○On March 23, approximately 80 people from Macedonia and the surrounding area took the opportunity to tour inside the historic Bliss House on Canandaigua Road.
Our gracious host, Jeffrey Henry, allowed us to walk around this cobblestone house, completed in 1842. Our open house included a birthday celebration for local benefactor Nettie Bliss, who would have turned 131 that day.
The family patriarch, Charles Bliss, was born in 1786 in Manchester, Vermont. He married his wife Eleanor in 1812. In 1839 they moved to New York and settled in Macedonia. From 1841 until his 1979, the Bliss family lived in the cobblestone house for four generations. This home is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Some of the more surprising things we learned on the tour was that until 1980, the house had no electricity, plumbing, or heating (other than a fireplace). Nettie lived in a mobile home outside his brother Charlie's home. Several people who visited remembered Charlie. Mr. Maxwell recalled driving to Charlie's place from time to time. Palmyra resident Judy Snyder said her mother-in-law, Rosalie, spent the last few years of her life cooking and playing cards with Nettie.
The house is simply beautiful! I heard that it took about three years to build a stone-paved house. This is because the cement and stone need to cure properly. This house was built in his Federal style between 1839 and 1842 and consists of a two-story main block and his one-and-a-half-story frame wing. It consists of irregular, coarse, moderately sized cobblestones. This house is one of his approximately 170 remaining cobblestone buildings in Wayne County.
Did you know that Wayne County is home to 20% of the world's cobblestone buildings?
The cobblestone design is characterized by rows of coarse, rounded field stones of irregular shape and moderate size, separated by protruding V-shaped horizontal mortar joints. Most cobblestone buildings had limestone or sandstone quinnes and lintels, but Charles Blisshouse was one of only eight cobblestone buildings in Wayne County with brick quinnes and lintels. This is one of the.
The interior is well preserved. The fireplace with its white mantel and stone hearth is simply beautiful. Henry has a very large framed map of Wayne County hanging above it. The floor is a wide board with square pegs.
What I thought was the most amazing were the windows. Due to the thick exterior walls, the windows are designed so that the interior frames are slanted. This allows light to fill the room in a very special way.
All of the door hardware was found to be original. The central staircase had what appeared to be marble inlays on empty columns. The handrails were shorter than required by today's standards. The stairs were open at the top and gave access to the four rooms on the second floor.
Macedon is grateful to Nettie Bullis for her generous contribution. I encourage anyone interested in preserving our history to check out the Macedonian Historical Society. The Society owns and maintains her two buildings at Macedonia Center, the Macedonia Academy and the Macedonia Center Meeting House. We meet on the second Tuesday of every month.
For more information, check out our Facebook page, contact us at macedonacademy@gmail.com, PO Box 303, Macedon, NY 14502, or visit www.macedonhistoryalsociety.org.
Linda Brown is a Macedonian town historian and secretary of the Macedonian Historical Society.
