Dutchess County Historical Society Yearbook vol 102 2023

Farming in Dutchess County

The Varied Path To Today’s Agricultural Economy

Dutchess County Historical Society 2023 Yearbook – Volume 102

Bill Jeffway

Melodye Moore

William P. Tatum III, Ph.D. Executive Editors

Rick Levitt Editor

The Dutchess County Historical Society is a not-for-profit educational organization that collects, preserves, and interprets the history of Dutchess County, New York, from the period of the arrival of the first Indigenous Peoples until the present day.

Published annually since the 1914 issue.

©Dutchess County Historical Society 2024

The Dutchess County Historical Society Yearbook does not assume responsibility for statements of fact or opinion made by the authors.

Dutchess County Historical Society 6282 Route 9, Rhinebeck, NY 12572

Email: contact@dchsny.org

www.dchsny.org

Melodye Moore & Lenny Miller

Julian & Betsy Strauss

Joan Smith

In Memoriam

Willa E. Skinner (1926-2024)

Excerpt from McHoul Funeral Home.

Willa E. Skinner, a beloved Hudson Valley historian, author, journalist, columnist, mother, aunt, friend and mentor to many, passed peacefully on Thursday, January 18, 2024 while under hospice care at Vassar Brothers Medical Center in Poughkeepsie. She was 98.

Daughter of the late William and Bertha (Frering) Kretch, she was born in Manhattan on January 16, 1926. Willa was raised in the Bronx and graduated from Christopher Columbus High School. She earned a bachelor’s degree from New York University’s School of Journalism 1948.

Her family purchased a summer home in Fishkill in 1929, which Willa loved visiting throughout her childhood and into her adult years. She served as the Town of Fishkill Historian for 53 years and in 2015 received the Martha Washington Woman of History Award.

In 1962 as the Fishkill Historical Society was forming, Willa and another FHS member drove to Albany to present their case to the Director of the Department of Transportation – their request to reconfigure the newly planned interstate highway (I-84) cloverleaf, and save the Van Wyck Homestead from imminent demolition. When the NYS DOT Director arrived in Fishkill, Willa conducted a tour for him through what planners had listed as “abandoned farmhouse,” with a flashlight, explaining that in

early November 1776, General Israel Putnam knocked on the front door of the Van Wyck family’s homestead to claim it for military use.

This grass-roots movement of local residents against the decisions of the Federal Highway System and the New York State Department of Transportation – and Willa’s personal appeal to the Director - preserved what is now the Van Wyck Homestead Museum for future generations.

Appointed as Town of Fishkill Historian in 1964, Willa was one of the founding members of the Fishkill Historical Society and an active member of the Dutchess County Historical Society, serving on the organization’s Publication Committee.

She was the author of “Signal Fires in the Highlands, a Town of Fishkill History,” and “Remembering Fishkill,” a collection of historical vignettes, with a supportive endorsement on the back cover by her friend Pete Seeger.

She conducted classes on local history for area schools and colleges, retiring her popular weekly column “Wandering” with the Southern Dutchess News and the Beacon Free Press after more than forty-five years.

Willa was named 2014 recipient of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Local Government Historian Professional Achievement Award at the annual conference of the Association of Public Historians of New York State (APHNYS).

Ms. Skinner read the Declaration of Independence from the steps of Van Wyck Hall, Main Street, Fishkill on July 4, 2014, continuing the Village of Fishkill’s long-held tradition, as her work was honored with testimonials from the Town, County, the NYS Governor’s Office, and numerous family members.

In February of 2015, Willa was recipient of the Martha Washington Woman of History Award, given by Washington’s Headquarters State Historic Site each year to a woman who has

made a contribution to the history of the Hudson Valley through education, promotion, or preservation.

In May of 2018, The Town of Fishkill surprised Willa with a tribute to her accomplishments – a well-attended ceremony, to include speakers from both government and historical organizations, culminating in the unveiling of a bronze plaque now installed in the lobby of the Town offices.

“When I was appointed town historian in 1964, I began a journey into the region’s past and found that opening one door led to the opening of another, a never-ending journey but always enjoyable. I met real people and imaginary ones, heard stories handed down from one generation to the next no matter if they were embroidered or not as they were passed along, listened to tales told by natives and newcomers alike and shared them…” –Willa

Skinner, Historian

In Memoriam

Frances Louise Weber Braley (1937-2024)

Fran, a resident of Pawling, NY, formerly of Wingdale, NY, passed away on 1/31/24 at Putnam hospital.

Fran was born December 5, 1937, in Muscatine, Iowa, the daughter of Catherine Irena (Smith) and John Weber, Jr. She graduated from Muscatine High School in 1955 and the University of Iowa with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing in 1960.

She married Alson Deming Braley on August 16, 1958, in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

She and her husband moved to Wingdale, Dutchess County, New York in 1997. Physical problems kept her from her beloved hobby of canoe paddling, so she turned to researching her family history. Fran discovered that she had several ancestors who fought in the Revolutionary War. She joined the Enoch Crosby Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. She chaired several committees and was Regent of the Chapter from 2013-2016. Recently, she became an associate member of the Roger Sherman Chapter in New Milford, CT. She also became a member of the Town of Dover Historical Society and served as President from 2018-2022. She was instrumental in getting a grant from the NSDAR to restore the fireplace in the Tabor Wing House in Dover Plains.

Fran enjoyed knitting and was a member of ‘In Stitches’ at the Dover Library.

