As you may know I always like a good history mystery. A while ago I found a poster that presented me with one. Given that I found a poster at the museum asking the question at the heart of this mystery, I know it has been looked into before, but there was nothing to show if any answers had been forthcoming.
The question in question is “Did you know that there was once a Wild Animal Farm in Rochester?” Now, here is what I do know about the “farm”. Its location was on Donald George’s property near Mary’s Pond Rd. When asked about it, Donald said that his family moved onto the property when he was a child and that he remembered finding a variety of small structures and wire cages there.
The wild animal farm would have been open in the early half of the 1900’s (think 1930’s) as both George Church and Maurice Fuller remembered that they went there as children, but that’s where their memories ended. Barbara King Besse remembered seeing a sign for the farm hanging on a fence in the area where the entrance had probably been located.
Eydie Johnson did some research that showed that prior to the George family, there were many owners of the property, but no mention of a wild animal farm was found. I wonder if anyone has ever seen any pictures of such a place when going through family photos or come across an advertisement or remember an older family member or acquaintance reminiscing about a visit there.
Of course, at first, mention of wild animals conjures images of lions. tigers and bears (oh, my). I’m thinking more realistically that the animals would have been smaller (to fit into the cages that Donald George remembered) and probably native to the area. They could have been weasels or fishers or raccoons and hopefully, something a bit more exotic. I’ll look forward to seeing if anyone can shed some light on this local mystery.
By Connie Eshbach