Startled
He was hunched over in the dust inspecting the old floorboards when there was a loud, unexpected sound. Startled, it took him a few seconds to realize that it had come from the third floor. The room was completely dark. He fumbled with his phone’s torch, but then he noticed something strange about the ceiling above him.
But stumbling upon floorboards where there should have been a ceiling was just the beginning. Finding negatives in a secret room in the rafters had definitely not been part of the plan.
David Whitcomb
43-year-old David Whitcomb’s marriage may have been crumbling, but at least business was booming. He’d been taking on so many new clients that he decided to expand and buy a new building for his law practice in New York.
So, in December 2020, he purchased an old three-story fixer-upper for $100,000. The plan was to start renovating on the ground floor himself and work his way up.
The Building on Seneca Street
The run-down building was on Seneca Street - right in the heart of the historic district of downtown Geneva.
David’s plan was to use the lower floors for his offices and rent the extra space on the third floor out as apartments. He’d grown up nearby in Canandaigua, so he was familiar with the region and its bizarre and fascinating history. Still, he never could have imagined what he’d find.
Fate
From the outside, there wasn’t much to love about the building - just rows of windows like shuttered eyes that once been apartments.
But building number 37 on Seneca Street had immediately caught David’s eye. He’d grown up with stories from the area and had always been attracted to the district like a magnet, so when the derelict building went up for sale it had seemed like a perfect opportunity.
The Finger Lakes
Stretching over New York’s landscape like giant gouges from a Sky God’s fingers are the Finger Lakes - eleven narrow bodies of water that lie between Lake Ontario and the Pennsylvania border.
There is something about the Finger Lakes that has always suggested the possibility of the mysterious. Seneca lake, in particular, was a hotbed of controversy.
Seneca Lake
Urban myths about hauntings, ancient ruins, and inexplicable phenomena have always swirled around the largest Finger Lake, Seneca.
This lake is darker, deeper, and colder than its counterparts. From old Iroquois legends to modern reports of sea monsters in the depths, it almost makes sense that there would be something hidden in the building just a stone’s throw away from the shore.
Breaking Glass
When David made the discovery, it was completely by accident. He was giving his friend a tour of the building, proudly showing him the original fixtures and beautiful wooden floors when they heard the sound of breaking glass coming from the third floor.
David climbed up to the floor to see what had made the noise and discovered that a lightbulb had exploded. But when he looked up, he noticed something odd.
Discovery
The water-damaged ceiling didn’t look right - in fact, it wasn’t a ceiling at all. He could see floorboards and the faint outline of what looked like a doorway that had long been plastered over and sealed shut.
He called his friend over to see if he could help him make sense of what he was seeing. “That’s a fake drop ceiling,” David whispered, “the wood underneath doesn’t look like the roof.”
The Hidden Attic
From the outside, the building didn’t seem like it had an attic, though. It hadn’t been on the building plans. And yet there it was - sealed over by drywall and lost to time.
they piled up chairs so that they could reach the ceiling to inspect it further. David traced the access panel with his fingers, then he dug his fingernails under the corners and pulled.
Crates And Frames
David stuck his head inside the space and exclaimed when he saw what was inside. “Oh my God! We’ve just found the Goonies treasure!”
The hidden attic was filled with crates and shipping containers. David caught a glimpse of stacks of gold frames that had been pushed up against the wall. Just what had he stumbled upon?
Treasure
Inside the attic, David found antique backdrops, photography equipment, glass negatives, stacks of mail, and prints in gilded frames. He kept seeing the name J.E.Hale.
“We quickly realized all the material was photographs and photography related and repeatedly saw the name J.E. Hale, on photos, boxes, shipping containers, and even found a stack of his mail from approximately the fall of 1916,” David explained later. But who was J.E.Hale? And why had the attic been sealed?
A Mystery
“The organization of the materials was confusing, while it looked like certain pieces had been neatly stacked and organized others were almost thrown here and there,” David later told reporters. But one portrait, in particular, caught his eye.
It was clear from the items that this was a hidden photography studio. As David and his friend fell to their knees and started going through all the items, they came upon something extraordinary.
Burned Into Glass
David was on his hands and knees when he noticed some large pieces of glass on the ground. He scrabbled to pick one up, shone his phone’s flashlight behind it, and immediately stopped.
It was a piece of a glass plate negative. He frantically searched for the other pieces. And he recognized the woman whose image had been burned into the glass. You see, just as the building had attracted David, it had attracted someone else, too.
A Piece Of American History
The Seneca Lake area wasn’t just a hotbed of strange happenings and Native American folklore, it was also the birthplace of the American Women’s Rights Movement. Since 1848, women have had a powerful history in the Finger Lakes Region. The first Women’s Rights Convention was held in Seneca Falls.
What were the chances that what David held in his hands was a piece of American history?
A Rare Collection
David had found a picture of Susan B. Anthony. What’s more, it was the original negative of one of the most famous photographs of the suffragist, taken a year before she died. The portrait alone has been appraised at between $10,000 and $50,000, and the rest of the collection in the attic is worth around $100,000.
David says: “What’s amazing is that this material sat in this building for over a century, forgotten. Someone just dry-walled over this attic and it was lost to history until we discovered it, and it’s telling a very interesting story.”