Editor’s Note ........................................................................16

Sepascot Home Farm, Through the Years..............................28

Fairs and Horses: the Agricultural Societies of late 19th Century Eastern Dutchess County.......................................................34

Transporting Clean, Cold, Pure Farm Milk: “Milk Spoils Quickly”.................................................................................62

The Hessian Fly: ...................................................................66

Pine Plains and the Loss of the Small Family Farms............72

Dutchess Peaches No Fuzz....................................................82

GENERAL HISTORY

Poverty in the Archives: Poor People and Poor Relief in Dutchess County, c. 1831-1904.............................................................92

James W. Hinkley and the Poughkeepsie Trolley System.....102

The Great Rabbit Hunt 1911 – 1918......................................113

ADDENDA

DCHS Trustees and Staff....................................................122

DCHS Vice Presidents........................................................123

Municipal Historians and Historical Societies of Dutchess County.................................................................124

DCHS Members and Supporters........................................133

DCHS Membership............................................................135

Editor’s Note

For the last several hundred years, and maybe earlier, the history of Dutchess County may be more evident in the development of agriculture than in anything else. The most difficult part of putting this yearbook together was deciding what to omit, so we chose to focus largely on the Dutchess County farmer. Martha Collins Bayne’s scholarly study, commissioned by Vassar College in 1936 and entitled, appropriately enough, The Dutchess County Farmer, gives us a benchmark idea of the average farmer(s) of the day. But when you compare it to the first-hand accounts we’ve included here, you’ll realize there’s no such thing as the average farmer.

Thomas Sweet Lossing’s recollections of his life on Chestnut Ridge farm in Dover in the last quarter of the 19th century are laced throughout with humor. Nancy Vogel Kelly’s memoir of mid-20th century Rhinebeck’s Sepascot Home Farm is a bit more tinged with sadness, but it is a tribute to tenacity.

Rounding out our FORUM section, we couldn’t resist several “chapters” less about the farmer and more about local agriculture’s contribution to the county and the broader world. DCHS Publications Committee member John Desmond and the late Bernard Rudberg, trainophiles of the first order, spell out for us how the milk train of linguistic legend actually functioned in Dutchess County. Then we look at the 19th century, first with a discussion of peaches. Melodye Moore, who’s forgotten more about Dutchess County than most of us will ever know, shows us the ingenuity of Pleasant Valley’s Ward family with regard to the production and marketing of everyone’s favorite late summer-time fruit. A few years later and heading east on the old Dutchess Turnpike to Amenia, Betsy Strauss drills deep into the history of one of the county’s more storied agricultural fairs, which in the eyes of some may have been a fig leaf for the real thrill, horse racing. And going back even further, Cary Institute’s Charles Canham tells us how Thomas Jefferson and James Madison took time out from the founding of the American republic to research the Hessian fly, a great predator of the wheat that was a staple of early American diets. They came through

Dutchess County and compared notes with a wheat farmer in the area who’d made the prudent switch to a local strain that was more resistant to the pest. Bill of Rights, Schmill of Rights—this was the important stuff.

Bridging the gap from our FORUM to the GENERAL HISTORY section of the book, Dyan Wapnick tells how Pine Plains first thrived and later sank in line with the fortunes of dairy farming in the area. But, the article looks forward and optimistically. Dieter Friedrichsen’s charming account of the wily Jack Rabbit and the havoc he wreaked rounds out the FORUM section. Switching gears entirely, Roy Budnik details first the growth and later the decline of the county’s trolley system. Meanwhile, Nate Grosjean came to us as an intern from Vassar College…lucky us. He has written an incisive account on local 19th-century perceptions and solutions to the age-old problem of poverty; after reading it, you’ll know why we look forward to many contributions from him in the years to come.

I am grateful to the old and new DCHS hands who contributed to this book in so many ways. In particular, I want to salute Melodye Moore, Bill Jeffway, and Will Tatum, who guided me through my first encounter with local history. But I reserve my greatest thanks to the farmers of Dutchess County, who more than any group have made the area the place we want to live.

Rick Levitt

F FORUM

A farmer’s Life for Me

(Editor’s note: I got really excited when I read the excerpt of an address given in Kinderhook in 1982 on Alson Ward of peach brushing patent fame [see the article by Melodye Moore on page 82. It sourced the paean to farmers below from the May 20, 1940, issue of the Poughkeepsie Journal…)

A farmer’s life for me, I own I love it dearly; And every season full of glee, I take its labors cheerly-to plough or sow, To reap or mow, Or in the barn to thresh, sir.

The lawyer leads a harnessed life, Much like the hunted otter; And t’ween his own and others’ strife, He’s always in hot water-For foe or friend, A cause defend, However be it, sir, In reason’s spite Maintain ‘tis right-And dearly earn his fee, sir.

The doctor’s styled a gentleman, But this I hold but humming; For like a tavern-waiting man, To every call, “he’s coming”

Now here, now there, Must he repair, Or starve; sir by denying-like death himself, Unhappy elf, He lives by others’ dying

A farmer’s life, then let me live, Obtaining, while I lead it, and Enough for self, some to give, To such poor souls as need it!

I’ll drain and fence, Nor grudge expense, To give my land good dressing-I’ll plough and sow, Or drill in row, And hope from heaven a blessing.

(…but it was not to be. It did not appear in the Journal on that date but rather on June 21, 1821, itself crediting the New Brunswick [New Jersey] Times of April that year. Dutchess County cannot therefore lay claim to its provenance.)

Chestnut Ridge

Thomas Sweet Lossing (1871-1944), son of famed historian Benson Lossing, clearly inherited his father’s gift for a telling narrative. Growing up in Dover at Chestnut Ridge, Thomas saw farm life up close and personally. A typescript of the book he wrote, My Heart Goes Home: A Hudson Valley Memoir, edited by Peter Hannford, Bovina, NY: Purple Mountain Press, 1997, www.nysbooks.com; used with permission) is in the Dutchess County Historical Society collection. It recounts stories of some of the cows, oxen, pigs, and horses he grew up around and gives a telling of the county fair that might seem familiar to many of us (for the really old amongst us, the descriptions of clothing might even exact a knowing smile).

