The next in the Busti Bicentennial Lecture Series will take place at 7 p.m. today at the Lakewood Fire Training Grounds building focusing on “The Packards of Lakewood.”

The lecture is presented by Paul Johnson, an area native and lifelong boater, historian, and retired builder/developer. He is an expert and published author on the legacy of James Ward Packard and his familial ties to the Chautauqua region. He serves on the Historic Preservation Committee of the Packard Proving Ground National Historic Site in Michigan.

He has held positions such as a former curator for the Fenton History Museum and the vice president of Bemus Point Historical Society. Johnson also spent a decade as a volunteer captain on the Bemus Point-Stow Ferry.

Upcoming lectures include:

¯ October 5, “New Discoveries about Paul Busti,” at 7 p.m. at the Lakewood Fire Training Grounds building. John Everett Jones will give a talk about Paul Busti, the Holland Land Company chief operations officer for whom the town is named. Jones is a native of the county but lives in Philadelphia which was the location of the Holland Land Company’s headquarters and Paul Busti’s residence. Paul Busti was of Italian birth and heritage and left Milan at about age 20 for Amsterdam, where he worked as a merchant and lived for about 25 years before being hired by the Holland Land Company. In his tenure with the Holland Land Company from 1796-1824, Paul Busti was responsible for and oversaw all developments of the company, including all lands in Chautauqua County during the first decades of settlement. Few Italian Americans have had more impact on the early history of the United States and in recognition of his work, the town of Busti will celebrate Paul Busti Day on Monday, Oct. 9. An article by Jones and Paolo Semenza (Ferrara, Italy) about Busti will be published in the journal Italian Americana this summer.

¯ Oct. 11, The Shearman-Davis Murders 1894 by Norman Carlson at 7 p.m. at the Bemus Point Historical Society. The Shearman-Davis murders are the first unsolved murders in Chautauqua County and feature nearly every kind of bizarre element imaginable: tragedy plagued family, national press coverage including the New York Times, strange relatives and prominent relatives, multiple suspects, science fiction like effort to extract an image from the victims’ eyes, much promise and little delivery from investigating authorities, colorful characters and their dramatic fates, case gruesomely recalled 40 years later in another tragedy.

There will also be lectures about Busti’s Civil War General George Stoneman in Song by Ron Halicki which includes “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” 1969 hit by The Band also recorded by Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Johnny ash, and others.

Past lectures include Katherine (Kate) Stoneman (1841-1925) by Michelle Henry teling the story of Katherine Stoneman, the first female lawyer in New York state in 1886; The Underground Railroad in Chautauqua County, a documentary and discussion by Wendy Straight; Songs of Slavery and Emancipation by Matt Callahan; and The Busti Meteorite Fall of 1891 by Norman Carlson.