What's Left? Will We Save It? Page 6

Volume 3 Number TwoPublished by the Columbia County Historical Society

IN THIS ISSUE:Historic Hudson Landmark

Building ThreatenedPAGE 5

My Old Hudson Home PAGE 9

PROFILE: Esther “Faity” TuttlePAGE 11

Looking from the Pastto the Future

PAGE 13

The Art of RestorationPAGE 16

Cement Plant ThreatensScenic and Cultural Riches

PAGE 18

Save America’s Treasures PAGE 24

Conservation, Preservation, andRestoration around the County

PAGE 28

Where Did the Goldfish Go?PAGE 35

Collection HighlightsPAGE 39

The Shakers and theGreat Stone Barn

PAGE 40

Opportunities at OlanaPAGE 42

Columbia CountyHistorical SocietyEvents Calendar

PAGE 48

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SUMMER 2004

What’s Left? Will We Save It? Page 6

$4.00

Looking out over the Hudson river from Olana

Columbia County Histor ica l Society www.cchsny.org

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COLUMBIA COUNTY HISTORY & HERITAGEE D I TO R I A L B OA R D

EditorHenry N. “Jim” Eyre, Jr.

Assistant EditorDr. John C. Fout

Editorial CommitteeLawrence Ashmead, George N. Biggs, III, Albert S. Callan,

Joan K. Davidson, Mimi Forer, James P. Hamilton, Mary HowellDominick C. Lizzi, Julia Philip, Mary Faherty Sansaricq,

Dr. Will Swift, Dr. David William Voorhees

Design and ProductionRon Toelke and Barbara Kempler-Toelke

Ron Toelke Associates, Chatham, NY

Columbia County History & Heritage is published by the ColumbiaCounty Historical Society and is mailed to all members of record at the time of publication. Copies may be obtained, as available, at $4.00 per copy from the Society offices at the Columbia CountyMuseum, 5 Albany Avenue, Kinderhook, New York, 12106; 518-758-9265; www.cchsny.org

Hours: Monday, Wednesday, Friday 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.,Saturday 10:00 – 4:00 p.m.

S TA F F

Sharon S. Palmer Executive DirectorHelen M. McLallen Curator

Ruth Ellen Berninger EducatorCarla R. Lesh Registrar/Assistant Educator

Rita Laffety MembershipJuanita Knott Administrative Assistant

WE WILL REMEMBER HIM WELL

Steve Mandel, our President, departed this life on Saturday,May 15, 2004. It is a sad, sad thing for his family and it is asad thing for his many friends and admirers here at the

society and throughout the county. The Board and the staff willparticularly miss him because he believed in us and we believed inhim. In the short time that he was our leader he introduced a newspirit and energy to the society’s work. He was sincere in his beliefthat the county’s history is a proud one — to be properly preservedand promoted. He established purposeful goals for the committeesand encouraged their staffing with capable people from the board,the membership, and from outside the society. Even when serious-ly ill, hiding his personal pain, he presided over board meetings andattended every committee meeting possible offering sound and wel-come advice. He insisted that we take a fresh look at our missionand embark on the creation of a new long range plan to meet ourgoals and vision for the future and this work is in process.

He made his work at the society a full time effort and in a veryshort time it paid off. The Society has taken on a new life andpeople in the county are looking at us in a new light. With hisinspirational support this magazine was created to herald thecounty’s history and a new bulletin is being published to circulatesociety news. Membership has dramatically increased. He reveled inthe success of the expanding educational programs that the societywas offering in the county’s classrooms. New and exciting exhibitsand society sponsored events are attracting attention and majorattendance. New items have been added to our collection. Grantshave been sought and won, enabling us to begin restoration workon both our Vanderpoel and Van Alen historic properties. So muchis a result of Steve’s doing. We still have a long way to go and weowe it to Steve to keep the ball rolling. He has set a shining exam-ple for all of us to follow.

Jim EyreEditorColumbia County History & Heritage

CountyColumbia HERITAGEHISTORY&

John B. CarrollPresident

Woodruff L. TuttleTreasurer

Russell PomeranzAssistant Treasurer

Susan Gerwe TrippSecretary

Dr. David William VoorheesAssistant Secretary

Lawrence P. AshmeadArthur BakerNancy Clark

David CrawfordJoan K. DavidsonJohn R. DunneSheldon Evans

Henry N. Eyre, Jr.Mimi Forer

Peter HaemmerleinJohn Hannam

Willis HartshornTimothy Husband

Brian KellyDianne O’Neal

Julia PhilipRichard Ryan

Samuel O.J. SpivyColin Stair

A Message from the President

COLUMBIA COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETYB OA R D O F D I R E C TO R S

Steve Mandel

By Jim Eyre, Editor

A definition:

Conservation is the process

of planned management, the

purpose of which is to prevent

exploitation, destruction, and

neglect; a process that enables

and leads to preservation.

Restoration is the act of bringing

back to their former condition

those things that have been

neglected, exploited, and/or

partially destroyed.

Conservation, Preservation, andRestoration as a theme for thisissue was a unanimous choice on the

part of the magazine’s Editorial Committee.Columbia County holds second place tonone other in our country’s history. It has aproud and distinguished history to be pre-served and passed on. It was the first area tobe settled by the Dutch followed shortly bythe English. It was the first area in which anoutright rebellion took place against theEnglish even before the Revolutionary Warwas contemplated. It was the first area inwhich farmers rebelled against the penuriousdomination of manorial systems. It was thecounty that provided a safe haven for thoseNew England seamen whose whaling andmercantile trade had become beleaguered bythe British fleet in the early days of theRevolutionary War. These adventurous men,the Proprietors they were called, created aport at Hudson that quickly became secondonly to New York City in importance — aharbor from which its ships would carry

New England’s products to New York Cityand then across the seas and back again.

In its earlier days the county was knownfor its Mohican Indians, settlers, and hardworking farmers. These hardy people werefollowed by sailors, ship-builders, traders,merchantmen, shopkeepers, river-men,innkeepers, candle-makers, chandlers, rope-makers, tavern-keepers, indentured men,and yes- slaves. One cannot omit the thieves,murderers, pirates, and whores and, ofcourse, because of the area’s prominence, thepoliticians. Then came the railroad builders,the ore miners, mill owners, and industrial-ists. There are detailed histories to be toldabout all of these interwoven with fabled andheroic as well as devious and deceitful tales.It is the ongoing choice and mission of thismagazine to tell these stories — to preservethem for future generations.

The Native Americans cleared land in thecounty for their villages and to raise crops —always moving on when the area no longerwas suitable for their use. They had no knowl-edge of land ownership. The farmers that fol-lowed cleared the land, almost all of it to growcrops, and the forests disappeared. Agriculturefilled it all. Patroons first obtained title toIndian lands and then leased them to tenantfarmers. Then the tenant farmer became land-lord. However, one thing remained fairly con-stant. Large farms dedicated to the growing ofgrain crops, the farming of sheep, and theproduction of dairy products persisted. Aspopulations grew, the farmland in countiesnear to most large cities gave way to residen-tial lots for commuter families. But, by theearly to mid 1900s, Hudson — once a majorcity — had been by-passed by railroads andhighways and was no longer a vibrant businessor industrial center. The large mills that pol-luted creeks, the ghostly remains of largecement plants that once spewed poisons anddust into our air and lungs, were gone

However, the farms remained and surviv-ing with them was the treasure of openspace. Today this treasure is threatened. Agreat demand for second home sites hassprung up from weekenders coming fromNew York City. At the same time the farmersare finding it hard to compete with hugecentral U.S. farming conglomerates. Thefarmers have become ready sellers, at a timeof few and/or scanty zoning regulations inmost of the county’s towns.

To save the open beauty of our countythere are choices to be made by our towns

Columbia County Histor y & Heritage Summer 2004

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Editor’s Overview

Choices


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and people before it is too late. It is timefor concerned citizens to demand that theirtowns carefully review and institute newzoning regulations. Volunteer professionalssuch as the Land Conservancy have beenorganized and have made great strides in per-suading landowners to donate large andsmall tracts of land so that they may be pre-served in perpetuity. They have also workedwith landholders on subdivision plans thatguarantee the continued appearance of openspace and still protect the owner’s and hisheir’s ongoing interest in the property.Haphazard development can ruin the beautyof our county for those to come. Properplanning will protect and preserve the landfor all our people both rich and poor.Another organization, Scenic Hudson, hasmade great strides toward preserving ourenvironment and deserves thankful recogni-tion. The Olana Partnership also deservesmuch credit for its persistent efforts to pro-tect Olana’s scenic view-shed.

Throughout the county can be foundsome of the most beautiful homes in theland. Some were built by prosperous farmersand some by early Dutch patroons. Somewere built by the Proprietors and others bythe wealthy mill-owners and industrialists.Many were designed by gifted itinerantarchitects, constructed by local builders, andembellished by the imaginative hand carvingof local artisans. These buildings are in vary-ing styles usually following the persuasion of

the owner — Dutch, English, Federal,Classical. Some are square with wings added,others octagonal, and some the classic rec-tangle. In many cases they are gems carefullyrestored. But one finds others abandonedwith faded boards and darkened windowsbegging attention and new life. No mattertheir present condition, we are uniquelylucky to still have this fine heritage.

Many people are aware of the restorationprojects of Savannah, Georgia andStonington, Connecticut. People come fromall parts of the country just to look and enjoy.In Hudson we have dozens of fine old hous-es of many periods and styles. We have theability to create a showcase in that city and inour county that would attract a far greaternumber of tourists because of the architectur-al variety of our buildings and the historicimportance of Hudson as a shipping, whalingand mercantile center. It could result in amajor business boom and mecca for areashops, inns, and restaurants. Just think oftouring a restored Warren Street/Allen Streetand waterfront district in downtown Hudsoncoupled with visits to such historic sites asOlana, Clermont, the Van Alen Farm,Lindenwald, the Vanderpoel House, theShaker Museum, the Mt. Lebanon ShakerVillage, and many others nearby.

THere are three historic districts inHudson listed with the National regisetr ofHistoric Places. They are The Plumb-Bronson House and outbuildings, Front

Street-Parade Hill-Lower Warren HistoricDistrict and the Rossman-Prospect AvenueHistoric Distrtct. It is doubtful that there arerestrictions that require adherence to histori-cal restoration standards of any kind in thesedistricts by the City of Hudson. Too bad!As long as local building codes are met devel-opers are allowed to snap up architecturaltreasures and quickly and cheaply redesignthem into office or apartment units — justfor profit. There is a Historic Commissionthat is a token committee with no power butnevertheless with some influence. Hopefully,it can accomplish something of value inthe future.

Again there is a choice. Historic Hudsonand other groups and individuals are show-ing the way that proper restoration of build-ings can be accomplished. People have thepower to insist that town and city govern-ments have strict restoration buildingrequirements, and designate historic districtswith tough regulations. Working together wemight all one day enjoy a glorious WarrenStreet and a tourist bonanza in the county.

This issue will explore some of the treas-ures that have been allowed to disappear andothers that have been restored. We will talkabout the waterfront and fishing, furniture,nature walks, trolley trails, bicycle trails,buildings, and the art of Conservation,Preservation and Restoration. We hope youwill take this trip with us. It is important forthe choices are yours. �

People have the power to insist that town and city gov-ernments have strict restoration building requirementsand designate historic districts with tough regulation.

By Byrne FoneEditors Note: Byrne Fone, EmeritusProfessorof English at the City University of New Yorkis the author of several books, most recentlyHomophobia: A History, and of novels,short stories, and literary criticism. He lives inHudson and is Vice-President of HistoricHudson and serves on the board ofTime andSpace Limited.

For 46 years this building has beenknown as Hudson’s Library. Thebuilding has stood in its present loca-

tion for 185 years. Built in 1818 as analmshouse, it has also served as home to theHudson Asylum for the Insane, the HudsonFemale Academy, and as a residence forGeorge Power, twice mayor of Hudson andowner of the New York and HudsonSteamboat Company. In 1881 the buildingwas returned to the people of Hudson as theHudson Orphan Asylum. In 1959 the build-ing was given to the Hudson City SchoolDistrict by the Children’s Foundation, suc-cessors to the orphanage, with the stipula-tion that the building would become alibrary for the people of Hudson. TheHudson Area Association Library was born.

For 140 years it was preserved with care,love and pride by successive owners. For thepast 45 years, while in the uninterestedhands of the school district, the buildinghas been allowed to enter into a grim

old age of reprehensible, though not irre-versible, decay. The land that accompaniedthe building was put to use by the schooldistrict to construct a school which hasfared better with attention. Thus, both thebuilding’s life and the library location havereached a crisis point, and the future is, tosay the least, uncertain.

Recently, the Hudson Area LibraryBoard, after initially bowing to pressurefrom the school district, who wants thelibrary to move, has reversed itself and takena strong and principled stand voicing itsdetermination to stay and do what must bedone to save the building.

That the building needs work after yearsof neglect by the district is obvious. That itwill cost money to rehabilitate no onedenies. For this to happen it must be trans-ferred to more responsive stewardship, ide-ally from the school district that does notwant it, to the library that truly needs it. Todo this the library could join with otheradvocates so that the 400 State Street build-ing becomes the property of a not-for-prof-it community group or a coalition of groupswho would be interested in sharing spaceand preserving it as a Hudson landmark,even as it continues to house the library.

This building is part of the fabric of ourhistory and of our architecture and indeedour daily life. It must be saved! �


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This building is partof the fabric of ourhistory and of ourarchitecture and

indeed our daily life.It must be saved!

HISTORIC HUDSONLANDMARK BUILDING

ENDANGERED


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By Roderic H. BlackburnEditor’s Note: Mr. Blackburn is an architectural historian and realestate broker who has published widely on regional history, art, andarchitecture. He lives in Kinderhook, New York.

As a recent Historic Preservation Commission meetingdragged on past the 9 pm witching hour, when the impulseto adjourn becomes as urgent as a much delayed “short

call,” one new member leaned over to the chairman and, sotto voce,observed “preservationists have to be a depressed lot, everythingthey care about is either going, going, or gone.” He had a pointthere. A surprising number of the buildings of the past have beeneither “creatively” restored, modernized, or leveled. What remainsand what has been rebuilt in replacement, you see, deceives us bytheir presence, hides from our eye, and from our mind, the fact thatColumbia County was once a very different, much more activeplace.

For example, Peter H. Stott has written a forthcoming and eye-opening book on the industrial past of Columbia County LookingFor Work: Industrial Archeology in Columbia County, New York.Hardly a soul has a clue as to how industrial Columbia County wasin the nineteenth century. Push aside the over- and undergrowthalong our major creeks (and at Hudson) and you will find dozens offoundations of mills and countless mill-worker houses. The countymade a bewildering range of products, some exported to the world:woolen, cotton, and linen cloth, grain flour, lumber, plaster, print-ed cotton cloth, paper, etc. The number is mind numbing to recentgenerations who assume the county is, was, and will forever be arefuge for cows, crops, and commuters.

When Ruth Piwonka and I sat down in 1974 to write A VisibleHeritage, Columbia County, New York — A History in Art andArchitecture (1976, our contribution to the Bicentennial), we chose totell the history of the county through its visual evidence: existingarchitecture and art (some recalled only from old photographs). We

were able to hit the high points through images but, looking overPeter Stott’s manuscript, I realize with regret how much was only hint-ed at because it is gone from the visible world. On the brighter side,however (preservationists ought, first of all, to be optimists), 10,000homes exist in the county and a large majority speak to the evolutionof domestic life-ways in the county over 300 years. Why have so manyhouses survived while our industrial legacy nearly disappeared?

Families evolve but businesses revolutionize — it’s that simple.We live primarily the same way we have for eons, as singles, couples,families, and, occasionally, extended families. Australian aborigineswould have little trouble understanding our domestic arrangements.They would be bewildered by the industrial revolution, however, ifit were before us to examine, which it is not. One rare exception isthe complex of large brick and stone mills still intact and in indus-trial use today at Stuyvesant Falls. Where once hundreds of workersprinted the most elegant glazed cotton cloth for fashionable salons,a low-key enterprise today makes a chemical for cleaning air in

atomic submarines. Almost all the other mills in the county havebeen demolished, closed, abandoned, or leveled — outmoded byEdison and Westinghouse inventions and cheap labor in the South(now overseas).

Cities are, in this way, a lot like industries — they change moreby revolution than evolution, the result being wholesale loss of earli-er structures. The elevator revolutionized urban development bymaking cities grow up more than out. Large American cities wouldlook very different today without the elevator. Columbia County hasbeen spared this “elevating” of urbanity because the city of Hudson’seconomy has not expanded. The one exception is Bliss Towers, ourone high-rise which is, as elsewhere, conceded to be a domestic flop.