Where passages below recognizably found their way into the final printed book, they are preceded by the corresponding page numbers. The extracts are reproduced with original spellings, punctuation, and many of the author’s attempts at self-editing.

Animals at Chesnut Ridge

(Pages 79-83) When we had a farmer, we had a private cow, a Jersey. Her calf was called ‘Io’. The cow was black and the calf was yellow. It lived to be the oldest of the lot. Its calves were mostly sold. Io had a sister, Isis, black like its mother and kind of slim. It had a lump jaw, lost its cud, then Mrs. Mott, my nurse from Brooklyn brought its cud back again by giving it a cloth bag of grass to chew on. It was always anemic, gave only about a quart of milk. We kept it at least 10 years. Mrs. Mott was my nurse when I was a baby and she came up to see us.Leone was another cow, partly Guernsey, the cosiest little cow that ever lived, a sweet little thing. We used to call her ‘Bughorn,’ because she had horns like a bug. Her calf was even cosier than she was and she was nicknamed ‘Cosy,’ her real name being Blair. Angelique was a sister of Io, rather slim, immensely strong, and would kick every time you looked at her. She gave an immense amount of milk. When a calf, on a subzero night, the door of its pen blew open and froze its ears and tail so eventually half of her

ears dropped as well as half of her tail, but she was Angelique just the same.We bought Next was ‘Old Pine,’ a registered Jersey who had countless rings on her horns, about 15 she we bought her. She was old enough to vote. She would walk right through a fence anywhere, a regular battering ram and would bawl all the time for her calf. Registered Jersey. She’d have a calf and dry up in about 3 weeks. We paid $20 for her and thought we got a bargain. She did have some nice calves, who acted as though of royal blood. Her calves were certainly swank and showed their breeding. One of her calves was named ‘Breakfast’ because when she got old enough to milk her milk was used for breakfast. ‘Old Pine’ was always delirious for weeks after she had a calf. Her eyes were glassy and we couldn’t wean the calf because she would break in and get her anyway. The consequence was to let her have them and turned them out by the woods. One of the bull calves got wild, just as wild as any wild animal. I found him one day lying on his side, dead asleep. He was so sound asleep his legs were twitching. I got down on my knees and was talking to him and when he began to move and gradually open his eyes. When he realized it was just I, he jumped up and snorted ‘Bah’ and ran away as fast as he could. I decided to tame him. I had to bring him up to the barn with all the cattle and his ma and left the door open knowing the snoopy disposition of his mamma. Both Soon, they both walked in and I watched until ma came out and then slammed the door to the big barn floor the thrashing floor, a great, big,open space. That formed the arena and the bull fight was on. I was going to walk in and lasso him. Spectators Edward Bradford, colored, 13, two years younger than I, and my cousin, Warner Titus, 8, were sitting on a beam to watch the lassooing. The calf was a year or more old and had little horns. Instead of my lassooing the calf, he chased me and over the beam I went, into the hay mow making a hairbreath escape. Meanwhile, Warner, slipped down and ran out doors by a side door, ran to the house hollering ‘Help!’ Within three or four days, however, I had that animal so he would come up to me out doors and take an ear of corn out of my hand. I wouldn’t give him nothing to eat except out of my hand. He called until he couldn’t call anymore, until his voice was gone. I set a little water in a pail, not much, inside the door and he came and drank

it and I handed him some corn, more and more at a time. I supposed the modern psychologists would call it ‘Conditioning.’ This was all done with the door open on a crack. Finally he got so I could sit in the door with the door wide open and he would come in and eat all he wanted and would come up to me anytime I would call him. We got to be great friends. I think I sold him for an ox team.Starlight and Moonlight were steers we raised from little calves. Starlight was marked the clearest I have ever seen in any animal. Moonlight was supposed to be a Holstein, was Chesnut and white in color and was as white as anything could be. Dickie was a ram and hated him. Starlight and Moonlight finally became oxen….Edward Bradford was the first to train Starlight and Moonlight. He put a little yoke on them when they were calves because he had a two wheel cart made out of wagon wheels….There was just a board for him to sit on between the two wheels. He would drive to visit his woodchuck traps, a half mile radius, driving across the green meadows, returning about sundown with one to three woodchucks hanging on the axle.Damon and Pythias were a big team of oxen that weighed 3600#, when they were thin and in good working condition. Damon would never let Pythias get a step ahead of him but would keep looking at him all the time. That team really seemed proud of what they could pull. Both were red. Damon measured 2’4” between his horns….I found Pythias one day, the night ox, who in some manner had caught his horn in the ground, which had caused him to turn half way over on his back and be impaled there. I pulled his horn out of the ground and helped him get away. That pair of cattle served us for years. There was We had a pair of oxen named Egypt and Memnon (Agamemnon). One was black as the ace of spades with horns going straight up and resembling the devil, which he was. His mate was yellow. They could jump any fence, even together with the yoke on. Egypt would get out of any place you put him. I found him in the garden one day so I took him and put him in the stable while we were at lunch. I hooked the door and put him in the stanchion and fastened him in, came out from lunch and found him in the garden so I put him back in the stable, in the stanchion, fastened him with a block of wood dropping back of the bar, then hid and quietly watched him. He listened for a time to make sure no one

