The Geneseo Historical Society will hold its annual Christmas open house from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 7 at the society’s museum at 205 S. State St.

The open house will offer “the spirit of an old-fashioned Christmas and the sparkle of a Victorian holiday,” according to a news release from the historical society.

The Geneseo Historical Association was established in 1972, and its first museum consisted of two rooms in the caretaker’s house at Richmond Hill Park.

By 1976, the museum rooms were “bursting at the seams,” leaving no space for storage, repair or cataloging. The Geneseo Public Library had by then moved into a new building and made the historic old Hammond Library, built in 1898, available to the association as a permanent museum. So it remained for the next two decades.

By early 1996, however, even these quarters were getting cramped. With the help of many donations from the community, the association’s board moved its headquarters and museum to a huge Italianate structure almost directly across the street. 

With 27 rooms and 9,000 square feet of usable space, this mansion could easily display the museum’s existing collection, with room to spare for an expanded office, storage and other amenities. The structure and appointments (some of them original) were all in excellent repair, including lovely grounds for outdoor events. 

That it was reputed to have been a station on the “Underground Railroad” merely enhanced the building’s appeal.  The 1855 home was a “safe house” for runaway slaves on their way to freedom in Canada.  Visitors can view the hiding hole, hidden staircase and keeping rooms that were part of the “Underground Railroad”

Today’s museum building boasts 12-foot ceilings with ornate crown moldings, five of the original twelve marble fireplaces remain, and two front entrances leading to their own winding staircases. It is an historic home and a working museum containing a general store and rooms typical of the Victorian era. It houses permanent exhibits as well as changing displays, featuring thousands of local and regional artifacts. In the formal parlor hangs a huge chandelier with 191 prisms which came from Chicago’s Hull House.