Lost and Found: The Labrador Duck

Sculpture in Brand Park

 by Susan Zehnder, Education Director

There’s a story in my family that once I was trying to tell them about a duck I’d seen and after denying their many suggestions, I blurted out in frustration, “it was a special duck!” which of course made no sense. Located in Brand Park near the banks of the Chemung River there is a real special duck, or at least a statue of one recognizing the Labrador Duck. The statue is part of the Lost Bird Project, and is located at what is thought to be the last known place in the world where this special duck was seen alive in 1878.

Audubon's painting of Labrador Ducks

The five hundred and forty pound bronze statue of a stylized Labrador Duck was sculpted by artist Todd McGrain, while he was an artist-in-residence at Cornell University’s Lab of Ornithology. The statue was installed in May of 2009, and is the first in a five bird project highlighting North American birds that have gone extinct. The sculpture was privately funded and a gift to the people of Elmira. McGrain completed the duck and went on to design and install four other birds throughout the continent. They are the Great Auk in Newfoundland, Canada; the Heath Hen in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts; the Carolina Parakeet in Okeechobee, Florida; and the Passenger Pigeon in Columbus, Ohio. Copies of the sculptures have traveled and been exhibited in various museums throughout the US. In 2010 a 63-minute documentary was made about the project and in the fall of 2014, McGrain wrote a book based on this work. 

McGrain has been a sculptor for over 25 years. He has received numerous grants and awards and exhibited widely. His interest in connecting his artwork to environmental issues has grown and evolved to include documentary film work. Currently McGrain is documenting conditions of the Forest Elephants of Central Africa, and involved in a data collection company monitoring ocean climates.

In various interviews about the Lost Bird Project McGrain talks about the importance of memorializing and bringing awareness to birds now lost, saying that “forgetting is another form of extinction.” 

Sadly over 190 known species of birds have gone extinct, and more than 100 of these just in the last century.

The local story of the Labrador Duck’s Elmira demise has been retold in newspapers as far back as 1879 and repeated as recently as 2015. It involves pharmacist, doctor, and scientific investigator Dr. William H. Gregg identifying the remaining head and neck of a duck shot and eaten by a hungry family.

Digging into the Labrador Duck’s extinction story reveals some interesting contradictions. Its name comes from the east coast where it lived along the seashore, and its diet consisted of shellfish. 

Red indicates considered habitat where the ducks lived 

The duck had black and white feathers, and was prized for its eggs and plumage. It has also been called a skunk duck because of its coloring. It was hunted for food though its meat was considered bad tasting and reportedly spoiled quickly. Alexander Wilson, a naturalist in the early 1800s described the species as scarce and located along the coasts, and “never met with on fresh water lakes or rivers.” The only nests associated with the species were identified near Quebec and pointed out to John Woodhouse Audubon, son of the famous ornithologist, as belonging to the pied duck. However the same term was also used for the surf scoter and common goldeneye. The Labrador Duck is considered to be the first species of North American birds to go extinct in modern times. If indeed the unlucky duck actually found its way to Elmira, any ability to thrive seems questionable.

Author Kelli L. Huggins adds further questions about the mythic story by picking apart the principal characters associated with the so-called discovery in her book (available online) Curiosities of Elmira: The Last Labrador Duck, Professor Smokeball, the Great Female Crime Spree and More published by The History Press in 2017.

We can verify the Labrador Duck is no more and seems to carry the distinction of being the first North American bird to go extinct in recorded US history. Whether it came about through the elaborate and somewhat sketchy version of arriving in Chemung County, being shot for food, and finally eaten by a lad from Elmira in 1878 or whether it disappeared due to other reasons is not so clear.

The specialness of Todd McGrain’s work may not be based on an actual event that happened December 12, 1878. It does bring an awareness to species extinction by using art and ornithological history to remind us not to forget. Public art can have a powerful impact on communities, helping us to remember.

To discover more local history, check out our gift shop both in person or online!

A Shot in the Arm

 By Rachel Dworkin, Archivist

 The first mass inoculation in North America occurred in Boston during an outbreak of smallpox in 1721. The inoculation campaign was spearheaded by Cotton Mather and Zabdiel Boylston, using a technique known as variolation which had been taught to Mather by an enslaved man named Onesiumus. Variolation, as practiced in Onesiumus’s native West Africa, involved rubbing dried pus from smallpox scabs into shallow cuts in a patient’s arm. They would then develop a relatively mild case of the disease and henceforth be immune. Over the course of the epidemic, Boylston and Mather managed to inoculate 247 people before anti-inoculation mobs forced them to stop. Still, the success of their efforts lead to the widespread adoption of variolation throughout the Colonies, especially in urban areas. In 1777, George Washington ordered that the entire Continental Army be variolated to prevent outbreaks in military encampments.

