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1923 Old Fair Grounds

as seen from on high...Yep!....from the sky

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Photo #2 West Brighton

1923 Aerial View

West Brighton area enlarged (from Image #2 left) shown below.

Allowing us to look backward, ninety one years, in time and review

the Town’s Social Center...

The Fair Grounds.

UR Medical School

& Hospital

Fair Grounds

& Race Track

West Henrietta

(Plank) Road

East Henrietta

(Plank) Road

Enlargement above of an area within Photo #2... West Brighton

The rather incomplete outline of what I assume was the Half-Mile Fair Grounds Racetrack

“The fastest track in the east”!

175 lots were listed for sale on this property in 1915...so building must have been delayed.

What do we see 1n 1923

Well!...FIRST...... the imprint of a Quarter Mile Race Track

What A Huge History of Happy Happenings Originated Here! ...Huge!

Fair History Notes

First Fair in New World 1810

Monroe County Agricultural Society organized first Fair Oct. 30, 1823..after which the organization lapsed.

Monroe County Agricultural Society reorganized May 28, 1840, Fair was transient, moving town to town in county.

Isaac Moore & Oliver Culver were two of the Society organizers in 1840

Monroe County Agricultural Society selected Brighton as a permanent Fair site in 1856.

Monroe County Agricultural Society was renamed Western New York Agricultural Society in 1874

Western New York Agricultural Fairs, held in Brighton 1885, 1886, 1888, 1905

Western New York Agricultural Fairs were cancelled for nine years 1895-1904

New York State Fair was transient, moving city to city in state. (Rochester, Utica, Syracuse, Buffalo, etc.).

1832 Isaac Moore VP of New York State Agricultural Society, Gideon Cobb, Brighton Town Committee

New York State Fair held @ Brighton Fair Grounds in 1851, 1862, 1864, 1868, 1874, 1877, 1883, & 1887

New York State Fair made permanent @ Syracuse location, 1890,

Monroe County Fair Grounds in Henrietta opened in 1947

Leonard Buckland, elected President of Monroe County Agricultural Society (1870-1871)

1897 NYS Fair , Robert Bell, West Brighton won three first prizes in Pear Division, John Bell won three second prizes.

Genesee Valley Horticultural Society, (first exhibition June 12, 1846), changed to Western New York Horticultural Society in 1855.

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1851 New York State Fair in Brighton, New York

The International Magazine (Volume IV, November 1, 1851, No. IV) published an article authored by Horace Greeley with a description of the 1851 N.Y.S. Agricultural Society Fair. The three surrounding illustrations were attached . The article opens with the comment:

“The Great Exhibition at Rochester....proves the growth and diffusion of a wider and deeper consciousness of the importance and dignity of Labor as an element of national strength and social practice.”

1851 New York State Fair in Brighton, New York

P434: The Fair was held @ Rochester, in a large open field about a mile south of the city, and of course near the Genesee River. Gigantic stumps scattered through it, attested how recently this whole region was covered with the primeval forest. Probably fifty thousand persons live within sight of the Rochester steeples, though not a human being inhabited this then dense and swampy wilderness forty years ago. And here, almost wholly from a region which had less than five thousand white inhabitants in 1810, not fewer than one hundred thousand persons, two-thirds of them adult males, were drawn together expressly to witness this exhibition...../ Horace Greeley

“This Annual Exhibition is as yet the Farmers’ University; they will in time have a better, but until then they do well

to make the most of that which already welcomes then to its cheap, ready and practical inculcations.” ........./ Horace Greeley

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Genesee

River

State Fair

This outstanding sketch appeared in “Moore’s Rural New-Yorker” (Vol. XIII No. 41 Oct. 11, 1862 )

The sketch enlarged & colored below shows the total layout of the

West Brighton Fair Grounds with the Genesee River in the background.

What a weekend for the farmers of Brighton,

THE FAIR, in their own backyard. THE FAIR, to view machinery,

enter your best in plants, fruit and animals & compete for prizes.

Civil War

Training Camp

Camp Hillhouse

105 Infantry,

Recruited in winter of 1861 . March 31, 1862 left for front.

22nd Cavalry

Recruited in winter of 1863, left for front March 8, 1864.

8th Cavalry,

Recruited in fall of 1861,

November 18, 1861 left for front.

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Fair Grounds = Civil War Training Camp

Right!...the Fair Ground land area was also used as a training ground for Rochester Civil War recruits.

The campground was located @ “Old Fair Grounds” in Brighton and known as Camp Hillhouse.

Three Civil War units were trained there.

Glen Cunningham

Air plane designer and racer

appeared & was photographed.

Susan Brownell Anthony

Rochester’s leading Civil Rights leader attended Woman’s Day @ the Fair?..many of her friends did.

Ned Crane didn’t make it back to Brighton @ Crittenden Park, for the 1911 season.

He was tragically killed while testing a Buick in April.

Crittenden Fair Grounds Stands...await destruction 1915? / Albert Stone Photo

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Quarter -Mile Race Track

It was the presence of the race track, a required component for all fair grounds, that established the base for usage of this land throughout the 1800,s and early 1900.s.

