Ida May Hooker Gordon
Owner/builder (?): between 1861 and 1872
Ida May Hooker was born in Kendall, the daughter of Thomas Cullen and Caroline Wilhelminia Dannenhauer Hooker. Ida married George Cooley Gordon, only son of Luther and Forilla Cooley Gordon. They had five sons: Luther, William Hooker, George Cooley, Fred Hooker and Thomas Cullen. All but William, who died of “remittent fever” in 1880, lived to adulthood.
The Gordon family moved to Brockport in the mid-1850s and became extremely successful in the lumber and banking business. Their facilities in Brockport were located on State Street, just east of this house, next to the Erie Canal. Ida’s husband and her father-in-law were partners in the lumber business and George succeeded his father as president of the First National Bank of Brockport.
Unfortunately, George Gordon died suddenly at his newly finished summer cottage on the shore of Lake Ontario at age 49, leaving his widow and children, two of them minors. Ida spent the remainder and majority of her long life as a widow. Her husband left considerable real estate holdings, including multiple village properties, such as this, in which she obviously never lived.
The Gordon family was very influential in village history and played an important role in saving the Brockport Normal School. Although the male family members were very regularly mentioned in Rochester “society” pages, Ida led a quiet life, generally out of the public eye. She became out of the first two female trustees on the Normal School Board of Trustees. Gordon Hall on the campus honors the family. Ida was a member of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Brockport where the largest of the Tiffany windows located in the sanctuary were given in memory of her and her late husband. When Ida died of cancer in 1946, she was laid to rest in Mt. Hope Cemetery, Rochester, in the Gordon family plot.
Hy. Garrison
Owner: 1902
On the 1902 village map, this property, now number 49 State Street, was identified as belonging to Hy. Garrison. Who this person was remains a mystery. There was a Garrison family living in the vicinity at that time period but nobody with a first name beginning with “H” was among them. Most likely, there was a mistake in labeling the map, as others have been found, but that doesn’t solve the puzzle of ownership, which remains to be solved by detailed research of property records.
George Ransom and Alice C. Moore Bulkley
Owners; about 1915 to 1940
George Bulkley was born on a farm and worked as a farmer his entire life. His parents were Guy R. and Elsie Ann Smith Bulkley. Alice Moore was his second wife. Her parents were Henry and Lucinda Moore, farmers in Ogden. George and Alice had no children.
From his 1928 obituary, we know that George’s first wife was Maria Crippen. Maria died in 1909 and George remarried two years later. He was a member of the local Methodist Episcopal Church, the Monroe Lodge F & A M and the Brockport Grange. Bulkley’s farm was located at the southwest corner of Sweden Walker and Canal Road.
George and Alice initially lived in Brockport with her two brothers and mother. By 1920, the Moore’s had moved and by 1925, George had retired from farming. After his death, Alice remained in the State Street home, eventually converting the house into a “double” occupied by herself and Marion and Fowler Maw.
George Bulkley and his first wife are buried in the Garland Cemetery along with his parents. Alice lived until the late 1940s but the date of her death and burial location are unknown.
Epilogue 2013
The house at 100 State Street still stands and it remains a multi-family home.
Editor's note: 100 State Street is currently owned by Paula and Richard Sesock, is zoned 3 family, and is assessed at $129,900.00.
The Brockporter Historic House of The Week is a regular feature of the Brockporter Online News Magazine which appears on most Tuesdays. It is made possible by the research and writing of Carol Hanna and the production of Pam Ketchum. The Historic Houses of Brockport can also be seen on the ProBrockport web site at www.probrockport.org.
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