Modern vaccines are a bit different from variolation, although the basic idea is the same: give the body a taste of the disease so it knows how to fight it when it encounters the real thing. With variolation, the idea is to give the patient the actual disease, just a mild form. Vaccines, on the other hand, confer immunity without actually infecting the patient. There are seven types of vaccines currently in use:

1. Inactivated vaccine using dead cells from the virus or bacteria. Examples include the Salk polio vaccine, hepatitis A vaccine, and most flu vaccines.
2.  Attenuated vaccine using live, but weakened, strains of the virus (similar to variolation). Examples include the mumps, measles, and rubella vaccines.
3. Toxoid vaccines using inactivated versions of toxic compounds which cause illnesses. Examples include tetanus, diphtheria and rattlesnake venom. 
4.  Subunit vaccines using a fragment of a virus or bacteria rather than the whole thing. Examples include vaccines for hepatitis B, human papillomavirus, and the plague.
5. Conjugate vaccine using a virus or bacteria along with a toxoid to boost immune response. Examples include vaccines for meningitis and typhoid fever.
6. Heterotypic vaccines using a virus or bacteria which cause diseases in animals, not people. Examples include the original smallpox vaccine and the current tuberculosis vaccine.
7. RNA vaccine using a virus’s genetic material. Examples include the COVID vaccine. This is the most cutting-edge type of vaccine on the market.

The first Chemung County residents to be vaccinated were soldiers. Beginning in 1812, the United States Army began regularly vaccinating troops against smallpox. During the Spanish-American War of 1898, all mobilized volunteer and militia members received the smallpox vaccine too. In fact, members of the US military were vaccinated against smallpox as late as 1990, long after the disease had been eradicated in civilian populations. Typhoid vaccines have been mandatory for members of the armed services since 1911. Even today, military members receive a battery of vaccines not commonly in use by civilians.

The first wide-scale civilian vaccination drive in Chemung County occurred in the summer of 1925. The Elmira Health Department worked with the Elmira City School District to vaccinate children under the age of 11 with the new toxoid diphtheria vaccine. Diphtheria is a potentially life-threatening bacterial infection which causes fever, cough, sore throat, and swelling of the throat resulting in difficulty swallowing or breathing. Over the course of the summer, the health department managed to vaccinate 1,468 children. Over the coming years, they continued to vaccinate children at their free Child Welfare Clinics and with the assistance of school nurses. By 1937, approximately 41% of pre-school aged children and 70% of school-aged children throughout the city were vaccinated against diphtheria. 

Dr. George Murphy of Elmira Health Department vaccinates child, 1935

 

During the 1940s, the city health department stepped up their vaccination efforts, adding vaccines for tetanus and whooping cough. In 1942, they launched a smallpox vaccination campaign. Starting on May 5, they offered weekly vaccination clinics. By year’s end, they’d vaccinated 1,218 children. Today, New York school children are required to be vaccinated against diphtheria, tetanus, and whooping cough, but not smallpox. 

Certificate of vaccination, 1886

 In 1955, Dr. Jonas Salk developed the world’s first polio vaccine. Just two years earlier in 1953, the county had suffered a serious outbreak of the illness. Beginning in May 1955, the county launched a massive and unprecedented vaccination drive. Children were bused from the schools to the County Health Center for their shots. Civil Defense volunteers were called up to help control the young crowds and direct traffic. Between May and October, they vaccinated 12,472 first, second, third, and fourth graders using vaccines donated from the Polio Foundation and the federal government. When the Sabine oral polio vaccine was released in 1962, the health department did it all over again, this time vaccinating 100,000 people of all ages.  

Little girl takes Sabine oral polio vaccine, July 1962. Image courtesy Star-Gazette

 The current push to vaccinate everyone against COVID-19 is unprecedented only in its scale. Approximately 70% of the nation’s population will need to be vaccinated in order to generate herd immunity. Already, local efforts are underway. Employees at the local hospitals are being vaccinated and the Chemung County Health Department just opened up the Arctic League Headquarters at 249 W. Clinton Street as a vaccination center. The process will take months but, together, we can get there.  

