The Oneida Community Mansion House originates from the Oneida Community, a perfectionist religious community founded by John Humphrey Noyes in 1848. After the community dissolved in 1881, the Mansion House was preserved and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1965. Today, the Oneida Community Mansion House (OCMH) is a non-profit organization chartered by the State of New York. Their mission is to use the historic site and collection to share the story of the Oneida Community by preserving, collecting, and interpreting the material and non-material culture of the Oneida Community. The Mansion House also houses residential apartments, overnight guest rooms, and meeting spaces.
I spent this summer creating the Oneida Adventure Quest, which is a scavenger hunt based in the town of Oneida, to increase tourism in the area. My project aimed to promote these sites and draw people to the area by including local businesses, parks, and natural landmarks in Oneida. This would allow the businesses and local sites to connect and expand with tourists who may come back to enjoy Oneida’s interesting features, uplifting the region’s culture. I created an adventure quest that could be used as a template or adapted for future events in Oneida to increase interaction with the city’s features.
During my time at the Mansion House over the summer, I was able to explore and discover the town of Oneida in great depth. Being from Maryland, I was unaware of the important historical and cultural roles that rural towns in Upstate New York play. Due to the decline in usage of the railroads and canals in this region, many towns experienced a population migration and economic decline due to the disinvestment in the area. This disinvestment threatens the preservation of the rich history and natural resources that Upstate New York has to offer. Groups such as the Oneida Community Mansion House work to combat this loss by highlighting important and interesting historical aspects of these small rural towns. By preserving the region’s history, we make an effort to revive and sustain the culture that Upstate New York holds.
As an architecture minor, I decided to theme the scavenger hunt around historical buildings in Oneida. I researched and studied the history of sites, how they are preserved, or how they were reinvented. I hope that in the future I can work within the sustainable architecture field where I have heard that “the most sustainable building is one that has been already built”. Historical preservation is key to what I am studying at Colgate, so when I was given the opportunity to intimately research a historically significant community, I knew it was a chance I could not pass. I used my experience in previous community-based research I had done for my Environmental Studies major to push me even further into the history behind Upstate New York. I’m extremely grateful for the opportunity to learn more about the region that I have been lucky to call home during my college years. Thank you to OCMH and The Upstate Institute for this amazing opportunity.