How old is Unionville’s General Store?

Horler’s General Store sits on Main Street in Unionville, NY. It is a great example of the type of general store that many American towns had in the days before the supermarkets took over. It is a convenient place for locals to grab something on the go, and a popular spot for Appalachian Trail hikers to resupply before heading back out on the trail. The store is named after Thomas S. Horler who established his business there in 1927. And although the store is no longer owned by the Horler family, it retains his name.

My own interest in this store is part of a larger project to understand the origins of the village of Unionville. One of the earliest settlers in this place was Henry Tucker who by 1792 ran a store here. The location of his store is not precisely known. But I’ve wondered, might the general store of today trace back to Tucker in some way? Though my research has so far been unable to make that connection, I have traced Unionville’s general store back over 150 years, and that is a considerable length of time for any property retain the same function.

Before the general store was called Horler’s it was known as “G. V. Schooley’s Store.” George V. Schooley purchased the property on the second-to-last day of the year 1899 and continued to own and operate a store there until he sold to Thomas Horler in 1927. A 1903 map of Unionville labels the property “G. V. Schooley” and newspaper articles and advertisements over the years tell us that he was “a seller of White House Coffee” (1918), “has been making more shelf room and otherwise improving the interior of his store room” (1918), and sells “Jelke Goodluck margarine” (1922). Schooley himself was an elder at the Presbyterian Church and a well-respected member of the community.

As we continue back in time we find that before the store was G. V. Schooley’s it was George H. Elston’s. Elston owned the property from 1885 until selling it to Schooley in 1899. He operated a store there for at least some of that period, though a note in the Middletown Times-Press of December 16, 1891 says, “The store of G. H. Elston is beginning to look quite empty, as he is closing out at reduced rates, expecting to relinquish the business.” Just the next year in the same paper he is referred to as “our retired grocer” when a man named C. J. Davenport is said to be moving “to the storehouse of G. H. Elston.” While the property remained in Elston’s hands, it is possible that C. J. Davenport ran a store there between 1892 and 1899.

Prior to G. H. Elston the history is more difficult to track. For ten years (1875 to 1885) the property was owned by John Clark and others. While there is no record of them running a store there, the deed of their sale of the property refers to it as a “store house.” It is similarly called a “store house” in 1875 when sold by Albert and Oscar Shute to John Clark. An 1875 map of Unionville labels the property as “A & O Shuit” and the New York State Census of that same year refers to Albert Shute as a merchant.

We do know that before Albert and Oscar Shute there was a store on the site run by George E. Schoonover. He had the property from 1865 to 1872. Vail’s Orange County Farmers and Business Directory for 1871-1872 lists “George E. and Benjamin W. Schoonover, Dry Goods, Groceries, and General Mdse, Country Store.”

Continuing back in time, we find that the owner who sold to Schoonover in 1865 was Joseph Chandler (who owned quite a lot of that land on the east side of the village). The deed from Chandler to Schoonover refers to “all that certain storehouse and sheds in rear of said store house situate and being in the village of Unionville.”

Then, perhaps the earliest reference to a store at this location (possibly then owned by Joseph Chandler) is from an 1859 map of the village. (Note: N. H. Chandler owning the house next to the store is Nathaniel Hopkins Chandler, Joseph Chandler’s son.)

At this point the record runs dry. The deeds are hard to follow, but the store land might be included in a deed of Joseph Chandler from Robert Carr in 1841.

All of this doesn’t get us back to Henry Tucker—whose store operated out of his house from about 1792 to 1813—but we’re getting closer.

Ruttenber’s history of Orange County, written in 1881, says that “Henry Tucker settled at Unionville, on the place where Lanson Dunn resides at the present time.” (p. 661). A map shows that multiple parcels in Unionville were owned by Lanson Dunn, so it is not clear where he lived. But one his properties was one adjacent to today’s Horlers; the next property to the east. So whether Tucker operated a store exactly in the location of Horler’s or nearby, I haven’t been able to determine. But it seems one general store or another has always been the real center of the village. Before the village even was named, the defining feature was, as in a 1792 Sussex County, NJ road book from just over the border, “Henry Tucker’s Store.”