Capturing the Local Faces of the Great Depression

by Erin Doane, Curator

In September 1940, Jack Delano, a photographer with the Farm Security Administration (FSA), arrived on Rumsey Hill near Erin, New York. His job was to document the challenges of rural poverty during the Great Depression. The FSA was a New Deal agency created in 1937 to help combat rural poverty. It emphasized rural rehabilitation programs that included purchasing submarginal land from poor farmers and resettling them on group farms. The agency’s most famous initiative was its photography program, which actually began under the preceding Resettlement Administration. When people today think of what American looked like during the Great Depression, it’s likely they’re thinking of images taken by FSA photographers.

Mrs. Garland and her little boy, Rumsey Hill, near Erin, New York

From 1935 through 1944, eleven photographers under the direction of Roy Stryker traveled throughout the United States documenting and humanizing those who struggled living in rural poverty. They photographed families from the dust bowl of the Great Plains, to shanty towns in California, to the submarginal farmland in northern Chemung County. In the nine years the program operated, 250,000 images were taken. Fewer than half of those survive and are now housed in the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress. You can view and search the collection online by visiting https://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/fsa/.

Jack Delano was a Russian Jew who moved to the United States with his parents and younger brother in 1923 when he was nine years old. As a youth, he studied music, illustration, and photography. He was the ninth photographer hired by Stryker for the FSA photography program and he worked for the agency until 1943. He was 26 years old when he made his way to Rumsey Hill to document the farm families living there. There are 36 images from that time available in the Library of Congress’s digital archive.  Several of the images include information about the subjects. The following are some of those images and the descriptions that accompany them.

Mr. Jimson

Mr. Jimson, one of the oldest residents of Rumsey Hill. His family has been there ninety years and he knows everybody in the area. Has a ninety-acre farm in the submarginal farm area of Rumsey Hill, near Erin, New York.

Mr. Jimson

Mr. and Mrs. D’Annunzio

Mr. D'Annunzio, Italian farmer who has been living on submarginal area of Rumsey Hill for a year. He was an unemployed auto mechanic in the city. Hasn't farmed much. Is trying to fix up the old house and roof before winter comes. They have been living in Rumsey Hill for a year.

Mr. and Mrs. D’Annunzio in front of their house in Rumsey Hill

Mrs. D’Annunzio

Mr. Miller 

Mr. Miller, farmer and minister. He is the only Negro farmer in the submarginal area of Rumsey Hill, near Erin, New York. He came about seven years ago after having farmed in Tennessee and New Jersey. His farm is on the very crest of the hill and he is doing a little better than most of his neighbors. His two boys go to high school and his wife works in town.

Mr. Miller

Young farmer working in the field of Mr. Miller’s farm

Mr. and Mrs. Ben Harris

They come from Luzerne County Pennsylvania. Have goats, and sell goats milk. Do hardly any farming. Live in the submarginal farm area of Rumsey Hill, near Erin, New York.

Mr. and Mrs. Harris

The Harris home

I didn’t find any more information about most of the people in this series of photographs, but I was able to learn quite a lot about a farmer named Uhro Maki and his family. So much, in fact, that they warrant an entire blog post of their own. Look for it here on January 25, 2021.

 

Your Favorite Things

by Susan Zehnder, Education Director

Whitman Mission on the Oregon Trail

What does the Oregon Trail, a member of the inaugural Girls Professional Baseball League, and souvenirs from a doomed arctic expedition have in common? Each was a Chemung County Historical Society Blog post in 2020.

Since February 2012, we’ve published a new blog almost every week. This year despite various disruptions, we continued and were able to add 53 new blog posts. This brings our blogs-to-date total to 468: that’s four hundred sixty eight different topics!

For the last nine years, these blogs have been written by a staff member or invited guest, with all topics connecting to Chemung County’s history. They may be stories of people, or events, information on artifacts and documents, or explore a story behind another story. Despite posting weekly, we still can't predict which topics will resonate with our readers.

Taking stock of 2020 - and in case you missed any - here are this year’s five most popular blog posts in descending order. See if you find any thread of commonality.

1. On May 11th we published Chemung County's First Fatal Automobile Accident a blog which tells the story of the Voorhees family from Elmira whose 1914 summer afternoon drive resulted in tragic death and loss.

2. Back in January 17^th Lost in the Mail profiled a mishap that occurred one snowy day in Wellsburg, March 195, and mail that was never delivered.