Anyone perusing the many photographs which Frank Forshewtook of the streetscapes of Hudson after the Civil War will realizehow much survives today thanks to a stable, often diminishing, econ-omy. He must have had a sporadic call for portraits to spend so muchfree time with his stereo camera capturing our streets and rooftops,

WHAT’S LEFT?

Will We Save It?

…10,000 homes exist in the county and a large majorityspeak to the evolution of domestic life-ways in the countyover 300 years. Why have so many houses survived while

our industrial legacy nearly disappeared?

as if he feared progress was athand to replace the past. Hewas right for a while; postCivil War prosperity accountsfor most of the Italianate flat-roof commercial structureson Warren Street.

His partner in later yearswas a Mr. Rowles, whose sonSam succeeded to the busi-ness at 441 Warren Streetwhere I applied for passportphotos in 1968. He sat medown under Forshew’sancient glass skylight roof formy available-light images. Hethen showed me stacks ofdusty stereopticon glass nega-tives taken by Forshew of thecity and outlying region. Stilla creature of a pre-inflationpast, he printed up eight bytens for me at one dollareach, identifying each bylocation. At that moment I saw what I nowcall “Lost Columbia,” a county with aremarkably complete catalog of every kind ofarchitectural style extending over a longerperiod than likely survives in any New Yorkcounty, either in fact or in photo. Now thereis an idea for a book.

One photo brought back a memory, thefight to save the General Worth Hotel(built in 1838 on Warren Street). This wasa case where historic preservation succeedsin its rear guard action, if it does at all, byfits and starts. In a community some struc-ture becomes the sacrificiallamb which, in its loss, soalarms the visual conscienceof the neighbors that theyband together to“Remember the Alamo.”That American expression iscertainly the battle cry ofthose “visualists” who battleat the barricades to save afavorite historic site from ahost of “functionalists” who,following the momentum ofthe industrial revolution,seek to improve society byimproving its past with thenew, the efficient, the safer,the straighter, the stronger,or the cheaper — in short,what works better.

Remember the campaignto save Grand Central

Station? It galvanized NewYork’s preservationist move-ment. Go to any zoningmeeting, there or here, andyou will see how the culturaldivide of America is playedout in local politics and pas-sions. Cried ElizabethAldrich: “The General Worthis an important prototypehotel in urban America, itmust be saved.” Retorted themayor, “It is abandoned, inpoor condition, and no newuse has been found.” It camedown, like the slaughteredlamb, but thereafter Hudsonhas been slowly building aconsciousness for preserva-tion it might not otherwisehave begun. Today Hudson’spolitics of power sways on afulcrum of preservation as aflood of visualist urbanites

find refuge in a small town still replete withmany early homes — enough new visualiststhat they may prevail in the next election.

County villages are addressing preserva-tion too. Kinderhook has had historic preser-vation zoning for 30 years. Just this year itupdated its code with more specific criteriaand guidelines to insure that this — perhapsthe loveliest early village in the HudsonRiver Valley — will hold onto its past morecarefully. Valatie is experimenting with mainstreet improvements reflecting its architec-tural heritage. Hudson has a new Historic

Preservation Commission whichseeks to influence how changes aremade to older buildings. TheGeneral Worth may rise again, figu-ratively, in advocacy and preserva-tion zoning.

In each community where plan-ning meetings are held you can befront row witnesses to the mostgrass roots of American politicalprocess — the sorting out of feel-ings, attachments, and interests,over the issue of visual preservationvs. functional progress. It is enlight-ening to see how friends and neigh-bors combine and split over eachissue as they work out what mattersthe most to them: what will keepmy neighborhood appealing, whatwill put cash in my pocket, whatwill impact my taxes?

In the countryside, change has


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Stockport Bridge, Columbiaville. The lost mill (one foundation corner remains) wasbuilt by James Wild in 1824 for cotton cloth manufacturing. Like other buildings ofthe industrial revolution, mills became outmoded by inventions, destined for recycling,not preservation, at least in rural counties where alternative uses are scarce. Date andphotographer unidentied. Bridge removed in 1928.

Warren Street looking west between 4th and 3rd. C. 1868 by Frank Forshew.Except for far-sighted photographers like Frank Forshew we would be bereft ofmuch of our visual past.

Non-farmers lovefarms for their

bucolic effect but,unlike mother and

apple pie, the trendsare against farms.

also been fast paced as mills andfarms rapidly disappear, pricedout by imported products andricher and cheaper farmlandelsewhere. Wheat farming wasthe mainstay of the county’srural economy in the eighteenthcentury, milling and diversefarming in the nineteenth centu-ry, dairy and fruit farming in thetwentieth. Whither goes our newcentury? Mother, apple pie, andthe family farm are wrapped upin the flag like nothing else.Non-farmers love farms for theirbucolic effect but, unlike motherand apple pie, the trends areagainst farms. Preservationistsare concerned with saving farming as family farms, as any kind offarming, or as a last resort, preserved open space.

It is well they are active now. Before the Civil War Columbia andDutchess County had 50,000 people each, today Dutchess County— more directly in the path of urban expansion, has over 250,000.Columbia County, surprisingly, has only 63,000 in the 2000 census.As the pressure for second homes continues to expand (and morerecently spurred by desire for a “safe refuge”), Columbia Countywould be well advised to step up its preservation effort if it wants toretain its rural aspect. Fast trains, work-from-home, and another ter-rorist experience in the Big Apple will put even more intense pressureon the county than it is already experiencing.

Real estate value trends are indicative of where we are going withopen space and historic preservation. As a real estate broker I am “sit-ting in the catbird seat” as towhat is happening to the county.In the last seven years the averageselling price of a home has gonefrom $130,000 to $ 315,000.This is nice for older home own-ers but hard on home buyers,especially local buyers. The effecton preservation of older homesis mixed. The more assets abuyer has the more likely he willrenovate an older house morethoroughly, often altering orremoving original features. Moremoney may preserve a house,too much money may destroy itshistorical integrity throughexcessive remodeling — povertyis a better preserver than wealth.Real estate booms — and wehave had them in the 1920s,1980s, and 2000s — have actu-ally been worse for preservationthan better.

Wither we go? When AVisible Heritage came up for its

third printing in 1996 I madeone change. In the introductionwe had taken county history upto 1900, not to 1976. We felttoo close to the twentieth centu-ry to observe it objectively. Withthe milennium, I thought Ishould have enough perspectiveto say what my own century haddone to the county and where itwill go hereafter. I postulatedthat the automobile brought onan important change in whatwas built since 1900. Instead ofa county (and a country) offarms, villages, and cities, the carallowed such mobility that sub-urbia became the great growth

focus in the country, although not in Columbia County, distant as itwas from large cities.

What did change, however, was the sons of families tied to theland could now move anywhere. This included the sons of housebuilders and carpenters who could now move to find employment inother trades. The result was a break in the continuity of knowledgeof how to build traditional houses. Knowledge to build those nine-teenth century revival style houses had been passed on from father toson for generations but was now broken. The advent of manufac-tured house parts and the abdication of architecture schools fromteaching traditional domestic architecture added to the break in tra-ditional building. Houses were now built by those alienated from tra-ditional styles, who combined mismatched manufactured houseparts (now more obvious than ever before), and house-book designs

imported from around the coun-try which are alien to the housetraditions of our region.

Except for a few architect-designed houses of recent years, most homes built have beenfunctionally progressive butvisually inarticulate, that is, lack-ing the symmetry, balance, pro-portion, and appropriate detail-ing which we value in the histor-ical architectural traditions ofthe prior three centuries. Thepreservation challenge todayshould be to keep the function-alist approach from so alteringour historic structures that, byslow accretion, our older houseslose more and more of their orig-inal qualities — qualities wepreservationists can only hopewill again inspire a new genera-tion to visual excellence as theyonce had. �


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Phoenix House, Hudson. If past is prologue, the gents of Hudson today wouldbe delighted to trade places when Forshew captured this afternooning c. 1868.

The Peter Van Schaack House, Kinderhook. A 1780s Georgian house convertedin the 1870s into a French Second Empire style house. With an understandingof the elements of historic styles such conversions were more successful in thatcentury than in the twentieth. Despite more education and more books,aesthetic knowledge is not cumulative in the population at large. We arebehind prior centuries and other countries in our local building design abilities.Note the high quality of ornamental plantings, not uncommon at that time.See Ellis’ History of Columbia County, 1878.

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By Dr. David William Voorhees

Like Pompeii and Herculaneum, theCity of Hudson has a wealth of archi-tectural treasures encased under layers

of neglect and, in the case of the house thatI purchased four years ago on lower UnionStreet, literally cement. To be honest, whenshown my house it was not love at first sight.Covered in drab gray siding and reekingfrom years of neglect, the house repulsed me.But it was the intuition of my partner, JoeConnelly, and advice of my dear friend,Ruth Piwonka, and of Jeremiah Rusconiwho persuaded me that there was historicpotential underneath falling drop ceilingsand cheap plywood paneling. Indeed, as westripped away layers of paint and grime thesubtly elegant lines of an eighteenth-centuryNantucket house began to be revealed. Myhouse, it turned out, was a surviving archi-tectural gem from the age when a handful ofNew Englanders ventured into the HudsonValley Dutch heartland to found the bustlingCity of Hudson.

Each day’s work brought exciting discov-eries. Nearly thirty layers of wallpaper werestripped from the walls, with as many sam-ples saved and labeled as possible. Theremoval of plaster exposed fine, hand-splitaccordion lath, as well as the original bakeoven, a back staircase, and, most surprising,an upstairs fireplace with its crane still intact.Released from their imprisonment inside the

walls were centuries of accumulated objects— an ancient child’s shoe with wooden sole,perhaps placed according to superstition tokeep away evil spirits, whalebone stays froma woman’s corset, wooden spools, potteryshards (some dated back to the 1760s), bro-ken clay tobacco pipes, a tin horse from achild’s toy, ancient clay marbles, pages froman 1832 Albany Temperance Recorder, and thesociety page from an 1892 New York World— are a smattering of the objects that soonfilled innumerable boxes. Not so entertain-ing was the discovery that the previousupstairs inhabitants had found loose boardsunder which they stuffed their garbage frommeals et. al.

Yet, what truly brought the house alivewas the uncovering of those who hadinhabited it. Documentary research revealedthat the house, a one-over-one side-hallNantucket with a large kitchen and garretextension, was built sometime between 1794and 1808. In 1783 Thomas Jenkins pur-chased the tract on which the house standsfrom the heirs of Jan Franse Van Hoesen andin 1784 divided it into 50 x 120 foot lots.My house straddles the westerly half of LotNo. 3 and 4.9 feet of the easterly half of LotNo. 23. Charles H. Coffin acquired thewesterly twenty-five foot half of Lot No. 3and the easterly twenty-five foot half of LotNo. 23 about 1808, by which date the housewas standing. Just west of the house stood asmall structure, possibly the summer

kitchen, as well as a barn on the alley. Thatthe house sits slightly over a foot closer to thestreet than any other on the block suggests aconstruction date of about 1797, in whichyear a law was passed that all buildings be auniform distance from the road. After 1808Coffin with his wife, Lydia, and their chil-dren, Deborah, William, Sarah, Alexander,and Charles, Jr., inhabited the house. In1823 Coffin purchased the easterly twenty-five foot half of Lot No. 3 from KeziahJenkins with a small one room building thatCoffin possibly used as an office.

In October 1828, at the age of forty-two,Coffin died of a fall. His widow remained inthe house until her death of “bilious” fever in1845 at age fifty-five. In 1835, to help payfor her children’s education, she sold theeasterly half of Lot No. 3 to John Chard,who enlarged the small dependancy into theresidence seen today. In 1846 her sonWilliam, who had moved to New Orleans,and his younger brothers, Alexander andCharles, sold their rights to the property toRichard F. Clark, husband of their sisterSarah, and Edward H. Macy, husband of sis-ter Deborah. Deborah and Sarah purchasedthe westerly half of Lot 23 in 1858. CharlesC. Clark and Edward M. Clark subsequent-ly inherited the shares of Richard Clark.

Nonetheless, with the death of LydiaCoffin, the house became a rental. In 1850John H. Wagener, a boatman from RhodeIsland, rented the house with his wife,


…what truly brought the house alive was the uncovering of those who had inhabited it.

My OldHudsonHome

Clementia, and their children, Francis, Cornelia, Mary, Stephen, andValentine. Ten years later John Bagley, a conductor on the Hudsonand Berkshire Railroad, was renting the house. Bagley hadapparently married Wagener’s widow, for the names of his wife andchildren in the 1860 census are the same as those as Wagener’s. In1870 another railroad conductor, Homer McCord, was living in thehouse with his wife Cornelia and ten-year-old daughter, Mary.The house’s ownership, meanwhile, became consolidated. The barnwas sold in 1869. In 1873 Edward Clark and Richard Clark soldtheir shares to Ellen Faulder Clark,widow of Charles C. Clark. In 1876Ellen sold her share to Deborah Macy,the surviving daughter of CharlesCoffin. In 1877 and 1878 Charles C.Macy, son of Deborah and EdwardMacy, purchased the rights of all theheirs. When Charles Macy died intes-tate in 1921, the history of the housetook a new turn.

By the 1920s the house reflected thechanging ethnic face of the City ofHudson as new immigrants arrived towork in the city’s factories. In 1923 —a date confirmed by a date on the plas-terboard in the back upstairs —Charles Macy’s heir, Richard C. Macy,sold the house to Jacob and KatieDiercks, who in turn sold it the follow-ing year to Joseph and MaryRosenburg. The Rosenburgs raised theroof of the back garret, converted thehouse into two apartments, and soldthe building to Italian immigrantDominico Delisio. The apartmentsnow became part of the extended andwarm Italian family networks thatshaped lower Union Street for the nexttwo generations. Dominico Delisio diedin 1944 and his widow, Filomena,married Vincenzo “James”Curcio. In 1947 Curcioand Frank and CarmelaMaturi agreed to dividethe premises equally. In1956 the executors ofCurcio’s estate conveyedthe property to AntonioGaudio, with a stipulationthat gave a life tenancy toCurcio’s widow, Filomena.It was during this periodthat a small upstairs apart-ment, or “wart,” wasadded above and beyondthe back of the house.Filomena Curcio diedin 1970, followed byAntonio Gaudio in 1979.

With the death of Antonia Gaudio, the house underwent anoth-er change, reflecting the declining fortunes of late twentieth-centuryHudson. The building, eventually falling into the hands of absenteelandlords, rapidly deteriorated as a warehouse for a parade of dys-functional human beings. Increasing their misery were unscrupulouslandlords who, squeezing every cent out of their hapless tenants andfrom misguided government programs, left the roof to rot, replacedwiring with extension cords, and allowed raw sewage to seep under-neath the house, leaving three cats and two possums to die excruci-

ating deaths from asphyxiation.Further structural damage was causedby pouring cement around the housein an attempt to keep it from beingcondemned. Tenants smashed doors,windows, and stair rails.

Such was the sad condition of thelittle house that repulsed me.Nonetheless, with a knowledge ofhome restoration solely shaped bywatching television’s Bob Villa, whomiraculously turns a wreck into ashowplace within an hour, and theencouragement of my partner, webravely moved in. Obviously I was notprepared for the work, let aloneexpense, that lay ahead of us. Yet, as welabored on the house I began to under-stand its true value. Conceived in theenlightened age of the eighteenth cen-tury as the latest in middle-class inno-vations and built in the post-Revolutionary period of optimism, thehouse witnessed the rise of the indus-trial age, weathered economic depres-sions, housed immigrants seeking anew world, sustained the hopes ofchildbirth, the laughter of children, theweaknesses of old age, and the sorrowof death, and suffered the heartache of

addiction and domes-tic violence. But myhouse representsmore than just thehistory of a singlebuilding, or of a cityor a nation. It repre-sents the story ofevery one of us. Likeany old timer whosurvives life’s gaunt-let, it deserves respect,honor, and cherish-ment. I have comefully to love my oldHudson home. �


10Original kitchen fireplace with bake oven at upper left.

Dining room door from entry hall with original glass transomand handsplit lathing.

By Jim Eyre

Many of us know her as Kinderhook’s “Faity” Tuttle living inthe“Merwin Farm House where Ichabod Crane Lived.”She’s not a fictional character. She is a legend. She was

born Ester Leeming in New Canaan, Connecticut on July 1, 1911(That’s right. She’s 93 now.) to parents of affluence and intelligence.Her early days were spent between homes in New Canaan andBrooklyn Heights, New York. She lived a pampered life but metadversity early in life when at eight she lost her father. Then just fouryears later her very loving but overly extravagant mother died leavingher and her siblings orphans in a somewhat impoverished state.

However, her inheritance of intelligence, humor, perseverance, faithin herself, belief in a righteous God, and the good in those she metwere to be the tools with which she would forgea wondrous life — always looking forward — andexcept for fond memories, — never looking back.

