The last week of May was a special one for The Iroquois Indian Museum in Howes Cave. It marked the 20th anniversary of the opening at that site, on the road leading to Howe Caverns. That opening was a milestone for the museum, having originated nearly a dozen years earlier in another nearby location.
An interesting sequence of events made the origin possible, all taking place during the 1970s. Two anthropologists, Christina Johannsen and John Ferguson, had been working with an Iroquois organization to create and publish "Iroquois Arts: A Directory of People and Their Work." In this, more 600 Iroquois artists and craftspeople had been interviewed and their work photographed in 14 Iroquois communities from Wisconsin to Quebec. In an Iroquois kitchen of Tam and Stan Hill, Tam suggested to Johannsen that, "You have learned so much about art and craftwork, you should have a museum." The idea was well taken, but not immediately acted upon.
Some years later at a Schoharie County Arts Council gathering, Ferguson and Rudy Snyder were talking about a vacuum left in the region with the closing of the popular Iroquois life group dioramas at the New York State Museum in Albany. The discussion led to the idea of starting an Indian museum in Schoharie. Snyder was then the head of the Schoharie County Historical Society and offered to help.
Johannsen had been working on her doctorate in anthropology and museology at Brown University around this time. She was present at a meeting in the living room of Catherine and John Ferguson, with Gail Shaffer, then a member of the New York State Assembly and a native of Schoharie County. Johannsen was job searching for a museum position in an urban area, and Shaffer urged her to stay in Schoharie County to build something of value, rather than taking her talents away to the cities.
All of these ideas came together when a board of trustees for the Schoharie Museum of the Iroquois Indian was formed during the summer of 1980, first chaired by John Ferguson, a professor of anthropology at the State University College of Agriculture and Technology at Cobleskill.
By December of that year, a memorandum of understanding was signed between the new museum and the Schoharie County Historical Society, allowing use of the second floor of the Badgley building in the Old Stone Fort Museum complex for up to 10 years, with free rent and utilities. Plans for the long term were made for a permanent home in Schoharie County.
The Schoharie Museum of the Iroquois Indian opened its doors to the public May 10, 1981. Johannsen was the first director, a non-salaried position.
Popularity of the museum grew slowly, and the first Iroquois Indian Festival was held in September 1982 on the grounds of the State University College of Agriculture and Technology at Cobleskill, an annual event still popular today in Howes Cave.
The museum board of trustees began searching for a site of the museum's permanent home in 1983. They selected a site at the base of the hill of Howe Caverns, a successful tourist destination for many years. The trustees raised enough money to put a down payment on a 48-acre plot, taking a mortgage from the owner for the difference. The mortgage was paid off quickly.
For the next several years, fundraising, planning and architectural work followed. Getting a major funding source was difficult, so the original plan for a $2.8 million museum building with a longhouse-like appearance had to be considerably scaled back to $1.2 million, and from 20,000 to 7,100 square feet. With the help of the Farmer's Home Administration financing, building got under way in September 1991. In an effort to save money, volunteers hand-stained 30,000 cedar shingles used on the building during the winter months.
"What we've ended up with is a compromise between what we'd like if money was no object and reality," John Ferguson told The Daily Star just days before the museum's opening day, Friday, May 29, 1992. "Once we've paid off the money we've borrowed for phase one, we'll start phase two."
At the time of the opening the Iroquois Indian Museum had an outdoor amphitheater, children's museum, contemporary and historic Iroquois exhibits, a museum shop and a 40-acre nature park.
This weekend: Oneonta was a busy convention center in June 1922.
City Historian Mark Simonson's column appears twice weekly. On Saturdays, his column focuses on the area during the Depression and before. His Monday columns address local history after the Depression. If you have feedback or ideas about the column, write to him at The Daily Star, or e-mail him at simmark@stny.rr.com. His website is www.oneontahistorian.com. His columns can be found at www.thedailystar.com/marksimonson.
Columns
Iroquois Indian Museum grew from humble beginnings
- Big Chuck D'Imperio
-
-
Upstate theme parks offered affordable thrills
I saw in the news last week that Disney theme parks are raising admission prices to almost $100 a person. Children (who Uncle Walt considers 10 and under) are now $86 a day.
Continued ... - Getting creative with gifts for grads
- Safety Patrol D.C. visits never get old
- My pal Brucie, savior of Sidney's hospital
- Catching a whiff of 'Vermont Vapor'
-
Upstate theme parks offered affordable thrills
- Cary Brunswick
-
-
Book-banning has a tendency to backfire
So what does the 1960s game show ``What's My Line'' got to do with the Bloomsday festivities occurring in Dublin, Ireland, this week? Surprisingly, there is a link.
Continued ... - Envisioning a world without terror
- We've become our own worst enemies
- Plenty of blame to go around for Bangladesh horror
- Obama is going against his word on Social Security
-
Book-banning has a tendency to backfire
- Chuck Pinkey
- Guest Column
- Lisa Miller
-
-
A view from above
Fire towers in the Catskill Mountains have always been destination points, built to capture some of the region’s best views. These sentinel stations served an important role for the earliest possible sightings of forest fires in the remote mountain ranges. But the fire towers and those who manned them fulfilled a multitude of other roles as well.
Continued ... - Being a parent is a constant learning process
- Healthy doesn't have to mean expensive
- A family era ends with close of Potter series
- Independent stores make up for loss of Borders
-
- Mark Simonson
- Rick Brockway
-
-
Don't play around with snappers
The other day, I was driving along Route 205 between Mount Vision and Hartwick. Suddenly, I had to swerve out of my lane to miss a huge snapping turtle. It was crossing from a large swamp on the left to some higher ground on the other side of the road.
- Emmons Pond Bog is pretty easy to enjoy
- Fishing has gotten a lot more complex
- Waterfalls are even better when you keep them to yourself
- Kids have sparkle in their eyes
-
Don't play around with snappers
- Sam Pollak
-
-
Justice Dept., IRS abuses worth screaming about
"If this had happened while a Republican was president, the liberal media would be screaming."
Continued ... - THIS WEEK'S POLL
- Using time off in the worst way possible
- Terror lives on, and there's no end in sight
- Remembering the glory of their times
-
Justice Dept., IRS abuses worth screaming about
- William Masters
-
-
Schreibman tops Chris Gibson on women's issues
As the time to vote draws near, we need to remember how money can run politics more than we can. Raising funds is a prominent (if not the dominant) task of getting elected. Raising issues is also crucial, but those efforts are subject to distortion and fear-mongering.
- Republicans feelentitled to allthey can garner An entitlement is a legal benefit available from the government to individuals who are within a defined category of recipients, such as needing insurance for unemployment or health services.
-
Romney focuses on self; Obama emphasizes unity
Mitt Romney criticizes President Obama for saying a person's success is rooted in his community, and is not all his alone. Romney belittles this with his belief in individual initiative. He is better at the put-down than the push-up.
-
Romney shows little regard for common man
The Republicans in Congress have voted over and over, 33 times, redundantly and uselessly, to rescind what they call Obamacare.
-
Scouts' gay ban creates problem where none exists
The Boy Scouts of America's "emphatic reaffirmation" of its vow to exclude any and all homosexuals from its hallowed ranks is ill-considered and pathetic, especially in view of its having reviewed the matter for two years.
-
Schreibman tops Chris Gibson on women's issues