3. On March 23^rd, shortly after the 2020 pandemic ground things to a halt, the blog titled The First Quarantine shared how the county shutdown for 19 days in response to the 1918 pandemic.

4. Less than a month later on April 17th, another blog titled Typhoid and Thatcher GlassManufacturing Company highlighted local contributions to public health. (Note we have an upcoming exhibit highlighting the Thatcher Glass Manufacturing Company going up in early 2021.)

5. On August 24^th a blog shared the story of The Wellsburg Fire of 1912, a devastating fire that wiped out much of the town of Wellsburg in one single afternoon.

Up to this point, statistics show the blogs with the fewest visitors are some of our most recent. We never take blogs down, so it’s likely they’ll pick up additional viewers in 2021. In case you’re curious, the blogs with the fewest views to date are:

1. December 7^th’s A Fall Tradition goes Virtual publicized our necessary switch from our usual in-person fund raiser event to one that was virtual.

2. December 14^th’s blog Souvenirs from a Doomed Voyage shared objects in our collection from Ross Marvin, a local arctic explorer and The Greely expedition, an expedition that took place in 1881-1884.

3. Esther B. Steele: A Woman of Her Word, on November 30^th profiled a well-known philanthropist who still makes an impact on the county today.

4. Our November 9^th blog The Bachelor Governor highlighted the life of the 29^th governor of New York State and the political connections he had.

5. Win with Wilkie, the blog published on November 2^nd just before the presidential election was a little bit of lost history about a 1940 presidential campaign visit to Elmira.

Our continually growing collection of CCHS blogs is a great resource we encourage everyone to share, just be sure to give us credit if you do.

Researching facts and information on objects, people and events from the county gives us an opportunity to look at things in new ways. It also comes in handy. We used a series of blogs ourselves this past summer to create a unique walking tour of Elmira’s Heritage District that wove together over fifteen relevant blogs.

For fun, see our quiz posted on our Facebook page to see what facts from this year that you remember, the reader with the most correct answers will win a complimentary year's membership.

Delivering Christmas with the Arctic League

 By Rachel Dworkin, archivist

 This year, despite the pandemic, the Arctic League will deliver Christmas to the poor children of Chemung County, just as they have done every year since 1912, come hell or (literal) high water. Interestingly, the Arctic League didn’t start out as a charity. The League began as an amateur baseball league and social club which played nearly year-round and hung out at the Lagonegro cigar shop at 157 Lake Street. The men of the League were best known around town for playing in all types of weather and holding satirical political campaigns for club president.

 All that changed around the Christmas of 1912. League member Danny Sullivan encountered a homeless young orphan on his way to the Lagonegro cigar shop and decided to bring him along. Sullivan and his friends dubbed the boy Friday (owning to the day of the week) and pooled everything they had on them to treat him to dinner, new clothes, and medical attention. They even ended up helping him find a job and place to stay. The men found helping out so satisfying that they decided to do it again the following year. While the first few Christmases were funded entirely by League members, by 1917 they were receiving $733 from the public at large to put towards presents for the needy. Young Friday, whose real name was Jimmy Loftus, donated religiously to the cause under his pseudonym until his death in 1955.

 The pandemic isn’t the first challenge the Arctic League has faced. In the wee hours of December 20, 1921, the warehouse where the League’s presents were stored burned, destroying $5,000 worth of toys, clothes, and candy. The morning papers called for aid and, by the time the Lagonegro cigar shop opened at 8am, people were lining up to donate. Within 48 hours, they received $10,608, more than twice what they’d ever raised before. After a mad scramble to buy and pack up toys, the Arctic League was able to successfully deliver Christmas while still having money left over for the following year.

 In 1941, the League’s fundraising radio broadcast was interrupted by the news of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Begun in 1932, the annual broadcast featured performances by local musicians interspersed with pleas for money. At 2:30 pm on December 7, 1941, master of ceremonies Frank Tripp was handed the announcement of the attack by WENY station manager Dale L. Taylor, whose brother was stationed at Pearl Harbor. Tripp halted the music to read the news to the listening audience. He read off further updates as they became available throughout the rest of the show. 