School days were over after high school and herambition was to become an actress. College wasnot an affordable option. But in the 1930s actingjobs were extremely scarce. Working in shops for aliving and standing in audition lines became thenorm until Faity realized that she had to use sometricks of her own her own (and they weren’t parlortricks) to win roles. Her big moment came whenshe was given part in The Petrified Forest starringLeslie Howard and Humphrey Bogart.

It was lucky for Faity that she had a rich andbrilliant Uncle Ely whose second, much youngerwife, Belinda, though not of the intelligentsia,had a knack of collecting friends among theintellectual elite and loved to travel the world.She took Faity along as friend and companion.Faity was inquisitive and attractive and she nat-urally drew admirers to her from all walks of life. In fact her manyfriends (most of them life-long) could well fill a page or two in“Who’s Who.” She has never lost her love of travel. She pursued itduring her marriage, after it, and is still eager for new adventures.

Faity was pursued by several attentive young swains but none metthe measure of Ben Tuttle. It was after their marriage in 1940 thatthey bought the farm at Kinderhook. They summered there withtheir three children until Ben’s retirement when it became a full timeresidence. It was a busy time bringing up three children in New YorkCity (later Brooklyn) winter-times and in Kinderhook summer-times. As usual Faity flourished and found extra time for exercise,sports, farm work, the Old Chatham Hunt Club’s ride to the houndsand, of course, to corral a score of new friends. She even learned theart of carriage driving and became the President of the ColumbiaCounty Coaching Society.

No longer needing the money it was time to mix outside pursuitswith those of rearing a family. In Chatham she became a member ofthe Shaker Museum Board. In New York City she joined the Girl

Scouts as a troop leader and soon was asked to join the Board of theGirl Scouts Council of Greater New York. She was a natural leaderand always a hard worker. She kept up her interest in the theater andcontinued volunteering for roles and reading plays. After they movedto Brooklyn she became interested in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden(BBG), becoming a member and then later President of theirWomen’s Auxiliary in 1961. From 1970 to 1977 she served asPresident of their Board of Trustees.

It was a most happy family. When Ben retired, all of their childrenhad married and had moved on to their own pursuits. The Tuttles,again took to the road — traveling sometimes by car, sometimes firstclass and sometimes by freighter — seeking points unknown tothem. Life was not always idyllic. First her daughter was taken bycancer in 1983 and her life was again shattered by Ben’s four year ill-

ness and death in 1987.One of Faity’s beliefs, however, always has been

that “when one door closes, another often opens.”It was time to move on and move on she did.

She was invited and joined the ColonialDames of America. First she was a volunteerdocent at their then named Abigail Adams SmithMuseum and Garden at 421 East 61st Street andlater she became Chairman of their garden com-mittee. Soon she was Corresponding Secretaryon their Board of Managers and for a whileNational Vice President. She took an apartmentin New York City on East 66th Street to be near-er to her growing list of activities — among them— a new profession as a “Granny” model.

At 93, she still uses ingenuity and acting skillsto secure a job posing for an ad or a role in a TVcommercial. You may have seen her picture onthe rear of one of New York City’s buses.However, her greatest love, far above travel, vol-

unteering or modeling, is the wealth of time she has with her grand-children and thirteen great-grandchildren. How lucky they are.

This is a mere outline of a few of the episodes and accomplishmentsin her busy life. To discover the full tale and the fascinating details onemust read her book — just published by iUniverse, Inc.— No RockingChair For Me. It is available at the Columbia County Historical SocietyMuseum in Kinderhook and at bookstores throughout the county.

H. W. Longfellow must have been thinking of the Faitys of theworld when he wrote in his Psalm of Life:

We can make our lives sublime,And departing leave behind usFootprints in the sands of time;Footprints, that perhaps another,Sailing o’er life’s solemn main, A forlorn and shipwrecked brotherSeeing shall take heart again.


11

Profile: Esther “Faity” Tuttle

She’s not a fictional character. She is a legend.


12

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By Michael PolemisEditor’ Note: Mr. Polemis was oneof the founders of the ColumbiaLand Conservancy in 1986 andnow serves as its board chair.He owns a home in Chathamand has been dividing his timebetween Columbia County andNew York City since 1980.

The portrait of Shermanand Lydia Griswoldhanging on the wall in

the Columbia County HistoricalSociety’s Museum shows a pros-perous couple, gazing confident-ly off into the distance, theirfarm in the background, happysheep feeding from a basket heldby Mr. Griswold. The paintingalso shows a landscape that isordered, quite open, and heavilycultivated. It is a scene that accu-rately reflects the state of thecountryside in 1837, not only inColumbia County, but through-out the Northeast.

The year 1837 happens to bethe midpoint between the initialEuropean settlement of the con-tinent in the seventeenth centu-ry and the first decade of thetwenty-first century. Had youbeen on that hilltop in the mid-seventeenth century you wouldhave had to climb a tree to takein a view that would have beenpart of the endless forestprimeval that covered most ofthe eastern half of the continent.Today if you were to drive up tothe point on Beale Road inSpencertown, where Mr. andMrs. Griswold were posed, youwould be presented with a viewthat is somewhere between theforests of the seventeenth centuryand the open fields of 1837. Thechanging view from the top ofBeale Road reflects the changinglandscape of the Northeast.

Open space conservation is arelatively new concept in thiscountry. For the first two hun-dred and fifty years of our history,the land was something thatneeded to be tamed, to be “civi-lized.” The initial model wasbased on the English countryside

of small villages separated byfarmland. The Griswold portraitcould just as easily have been aview of a sheep farm in Yorkshire,England. What America had thatdid not exist in Europe was aseemingly endless Western fron-tier. If you needed more land,go west. If you needed betterland, go west. If you did notlike your neighbors, go west.While this may have created theimage of the American as ruggedindividual, it also created a sensethat open land was an infiniteand disposable resource andtherefore there was no need toprotect it, let alone conserve it.Unproductive land simply

became waste land. In ColumbiaCounty, as industry faded andfarming struggled much of thecounty went into a kind of hiber-nation.

By the end of the secondquarter of the nineteenth centurythe Industrial Revolution was infull bloom and the HudsonValley landscape depicted byFrederic Church and ThomasCole was already fast disappear-ing. By the end of the centurymuch of the landscape of theeastern United States had beendevastated by industry, mining,and logging. The creation of theAdirondack Park in New YorkState marked a turning point.

For the first time, a huge tract ofland that was being ravaged byexploitation was set aside for protection and for the enjoymentof future generations. This was

different than designating vastareas of Western wilderness asnational parks as was done adecade earlier in Yellowstone.After all, relatively few lived outthere and there was plenty ofland. This was protecting land forthe benefit of people who actual-ly lived close enough to use it.

Since the 1870s and 1880swhen Yellowstone Park and theAdirondack Park were created,much of the open space that wenow enjoy was created by feder-al, state, and local governmentsin the form of strictly delineatedparks and wilderness areas. Formuch of the twentieth century,land protection and conserva-tion was viewed in the context ofspecific places that were eitherthreatened or that containedspectacular natural features. Inurban areas open space meantpublic parks carefully designedand manicured.

Today, while governmentscontinue to acquire and protectland for public use, land con-servation and open space protec-tion strategies have changed significantly. Increasingly, com-munities are recognizing thatopen space is more than an aes-thetic issue. Urban, suburban,and now exurban sprawl, are cre-ating tremendous pressures oninfrastructure. Water resourcescannot be adequately securedunless development is controlled.Americans are coming to termswith the fact that although theylive in an immense country, landresources are far from infinite.While they continue to demandthe services and benefits of mod-ern society, they are also placinggreater and greater importanceon the more intangible qualitiesof life.

LOOKING FROMTHE PAST to THE FUTURE

The Griswolds in the painting Salting Sheep, from the collectionof the Columbia County Historical Society.


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Emerging from the environmental move-ment of the late 1960s and aided by benefi-cial tax laws enacted in the early eighties,today there are over 1,200 land trusts acrossthe country. They range from statewideorganizations to the protection of a singleproperty. They all share a grass roots ethicand are committed to the notion that whileit is important to think globally it is oftenmore effective and productive to act locally.While land trusts use many strategies forprotecting land, one of the principal toolsremains a conservation easement. An ease-ment is a legal agreement, written in theform of a deed, which allows landowners topermanently protect their land. Through theconservation easement, a landowner donatesthe majority — or entirety – of the proper-ty’s development rights to a qualified non-profit land trust or governmental entity.While remaining on the tax roles, the landbecomes protected within the terms of theeasement in perpetuity.

The most successful land trusts share anunderstanding of and a respect for the com-munities that they serve. There is no suchthing as a “one size fits all” land protection

strategy. Columbia County is fortunate tohave one of the most successful land trusts inthe country, in the Columbia LandConservancy. I am proud to say that I havebeen on the board of CLC since its inceptionin 1986 and now serve as Board Chair. UsingCLC as a model, I will briefly describe howa modern land trust functions.

For its first six years CLC was exclusivelyengaged in taking conservation easementsfrom willing donors. As we matured itbecame increasingly clear to us that we need-ed to expand our services in order to achieveour mission. Agriculture, long the mainstayof Columbia County’s economy was undersiege. While there was plenty of open space inthe county, only 3% of the county was avail-able to the public. Local school budgets wereincreasingly stressed and there was little or nomoney available for environmental educa-tion. CLC decided to engage in an ambitiousexpansion of staff and its scope of work inorder to attempt to take on these issues.

Over the last twelve years we have grownfrom a staff of four to twelve. We continue totake easements and now hold over 130 com-prising over 15,000 acres. We have been able

to protect over 3,400 acres of working farm-land, leveraging state funds and the generousdonations of individuals. We have alsoreceived support from regional organiza-tions such as Open Space Institute andScenic Hudson. Working with communitiesand other not for profits we have opened six-public conservation areas and will open fournew areas to the public over the next twelvemonths. We hired a full time environmentaleducator and in 2003 we offered over 100programs attended by over 2,500 childrenand adults. This is the face of land conserva-tion in 2004.

In some ways, the Griswolds would notfind today’s Columbia County so differentthan in 1837. While they would be shockedto see how much of the land that had beenpainstakingly cleared over many generationshad reverted to woodland, the county still isquite open and still relatively unpopulated.As communities continue to understand theimportance of preserving and protectingopen space, it is not unreasonable to hopethat 170 years from now, the Griswoldswould still recognize the view. �


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By Murray B. DouglasEditor’s Note: Mrs. Douglas is Vice Chairmanof Brunschwig & Fils known internationallyfor its fine decorative fabrics, wallpapers, andfurnishings. She is third generation in thisdistinguished family-owned firm and she is thecompany’s spokesperson lecturing throughoutthe world on design topics. She is their creativedirector and is a renowned authority in thefield of documentary fabrics and wallpapers.Mrs. Douglas is a Design Associate of theAmerican Society of Interior Designers and apast President of the Decorators Club. Therecipient of many awards, she was named aGiant of Design in 2003 at the prestigiousannual House Beautiful Chrysler AwardsPresentation in New York City.

When speaking of restorations, Iimmediately think of my first tripat 7 or 8 years of age to Colonial

Williamsburg. I was “taken” by the evocationof colonial lifestyle in all aspects — the planof the village, the modes of travel, the dress ofthe inhabitants, the candle-lit interiors, thecanopy beds and wash stands, and the myri-ad of details of life more thantwo hundred years ago. It wasan eye opener to the past andan introduction to history.Even today I am constantlyreminded of the extensiveresearch and painstakingattention to detail it must havetaken to make ColonialWilliamsburg so real.

Since that time I haveprowled around a great manyrestorations, museums, historichouses, and archives in thesearch for good designs fromthe past which can be recreatedfor today’s lifestyles. Many ofour fabrics and papers atBrunschwig & Fils are carefully

patterned from the works of history’s artistsand artisans.

An example of this can be taken from ourwork many years ago at Winterthur. Mr. H.F. du Pont, the founder, was a collec-tor of antique “everything,” and he wished todisplay some of his recent acquisitions whichincluded early American textiles. As part of aplanned exhibit he wanted to show the orig-inal paper and fabric color designs. For fearof fading and other possible damage thecurator forbade their display but suggestedthat the designs be copied and printed onDuPont vinyl and attached to boards to beused as backdrops for the exhibition.Brunschwig & Fils was selected for the task.

But it was not so simple. First, the appro-priate designs had to be chosen. Of specialnote was one that had been printed inPhiladelphia in 1776 by Walters & Bedwell,one of the first printers of goods in America.The design we call Philadelphia Stripe wasoriginally block printed on linen in twoshades of madder — a rose color and mediumsepia. Our screen engraver (since we wereprinting with silk screens on vinyl instead of

with wood blocks on linen) prepared thescreens from photographs of the design and,after struggling with vinyl inks (the first hehad ever used) to match the colored original,produced what is called a strike-off or trial.

Mr. Du Pont approved the trial for colorand accuracy of reproduction and the displaywas successfully opened in the south wing in1964. Later, as a source of income and inanticipation of the 1976 bicentennial, theWinterthur Board of Directors made thedecision to allow the reproduction of fabrics,wallpapers, and furnishings which couldthen be offered for sale. Brunschwig & Filswas again selected.

Restoration involves far more than choos-ing fabrics and furniture appropriate to theinteriors involved. The key word is original— finishes, color, design, carving — all mustbe as close as possible to the original periodof the building being restored. Therefore,vast amounts of study and research need tobe done. Consultation with experts in everyaspect is of primary importance.

When restoring a whole house it is vitalto first decide what period, era, or date

should be targeted. Possibly itwould be the original date ofconstruction or perhaps itcould be a time when thehouse was occupied by afamous person. Often thischoice will depend on theavailable furnishings, writtenaccounts at hand, or a combi-nation of all of these and othercriteria.

One of my favorite restora-tions is Mt. Vernon. The firstMt. Vernon that I visited withmy parents in the 1930s was atestament to the ColonialRevival Style in America.

Attendants were authenticallycostumed and one was

The restored downstairs bedroom at Mt. Vernon; the replicated chinoiserie-style redand white fabric is used to “dress” the bed. Photo courtesy Mt. Vernon Ladies Assn.

Background pattern: “Philadelphia Stripe” printed on vinyl (DuPont). Photo courtesy Brunschwig & Fils, Inc.

THE ART OF^RESTORATION&


17


impressed by the white walls with painted woodwork, oriental rugs,and fairly bare rooms with simple furniture. The aura of Washingtonseemed to be everywhere — especially in his spare white bedroom.Though I did not know it at the time the building had been restoredto a style and not to the time of its building.

Forty years later the mood had changed — from white walls to richdeep painted woodwork and walls and a much less “colonial” look.Paint analysis had been painstaking-ly undertaken and the interiors wererestored to the original colors —which were strong and startlingbright. I was not alone in beingtaken aback. The tour guides told ofsurprise from most visitors. I respectthe science of paint analysis to havedetermined the correct color.However, my theory is that thepaints of the eighteenth centurywere fugitive — that is, subject torapid fading — so the painters ofthe time compensated by makingcolors extra bright to allow for fad-ing. The lower layers of the originalpaint revealed by scraping wouldnot have experienced the then normal fading of the surface paint. Thismay not have been considered when the lowest layers of paint werematched in the twentieth century. Today’s pigments do not fade asreadily and the colors will remain overly bright.

Before the paint restoration Brunschwig had been invited to

reproduce a late eighteenth-century Chinoiserie-style red on white toilewhich dressed a bed in a first floor bedroom and was used for curtainsand slipcovers. The original textile had faded badly and when the wallpaint in the room was “color corrected” it looked even paler. Carefullyreplicating the design, screens were made of a color suggesting the orig-inal before fading to be printed on cotton. A trial was ordered and sentto a specialist to construct the bed furnishing. We were delighted to hear

that when completed, the bed, win-dow curtains, and accessories weremost successful. But then the “axe”fell. We were asked to destroy thescreens as Mt. Vernon did not wishus to market their designs.

Eventually in 1995, a good tenyears later, we were contacted by Mt. Vernon who asked us toconsider doing a collection of repro-duction and adaptation textilesunder license for them — whichwould include the toile, now namedChinoiserie a l’Americaine. Ofcourse, we were overjoyed at theopportunity and up to the presenthave produced five printed and

woven textiles and two wallpapers.It has been a true learning process to be engaged in the work

of restoration and we have realized that the whole field of restorationis indeed an art, of which we at Brunschwig & Fils are proud tobe a part. �

A detail of the reproduction chinoiserie-style red and white toile fabric.Photo courtesy Brunschwig & Fils, Inc.

