Georg & Flora Schmidt Farm

Georg & Flora Schmidt Farm is a historic farmstead with a distinctive patterned-shingle house and a curving drive lined with Lombardy poplars. It's a worthwhile short stop if you enjoy old farm buildings and the stories behind this corner of Port Oneida. Plan on an exterior look: public access inside the house isn't documented, and there are no restrooms at the site.

The house sits on a cut-stone foundation, and its patterned asphalt-shingle walls are the detail you'll remember. The dirt drive curves between Lombardy poplars. For a photo, frame the house with the trees along the drive; the setting helps explain why this farmstead stands out.

George Hessell settled the farm in 1861; his nephew Georg arrived from Prussia in 1867 and bought it with Mary before 1880. The agricultural census that year counted 73 acres, 32 of them improved. The family grew corn, rye and wheat for daily use, then potatoes to sell. They also had an apple orchard and were one of only two farms in the area growing hops.

Mary died in 1881, and Georg later married Flora Blacklock. When the house burned in the 1890s, the family lived in the barn while it was rebuilt. Georg died in 1933; his son John took over the farm and sold it to the Hayms family in 1958, who used it as a summer home.