The beginning of the Friends Museum and Library in the town of Rochester goes back more than thirty years when a small group of volunteers banded together to preserve the town’s historic heritage. Friends of Historic Rochester was incorporated in 1988 and the group began collecting historical information and artifacts at that time.

The museum is named after two of FHR’s prime movers, whose efforts were crucial in establishing it: Percy W. Gazlay and Eleanor S. Rosakranse. In 2005, upon the death of Mrs. Rosakranse, the museum acquired the extensive Eleanor S. Rosakranse Genealogical Research Collection, comprised of hundreds of books and documents that Mrs. Rosakranse had collected over a nearly 50-year period.

Also featured at the museum is a “picture wall” covered with 8”x10” prints of vintage postcards and photographs of local buildings, people, and events. We have about 300 pictures so far and are soliciting more. We can scan and immediately return the originals to their owners, although we do have originals that were donated directly.

Other items of interest at the museum include- oral histories recounting the “Old Days and Ways"; copies of the Cemetery Book, an inventory of the town’s more than 70 cemeteries; full sets of The Accordian, which has been published quarterly since 1988; numerous volumes on local history, and notebooks with photographs and written material relating to many of the town’s historic assets – stone, frame and brick houses, barns and other outbuildings, railroad stations, churches, and one- and two-room schoolhouses.

Our Museum is open Wednesdays from 1 -3 pm. The museum is open during the winter months by appointment only. Please email Alice Cross (N613A@aol.com) or Kate Gundberg (TORFRIENDSORG@gmail.com) to make an appointment.