The Public Historians of NYS are submitting a State Quilt to the New York State Museum in Albany and it will include a block for every town and village across our State as submitted by each local historian.
Made by Clara Rooker McIver and her daughter Anne.
I would like to thank both of them for taking the time to create and donate the block so that our community can be represented in the New York State Quilt that will display in Albany when completed.
Our quilt block is an image of what we know today as the Port Byron Hotel. This structure is listed as one of the sites in the National Underground Railroad Network To Freedom Program. See Page 255 from the attached link:
Port Byron Hotel's role in the Antislavery Movement
This is a brick structure and was built by Samuel Lytle in 1835. Many of you may have had a chance to see the brick core during the recent renovations to the building this past summer.
The hotel would undergo a series of name changes. By 1844 Steward Kendrick called it the National Hotel. As of the 1884 Sanford map it was listed as the Palace Hotel but the name was not to last. The hotel would resume its name as the National Hotel by 1890. Another name change would occur by 1900 when it would be known as Hotel Carey. Then around 1908/1910 it became the Park Hotel which lasted until 1933 when it would be renamed Hotel Port Byron with a final change to Port Byron Hotel.
Here is a list of some of the prior owners of the hotel:
Phebe Lamkin, widow of Harry Lamkin
1855 Richard Dyer
1863/64 Levi Stevens
1868 Elijah B. Buck
1873 D.E. McBurney
1874 Jeremiah H. Krom
1875 William G. Gallt (Galt)
1889 Edwin T. Parmalee
1900 D. Carey & Son
1908/1910 E.R. Parker
Charles and Grace Higgens
1914 Bell J Scott
1916 Orlando Family
1933 Fred Hartwell
1936/45 Arnold Corwell
Laneharts, Harry Rayburn
1947 Anna and Wallace Strohm
1952/84 Walter Piotrowski
Carole N. Blauvelt Bajanen and her husband Maynard
1995 Robert F. Holbrook, Jr.
2004 Gary Cole
2009 Glenn S. Martin
Sources: Hotels of Port Byron by Penny Helzer 2005 and Uncovering the Freedom Trail in Auburn and Cayuga County, New York sponsored by City of Auburn Historic Resources Review Board and the Cayuga County Historian's Office.