A Project of the
Tompkins County Historian's Office
Remember and Learn
Tompkins County has been exciting for centuries
We live in a place that has seen a lot. Every kind of history runs through Tompkins County, whether social, military, religious, political, or even diplomatic. Tompkins County has seen slaves and slaveholders, abolitionists and copperheads, farmers and industries, and travel by roads, waters, and air.
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The Tompkins County Historical Commission works to tell and share these stories. That sharing may be online, in print, at events, or even as statues that will remind us of what has happened here.
The Tompkins County Historical Commission was created by Resolution 180-2018 of the Tompkins County Legislature on August 7, 2018, to “advise the Legislature on all historical matters relevant to Tompkins County including commemorations, events, monuments, historical publications, and grant opportunities.” The 15-member Commission, chaired by the County Historian, meets on a bi-monthly basis to advance this broad statutory mission. Its meetings are open to the public.
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The Legislature’s creation of the Commission followed two earlier special purpose County commissions focused on local history, the first in 2008 to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Civil War and, in 2015, the 200th anniversary of the 1817 founding of Tompkins County. Most of the Commission’s initial members were drawn from those earlier collaborations.
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The creation of the Commission also coincided with a major financial investment by the County in the preservation and celebration of local history. In 2018, the County acquired and renovated the former headquarters of the Tompkins Trust Company on the Ithaca Commons to serve as home for the History Center in Tompkins County and other related non-profit agencies. With additional philanthropic support for interior finishes and exhibitory, a new Tompkins Center for History and Culture opened in 2019. With the History Center’s Exhibit Hall as its centerpiece, the high-profile facility has helped bring local history to a place of prominence and within easy reach of the entire community.
Tompkins County Historical Commission Members
S.K. List, formerly the Trumansburg village historian, has been involved with Ithaca-area journalism since the 1970s, as a writer, editor, designer, and publisher, with the Ithaca Times; national art magazine Rubberstampmadness; Ithaca Child, the Paper for Parents; and the Cornell Daily Sun. Mixed in with that work, she has been a goat farmer, blacksmith, painter, and hippie-communard. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, American Demographics, Rock & Roll Confidential, and numerous alternative weeklies across the country.
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Patricia Longoria
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Leslyn McBean-Clairborne
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George McGonigal grew up in a military family, moving often and living in many interesting places. When his father was stationed overseas, Hector, N.Y. was the family's home. He still considers Hector to be "the homeland", although he has lived in Ithaca for the past 43 years.
George earned a BSE degree from SUNY Cortland in 1979, and later an MA in History from Cornell University in 1992. His Master's Thesis was about land use in Hector and the surrounding Finger Lakes region, from the time before General John Sullivan's invasion of Iroquoia in 1779 and early American settlement, up through the Depression era and into the 1990's. The Cayuga Indian Nation's land claim up to 1980 was a major portion of his research.
During his years in Ithaca, McGonigal has written numerous articles for the Ithaca Times, on varied topics, and served for ten years on the City of Ithaca's Common Council. He lives on West Hill in the City and makes his living as a self-employed landscaper.
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Eve Snyder, PhD is the Historian at The History Center in Tompkins County (THC) and the Project Director for THC’s open-source community digital history project, HistoryForge. Eve earned a Ph.D. in United States History from Binghamton University and a B.A. in History and English from Rutgers University. During her graduate studies, she developed a passion for the digital humanities as a tool for increasing public engagement in history. A native of New York City, Eve inherited her love of history from her father, a historian of American Christmas traditions.
Simon St.Laurent lives in Varna. He has focused in the past on Dryden history, particularly during the War of 1812. He has been a member of the Tompkins County Civil War Sesquicentennial Commemoration Commission and a Trustee of the Dryden Town Historical Society.
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Matthew J. Watros currently serves as the Deputy Historian for the Town of Newfield, where he lives with his wife and three children. He has had a lifelong interest in the study of history, particularly that of the places and events his ancestors were connected with. He has deep familial roots in Tompkins County and in 2020 published a historical fiction novel, ‘Gabriel,’ that follows the Civil War service of his three times Great-Grandfather, Gabriel R. Ballard of Dryden, NY.
Rodney Bent grew up in Ithaca and has degrees from Cornell University. He worked at the US Treasury Department, the Office of Management & Budget and other Federal agencies in Washington DC before returning to the area a decade ago. He is currently president of the Ulysses Historical Society.
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George Boyer, an economic historian at Cornell, has lived in Tompkins County for over forty years. He grew up near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and then went to college in Williamsburg Virginia, which set him on his path as a historian. He served on the county’s Sesquicentennial Civil War Commission and the Tompkins County Bicentennial Commission before joining the Tompkins County Historical Commission.
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Ruth Groff
Beth Harrington's husband first got her interested in local history as his maternal ancestors were some of the first settlers in the Town of Caroline. Currently, she is the co-chair of the Caroline History Association. She writes articles for the quarterly newsletter, and helps with other organizational events, such as an annual Cemetery Walk and Talk. She also assists Town Historian, Barbara Kone manage inventory of articles in the Caroline History Room.
Susan Holland’s passion for history led her to a career in preservation, sustainability and community development. She is the former executive director of Historic Ithaca and previous to that, at Historic Albany Foundation. She also worked in architectural salvage through the organizations’ retail stores selling historic house parts and antiques. In Tompkins County, she was a founding member of CR0WD (Circularity, Reuse Zero Waste Development) realizing the role that preservation plays in climate action. Susan is currently a Grants and Partnerships Manager for USC Builds, working on the historic SouthWorks Ithaca project and serves as the Treasurer for the Erie Canalway Heritage Area Commission.
Carol Kammen has been Tompkins County Historian most of the time since 2000. She has organized the Municipal Historians of Tompkins County, chaired the Celebration Grants Committee, and headed the Tompkins County Historical Commission. She taught at Ithaca High School, at TC3, and for 25 years at Cornell University. She is the author of a number of books: The Doing of Local History (3 editions), Encyclopedia of Local History (2 editions), Zen and the Art of Local History, 3 histories of Cornell University, several books about Tompkins County, over a dozen dramas of local interest, and Lamentations: A Novel of Women Walking West (2021). She wrote for the Ithaca Journal for 40 years, and for 25 years wrote the editorials for History News. She was named New York Public Historian of the Year (2004), won the infrequently given Award of Distinction from the American Association for State and Local History, and the Herbert Lehman Award from the New York Academy of History (2020). She is the mother of two sons, and grandmother of three.​
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Michael Lane is a life resident of Dryden and Tompkins County. He has served in elective office in village and county governments for forty years and is presently a county legislator. Mike has a sincere appreciation for history and particularly for our local history. He served on the county’s Sesquicentennial Civil War Commission; and also the Tompkins County Bicentennial Commission, which he co-chaired. He is a charter member of the county’s Historical Commission having served since it was created by the Tompkins County Legislature.
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