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By Alix GerosaDirector of Environmental Quality, Scenic Hudson, Inc.Editor’s Note: Since 2001 Ms. Gerosa, as Director of Scenic Hudson’sEnvironmental Quality Program, has managed the organization’spositions on a variety of air and water quality issues. She has alsorepresented them in many coalitions promoting a comprehensive,safe, and environmentally sensitive state energy plan that includesrenewable energy sources and conservation measures. In her articleMs. Gerosa has made a bold and forceful statement on the impactthe construction of the proposed St. Lawrence Cement plant mayhave on the county and its heritage. The opinions that she hasexpressed may not necessarily represent those of the Society. In anearlier article this editor wrote about “choices.” Readers shouldform their own opinions dependent upon the vision that theyperceive is best for our county.

A renowned and treasured regionThe Hudson River has been referred to as “America’s River” andis celebrated in our nation’s history. Recognizing the definitiverole this region plays in our cultural, political, economic, andartistic history the federal government in 1996 named theHudson Valley a National Heritage Area and in 1998 recognizedthe Hudson itself an American Heritage River.

In 2000, the National Trust for Historic Preservation listed theHudson River Valley as one of the most endangered historicplaces in America due to sprawl and inappropriate industrialdevelopment. The Preservation League of New York State includedFrederic Church’s Olana and the City of Hudson on statewidelists, citing specific threats from massive industrial proposals.

Between the City of Poughkeepsie and Hudson alone there are22 National Historic Landmarks, a designation reserved only forsites of the greatest national significance.

Our history and future hang in the balance The Hudson River Valley is world-famous for its scenery. For overa century, New York State has acted to preserve its most dramaticscenic resources such as the Palisades, the Highlands and views ofthe distant Catskill Mountains. Many vistas immortalized byHudson River painters remain essentially unchanged today butunfortunately are not protected from future changes that couldalter or destroy them. Also there are too few places where the pub-lic can see and appreciate this river scenery. In addition, cities,towns, and villages are losing their sense of place and communitycharacter.

Hudson, founded as a whaling port in the nineteenth century,was transformed by the industrial revolution, which left behind alegacy of economic stagnation. Only in the late twentieth centurydid Hudson begin to emerge from post-industrial decline.Heritage tourism, the second-home market, a burgeoning artscommunity, and the nationally recognized antiques trade inHudson all have contributed to steady economic development.Hudson has become a “smart growth” model of a community thatbuilds upon and supports its existing resources and character.

CEMENT PLANT THREATENS SCENIC AND CULTURAL RICHES

The open frame structures and process equipment proposed as partof the St. Lawrence Cement facility would present a significantcontrast to the scale and character of the historic Hudson CityCemetery. Photosimulation by Terrence J. DeWan & Associatesand Berkshire Design Group.


19


Continued on

A new industrial cityThis bright future now is threatened by a return to dirtyskies, industrial din, and blighted landscapes. St. Lawrence Cement(SLC) is attempting to build one of the country’s largest coal-firedcement plants on the Hudson river’s east bank. If SLC receives itspermits, this massive development would be an outrageous monolithby any standard, an industrial city featuring:

� an 1,800-acre site, larger than the City of Hudson,with a 1,200-acre pit mine and 40 acres of buildings� 20 facilities over 20 stories high — the size of skyscrapers� a kiln stack and bulky preheater standing tallerthan 40 stories high, which would be the tallest structurebetween Manhattan and Albany� a stack plume often reaching over six miles in length � a two-mile conveyor belt linking production facilitieswith a major waterfront dock and storage area.

This plant, to be located 300 feet above the Hudson river, wouldbecome the dominant and discordant feature in one of our country’smost famous viewsheds — the landscape surrounding Olana.

Industrial blightIf permitted, the effects of this reindustrialization would befar-reaching. Materials such as fly ash and potentially hazardous fuelswould come to the region via barge and truck, while cement andits heavy-metal byproducts would be shipped out. The resultingtraffic would overwhelm surrounding historic hamlets. SLC’s cementplant would create a momentous surge in industrial sprawl,undercutting the Hudson Valley’s quality of life for generations.Similar industrial facilities would likely follow, plugging into theSLC plant’s infrastructure.

Health impactsHazardous air pollutants from the cement plant pose a real, measur-able health threat for citizens throughout the Hudson Valley and thenortheastern United States. The air emissions that the SLC opera-tions would produce are known to cause a wide range of cancers aswell as various respiratory and cardiovascular ailments.

Existing chronic pollution from cars, industry, and power plantsled the federal government in 1990 to designate the northeasternUnited States a special “ozone transport region” requiring cutting-edge regulatory controls for new large-scale pollution sources. Yet thesafe threshold for ground-level ozone continues to be exceededthroughout the region. In fact, the proposed site is sandwichedbetween two counties that do not meet federal air quality standards.In April 2004, the EPA declared that Dutchess County to the southand Albany County to the north do not meet safe levels of ozone.The SLC facility, if approved, would:

� emit 20 million pounds of air pollutants per year� spew forth nitrogen oxide emissions (ozone forming)

comparable to coal-fired power plants adversely affecting airand water quality in areas up to 500 miles away.

Stack emissions, diesel fumes, and dust from cement productionactivities contain unacceptably high concentrations of PM2.5 —particulate matter under 2.5 microns in diameter. PM2.5 absorbsother toxins while airborne and, since it is below the human body’sfiltering threshold (like asbestos), transports these poisons into therespiratory and cardiovascular systems. Inhaling PM2.5 can causelung cancer and heart attacks and exacerbate asthma. TheEnvironmental Protection Agency and New York State Departmentof Conservation (DEC) have deemed PM2.5 a serious human healthhazard. They are drafting new regulatory parameters to better protectthe public from these threats.

Particularly vulnerable are children and the elderly. Within twomiles of the proposed SLC plant are numerous daycare centers, theonly hospital in Columbia County, a large nursing home, fiveschools, and Hudson’s secondary drinking supply.

The specter of hazardous wasteMost of SLC’s North American plants burn or have applied to burnhazardous waste, tires and medical waste, which create highly toxicpollutants. SLC has refused to rule out this practice at the proposedHudson/Greenport facility — further increasing both air pollutionand local transportation of hazardous materials.

According to EPA’s toxic release inventory, burning hazardouswaste and tires in cement kilns produces a number of toxic air emis-sions such as mercury, sulfuric acid, lead, barium, manganese,chromium, toluene, styrene, and dioxin (to name a few). Thesechemicals have been linked to cancer, brain damage, endocrine disorders, anemia, endometriosis, depressed immune system, asthma,and diabetes.

Track recordThe SLC has a horrific environmental track record in the communi-ties that host their manufacturing plants. Camden, New Jersey hasbeen plagued with dangerous air quality due to frequent permit violations and monitoring equipment failures. Midlothian, Texas,which is home to a Holcim cement plant (SLC’s parent company),could not achieve permit levels and have applied for permit modifi-cations to double nitrogen oxide emissions.

A grassroots coalitionTwenty-one local, regional, and national environmental, historicpreservation, and business groups have joined to oppose the SLCplant by forming the Hudson Valley Preservation Coalition (HVPC).They are: American Lung Association, Citizens’ EnvironmentalCoalition, Citizens for a Healthy Environment, Citizens for theHudson Valley, Clover Reach, Concerned Women of Claverack,Environmental Advocates, Environmental Defense, Friends ofClermont, Germantown Neighbors Association, Historic Hudson,

Twenty-one local, regional, and national environmental, historicpreservation and business groups have joined to oppose the SLC plant

by forming the Hudson Valley Preservation Coalition (HVPC).


20

By Mary Faherty-Sansaricq

Mary Faherty-Sansaricq whose column “Recalling ColumbiaCounty” appears in the Columbia County Shopper has been afull time resident of Ghent for twelve years. Mary is the BusinessAdministrator of Hawthorne Valley School, the largest independ-ent school in Columbia County. As the mother of four children,one of whom is autistic, Mary is an active educational advocatefor people with disabilities. Mary is currently working on twobooks: One is a joint effort with her son entitled Seeing MyVoice: A Language of Autism and the other is an illustratedcompilation of her articles “Recalling Columbia County.”

The conservation and preservation of the site of theR&W Scott Ice Company at Nutten Hook in thetown of Stuyvesant, now on the National Register of

Historic Places, should be a top priority for Columbia County.The upper Hudson valley was the center of the ice industryduring the last half of the nineteenth century and, this site,with portions of the foundations and the powerhouse chimneyremaining, is the most accessible and interpretable ruin associ-ated with the ice industry on the Hudson River.

In the nineteenth century approximately 135 major icehouses lined the shoreline of the Hudson River betweenAlbany and New York City. Now, virtually all of the HudsonRiver ice houses are gone. The internal workings and machin-ery were sold for salvage. The products and byproducts of theice industry cannot be found in the archeological recordbecause literally they have melted away.

Nutten Hook was the site of the (c. 1885) R&W Scott IceCompany, one of the largest independently owned ice houseson the Hudson River. The ice house was large; estimates putit at 350 feet by 270 feet. The large building was divided intosmaller rooms with vertical doors that would permit the load-ing and unloading of the ice. The ice house was probably built

Ice elevator at the ice house.

Inc., Hudson Antiques Dealers Association, Hudson River Heritage,Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, Natural Resources DefenseCouncil, New York League of Conservation Voters, Riverkeeper,Scenic America, Scenic Hudson, Inc., and Sierra Club, AtlanticChapter.

HVPC, which is led by Scenic Hudson; The Olana Partnership;and Friends of Hudson all have full party status in New York State'sreview of St. Lawrence Cement's permit applications. These leadingenvironmental groups of the Hudson Valley and numerous organiza-tions from nearby Connecticut and Massachusetts are battlingtogether to defeat this proposed project. The National Trust forHistoric Preservation and the Preservation League of New York Statehave amici curiae status (friend of the court) in these administrativeproceedings.

In granting party status to the HVPC, Friends of Hudson and theOlana Partnership, the DEC judges acknowledged that this is a mas-sive project with impacts not adequately addressed in SLC's draftenvironmental impact statement and mandated a public vetting ofthese issues in court.

Plant opposition growingAs the prospect of this inappropriate development looms, citizensthroughout the Northeast are mobilizing against the plant. Leadingnewspapers from the New York Times, Boston Globe, HartfordCourant, New Haven Register, Poughkeepsie Journal, and Portland PressHerald have voiced their opposition to the plant. ConnecticutAttorney General Richard Blumenthal publicly opposes the plantand is forming a multi-state coalition to pressure New York andGovernor Pataki to stop the plant.

The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection andthe Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection have sentletters to New York voicing concern for the air quality control tech-nology proposed by the SLC. The governor and attorney general ofMaine are all actively educating residents about the plant.

The fight ahead and the need for supportAs of 2004, SLC has received none of the 17 permits necessary tobuild and operate its proposed project. To prevent this region-widecatastrophe, we ask you to stand beside us in preserving the HudsonValley’s air and water quality, cultural vibrancy, visual richness, andeconomic stability by joining in the chorus of voices saying:

STOP THE PLANT!

For more information, please contact Scenic Hudson, Director ofEnvironmental Quality Alix Gerosa, at (845) 473-4440, ext. 226, ore-mail [email protected] �

A Call for theConservation of

Nutten Hook

of double thick walls of spruce or hemlock because of durability.It was painted bright white to reduce the melting of the iceinside. The house was equipped with elevators and conveyers toload ice blocks from the river into storage rooms where the largecakes were layered with sawdust and hay for insulation andpreservation.

The ice blocks would stay in the ice house until the riverreopened to navigation. The blocks would be shipped south in thespring and summer on specially constructed barges and sold onthe streets by the pound. Some ships carried the ice as far away asSouth America and the West Indies.

The Nutten Hook powerhouse was constructed of brick,which reduced the danger of fire caused by the boiler/firebox sys-tem. The system powered the movement of the ice from the riverinto the house. The brick construction has enabled the NuttenHook remains to be extant, since most of the other ice houseshave been destroyed by fire.

Throughout the 1800s, during thedeepest and coldest winter time, usual-ly at mid January, the Hudson Riverwould freeze over solid and ice skaters,racing sleighs, and ice yachts wouldglide across the river as if it were a crys-tal byway between the mountains andthe valleys. In the days before theadvent of “ice breakers,” the river wasclosed to navigation once the tempera-ture became cold enough for the waterto freeze. When the ice reached a thick-ness of ten inches or more the ice har-vest would begin.

Men and boys from all over ColumbiaCounty, farmers, brickyarders, bark peel-ers, and any other people whose workstopped in the winter, would come to theriver with teams of horses, plows, and icesaws to cut the river ice to sell. Woodenplanks were laid over the tidal edge topermit the men and horses and equip-ment out on the ice. Horses were shoedwith cleats to keep them from slipping.

The men wore hobnailed boots and heavy fur coats. Fires were setin barrels to warm the cold and wet hands of the workers andtorches were lit to keep the work going through the night. Sincethe weather was unpredictable, the work was intense.

First, the ice surface was plowed of any snow that had fallen.Then a channel or canal would be cut to create a waterway in whichto float and guide the ice blocks to the ice house. The horsesdragged a cutter to mark off the cakes, which were cut by the menfrom the edges of the canals and pushed and poled along into thewider channels that led to the conveyers. The blocks were fed inpairs onto the moving belts that took the blocks up into the icehouse. During the night, boats rowed back and forth through thechannels to keep them from icing over.

River pollution and the advent of refrigeration changed thisaspect of life in Columbia County. Very few people are alive todaywho remember when the River was a main source of ice for the

people of New York City. The Nutten Hook site beckons con-

servation and preservation because italso has been identified as archaeologi-cally significant for Native Americanhabitation. Evidence of hand-sized flintblades, perhaps used for the butcheringof large fish have been found near pitsbelieved to be prehistoric cemeteries.

In addition, Nutten Hook, which is abedrock outcropping, is part of the fivemile Stockport Flats section of theHudson River Reserve. It is an area richin native flora and fauna and has provideda sanctuary for bald eagles and osprey.

What remains at the Nutten Hooksite is well worth preserving. Itnot only presents a rich resource forfurther study in environmental man-agement and archeology, it also, mostimportantly, contains one of the lastrelics from an industry of historicalsignificance that helped define theHudson River’s past. �


21


Remains of the Brick Power House. North west view of interior of the Power House.

East view of the interior of the Nutten Hook PowerHouse with window facing Ice House.

By Nigel ThomasEditor’s note: Stair Restoration is an inter-national group of highly skilled conservatorsand restorers who combine centuries oldprocesses with state of the art technology tocare for some of the finest furniture collec-tions in the world. Formerly Sotheby’sRestoration, Stair Galleries & Restorationwas established by specialist Colin Stair —the fourth generation of his English familyto work with fine antiques. The restorationdepartment is headed by Nigel Thomas, aWest Dean College graduate. Over the years,Nigel has set a benchmark for conservationand restoration excellence.

As collectors and decorators all knowtoo well, the acquisition of objects isonly the first step toward their

incorporation into a collection. Keptindoors in irregular climates, wooden furni-ture, because of its organic nature, can suf-fer from dimension changes, frequentlyresulting in warping, splitting, and delami-

nating of veneer. At Stair Restoration wework with a range of conservation issues,from general wear to fire and flood damage.

When looking at a piece of furniture itis important to understand its past in orderto assess and understand its condition.Was it stored in a hot attic or in a dampbasement? Was it subjected to extremetemperature changes. Answers to suchquestions lead to an understanding of thetrue condition of a piece and factor into itsproper treatment by Stair craftsmen. Thishandsome cupboard was extensively dam-aged from the waist up in a devastatingfire. Once wood is badly burned, it turnsinto charcoal and there is not much todo except replace the damaged area.Fortunately, the interior surfaces werefairly well preserved.

Many conservation and restorationworkshops would write this piece off as atotal loss. At best, they might build a newtop section. In order to preserve as much ofthe original cupboard as possible, we took adifferent approach. Carefully selected newsections of wood were laminated to the car-cass and doors. New inlay was cut and laidinto the paneled doors. Unfortunately, theswan neck molding and finial at the cornicecould not be saved and were replaced by new wood that was chemically treated,distressed and stained to blend in with theoriginal patina. Finally the cupboard wasreturned to its former glory by hand-wax-ing and French polish.

Helpful tips to remember to protectyour prized possessions:

� Keep them out of direct sunlight.Surfaces, like skin, are easily damagedby ultra-violet rays.

� Try to maintain a consistent temper-ature. Do not turn the thermostat downto 50 degrees when you’re away and zoomit up to 72 degrees when you return. A

constant level of 65 degrees is ideal.

� Maintain a constant humidity level— 50% is ideal. A change of more than20% can be devastating to furniture.

� Traditional resin-based wood finishessuch as shellac and varnish can be usedand enjoyed by taking minimal precau-tions: Use coasters and mats. Considerputting glass tops on tables but make surethere are felt washers between wood andglass. For protection, wax the surfacesevery year or so with a good paste wax.

