Clymer Historian Cindy Willink reports to the town on the activities done by the Historical Society this year. P-J photo by Sara Holthouse

CLYMER — The Clymer Historical Society continues to be active and hard at work, and Clymer Historian Cindy Willink recently reported to the town board on the activities that went on for the Historical Society during the last year.

Willink reported during the town board’s December meeting that the Historical Society is “alive and well”, and detailed some of their ongoing projects.

“Volunteers continue to meet every Tuesday morning and enter donated items into our computer,” Willink said. “Items continue to flow in, sometimes at a rapid rate. Right now we’re going through a mountain of old newspapers, Clymer Boosters from 1947 to 1960 and the Clymer Independent from 1960 to 70 and we’d like to have a perfect copy of every one of those newspapers. We’ve got some on CDs or DVDs but we would like the paper copy.”

The Historical Society also has scrapbooks of obituaries of Clymer residents and Clymer Central School graduates, which are continually updated. Willink added that they make a binder every year full of newspaper articles focused on the town, school and school sports, along with other publications that are around town. There are probably 30 years worth of binders that the Historical Society has.

Another ongoing project for the Historical Society after doing research, is getting a historical marker awarded from the William Pomeroy Foundation for a political rally held in Clymer in 1872 in support of ‘Grant for President’.

“This marker will be installed and dedicated in the spring of 2026,” Willink said.

Willink reported that the Historical Society remains financially stable, and besides the donation from the town there has also been a donation from the Bruce and Susan Neckers Foundation to help with the cost of roof repairs. They also had a successful car show and were included in Give Big Chautauqua for the first time.

A book on the history of Clymer was written by Historical Society President Rodney Beckerink this past year, with about 300 copies sold in the town along with some internet sales. Willink said they have also been dealing with several maintenance issues this year.

“On the other side of the coin we took care of several maintenance issues this year, including having the roof of the museum painted,” Willink said. “Windows have been scraped, buffed and repainted, and we most recently purchased a high efficiency furnace for the museum in the house.”

A purchase of 50 chairs was made as well, for public meetings as Willink said their current chairs are old and metal. Besides the need for another building, Willink said future historical society expenses include staining the barn in 2026.

Three public meetings have been held by the Historical Society this year, one being Beckerink giving a presentation on the making of his book, another was a presentation by town resident Dan Caflish talking about things he has found with his metal detector, and the third was Bob Johnston’s presentation on the Jamestown Trolley Car 93 Restoration Project. Willink said several members of the Historical Society were so interested in the trolley car after seeing the project that they traveled together to Falconer to see the car in person.

The Clymer Historical Society was also represented at the Chautauqua County History Expo where they brought along a display on gas stations in the town in the 1930s.

“It’s hard to imagine there were this many gas stations when Clymer was just coming into the depression because we came to it late, and to think we needed that many gas stations,” Willink said.

She thanked the town for their donation, saying that they try to spend the money wisely. Town Supervisor Brian Willink thanked her for the Historical Society’s work.

“You hear about other communities that have theirs fall along the wayside, so it’s nice to have an active Historical Society,” he said.