited “his” county, there is no other connection between him. His family and life was rooted in eastern part of New York, around “The City.”

“Maternidad”, Seneca Street Garage, a mural by Nick Gilbert was the 2014 winner of 2014 @culturaithaca Latinx Mural Design Contest.

Mosaic Mural “Feels Like Ithaca” by Annamarie Zwack, Seneca Street Garage Also known as “Spirit of Ithaca”

I am not finding the attribution for this undersea idyll, also on the Seneca Street garage adjoining “Feels Like Ithaca.”

This completes my Sunday afternoon walk around Ithaca.

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Hillside Rest

January 2, 2021January 2, 2021 MichaelStephenWills

We pick up this walk through Ithaca from the December 23rd post, next to a waterfall and the “Theory Center,” starting with the spiffed up rear façade of the Cornell Health Building, renamed from Gannett Health after a right wing newspaper publishing magnate. The building fronts “Ho Plaza” thus carries an address with unfortunate allusions, named for a distinguished Cornell alumna who’s family name is Ho. I included this building in appreciation to Cornell University and students for being good neighbors during this COVID-19 pandemic, controlling the virus.

Today, I avoided the views of the popular Lib Hill to minimize personal contact. Instead, descending the hill on footpaths, found myself on Stewart Avenue and the eastern side of City Cemetery.

Enjoying the solitude and long shadows of our northern afteroon.

Traversed a gate of hemlock branches….

Admired random monuments. By the way, George Washington Schuyler, whose family anecdote I shared in a previous post, rests here under an impressive stone. Not this one.

More afternoon light, fallen leaves, hemlocks.

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Golden Hour and “Happy New Year”

January 1, 2021January 2, 2021 MichaelStephenWills7 Comments

Walking the Lower Cascadilla Gorge Trail from the end of Court Street, downtown Ithaca, named for the Tompkins County Court is a favorite way for students to walk from the Cornell Campus.

I avoided the route today, the trail is narrow, much less than the 6 foot minimum distance. The footpath from Eddy Gate to College Avenue passes where the trail climbs up from the gorge. I did opt to catch the Upper Cascadilla Gorge trail, much wider. The trail passes two footbridges accessing the Engineering Quadrangle and the main Cornell Campus. Photographed here is the approach to the second, smaller, footbridge.

Late fall/winter afternoons the “Golden Hour” is hours long for this view of the footbridge and waterfall.

Waterfall views from the bridge. I left the tripod at home, so these exposures “freeze” water motion.

Look up from the other side for this view. Baptized 1985 as “The Theory Center,” 2007 saw the name changed to the more evocative, “Center for Advanced Computing.” It always filled with supercomputers. Socially, the culture of the place was retrograde from the beginning with “faculty only” lounges that kept out the lowly staff members. As if on cue, I came upon a group of the privileged, unmasked, strutting down the hill toward me, like vacuous moles.

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Past Eddy Gate

December 31, 2020December 19, 2020 MichaelStephenWills

At this point most of the climb from downtown Ithaca is behind me and the Cornell Campus is underfoot. I pass the Eddy Gate, the former main entrance to Cornell University, where Eddy Street vaporizes to become a footpath along the rim of Cascadilla Gorge. This ramshackle hexagonal structure rest on the friable shale gorge rim. It does NOT look inviting and, over the years, I’ve not spotted a single person hanging out there.

Fluffy gone-to-seed goldenrod on the gorge rim.

As I duck into the Upper Cascadilla Gorge Trail above College Avenue a poster visualizes an effective defense against crowd control munitions, the umbrella. Below the call to “Stand with Hong Kong” is another newsflash/movie review from outside the mainstream media, “Donnie Darko Makes No Sense.”

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Up East Hill

December 30, 2020December 19, 2020 MichaelStephenWills4 Comments

Today a large fox devoured a squirrel on our front lawn while I wrote this post. Further up Green Street is this mural, I do not find an attribution and assume it is from 2020.

Continuing past all the new development in downtown Ithaca, I head up the steep sidewalk up east hill on Seneca Street, named for the Iroquois Confederacy tribe of the westernmost lands. Here is a flowering tree with attractive red haws growing on the corner of Seneca Street and Schuyler Place.

