Three recognized at Sunday’s Heritage Day

By LENNY C. LEPOLA

News Assis­tant Man­ag­ing Editor

Sunday’s Her­itage Day at the Myers Inn expe­ri­enced a lit­tle rain, but Myers Inn Museum Cura­tor Polly Horn said the turnout was good; that rain or shine museum vis­i­tors were able to step back in time and visit the inside dis­plays, spend time in a blacksmith’s shop, and get a feel for life in the Big Wal­nut area as it was lived in the good old days.

“We had a very nice turnout, in spite of the weather,” Horn said. “And we’re always glad to get so many fam­ily mem­bers of vol­un­teers on Her­itage Day. It was good to see many peo­ple recon­nect with their her­itage and to greet new­com­ers who have only been in town a short time. Our goal is to help peo­ple enjoy learn­ing our history.”

Dur­ing Her­itage Day each year, mem­bers of the Big Wal­nut Area His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety rec­og­nize sev­eral vol­un­teers for their sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion to local his­tory dur­ing an award ceremony.

Rec­og­nized were Kenny Crowl, Carol Wirick and Lyall Rodgers. Crowl passed away on Sep­tem­ber 27; his chil­dren attended the cer­e­mony to accept his award.

“With­out these peo­ple we wouldn’t have a his­tor­i­cal Soci­ety,” Horn said. “These folks vol­un­teered many hours of their time help­ing open this museum, and con­tribut­ing to our under­stand­ing of local history.”

An emo­tional Rodgers said a deci­sion had been made to rec­og­nize Crowl before his sud­den pass­ing; and that he was a peace­maker and decision-maker dur­ing his­tor­i­cal soci­ety board meetings.

“Kenny never said much until he was asked,” Rodgers said. “But he always came up with solu­tions when we were faced with prob­lems. We’ll all miss him very much.”

The Myers Inn Museum, which faces the south­west cor­ner on Sun­bury Square, began as the one room 1816 house of Lawrence Myers, one of Sunbury’s co-founders. His home was a stop­ping place where weary trav­el­ers could get one of Eliza Myers’ home cooked meals before trav­el­ing on.

In 1820 Myers built the two-story stage­coach inn near his home for trav­el­ers going both north to Mount Ver­non and south to Colum­bus that were in need of a meal and a place to sleep. In 1824 Myers added a tav­ern room and hall to con­nect the two buildings.

Lawrence Myers died in 1829, leav­ing Eliza with two sons and a daugh­ter, a stage­coach inn and a town of half empty lots. Eliza con­tin­ued to oper­ate the stage­coach inn until the close to the Civil War.

The Myers Inn Museum hours are from 12-noon the 3 p.m. Thurs­days, Fri­days and Sun­days, and from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturdays.

To learn more about the Big Wal­nut Area His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety and Big Wal­nut area local his­tory go to < BigWalnutHistory.org >.

Posted by Gary Henery on Oct 10 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.