was there, then raised his straight horn beside the bar block of the stanchion and pushed it up, pushing the bar out, backed out, took his horn and unhooked the door, went out in the barnyard, jumped over the barnyard gate and walked to the garden. I used to throw him when he was quite a big ox. The pair got so troublesome that I decided to take them to down to Neddie Butler’s and trade them for a Montana horse. I drove them down the 8 miles, reaching Butlers before night, driving home the Montana horse in exchange. The next morning was foggy and as I walked out toward the barn in the early hours I saw a dark spot under an apple tree in the fog and lo and behold Egypt had returned! He was chewing his cud, and both horns were sticking straight up in the fog, so I sent word to Butler and in a few days he came after him. When Egypt got tired plowing, he would lie down and rest then he would get up and go on again. You’ve no idea how oxen will figure to get something to eat and scheme for their own welfare. We used to say that cattle were like human beings, all classes, some from the aristocracy down to the most meek, like Mr. Milquetoast, apologetic if trying to even about getting something to eat. When Egypt would sleep on the furrow, Memnon would stand with his head tipped in the yoke to accomodate Egypt. Consequence was, Egypt was always fat and Memnon was always thin. Egypt was yellow colored when a calf but turned jet black when he was a year old, he was just as solid as could be.(Pages 72-73) Peter, the little pig, was very gentle, was a Berkshire, was nearly all black, one of 10 descendants of Judy, a black Berkshire sow. Peter seemed to have a great sense of self preservation and was a leader from one apple tree to another, causing little paths through the grass to be made by himself and followers. When suddenly surprised he used to go ‘Snort, snort!’ and all would run for home as fast as their little legs could carry them. Like all little pigs when they think someone is after them they go ‘Snort, snort!’ and hurry off in one direction, then suddenly turn and hurry off zig zag in another direction. Eddie Bradford was milking Leone one evening out in the barnyard, Peter then being about sixteen inches long, round and solid. It looked up wistfully at Bradford so Bradford squirted milk on Peter’s nose and Peter opened his mouth and came closer and kept drinking it in with his eyes shut as much to

say ‘How delicious!’ This was the beginning. The very next milking found a contentedly grunting little Peter traveling along toward the cow and Bradford, and he was rewarded by having milk again squirted at his nose. This kept up several days. As he got so well acquainted by this means and was such an attractive, black, clean, little thing, I trained him to sit on an upturned bucket, for which he was rewarded by grains of corn. He needed no training, however, as he was too smart all by himself. One morning Bradford reported Leone seemed to be dry mornings yet would have plenty of milk at night when she was brought from the pasture. This mystified everyone and no one was able to explain it for days. One morning I went out early in the barnyard and found Leone and the other cows still lying down and Mr. Peter, who had squeezed under the gate from his quarters, was lying down helping himself to a drink of milk from the non objecting Leone!

County Fair

(Page 171) The County Fair was held at Washington Hollow, a central location in the County, twelve miles from our place. The road led first over the Ridge, two miles from home, where we owned twenty two acres of high meadow land, lacking only five feet of being the highest point of land in Duchess County. From this meadow we could see three states, New York, Connecticut and the Berkshire hills of Massachusetts, and seven counties. On a clear day, if we looked toward the northeast with Stissing ? Mountain at the right, then toward the Hudson Valley over Hyde Park, we could see the Mountain House situated in the Catskills at a point fifty miles away. The eye could follow the Hudson River Valley from the Catskills to the Storm King and West Point below….(Pages 174-175) Out in front of these sideshow tents and between them and the Fair buildings, was the exhibition of agricultural machinery, consisting of mowing machines, plows, hay rakes, thrashing machines, the latest type of hay presses, corn shellers, cider mills, cream separators, reapers, pumps and windmills.Worming their way through the crowds were boys and young men selling round, pink balls of popcorn smudged with sticky sweets and peanuts at five cents a bag. One peanut

vendor with a nasal voice sung out, “here’s where you get your fresh roasted, humpbacked, raised on the farm of Henry Ward Beecher and picked by the forefinger of Jenny Lind and General Grant!” Another fellow was shouting “Fresh Pure lemonade, made in the shade by an old maid and stirred with a stick”…. Being least interested in the poukltry house, we always visited that first. This was an isolated building, not very high, with battened siding and shingled roof. The poultry cages were open to the outside so by going around the building the exhibits could be seen. There were also two rows down the center in the inside. In the cages were Shanghais, Buff Cochins, Dominicsques, Houdans, Plymouth Rocks, White and Brown Leghorns, turkeys and turkey gobblers, geese and ganders, ducks and drakes, Bantams, guinea hens, peacaskocks, and usually one or two pens of guinea henspigs.As was to be expected, the farmer’s wives took more interest in the poultry exhibit than the men as most of the birds had been raised by them. Snatches of their conversation would cover the beauty as well as the defects of the poultry, their diseases and the cures for ‘leg wearniness’, ‘gapes’ and other troubles. As young Mrs. Vridenburg was overheard to state to her friend, “The best way to cure the gapes is to take a loop of horse hair and run it down the chicken’s throat and fish out the worm”.The interior of the building was full of dry dust from incessant scratching. The noise was awful from the crowing, squawking and cackling. The September air was stifling, yet the ladies were dressed in their best, from black silk to calico. Some protected their finery by wearing long linen dusters and tying silk handkerchiefs|over their neck ruchings. Small straw bonnets were perched with a splatter of flowers or cherries were perched on a pile of puffs that sometimes failed to match the natural hair. Stiff corsets were creaking as their wearers bent over to examine a hen or study the prize ribbons pinned on the cages.

Nancy V. Kelly was born and grew up on Sepascot Home Farm. She is a graduate of Cornell University and has served as Rhinebeck Town Historian since 1997.

