The Silas Wright House, Part 1

I decided it was time for me to pay a visit to the Silas Wright home in Canton, New York, county seat of St. Lawrence County. So one cold but sunny Saturday, I drove to Canton:

The Silas Wright house is on busy Main Street, right next to the Unitarian Church and across the road from the village green. It was built as a two room cottage in 1832 and purchased by the then U.S. Senator and future New York Governor in 1834. They spent the next ten years enlarging the home in the Greek Revival style to accommodate the Senator's important station in life:

The public entrance was in the rear of the house and, as I walked around back, I could plainly see that the Historical Society had added considerably to the structure in order to accommodate the museum and all their other activities:

The first museum exhibit I visited was a room with such historical artifacts as this cannonball from the French and Indian War in 1760:

And then I entered into the actual Silas Wright house, beginning in the kitchen:

It was a comfortable and homey place, with a full set of dishes:


The cast iron cook stove was a St. Lawrence Stove manufactured by the Brasher Iron Works (toured in a previous post) in the 1850s:

The floor boards were the original boards put down in 1835 and that door to the outside led, in the Wrights' day, to a garden and orchard:

The kitchen, of course, led to the dining room:

A Queen Ann style lowboy which dates back to the late 1700s. By the way, I would have known none of this but for the informative brochure I received when I entered:

Mrs. Wright would have used the fireplace and dutch oven during the couple's first years in the house. The woodwork color was original:

The Empire style sideboard was purchased by the Wright's in Albany in 1840. But I'd only seen two rooms in the Silas Warner House, so I had much more yet to visit. I'll post Part 2 tomorrow: