Digital Resources
Old Mentz offers a number of ways for you to research the history of the region and the people that lived that history.
Be sure to check out searching Your Family Tree for helpful hints to finding and using ours, and others, digital resources.
Newspapers
Our searchable collection of Port Byron newspapers can be found by way of this link that will open the search page. Please note that this collection is missing many issues prior to the 1900s. We continue our search for copies so we can improve this collection, and we will add new discoveries as they are found. A history of Port Byron’s newspapers can be found here. Currently the collection has copies of; the Port Byron Herald, Port Byron Gazette, Port Byron Chronicle, the Orange and Black which was the school newspaper, and the InPort monthly newspaper. The dates that are covered are shown next to each paper collection on the search page.
You can find copies of the Auburn City newspapers on the Seymour Library page. These carry a lot of county news and can be very helpful in filling in the missing gaps of Port Byron papers.
We have worked with Advantage Archives on this project. They offer this resources page to help you navigate through your searches.
Town of Mentz Records
Some of the earliest records of the Town of Mentz are available on the New York Heritage digital collections website. Available are;
Records of Election of the Town of Jefferson and Mentz, 1803-1827
Jefferson and Mentz Town Records Book, 1804-1862
Town of Mentz Boundaries of School Districts and Division of School Money, 1812-1829
Mentz Court Proceedings, 1862-1874
Tax Rolls. We have the complete set of tax rolls beginning in 1850 and going up through 1950. The book that have been scanned are listed below. More will be added as time allows. Hint- Use the right click, open link in a new window feature to view.
Helpful tips! These tax rolls can provide name of the property owner, most likely a man, but widows are listed. Check the Military rolls as men had to pay a .50 cent tax regardless of property ownership. Be sure to check the back of the book to see if additional information was recorded. Each tax collector had his own style.
1850 1851 1852 1853 1854 1855 1856 1857 1858 1859
1860 1861 1862 1863 1864 1865 1866 1867 1868 1869
1870 1871 1872 1873 1874 1875 1876 1877 1878 1879
The Montezuma Family Project
The Montezuma Family Project is the work of Kathy Decker, a skilled genealogical researcher, who has developed this database of families who lived in and around Montezuma, NY. As many of the families moved between the towns of Mentz and Montezuma, be sure to check this database for your research subjects.
The Anita Messina Interviews
Over the years, our local reporter Anita Messina, has interviewed many of our older residents. These have been hosted on the old Blogger site and the current website. These include; June Seamans, True Value to the Village (Stella Pakrzywa), Leona Morningstar Dove, Ted Eiben, Frank Green, Sally Smith, Hellen Davies, Helen Lauckarn, Ted Wilt, The Denman, Osburn and Erity Families (Cheryl Longyear), John Seamans and the Pine Street Gang, Bill Pilgrim, Lila Fields, Betty Smith, H.C. Gutchess Mincemeat (“Ross C Langworth”), Letter from Sophia Dauwalder, Bumppo Gregory, Hazel Scott Brundage.
Other Materials
The 2004 Canal Days booklet, Our Schools. This 38-page booklet presents a short history of the area schools and includes memories of those who attended the one-room-schools.
Cultural Resources Survey of the Hitchcock Electroplating Facility / Wilt’s Mill, December 2012. Before the old mill was torn down, an extensive study was made of the building and it’s use over the decades.
History and Development of the village of Port Byron, September 1980. This report was written by a consultant on the state of the downtown business district. It has some fairly images of some of the buildings in the downtown area.
The 1897 Christmas Souvenir, published by The Women’s Christian Temperance Union. This small booklet offers a very nice snapshot of what life was like in Port Byron and Mentz in 1897. The booklet has a fairly accurate history of the town and village, and has sections about the local churches, the “dry” organizations and societies, local industries, school, and has a very detailed listing of who had fought in the Civil War. There are pages of ads showing what was available to the consumer in the village and in the nearby cities. We thank the Port Byron Library for allowing us to scan this nice bit of history and making it available to you. (Note that the first two pages are messed up but the rest of the booklet is okay.)
Dorothy “Chicky” Walker Collection – Chicky Walker was an active volunteer and past president of the society. Over the years she clipped and collected thousands of notices about the births, deaths and weddings of local families. The volunteers have created indexes to these materials. You can search these pdf files either by using the “CTRL and F” function to open the find command and then search by name, or by downloading the file to your computer. More will be added as the volunteers work through the binders.
Twelve and a Half Miles – The Erie Canal in Cayuga County. A 2002 guide book to the Erie Canal as it passed through the county. In three sections. Section One Section Two Section Three
1926/27 Clock System Rural Index of Cayuga County- This rural directory was published by the Index Map Company of Ithaca, NY. It is listed by alphabetically by name and town. It also shows a coordinate for the map which we don’t have, but you can find it here. (Bill also has scanned the pages of the directory and you can find them here.) Our files are broken up into two sets, A to L and L to Z. The directory was in very poor condition and too large for the flatbed scanner, so the scanning was done with the phone. A to L , and L to Z.
Our YouTube Channel
We use our YouTube channel in a great variety of ways. We have home movies from the 1930s and 40s, as well as recent tours of canal sites in Cayuga County. If you have a home movie that shows Port Byron, please contact us. We will pay for digitization if we can share it here.
Port Byron in 1825. This is a talk given by Craig Williams of the Canal Society, who spoke about what life would have been like for the residents of 1825. The talk is presented in six parts. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6
A tour of Enlarged Erie Canal Lock 51 and 52.
A tour of the western end of the Seneca River Aqueduct
The difficulties of Locking through Lock 51 and 52
A tour of Montezuma Heritage Park
A tour of Clinton’s Ditch Lock 62 and the Seneca River slackwater crossing.
Tour of the Centerport Aqueduct which is located a mile west of Weedsport along Rt 31.
Peter VanDitto’s movie of the Fireman’s Parade 1957 (Weedsport) 7 (Peter VanDitto)
Bruce Carter’s home-movie collection:
Faces and Places, Downtown Parade