Spellman Publishes New Savannah History Volume
Louise Hoffman Broach | Wayuga Editor
Tuesday, July 22 2008
SAVANNAH - Twenty years ago, Town Historian John Spellman published “Savannah, A Pictorial History” that gave an overview of the town he’s lived in nearly all of his life and loves deeply.
For the past 3 1/2 years, he has been researching and developing its sequel, “Returning to Savannah 2007,” which was recently completed. The 142-page book catches up with what’s happened in the town since the late 1980s and expands on information in the first volume.
There will be a book signing July 31 from 7 - 8:30 p.m. at the American Legion on Route 89. Robert Mead of Rose, who contributed to the work and who has a new book out himself about Howland’s Island, will join Spellman at the event. Refreshments will be served.
The proceeds from the sale of Spellman’s $20 volume will be presented to the Savannah Chamber of Commerce. The chamber, the town and the Savannah Community Club sponsored the publication. Spellman, who has been the president of the chamber for the past several years, donated his efforts.
“That first book was more of a pictorial history,” Spellman said. “This is more written word.”
“Returning to Savannah” looks at the dissolution of the village, the development of Robert Congel’s Savannah Dhu, the construction of a new bridge to carry Route 31 over the railroad tracks, expansion of businesses, development of the Audubon Center and changes in agriculture, among other more contemporary events.
There is a whole page on Potatofest, an event that Spellman and his wife, Carol, helped rejuvenate in 1995 after the event had been dormant more than 40 years. Now presented annually, Potatofest attracts nearly 10,000 people.
And the book revisits many aspects of Savannah’s history, from when the Native Americans settled to the 1908 fire that destroyed downtown. It also has plenty of photographs.
Spellman’s great -great grandparents were among the area’s first white settlers in the 1840s. The book is dedicated to his great-grandmother, Ellen (Hayes) Barry, and his grandmother, Ellen Barry Spellman. Barry, he said, was one of the early collectors of stories about the area. Spellman said he can recall hiding away at the top of a stairway in the house where he still lives while his father and uncles repeated the older stories of barn building, barn dances and the railroad.
He thinks that’s when the local history bug may have bitten him; over the years, Spellman not only became the person who would pass the stories down himself, but he decided to formally chronicle them in several books. All his life, he has collected historical items and documents and they decorate his home, one of the oldest in the hamlet occupied by an original family.
Much of the newest book, he said, incorporates Mead’s work, as well as information Spellman compiled with the late Harold Secor, author of “The Pre-History of Savannah.”
“Wow, I don’t know,” Spellman said when asked if a third volume in his history series is planned. “Time will tell.”
For those who can’t make the book signing and would like to purchase a volume, they are for sale at the Savannah Bank, the town hall and The Audubon Center.
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