The Peru Gazette

The Clinton County Historical Association is pleased to announce that two grants have been received through the Champlain Valley National Heritage Partnership for 2022.  The first is an internship grant to support collections management training for a student of history, anthropology, or museum studies.  The training will include all processes necessary to enter an item into the museum’s permanent collection and will take place at the museum at 98 Ohio Avenue on the Old Base. Students may apply by emailing director@clintoncountyhistorical.org.  The internship program will run from May through August.    

The second grant will support the design and installation of three bilingual interpretive panels for the following historic buildings, the Witherill Hotel and the Fouquet House in Plattsburgh and the Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in Churubusco. CCHA is committed to working with public historians to ensure that historic locations are recognized. This grant will provide the opportunity to showcase the Witherill Hotel, which was a downtown institution for over 100 years and the glamorous and historic Fouquet House, built in 1865 and sitting within Plattsburgh’s historic district. Photos of both the Witherill Hotel and the Fouquet House are in the CCHA negative collection. Building histories will be compiled with the help of City of Plattsburgh historians and Susan Howell Hamlin author of Welcome to the Witherill. The Immaculate Heart of Mary Church has closed and with it the memory of a community that built this church from local stone, wood and labor.  The interpretive panel will share this history using photos and information from the Town of Clinton’s and the Diocese of Ogdensburg’s files including a photo of the laborers with the internationally known stone mason Isaac Johnson, a former slave, and Father Jeremiah Murphy who worked side by side with his congregation to erect and pay for the church. The panels are scheduled to be installed this year.

These projects are funded by 2022 Internship and Collections Grants from the Champlain Valley National Heritage Partnership through an agreement awarded by the United States National Parks Service to the New England Interstate Water Pollution Control Commission in partnership with the CVNHP.

Please contact Helen Nerska, Director, Clinton County Historical Association, for more information.

director@clintoncountyhistorical, (cell) 513-582-7246