By Dan King
Skenesborough Museum opened its doors for the 56th year on Sunday and museum director Carol Greenough is very excited for the new season.
“We have really done something in that museum,” Greenough said. “We’ve moved a lot of things around and rejuvenated some of the older displays.”
Greenough said that a few new racks and displays forced the museum crew to move some of the displays around, and “like rearranging an apartment,” Greenough was inspired to completely rearrange the museum.
“It all started with needing a new rack for some additional brochures and then we began moving everything around,” she said. “It’s nice because hopefully people from Whitehall will come in and say ‘I never noticed that display before.’”
In addition to rearranging some of the older displays, some of the newer displays will be more prominent, the director said. Some of the newer displays include a collection of six different rifles from the 1800s and remnants of a former shoe repair shop in the village of Whitehall.
“We had a gift over the last three to four years of rifles from the 1800s,” Greenough said. “The man who donated them is now in his 90s and wanted them to be on display where they could be seen.”
Greenough said of the remnants of the shoe repair shop: “There used to be a shoe repair shop opposite of Division Street on Main Street. It was just a little shack down below the building, near the canal. It was the mid-twentieth century and people didn’t have more than two pairs of shoes, his name was Rovelli and he had these very comfortable chairs that you would sit in while he fixed your shoes.”
When Rovelli passed away, Greenough said that his daughter contacted her asking if the museum would be interested in them. They now sit in the museum where Greenough says they are frequently used by visitors to look at Skene Manor from the back of the museum or to observe the fire engines that hang from the museum’s ceiling.
“I’m hoping that people from Whitehall are going to come down and reminisce about having their shoes fixed there,” Greenough added.
Of all the exhibits, Greenough said there are two she is particularly fond of – the display honoring former New York State Supreme Court Justice John O’Brien, a Whitehall-native, and the display honoring former Assistant Secretary of the Navy William Franke, a Troy native.
“John O’Brien was a judge on the New York State Supreme Court and he died in office,” Greenough said. “He was an Elk and dedicated to his community. When he died we were given his judicial robe, army uniform and his most prized possession, a baseball signed by Babe Ruth.”
In 1975, then-town supervisor Horace Scott lobbied at the county level to have a wing built in the museum dedicated to Scott and he was successful.
As for Franke’s display, Greenough said it ties in perfectly with Whitehall’s claim to being “Birthplace of the U.S. Navy.”
Located in a former canal terminal, the Skenesborough Museum is open through Labor Day and hours varying depending on the day, so attendees are encouraged to contact Greenough at the Whitehall Housing Office 518-499-1155 or the museum itself at 518-499-0716.