Annual Arctic League broadcast with MC Frank Tripp, ca. 1940s

World War II presented some unique challenges for the Arctic League. Normally, individual volunteers would pick up packages at the League’s Elmira headquarters and deliver them to homes all over the county. Gas rationing, however, meant that volunteers didn’t have the fuel to get from Elmira to the outlying communities. Instead, Col. Geoffrey Galwey, the commander at the Holding and Reconsignment Point in Horseheads, volunteered his officers for the job. League board members rode with the soldiers to act as native guides and navigators. None of the soldiers were familiar with the Arctic League or their mission, and some were quite skeptical about using military resources to deliver presents. One particular lieutenant protested right up until he saw the reaction of a gold star family when he delivered their package. 

 

Arctic League volunteers delivering presents, ca. 1950s

 The flood of 1972 hit the Arctic League hard. Approximately $10,000 in clothes and toys were destroyed when their 114 West Second Street headquarters were inundated by 4 feet of water. Every year, the League ordered a thousand naked dolls which would be dressed in unique outfits made by community members. That year’s dolls had arrived the Wednesday before the storm and were lost to the water. An additional $1,000 worth of equipment was destroyed as well. A collection of clothes survived the flood, but the League chose to distribute them at the relocation centers rather than hold it back until Christmas. Although the building was cleaned out fairly quickly, League gave up their headquarters for a year so the Elmira Health Department could use it as a temporary infirmary.

Despite, or perhaps because of the community-wide devastation caused by the flood, the Arctic League exceeded that year’s collecting goal by $1,501.18, bringing that year’s total to $21,009.18. The extra funds certainly came in handy. Families who had never needed help before now found themselves without jobs or homes, let alone funds for Christmas presents. In the end, 200 volunteers delivered parcels containing 2 toys, cookies, and candy to 1,450 children on Christmas morning. An additional 2,000 children received free clothing and shoes at a 2-day distribution event on December 27th and 28th at the Arctic League headquarters. 

Doll given by the Arctic League, December 1972

 This year too, there is a greater need in our community as people have lost jobs to the shutdown. Instead of waiting until their usual mid-November for the usual start of their collection campaign, the Arctic League began their annual holiday appeal in early October. That wasn’t the only changes they were forced to make. Normally, every evening in December volunteers form assembly lines to pack parcels. This year, the packing routine had to be modified so volunteers could maintain proper social distance. The annual fundraising broadcast, normally held before a live audience at the Clemens Center, was instead broadcast from an empty WETM news station and featured pre-recorded performances rather than live music. Despite the changes, the Arctic League was able to raise $133,658.28 or 107% of their goal of $125,000. They are still looking for volunteers to deliver packages, but that will be different too this year. Instead of having people line up to collect packages early Christmas morning, volunteers should arrive on Christmas Eve Day, no earlier than 9am. See their website for details: http://www.arcticleague.com 

Souvenirs from a Doomed Voyage

by Erin Doane, Curator

The purpose of the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition from 1881 to 1884 was to establish a polar research station near Lady Franklin Bay on Canada’s Nares Strait north of Greenland. The expedition was funded by the U.S. Congress, managed by the U.S. Army Signal Corps., and led by Lieutenant Adolphus Greely. Twenty-five men began the voyage into the Arctic in 1881, but only seven,* including Greely, survived. Uncooperative weather, poor planning, unsuccessful resupply attempts, interpersonal conflicts, and all around bad luck led to disaster. (You can read about it in more detail here.)

No one in the expedition had strong connections to Chemung County (that I am aware of), so why am I writing about it? Well, the museum has a collection of 19 items that are labeled “Greely Expedition 1881-1884.” Later Arctic explorers collected these souvenirs from the doomed voyage. The items include tobacco tins, a pipe, a lid to a brandy keg, various size ammunition, pieces of rope and chain, and fur mittens purportedly used during the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition and abandoned at Fort Conger in the northeast of Ellesmere Island where Greely had set up his basecamp in 1881.

Selection of items in the collection marked "Greely Expedition 1881-1884"

So, how did these items get to CCHS? One of the pieces, the brandy keg lid, has this description in the database:

Brought back by Ross Marvin while on his 1905-1906 Arctic expedition with Admiral Robert E. Peary. This lid from a brandy keg is from the HMS Alert, a British Navy ship that was part of an 1875-1876 British Arctic Expedition. They reached Ellesmere Island. Then the Greely Expedition in 1881 reached the same spot on Ellesmere Island, but the expedition became infamous because only 6 of 24 members survived.* In 1905-06, Admiral Peary's expedition stopped at the same spot and found the site where Greely had been. Ross Marvin brought back relics from the site.