A track that earned the reputation of “The fastest track in the east”!

If you owned a trotting horse in New York State.....this is the track you wanted to compete on!

Fair Grounds in West Brighton, Old Fair Grounds, Crittenden Field...

the land assumed many titles during it’s sixty plus year history.

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Lincoln Beachey leaving the ground at the start of his first flight

at the Rochester Herald Aviation Meet of 1911 at Crittenden Park. / Photograph: by Albert Stone

Yes..there were Bicycle Races also....What a Track!

Had you attended any event, the Agricultural Fairs or Races, conducted at the “Old Fair Grounds”

you would have had a good chance to meet the “Greats” of the day. US Presidents, Governors, Mayors, athletes, aviators, race car drivers attended, and on Women’s Day @ the Fair the leaders of the US Women’s movement were present......no Face-Book contact......this was real...in Brighton N.Y.!

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Image from Rochester Library

Stock Image from Google / Not @ Crittenden

John Frisbie

Rochester’s record breaking aviator.

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“Old Fair Grounds”

Spectacular events occurred ...Yes!...but...you had to get in!

Fair Entry Fee = 50¢

as one man remarked..

”Fifty cents is a heap of money.

Why its higher than a woodpecker’s nest.”

A Rochester Unit doing what they were trained for...possibly in Brighton. Image from book titled “Where They Fell” by Robert Marcotte

Leonard Buckland

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Stock Image from Google / Not @ Crittenden

Fair Events Notes

“Bicycle Races, Foot Races, Balloon Ascension & parachute drop, Horse Races, City maidens & Rustic Beauties..beamed merrily on the jumbo squash, caramels, shelled peanuts. Large refreshment stands will be on the grounds and a tub and cask of ice water will be under the charge of the temperance ladies. At noon a display of premium horses & cattle was made on the track. the procession was headed by the Fifty-Fourth Regiment band which was followed by the horses & cattle led by grooms... Attendance ~ 10,000 / day”

Democrat & Chronicle: September 25, 1885

The “Old Shell Game”

“Fakir: sat behind a little table, and manipulated three half-shells of English walnuts. He would put a pea under one and then move all three around a bit. “Now I will bet you $10 you can’t pick out the shell which covers the pea” Of course sophisticus was there and thought he could pick it out..a Canadian who had crossed the lake to visit a Monroe county farmer offered to bet $50..after loosing $100 went to Police Headquarters and entered a complaint, but to no use.”

Democrat & Chronicle: September 25, 1885

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1843 State Fair... First came to Rochester

State Agricultural Fair (Sept. 19, 20 & 21): “A meeting to make proper arrangements preparatory to the State Fair...stated that some $500 would be necessary for the purpose which would have to be raised by subscription. Were informed that several Rail Road Companies will furnish cars “gratis” to convey all stock and farming implements designed for exhibition.”

Daily Democrat August 25, 1843

The State Fair : “There is no doubt but the approaching Fair will decidedly the most magnificent thing of the kind ever got up in the State. The ground enclosures, buildings &c., are now in process of preparation. It is not out of the way to calculate that there will be fifteen or twenty thousand strangers in the city the three days. It will be a jubilee.”

Daily Democrat August 30, 1843

The Great State Fair : “The spirited and liberal President of the State Agricultural Society, James S. Wadsworth, Esq., has been several days with us. The enclosure of about twelve acres of ground by a tight board fence, eight feet high, has been commenced. Outer fence,... inner railing &... carriage road around the entire enclosure,..a distance of of more than a half mile. Near the center of the grounds a neat temporary building to be erected. one hundred and fifty feet long by thirty in width, for the exhibition of fruits, flowers, &c...forty pens..large tents..booths...stack of hay & oats..gateway leading to a spring of water.”

Daily Democrat August 31, 1843

Barlow to Fair : “The venerable Mr. Barlow, of Canandaigua - the man who sowed the first field of wheat in Western New York. He is 92 years of age, and is coming to the Fair to participate in the gathering of the yeomanry who followed his footsteps toward this garden of the world. Thousands will be anxious to see the man who first tested the profile virtues of the soil. That we have seen this venerable man, will be something to boast of hereafter.”

Note: The British word "yeoman" meant a small farmer who owned his land.

Daily Democrat September 19, 1843

The Agricultural Fair : “Articles for Exhibition: #82, Pair matched Horses; Henry F. Penfield, Penfield, / #231 Hay-rack, 2 mares & colts; O. Culver, Brighton, / #273 Pr. matched horses, A.B. Buckland, / #318 Bull, John Culver, Brighton”

Daily Democrat Sept 21, 1843

Daniel Webster @ Fair : “Mr Webster made a rapid (train) journey of 500 miles for the pleasure of meeting the farmers of the great State of New York. Addressing the crowd stated: “Agriculture is the first step in the civilization of man. Man began to be civilized when he could retain his wanderings and migrations and apply himself to the arts of industry.” He came to witness the improvements in agriculture in Wester NY, to carry home what he learned to the good people of Massachusetts.”

Daily Democrat Sept 21, 1843