One of the peculiar aspects of this house’s history is its disconnectedness.  If you go down to the local historical society or even farther afield, you will not find anything of real substance.  There are a few copies of Lucy’s book floating about, a few newspaper clippings related to the National Register Nomination…and nothing else.  That, of course, is much much more than most houses have, but in relation to the length of time it as existed as an entity and the amount of history in the house it is jarring.  Or perhaps usefully humbling, or reminder that one’s center of the universe isn’t, in fact, any one else’s.  (and how awful, in the old sense of the word, to be at the centre!)  History is often said to be written by the victors, perhaps more correctly it is written by those who write it.  Rather a tautology that.  But the thing is that ‘famous’ is really a synonym for ‘well known’ when it comes to history and the general public; there is a critical mass aspect: a person is written about or leaves a coherent body of work behind them, so they are easier to study, so they are written about some more, so they are…and pretty soon the individual becomes an important figure in that time period…or more correctly, an important figure in our preception of that time period.  One of the jobs of the historian is to explore the lesser known areas to find the unknown but historically significant people or events that explain history. 

In an example of the above, I have volunteered myself to give a short presentation on Julie sometime this winter, as part of a lecture series on the famous women of New Hartford.  Is Julie famous? No, she wasn’t on the original list drawn up by the society; but is she historically important as an example of women’s history and history in general? Yes, if you happen to have chanced across the information.