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Community Corner

Historical Society Celebrates in a Festive Fashion

The museum is bursting with insight on the early days of Babylon Village and its volunteers are active all year round.

If you'd dropped by the Babylon Village Historical and Preservation Society a few weeks ago, you'd have been treated to a comical sight: a life-sized plaster model of Captain Kangaroo (one-time village resident Bob Keeshan) sitting guard over the huge evergreen wreaths waiting to decorate the ninety-nine-year-old building.

Once home to the village library, the white columned building on Main Street became headquarters for the historical society after the library was relocated, in 1969, to South Carll Avenue.  When the books moved out, the treasures moved in.

"The society was founded by then mayor, Gilbert Hanse," said Alice Zaruka, the society's past president and current historian.  "Interesting artifacts had been getting donated for years and Hanse had the vision to make a home for them."

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The rooms brim with artfully-displayed relics of Babylon's past.  A spectacular grass boat, an ornate gown, display cases teeming with memorabilia and walls lined with photos and written documents depict village life from the 1700s to today. 

 Next year the building itself will make history, when it turns one hundred years old. 

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In addition to the museum, the historical and preservation society sponsors many  community events. Under the leadership of President Jackie Marsden and with the work of dedicated staff and volunteers, "history is being made today as it was back then," said  Zaruka.  "There's lots of great stories, even now." 

One such event is the Founder's Day Celebration.  In cooperation with the members of the Conklin House and the Old Town Hall, plans are underway to create a day of living history on April 2, 2011.  Beginning at the Conklin House to commemorate the village founder, residents will proceed to the newly-restored, original Town Hall on Main Street, where there will be speakers and pictorial displays.  The celebration will culminate at the museum with a depiction of twentieth century life.  Handouts for a self-guided walking tour of village sites, including Argyle Park, the village docks, and the Presbyterian church, will be available.

Another event, Old Times Day, will be celebrated in May, to honor a person or organization significant to Babylon Village history.  In 2009, the honoree was Past Commander George H. Kotz of the American Legion Post 94.  This year's guest is to be announced.                          

Maybe most exciting is the Historic Fountain Reconstruction Project. With the help and cooperation of citizens and the village government, the society has worked to reconstruct a historic monument lost in the early 1900s.

In 1897, a charitable group called the Babylon Women's Exchange used the last $400 in their treasury (valued at approximately $10,700 by today's currency) to present a drinking fountain as an "enduring memorial" to the village. The 10-foot high monument offered a faucet for humans, and basins on the opposite side for thirsty dogs and horses.

The women were fierce believers in the temperance movement.  "Providing the fountain as a drinking source may have been a way to push water consumption over liquor," said Zaruka with a smile.

But the "enduring memorial" did not endure.  Rumor has it that in the early 1900s  a wayward trolley knocked over the fountain, and it lay by the roadside, forgotten, until a Halloween prank by some youths "relocated" it to the bottom of Sumpwams Creek.

However, historic record has it that the fountain was removed in June, 1917, and replaced the following Independence Day with the "Liberty Pole," a flagpole commemorating the country's entrance into World War One.

The whereabouts of the original fountain remain unknown.  Zaruka said numerous attempts to discover its location, even with the use of metal detectors, have yielded no clues.

 "The fountain may be all the way down to China by now," she said.

Regardless of rumor and record, the fact is that on Memorial Day, 2011, the beautiful reconstruction will be unveiled.  For aesthetic display only, the replica will not dispense drinking water.

Zaruka, like many museum supporters, have their own treasure trove of memories tied to the village. A resident since the age of 10, she remembers the very first tree-lighting at Argyle Lake, in the 1930s, when she was a high school sophomore.  She sang with the school chorus, while "my brother-in-law, Steve Zawyrucha, and Bill Torrey (husband of Joy, of the Heritage Quilters), played "Oh Come, All Ye Faithful" on coronet horns over the waterfalls.  The tree-lighting ceremony has been a Babylon Village tradition ever since.

The Babylon Village Historical and Preservation Society museum is open from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Entertaining educational programs for schoolchildren and local scout troops are available, and the society presents annual scholarship awards to promising high school students.

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