The Old Doc’s Place - The James McMaster House at 4436 N. Main Street Hemlock NY

A Historical review by Joy Lewis, the Richmond NY Historian.

It was in the spring of 1838 when two brothers left their home in Springfield, New York, traveling one hundred seventy miles west along the road we know today as Route 20. When they got to Lima they turned south, headed for Hemlock Lake. Silas, the elder at thirty-one, had been married only a matter of months. His younger brother Ira, married a little longer, was the father of a baby daughter. Both brothers were farmers and were prepared to acquire property.

Silas and Ira Thurston both settled down in Hemlock. Silas’ farm (still a large farm in the center of the village) was one small part of his extensive holdings. He also owned hundreds of acres south of Big Tree Road on both sides of Route 15A. Over the course of three decades he sold these acres, acre by acre.

One of his first transactions occurred in the spring of 1842 when he sold a single acre to Dr. James McMaster. The doctor built a sturdy frame house (4436) and moved in with his family: wife Emily and two-year-old Sarah. A year later Dr. McMaster bought of Silas Thurston another acre to join the first and then a bit later, still another acre until he’d accumulated a lot of three square acres. Today this parcel is the site of homes at 4436 and 4446 Main Street.

Emily was a quarter-century younger than her husband, and his second wife. By the time Dr. McMaster had completed his holding, Emily had given birth to two more children: Emma and George, who was but six years old when his father died. The children attended school at the log schoolhouse, District No. 4, on the lot just to their north. In time Sarah married, George died in early manhood, and Emma became a schoolteacher.

In the years after the doctor died, while the children were still young, Emily provided for her family by working as a housekeeper for various Hemlock families, and with her needle. She was a skillful seamstress and taught Sarah and Emma as well. In addition to being an accomplished dressmaker, she also applied her expertise to helping Ira Thurston make his balloons.

Ascending into the heavens in a wicker-work gondola suspended beneath an envelope of hydrogen-filled silk was a new sport in western New York and Ira Thurston - younger brother of the man who had sold Dr. McMaster his acres - was an early enthusiast. He designed his first balloon after a common pattern of the day and with Mrs. McMaster’s help it was assembled. In 1930 Frank Connor, long-time Livonia historian, wrote a bit about The Balloonist: “Thurston would make a trip to New York City and purchase the silk and oil cloth necessary to make a balloon and Mrs. MacMaster would cut and sew the cloth together and the balloon would be strung by aid of the large oak trees [in the yard].”

In May of 1848 Ira made his first flight aloft, taking off from open ground near the mill pond in Hemlock. Mr. Connor wrote, “He was one of the first in New York state to take up this kind of work and traveled extensively giving exhibitions.” (Ira’s home once stood on the lot behind the present-day Methodist Church. It was near here that he gave his first exhibition.)

Emily McMaster died in 1909. For some years toward the end of her life she and her daughter Emma lived in the home of their neighbor Catherine Curran. Three years before she died, Emily sold the house to Amanda Fogarty, who sold it to Frank Burke, who sold it back to Amanda. Twice more in the next two years the house changed hands. There is no record found of anyone living here during these transactions. When Ellen and Orville Childs bought it, they held onto it for half a decade (though they didn’t live there and it still sat empty) before selling it to farmer George Briggs in 1912.

Born in the neighboring town of Richmond in 1872, George was the only son of Caleb and Flora (Foley) Briggs. He was three when his father died. He, his mother, and his younger sister resided with his paternal grandfather, Leonard. When he bought the house in Hemlock, George was forty years old, married to Jennie (Doolittle) and the father of two children; Emma was twelve and Ralph, nine. He worked as a day laborer on various farms. The Briggs family lived here for fifteen years.

After Jennie died in December of 1927, George sold his home to Ernest Short and his wife Bernice, who rented it for the next five years to Donald Rogers. In 1933 Mr. Rogers and his wife Muriel became owners of the house. Don was the only son of Harry and Harriet Rogers of Hemlock; his sister Gertrude was married to Hugh Drain who owned the Hemlock Hardware Store. Don and Muriel, who had no children, lived in the home for more than ten years.

In 1944 this property was purchased by Oscar Smith and the house was used for years as the tenant house for Smith’s large farm. One of his earliest tenants was Louis Rowley, who eventually became the owner of the farm at 4501 Main Street (the farm that had once belonged to Silas Thurston).

When Smith sold his farm in Hemlock to Bill Gray in 1968, the house continued to be let to various renters, or to be used as the farm’s tenant house.

On A Personal Note

In the 1960s I knew this house well, as one of my best friends lived there. Sue Peck, a few years older than I, was the middle daughter of Les and Fran Peck; she had an older sister, Jackie, and a younger one, Cindy. There was also an older daughter, Bonnie, but she didn’t live at home and I never met her. For several years Sue’s family had rented the north half our double house at 4504 Main Street. About 1962, the year I turned ten and Sue turned thirteen, the Pecks moved up the hill and rented the house at 4436 Main Street from Oscar Smith.

My mom’s best friend was Sue’s mother Fran. And Dad was just as close to Sue’s dad, Les. We missed having them just next door when they moved. But, still, I spent hours of time at their new place. Sue taught me to write in cursive. She introduced me to the scent of Evening in Paris and told me where babies came from. She had it right, but it sounded so outlandish that I didn’t believe her until my mother confirmed her account.

Sue had her own room at their rental house - the bedroom at the front of the house, facing Main Street. We sat on her bed and played 45’s on her record player and wrote practice love letters to imaginary boyfriends. Usually we brought a snack up to the room, even though Sue was not allowed to have food upstairs. It’s where I developed a taste for gingersnaps.

I have many memories of the Peck family: when they lived on the other side of our house, when they rented the Smith farm tenant house, and later when they owned a little place on the east side of Big Tree Road. One of my favorite memories is their Christmas tree, for Fran and Les had bubble lights.

My siblings and I seriously coveted those bubble lights. Christmas Season was not complete until we’d been to see the Pecks’ Bubble-Lighted Tree. It was a short string of six or eight lights, each a different color - red, blue, green, yellow - with a walnut-sized bulb at the bottom and a candle-shaped tube extending straight up. When the lights were plugged in they warmed up. As the liquid in the tube was heated it began to from bubbles which ran up and down the tube and around the bulb, twinkly and glittery, flickering iridescent colors all over the tree. A grand spectacle! Wherever they moved to, we still went to their house at Christmas time to see the lights.