Building date: 1836
Original use: Quaker meeting house
Corner structures:
Mortar application and content: Vertical heavy
Types and uses of stones:
Types and choice of windows:
Structures with similar masonry details:
Masons who worked on building: Built by Washington Chaplin?
Unique features:
Map views courtesy Google Maps. Address is Google Earth confirmed; 43°14'27.03"N 78°32'19.98"W. Current owner of record, Monter as of the 2019 Tax Roll.
Town of Hartland and Niagara County Maps
"The Cobblestone Houses of Upstate New York", compiled by Dorothy Wells Pease. Research done in collaboration with Hazed B. Jeffery, supplemented with material furnished by Carl F. Schmidt. Reference the "House 1" icon in paragraph fourteen on page 10.
House at 8856 Ridge Road was built for Quakers as a meeting house in 1836. The original structure has undergone extensive external alterations with dormers added on the front with a large enclosed front porch of a much later period. It was built with random-sized cobblestones on all four walls with slightly smaller stones on the front wall. Richard Palmer blog.
The structure was converted into a residence by Mrs. Emma Nelson in 1915. Note on the reverse of photograph Har-8 Mantei 2 shown below. Courtesy Cobblestone Museum.
History of Cobblehurst from a folder with 32 pages of documentation provided by an owner. Included are early photographs, an early illustration, history summaries, guest book entries during the years the structure was a resort, and newspaper clippings.
CHURCHES.
The first "meeting-house" of the Friends, or Quakers, was erected about the year 1818, and was built of logs. It stood on the Ridge road, at the corner of the Quaker road. This building was occupied for a meeting-house up to 1835, when the society built their present house of worship, constructed of cobble stone. It is located about three-quarters of a mile east of the old one, on the Ridge road. This society for a number of years was quite large, but of late has become considerably reduced by deaths and removals. Its members were industrious and temperate in their habits, and a people peculiarly addicted to minding their own business.
Among the most prominent and leading of the members of this society was Jesse Aldrich, who took an active part in all the measures calculated to enhance the prosperity of the church. He was a man much respected for his intelligence, and moral and religious standing. He held various town offices, although frequently declining on the ground that the duties required the administering of oaths. He built the first frame house and barn on the Quaker road. He died at the advanced age of 88 years. The Society of Friends most of the time have had no resident minister. The only ones now remembered were Robert Comfort, Mead Atwater, and Huldah, his wife. "History of Niagara County, N.Y.", Sanford & Company N.Y. 1878, p. 243, courtesy Cornell University Library.
The Cobblestone Society & Museum Tours:
Clarence Sellick House 6th Annual 06/06/1964, Tour of Cobblestone Homes, 09/28/2019. See photographs below from that event.
- "Cobblestone Masonry", 1966, Carl Schmidt: Name reference, Friends Meeting House
- Page 79
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¹ Image courtesy Cobblestone Museum.
² Photography courtesy Martin and Sheila Wolfish.
³ Photography courtesy Richard Palmer.
4 Photography courtesy Gregory Lawrence.
