In this feature, we conclude the Freethought Trail’s celebration of the seventeen sites in west-central New York State where nineteenth-century orator Robert Green Ingersoll delivered a lecture. Reactivation of the online Ingersoll Chronology (https://chronology.secularhumanism.org/) made it possible to identify every venue in the region at which Ingersoll was known to have spoken.

Hornellsville/Shattuck Opera House

On September 5, 1880, Ingersoll delivered his skeptical oration “What Must We Do to Be Saved?” at the Shattuck Opera House in Hornellsville (now Hornell). The lecture keynoted the annual convention of the New York Freethinkers’ Association (despite its name, a national organization). On May 5, 1894, Ingersoll returned to the Shattuck to deliver his patriotic lecture on Abraham Lincoln. In an unusual move, he asked the audience whether it preferred some other speech instead. Guided by the cheering, Ingersoll reprised “What Must We Do to Be Saved?”—to an audience that had expected to hear about Lincoln. Freethinkers were delighted, Christians dismayed. Thanks to Alice Taychert of the Southern Tier Library System for research assistance.