The Rural Hamlet in Dutchess County: An Endangered Species William P. Mc Dermott
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t is 100 years now since Smith Doughty walked the 300 yards from his shop to the mill in Hibernia. He had lived in that small hamlet 40 years before his death in 1886. To his neighbors he was a fixture, having lived in town longer than any other individual. Were he to return in 1986 there is much of the hamlet he would recognize. Surely the black cover on the dirt road he had once traveled would surprise him but the road itself, its intersection, its sharp turns, the bridge, the mill dam and a number of the structures in the hamlet would be quite familiar. If it weren't for the swift four-wheel motorized carriages which would frighten him, he would measure his absence as only a few short years, because change in Hibernia has been gentle. But Doughty would not have to travel far before he recognized that hamlets, once the hearts of most rural townships, are fast disappearing in Dutchess County. Their original functions, now long gone, along with the importance of their past, have faded into the dim memory of the few "old timers". When one thinks of Flatbush in Brooklyn or White Plains in Westchester or even Poughkeepsie in Dutchess County, no images of an active rural hamlet come to mind. Yet, not long ago, even these would be envisioned as the hamlets they once were. Too much time has passed now, too many buildings, parking lots, roads and the like have enveloped the area where once there was a hamlet. The boundaries of these former hamlets, the shops they once supported and the homes of its residents no longer are visible — buried by the advancing avalanche of change. But the hamlet in rural Dutchess County remains. Its boundaries are still visible as are many of its nineteenth-century and yes, even some of its eighteenth-century buildings. They stand as silent reminders of a time and place which was once central to the community. The hamlet of Hibernia in the town of Clinton is one such hamlet. It is more than 200 years since it was carved out of the wilderness to serve its neighbors; a role it continued well into the twentieth century, when its function, gradually fading, abruptly ended in the flames of its principal structure, the Hibernia Mills, after which the hamlet was named. This hamlet, its origins, its growing service to its neighbors and its gradual demise, will be discussed as an example of the rural hamlet in Dutchess County. Many of the extant hamlets in Dutchess County are similar to Hibernia and could be studied in much the same manner. The value of such an undertaking is twofold, 1) to focus on the hamlet as a reflection of the settlement which it served and 2) to preserve what remains of the hamlet as a legacy to future generations. What is a hamlet? The term is an elusive one. For the New York hamlet, unlike
William P. McDermott is both a psychologist and local historian who is currently the president of the Clinton Historical Society. 1
