Comment: Kate F. says: "The land that you see across the river is actually an island, which I believe is abandoned. There used to be houses and a tannery and saw mill on it, but the bridge that connected it to the main land was taken down not too long ago. You can still see where the bridge was, and in fact on any map that you look at, it shows the bridge."

Large old stone house outside of Lafargeville on Route 180, submitted anonymously
Update 03/06/08: Unfortunately this entire building has been torn down.  The only thing that remains is the wind mill tower (still turning). See pic below.

Comment from submitter: Anonymous writes "I believe this is the backside of the house. It is located on the left side as you drive from Stone Mills to Lafargeville."  According to an e-mail from 'Eric' the house belonged the Bretsch family when he was young, and the family had a huge dairy barn to the right of the house (see photos of ruins below).

Comment: I inquired of the historian Bonnie Schafer about this building, she writes: "The house was called the William Martin Mansion at one time. John Lafarge transferred a little over 217 acres to William and Sophronia Martin on June 7 1830. The stone house was quarried from nearby native limestone, had 11 rooms, 2 large hallways and fireplaces. Mr Martin was supervisor of town of Orleans.
The property passed a few time, Delano Calvin and heirs owned it at one time. In 1882 the stone house and farm was conveyed to Wendel Hyel and transferred to Georgiania Jerome on Nov 20 1922. Its been in the Jerome family every since. From my understanding no one has lived in the house since early 1970. I checked with the town clerk too, its listed under Manford and Lousie Jerome.
In 1990 while out biking we heard a very loud noise from the building as we
passed by... a closer look we found that the stair case had collapsed."

Comments: *One account mentions that when the stone part of the mansion was demolished the stone (likely crushed of course) was used for a base for Route 180.
*A person previously wrote: "The one across from the farm has an underground tunnel to the big high house across the road, next to the barn.  It was part of the underground railroad.  The cellar has collapsed onto the tunnel." 

Date unknown
The above excellent old postcard is courtesy of Eric and shows the intact LaFarge Mansion  

Comment: Eric, who lived there as a kid, writes: "The original mansion had 40 (one article says 42 - M.) rooms. The wing we lived in had only a few rooms. I visited the house in the 1970's when it was still standing but empty. The ceilings were 13 feet high and the windows were long, almost to the floor, and the walls were 4 feet thick. One could sit in the window seats. The windows were framed in wood and there were shutters inside."

To see the spring house for this farm go to page 3 and to see some more pics from this farm go to page 18.  More info about this barn and old pictures of the intact structure at these Nan Dixon pages:  barn, barn1, barn2, barn3, & barn4. 
<Click here> for the page with all the Anthony Farm/Cooke Road Pictures and info on one page.