While the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown and the Corning of Museum of Glass draw hundreds of thousands of visitors each year, Upstate New York also has a plethora of small, sometimes quirky, and always fascinating little museums. Here are a thirteen to check out during your travels.
Hanford Mills Museum
Located in East Meredith, about a 40 minute drive south of Cooperstown, this is a "living museum" of what farm and mill life was like a century ago. There are many buildings to explore and they hold several entertaining festivals each year. To stand deep in the bowels of the sawmill barn at the foot of the towering 1926 water wheel when they shout "Let her go!" and the wheel starts turning is one of the great thrills in any Upstate museum. Talk about water power -- the whole building will shake beneath your feet.
More information
American Museum of Cutlery
Some people forget that far Western New York was once the center for knife making east of the Mississippi over a century ago. This little museum, located on Main Street in Cattaraugus, which historians call "the first American railroad boomtown," tells the region's story with many "cutting edge" displays (pun intended). Admission is free.
More information
Kazoo Museum
This museum is also a kazoo making factory. In fact they make the last all-metal kazoo in the country here. The factory, in the back of the building, is filled with old workstations, belts and wheels and gears. All original to the founding of the Original American Kazoo Company in 1915 here in Eden, just south of Buffalo. You can buy a couple of cheap kazoos for the kids to play with in the car, or splurge for a 24-karat gold plated beauty to keep as a memory to this unique place. You can't miss this museum -- there is a giant kazoo on the roof!
More information
#tour A Kornucopia of Kazoos at the Eden Kazoo Factory. I got to sample each and every one.
Posted by Avi Wisnia on Friday, May 15, 2015
Salt Museum
Syracuse gained its nickname of "The Salt City" because of the precious commodity readily handy from the shores of briny Onondaga Lake. The museum tells the story of the salt industry here. It is an amazing and dangerous chapter from Syracuse's past. Tour guides will point out the small hole the young boys had to climb through underneath the giant salt boiling pots to clean them. Some died while working here. The last barrel of salt ever produced in Syracuse is still on display here at the museum. The museum is small, but admission is free and it's located on the grounds of Onondaga Lake Park in Liverpool, near Syracuse.
More information
Robert Louis Stevenson Memorial Cottage and Museum
The great author of the classics "Treasure Island, ""Kidnapped" and "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" spent a great deal of the period 1887-1888 in this unpretentious little green and white cottage in Saranac Lake writing and recuperating from tuberculosis. Although the museum is very small, it holds the largest collection of Stevenson's personal artifacts and memorabilia found anywhere in the United States.
More information
Mike Weaver Drain Tile Museum
This is perhaps one of the oddest museums in Upstate New York, and yet one of the most compelling stories. Scotsman John Johnston came to the Geneva area of Upstate in 1838. Faced with poor growing soil on his farm, he remembered the practice of layering adobe tiles just underneath the soil surface that had been employed by farmers as a draining tool back in Scotland. He eventually covered nearly 50 square miles of his farm with underground tiles and produced some of the greatest harvests ever seen at the time. Others soon copied his technique and the "Father of Tile Drainage in America" was born. Mike Weaver, a collector of tiles, created this homage to the Scotsman. The museum is located on the grounds of the Johnston House in Geneva.
More information
National Bottle Museum
Located on Milton Avenue in Ballston Spa in the Capital Region, the museum holds more than 2,000 rare and historic bottles. Ballston Spa was once famous for its many natural mineral springs. The curative water was shipped in glass bottles around the world and several bottle makers formed in the 19th century in the immediate area, hence the reason for the museum here. Look for the rare black English gin bottles or the display of privy (outhouse) bottles.
More information
National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum
This small museum is located in a church in Peterboro, about 10 miles east of Cazenovia. The town was the home of Geritt Smith, a presidential candidate and member of Congress and perhaps one of the top three leading abolitionists of his day. The grounds of his former estate are one block away from this museum. On October 22, 1835, more than 600 of Smith's supporters came to this church for the first meeting of the NYS Anti-Slavery Society. The museum sanctions an annual Abolitionist Hall of Fame awards ceremony. Members of the Hall include Smith, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman and others.
More information
North American Fiddler Museum
Located in an old house on a remote dirt road deep in the Tug Hill Plateau region of the North Country in Redfield, this museum is a temple to the legend and lore of the hundreds of old time fiddlers who plunked their way into the hearts of thousands over the years. They have many musical instruments on display, some dating back to the 1800s. The founding family of this Osceola, N.Y. museum, the Chereshnoskis, can boast four generations of old time fiddlers. Matriarch Alice was a three-time New York State Ladies Fiddling Champion.
More information
Brain Museum
This is a fun and bizarre museum in Buffalo. The name of the museum is actually the Museum of Neuroanatomy, but it's commonly called the Brain Museum. The brain displays, all 80 of them, are quite beautiful. Each brain is held in a liquefied clear glass box and can be examined up close. The reality of this somewhat creepy topic is that it does (or did) serve a purpose. Some of these brains on display have been studied in research in the causes of such dreaded diseases as Alzheimer's Disease, strokes, aneurysms and hydrocephalus. The museum does not have regular hours, but free tours can be arranged by contacting Chris Cohan, a professor in the department of pathology and anatomical sciences at the University of Buffalo School of Medicine. Everyone from scientists to Girl Scouts have taken a tour.
More information
Museum of Memories
A small museum located behind a public library, the Museum of Memories is a time capsule of memorabilia of the rural life of the Catskills community of Fleischmanns. The visitor will be surprised to find memorabilia here from the career of the legendary Gertrude Berg, a television pioneer and Broadway star, as well as items from the life of Amelita Galli-Curci, one of the most famous Italian opera singers of her day. Both were area residents and are remembered at this museum.
More information
Memorial Day Museum
Few know that Waterloo, located between the tips of Seneca Lake and Cayuga Lake, is the birthplace of Memorial Day. The idea of decorating the graves of the war dead began in this Finger Lakes community following the Civil War in 1866. While many other communities tried to claim Memorial Day as their own, Waterloo has the official distinction as the birthplace of the holiday as signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1966.
More information
Chuck D'Imperio is author of "Museums of Upstate New York: A Guide to 50 Treasures." The book is available for purchase at amazon.com.