The Three Guerin Houses of Hemlock NY

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

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Click image to enlarge.

The three-acre piece of meadow on the west side of Route 15A changed hands several times before 1870 when Silas Thurston sold it to Charles Guerin. The Guerin family came to Livonia early in the 1850s from Seneca County, settling east of Livonia Center before relocating to Main Street in Hemlock around 1867. Jared Guerin, his two brothers William and Oscar, and his sons Charles and George, were blacksmiths and wagon makers.

The rectangular piece of land was divided into four equal lots of ¾ acre each. The northernmost portion (4485) was the site of the forge. This parcel did not have a dwelling until about 1928. On the other three lots owned by the Guerins were built in 1872 three modest houses. These houses are quite similar to one another: each features a gable-front on the north side, with a wing on the south. Over the course of many decades cosmetic changes have been made to the exterior of each house, but the basic structure may still be discerned.

The Guerin House at 4472 N. Main Street Hemlock NY

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The Guerin Homestead

at 4472 N. Main St. in Hemlock NY.

Photo courtesy of Douglas Morgan 2007.

The middle house of the three built by the Guerin family was occupied by Charles and his newly-wed wife Emma (daughter of Nathan and Ann Austin of Hemlock). Three sons were born to them in the next four years: Herbert, Roy, and Jay. Charles worked with his father, uncles, and brother at their blacksmith and wagon making shop. He was a veteran of the Civil War, having served a term of enlistment in the 111th New York Infantry. He sold the house shortly after building it and moved to another house nearer to downtown Hemlock. Emma died about 1900 and Charles moved to Rochester to live with his eldest son. He died there in the summer of 1907.

The house was bought by Neil and Grace Purcell in 1875. Neil belonged to a large extended family who had settled in Canadice in the 1830s. He was the youngest child of Benjamin and Mary (Yauger) Purcell. He had five brothers and but a single sister. The Purcell name was scattered from Canadice to Springwater to Richmond to Livonia.

Neil was a skillful carpenter and lived near his parents and brothers in Canadice. He was in his mid-twenties when he married. He and his first wife Esther had two sons: Orra and Horace. Esther died when Horace was about ten and Neil remarried a few years later. His second wife, Grace, was seventeen years younger than he. In 1875 Neil and Grace moved to Hemlock. He was fifty-six; she was thirty-nine. Both the Purcell sons were married and living just a few miles away: Horace near Livonia Center, Orra at the southern end of Hemlock village.

In the summer of 1880 catastrophe struck when Orra’s young wife Amelia was killed in a tragic accident. A newspaper account of the time tells the story: “The wife of Mr. Orra Purcell of Hemlock Lake, Livingston county, was thrown from a carriage on Wednesday last and so severely injured that she survived the accident but a few days. The unfortunate lady had started with her husband for a ride. At Livonia Station he left her for a moment holding the horses, while he went into a store. While he was absent the horse became unmanageable and overturned the buggy. Mrs. Purcell was thrown violently to the ground receiving fatal injuries as above stated. She died on Friday night and was buried the Sunday following.”

A few short years later Neil’s wife Grace died as well. In the late winter of 1886 he sold his house in Hemlock and moved in with his son Horace.

Martha Castleman of Rochester bought the house from the Purcell family, but she never lived there. Rather, she rented it to various tenants. Three years later she defaulted on her mortgage and the house was sold at auction. John H. Adams (whose residence was across the street) bought the house and he, too, rented it out. For four years he owned the place, then sold it to Edward Woodruff. These were busy years in Hemlock with railroad workers coming and going, as well as itinerant laborers hired to dig for the Waterworks Company. There was much demand for rental property at the time and Mr. Woodruff, who owned several houses in Hemlock, supplied that need.

In the summer of 1900 the house was sold to Henry and Katie Yorks. He was an Express Agent, employed by the Lehigh Valley Railroad. They stayed in Hemlock only a few years before returning to Honeoye Falls, where they were from. When the Yorks family left town, they resold the house to Mr. Woodruff. (An interesting tidbit I turned up while researching this family: Katie Spatschek Yorks was a cousin of Bertha Sackett Lewis, my husband’s grandmother.)

Thomas Whaley, a foreman on the railroad, bought the house from Ed Woodruff in 1905. Three years later he married Mary Hanrahan; they were both in their mid-forties. Her widowed father lived with them. When Michael Hanrahan died in 1911, he was buried beside his wife in St. Rose Cemetery in Lima. The Whaleys, too, were buried there when the time came. Mary died in 1931 and Thomas nineteen years later; both died in Rochester where they’d moved after leaving Hemlock.

When Mr. Whaley sold the house in 1913 to Clark Rix, there began another round of temporary residents as the property changed hands a number of times, each new owner renting it out. Finally, in 1921 Harrison Becker bought it and lived there for nearly twenty-five years.

The son of Freemont Becker and Lillis Cray of Canadice, Harrison was not quite three when his father died in 1891; he was his parents’ only child. For much of his boyhood he lived with his uncle, Marion Becker in Richmond. At age twenty-one, he married Hattie Crooks; she was a year younger. Harrison and Hattie were in their early thirties when they moved to Hemlock. They had a daughter and a son; Hazel was ten and Harlan, three. Harrison was a carpenter, a builder of houses and other structures. His children grew up in Hemlock, attended school downtown at the new Union School, and eventually married and started families of their own.

On November 13, 1942, twenty-four-year-old Harlan was driving a truck on icy roads when he lost control and it overturned. He was killed instantly, leaving a young widow and three little children: Sally, Larry, and Jack. Not long after the accident Hattie died. Harrison moved away from Hemlock, eventually coming to live in Avon. He died in 1973. Both he and Hattie are buried in Lakeview Cemetery in Honeoye.

Harrison sold his Hemlock house to Frank VanBuren, who sold it to Adolph and Dorothy May. Two more owners had it before it was sold to Tom and Virginia Sargeant in the spring of 1957.

On A Personal Note

Mr. and Mrs. Sargeant had four daughters: Barbara was in my class at school, Sharon was a year younger, the same age as my sister Wendy. There were two younger girls, Linda and Amber, who I didn’t know as well. We didn’t go to Barbara and Sharon’s house to play that I can recall, but they came sometimes to our house. We have a delightful home movie of Sharon in our backyard learning to hoola-hoop.