“The stone that was rejected by the builders has become the cornerstone.” So says Psalm 118:22, one of my favorite biblical passages, because it dangles hope for all of us struggling artists. Perhaps, just perhaps, after a lifetime of rejections, there may finally be a triumphant acceptance.
That neat, white house in the photo was rejected by the builders of the new YMCA in Norwich. It once stood at 21 Mechanic Street, near the northeast corner of what used to be the Turner Street intersection. It was in the way of the developers and faced imminent destruction. However, it was rescued by a team of local saviors and donated to the Farmers’ Museum in nearby Cooperstown. It now proudly stands on the northeast corner of Main Street and Schoolhouse Lane in the museum’s Pioneer Village. It may not be the cornerstone of that interesting place, but it sure fits in well. This village showcases buildings from the 1840s.
The brass plaque in front of the building reads: “Hosea Dimmick House, Norwich, Chenango County, New York, 1845. This house was built in Norwich, Chenango County, New York, in 1845. The architecture is an example of Greek Revival, with the gable end of the main block of the house positioned toward the street and a smaller wing set perpendicular to it. This style of house was so popular in the mid-19th century that examples can be found in almost every village and town in central New York.
“Hosea Dimmick purchased the house in 1853 from Samuel Per Lee, who most likely built the house in 1845. It remained in Dimmick’s family for three generations. Dimmick was the lock tender for Lock #93 on the Chenango Canal, which was just down the street from the house. Canals transformed the economy of the state by greatly reducing the cost of transporting farm products and other raw materials.
“The house was moved in four pieces to The Farmers’ Museum in 2000. It is being restored to represent a typical middle-class home in central New York. The Hosea Dimmick House was donated to The Farmers’ Museum by the YMCA of Norwich, New York.”
Not only did the YMCA donate the house, but I heard that it also donated a substantial amount of money for the transportation.
The main channel of the canal ran north-south just 200 yards east of Dimmick’s house. Lock 93 was about where the aptly named Canal Street now intersects with the eastern segment of Lackawanna Avenue, whose original name was, appropriately, Lock Street. (I curse all those persons who change the names of streets and roads! They rob future residents of their past.) Lock 92 was up north near Plasterville and Lock 94 was somewhere in Mount Hope Cemetery.
Local history is easy when a single reference source is consulted. However, garner information from several sources and conflicts appear. When was Dimmick’s house built? It seems to depend on which source is cited. The plaque in Cooperstown should be the most reliable; it states 1845. From what I could find out, this is an approximation. An anonymous article in the “Syracuse Herald-American” on Sunday January 29, 1950, states that Dimmick bought the house in 1843 from a “builder who could not swing the project,” whatever that means. This article has Dimmick dying in 1888, whereas the South Plymouth Cemetery records list his birth and death as December 23, 1807, and December 12, 1889. Anonymity is the camouflage of cowards, so I distrust anything anonymous.
An article by Sean Brigham in “The Evening Sun” of March 29, 2000, has the house being built in 1839. Albert Phillips, in his 1984 book, “Along the Chenango Canal,” gives the date as “between 1840 and 1850.” Michele McFee, in her 1993 book, “Limestone Locks and Overgrowth. The Rise and Descent of the Chenango Canal,” page 96, has the house built by Dimmick in 1839, but her photo is of the house next door at 23 Mechanic Street. That one, with its four Greek columns, was not saved. Instead, select pieces were dissected out and now reside in the New York State Historical Society Collections.
The moral of this story permeates history and the antique business, namely that one person’s trash could be someone else’s treasure. Not every municipality can afford to host a historical theme park. But there are a few highly enlightened ones, such as Cooperstown, that realize the commercial value of preserving historical structures.
Destruction is an integral part of the development process, so having a refuge where historical buildings can be sent enables society to preserve at least some representatives of its past. This is why I am so fond of the Farmers’ Museum and why I am a member of the New York State Historical Society, its parent organization. I congratulate all those Norwich citizens who worked together to rescue the Dimmick house. The story is related in Sean Brigham’s articles of December 30, 1999, and March 29, 2000.
At the time this house was being moved, I did not have an active interest in the history of the City of Norwich, because it seemed like such a lost cause. However, now I think about the Dimmick house twice a week, when I do my lap swimming at the YMCA. The pool sits on the site of Dimmick’s house. Realizing that my aqueous profile probably bears some resemblance to a canal boat I may, under the delirium of tedium, fantasize shouting, “Open the lock, Hosea, I’m barging through!”