VISIT THE BIRTHPLACE OF ROBERT G. INGERSOLL by Fred Edwords After years of planning and re

            VISIT THE BIRTHPLACE OF ROBERT G. INGERSOLL

                          by Fred Edwords


     After years of planning and restoration, the Robert G.
Ingersoll Birthplace Museum opened its doors to the public on June
2, 1993. It is now regularly open to receive visitors June through
October.  The hours of operation are Wednesday through Sunday,
Noon to 5:00 PM.

Located in the Village of Dresden, on the shore of Lake Seneca, it
becomes one of the many attractions of the picturesque Finger
Lakes Region of upstate New York.  Of especial interest to
Humanists and Freethinkers is its convenient proximity to the
Women's Rights Hall of Fame and restored home of Elizabeth Cady 
Stanton located in Seneca Falls, the homes of Susan B. Anthony and
Frederick Douglass in Rochester, the Roycroft campus of Elbert
Hubbard in East Aurora, the Elmira home and burial place of Mark
Twain, and the natural monument to the last ice age in Watkins
Glen (with its nightly laser show on evolution).  Furthermore, all
of this is in easy driving distance from the national headquarters
of both the American Humanist Association (AHA) and the Council on
Democratic and Secular Humanism (CODESH)!

During the weekend immediately following Ingersoll's birthday on 
August 11, 1993, the Robert G. Ingersoll Memorial Committee,
sponsors of the birthplace museum, conducted a special conference
in nearby Geneva.  The featured event was Roger Greeley giving his
best performance yet of his "An Evening with Colonel Ingersoll."
Attendees were also given the grand tour of the Ingersoll home.

As one of the tourists myself, I was extremely pleased with what I
saw.  The 1833 birthplace of America's "Great Agnostic" has become
everything I hoped it would be.  The main rooms of the house are
a museum of artifacts and information memorializing the life of
Ingersoll.  A short but informative video introduces the
self-guided tour, and a gift shop offering Ingersoll tee-shirts,
books, and other mementos greets you at the end.  (Proceeds
support continued restoration.)  One of the rooms features objects
and information relevant to the Village of Dresden.  But, the best
part of all is upstairs where, in the words of Ingersoll himself,
"my infant cry first broke the stillness of the birth room and my 
wakening eyes first looked upon the wondrous mysteries of the
little world around me."  It is the museum's period bedroom, 
restored with furnishings appropriate to the time.

The AHA newsletter Free Mind first reported on the Ingersoll home
back in the summer of 1987, when the building was in danger of
being torn down.  In order to save it, the AHA expressed an
interest in picking up from the work of Ingersoll enthusiast Ruth
Jokenin and converting the home into a museum.  That effort staved
off disaster long enough for AHA member Phil Mass to inspire a
number of Humanists and Freethinkers to join together, under the
auspices of CODESH, to establish the Robert G. Ingersoll Memorial
Committee.  That committee then raised the money and restored the
building.  Appropriately, the museum video on Ingersoll is
dedicated to Phil Mass, who unfortunately did not live to see the
completion of his dream.

As a lover of historic preservation, myself, I encourage Humanists
and Freethinkers everywhere to plan a trip soon around the
monuments to our philosophy that are so conveniently clustered in
upstate New York.  The Ingersoll museum can be the centerpiece of
what could make for a great vacation!

If you need more information for planning your itinerary, feel
free to write or phone the Robert G. Ingersoll Memorial Committee,
P.O. Box 664, Amherst, NY 14226-0664 -- (716) 636-7571.


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Originally published in the Sept./Oct. 1993 issue of Free Mind,
the newsletter of the American Humanist Association.  Permission
is hereby granted to republish this article in any medium, in
whole or in part.  Please credit Free Mind as the original source.

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