All About the Cape Vincent Historical Museum

The Cape Vincent Historical Museum evolved from the Cape Vincent Improvement League’s “History Club” that was created in 1930. In the mid-1960’s the Town Historian, Nina Comins, and the Village Historian, Dorothy Allen, began the Cape Vincent Historical Museum in what is now the Cape Vincent Community House. Many artifacts and photographs were donated by local citizens for display.

In 1992 the museum was relocated to a building at the north end of James Street owned by the Town of Cape Vincent and has had many “lives”. Readers can find more historical information on our website, but, of course, visiting us in person is the best way to experience the history of Cape Vincent.

Due to generous donations, endowments and grants, the Town of Cape Vincent had the building renovated to house the museum in two rooms, and the Cape Vincent Chamber of Commerce also occupies the building. Recently, an “Angel” who requested anonymity gifted us with a very much appreciated heating and air conditioning system to help further our mission of preserving our artifacts.

The museum is a community effort; we are a 100% volunteer group of people who either have long-time family connections to “the Cape” or are recent newcomers to the area and want to learn about their new hometown. The phrase “you are a native if your diapers hung on the line” is often heard here, but we welcome everyone who loves this town – and there are many of us!

Board and Volunteers

We feel incredibly fortunate to have our Board of seven members and almost 40 people volunteering to have the museum open daily, 10 am to 4 pm, during July and August. And we are always looking for others who have other skills to offer. For example, two of our long-time family members donated their materials and skills to restore our Tallett Rod Winder machine, invented by a Cape Vincent resident, William H. Tallett and patented in 1915. (Thank you, Tim and Ron Mason!) Another former Town Historian, Peter Margrey, worked on a model created by Clarkson Stanley of a freighter loaded with lumber, once one of our primary industries.

While COVID shut us all down for longer than anyone wanted, and impacted all of us in varying ways, one silver lining is that it did increase our visitor count from people within the states of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania when travel was so restricted here. Once we were allowed to reopen to visitors (following the COVID precautions), we soon found many, many people who had never heard of Cape Vincent before, began to buy property here. I confess, it is a very special place to live, and, as we all know, the St. Lawrence River weaves a magical spell on us all. Our town is a sanctuary to many of us.

Official charter

Despite dating back to 1930, we have only just recently petitioned the New York State Board of Regents for a Provisional Charter to incorporate as a “museum.” That charter was granted to us on January 14, 2025. That was only possible because the Town of Cape Vincent gave us total support to do so, and we have a Board of Trustees who were willing to put in the time and effort to meet all the requirements. We quickly proceeded to obtain our 501(c)3 Non-profit status from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service and the Sales-Tax Exemption Certificate from New York State. While we were “on a roll”, we discovered a person truly is “never too old to learn” and now have a website (www.CapeHistorical.org) and very ambitious goals.

As we are so new to being a recognized museum dedicated to acquiring, preserving and sharing all things related to Cape Vincent, we are just beginning to step up with events and exhibits in the hopes that people visit us, preferably in person, but also on our website. We are also seeking a variety of other skills and talents; more information is on our website.

Digitization Project

Another important long-term sustainability project is the digitization of our local and family history collections.  That monumental task is being done by Julie Merchant Peck and her cousin Jennifer Rousseau.  While Julie, the new Cape Vincent Historian, grew up in Watertown, her roots date back to the same French immigrants from which the Pleasant Valley Merchants descend. Her family history also includes names like Chapman, whose portraits hang in the museum, and Rousseau, Warren, Calhoun and Bennett.  Julie has been coming to the Cape for decades to research and is acutely aware of how important that data is.  Julie’s cousin, Jen Rousseau, who is also an accomplished family historian, is a perfect partner for that effort as Jen’s professional endeavours are in the field of post-disaster remediation.  She has seen firsthand how history is accidentally lost as a result of something like a hurricane or fire. 

The digitization project comprises two key components: fully searchable digitized files that cater to a diverse range of users and their research needs, and a relational database of people, places, events, and other relevant information.  People’s lives are more than just the dash between their birth and death.  We wanted to show who their neighbors were, who they went to church with, who owned the local businesses, held government positions etc. One of the great side efforts of this project is to completely document the cemeteries including GPS tags for the gravesites. Anyone with Cape Vincent-related photographs, home movies, scrapbooks, old documents, etc., who would like to preserve them as family treasures is encouraged to contact CVHistorian@gmail.com to make arrangements to bring them in for scanning for our digital online collections.