� Do not use over-the-counter spraywax! It leaves a layer of silicone behindwith each application and the resultingbuild-up is extremely damaging anddifficult to remove.

� Finally, consult a reputable profes-sional conservator/restorer before doingany repair or restoration to your furni-ture. There are countless horror storiesabout amateur concoctions used withdisastrous results. Bear in mind that lessis always the best. �


22

B E F O R E A F T E R

Restoration of an American Cherry Corner Cupboard

Editor’s Note: There may be somein the county who still rememberthe Stuyvesant Lighthouse on theHudson River but there are proba-bly very few who know its history.We have Harriet H. K. Van Alstyneto thank for this record of her find-ings which were first published ina Columbia County HistoricalSociety Bulletin of April of 1939.The reader will note that the infor-mation from her sources does notmatch in all respects. Nonetheless, itpaints a vivid picture of the powerof the river waters and ice, as wellas the dangers to those people who would live on or near the river.

In her words:

These startling words met my eye as I stood shivering one bleakNovember day in the Butler Cemetery at Stuyvesant-on-Hudsoncopying the inscriptions on the headstones. They ran:

Maria Hyatt, dau. Of Justus & Margaret vanHoesen, March 18, 1832, ae 12, by the destruction ofthe Lighthouse, and also a little brother,Marsden, ae 2 _, who was not found.*

Elizabeth, dau. Of Volkert & ChristinaWhitbeck, March 18, 1832, ae 11, by the destructionof the Lighthouse.

Harriet E. dau. Of Volkert &Christina Whitbeck, March 18, 1832ae 13 _, by the destructionof theLighthouse.

What a tragedy for this little town, over ahundred years ago, and who do you supposeknows about it now? Following up thisquestion I sought out the oldest inhabitants

and the county histories. One ortwo persons remembered hearinggrand-mother tell about it — butwhat did she tell? Evert’s History ofColumbia County gives this: “Twomiles north from the landing onthe east or Stuyvesant side of theriver is a United States lighthouse.It was built in 1829, and refitted in1854. It is constructed of stoneand brick painted white. Theheight of the tower is 32 feet fromits base, and thirty-eight feet fromthe water. It contains a No. 6 lenswhich affords a fixed light visible

at a distance of ten nautical miles.”A letter to the Lighthouse Service Department of Commerce on

Staten Island (New York) brought this reply: “This office has no his-tory of Stuyvesant Light, and has no record of the destruction of theLight in 1832. The Light was originally built in 1829. It was rebuiltin 1868, it being constructed of brick. The Light was discontinuedon this structure in1933, and re-established close by on a structuralsteel tower with an automatic acetylene light. Brick structure demol-ished in 1936.”

Finally, through Mrs. Samuel Ellison, wife of the Station Agent atStuyvesant, N. Y., I wrote to Cobleskill, N. Y., to the former Mrs.Edward McAllister, and received the following:Editor’s Note: Mrs. Edward McAllister was most likely the wife of theson of Henry McAllister who succeeded his father as Lighthouse Keeper.

“The first lighthouse was built in 1828–9, a woodenbuilding in a lot. It was very high water, and the build-ing was on the ground. There were six


23

THESTUYVESANTLIGHTHOUSE

Destruction by Iceand High Water

Lighthouse continued on page 44

Stuyvesant Lighthouse, drawing byStuyvesant Falls artist Roy Shannon.


24

News of the Columbia County Historical Society

Save America’s Treasures GrantSupports Preser vat ion Ef for tsBy Sharon S. Palmer, Columbia County Historical Society Executive DirectorThe 1737 Luykas Van Alen House will be undergoing major restorationefforts through the fall of 2005. The site, Route 9H, Kinderhook, NewYork, is open for tours this summer (Thursdays, Fridays & Saturdays10-4, Sundays 12-4) while the furnishings from the house are on displayat the Columbia County Museum, 5 Albany Ave., Kinderhook, NewYork (Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays 10-4).

Saving America’s treasures is vital to preserving our Americanheritage for future generations. The prestigious Save America’sTreasures grant program represents a national effort to protect

America’s threatened cultural treasures, including historic structures,collections, works of art, maps and journals that document the his-tory and culture of the United States. Established by Executive Orderin 1998, Save America’s Treasures was originally founded as the centerpiece of the White House Millennium Commemoration andas a public/private partnership that included the White House, theNational Park Service, and the National Trust for HistoricPreservation.

Save America’s Treasures works to recognize and rescue the endur-ing symbols and traditions that define us as a nation. Honorary FirstLady Laura Bush leads this effort along with co-chairs Richard Moe,President of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and SusanEisenhower, noted author and granddaughter of former PresidentDwight D. Eisenhower. Mrs. Bush succeeds former First Lady Hillary

Rodham Clinton who continues to support the program as itsFounding Chair. The Committee to Save America’s Treasures, established to support this historic effort, includes individuals frombusiness, academia, and philanthropy, as well as experts in the fields ofarchitecture, historic preservation, art, science, and conservation.

As the public partner in this effort, the National Park Service isresponsible for managing the Federal Save America’s TreasuresHistoric Preservation Grant Fund recommended each year by the

President, approved by Congress, and administered throughthe National Park Service. This competitive grant applicationprocess is designed to provide matching grants for preservationprojects of national significance, including the restoration and conservation of buildings, objects, and artifacts that documentAmerica’s collective memory.

Imagine the excitement when the Society received this prestigiousaward in recognition of the urgent preservation needs at the 1737Luykas Van Alen House on Route 9H, Kinderhook, New York. Since

the early 1960s, when Mr. William Van Alen donated the Van AlenHouse to the Columbia County Historical Society, preservation hasbeen the focus of the Society’s efforts to save this important structure.It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1968 and hasundergone several restoration projects over the years. This landmarkstatus qualifies the house for many grant opportunities, one of whichis the Save America’s Treasures grant program.

To qualify for federal funding the Society had to address the educational, interpretive, and historical value of this site, long considered a “local treasure,” and to prove its exceptional historicalsignificance. The Van Alen House is a valuable resource in the studyof a particular period and theme in American history and culture.The Society also had to document the restoration efforts at the siteover the past 40 years. The crumbling façade and interior of thestructure were restored and the house has been maintained as a historic house museum open to the public in the summer months.

The Society has reevaluated the restoration techniques used in the1960s and 1970s and found that they are not necessarily appropriatetoday. Epoxy consolidation attempts were found to be failing and thesupplementary rafters installed in the 1980s as a temporary measurewere the only source of support for the roof. With Save America’sTreasures funding the roofing system will be repaired and failingwood elements and the roof shingles will be replaced, the brick wallswill be repointed with the parapet gable ends rebuilt, and the

Save America’s Treasures works to recognize and rescue the enduringsymbols and traditions that define us as a nation.

18th century Dutch kas on display in the current exhibit, Under a New Roof:The Furnishings of the 1737 Luykas Van Alen House, at the ColumbiaCounty Museum.

The 1737 Luykas Van Alen House in Kinderhook, New York.


25

News of the Columbia County Historical Society

Our MissionThe Columbia County Historical Society is a private, not-for-profitorganization dedicated to the preservation and interpretation of thehistory and culture of Columbia County for its residents and visitors.

It is the Society’s goal to encourage understanding, knowledge,and preservation of the county’s heritage through the acquisitionand conservation of historic lands, buildings, objects and docu-ments, and the sponsorship of research, publications, exhibitions,and educational programming. To help achieve its mission, theSociety owns, maintains, and interprets to the public, buildings andcollections of historical significance and operates a museum thatincludes exhibition galleries and an extensive research library.

�APOLOGIA�In our SPRING 2004 issue we published two wonder-ful stories: “A Mutiny That Forged the United StatesNaval Academy” and “Bare Knuckles in BostonCorners” and gave credit to the Chatham Courier asthe source. However, unintentionally we did not givecredit to their author Mr. A. S. Callan whose new bookwe reviewed in our FALL 2003 issue entitled The Bestof “The Man in the Black Hat.” We highly recommendthat you read this book.

Also our apologies to Nick Biggs, who is the authorof “Summer Stock in Malden Bridge” which appearedin the same issue — his name was not inlcuded in thebyline.

grounds will be re-graded to prevent further moisture damage in thebasement. This threat to the structure demonstrated the urgent needfor continued conservation efforts at the site. The original rafters andother wood elements will be rescued whenever the deterioration isnot too severe. It is the Society’s goal to save as much of the historicfabric of the building as possible. The total cost of the project isover $350,000.

The Society is extremely proud to be a part of the Save America’sTreasures grant program, increasing public awareness of preservationprojects locally, regionally, and nationally. In commenting on thisnational effort, the program’s Honorary Chair Laura Bush said, “SaveAmerica’s Treasures celebrates the rich American traditions found inour historic sites, structures and collections. With over 800 projects,it leads the way in preserving our nation’s legacy of pride, strengthand resilience.”

The Van Alen House is in very good company! �

18th century pottebank (cupboard), earthenware jar and oak chest on displayat the Columbia County Museum through mid November 2004.

Participants help New York State Historical Associationconservator C. R. Jones (right center) reset a gravestone ata cemetery preservation workshop cosponsored by theColumbia County Historical Society at the ChurchtownCemetery, July 8. Sponsored by the Columbia CountyHistorical Society, the Hudson Valley Documentary HeritageProgram, and the Lower Hudson Conference, the workshopwas hosted by St. Thomas Lutheran Church and theChurchtown Cemetery Association, and was supported by agrant from the Fund for Columbia County of the BerkshireTaconic Community Foundation. Speakers includedDocumentary Heritage Program archivists DianneMacpherson and Erica Blumenfeld, Virginia Martin ofStuyvesant, Ginger Castle from Cedar Park Cemetery inHudson, Florence Merrifield from St. Thomas LutheranChurch, and Helen McLallen, Columbia County HistoricalSociety curator. Information about cemetery preservation,documentation, and gravestone repair is available at theSociety’s library. There are numerous cemeteries in the countywhich still need to be recorded and documented. Anyonewho might be interested in helping with these projects isencouraged to contact the Columbia County HistoricalSociety. Contact curator Helen McLallen for furtherinformation at 758-9265.

CEMETERY WORKSHOP DRAWS ENTHUSIASTIC RESPONSE


26

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Turning Needs into DeedsAssociate Brokers

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518-828-7098 • 800-860-1899www.tommeaton.com


27

An Open Letter Regarding the Hudson Area Association Library to:

Dr. James B. Clarke, Jr., Superintendent of Schools

and

The Board of Education, Hudson City School District

The Board of Trustees of the Columbia County Historical Society wishes to express its con-cern about the future of the building located at 400 State Street in the City of Hudson. Weurge the Board of Education to transfer ownership of this historic structure to the HudsonArea Association Library which it presently houses and by doing so conserve for our com-munity an architectural treasure which has embodied the highest aspirations and hopes ofthe people of Columbia County for nearly two centuries. The library board is prepared,with the overwhelming support of the people of Hudson and the preservation community,to undertake the task of renovating and restoring the building.

Fourth Street in Hudson provides an axis which incorporates the civic ambitions andpride of our ancestors. At one end, the court house serves as the symbol of our cherishedgovernment by democracy and equal justice for all; at the other, a building which has servedas a poor house, an asylum for the mentally disabled, an orphanage, a school, and a library.At each phase of its long life it has served as the means by which the conscience of our com-munity has met the needs of the disadvantaged, the ill, its young, and those hoping toimprove their lives through learning. The preservation of this building as the library wouldnot only serve as a monument to the wisdom and compassion of our ancestors but it wouldalso serve the very practical needs of the present and future citizens of the city and countyfor library and cultural purposes.

At a time when we are all beginning to appreciate the role of historic preservation andtourism in the county’s economic development, it would be absurd to lose a priceless andirreplaceable part of our architectural heritage. Preservation is not the idle nostalgia of a few.The conservation and restoration of our historic buildings provides jobs for artisans andcraftsmen and an opportunity to train our youth in the building trades. Hudson is increas-ingly a destination for those wishing to enjoy the historic character of our neighborhoodswhile patronizing our businesses. The preservation of the historic architecture of Hudsonhas more to do with its economic future than with its past and saving the library buildingfor future generations would contribute to the continuing revitalization of our county seat

The content and the advertisement of this message were unanimously approved by theBoard of Directors of the Columbia County Historical Society at a meeting on June 18, 2004.


THE COLUMBIA COUNTY MUSEUM c1916Luykas Van Alen House 1737 • James Vanderpoel House c1820 • Ichabod Crane Schoolhouse c1850-1920

5 Albany Avenue, P.O. Box 311, Kinderhook, New York 12106 518-758-9265 Fax: 518-758-2499

The Board of Directors,Columbia CountyHistorical Society


Woodruff L. TuttleTreasurer

Russell PomeranzAssistant Treasurer

Susan Gerwe TrippSecretary

Dr. David William VoorheesAssistant Secretary

Lawrence P. Ashmead

Arthur Baker

Nancy Clark

David Crawford

Joan K. Davidson

John R. Dunne

Sheldon Evans

Henry N. Eyre, Jr.

Mimi Forer

Peter Haemmerlein

John Hannam

Willis Hartshorn

Timothy Husband

Brian Kelly

Dianne O’Neal

Julia Philip

Richard Ryan

Samuel O.J. Spivy

Colin Stair


28

THE CLARKSON CHAPELBy Mary Howell, Columbia County Historian

In 1997, Columbia County acquired the230 acre Clermont Horse Farms for backtaxes and proceeded to sell all but an acre ofland with its historic little church on Route9G for future generations to use and enjoy.Called the Clarkson Chapel, it, along withthe horse farm, was originally part ofSouthwood, an estate owned by EdwardPhilip Livingston. His daughter, Mary, mar-ried Livinus Clarkson of Potsdam, NewYorkand inherited the estate. The Clarksonsattended St. Paul’s Church in Tivoli formany years but left that church after a disagreement over a parish school.

Rather than join another congregation, in1860, Mr. Clarkson had a local carpenterbuild a modest but charming one-storyGothic revival wood framed chapel withboard and batten siding on the grounds of theestate. Unusual projecting scrolled bracketsprotect the original doors and windows. Apinnacle and a pendant are located at each

end of a steeply gabled roof and a bell cote islocated east of the chapel. The original belldisappeared but was replaced with the presentbell in the 1960s. In the early years serviceswere held only during the warmer months forthere was no heat except for a small stovewhich still stands in one corner. Anotherremaining feature is the original pump organ.

In the mid 1960s the Fried family fromNew York City purchased that part ofSouthwood lands on which the chapel stoodbetween Woods Road and Route 9G to formtheir Clermont Horse Farms. For many yearsthe chapel had stood unused and was in abad state of deterioration. The Frieds com-pletely refurbished the interior, painted theoutside, and refurbished the roof. It wasprobably the Frieds who supplied the newbell and installed electric heating beneath thepews. Once again services were held when aminister could be located.

In the 1980s the farm was sold to anabsentee landlord living in Germany. Underpoor management both buildings and prop-erty again suffered from neglect. Taxes werenot paid and finally the County stepped into take over. By saving the chapel while sell-ing the remainder of the property, the Boardof Supervisors has made a significant contri-bution to the preservation of part of ourcounty’s history. The chapel has a new slateroof, repairs have been made to the ceiling,and the outside painted. It is now open formost house tours in the area and has hostedseveral weddings. Eventually, the county mayuse it for a tourist information center.

KEEPING UP WITH THEVAN ALENSBy Patricia West, Curator,Martin Van Buren National Historic Site

The Van Alen House and its famous neighbor,Lindenwald, will both be undergoing majorconstruction projects this summer. We arehappy to report that work in preparation forthe upcoming mechanical upgrade toPresident Van Buren’s home is proceedingsmoothly.

Planning and design on Lindenwaldrenovations had been underway forover a year when the first actual work inthe house started this past January.Implementation of the program beganwith consultation, research, training, fieldtrips to other sites where similar projectswere done, and purchasing of materialsand supplies.

Packing and protecting the Lindenwaldmuseum collection started on January 23,2004 and finished March 17, 2004. In all166 boxes were packed containing 660items. 152 pieces of large house furnishings,including chairs and sleigh beds, were deli-cately covered with a special “blue cloth” —145 were pieces of furniture and 7 textiles.

For this stage two teams were established.One team was made up of the park’s curato-rial staff plus two additional temporarycurators in training and a volunteer curator-in-training (interns from SUNY Albany andMarist College). Their main task was to care-fully pack, inventory, and store the entirecontents of Lindenwald, a daunting taskconsidering the national significance of thecollection as well as its fragility. The secondteam was made up of staff from the NationalPark Service Architectural PreservationDivision (APD) and the Lindenwald mainte-nance staff. Their primary goal was to installprotective coverings on all vulnerable walls,floors, and interior architectural features,without placing a single nail into house

Conservation, Preservation, and Restoration around the County

Clarkson Chapel on Route 9G in Clermont.

