Wayne County Life

The new Chimney Bluffs State Park picnic area seemed to pop up out of nowhere just a few years ago--was anything there previously?

An apple orchard. It must have been Freer's. Of course, I wish it still was an apple orchard!

Freer? Was his a familiar name in Huron prior to today's "big dairies"?

There was more than one Freer doing farming in the area. I think there was a brother on East Bay Road between Slaght and Lummisville. The Freer on Garner Rd. had cattle which UT & I  observed on our annual walk to the Chimneys and, being the closest farm, I always just assumed they owned the orchard. Their house (quite nice) and farm buildings were burned down by the DEC (probably a Wolcott FD controlled burn). They had a scarecrow carbide cannon on a wagon in the field at the right angle turn on Garner Rd. which went off periodically and we could hear it at the Bluff. A lot of memories. So, I'll never be able to completely accept the paved parking lot with the invasion of "outsiders!"---At least Gustav Pankratz' house still looks about the same. The "corduroy" road comes out just about directly in back of it as you know.---Now I'm thinking of the time UT & I found cow skulls in the woods near the curve about where we were skiing last winter!

So that--where you found the cow skulls--was near the current "Garner Point" trail at the Chimney Bluffs State Park, then? I think you mentioned that point on Lake Ontario by some other name...

The skulls were in the woods west of the right-angle turn on Garner Road. The little bluff was most recently known as Chase's Bluff, but, going back, it was known as Cosad's Bluff. (Why? Because Cosads owned the farm---I don't know who the Chases were.)

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