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
-
-
My pal Brucie, savior of Sidney's hospital
Ask any hospital administrators if they've ever heard of a closed hospital in New York state that has ever been re-opened. They will say, "Impossible." In a half century of going through records you can't find any.
Continued ... - Catching a whiff of 'Vermont Vapor'
- Selections from the virtual mailbag
- Recalling days of 'Doughnut King'
- Opera great's visit still a thrilling memory
-
My pal Brucie, savior of Sidney's hospital
- Cary Brunswick
-
-
We've become our own worst enemies
The past month has been marked by a seeming unprecedented number of man-made tragedies, as distinct from those caused by violent outbursts of the natural world, such as earthquakes, hurricanes and tsunamis.
Continued ... - Plenty of blame to go around for Bangladesh horror
- Obama is going against his word on Social Security
- Reflecting on a Florida trip
- Those magnificent spies in their flying machines
-
We've become our own worst enemies
- Chuck Pinkey
- Guest Column
-
-
Records seizure is an insult to free press
Distrust of government secrecy has been elevated to an exceptional level with the disclosure the Justice Department covertly examined two months of Associated Press phone records to determine who leaked details to the AP about a foiled terrorist plot.
Continued ... - The evangelical view of same-sex marriage
- Manor's fate will be Otsego board's legacy
- A closer look at our economy - Part II
- Use fracking to fill budget gaps
-
Records seizure is an insult to free press
- 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
-
-
Sunday movies in Oneonta finally shown in 1934
You know an issue is divisive when a vote to resolve it is quite close. In Oneonta during the early 1930s there were probably plenty of discussions or arguments at the family dinner table or sermons from the pulpits on Sunday mornings, regarding whether or should be able to see a movie in Oneonta on Sunday.
Continued ... - Politics, fitness and landmarks dominated local news in May 1968
- Local people sought income in many ways in 1933
- Local windstorm in 1983 caused tense moments
- Disaster, expansions put people to work in May 1913
-
- Rick Brockway
-
-
Kids have sparkle in their eyes
When I was in my teens, old Bill Naatz told me about a stream north of Lake George where a man had panned out enough gold to make his wife a wedding band. It was all rumors, but to his grandson and myself, it sounded like the makings of a great adventure.
- People make the outdoors even better
- Turkey season has ups and downs
- Spring air isn't always the freshest
- Adriondacks keep growing and growing
-
Kids have sparkle in their eyes
- Sam Pollak
-
-
Using time off in the worst way possible
"You don't mean it," I pleaded. "You simply can't mean it!"
Continued ... - Terror lives on, and there's no end in sight
- Remembering the glory of their times
- Column on guns led to a barrage of (mostly) jeers
- No one is coming to take your guns
-
Using time off in the worst way possible
- 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
