Cobblestone Pumphouse at Fishers Station

Cobblestone Pumphouse at Fishers Station. . , Cobblestone Pumphouse at Fishers Station , Cobblestone Architecture: Unique to Western New York , Cobblestone architecture in the United States is peculiar to western New York. The walls of cobblestone buildings were built of small stones, known as cobbles, which were formed from larger rocks broken by glaciers and ground smooth as they were carries below the moving ice. The cobbles were carefully laid in horizontal courses, with the stones projecting beyond the mortar joints, and square cut red of gray stone quoins at the exterior courses. , It is likely that cobblestone buildings such as this pumphouse were built by masons, many of them from England, who came to the area to build the locks and aqueducts of the Erie Canal. This building is about 15 feet square and a story and a half high. The walls are build of fieldstones of different sizes, shapes and colors, laid three courses to each quoin height. , The practice of building quoins or large square stones into the external corners of masonry walls is very old. Often, the body of the walls was built of small stones or brick, and the quoins were used to strengthen the corners and stabilize the appearance of the mass. Early in the cobblestone era the sizes of the quoins became established at approximately 12" high, 18" long and from 4" to 6" thick. Possibly this standardization came about by the establishment of local stone quarries. , The use of flat convex "V"-shaped horizontal and vertical joints make the cobblestones project slightly from the wall. In sunlight each rounded stone will have a highlighted and shaded area and will also cast a shadow. , [captions] , J. Sheldon Fisher, great-grandson of Charles Fisher and long-time Ontario County Historian led efforts for nearly 30 years to prevent the railroad from demolishing the pumphouse. He prevailed upon the vice president of the NYC Central Railroad to not demolish the pumphouse in 1937. , This cobblestone pumphouse is one of 22 major cobblestone structures built in the Town of Victor. Fourteen of the cobblestone buildings survive today. This pumphouse was built in 1845 by Charles Fisher (after whom the hamlet was named).It housed a waterwheel which worked pumps to provide water for wood burning locomotives. , J. Sheldon Fisher (right) and Edward Hungerford, Vice President of the New York Central Railroad, in front of the pumphouse in 1938.