In my open letter to Mr. Graham "the wiz" commented that in a book entitled City of Wellsville in Black & White there was a picture of this house. That book was published in June, 1903 and "the wiz" woke me up to the fact that I have a copy of it. I had to do some digging to find it and have spent a couple of days reading over it. "The wiz" was right on. This house is indeed older than what the Auditor's records indicate.
The picture above is the house we're talking about. Although nothing was noted in the book I can only imagine that is Mr. & Mrs. J.J. Dowling on the porch. Evidently Mr. Dowling was the owner of a large dry goods store "up town" as we Wellsvillians are fond of saying. In an advertisement in the same book it said "J.J. Dowling's Big Store on the Square". See the ad below.
The book was self published by Irvin Geffs and is chuck full of the early history of Wellsville. There is detailed information on how Billy Wells bought the farm land in 1797. Old Billy named the town after himself. You can bet we'll have more on that later. Now if I can just find Edgar's book...
3 comments:
ole nib: I guess you are talking about "Before the Memory Fades" by Edgar Davidson. Again, I'm sure the library has this one also, if not, let me know.
The county auditor's records are filled with errors, especially when it comes to older properties.
"before the Memory Fades" is still available for sale at the River Museum, they are now open Sundays through summer. Everyone should pay a visit when they have some time, they have a nice collection and a lot of history.
Post a Comment