By RICK MILLER
Olean Star
LITTLE VALLEY — Cattaraugus County lawmakers got a glimpse into the past at Wednesday’s meeting and an invitation to personally view the County Museum’s recently restored 37th NY Presentation Flag — captured 160 years ago during the Civil War Battle of Chancellorsville.
Museum Curator Brian McClellan spoke briefly about the county’s restoration of the flag before introducing a video from the museum’s YouTube channel.
After its capture, the regimental flag, present at many of the major battles of the early part of the war, found its way back to Cattaraugus County many years later. It is now on permanent display at the museum in Machias.
This film relates the story of the flag and its restoration.
While the 37th Regiment was made up mostly of Irish immigrants from New York City, two of its companies were made up of volunteers from Little Valley and Ellicottville.
After the war’s end, the captured flag was returned to surviving veterans from Cattaraugus County and it was later donated to the County Museum in Little Valley, where it was displayed for decades.
It was removed from display in the 1970s as the flag deteriorated. In storage it continued to disintegrate. In 2020, McClellan and Historian Sharon Fellows decided to make the flag’s restoration a priority.
After the museum reached out to Buffalo State College’s Art Conservation Department, Katya Zinsli took it on as her senior project. It was completed in 2023 and is housed under special glass and on permanent display at the museum.
McClellan said the museum’s educational films division, which has been videoing county veterans stories, recently completed the video of the journey of the flag’s restoration which was screened for legislators. It can be seen at: https://youtu.be/MktWpgf2aio?si=HVSLf6JhBO7LNeGQ
McClellan also invited county lawmakers to visit the County Museum in front of the Pines Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center in Machias to view the flag on permanent display.
During the regular meeting, legislators approved a benefits package for the county’s new probation director, Tonya Kilby, who was appointed last week by Legislature Chairman Andrew Burr, R-Gowanda. She succeeds Thomas Sharbaugh, who resigned. The resolution was sponsored by all legislators.
County lawmakers voted to ask the state legislature for permission to continue three revenue streams worth nearly $16 million a year.
The additional 1% county sales tax is expected to raise $13.8 million this year for roads and bridges, while the hotel and motel occupancy tax will provide $1.6 million for tourism and a 25-cent per $1,000 mortgage recording fee is expected to raise $450,000. Only the bed tax requires a new public hearing, which will take place Feb. 26, at 5 p.m.
The additional 1% sales tax expires Nov. 30. It would be extended for three years. The 25-cent mortgage recording fee would be extended for two years to Nov. 30, 2027 and the bed tax would be extended three years to DEec. 31, 2028.
A $197,864 contract with Directions in Independent Living to continue its Veterans Peer-to-Peer Support Program was also approved. The pilot program is for veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome, and/or other related combat stress disorders, using individual and small group peer-to-peer support methods.
Legislators also extended a 2022 contract with the town of Allegany to help with up to $800,000 the costs of extending a sewer line along Route 417 from the village line to West Five Mile Road. The contract to facilitate ongoing and future development, was extended to Dec. 31, 2025.
The county legislature also approved a resolution vehemently opposing a proposed rate hike by the New York Power Authority, which would triple rates to Niagara Falls hydropower customers over four years.
The increases, most of which have been in effect for decades, would hurt residents and businesses that receive the low-cost power, the resolution, sponsored by the legislature chairman, states.
Gov. Kathy Hochul, who has come under considerable pressure to kill the increase, directed the Power Authority not to implement the increase which was designed to pay for upgrades to the Niagara Falls power infrastructure, it was disclosed on Thursday.
The legislature adjourned in memory of Sondra Fox of Olean who died Jan. 23. She was 87 and dedicated five decades of service to improving public health and mental health services in the county.
She served as a public health nurse in the health department beginning in 1968, later serving as a psychiatric nurse in the Mental Health Department, then director of the Guidepost, retiring in 1995. She served on both the Board of Health and Community Services Board.
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All Rights Reserved. Star News LLC. Eric M. Firkel.
