Beautiful weather today, what a wonderful time to be out and about. Cooked up breakfast burritos this morning in order to use up a bunch of veggies that were hanging around in the fridge for a while. Wanted to get to them before they made a pact between themselves and turned into one giant science experiment. So I ate while listening to 'The Car Guys' on NPR and reading the comics.

   Once out and about the 1st stop was back at Fort Klock to see if anyone had shown up yet. No one there yet, at least for the 5 min's I hung around. From there it was back to Johnstown in order to explore a little more of that town. Stopped several times while driving the streets and wandering around to take pictures of some of the neat old buildings. It is hard to pick and choose though when so many of them are so old and so interesting. I think there are several that will go into my 'Cool Buildings' folder though. So they will show up here at some point.

   Spent many hours down there, ran into one homeowner there, almost literally since I was standing in his driveway taking a picture of the house across the street when he wanted to drive out. He stopped and talked to me for about 15 min's about his home and some of the other ones on his block. He pointed to a small, one car garage size, building at the back of his lot that he told me was once one of many glove factories in the area. Leather work, and in particular, making gloves was once a big business in the area. In deed, a town just down the road, Glover, was named that because of all the manufacturing. So it was off to Glover next where there are even more neat houses to look at. So many that I'll need to go back in a day or two and see some more of them.

   Will be heading back to Fort Klock tomorrow to see if it is open. I would think the weekend would be the most likely time for that to occur. If not, the next stop will be down the road at the 'Nellis Tavern' building I discovered the other day. The sign in the window there said that it was suppose to be open on Sunday afternoon, so we'll see. If not I still need to go on into Little Falls again and check out what I believe is the start to the Erie Canal. Maybe take a boat ride, certainly look around, and if nothing else, have a good time.

   In the meantime, here are some photo's of the Library Building in Little Falls.

A house in Little Falls, NY. At first it appeared to simply be a nice old house that someone had turned into a business office. Upon a second look it turned out to be part of the Little Falls Library.

A second view showing the 3rd story and the mansard roof a little better. The brick work on the building was outstanding and the slate tiles are beautiful. Built around 1806 by a guy who invented new types of horse drawn farm machinery, ( Mowar Farm Machinery), the house is right across the street from the towns main park.

One more exterior shot. Turns out that the family that built the house wasn't very prolific and had only one male heir. This son, who became Judge Smith, had no heirs at all so upon his death in 1910 his estate donated the house to the city to be used as their first library. It wasn't until 1911 that all the paperwork was finished, but since then, 101 years, this house has been a portion of the town library system.

I had to go inside and see if there was anything left of the original structure still left. As it turns out the guy at the front desk, Tom, lit up like a candle when I mentioned being interested in the 'Architectural Details' of the place. After finding his coworker, he then took me on a hour and a half private tour of the whole house and told me more than I ever wanted to know about Judge Smith and his family. This was originally a bedroom, the materials on the desk are articles pertaining to the family and the house. Check out the fireplace surround and mantle. The color is from the type of soapstone they used for it. It was gorgeous!

What was originally the living room, the light is one of the original gas fixtures. All of the woodwork is original as is a lot of the furniture. Check out the plaster work on the ceiling and along the arch. As part of the library you can bring a book in here and read for however long you want to.

A view into the Judges personal library. The double pocket doors, one of three sets, still worked perfectly. You can almost see some of the original wooden flooring. It was a combination of oak, black walnut and chestnut. Other floors used different woods and combinations.

A better view of the original library. You can see some of the original built in bookcases on the far wall along with another original gas light fixture.

Looking back into the living room you can see the tile fireplace with the original mahogany fireplace surround. I thought the rocking chair over there would of been a nice place to read for an hour or two.

A close up of the arch in the living room complete with all the unique plaster 'wedding cake' designs. So named because they are applied using a pastry bag just like decorating a cake. (All those years of watching 'This Old House' finally came in handy).

A close up of the plaster medallion and light fixture in the living room.

A view into a small sitting area where the stair landing to the 2nd floor is. Again note the double pocket doors.