Children's Programs

The museum has hosted children’s groups from our local elementary school and our Youth Summer Camp (another all-volunteer effort for our children in the summer). We recently had 57 Summer Youth Camp children visit the museum! One of our board members created “Quests” for children visiting the museum, which are very well received. Once they find all the answers on their Quest, they earn a lollipop and a Cape Vincent Historical Museum pencil. One of our local youths enjoyed them so much, she created two more for us, now we have five
versions. I will point out that most of our volunteers also enjoy completing the quests themselves!

Loss of the Ferry Service

Cape Vincent is among all the River communities who are being affected by the loss of the ferry service between Wolfe Island and the Cape. Many of us have memories of taking the ferry over to Wolfe Island and of welcoming our visitors from Canada. In fact, many of our residents have family across the River. As a child in the 1950s, I remember frequently visiting Wolfe Island, “Gan,” and Kingston. Especially in the winter when the river froze over completely and a “road” would be marked on the ice using old Christmas trees to mark where it was safe to drive across. I distinctly remember hearing an older sister screaming “we are going to drown” when our parents drove us over in the old station wagon. All of us fervently hope a ferry service will soon be restored!

Happenings, Social Media, and Volunteers

Several years ago, one of the Clayton (NY) “Thousand Islands Museum, The History Place” volunteers gathered all of us U.S River museums to collaborate on visitor efforts. We visited each other’s museums and paid for a map to be inserted in a motorcycle fan touring map.

While that group no longer exists, the St. Lawrence River Heritage Trail page was created on Facebook and still exists. The intent was to promote all the free-admission River museums between Tibbett’s Point Lighthouse in Cape Vincent (“Where the lake meets the River”) to Morristown, New York, as all of us are dependent on donations for funding our museums. (That was before the Ogdensburg Museum was formed.) They are invited to share all of their events and programs.

Speaking of social media, Facebook in particular, we are very fortunate to have individuals with very deep connections to the Cape’s history often posting items relating to Cape Vincent and its families. Consider liking and following the “Cape Vincent, NY and its History” and “The Hamlets of Cape Vincent” pages and become part of the local history discussion.  A new Facebook page that will publish stories coming out of our digitization efforts called, “Cape Vincent – The Stories of Us’ is also about to come online.

Our collections, as I mentioned earlier, are very diverse. Given our limited space (two rooms - period), we are restricted to accepting artifacts and documents related to Cape Vincent. One recent donation is a model of our one-room schoolhouse recently demolished. The family, upon whose farm the schoolhouse stood, decided it was time to take it down. They contacted another local citizen to use some of the wood to build a replica of the schoolhouse once attended by a current volunteer of the museum. She also has fabulous stories about those days. Which leads nicely into an initiative started by our board’s vice-president to capture “My Cape Vincent Story” from our locals with memories of years gone by.

Another Board trustee is creating an exhibit about our original railroad station depot and the storm that destroyed it, and the people killed and injured by its destruction, and another one about the tragic loss of the ship “Wisconsin” and people from her buried in our Market Street cemetery. I must also mention another person with roots back to Canada, Mike Hinckley, who tirelessly takes care of our local military veterans buried in our several town cemeteries.

I must also mention two of our Board of Trustees, Dennis & Kathi McCarthy, who are our “Fort Haldimand and Carleton Island” experts and contribute significantly to our collections and the promotion of our town, particularly about shipwrecks. I encourage readers to check out their website: www.forthaldimand.com. They have also had many contributions included in the TI Life online magazine; most are linked on our website.

[Editor's Note: After reading this - I am sure you will agree that a visit to the Cape Vincent Historical Museum is a must!]

By Hope Hammond, President, Cape Vincent Historical Museum, Cape Vincent, NY

Hope Hammond, as the title reveals, is the president of the Cape Vincent Museum. She is passionate about preserving the history of this small town and has gone above and beyond the call when it comes to writing this piece for "TI Life". Much appreciated Hope, and we look forward to hearing what you and your team do next!

All photos are the property of the Cape Vincent Historical Museum.