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EARLY SKANEATELES SIDEWALKS
Beth Batlle, Town Historian
Early sidewalks in Skaneateles were made of wooden planks. In the winter snow would accumulate, sometimes up to a depth of four feet, making it difficult to walk to the post office or other essential places.
In 1867, Freeborn Jewett opened a flagstone quarry near Stag Horn Point as there was a demand for flagstone to improve the sidewalks in the Village. In 1868, a flagstone walk was laid from Legg Hall to the bridge. Scows were built to carry the flagstone down the lake to the Village. Unfortunately, one of Jewett’s scows, “Dunderburg, loaded with flagstone, sank near the coffer dam.
Also in 1867, the Village passed a bill giving the Trustees the duty of seeing that winter snow-and ice were removed from the Village sidewalks, keeping at least one sidewalk on each Village street free from snow. The pathmaster (as the superintendent of highways was then called) used horse-drawn scrapers and plows to cut a path 4-feet-wide early in the morning after a snow storm.
Two hundred dollars from the highway tax funds was to be set aside to pay for the service. E.N. Leslie, in his History of Skaneateles said, “There is no other expenditure of money received from taxation that all the residents get more value from and more comfort from than the cost of scraping the snow from the sidewalks-here in the village.” He called this a “Skaneateles invention.” This convenience remains in effect today, although of course more modern equipment is now used.
In 1904 and 1905, Village crews began to pour concrete sidewalks throughout the Village. However, at least one flagstone sidewalk remains today and can be found on the south side of the Creamery building on Hannum Street.
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