Sepascot Home Farm, through the years

by Nancy Kelly

Henry Beekman obtained a patent for land which included most of the present town of Rhinebeck in 1703. He followed a system devised during feudal times that did not transfer land in fee simple to his settlers but rather leased it in exchange for an annual payment of bushels of wheat, fowls (fat hens) and one day’s work. This applied whether the lease was forever or for the span of several lifetimes. The leasehold system, not ruled illegal until 1845, furnished generations of the Beekman family with a solid income.

Most of the first leases Henry wrote were to the Palatines, German immigrants who came to New York State in 1710. Henry began writing leases to them in 1712 and had attracted 35 of those families by 1718. It seems that Henry was quite aware of the quality of land that he made available for lease. The lots he had surveyed avoided swamp land and steep inclines. The first leases were for land in the western portion of the town, closer to the established settlement in Kipsberger (on the east bank of Hudson River, just opposite Kingston,).

By 1719 Henry was ready to lease land in the east of Rhinebeck, closer to the former native American settlement at Sepascot Lake. This land had originally been covered by the lake, with the result a rich soil type that covered an underground aquifer. Dutch families from Hurley in Ulster County were interested in Henry’s land. In 1719, he leased the land on the east side of present Route 308 to the Westfall family, and in 1721 he leased land on the west side to William Fredenburg.[1] The Sepascot Home Farm traces its beginning to that 1721 lease and has been supporting farming ever since, tracing a 300-year history.

In 1861, Robert Proper built the house we can still recognize today… and 45 years later, in 1906, Leslie Weaver and Margaret purchased this farm of 144 acres. Leslie had taken a special course in agriculture at Cornell University before their marriage and was anxious to begin using the knowledge he had gained.

A lucky break occurred when an exporter needed to board his purebred stock due to

(author’s collection)

quarantine. Soon after, he agreed to sell the purebred Guernsey cows to the Weavers at a bargain price. They immediately began a breeding program, selling prize stock to farms such as Astor’s Ferncliff and Penny’s Blue Ribbon Farm. Around 1918, Leslie began a feed business, selling from the forerunner of the wagon house (shown at right in the photo of the house) and buying eggs and butter wholesale to ship to New York. About the same time, he wrote a letter telling of prizes won for milk production and of a cow recently sold for a record price.

In 1921, he contracted blood poisoning and died within a few days, leaving Margaret (Maggie) with two girls, the younger not yet three. Maggie was determined to continue the farm, and with the help of trusty farm manager John Kimbark she was able to maintain the farm and eke out a living during the Depression. She was very proud in 1941 when she was elected President of the Dutchess County Guernsey Breeders Association. But in September of that year, her joy turned to sorrow again when the barns, which were all attached, burned to the ground and her prize breeding bulls were killed in the fire. The barn was insured and was rebuilt the following spring, but the bulls crucial to the breeding program were too valuable and could never be adequately replaced.

Front View with Guernsey herd. Author’s collection

1942 Barn, Rear View (Author’s collection)

The original farmhouse was typical of many in the area. The kitchen cook stove was fed with wood from a giant wood box located in a nearby closet. A winter’s supply of wood had been sawn with a horse-powered buzz saw, then skillfully split, and stacked in the large woodshed at the rear of the backyard. The supply in the wood box was replenished every other day and made the kitchen the focus of the large house. With the door to the dining room closed, the room retained the heat and was many degrees warmer than the rest of the house, where the large rooms were barely kept warm with several small coal stoves.

The cook stove had been a top-of-the-line purchase and occupied a place of honor in the kitchen, with a stovepipe that exuded additional heat before the smoke reached the chimney. It provided a ready supply of hot water with a reservoir on the right, which held several gallons of water.

Before central plumbing was installed in the house in 1939, water was pumped from the well in the backyard and brought to the house in buckets, filling the reservoir and waiting in a pail to serve other uses. Now, with central plumbing, hot water could be obtained at the tap, but with the heater in the basement, far from the kitchen, it could only be obtained after a long wait. The reservoir was more convenient for small quantities.

Nano, as Maggie was known, may have been one of the area’s most-respected farmers, but she couldn’t neglect the daily duties of housework, feeding her hired crew and providing repast for summer boarders. These summer boarders were a business for most large farmhouses in this area. Advertisements in New York newspapers and word of mouth provided the tourists. Sometimes they would drive their automobiles; other times, they would be picked up at the train station in Rhinecliff. Several families could be accommodated at once. There were four rooms which could be devoted to tourists. The families usually stayed for several weeks, but the father might go to his business in New York City during the week and only stay on weekends.

The hired hands, only one or two in the winter, would come in for a large breakfast before returning to their chores and daily activities. Nano made oatmeal and kept it warm at the rear of the stove. A large cast iron skillet was used to cook the crispy strips of bacon. Potatoes cooked with the previous night’s supper were cut and fried for the breakfast. When the men arrived, fried eggs would be prepared and added to the meal. In years past, there had been large work crews which expected that the morning meal would be concluded with a nice slice of pie. There was a pie safe, a large cupboard with screened doors which allowed the pies to cool but kept them safe from animals, whether rodents or hungry cats. (Editor’s note: there may have been two-legged varmints prowling around as well.)

Maggie’s older daughter, Kathryn, married Walter Vogel in 1934. They lived at the farm, raised chickens, and produced honey until Walter took over the dairy operation. In this period, Guernsey milk with high butterfat content was prized and brought an extra premium on the milk check. Kathryn’s younger sister, Thelma, married Walter Wilken, who was a partner in the GLF Feed Business in Red Hook.

Walter and Kathryn’s son Craig married Patsy Braig in 1961. Volume became more important than butterfat in terms of the milk price. Craig and Patsy joined Walter and Kathryn in the farm operation and soon determined that the purebred Guernseys

needed to be phased out and Holstein cows brought into the herd. A building program was begun to provide pole barns to house milking cows and young stock. A new milking parlor was also constructed. State-of-the-art silos contributed to the modern farming practices. When Walter retired, Craig continued with a herd numbering about 200 animals, but milk prices were falling and in 1986 he sold it off.

