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Martin to receive Elizabeth Baxter Award which honors Ogdensburg history

Posted 10/11/19

OGDENBURG -- David Edward Martin will receive the annual Elizabeth Baxter Award given out by the Historic Commission. The award will be presented Tuesday, Oct. 15, at 6:30 p.m. at the Ogdensburg City …

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Martin to receive Elizabeth Baxter Award which honors Ogdensburg history

Posted

OGDENBURG -- David Edward Martin will receive the annual Elizabeth Baxter Award given out by the Historic Commission.

The award will be presented Tuesday, Oct. 15, at 6:30 p.m. at the Ogdensburg City Council meeting at City Hall. A proclamation will be read followed by refreshments in the old city council chambers provided by the Historic Commission. The public is welcome to attend.

Martin follows Ogdensburg photographer Betty Steele, who received the award in 2018. The award is given to a group or individual who has helped capture the history of the City of Ogdensburg.

Martin gives his uncle, the late Earl C. Como, full credit for his love of history, according to a press release from the city officials. While growing up on Congress Street he would spend evenings with cousins listening and learning from his Uncle Earl, who had a lifelong interest in history and was delighted to inspire others.

Decades later that interest was shared between David and cousin, Ted Como as they swapped historic Ogdensburg photos, for David’s first book on images of Ogdensburg and in building Ted’s Ogdensburg photo history website.

Martin, 76, graduated from Ogdensburg Free Academy in 1963 and entered the U.S. Army for training as a medic. After discharge he worked as an operating room technician at the A. Barton Hepburn Hospital, now known as Claxton Hepburn Hospital. Later he relocated to Haverstraw, where he attended college while working at Helen Hayes Hospital, graduating with an RN degree. He returned to Ogdensburg in 1985 to work at the St. Lawrence Psychiatric Center, retiring in 2000.

Prior to retirement he was pursuing his love of history, working with numerous museums, libraries and historical associations in digitizing thousands of documents and images including historic books and glass photographic plates. This included the entire glass plate collection of the St. Lawrence County Historical Society as well as that of the Massena Historical Association.

After retirement began another career centered on North Country History. He continued an avid love of reading history and visiting historic sites while adding to his authorships. To date he has written four books on historic images of Ogdensburg, Oswegatchie and Massena, as well as creating CDs of old maps. While doing his first book, "Images of America - Ogdensburg," he learned about the Horwood stained glass windows in the Ogdensburg Opera House which was destroyed when the building burned to the ground in 1926. He had not heard of Horwood and his interest piqued. He soon discovered that the stained glass in St. John’s Episcopal Church were Horwood. This is where he was baptized and confirmed, and where his mother, grandmother and aunt sang in the choir for decades.

He learned that Horwood stained glass is renowned across the U.S. and Canada, made by patriarch Harry Horwood who was born in England in 1838, and then by son Harry J., who carried on the family business in Ogdensburg from 1898 to his death in 1947. It is found in churches throughout Northern New York and for many years, Mr. Martin traveled the region and Ontario searching for Horwood stained glass in hundreds of churches, many of which had no clue to their hidden treasure. Mr. Martin takes great pride in initiating restoration of a number of Horwood stained glass windows to be enjoyed by future generations.

His dream is to display these photos and original Horwood glass in an Ogdensburg museum. The Horwood Stained Glass Museum is currently a Facebook page but Martin and a board of directors have incorporated as a non-profit and the effort is currently in a fundraising stage.

Martin and wife Janice reside on the Tallman Road and are the parents of Gary, of Ogdensburg, and Janelle Martin Simonds of Texas.