TREADWELL Adventure
What a day! I had heard somewhere about a very old store in Treadwell, New York. Then I realized that there was an upcoming event in Treadwell: The 2011 Stagecoach Run Festival. I asked Leslie if she was interested in going to Treadwell for the art festival and doing some geocaching. She agreed and we left Oneonta at ten a.m. this morning.
Leslie claims she is not a good navigator but she seemed to know where to go, so I put my Delaware County map away and drove while she told me the way. We stopped on Route 28 and I quickly found the geocache COMMUTE.
Treadwell may be a sleepy old town most of the year, but today it was hopping and OH SO INTERESTING!
First stop, to take pictures of an old school which is now a private residence.
The old school building is right on the main road, and the newer school sits behind it.
Second stop, at one of the art exhibits (ART 6) in the nicest small gingerbread style house.
The nature paintings inside are so detailed that at first glance, they look like photographs. Here is one I especially liked:
There were two other artists displaying at this location: Glen H. Fellows from Norwich, WOODENWARE and Judy Thus, Paintings and Prints,
from South Kortright.
From there we went to BARLOW'S STORE.
This old store has been in continuous operation since 1841. A sign in front lists the proprietors over the years.
Barlows offers groceries, books, some antiques, notions, a deli, and auto repair parts. They have some artifacts and antiques on display. 
They still offer penny candy! We looked around a bit and I took some pictures. Then we crossed the road to go to a place that Leslie remembered from a previous Art Fair (about ten years ago) The place is very interesting.
It is the TREADWELL MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS. It is kind of hard to describe, but I think it was the highlight of the time we spent in Treadwell. This unique museum/art gallery is owned by Joseph Kurhajec,
he lives in Paris eight months of the year and spends the other four months in Treadwell.
The building was built in 1867 and has functioned as a general store, dance hall, theatre and town hall. Performances are occasionally offered on this small stage:
Joseph invited me to return at six p.m. for a pot luck supper. It sure would have been fun to go to this.
Then to this place,
where we saw some beautiful art work by Ellie Reynolds.
Then to the school where several artists had displays and there is also a history center. This was on display in front of the school:
The school was closed in 2007 due to not declining enrollment. After that, we were getting hungry and decided to have lunch at Barlow's Store. We both had sandwiches. There were lots more art exhibits available to see in Treadwell and I hated to miss them, but we wanted to save some time for geocaching. We started driving towards Delhi where we planned to do some geocaching. But I noticed an old cemetery (West Meredith Cemetery) and decided to stop. A man named Don told us that he used to own it but then deeded it to the town.
He said it is maintained by the county. he told us that there are some soldiers from the French Indian War buried there. He also showed me the "coffin makers" signature on a very old stone of a Revolutionary War soldier. While there, I hid a geocache.
Then on to Delhi where we found two fairly new geocaches. One of them is kind of an international geocache, with "swag" from Ireland. I took this postcard from the cache.
Then on to Meridale to look for PLUCKY DUCKY'S DEMISE at a cemetery. We had a bit of trouble figuring out the locatin of the cache, but Leslie found this one, too. This cache is in a container shaped like a duck! Leslie noticed this lonely gravestone behind the cemetery in the woods. We checked it out:
It turned out to be a great day! Good weather, a neat old store and a really unique museum, and geocaches!!!
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