Craig’s sister Nancy and her husband, Arthur Kelly, purchased the farm in 1986, but they had lived on a portion of the original 144 acres at the back of the farm since 1964. Their daughter Susan began to live in the farmhouse after her graduation from college. She acquired a herd of llamas and then added other animals, including a horse, goats, sheep, and chickens. She and her husband, Chris Fitzgerald, sold hay, 100% grass-fed beef, pasture-raised pigs, and poultry as well as raw cow and goat milk. Susan also opened the farm up to children in the area and offered summer camp to the littlest future farmers. The farm retained almost 100 of the original acres.

By 2019, the majority of the large farms in the area had given up dairy and were being divided. Sadly, this was also the fate of the Sepascot Farm.

[1] As

shown by the 1786 map of the Sepascoot Tract, NYS Library.

Elizabeth “Betsy” Strauss has served on the board of the Amenia Historical Society for 16 years and has recently accepted a position as the Town of Amenia Historian. Betsy has also served on the Dutchess County Historical Society board of trustees for several years and was honored in 2018 as the DCHS recipient of the Helen Wilkinson Reynolds Award for her in-depth historical research.

Fairs and Horses: the Agricultural Societies

of Late 19th Century Eastern Dutchess County

by Betsy Strauss

Five remarkable interconnected families were instrumental in establishing an annual agricultural fair in the Amenia area that flourished from 1871 to 1892. Through their creation and direction of the Eastern Dutchess Agricultural Society and its successor, the Eastern Dutchess Agricultural Park Association, local residents and visitors from farther afield shared in the fun and excitement of an annual celebration of the area’s bounty for more than 20 years.[1]

Of course, folks from Dutchess County know that the first county fair was held at Washington Hollow three decades earlier, in 1842. For more than 40 years, the fair was held at that mid-county location; then from 1888 until 1918, it was at the Hudson River Driving Park in Poughkeepsie. The next year, the Dutchess County Fair moved to Rhinebeck, where it has been happily situated ever since.[2]

However, one might be surprised to learn that there was an even earlier effort to create an annual agricultural exhibition in the county. According to a December 26, 1903, article in Amenia Times titled “The First Dutchess County Agricultural Society,” a century earlier, in March of 1806, “a Society of Dutchess County for the Promotion of Agriculture” was established in

Poughkeepsie. An august group of men from across the county met twice a year to direct the association and to plan the spring and fall exhibitions of agricultural crops and livestock. Just how many such semi-annual events took place is not known, but the published brochures for the fairs of 1807 and 1809 were still in existence at the time this little bit of county history was revived for the Amenia newspaper in 1903.[3]

Family Connections

Barney Bartram was a congenial, public-spirited man, full of energy and enterprise. After at least 25 years of hustling cattle in the New York City livestock market, Barney married and eventually settled down in Amenia in the 1860s. He served on the Board of Directors of the Amenia Seminary while managing two large farms in Amenia and in Danbury, Connecticut.[4] Given his expertise in cattle and his leadership abilities, it was not surprising that in 1871 he was elected as the first president of the Eastern Dutchess Agricultural Society.

Born in Redding, Connecticut, in 1808, Barney Bartram was a cattle drover as a young man. Each Thursday, he would gather the fat cattle he had purchased from local farmers and drive them on foot to New York City, arriving on Monday, which was market day.[5] He soon became a cattle broker, acquiring and

New York Daily Tribune, 8/6/1857, Barney Bartram Selling Cattle)

selling steers from Ohio, while residing in New York City. It was there that he met the Culvers, the Shermans, and other cattle dealers from the Amenia area.[6]

Backus Culver was a large landowner in Dutchess County, owning prosperous farms in both Pine Plains and Amenia. His nine children were assets to him as well, since they were well educated and married into good families. Laura Culver, although 25 years younger than Barney Bartram, became his wife in 1856. The couple lived in New York City in the wintertime, but during the warmer months they resided at Hillside Farm in Amenia. They frequently entertained guests from the city at their grand mansion on the southern end of Depot Hill Road.[7]

Bartram’s Hillside Farm, 30-room Mansion on 540 acres, AHS Collection

The Culver family was central to the organization of the Eastern Dutchess Agricultural Society (EDAS) through marriages and neighborhood connections. In 1867, Laura’s sister Lavinia married a neighbor, William H. Bartlett, a Civil War veteran and

store clerk. William served as the Secretary of EDAS and within its reorganized society, the Eastern Dutchess Agricultural Park Association (EDAPA), for a total of 18 years.[8]

Dudley G. Culver, another of Lavinia’s siblings, became the president of the EDAPA in 1885, continuing until its dissolution in 1892. Dudley was a cattle dealer, too, and in 1860, at the age of 19, he was a business partner with his brother-in-law, Barney Bartram.[9]

In 1864, Walter B. Culver, another son of Backus Culver, married the daughter of Ambrose Mygatt. Mr. Mygatt served on the boards of directors of the Amenia Seminary, the Amenia Bank, the Presbyterian Church and EDAS.[10] Walter and his wife Harriet resided in her family home near Sharon Station and raised their children in that location.[11]

Another daughter of Ambrose Mygatt, Mary Ann, married John Franklin Mead, a farmer on Perry’s Corners Road. Their son, Frank Presson Mead, married Barney and Laura Bartram’s daughter Laura Belle in 1882. Frank and Belle inherited the Hillside Farm mansion and carried on its reputation of hospitality for many years.[12]