Wooden keg lid with the words “HMS Alert” and “Brandy” just discernible

Elmiran Ross Marvin was a member of Robert Peary’s 1905-1906 and 1908-1909 Arctic expeditions. (You can read more about him here.) Marvin kept journals during both voyages and wrote about finding the keg lid on September 2, 1905:

…Found the remains of a cache made by English Party, H.M.S. Alert, on northern shore of bay. Contents were used later by sledge trips of the Greely Party. Found one box containing 9 tins of boiled beef, frozen and well preserved. Secured head of an old cask…. 

Ross Marvin’s journal, September 2, 1905

I feel confident that the “head of an old cask” he found among the remains of the HMS Alert’s cache is indeed the wooden keg lid in the collection. While the lid did not originate with the Greely Expedition, it was among the other items found at Fort Conger. Marvin’s journal entry from September 5, 1905 mentions that he “found a souvenir for myself,” but does not go into detail. There is no way of knowing if he was referring to any of the other items we have here at the museum.

The other items in the collection may not have been collected by Ross Marvin at all. A general note on the collection reads:

Professor Donald MacMillan of Peary's expedition found the remnants of Greely's base camp at Fort Conger. The items here were brought back from Peary's expedition by Donald MacMillan.

This note made me wonder. I have done quite a lot of personal research on Ross Marvin, his two expeditions into the Arctic with Peary, and his untimely death there in 1909. I had never read anything indicating that MacMillan ever came to Elmira, let alone donated a collection of objects to the Historical Society. Donald MacMillan (who later became a significant Arctic explorer and researcher in his own right) was on Peary’s 1908-1909 Arctic expedition with Ross Marvin. He certainly would have had the opportunity to collected souvenirs that had been left behind on previous voyages as Marvin had done three years prior. But how did those items end up here?

I found a clue to this mystery when I learned that MacMillan was a longtime friend of James Vinton Stowell. Stowell was an Elmira artist, archaeologist, and explorer. He traveled into the Arctic four times, including once with MacMillan in 1946 to Northern Labrador. In 1967, Stowell donated his extensive collection of Native American and Arctic artifacts to the Chemung County Historical Society.

The Seal Hunters, oil on canvas by James Vinton Stowell, 1958

Since Stowell donated one collection of items to the museum, was it possible that sometime along the way he made another donation of items that had been collected by MacMillan during his voyage with Peary in 1908-1909, then given to Stowell as a gift to a fellow polar explorer and friend? Maybe. Maybe not. There is no proof of such a thing, but it is fun to speculate about how such an interesting collection got here. 

 

* I have found sources that say six men survived and others that say seven. Naval History Magazine; International Journal of Naval History, and the New England Historical Society all have articles that indicate seven men survived; PBS, the National Museum of American History, Nature Magazine have articles indicating six survived. I’m not sure which is correct. Similarly, some sources report that there were 24 men on the voyage, others 25.

 

A Fall Tradition goes Virtual

Reds, Whites, Blues and Brews: Making Spirits Bright

During this unusual time, we have all had to make adjustments. Here at CCHS we were closed for several months when the Covid-19 outbreak first began, reopening in early July. Even then it was at reduced capacity and we had to cancel both our spring fundraiser, The Great Car Thing, and the Trolley into Mark Twain Country. We also did not get our usual spring rush of second graders in the museum.

This is not to say that the staff has not been busy. Programming has moved online and we were able to hold our annual Ghost Walk in person, in a safely modified form. 

Jim Hare at GhostWalk 2020

We continue to plan for next year, both online programming and in person again, while we work to finish out this year.

We are closing the year with one last hurrah, Reds, Whites, Blues and Brews: Making Spirits Bright. This is an online fundraising event coming this Thursday, December 10. We usually hold this event on the last Friday in September but we had to adjust and moved online for this year. You can find more details, purchase tickets and chances to win baskets here and we hope you will join us on Facebook Live Thursday, December 10 from 5:30 to 6:30 pm for music, history and a bit of fun.

J.D. Iles, event Guest Master of Ceremonies

Our fundraising events, including this one, help us keep our doors open, pay staff and create great programs for school kids and families alike. Our sponsors have returned to support this event and we are now asking you to do the same. Buy a ticket, enter a basket drawing and join us on Thursday. Your support will help keep us going for another year and we hope to see you in person the next time we hold Reds, Whites, Blues & Brews!

Basket G: In the (gift) Cards

All of us at CCHS hope your holidays are bright and we thank you for your support throughout the year.

The museum is open!

Bruce Whitmarsh, Director