They Came from Scotland - The William McLeod House at 4516 N. Main Street Hemlock NY

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

1

The William McLeod Homestead

at 4516 N. Main St. in Hemlock NY.

Photo courtesy of Douglas Morgan in 2006.

Much of the property on the west side of Main Street north of Adams Road was owned in the 1840s by farmer George Thayer. Over the course of twenty years he sold off his acreage, bit by bit. In 1865 he sold a lot (4516) to Gilbert and Althea Ferguson; they in turn sold it to William McLeod two years later. And at the same time William bought direct from George Thayer another lot (4508) bordering the first on the north. On the south lot William built a two-story house for his parents, himself, and his two sisters. (The north lot was not developed for several more years.)

William’s father, Norman, was in his mid-fifties, his mother Margaret some years younger. Both William’s parents had been born in Scotland, but they met and married in Ontario, Canada. Three of their children were born in Canada: William (1841), Donald (1844), and Elizabeth (called “Libbie” she was born in 1852). Shortly after Libbie’s birth the family moved to Canadice, New York. Their youngest daughter Isabelle was born there in 1856.

For slightly more than a decade the McLeod family remained in Canadice. Norman was a farm laborer. He worked, perhaps, for his neighbor Joseph King, whose son George later moved to Hemlock himself, a near neighbor of the McLeod family. It was while they were in Canadice that the two McLeod sons enlisted in the Union Army. Both served with honor, enduring the hardships and battles of war. William lost an arm at Manassas, Virginia, and was discharged in November 1862. After the war Donald and Libbie both married and moved away - Donald to Johnson City, Tennessee, Libbie to Chemung County, New York.

Then in 1867 William purchased his two lots in Hemlock and built a new house (4516) for the family. Norman, Margaret, William, and Belle lived there for almost fifteen years. After Norman died (about 1880), William built another house on the lot he owned on the north side of his property. He sold the house at 4516 to Nell and Orren VanZandt in 1886.

Nell was the daughter of George and Julia Knowles. She’d grown up in the house at 4504, just two doors up the road. She was in her early twenties when she married Orren VanZandt. They moved into their new home and within the year became the parents of a little girl. Ruthie, however, did not live to reach her second birthday. In 1890 another daughter arrived to bless their home - Edna. She was three or four when the house was remodeled. The June 1, 1894, edition of the Livonia Gazette carried this notice: “Orin (sic) VanZandt is enlarging his house by a two-story addition.”

Both of the houses built by William McLeod were rather similar in construction: each was a two-story rectangular building with a three-bay façade facing the street. Over the years few changes were made to the exterior of the house at 4508 (other than the construction of a front porch), but not so for the house at 4516. Mr. VanZandt built onto the rear of his house an extensive addition. He built a veranda encircling the front and side, and unified the work by sheathing the entire dwelling in a decorative coat of gray stucco.

The house was barely finished when Orren’s wife Nell died. He remarried two years later and brought his wife Ida to share his home. Their son William was born in the summer of 1899. When Willie was seven, Orren sold the house and the family moved away from Hemlock. Orren’s daughter Edna was in her late teens at this time. She boarded with a local family and within a couple years married Wells Purcell and moved to his home in Canadice.

In the spring of 1907 Marcus Burch and his family moved into the VanZandt house. Mark was forty-seven years old; his wife Delta two years younger. Their only child Lena was twenty-three. Four years later on September 14, 1911, Lena married George Powell, the ceremony being held in the family’s front room. George and Lena’s only child, Marcus Burch Powell, was born the following summer. The extended family lived in the home for nearly thirty years.

Mark Burch, remembered by his neighbors as “a jovial, broadminded, generous man” had been in his younger years employed by the Erie Railroad, first at Livonia then Cohocton. Later, while stationed at Dansville, he was christened with the nickname “Lackawanna Burch” - a tag that stuck with him through life. When he settled in Hemlock he was “engaged in the coal business.” One of his employees was his son-in-law George Powell.

An anonymous tribute was printed in the Livonia Gazette on the occasion of Mark’s death in June of 1924 and gives a clear picture of the man: “Mark Burch was a thoroughbred optimist. He knew no stormy days, neither did he know any to-morrow. He lived from day to day, in the belief that all was for the best, and was ready for whatever the day brought forth. Whether the sky was gray or blue, he was always the same. He radiated sunshine; he carried sunshine into the home, to his lodge meetings, and to his office; and no matter how much one had the blues a visit with him would drive them away ... Due to his ... business ability Mark Burch prevented many families in this vicinity from suffering from the cold during the war [WWI] when there was such a shortage of coal, and in allotting out this coal he drew no lines of distinction. The poor man was on a par with the rich.”

When Mark died the house passed to his wife Delta, then in 1930 to their daughter Lena Powell. It was the beginning of a lean decade. Lena’s husband George continued on in the coal business that had been his father-in-law’s. He mortgaged his home in the winter of 1933 to keep the coal business afloat, borrowing $2,000. Unfortunately he defaulted on the loan and in the spring of 1936 the Powells moved to Rochester, renting out their house to the Grant Harvey family while the financial intricacies were worked out. After George’s death in 1941 Mrs. Powell returned to Hemlock. (For some years she rented one-half of the house at 4504 Main Street. She died in 1965 in Illinois at the home of her son.)

In the late 1930s the house was seized by Mr. Powell’s creditors and sold. The new owner, Ruth Cornish of Rochester, continued to rent the house to the Powells’ tenant. Ulysses Grant Harvey was in his mid-seventies, married for more than forty years to Florence Crout. Eight of their nine children were grown and lived in homes of their own. Their youngest sons were twins Albert and Alfred. Both were twenty-six in 1940. Alfred, a young man with mild cognitive disabilities, lived with his parents.

In 1947, five years after Mr. Harvey died, Ruth Cornish sold her house to Enos North. Recently widowed, Enos was seventy-five. Living with him were his son Russell and Russ’ wife Blanche. Enos North was a blacksmith, specializing in the manufacture of iron lasts (forms used to make shoes). In 1909 Enos brought his family from Dayton, Ohio, to Rochester. There was his wife Effie, eldest son Carl, Russ (nine years old), and younger sons Willard and Scott (a newborn). For more than thirty years Enos worked for the Schelter Last Company making and finishing lasts. In time Russell joined him there. During the years that the North family lived in Hemlock, Blanche operated a beauty salon in their home.

Enos died in 1958 and Russell and Blanche, who had inherited the house, continued to live there. Eleven years later they sold the house and moved back to Rochester, where both died - Russell in 1971 and Blanche in 1992. They are both buried in the Oatka Cemetery in Scottsville.

In December of 1969 Larry and Edna (Hendrickson) Coykendall bought the North home. Larry was the son of Ken and Doris Coykendall who lived in the house just two doors down at No. 4534.