John Franklin Mead’s brother, Dr. Isaac N. Mead, a Civil War veteran and partner with William H. Bartlett in the Amenia store Bartlett & Mead, married Julia Mygatt, daughter of Abram P. Mygatt, the brother of Ambrose.[13]

The Eastern Dutchess Agricultural Society

The beginnings of “The Eastern Dutchess Agricultural Society,” founded in Amenia in 1871, were recorded in a large, leatherbound account book which is now in the possession of the Dutchess County Historical Society.[14]

Page 1 of the record book bears the heading, “Articles of Association,” and declares that the undersigned citizens of the United States, namely, Barney Bartram, Abiah W. Palmer, Isaac

Record Book of Eastern Dutchess Agricultural Society, DCHS Collection

N. Mead, Ambrose Mygatt, Henry Mygatt, Wm H. Bartlett, John W. Putnam, Egbert Vincent, Hiram Cooper, Burnet H. Wheeler, George T. Willson and Peter Pratt…this day have associated ourselves into a town Agricultural Society… for the encouragement of agricultural and mechanical pursuits, such as the breeding and raising of stock, the raising of crops, the improvement of land, the invention and improvement of agricultural implements and other like purposes, by the offering of premiums for the exhibition of the same… Dated July 3, 1871, Philip Wells, Notary Public.[15]

Page 2 continues with “Appointment of Officers”:

At a meeting of the directors of the Eastern Dutchess Agricultural Society held at the First National Bank of Amenia on the 19th of July 1871, were elected Ambrose Mygatt, chairman; Barney Bartram, president; three vice-presidents: Hyatt Frost, Burnet H. Wheeler and John Goodwin; secretary-treasurer, Philip Wells; Wm H. Bartlett, assistant secretary-treasurer. The directors included Ambrose Mygatt, Hiram Cooper, Abiah W. Palmer, Wm H. Bartlett, Egbert Vincent and J.W. Putnam.[16]

Page 3 contains a hand-written copy of the “Lease from Mary Ingraham and A.B. Rice, Guardian, to Barney Bartram.” This lease was for the rental of 25 acres of Ingraham property, “the said premises to be used as fair grounds and show ground with an exercising track with all the usual privileges thereof.” More details were specified by the owners regarding trees and a right of way. The term of the lease was for ten years, from May 1, 1871, with a yearly rent of $300, which was to be paid on the first of November to Mary Ingraham until her decease and then to A.B. Rice, Guardian of Henry Rice, Mary Ingraham’s grandson. The lease was notarized on June 8, 1871, by Philip Wells, Notary Public.[17]

Barney Bartram transferred the lease to the Directors of Eastern Dutchess Agricultural Society and their successors on September 5, 1871. The transaction was notarized on that date by George H. Swift, Notary Public.[18]

Plans for the First Annual Eastern Dutchess Agricultural Fair

The next section in the record book for EDAS includes the minutes of each meeting.

1871, July 29 – The officers met at Pratt’s Hotel to plan the First Annual EDAS Fair to be held October 17-19.

Premiums were established for horses, cattle, and sheep. Superintendents were chosen for the following divisions:

Fruits – Peter B. Powers

Cattle – George T. Willson

Swine, Sheep, etc. – Henry Mygatt

Horses – F. H. Morse

Ladies Department – Mrs. Peter B. Powers [19]

Newspapers in several Dutchess towns touted the anticipated success of the First Annual EDAS Fair prior to the actual event. The Hudson Weekly Register informed the public a month before the fair that the fairgrounds were almost ready; the buildings

and the track were near completion.[20]

The Poughkeepsie Daily Eagle quoted the Amenia Times, which stated that there had been great interest in the fair from the surrounding towns and that special trains would be available for fair goers. The Daily Eagle wished the fair organizers well and promised to report on the event. [21] Unfortunately, no report on that first fair was included in the minutes, nor found in my search of old newspapers.

We can only assume that the first annual fair in Amenia came off successfully, as expected, because by November 29, 1871, at a meeting of the Society, it was business as usual. The election of officers took place, adding several new vice-presidents and directors to the group. Barney Bartram remained president.

Edwin Thorne, James Landon and D.L. Belden joined B.H. Wheeler and Hyatt Frost as vice-presidents. (author’s note: Hyatt Frost was the manager, and eventually the owner, of the famous VanAmburg Circus, which wintered its circus animals at the Amenia Fairgrounds.) William H. Bartlett took up the pen as the official secretary, with Egbert Vincent as his assistant. Philip Wells remained in the office of treasurer. Two new directors, Theodore Wheeler of Dover and Dr. Wm K. Knight of Sharon, Connecticut, joined Mygatt, Cooper, Putnam and Palmer as directors of EDAS.[22]

Aerial view of Amenia Fairgrounds & Race Track, AHS Collection

Report on Second Annual Fair

A report on the second annual Eastern Dutchess Fair did make the newspapers. The Red Hook Journal of Sunday, September 8, 1872, announced that over 5,000 people attended the fair the previous Wednesday.[23] The New York Times, on Sept. 7, 1872,

1876 Map of Amenia, Fairground in, center, Hillside Farm at lower edge Gray & Davis Atlas of Dutchess County

carried a lengthy article warning the general public about the many swindlers who descend like vultures upon unsuspecting fair goers each year to fleece them of their hard-earned cash. Amenia’s Eastern Dutchess Fair was cited as the most recent example of such tricksters at work. Apparently, the situation in Amenia was so annoying the local police had to be called on the scene to drive the rascals off the grounds.[24]

In 1874, an added attraction to the Eastern Dutchess Fair was a hot air balloon ascension. The Red Hook Journal also reported that the “Floral and Agricultural Halls were filled, the show of cattle, sheep, etc., was very creditable, and the trotting was probably as good as (that seen) at either of the county exhibitions heretofore held.”[25]

