If I’d known the history before stumbling upon this place, I would have lingered a bit longer, taken a ton more pictures and maybe even ventured inside. As it was, we accidentally stumbled across the Barber House while heading back to our campsite at Letchworth State Park in Upstate New York.
It seemed like a really cool place to check out but not really out of the ordinary in the area as we passed several abandoned homes on our weekend trip. It wasn’t until I got home and did some research, did I find that this is indeed a historic treasure for the area. A historic treasure that is doomed.
The Barber House
Known by a handful of names, the Barber House was built in the late 1800’s by John Failing Barber. Actually, the house was started by a man named Nathaniel Alward before Barber took over. John’s name for the house was Chestnut Place, a name given for all the chestnut trees on the property. These trees would have disappeared after the chestnut blight of the early 1900’s.
Barber’s is an interesting story. John was born in 1809. Ten years later, in 1819, his mother passed away. In 1927, his father died, leaving the teenage Barber with three younger brothers and a sister to take care of. He apparently did that job quite well and went on to become a very successful businessman and banker.
John Barber died in 1883. His family remained in the home until 1920. According to sources given below, the family knew the place simply as the ‘house on the hill’.
The Gath Mansion
The Gath family owned it for some time during the 1900’s, thus the name Gath Mansion that many attach to the property. Robert Gath and family are said to be the last to live in the home but, from reading, that’s not entirely true. It seems they, or someone they sold it to, rented it out as late as the 1980’s and early 1990’s.
It is said there was a lady that lived in the house up until 1993 or 1994 and she ran a cat refuge. At that time, parts of the house were already closed off.
The house is located at the intersection of Short Tract and Oakland Road in Portage, New York, part of Livingston County. This is northeast of Portageville and the Parade Grounds entrance to Letchworth State Park.
There is a rough driveway off of Oakland Road. It has been said numerous times that the property is posted private property and the police will be called if trespassers are spotted. This is for safety sake more than anything. However, when we were there, I did not notice any signs. Believe me, after driving from Buffalo to Letchworth, I was quite aware of the flood of ‘no trespassing’ signs and did not see any on this property.
I chickened out on going inside. I have some mixed feelings about that now. It was dusk, overcast and I didn’t have a flashlight so I’m sure it would have been a safety issue. Still, maybe it would have been worth the trespassing risk. There are numerous stories of people seeing an old lady ghost in the building. In my own home, I seem to be able to channel some kind of past spirits. Maybe, I could have spotted this apparition. Although, those that have lived in the house say they never had any feeling of being haunted.
Below is the ruins of second house on the property. This tenant house was built in 1884.
Barber House Resources
The pictures are from my camera but most of the information came from two great websites.
Nunda History is a site dedicated to the history of the area surrounding Portage and Mt. Morris. In the article about the Barber House, they show off a scale model of the house in better days. This model is on display at their museum. For the main article: Nunda History.
Rochester Subway is simply an outstanding website dedicated to the history of Rochester, New York and pretty much all of Upstate New York. A lot of the site is dedicated to the abandoned Rochester Subway system that was built in the old Erie Canal tunnels. However, their article on the Barber House has some excellent images of the interior. The best part of the article is the comments that follow. Many are constructive and informative bits from people that have actually lived in the house or visited when it was in better condition. For that article: Rochester Subway.