Around

theCounty

CLERMONT

Around

theCounty

KINDERHOOK

29



material. This was accomplished by a varietyof cleverly engineered pressure techniquesthat hold protective structures and coveringsin place, using 6300 square feet of protectivefloor covering, 6240 square feet of plywood,4800 square feet of plastic sheeting, 1400feet of ethafoam, 3550 feet of various tapes,and 620 feet of 2x4 boards.

For this phase of the project to be success-ful it was necessary for the teams to work bothindependently and in close cooperation, facing many extraordinary challenges. Withinand between the teams, there was a consistentpositive rhythm and communication thatresulted in efficient and effective work production. The outcome was the careful andprofessional protection of all of Lindenwald’sfurnishings and interior surfaces.

Much work remains to be done. Thecuratorial staff will continue to provide assis-tance and to monitor the collection. We areanticipating that in June the contractedmechanical upgrade will begin, which willinstall fire detection and HVAC systems andmitigate a longstanding drainage problem.The house will be closed for tours during theweekdays this visitor season to allow con-struction to go forward without delay, butwe hope to allow visitors in on some week-ends and holidays when the house can bemade safe. Tours and events will focus onLindenwald’s cultural landscape.

Once this work is completed, park staffwill have to return the museum artifacts totheir original locations. When asked aboutthis task, Museum Technician KarenLeffingwell remarked “I can’t wait for theother end of this project. It’s going to be likeChristmas — unwrapping hundreds of gifts,each a unique treasure!”

COLUMBIAVILLE’SOCTAGON HOUSEBy Jim Eyre

The octagon house was the inspiration ofOrson S. Fowler from Fishkill, New York, aphrenologist, who in the mid-1800s decidedthat the eight-sided shaped dwelling providedthe ideal form for the function of healthy andspiritual living. It eliminated corners, provid-ed more space than other shapes, allowed formore sunlight, as well as better opportunitiesfor ventilation and communication betweenrooms. It was also less expensive to build.

A phrenologist is one who endeavors toanalyze character by studying the shapes andbumps of the head. Mr. Fowler was a wellknown and popular speaker and the authorof the highly respected AmericanPhrenological Journal and Miscellany and aplethora of health, sex and “how-to” manu-als inclusive of garden and orchard.Eccentric, “Yes,” but beyond that, as is trueof so many eccentrics, — amusing, cleverand innovative. Hisideas were modern andhe was well ahead ofFrank Lloyd Wright inarguing that form fol-lows function.

He firmly believedthat one did not have tobe an architect or abuilder to conceive abetter house in whichto live. And conceive hedid with his octagonhouse. He introducedthe controversial indoortoilet, speaking tubesfor communicationbetween rooms, central

heating, running water, and even a “so-claimed” indestructible and impermeablebuilding material comprised of coarse sandand gravel. It was an adventuresome age andhis ideas caught fire. He also built himself anoctagon house of some 60 rooms in Fishkill— often on the scaffold himself — using hismagic grout as an exterior material. Others,a bit skeptical and fearing that the new mate-rial might eventually crumble used conven-tional brick, stone, or wood for siding ontheir octagon structures. Those built of themore conventional materials, for the mostpart, are still standing while Fowler’s has longsince been taken down for fear that thedecaying walls would collapse.

Many of these unusually shaped homeswere built throughout New England andmany of them are still extant — three ofthem in Columbia County. Stockport’sOctagonal house was built in 1860 by JohnSmith a successful farmer and orchardist,and not by his decorated Civil War herobrother, Isaac Smith, as is widely believed.Isaac lived in a house nearby. At that timethe family industry extended beyond fruitorchards to phosphate fertilizer and fruitpreserving factories whose produce wasexported to New York City from privateHudson River piers at the foot of AlvordDock Road. The Smith properties and resi-dences covered many hundreds of acres inan area which was then aptly calledSmithville.

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Lindenwald in Winter.

Original first floor plan ofthe Smith-Haynes House,from The Octagon Fad

by Carl F. Scmidt.


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As was true of most of the early octagonalhouses Smith’s was simple in aspect withplain wood sides — eighteen feet long. It hasten large rooms and eight large cornerwedged areas that serve as closets or storageareas. John Smith could easily walk fromroom to room in order to peer out of hislarge 6 foot by 38 1/2 inch windows to over-see the ongoing work in his orchards. On aclear day he would climb to his large rooftopcupola where he could enjoy a 360 degreeview for miles in each direction.

The family lived in the house for twogenerations. One of the last Smiths to livethere was a colorful lady often referred tofondly by her peers as “Aunt Rachel.”Beyond a capacity to tell wonderful stories,she held séances and was said to have super-natural powers. Subsequent owners claimthat she haunts the house and has subjectedthem to varied pranks — among them yank-ing pillows from under sleepers’ heads.

The house was abandoned several yearsago — some say as a result of a dispute overownership. In its idle state it was heavily van-dalized and thoroughly ransacked. Most ofthe windows were smashed, doors stolen,and even important architectural detailsremoved. Water and weather invaded caus-ing rapid rot and destruction. In fact onenortheast exterior wall was in partial collapseand others seemed soon to follow. It wasabout to be sold to a new owner who hadplans to raze it and use the property for other

purposes when Jonathan Hallam stepped inand bought it outright and “as is” in Aprilof 2002.

Mr. Hallam is a dealer in antiques andalso a realtor. He had passed the house manytimes and had long admired it. As is the casein many real estate transactions a yearningbecame an obsession leading to his purchaseof the house. In addition to having in-depthknowledge of things “Olde,” Mr. Hallamhas the intelligence to know that properrestoration requires careful study. Yes, adap-tation is necessary for modern living ie: suchthings as bathrooms and kitchens, and heat-ing systems,and wiring. But, old features —bones, basics and details should be copied,matched, and employed wherever possible.

Mr. Hallam has now completed themajor part of his task. Fallen walls are upagain. Windows and doors have beenrestored or replaced. The floor plan was hap-pily never modernized and remains muchthe same as the original. Each found piece ofwood was meticulously reused or duplicatedfor repairs.

The house stands today majestic in itssimplicity for all to see and admire. All of itis due to Mr. Hallam’s research and patientplanning as well as the careful restorationwork by Gary Garafolo and Todd Hoyt ofTaconic Homes. It must be a happy houseagain as Mr. Hallam has yet to lose his pillowto “Aunt Rachel.”

THE STUYVESANTRAILROAD STATIONBy Jim Eyre

In May of 1880 there was a huge fire in theport town of Stuyvesant. Like many othersimilar towns up and down the river largewooden buildings were clustered near thedocks to handle the busy movement ofgoods by ship to New York City or otherport cities and towns. Historically, shippingwas first by sail, later by steamers, and thenby rail.

Of course the rail station — built by theHudson River Rail Road — would be locat-ed in a busy place near the docks wheremerchants traded and many of them hadlived for so many years. In a roaring blaze itwas gone, as were the lumberyard, stove fac-tory, flour mill, stores, saloons, hotel,offices, homes, and many newer buildingswhich were built to handle the town’sincreasing commerce. A barren landing wasleft behind. Only six days after the fire,almost before the smoke had cleared, theHudson Evening Register heralded plans fora new railroad depot signifying the impor-tance of rail transportation to the revival ofthe town’s prosperity.

The new building would enjoy a simi-lar 20' by 50' footprint but it would bebold and permanent looking — as if toemulate the power of the heavy and pow-erful iron steam engines that stoppedthere and to demonstrate the reliability ofthe railroad to deliver passengers andgoods from one point to another in lesstime and on time.

Similar to other depots of the day it wasItalianate in architectural style, heavilyornamented with arches over windows anddoors, and a hipped roof. A lower slantedroof around the perimeter gave cover topassengers, freight, and baggage. A plat-form provided dry footage from the dustyand often times muddy surrounding dirtsurfaces.

Front view of Johnathan Hallam’s restored homewith rooftop cupola from which majestic views may again be enjoyed.

The abandoned house was badly treated by vandalsand weather. Here the northeast wall is shown inpartial collapse before restoration began.

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The building saw heavy use until afterWorld War II. Subsequently, with the adventof air transport as well as better roads andlarger trucks, the use of railroads declined. In1958 the New York Central stopped its serv-ice at Stuyvesant and the station was closed.Sometimes used as a warehouse but other-wise abandoned and without maintenance itfell further and further into disrepair.

By 1996 the importance of the buildingto the town’s history was fully realized andthe building was acquired by the town. Anactive group of concerned volunteer citizensformed the Stuyvesant Railroad StationRestoration Committee initially chaired byKristina Kwacz and later co-chaired byVirginia Martin. Careful study went intoplans for restoration with the intent to reusewhatever materials possible and to closelyduplicate those items and features lost ordestroyed.

With over $200,000 obtained froman Intermodal Surface TransportationEfficiency Act grant, a $95,075 TransportationEquity Act for the 21st Century Grant, a$29,500 NYS Clean Air/Clean Water BondAct Grant, $20,000 from local contribu-tions, and other monies from sources such asthe Hudson River Valley Greenway, eightyears of patient hard work, and the help ofprofessional restoration contractors, theproject is now nearly complete.

Future plans for the restored buildinginclude a space for interpretive materialshighlighting railroad and riverfront trans-portation. Plans are as yet indefinite but itmay also serve as a stopping off point forriver users, as well as boaters, and hikers onthe Greenway trail that will pass nearby. Theremaining area will be leased for business usewith the income employed to help the townmaintain the building for the study, use, andenjoyment of future generations.

THE PACHAQUACKPRESERVEValat ie ’s Treasurein Conser vat ionBy Dominick Lizzi,Valatie Village Historian

Until several years ago it was just a hillsidealong the South side of Kinderhook Creekopposite Valatie’s Main Street. On a quietday when the noise of traffic is stilled, theonly sounds that can be heard from that hill-side are those of the birds, the rustle of flow-ing water and sometimes the beautifulchimes from the church across the creek.The cleared hillside and the woods around ithave always been there for all to see from theday the village was founded and most likelylong before that. It will always be that way.Maps from 1686 show the land. Then andever since it was farmed and maintained bydifferent families. And in the future, it willnever be ruined with commercial clutter orbecome a site for rusted autos and aban-doned equipment. Nor will it be developedinto little home-sites or boast someone’sgrand idea of a mansion.

In 1996 Mayor Patrick Grattan obtainedthe land for the Village of Valatie and more

recently Mayor Jason Natske, with the helpof the New York National Guard, developedthe property for passive recreation. On July24, 2001 Governor George Pataki made thededication of the land as the PachaquackPreserve for all to enjoy. Pachaquack means“cleared meadow — meeting place” inMohican.

In the Spring of 2002 the Friends ofPachaquack Preserve, in a program organizedby Claire Renn, sponsored its first naturewalk on the 43 acre site. Frank Knight,lifelong naturalist and botanist led thegroup. Mr. Knight is the noted “botanistguy” for the radio station WAMC inAlbany. Assisting was the Columbia LandConservancy’s guide, Fran Martino.

The group of 30 persons — many natu-ralists among them — were impressed withthe wealth of plant life along the four milesof trail including wild sarsaparilla, eveningprimrose, rock crest, violets — both yellowand blue Jack in the Pulpits and such inva-sives as garlic mustard, honeysuckle, knapweed, and a variety of bushes. The trails werenot difficult to negotiate, well marked andfairly easy to follow as they passed undercanopies formed by sugar maples, quakingaspen, and birches. The hikers caughtglimpses of the Kinderhook Creek as theypassed through groves of hemlocks.

Various animal life indigenous to theregion are in the preserve such as deer, tur-tles, chipmunks, snakes, and muskrats.Sometimes fox cubs can be spotted playingin the open fields and over the winter thefamed albino doe of Valatie was sightedalong the trails. As the group neared the

Stuyvesant Station, c. 1904. Photo courtesy Town ofStuyvesant.

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A view along one of the trails in the Pachaquack Preserve.


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Kinderhook Creek, Fran Martino pointedout that it was flowing clean, clear, and rap-idly and enjoyed an excellent “ph factor”ideal for aquatic vegetation and fish life. Thecaddis insect was spotted; it only survives onthe surface of pure water. Fish such as trout,bass, and pickerel are found in the creek, andas if to add final magic to a glorious day, alarge osprey sprang into flight with a fishin its beak. Other birds noted that day werethe king bird, Baltimore orioles, and yellowwarblers.

At the bend of the Kinderhook Creek,just opposite the Valatie Kill’s mouth, thereare several picnic tables and there are bench-es for resting along the trails. No alcoholicbeverages are allowed in the preserve andpeople must remove their own trash as thereare no waste or garbage pails. There is ampleparking and a gazebo at the entrance just offChatham Street (Route 203) within walkingdistance of Main Street. There is no fee forthe use of the trails. Anyone interested inhelping the Friends of Pachaquack may callthe Valatie village office (518) 758-9806.All are welcome to a treasure in an openspace.

THE CONYN/RENSSELAERHOUSEBy Peter Sinclair

Editor’s Note: Mr. Sinclair, an architect fromWest Hurley, New York., is the Editor andPast President of Hudson Valley VernacularArchitecture, a not-for-profit corporationformed to study and preserve vernacular archi-tecture and material culture. Mr. Sinclair andother competent professionals are assistingMrs. Nancy Ginsberg, owner of the TheConyn/Rensselaer House, in her research priorto restoration. Important and historic architec-tural features are being discovered, uncovered,and studied for their importance and possiblere-use in the proper reconstruction of thehouse. We applaud Mrs. Ginsberg and herteam for their care, patience, and attention tohistoric values.

The Conyn/Rensselaer house in Claverack,at the north end of Spook Rock Road, is atwo story center-hall brick house with agambrel roof. It is known to some as the “yellow brick house” because of the presentbright color of its yellow paint. The house isdated 1766 on a tile in the south gable. Likemost old houses it has undergone alterationsand additions over the generations as the lat-est style and new conveniences moved theowners to make changes. Its Victorianentrance and heavy roof brackets hide someof its eighteenth-century look but the insidepreserves many pieces of evidence and partsof its original Dutch interior that the newowner, Nancy Ginsberg, is hoping to restore.

There are a number of eighteenth-century,two-story brick houses with gambrel roofs inthe Hudson Valley, most built in the 1760sand later. They were the homes of well-to-dofamilies.

Houses in the Hudson Valley, in contrastwith New England and Pennsylvania, weregenerally story-and-a-half in the eighteenth-century. The two-story house was slow to beadopted in this region. A two-story house in1766 and, especially with a gambrel roof,was an expression of a new look. Some writ-ers have suggested it was borrowed fromNew England.

There is a similar two-story gambrel-roofed brick house in nearby Upper RedHook, Dutchess County, called The Lyle

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House, that looks like the Conyn/VanRensselaer House. I have not examined itbut I did examine a house across the road.An historic marker calls it the ThomasHouse and headquarters of General Putnamin 1777. From its outside appearance it lookslike a Victorian house but in its interiorthere are hints of its eighteenth-centurybeginnings.

On first examining the Thomas Housewith Todd Scheff, a restoration carpenterfrom Germantown, New York, I took it for aFederal house with plastered ceilings andjambed fireplaces. The roof construction wasodd and obviously re-built, but why? It was

not until a second more careful examinationwas made that we discovered in the loft thatits king posts were actually re-used queenposts with very English tie joints that origi-nally were part of an English gambrel roofsystem.

In Victorian times the owners who wereup-dating the house took the trouble tochange the gambrel to the more fashionablegable style roof. When was the house origi-nally built? Could it pre date the Conyn/VanRensselaer house? This is the first evidence ofan English style flared-post frame that Iknow of in the Hudson Valley.

While from the exterior the Thomas,

Lyle, and Conyn Houses must have lookedvery alike in the eighteenth century, on theinside they were very different, expressingDutch and English cultural styles. One ofthe differences would have been the plasteredceilings of the Thomas House and theexposed beams in the Conyn/Van RensselaerHouse. Another was the type of fireplace.

Nancy Ginsberg has owned theConyn/Van Rensselaer house for two yearsand has been slowly taking away later layersand partitions to expose the origins of thehouse. In the 1840s many Greek Revivalchanges were made on the interior. Doorsand moldings were updated and the ceilingsplastered.

Since the three internal beams of a Dutchroom are not equal in depth, it seemed nec-essary then, in order to gain height, to hackthe bottom of the beams off and level themfor plaster lath. This had disastrous resultsfor the beams in the north room of theConyn/Van Rensselaer house. The reducedtimbers are cracking and sagging and can nolonger support the room above.

