Park Hotel, Bainbridge, NY

The Old Park Hotel

Bainbridge, Chenango County, New York

Bainbridge Republican, April 10, 1930

 

 

Park Hotel, Bainbridge, NY

September, 1909

 

"The old order changeth, giving place to new."  We all accept that life never stands still and in these strenuous day of the 20th century, nothing long remains unchanged.  We may, at times, deplore this replacing of the old with the new, but the world does move and we would not have it otherwise.

 

In the middle of the eighteenth century where now stands the rectory of St. Peter's church there was an old time inn known as the Patchin Tavern, a place where travelers by coach or wagon might spend the night, if the length of their journey so demanded.  Now-a-days the crying need is not for a place where one may tarry but a place to secure the needful gas so that we may hurry further.

 

Diagonally across from the tavern stood a building surrounded by an old style picket fence where lived and had his law office, James Banks.  In this house was born the late Mary Banks, beloved of many friends in Bainbridge.  About the time of James Banks' removal to Chicago and shortly after the close of the Civil War, in 1867, a hotel was built on the site of the Banks home incorporating part of the house in the rear of the hotel itself, the old stair case being preserved on the further side.  This hotel was to help care for the traveling public, as the Patchin Tavern had burned a few years previously.  However, a still old hotel, even then known as the Central House, which had been built in 1806, stood practically in its present location.

 

The new hostelry was built by Orrin Atwater and occupied not only the site of the Banks home but that of the pillard [sic] building which served as a law office for Judge Bigelow.  At that time the Park Hotel, as it was called, had nothing of its appearance of the last few years [in 1930], but its architecture was in the more ornate style of the Victorian period, with pillars and an arch enclosing the main entrance, and small balconies projecting from the second story.

 

Two of the many landlords of the old inn are especially well remembered.  One of these was William Hastings, father of Willard M. Hastings one of our older citizens.  After a lapse of some years the late Lewis Anderson and his cousin Homer owned the property.  The list of the other owners and landlords is long and many names are nearly forgotten  It includes those of Steve Secor, Orrin Day, Irv Langworthy, Henry Hall, Henry Miller, John O'Connor, Pratt & Gorman, Charlie Bowman, Dave Depew, Abe Bevier, Verne Booth, and Grant Ferris; to use the names by which they were familiarly known.

 

It is recorded of one landlord of the earlier days that when supplies grew low, he would purchase a milk pail of good whiskey--or not so good--and proceeded to fill all containers, (whether labeled whiskey, brandy, gin or whatnot) from the said pail.  When remonstrated with as to his deception, he stoutly insisted that no one knew the difference.  The clerk of the same landlord, who may have been a Scotchman, conceived the idea of concocting a health drink guaranteed a "cure all", Gallons were sold and none were wise to the fact that they were drinking tansy tea.  History does not record how many gallons of the straight were sold as chasers to remove the pleasant taste.

 

There were two tragedies in the history of the hotel.  Austin Willsie, a member of one of the older families of the village, when called one morning was found to have died through the night.  Years later, a man from a nearby village, who had invested his savings in the hotel, and who found he was getting little return hung himself.

 

However to the most of those who have grown up in the village the Park Hotel stood for many happy times--for good times in many forms--for evenings of dancing school and balls held in the ball room on the third floor, for exciting basketball games played on that same third floor, and even delightful picnic suppers eaten on the spacious upper verandas when summer rains had spoiled some long planned outdoor picnic.  So those with memories of good times there enjoyed will miss the broad hospital verandas over looking our beautiful park.  progress demands a new up-to-date building.  The Park Hotel is gone.

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Danforth, Edward, MD, Stones from the Walls of Jericho (Town Board of Bainbridge, NY, 1986) p 167.

 

",,,,The Park Hotel was built by Orren Atwater in the late 1860s.  It was a three story building in front and on both ends, but across the back it was open except for a low kitchen.  In the center was an ample dining room with a roof above which was generously provided with glass skylights so that the eating hall was always cheerfully flooded with light.  There was a ballroom on the third floor.  When the hotel was built, a portion of the James Banks residence was incorporated in its southern end and the hallway and staircase were retained intact from the old house..."