NY State Parks Unveiling Restored Colonia-Era Stone House

JOHNSTOWN, N.Y. (AP) — The head of the New York state parks department is joining local officials to mark the restoration of a historic building at a Colonial-era site in the Mohawk Valley.

Parks Commissioner Rose Harvey will be at the Johnson Hall State Historic Site in Johnstown Wednesday for the opening of one of the two stone houses in Johnstown, 40 miles northwest of Albany.

The state spent nearly $325,000 to restore the original stone structure that was built before the American Revolution. The project began in 2014 and restoration began last September. The other stone house at the site is a 1960s reproduction of the original that burned down in the 1860s.

Johnson Hall was the estate of Sir William Johnson, an Irish immigrant who was one of the wealthiest and most influential men in North America before the Revolutionary War.

[STORY BY: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS]