Collection ID:

Collection context

Summary

Creator:
Historic Geneva and Chew family
Abstract:
This collection focuses on the family of Beverly Chew, president of Shuron Optical. He resided at 543 South Main Street from the 1920s through 1960 when he and his wife Edith gifted the building to the Geneva Historical Society as a permanent home for the Geneva History Museum.
Extent:
Five Boxes
Language:
English

Background

Scope and Content:

This collection includes articles, diaries, genealogical records, correspondence, photographs, and ephemera related to various generations of the Chew family spanning the years 1820 to 1985. Some materials were collected by the family but most was produced by family members.

Biographical / Historical:

Alexander Lafayette Chew settled in Geneva in 1843, marrying the Sarah Augusta Prouty, daughter of Phineas Prouty Sr. and joining the hardware business of his father in law in the 1840s. They had 8 children together: Beverly, Harriet Hillhouse, Phineas Prouty, Thomas Hillhouse, Alexander Duer, Kate Adelaide, Theodora Augusta (died as child), and Lillian Beverly. Eventually Alexander Sr. got into the banking business in which his son Thomas followed. Phineas Chew’s son Beverly visited his grandfather in Geneva many times as a boy and returned permanently in 1912, working for the Standard Optical Company (later Shur-On).

Alexander’s parents lived in New Orleans and most of his family remained there. Much of the correspondence found in the Miss Chew box centers around his family and gives insight into their experiences during the Civil War under Confederate law.

It is Beverly Chew and his third wife Edith who gave their home at 543 South Main Street to the Geneva Historical Society in 1960 for a permanent space for a museum and its collections. The building then became known as the Prouty-Chew House to reflect the decades long ownership by the Prouty family and Beverly Chew. A genealogical record of the Chew Family is available in Box 1, Folder 2.

Acquisition information:
Much of this collection has originated with Beverly Chew, and after his death, his wife Edith. However, the original correspondence belonging to Alexander and Sarah Chew were given without any information on the donor’s connection to the family. Material donated in 2019 originated with the Miner family; Beverly’s daughter Madeleine married DeWitt C Miner Jr. and their son DeWitt C Miner III married the donor, Elizabeth Fisher Miner.
Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: a Content Standard

Online content

Access

RESTRICTIONS:

Files with accession number 2011.0003 are restricted to staff only as it contains sensitive personal information.

LOCATION OF THIS COLLECTION:
Geneva History Museum
543 South Main Street
Geneva, NY 14456, United States
CONTACT:
315-789-5151
archivist@historicgeneva.org