Fun Facts

 by Susan Zehnder, Education Director

“I didn’t know that!” For the last few years, The Chemung County Historical Society has printed bookmarks with photos and biographical information about more than 20 different community leaders. Our mission, “to deepen the understanding of and appreciation for our community’s place in state and national history,” inspires us to continue to add more to our collection whenever we can, and we welcome any suggestions. Some of the people and their stories are quite well-known, while others may be more of a surprise.

Newcomers don’t always recognize the man with wild white hair smoking a cigar on the city’s Welcome to Elmira sign on Church Street. Nor do many younger people have any idea who the other people are. Our bookmarks help to share some of their stories. Hardly comprehensive, they act as small reminders of what people in our community have accomplished.

The bookmarks highlight local athletes, scholars, scientists, civic leaders, authors, inventors, politicians, lawyers, astronauts, and engineers from Chemung County. We pass them out at events and share local history.

This summer a ceremony was held to recognize renaming the former Madison Avenue Bridge over the Chemung River. Now known as the Allen-Berry Bridge, it honors two local Civil Rights leaders who did so much for the community: A’Don Allen and Bessie Berry. 

A'Don Allen (1916 - 1994)

Allen grew up in Elmira. He served with the Army Corps of Engineers in WWII and earned a bronze star on Okinawa. Upon his return, he became active in politics and was known as a prominent civic and community leader. In 1966, he became Elmira's first Black man appointed to the Civil Service Commission. Over the next thirty years, Allen held various government positions including that of deputy mayor for the City of Elmira.

Bessie Berry (1932 - 2008)

As president of the local NAACP, Berry supported “Black Dollar Days” to encourage people of color to use Susan B. Anthony dollar coins and $2 bills when making purchases to highlight the Black community’s economic impact. Berry became the first African American elected to the Elmira School Board and successfully pushed the district to recognize Martin Luther King Jr. day as a holiday.

(Hear an interview with Bessie Berry followed by a community discussion, by checking out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGPjCQ32UHs )

In no way do we claim these bookmarks tell a complete story of any local leader. But we pass them out in hopes that they may spark curiosity to learn more about local history. To learn about the lives, contributions, and accomplishments people have made to our community.

The next time you pass over the Allen-Berry Bridge, we hope you think of some of the work these two did. Neither Allen nor Berry is pictured on the Church Street welcome sign, but they are part of our community’s story and certainly could be.

The Three Sisters and Beyond: Haudenosaunee Agriculture

 By Rachel Dworkin, Archivist

 

Corn. Beans. Squash. The Haudenosaunee (pronounced HOH-din-oh-SHOH-nee), sometimes known as the Iroquois, of upstate New York called these three plants the Three Sisters. In school, I was taught that they were the basis of Haudenosaunee agriculture, but the full truth is so much more interesting and complicated.  

 

Squash, corn, and beans were first domesticated, in that order, in Mexico between 8 and 9 thousand years ago. They were spread across North and South America via migration and trade. According to the archeological record, corn was first grown in New York around 800 CE with squash arriving around 1000 and beans by 1300. Soon after, Haudenosaunee farmers were growing them together in a system known as polyculture. The corn and beans would be planted together in the center of small mounds while the squash would be planted between the mounds. This way, the corn stalks acted as a trellis for the beans to climb while the beans fixed nitrogen in the soil. The broad leaves of the squash blocked weeds from growing and helped reduce evaporation, keeping the soil moist. When consumed together, the three pants contain all the nine essential amino acids needed for human life. 

 

The Haudenosaunee grew 13 varieties of corn, as many varieties of beans, 5 varieties of squash, and 3 types of melons. They also grew potatoes, tomatoes, artichokes, cucumbers, onions, and other root vegetables. Sometimes, Haudenosaunee farmers planted a so-called Fourth Sister, sunflowers, along the edges of fields to provide cooking oil and act as a living fence to keep deer out of the crops. They also grew tobacco for medicinal, spiritual, and trade purposes.

Traditionally, land was owned, not by the individual, but by the matrilineal clan. Haudenosaunee women worked the fields collectively, planting, tending, and harvesting together under the leadership of an elder matriarch. Women were also responsible for gathering from the woods the various nuts, berries, fruits, and greens which made up the rest of their diet. In school, I was taught they “foraged” for “wild edibles”, but recent scholarship suggests that they “harvested” from their “carefully managed food forests.”

Nuts were a hugely important part of the Haudenosaunee diet. Archeological evidence shows that they were harvesting from various nut trees as far back as 2500 BCE. Evidence also suggests that the Haudenosaunee may have deliberately cultivated black walnut and pawpaw, neither of which are originally native to the area. The Haudenosaunee relied heavily on the woods, not just for food, but for the trees they used in construction and tools. Red oak, white cedar, hickory, and American elm were all used to build long houses. Shagbark hickory was used to make bows and other tools, while black ash was used for baskets. While Haudenosaunee women farmed, it was the men who managed the forest through controlled burns and other techniques. After all the wood surrounding a village had been used up, the settlement would be abandoned and its surrounding fields replanted with useful trees before the community moved on.

 When the Continental Army under the command of General John Sullivan burned its way through western New York in the summer of 1779, they found a thriving village in what is now the Town of Chemung. It was surrounded by fields of crops which extended along both sides of the Chemung River, as well as extensive orchards of native plums and European apples and peaches. The soldiers burned it all and chased the villagers west to starvation. When white settlers moved into the area in the following decades, they cut down the carefully managed forests for lumber and farmland. By the 1860s, all of the old growth was gone.

In recent decades, there has been renewed interest in studying and restoring old Haudenosaunee farming and forest management techniques. For Native activists and ecologists, it is about preserving culture, improving diet, and restoring the land. Many non-Native scientists now believe that traditional techniques might help stem climate change while ensuring food for local communities. Food forests are especially hot right now. The Skarù·ręʔ (Tuscarora) Nation reservation in Lewiston, NY, and the City of Syracuse both recently launched initiatives to plant their own community food forests. Check out the White Corn Project based out of the Ganondagan State Historic Site near Victor, NY to learn more about the push to recover Haudenosaunee food ways.

 

If you’d like to learn more about the Haudenosaunee and their contribution to the roots of American democracy, be sure to check out the Smithsonian traveling exhibit Voice & Votes: Democracy in America, on display at the Chemung County Historical Society through November 15, 2025.