Glass Plate Negative Tales 1

This glass plate negative view captures a long-gone vista from the top of a drumlin just north of the intersection of 5&29 and Rt 90 looking north with Cayuga-Seneca Canal in foreground and the Richmond Aqueduct in the distance. The detail in the print is so dense that initially I couldn’t locate the aqueduct. Can…

will van dorp

November 14, 2025

1–2 minutes

Bill Hecht, Canal Society of New York, Collection highlights, CSNY, Montezuma, Richmond Aqueduct

I gather the drumlin was grazed clear by the farm animals of the day. Today, many of the summits are covered in trees, since the need to hay has declined in the transportation sector. The people there appear to be enjoying a picnic. I wonder where they walked from and whether a draft animal waits nearby outside the frame of the photo.

Might the folks above have walked up from thios farm? given the longevity of Dutch barns in western and central NYS, might that barn or other structures in this image still stand?

Family names? Apple trees in the foreground? Did you eventually find the aqueduct?

All photos from the CSNY collections and cleaned up by Bill Hecht.

2 responses to “Glass Plate Negative Tales 1”

Lee Rust

November 16, 2025 at 2:18 pm

This picture was taken from atop the drumlin just northeast of the 5&20/90 intersection, once known as “Free Bridge Corners”. USGS topo maps match the terrain perfectly and Google Maps clearly shows the trace of the original Cayuga-Seneca Canal that appears in the photo background.

The gambrel-roofed barn at right-center closely matches the structure seen today, but the associated farmhouse is gone and the road has been moved. As it happens, this particular drumlin was entirely cleared of trees sometime after 2009, so a modern visitor would encounter a vista very similar to the one enjoyed by those picnickers of more than a century past.

Reply
1. will van dorp
  
  November 17, 2025 at 2:24 pm
  
  Lee- Thanks for the detective work. Do you suppose one could get permission from the land owner to replicate this image 120 years after those picknickers enjoyed the view from that hilltop? it would certainly be fun!
  
  Reply