09/28/2026
It is a long story why I went looking for Alice Russell's memories. Here is a priceless piece she wrote in 1990. I am actually looking for a video that was taken of her talking about what she saw and remembered. It's long but worth the trip down memory lane.
Thornden Park
April 1990
Alice Russell
413 Westcott Street
Syracuse
My earliest memory of the Davis Estate, forerunner of Thornden Park, was a a trip taken by my family one Sunday afternoon when the public must have been invited to view the grounds. We walked from our Westcott Street home over to Bristol Place, entering the estate at the end of Greenwood. It was probably about 1910 when I was three years old, for I remember how very high the black foundation of the farmhouse on the southwest corner of Beech Street and Bristol Place looked to me. I remember my father carrying me part of the time. The weather was fine, probably summer or early fall.
I remember seeing the large barn where the road from Beech Street turned south in front of the barn. There were farm animals, horses, cows and chickens and geese. There were fruit trees south of the barn, and where the amphitheatre is now was a pond. My three brothers, nine, six and three years older than I, used to skate on that pond in the winter, and once I skated with them.
The Davis home, a large brown building, was along the west side of the road after it curved to go through the woods toward the exit on Ostrom Aenue at Madison Street. My sister, fifteen years older than I, was in the same class at school with the daughter of the caretaker of the Davis Estate, and one day her classmate showed her all through the Davis residents, when the Davis family were on vacation in England.
When I went to Central High School, my brother Sidney and friends who lived nearby used to walk through the Davis Estate to Adams Street which took us straight down to Central High. I remember in the spring many migratory birds would rest in the Estate. This is where I saw and heard my first white-throated and white crowned sparrows, juncos etc. It was an ideal spot with diverse vegetation, cover in the trees and shrubs and what was so important, the pond.
Also in the spring the whole area between Beech and Adams Streets was hopping with frogs and toads, which came to lay their eggs in the pond.
That spring of 1921 when I was a freshman, a friend I made in the biology room was a senior about to graduate. The stage for the graduation exercises was to be decorated with daisies, and I helped my friend pick daisies on the hill in the Davis Estate.
That fall of my freshman year, my friend Alice Kenyon and I would go to the estate to catch grasshoppers for our biology teacher who paid us 3 cents a piece for the small grasshoppers and 5 cents a piece for the large ones. I think I made about two dollars catching grasshoppers to be used in the biology class.
One time later, perhaps I was even a freshman in college, I decided I wanted to go inside the Davis house. So one Saturday morning I went by myself into the estate and climbed the steps to the porch at the south end of the building, pushed open a window in the music room and climbed in! This large room was paneled in ebony! There was no furniture in it or in any of the rooms. The music room opened into a hall, from which a stairway led to the second story. In the wall below the stairway was a niche for a vase or piece of statuary. Some steps led down to a living room, beyond which on the left side of a continuation of the hall was the library with book shelves from floor to ceiling, and a door on the west side leading out into the woods. A beautiful room! At several places in the hall were niches or statuary or vases. Beyond the living room was the dining room. I believe the kitchen was in the basement.
After seeing the downstairs, I went upstairs and what intrigued me most was a bedroom on the east side of the house which had a little balcony, or stage?, across one end of it, high up.
When I was in college I used to enjoy ice-skating on the big field by the road, which was flooded and swept for skating. I never felt afraid to go there even alone at night. Once when I went there was a young acrobat who could do all kinds of tricks on the ice. We talked together and I learned that he was from Ireland, and a very interesting person. He came home with me for hot cocoa and cookies and more talk. I never saw him again.
When I was in college I used often to walk through the park, though if I were alone at night I would go by Euclid and Westcott.
My older brothers had a ten-foot toboggan which we used on the hill where the water tower now is. It was a bumpy ride in spots, but an exciting ride from high on the hill down to the level field where is now the swimming pool. Our big Airedale used to go with us – we all got lots of fresh air and exercise along with our fun.