Nancy wants to restore this room to itsoriginal state with a Dutch jambless fire-place. With the architect, Dave Minch fromSaugerties, New York, it was decided that itwould be best to replace the three internalbeams. The hood beam, like the original,will be 13 inches x 7 inches x 25 feet long,planed smooth with no bead. It with itstrimmer beams will support a brick smokehood with an opening 8 feet wide. the fire-place will be finished with a wooden hoodand a complex crown molding on which todisplay the family delft and china. Belowthere will be a decorative cloth valance.Fortunately, Nancy has found the originalfront molding of the crown in the unalteredloft of the house.

The loft of the Conyn/Van RensselaerHouse is one of its best features. It displays aDutch gambrel roof system that is oftenfound in this area of the Hudson valley andis probably the innovation of local carpen-ters with Dutch timber framing back-ground. It is very effective, allowing for awide uninterrupted floor. It is very differentfrom the English gambrel framing of theThomas House. The structures of historichouses are often more revealing than theirappearance.


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The loft of the Conyn/Van Rensselaer House Claverack, Columbia County, Photo by John Stevens, June 1999.

The Conyn/Van Rensselaer House Claverack, Columbia County, NY. Photo by John Stevens, June 1999.


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“BRING BACK MAGIC” ATTHE VALATIE COMMUNITYTHEATERBy Dominic LizziValatie Town Historiian

For thirty four years the doors to the ValatieTheater on Main Street have been closed.Built in 1926 in Art Deco design with 250seats, it became the social and entertainmentcenter of the Town of Kinderhook and muchof Northern Columbia County. Not onlywere movies shown — silent at first — butlive presentations were also an attraction. Attimes, it was used as a public hall for meet-ings. Still much in use in 1946, the wallswere recovered and a projection booth withtwo 35mm projectors and a new sound sys-tem were installed. Then in 1970 it closed.

But the people missed their theater. Fiveyears ago, the Village purchased the property

with the assistance of a $125,000 matchinggrant from the Hudson River ValleyGreenway. This has been supplemented by agrant from Congressman John Sweeney.

Under the direction of Mayor GaryStrevell, the theater is being restored.Architect Dave Sadowsky has been retainedto design and manage the project.Fortunately, the original seats and the pro-jection booth have remained untouched.

The first phase of the restoration hasfocused on the entryway to the theater witha new block wall, second floor, and roof. Anew ticket booth and concession stand willbe located in this entryway. Phase 2 willinvolve a new stage, a new marquee, and acomplete restoration of the interior in the

original Art Deco design Phase 1 is now mostly complete and on

May 23, 2004 the theater opened its doorsfor the curious to inspect the progress. Thegoal is to reopen in the fall of this year as theValatie Community Theater. The total visionis to have a community center that showsindependent films, live plays, live musicevents, and becomes a home to communitymeetings. This is a noble effort. Too manytown theaters have disappeared for good.Contributions are welcomed and can be sentto the Valatie Community Fund, c/o theVillage of Valatie, Valatie, New York. �

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Plan view of the Valatie Community Theater.

Above: An early 1800s three bay drive through English plan barn with early square-rule tim-ber-frame and Dutch features owned by Rose Fisher Pancheri. Professionals deemed it animportant example of the region’s architecture and worthy of preservation. A grant to restorethe barn before its collapse this past winter was applied for but refused.

Left: In the barn was an early hay bailing machine which prepared the hay for shipping toNew York City and other points. Surrounding timbers were covered with black graffiti, nine-teenth century dates (1860 being the earliest), names of local people, tallies of weight andoccasional caricatures. The barn is now beyond repair but Mrs. Pancheri has plans to savethe hay bailer and the graffiti covered beams.

By Jim Eyre, taken from a taped conversation with Everett Nack ofClaverack, a lifetime fisherman on the Hudson river. He is a memberof the Fishermen’s Association and has served on their EstuaryCommittee formed to guide the State on river matters. He is a well known and highly regardedcritic of policies that affect and protect the area’sflora, fauna, and wildlife.The observations madebelow are his own and do not necessarilyrepresent those of the Society.

Five hundred gold fish weresupplied to the 1938World’s Fair in

New York City fromthe City ofH u d s o n ’ sriverfront.T h r e eh u n d r e dwere sentto the SeattleWorld’s Fair. Fivehundred went toExpo ’64 in Montreal,Canada. Fifty were at one time sentto the Presidential Palace in MexicoCity and another fifty to the StateHouse in Venezuela. Everett had a year-ly standing order for five thousand tobe delivered to a New Jersey dealer intropical fish and exotic plants whowould trans-ship to customers world wide.

There are no goldfish in the Hudson river today.

In the 1950s and 1960s Everett would take his family with him tothe Hudson river for a day of fishing. His children, under the watch-ful eye of their mother, would harvest snails which abounded on thebanks of the river while Everett would take his boat out to fish.

The snails they sold for 5 cents apiece and they could collect 5000per outing easily. Each basket was filled with 100 snails with a stoneplaced on top to signify the count. Out on the river fish boxes werequickly filled with striped bass, shad, herring, and other species offish for, depending upon the season, there were many. Soon these toowould be gone — some never to return.

On other days when Everett cruised the river to check his linesand nets, he would see clusters of yellow marsh marigolds, blood-roots with their white flowers, and wild horseradish — most ofwhich have vanished along with other flora too. Muskrats heavilypopulated the river marshes but there are no more.

Everett claims that there were several reasons for this sudden dis-appearance of river treasures. The first — that dealing with the fish— came in 1979 at a time when the sewer plants in a clean-up pro-gram were required to prevent visible sewage from entering the river.But this was not enough. The state decided to disinfect the river aswell. Tons of chlorine were at once dumped into the river. The

Federal government’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) hadwarned that 3 parts per billion of chlorine would effectively stopreproduction and this was far in excess of that. Everett’s shad catchwent from 65 tons per year to 3 tons and the goldfish, the bass, theherring as well as snails and clams simply vanished.

The disappearance of the flora, fauna, and muskrats evolved fromhuman mishap. Some person or persons who loved the look of the

purple loosestrife (a flower of European origin) planted iton the river or nearby. It has flourished forcing out the

the marsh marigolds, the elderberries, the horse-radish, the cowslips, and all things edible to

the muskrats which have since moved on.The state at one point did attempt to erad-

icate the loosestrife by introducing thousandsof bugs to eat it but they disappeared

before completing the job —probably to munch on a

nearby field of oatsor corn.

Atd i f -

f e r e n ttimes the

fishermen ofthe river with leadershipfrom men like Everetthave been forced to

take matters into theirown hands. They claimthat the best law everpassed was “the Law of1888” which basicallysaid that it was againstthe law to dump anythinginto the river. If anyone was seen doing it, one could take the case tocourt and, if successful, could earn one half the fine imposed. TheFisherman’s Association, an organization formed by most of the riverfishermen and to which most of them belong, has done just that.

In the 1970s a river company was taken to court by the associa-tion over a plan that would remove one third of the river flow fromtheir shorefront at Storm King Mountain during hours of low elec-trical consumption to be pumped up the mountain pipes to a reser-voir where it would be held. When additional electricity was neededthe water would be released through the pipes to create the electrici-ty and then dumped back into the river. The company intended toinstall the pumps and the reservoir by excavation and blasting andproceeded without a permit. The fishermen realized the harm thatsuch a massive disturbance could cause to fishing and took action.The Association won and were awarded $11,000,000 as their share ofthe fine. With this and other fine monies, the Association founded the


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Where did the Goldfish Go?


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Hudson River Foundation which in turn finances the River Keeper,an office responsible for policing the river and seeking out violators.

At the same time that chlorine was being dispersed into theHudson river it was also being poured into the Chesapeake Bay. Theresult was the same — almost a complete loss of fish, crustaceans,and shellfish reproduction. However, this was not acceptable to theState of Virginia and they took action by eliminating the use of chlo-rine as a disinfectant and switching to ultrasonic methods. It tookthree years for the chlorine to dissipate but the bay area has nowreturned to high levels of production. The State of Virginia publisheda report on the problem and their success in curing it.

The report was brought to the attention of New York Stateauthorities in 1990 and new regulations were introduced to lower thechlorine content by 75%. But it was not until 1998 that the sewageplants received instructions to cut the chlorine down. In one year thefish were reproducing and now shad and black stripers are beingcaught again. However, it is too late for many of the other species.

According to Everett there are two more serious problems facingthe health of the river — that of PCBs already in the river and thatof mercury contamination that well may be introduced by the oper-ation of the new plant that St. Lawrence Cement is planning.

The PCBs in the river came from a fire retardant that GeneralElectric used in their electrical equipment, the excess of which wasdumped into the river at Hudson Falls. The state had issued a permitunder which GE did this for many years until it was told to stop.However, they did not cease when told and continued to dump formany more years. When finally stopped, GE was ordered to clean upthe mess but has been delaying action. In fact, they claim that theriver is cleaning itself. That may be so at Hudson Falls but Everett

claims that the largest concentration of the PCBs has now moveddownstream with the flow to a point some 25 miles south inStillwater. Once it moves past the Stillwater Thompson Pool Damand then Troy and infests the estuaries, Everett feels that thePCBs will be spread too thin to be effectively removed. This couldaffect the water supplies of five cities that take their drinking waterfrom the Hudson river — Ft. Hughes, Rensselaer, Rhinecliff,Poughkeepsie, and New York City

The mercury problem Everett thinks may be even more critical.St. Lawrence says that the mercury released into the air from the rockwhen run through the kilns will be minimal and within safety guide-lines. However, an expert on emissions brought in from Michigan toattend an information forum put together by St. Lawrence and thefederal Environmental Protection agency has stated that if they burnthe amounts of low mercury coal that they anticipate then 265 lbs.of mercury will be released into the air from the stacks each year.This is way above state minimums. It is true that one plant can buycredits from another plant for what the other plant has not released.That means that each plant does not have to stand on its ownmerits. Even so, it’s Everett’s contention that 1 gram of mercury willpollute a 20 acre pond. If only 200 lbs. had to be accounted for andwere released from that one plant — 1 gram equals .002 lbs. and thatamounts to 100,000 grams of mercury or 100,000 20 acre ponds —and that’s year in and year out. At that rate every body of waterwithin a 200 mile radius could be adversely affected with the heavi-est density of pollution expected to fall within ten miles of the plant.What are the ramifications of that? �

“The River Rat,”a poem in honorof Everett Nack,with apologies topresumed authorClement ClarkMoore.


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38

Book Review:

Hudson’s Merchants and WhalersThe Rise and Fall of a River Port: 1783–1850

By Margaret B. Schram

Reviewed by Jim Eyre

It is difficult to write an objective review about a book that onehas so thoroughly enjoyed. Margaret Schram tells the history ofHudson’s early days of glory in a fascinating manner that keeps

your attention riveted to the page. She paints a vivid picture of acourageous — sometimes industrious and sober — but more oftenhurly burly time when the Proprietors and their followers were readyto take advantage of opportunity and take huge risks to achieve theirgoals. She fails to numb the senses with un-needed detail and insteadweaves into her Hudson tapestry tales of adventure, enterprise, andderring-do.

One finds scenes of Hudson in itsearly days of the late 1700s.It tells about theNantucket Quakerswho chose the deepwaters off ClaverackLanding for a safeharbor from enemymarauders. As iron-willed Proprietors theyfounded a city that wasquickly to become a portsecond in commerce onlyto New York City. Theywere traders sailing tothe West Indies, SouthAmerica, Europe, and otherfar destinations and backagain playing “cat andmouse” with corsairs and pri-vateers. They were whalersand seal hunters who plied theseas and returned years laterwith spermaceti, whale oil, andprecious skins. Mrs. Schram tellsstartling and moving storiesabout these perilous and manytimes heroic voyages. In her care-ful research she has uncoveredheretofore unknown documentation which will make this book animportant inclusion at any maritime library.

As Hudson grew, the bustling city became home to factors andconsortiums, ship builders, rope makers, sail makers, candle makers,taverns, and bawdy houses. Hudson became the gateway — back andforth — between New York City and New England and with pros-perity came turnpikes, beautiful homes, good living, rent wars, andpolitics. If one is the least bit upset about today’s politics, let Mrs.

Schram tell you about the face-off between Thomas Jefferson’sDemocratic Republicans and the Federalists in which Jefferson wascharged with paying a newspaper editor to call “Washington a trai-tor, a robber and a perjurer” and to call Adams “a hoary-headedincendiary.” Foreign wars and influences put severe pressures on theimportant shipping and whaling center but the resilient Hudsonianspersevered with success for almost 40 years.

By 1830 the steamboat had successfully challenged the sailboat intrade and travel between Hudson and New York. The boom in trainsand rail travel soon ensued and the importance of the Hudson har-

bor as a gate to New England and its markets quicklydiminished. As well as she has chronicled the emer-gence of Hudson’s industry and strengths in earlierchapters, she now unravels the weaknesses that causeits demise from prominence.

One of the most intriguing portions of the vol-ume is the Appendix which enlightens the readerabout the Quakers and the “Hudson Meeting” aswell as delivering a clear description of the art ofwhaling and seal hunting inclusive of tools andmethods used. These sections are followed bycarefully made and easily read notes that attest tothe depth of Mrs. Schram’s research and theveracity of her findings. This is not only a bookwhose good looks will decorate a coffee tablebut it is a book to be thoroughly readand enjoyed. It is available for purchase atthe Columbia County Historical SocietyMuseum in Kinderhook, and in bookstoresthroughout the surrounding tri-state area.I strongly recommend that every bookstorein the county lay in a good supply.The book is published by BlackDome Press Corp., Hensonville, NewYork in 2004, www.blackdome.com �


39

The Vanderpoel House Parlor PianoBy Helen McLallen, Curator, the Columbia County Historical Society

Museums use both preventive conservation and conserva-tion treatment of specific objects in caring for their collections. Preventive conservation, as the name suggests,

involves creating conditions which forestall and minimize damage tocollections, through careful handling and display, creating and main-taining appropriate environmental conditions, and the use ofarchival storage enclosures, boxes, and shelving. The Society’s recentNEH grants for updating its general collections assessment and itsenvironmental monitoring and pest management programs are onepart of its commitment to preventive conservation. We have also hada number of objects, including paintings, furniture, the bark barrelsat the Van Alen house, and the Penfield map, treated by conservatorsin recent years. Most of these projects have been undertaken as aresult of successful grant applications. Additional objects have beenprioritized for conservation, based on conservators’ detailed condi-tion surveys of portions of the collection and curatorial assessment.They will be treated as funding is available.

One of these priority artifacts is the piano in the Vanderpoelhouse’s parlor. Along with the rest of the Vanderpoel house’s furniture,the piano was surveyed and a condition report with treatment recom-mendations prepared in 1993 by furniture conservator DeborahBigelow. While the piano is largely in original condition, it has loosejoints, warped and cracked wood, veneer losses, discolored andlight-damaged finish, and broken, detached, and missingsections of its decorative ormolu mounts. The case hasdistorted under the tension of the strings.

The piano is one of the few furnishings ateither the Vanderpoel or the Van Alen housesthat has a documented history of belonging toa Columbia County family. It was donated tothe Society by Sarah Wilson Mynderse.According to family history, the piano wasbrought to Clermont from Philadelphia byMrs. Mynderse’s grandmother, Anne Hulme(1799-1881), when she married William HenryWilson (1791-1884) in 1829.

William H. Wilson’s father, William Wilson, was a Scottish physi-cian who imigrated to the United States in 1783. It is likely that hewas already acquainted with the Livingston family, for he camedirectly to Clermont. In addition to his medical practice, hemanaged property for the Livingstons, became deputy postmaster or Clermont, county judge, a founding member of the MedicalSociety of Dutchess and Columbia Counties, a farmer, and wasvice president of the Agricultural Society of Dutchess andColumbia Counties.

Like his father, William Henry Wilson became a physician and,after serving as a surgeon’s mate during the War of 1812, he returnedto Clermont. In 1825 he succeeded his father as deputy postmaster.He and Anne Hulme had two children, including Harold (1836-1919), Sarah Wilson Mynderse’s father. A large collection of Wilsonfamily papers, primarily correspondence and accounts relating toWilliam Wilson and his children and which contain a wealth of localhistory information, is in the William L. Clements Library of theUniversity of Michigan.

The piano was made by John Broadwood and Sons of Londonand dates from the 1810s or 1820s. It is a square piano, made ofmahogany and mahogany veneer with ebonized string inlays andormolu trim. The Broadwood firm, begun in 1728 by JohnBroadwood’s father-in-law, Burkat Shudi, is still in business today.

Although no inventory of the Vanderpoel’s Kinderhook houseexists, an inventory was taken in 1843 of their house in Albany

following James Vanderpoel’s death. One of the items in theback parlor of that Elk Street home was a piano forte and

stool. Its comparatively modest value of $40 mayindicate that it was somewhat old fashioned in

1843 and perhaps had been brought with themfrom Kinderhook. Anne Hulme Wilson’spiano therefore is a most appropriate elementin our Vanderpoel house’s furnishings. We welcome inquiries from anyone whowould be interested in helping to support its conservation or other collections care

projects. Please contact the curator at 758-9265to discuss these projects. �

Highlights from the Society’s Collections • Conserving Our Collection

The Broadwood piano at the Vanderpoel House, one of the few furnishings at the house known to have belonged to a Columbia County family.


