The main parlor retains its original cut-crystal gasolier, which has never been converted to electricity, and an ornate pier mirror on a marble top base.

The photo's caption, which refers to the mansion as the "Farnam House" states that the builders "probably copied their design from the popular pattern books which published plans for the latest architectural styles."

His obituary described him as "a well-known and highly esteemed citizen and merchant" of Oneida, and also "a self-made man and the architect of his own fortunes.

In October 1913 Stephen Farnam's widowed second wife, Sarah, sold the mansion to Mary Dyer Jackson, an early activist in the women's suffrage movement.

He was also a naturalist who made a hobby of collecting wild plants and flower specimens, and was a member of three noted Syracuse University expeditions into Mexico, South America, and Canada.

One of his favorite pastimes was taking field trips to the wilds of the Adirondacks to seek unusual plant specimens, many of which he brought back with him and studied in a laboratory set up in the basement of his home.

The mansion was converted into a bed and breakfast by its next owners, the Chapins, who added four bathrooms and two rooms with Jacuzzi tubs to the bedrooms on the second floor.

The Farnam Mansion is currently owned by writer and antique dealer Gerri Gray, who, along with her husband Brian, have painstakingly worked to renovate and restore the house to its former glory.