The Tollgate House at 4534 N. Main Street Hemlock NY

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

1

The Tollgate Homestead

at 4534 N. Main St. in Hemlock NY.

Photo courtesy of Douglas Morgan in 2007.

The Rochester and Hemlock Plank Road Company was organized in February 1850. Stock was issued and many farmers in Hemlock invested, including Philip Short (1779) and other members of his extended family. The planned route was to begin at the top of the hill at the north end of the village, at the Big Tree Road crossing. The road would continue for twenty-five miles, through Lima and Rush to its terminus in Rochester. Today this is Route 15A.

Construction began in the spring. First, the roadbed, eight feet wide, was graded and smoothed. Hundreds of logs and planks were delivered to the construction site from Hemlock’s many sawmills; the logs sold for $4.50 per thousand feet and the same length of planks sold for fifty cents less. Lengthwise, logs were laid end to end on both sides of the road way. On top of these embedded logs were laid thick hemlock planks, crosswise, and secured by pegs to the logs. Ditches were dug on both sides of the road to control run off.

Substantial frame-built toll houses were erected at intervals along the route. The one in Hemlock was set up at the beginning of the road, at the corner of Big Tree Road. It stayed there only a few months before being moved northward about three-quarters of a mile. Lima had two tollgates - one on the north side of the village and one on the south side. (This toll house is part of the collection at the Genesee Country Museum in Mumford.) Other tollgates dotted the road at various points from Rush to Rochester. These sturdy buildings were large enough to afford living space for the toll keeper and his family.

To say that the plank road was not a success would be a monumental understatement. The logs warped and moved out of place; the planks curled at the ends and twisted in the middle. Stagecoaches that traveled the road wore deep grooves in the planks, making travel by wagon or other conveyance extremely uncomfortable. (One legend has it that the nation-wide plank road craze of mid-century led to the invention of the spring wagon seat.)

To add to the troubles of the plank road was the coming of the railroad into the rural areas south of the city. In April of 1852 - only two years after its incorporation - the Rochester and Hemlock Plank Road Company was dissolved. All that remains today of the undertaking is the name of the road - and the house at 4534 Main Street in Hemlock.

In the summer of 1853 George Thayer bought the Hemlock tollgate and moved it a couple miles southward to the village. He set it up on a small lot just to the south of the Merrill Lot and remodeled it into a family home. For the next ten years he rented the house to (at least) two different tenants.

The Patrick Dailey family lived here for a few years. Born in Ireland, Patrick was an itinerant farm hand. He and his wife Bridget had a little boy, Thomas, when they came to Hemlock from Sparta. Their son Walter was born in this house in 1858. Not long afterward Patrick and Bridget moved to Lima and the Charles Cronk family moved into the tollgate house. Husband and wife - Charlie and Sally - were in their mid-thirties. They had four children, a girl and three boys. They stayed until the house was sold in 1863.

Eli and Jane Norton were a young married couple with a young son and daughter: Arthur and Agnes. (Their firstborn, Ella, had not outlived babyhood.) They lived here for nearly thirty years. Another son, Walter, and four more daughters (Mabel, Nellie, Jennie, and Gertrude) were born here. Eli owned, in partnership with Alanson Kinney, a General Store in downtown Hemlock. He served for more than fifteen years as the Postmaster of Hemlock Lake (1869-1886).

The house was mortgaged and when the business failed the house was lost. In the late 1880s the Nortons moved to Rochester where their youngest daughters lived. Eli died in 1912 and Jane around the same time. Both were buried in the Hemlock Cemetery.

A small notice appeared in the Livonia Gazette in February of 1890 announcing an auction to be held “at the front steps of the Commercial House in the village of Livonia” early in March in order to sell the half-acre lot and house lately owned by Eli Norton. William B. Waldron was the successful bidder, offering $550.

William had grown up on a farm in Groveland, where his family were near neighbors to Eli Norton’s family. He came from a large family, having ten siblings, but William and his wife Harriet were blessed with only two children, both girls: Cornelia, six, and Minerva, five. Bit by bit, over the course of the next fifteen years William bought up tiny slivers of adjoining property until he owned nearly two acres, stretching to the corner at Adams Road. In 1919 he sold a quarter-acre to the Hemlock Methodist Church Society; they built their parsonage on the corner.

William died in 1928 and Harriet went to live with one of her daughters. The girls sold the house that autumn to Ken and Doris (Hayes) Coykendall. The couple, in their mid-twenties, was newly-married and childless. Two sons would be born while they lived here: Melvin in 1934 and Larry in 1940. Ken was an agent for the railroad and later, as his (1979) obituary noted, he worked for the Beam Milling Company. Doris continued to live in the house alone until her death at age ninety-six. She survived both her sons.

On A Personal Note

Mr. and Mrs. Coykendall were one of our favorite neighbors. Theirs was four houses down from ours, near the corner of Adams Road, north of the Methodist parsonage. We knew Mrs. Coykendall at school, where she was one of the “lunch ladies.” As I remember her - a short, plump lady, neatly dressed - she was never without a smile and an encouraging word as we filed by her counter, handing over our two cents milk money. Mr. Coykendall we didn’t know as well, seeing him occasionally in the lawn, mowing or puttering about the little flower beds beside the porch. He knew us, though, and always gave us a cheery wave and “Hello!” with a message to carry greetings to our dad.

At Halloween the Coykendalls’ house was always our best stop. I was not quiet six when we moved to Hemlock; Wendy was a year younger, and Rob almost three. Until I was nine or ten Mom accompanied us on our trick-or-treating rounds. But she never went to the door with us, just waited at the edge of the lawn. All the porches and sidewalks along Main Street were decorated with jack-o-lanterns illuminated by flickering candles. The street was dark and cars moved slowly by. We - that is, Mom - carried a flashlight. Wendy, Rob, and I carried large paper shopping bags.

The routine was quickly learned: Traipse up to the front door, ring the bell or knock, and when the door was opened sing out loud and clear, “Trick or treat!” while holding your candy bag front and center. What fun! The procedure varied little from house to house: Usually a mom answered the door, sometimes an older sibling. I only remember a couple of houses where the door was answered by a dad. Into our bags was deposited a tootsie roll or a bubble gum or a Mary Jane. Maybe a lollipop or a peanut butter cup. Sometimes we were given an apple and sometimes a penny. All offerings were gratefully accepted, and acknowledged with a “Thank you!”

At the Coykendalls’ house there was a departure from routine, for when the door was opened we were ushered into their little front room. Before we received any treats we must wait while Mrs. Coykendall determined our identity. Always we were amazed that she was able to see through our masks and disguises to know our true selves. She was never wrong; no green witch’s face or pirate’s eye patch could fool her.

After we were admired and named, she brought out the treats. On a large tray were arranged elaborately decorated sugar cookies: little haunted houses, or ghosts dressed up in tuxedos, or no-two-alike jack-o-lanterns. Each was wrapped in plastic and tied with a bright ribbon. Then we admired her handiwork and were allowed to choose which cookie we liked best. Visits to her house took longer than other stops along the trick-or-treat trail, but it was the most rewarding house to visit.