40

By Dr.Will Swift

In the hills above New Lebanon, five clus-ters of exquisite nineteenth-centuryhomes and buildings stand in an idyllic

setting overlooking the Berkshires. Some ofthe dwellings, stretching out over a mile-and-a-half, now serve as dormitories for theDarrow School. In the nineteenth-century ,eight distinct Shaker family groups lived onthis site. They later consolidated into thefive clusters (the North, Center, Church,Second and South families) that remaintoday.

The Shakers (otherwise known as TheUnited Society of Believers) were preemi-nent among many communitarian groupsin mid-century America. Just prior to theCivil War, the Shakers were at the height oftheir popularity and their influence onUnited States culture. The Shakers origi-nated in Manchester, England in 1772,under the influence of founder Ann Lee.Facing persecution for their radical beliefin communion with the spirits of the dead,and for their unusual, impassioned shakingbehavior at their worship services, Ann Leeleft England with a small group in 1774and settled initially in upstate New York.In 1787 the Shakers gathered their firstcommunal family together at MountLebanon, New York.

At Mount Lebanon, 600 Shakers lived inthe eight communal families in more than100 buildings spread out over 6,000 acres.Mount Lebanon became the center of theShaker world and, as such, was a populartourist destination. Charles Dickens visitedand wrote about the Mount LebanonShakers, and the nineteenth-century authorand illustrator Benson Lossing’s views ofMount Lebanon were published in Harper’sNew Monthly magazine. From MountLebanon, the group organized into a nation-al body, which spread into twenty communi-ties throughout New England, Ohio,

Kentucky, and as far south as Georgia andFlorida.

Outsiders would come to observe theirSunday morning meetings. They were fasci-nated by the Shaker philosophy, whichemphasized celibacy and simplicity in every-day life as the cornerstone for building a self-less, spiritual community. These Shakers rein-forced the importance of God over the indi-vidual by stressing simple dress, plain food,and basic living arrangements. Women woreplain-cut clothes and kept their hair coveredby bonnets. All their labor, from buildingfurniture to writing hymns, was a part oftheir belief in work as a means of worship.

At the zenith of the Mount LebanonShaker community’s agricultural endeavorsin 1859, they built an enormous 50,000square foot stone and timber frame struc-ture, the North Family’s Great Stone Barn,which was the largest stone barn in America.The Shakers demonstrated remarkable inge-nuity in creating a site with its own techno-logical advancements: a monitor-roof thatallowed fresh air and light in, a rail systemfor managing refuse, and a water pump toprovide warm drinking water for the cattle— especially efficient in the winter months.

After the Civil War Shakerism declinedfor two major reasons: they were unable torecruit new believers and industrialization

made Shaker crafts obsolete. In 1947, afterthe Mount Lebanon Shaker community haddwindled to seven residents, the NorthFamily site was sold. In 1972 a fire, of suspi-cious origins, burned down the Great StoneBarn, leaving only the remains of the mason-ry walls. For thirty-one years the Stone Barnruin sat exposed to inclement conditions. In1973 the First Dwelling House, a massivefifty-room, five-story structure was torndown for fear that it might catch fire andburn down the rest of the extant village. Theremaining ten buildings at the North Familycomplex, some of which have intact, Shakerexterior features and interiors with historicdetails, are in various conditions of disrepair.

The World Monuments Fund, the leadingnon-profit organization committed to pre-serving the historic, artistic, and architecturalheritage of mankind, placed the North FamilyShaker site on their “2004 World MonumentsWatch List of 100 Most Endangered Sites.”This Shaker complex is listed with otherworld historic sites including Sir HoraceWalpole’s eighteenth-century house,Strawberry Hill, in England; Frank LloydWright’s Ennis Brown House in California;The Mayan cities of Yaxchilian and PerdrasNegras, settled in the early years of the firstmillennium C.E.; the ancient Nimrud andNineveh Palaces in Iraq; and explorer SirErnest Shackelton’s hut, built in 1908 inAntarctica.

The Shaker Museum and Library wasfounded in 1950 by John S. Williams andoperated at his farm in Old Chatham, NewYork. It is currently located at a non-Shakersite in Old Chatham. The Museum housesthe nation’s premier collection of over38,000 Shaker objects and artifacts, eightypercent of which came from the MountLebanon site.

In 2001 the Shaker Museum and Libraryretained the architectural firm of Cooper,Robertson & Partners to do a feasibilitystudy and develop a Master Plan to preserve

THE SHAKERSand the GREATSTONE BARN

At Mount Lebanon,600 Shakers lived inthe eight communal

families in morethan 100 buildings

spread out over6,000 acres.

North Family with the Barn’s first roofline inthe background and Shaker brothers workingcrops in the foreground.

41

the eleven remaining Shaker Buildings and adapt the Great Stone Barnas the centerpiece and new home of the Shaker Museum and Library.The plan was funded partially by a Save America’s Treasures grantallowing the architects to create more than 140 measured drawings,make field notes, photographs, and analysis of materials to documentthe site. There was also support from the New York State Council onthe Arts, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the PreservationLeague of the State of New York, the State Office of Parks, Recreationand Historic Preservation, and the Institute of Museum and LibraryServices, as well as a number of private foundations.

The Master Plan outlines emergency stabilization work beginningin 2004 to prevent the complete loss of the most threatened historicbuildings. The next phase will include construction of an entirely new50,000 square foot museum and library facility within the 196 feetlong stabilized masonry walls of the Great Stone Barn and on the foot-prints of the three original wings. The museum entrance, reached byapproaching the towering west end with four stories reaching up to 50 feet high, will be situated in a double-height lobby. An open air stairand an elevator will lead to an orientation gallery on the second level.The permanent collection galleries, reflecting the themes ofSpirituality, Work, Community, and Design will be on the second andthird floors. The fourth floor will house a temporary exhibition galleryand a “gathering room” for lectures and events. This room will openout onto a mezzanine with views over the rest of the North Family siteand of the vistas of the New Lebanon Valley and the Berkshires.

In the footprints of the Stone Barn’s original timber wings,extending from the south elevation, will be a phased addition of threewings to house an indoor and outdoor café, museum shop, andadministrative and storage areas. The additions will carefully respectthe scale of the original structures and will make a clear distinctionbetween historic fabric and new construction.


Above: Eric Sloane drawing of Barn. Below: North View of Great Stone Barn.

Schematic design of the futureShaker Museum and Library.

Great Stone Barn continued on page 44


42

OlanaBy Juliana Johnson Merton, BoardChair, the Olana Partnership

In the spring of 1861Frederic Church, one of themost famous landscape

painters of his age, and his newbride Isabel moved from NewYork City to a charming cottageon a hillside just south ofHudson. Designed by RichardMorris Hunt, Cosy Cottage islocated almost directly acrossthe Hudson from Cedar Grove,the home of Church’s inspiringand beloved teacher, ThomasCole. Church picked thespot for Cosy Cottage becauseit was adjacent to Red Hill,a summit where Cole andChurch once stood togethersketching dramatic views of theHudson River and the CatskillMountains. Church wouldeventually purchase that nearbyhill and build there his Persianstyle castle, Olana, in the early1870s.

As the Church’s first dwellingon the site, Cosy Cottage is todaythought to be the essential cor-nerstone of his idyllic farm. Inthe spring of 2005 Cosy Cottagewill be fully restored, nearlyone hundred and forty-threeyears after Church moved in.Returning the cottage to its origi-nal state is a particularly mean-ingful restoration project forOlana. Once again, Cosy Cottagewill serve as the cornerstone, thistime reviving the farm complexand implementing the Olana

Comprehensive Plan, which willtransform the two hundred andfifty acres designed by Church tohis original conception. TheOlana Partnership (TOP) hasalready raised $480,000 of the$600,000 needed to complete theCosy Cottage project. The returnof Cosy Cottage occurs at anideal time for TOP, because themain house will be partiallyclosed next spring for extensiveinterior renovation.

Recently, Olana received agrant for $650,000 from TheNational Endowment for theHumanities, which will be morethan matched by the NYS

Office of Parks, Recreation andHistoric Preservation (OPRHP)to ensure the installation ofurgently needed HVAC, firesuppression, and security sys-tems in the main house. As partof this project, a portion of thesecond and third story roomsnow used as staff offices by theOlana Partnership will need tobe vacated. However, CosyCottage will come in handy as atemporary staff location, beforeit becomes an interpretive andeducational addition to theOlana experience.

The work being done on thehouse actually provides some

exciting opportunities. SinceOlana was saved from the auc-tion block and purchased by thestate in 1966, OPRHP and TOPstaff members have workedtogether to make the house anauthentic view into the life ofFrederic Church. There are plansto restore the second floor bed-rooms of Frederic and Isabel andthe four surviving Church chil-dren. TOP and OPRHP alsolook forward to using this periodto promote a two-year travelingexhibit of various Church paint-ings, which will visit museumsaround the country includingThe Fenimore Art Museum(Cooperstown, NY), The PortlandMuseum of Art (Portland, ME),and the Society of The Four Arts(Palm Beach, FL). MetropolitanMuseum of Art curator, KevinAvery, will oversee the exhibitand write the essay for theaccompanying catalogue.

Meanwhile, much is happen-ing at Olana. The TOP andOPRHP have jointly raisedalmost $5 million toward restor-ing the main house, the collec-tions, and the landscape. Brickfacades are being repointed,multi-colored oriental cornicesrepainted, carriage roadsrestored, wires put underground,Persian carpets replicated, andthe old barns are being broughtback to life to house Olana’s edu-cational programs. Even theleaky studio tower that Churcharchitecturally designed himselfwill finally be rebuilt this sum-

Opportunitiesat

Cosy Cottage, first dwelling on the Olana site, will be fully restored in thespring of 2005.


43

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mer. Church may not have been a world-class architect but he wascertainly a true visionary.

Frederic Church and Thomas Cole understood at an early time inAmerica’s history the importance of appreciating and preserving thelandscape. Church in particular worshipped the American northeastthrough his sublime depictions of its scenery and it was Thomas Colewho spoke passionately about the landscape in his “Essay onAmerican Scenery.” Thomas Cole tells us that whether an American“beholds the Hudson mingling waters with the Atlantic — exploresthe central wilds of this vast continent, or stands on the margin ofthe distant Oregon, he is still in the midst of American scenery.” Thelandscape belongs to its admirer, Cole suggests, “and how undeserv-ing of such a birthright, if he can turn towards it an unobserving eye,an unaffected heart.” (The American Magazine, 1836)

While Olana has become a permanent feature of our Americanscenery, it nonetheless faces real threats. Along with Friends ofHudson and the Historic Valley Preservation Coalition, TOP battlesto prevent the construction of the massive St. Lawrence Cementplant just three miles north of the Olana. The plant’s proposed sixhundred-foot smokestack and six-mile plume would be a colossallyunnatural detriment to Olana’s viewshed and the surrounding envi-ronment. Today, the view from Olana is still wonderful and wild. Ifyou find yourself standing on Frederic Church’s hilltop, gazing out atthe wide waters of the Hudson and the smooth peaks of the Catskills,you are proud to find yourself “in the midst of American scenery”and you are surrounded by a valley of historic treasures. Theimmutable elements of a time past remind us all daily of the oppor-tunity to preserve our history, our natural America. �

As the Church’s first dwelling on the site,Cosy Cottage is today thought to be theessential cornerstone of his idyllic farm.

The view from Cosy Cottage with the proposed cement plant inserted into thepicture to demonstrate the effect the plant would have on the viewshed.


44

The Master Plan calls for various approaches of adaptive reuse forthe ten remaining buildings including the Second Meetinghousewith its signature vaulted roof. Subsequent phases may highlight theunique waterworks system and related agricultural and industrial fea-tures set amid the thirty remaining acres.

The vision of the Master Plan is to develop the North Family siteas a primary resource for the Shaker legacy and its relevance to con-temporary life. The entire project is designed to create a major her-itage tourism, education, and recreation destination where exhibi-tions and programs will highlight the lasting Shaker influence on art,architecture, and design for the public.

In 1947 as the last Shakers left the Mount Lebanon site, SisterJennie Wells told The New Yorker that “Shakerism can’t be told: itmust be lived. Still you can learn a lot about it from that [Stone]Barn.” When completed, the Mount Lebanon site will allowtwenty-first century Americans to experience what it was like to livein a creative and spiritual Shaker community, which lasted from1787 until 1947. �

Great Stone Barn continued from page 41

Stuyvesant Lighthouse continued from page 23

in the family. Some men went there in a boat to take them off. Thewoman would not go until she had her ironing done, but the housewas gone before she had done. They saved the man and the womanand a negro woman. The three little ones were washed down underthe ridge. They were all dead.

They then put up a big stone building and appointed Mr. HenryM. Allister (U. S. Lighthouse Keeper), as keeper. He was keeper 16years, then they built the Lighthouse which I was in for 38 years and8 month. My husband and I passed through man hours of trouble withhigh water and ice, many times the water was two feet in my room.

The lighthouse was partly destroyed, the year I cannot tell, for theice and very high water destroyed the books. The ice was 3 feet thickin the river; it rained Friday all day and night; Saturday all day andnight. The fog was so thick we could not see the hill from the light-house. Water was coming up very fast. At two o’clock Sunday morn-ing my husband called me up to dress as he was going to take me out.He had a row boat in the kitchen. Water was in all the rooms. He hadon high boots. We went over to the little house under the hill. Sundaymorning we heard a great noise. He took the boat and a man andwent to the lighthouse — what remained of it. The ice took half thelighthouse with it. He went in the rooms with a boat, where the par-lor formerly was, it was gone. My piano was on the stairs, shoved thereby the ice, water three feet deep in all the rooms. The old stone light-house, barn, hen house and bridge were gone. Water was up to upperfloor. It took the bedroom and reached the roof on our side — we lost$1000 worth of furnishings but the Government had no money tocover our personal loss. They sent up eight men to rebuild, and I hadto board them from March to November. When I came back I had towalk on a ladder with two men helping me to get into the house.”

Signed: Josephine (Soutworth) McAllister Mereness (“niece of Mr. Clapp who kept the Stuyvesant Hotel”) Cobleskill, N. Y. September, October 1938

Edward (Nard) Whitbeck, the aged river guide, whose fine-featuredface is worthy of a sculptor’s chisel, told me that the wooden light-house was replaced by a stone structure, and finally one of brickwhich was the landmark familiar to all of us, and it was torn downin 1936. Both the stone and the brick foundations, side by sideremain and are on view from the New York Central trains north fromthe village on the first point above the long water break.

HARRIET H. K. VAN ALSTYNE �

* Harriet Van Alstyne may have been mistaken. The headstone in the ButlerCemetery shown above reads:

“In Memory of Miles Hyatt, Son Of Justus & Margaret van Hoesen,March 18, 1832, ae 12 yrs & 23 days, by the destruction of the light-house, and also a little brother, ae 2 yrs 9 mos & 19 days, who wasnot found.”

No stone was found for the two Whitbeck children.


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■ Columbia County Historical Society Calendar of Events ■

August 21stMonthie Slide Presentation at the Hudson Opera House; 1:00 pm.

September 5thPandemonia Concert at 6:00 p.m. at the Van Alen House.

September 11thSponsor’s Cocktail Reception

• Walking Tour of Kinderhook with Rod Blackburn and Ruth Piwonka

September 18thWalking Tour of Hudson with Don Christensen.

October 16thAnnual Meeting and Members Reception

• Second Century Circle Gala Dinner.

December 4th to December 12thGallery of Wreaths and Holiday Craft Boutique at the

Columbia County Museum. Display of handcrafted wreathsby individuals, businesses, organizations and florists

Wreaths are up for silent auction. Holiday crafts are for sale.

December 10thCandlelight Night and Home for the Holidays Tour in the Village of

Kinderhook and the Greens Show at the Vanderpoel House.

December 10th to 12thGreens Show at the James Vanderpoel House, Kinderhook.

Columbia County History & Heritage is interested in hearing from you — if you have articles, pictures, or other items aboutColumbia County history and cultural heritage suitable for publication, please let us know.The Editorial Board will review allsubmissions.All submissions considered for publication are subject to editing.We regret that we cannot guarantee publication.

Want to advertise your business in Columbia County History & Heritage? Call 518-758-9265 for more information.

Please note in your calendars the following events and dates. For additional information please call the Society’s office at(518) 758-9265 or visit our website at www.cchsny.org.

Documents

What's Left? Will We Save It? Page 6