English: The Rice-Sinclair House, 10897 Main Street, Clarence, New York, October 2020. The history of the house is a bit of a mystery: though its first documented owner is shown as residing on the property as of the 1866 Stone & Stewart map of Clarence, the building is undoubtedly quite a bit older than that: local architectural historian John Conlin posits with a significant degree of certitude that this was the original Asa Ransom Tavern, which would put the date of its construction at c. 1799 and make it the oldest extant building in Erie County. (Asa Ransom is considered the founding father of the Town of Clarence and was one of the first homesteaders to settle on the Holland Purchase, going on to later operate a grist mill and sawmill on the creek that now bears his name. In those early days, land was habitually offered to purchasers free of charge on the condition that they build and operate a roadside tavern or lodging and thereby help facilitate future settlement; if the building does indeed date back to Ransom, that would have been its original purpose.) Later owners include local farmer and smallholder Henry Rice (1821-1893), upon whose death it passed into the hands of his son-in-law Donald Sinclair (1839-1917), a Scottish-born schoolteacher and elder at Clarence First Presbyterian Church. The house was nominated as a local landmark in 2008 by the Clarence Historic Preservation Commission both for its distinguished history and also for its architectural significance as one of Western New York's very few examples of New England-style saltbox houses, with its symmetrical façade, centrally placed entranceway leading to a perpendicular interior corridor, asymmetrical side-gabled roof sloping more gradually in the rear, and twin chimneys. The interior, too, retains much of the integrity of its original design.