From the doorway of the former Henry W. Sage mansion at 603 E. Seneca St designed by William Henry Miller in1876. Today, it is broken into six apartments. This is the Sage of Cornell University Sage Chapel. Henry Sage was a supporter of admitting women to Cornell to the extent of donating $250,000 around the year 1870.

206 North Quarry Street, the northwest corner of Seneca and Quarry. It, too, once a single family home now broken into apartments.

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A family story and artistic expression

December 29, 2020December 19, 2020 MichaelStephenWills8 Comments

Across the street from Tompkins County Public Library, next to City Hall, is the Green Street Garage decorated with artistic graffiti by the French artist Amir Roti.

Completed during Fall 2012. This artist’s style is seen around town, black and white with touches of blue of inscrutable, dream inspired (?) scenes. The winters winds do whip through these streets.

A few steps away, some propaganda. I recognize the characters as Native Americans from the feather object. Doing some research I found it was completed in 2014 by Brandon Lazore here is some text from the artist, “”Women’s Nomination” is dedicated to all Haudenosaunee women. A silhouette of “Sky Woman” falls from Sky World. In moments, she will be caught by flying geese & put on turtle’s back – “Turtle Island.” In her hands she holds roots of the 3 sisters – corn, beans, & squash. The woman in green represents Clan Mother, grandmother, elder. The woman in purple is her daughter & the baby is her daughter’s daughter. The wampum belt is the Women’s Nomination Belt which represents, among other things, the right that Haudenosaunee woman have to give their child a clan, to chose names of children, & to choose chiefs. Strawberries represent medicine like mother’s love is medicine to a child. The moon represents fertility & how it’s cycle plays a huge role in every woman’s life. The Sky Domes are inspired by traditional art decorating our clothing for centuries. It represents the sky world & the plants that were given to us – corn, beans, squash, & tobacco.” Haudenosaunee are also known as Iroquois.

To counterbalance the sentimentality of the mural here is historical context, a family anecdote from George Washington Schuyler of Ithaca, New York from the life of his paternal ancestor, Peter Schuyler, known to the Mohawks as “Quidor,” as told to the author, John Fisk, in 1881. “After a severe tramp in the wilderness, half starved with hunger and cold, Quidor came on evening upon an encampment of Mohawks, where he was cordially welcomed. In a few moment he was seated before a bright blaze, with a calabash of hot soup, the most delicious he had ever tasted. Presently, when he dipped his rude ladle once more into the kettle and brought up a couple of parboiled human fingers, it gave him a queer turn, but he repressed all show of feeling and quietly asked a feathered chieftain, ‘What is this soup made of?’ The chief as calmly replied, ‘Of a Frenchman we killed this morning; isn’t it good?'” Words even more significant because I would soon walk past the grave of George Washington Schuyler, laid to rest 132 years ago.

References:

The Dutch and Quaker Colonies, Volume II, by John Fisk, The Riverside Press, Cambridge, 1899, p214 “Peter Schuyler and his influence over the Mohawks”.

The 2019 Ithaca Mural Map

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Dredging the past

December 28, 2020December 19, 2020 MichaelStephenWills

This Sunday past I parked the car downtown (free parking Sundays) and walked the walk, carrying the Sony Alpha 700 with the variable 18-200 lens. Today is a contemplation of beginnings. Here is a mural dedicated to the founding of the Cornell Library Association, titled “Ezra Cornell”, completed 2016 by Nestor Madalengoita.

It was the 1779 Sullivan – Clinton Revolutionary War expedition against British Loyalists and allies, the Iroquois confederation, that opened up Central New York to settlement, making possible the 1,400 Dewitt acres that is now the City of Ithaca, named, strangely, after an Aegean island with Hector Street, our road to downtown, recalling the foremost defender of Troy.

Click Me for the complete post with photographs.

Autumn Hillside

Fillmore Glen Autumn

December 27, 2020December 19, 2020 MichaelStephenWills2 Comments

The first week of November 2020 I posted a series of photographs from Fillmore Glen from the Canon 5D Mark IV. Today, I present a series of photographs from the same day using the Sony Alpha 700 dslr using a variable 18-200 mm lens.

Tag: Sony dslr-A700