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Calendar Collection - Strever Homestead

 I found out this month that one of the houses in the past “Historic Town of Clay” calendars has been put on the real estate market. The house in the calendar collection was called the “Strever Homestead” back in March of 1986 for Aaron Strever’s family that lived there. I’ve included then and now pictures of their homestead. As you can see in the calendar picture, on the side of the house there are cistern pipes to collect water in the basement as in many older homes in that era. This house was also once the home of Rev.Diefendorf for the Dutch Settlement Church. Including the other families Brown,Shaver,Hemmerick and Soule which is Aaron’s wife's maiden name. The home was kept in the family thru their daughter until the late 1920’s. Aaron Strever (1818-1898) & Emily Soule Strever(1819-1894) lived in the house until their deaths. Aaron Strever was a farmer and also did surveying according to the 1870 census. With information obtained from Family Search. Some of Aaron's highlights is that he graduated from Columbia College and was a licensed Civil Engineer and Surveyor. He came to the Clay area from Ancram NY around 1845 and was a very successful farmer and surveyed in Northern Onondaga County. Aaron and Emily had 7 children from 1849 thru 1862. Aaron and his wife Emily, including 6 out of their 7 children are buried at Pine Plains Cemetery across the street from their homestead which could be seen until the new development was built this year. The picture of Aaron and Emily looks like it was taken in the 1860’s which on the reverse of the picture shows the photographer CH Perry 46 North Salina St Syracuse NY. I did find an article of someone doing photography in an old newspaper in 1866 that could be a possibility of how old the picture could be. The Strevers would be in their 40’s in the late 1860’s. Hopefully the new owners of this historic house enjoy the history from the previous owners and The Town of Clay.

 The Clay Historical Association meets on the second Wednesday of the month at the Clay Historical Park at 6:30 p.m. If you would like to attend or invite anyone to join the Clay Historical Association, we would love to have you. These photos can be seen in color and better resolution under “Clay Historical Association” under Google search.