As the holiday seasons draw around, lots of of us will start out browsing for presents. For the earlier two many years, as many tiny corporations in rural communities have shut, lots of shoppers from rural Finger Lakes cities routinely have turned to malls in suburban Rochester or Syracuse, or absent on the net to find the ideal merchandise for loved types. This has then perpetuated the decline of compact enterprises. But, at a single time, people today living in even the smallest Yates County communities could do all their shopping a quick wander or trip from their households.
When journey was a lot more difficult, even small hamlets were fairly self-contained. Yates County was bursting with commerce. Maps from the 1850s and 1860s demonstrate one particular could obtain necessary products these types of as wagons, barrels, footwear, furnishings, hats and groceries in destinations as small as Rock Stream and Italy Hill. This does not include the other organizations that offered products and services, these as the lots of mills, hotels, taverns, write-up workplaces and regulation workplaces sprinkled in the course of the county.
But what about fancier or exclusive goods for items, or hard to locate components for Xmas meals and sweets? A glimpse as a result of Yates County newspaper adverts from the county’s earliest days displays a shocking array of articles or blog posts for sale in nearby retailers, such as products that would be bought as provides and not just day-to-day objects.
The earliest Christmas advertisement (and 1st point out of Santa Claus!) in the Yates County newspaper was for Kelsey’s Grocery and Fancy Keep in Eddytown (now Lakemont) on Dec. 8, 1846. In a extended-winded advertisement typical of the era, it immediately informs the reader that all the things is much more costly in Dundee:
“I have a full assortment of Groceries, Sugar, Teas, Coffees … and the most splendid assortment of Fancy Posts AND TOYS at any time brought into Yates County,” it reads eagerly. “I are not able to enumerate them but will merely say that a stop by to my retailer will be pretty much as exciting as a take a look at to a museum.” Kelsey then went right after the mom and dad: “As the Holidays are close to at…