Next came the old yellow building that was recently torn down and a double tenement house erected on its site.
Thence was a vacancy down to the premises now occupied by Frank Bacon, where was a small house afterward succeeded by the present neat cottage.
Next was the adjoining property with the present rear portion of the house; the front was afterward built. This house and the small house to the east of it were then owned and occupied by Thomas H. Graves, a partner in the stage route between Ithaca and Catskill.
The two next were as now the H. H. Howard and Benjamin H. Ayers houses,[53] the latter being years after remodelled by the late Simeon Bidwell.[54]
Thence we pass to the stone law office of C. C. Noble.[55]
Thence was a vacancy down to the site of the A. B. Watson house now occupied and owned by H. C. Gregory, where then stood the Masonic Hall afterwards moved to its present location on Watson Street, and converted into a dwelling by William J. Thompson.[56]
Between this hall and the brick hotel stood the Mechanic’s hall, afterwards moved to its present site and now owned and occupied by R. M. Brant as a grocery and dwelling.
The brick store was then occupied by the firm, I think though am not positive, of Noble and Emory, but it was soon changed to Watson and Noble and finally to Watson and Hayes.
Next came the brick hotel opened that spring by Erastus Kingsley who was probably as well known as a hotel landlord as any man in the rural part of the state. He could count his patrons by the hundred; when traveling they would go 10, 15, and 20 miles extra, just to stay over night with “Old Kingsley.”
All was now vacancy again down to the old yellow house on the corner of Martin Brook Street now owned by the writer.