The Attraction of the Track

Horse races at the annual fair were a big draw for the crowds. Unlike the $1 or $2 premiums for prize-winners in the departments of livestock, creative handiwork and fruits and vegetables, the premiums, or “purses,” for the horse entries, were hundreds of dollars, totaling quite a lot of money for all of the various entries. In fact, the total of premiums offered for the 1873 fair was $6,500.[26]

Eastern Dutchess Agricultural Society was represented in the National Trotting Association, advertising a Spring Meeting and later a Fall Meeting, which would coincide with the Eastern Dutchess Fair. These trotting races at Amenia were advertised according to the type of competition and the amount of the purse. EDAS officers who participated in the trotting circuits of the region with horses of their own were Barney Bartram, Peter Pratt (owner of the Pratt House in Amenia), and Edwin Thorne of Millbrook.[27]

One might wonder if the desire to have a local track for horse racing was not the real reason the Eastern Dutchess Agricultural Society was formed, rather than the stated goal of agricultural advancement. Is it merely coincidental that Barney Bartram and company birthed the EDAS the same year that the National Trotting Association, the Grand Circuit, was established?

Granted, an agricultural fair in the eastern portion of the county would have been welcomed by farm families who found it difficult to travel to Poughkeepsie, or even to Washington Hollow, to participate in a three-day fair. Indeed, local agriculture could have been the motivation behind the creation of the Eastern Dutchess Agricultural Society and its annual

Ad for 1873 Fall Trotting Event in The Spirit of the Times, National Trotting Association Publication

fair in Amenia. But from its inception, the trotting was a vital part. Harness racing had emerged as a popular sport among the wealthy classes in New England and New York, and there were men in Amenia who traveled far and wide to attend the races.

An interesting ad in the New York Spirit of the Times, May 1,1886, promoted the following:

EASTERN DUTCHESS AGRICULTURAL PARK, AMENIA, N.Y.

– We invite gentlemen and all those handling horses to handle their horses on our track in the coming season.

We have good stables and one of the best half-mile tracks in the country.

The soil is of a nature that horses do not get sore. No charges; use of stables and track free.

All communications addressed to W.H. Bartlett, Secretary, Amenia, N.Y.

D.G. Culver, President [28]

Fair Activities

At a meeting of the Society on November 9, 1875, held as usual at the Pratt House, the income from the annual fair was reported and recorded in the minutes. The receipts were $1267.74, the expenditures were $1690.76, with an unpaid balance of $423.02. This amount of debt may not have worried the officers and stockholders, but the record of additional debt certainly might have.

Additional outstanding debt was itemized as follows: Interest due Charles Darke semi-annually on a $9,000 note – $315 Amount due B. Bartram – $25; fair grounds rent – $300; note in bank – $500

Total floating debt, including the fair deficit – $1,563.02 [29]

In the summer of 1878, Barney Bartram died and his neighbor and vice-president, B.H. Wheeler, became the president of EDAS.[30]

The Eighth Annual Fair took place on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday, September 3, 4 and 6, 1878. The Amenia Times published a lengthy report on its successes and its troubles. Because of stormy weather on the Thursday, the fair concluded

on Friday. The weather diminished the financial receipts over all, but everyone was satisfied with the exhibits and the amusements.[31] The article went on to say that the Floral Hall was filled with beautiful arrangements. The displays of artwork included oil painting, charcoal, pencil drawings, and framed photos. Handicrafts included entries in wax work, hair work, shell work, seed work, and grasses, as well as leather, woodworking, and inlaid wood designs called Sorrento work. Silk bed quilts, crocheted coverlets, and embroidered rugs were just some of the needlework entries.[32]

The Agricultural Hall had displays of fruit of all types and sizes. The winner of the best collection of fruit, Mr. C.R.C. Masten of Pleasant Valley, displayed 22 varieties of apples, 12 varieties of pears, 25 varieties of peaches, 70 varieties of plums and ten varieties of grapes.

The competition among cattle was “fair.” The display of horses, however, was very large and fine. Among the few farm implements exhibited, there was a wooden land roller, a farm gate, a fanning mill, and a farm wagon. The horse races were

Peter Pratt and His Fine-Looking Horse, c. 1905, AHS Collection

close and exciting, because the horses were so evenly matched. One of the purses had to be shared, due to a tie.[33]

The treasurer’s report following the 1878 fair was only a bit more encouraging than that of 1875. The receipts totaled $1248.44 and expenditures were $1231.81, with a profit of $16.62 to put in the bank. The fairground rent to be paid to Mr. A.B. Rice was still $300, and this expense was offset by $100 paid to the Society by Hyatt Frost for the use of a building to house the circus animals during the winter and by $75 rent paid to the Society by Mr. E.B. Thompson, who harvested hay from the property. [34]

In 1879, at the meeting held at Pratts Hotel on December 10 for the election of officers for the ensuing year, the secretary noted that a report of the fall fair of 1879 and the treasurer’s report “were accepted as follows.” However, in the record book nothing more was written. In fact, no further annual meetings were recorded at all until 1885, when the Society was reestablished and given a new name.[35]

We know that there were fairs in the intervening years, because there were articles in the Amenia Times. An article from September 4, 1882, announced, “The following are entries for the trotting purses offered by the Eastern Dutchess Agricultural Society at their fair at Amenia on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of this week, Sept. 5th, 6th and 7th.”[36]

The 13th and 14th Annual Fairs

The following year, a complete listing of all of the premiums given at the 13th Annual Fair filled the pages of Amenia Times on September 8, 1883, from G.H. Davidson’s first prize of 50 cents for his Silver Pheasants, to C.S. Wing’s first prize of $4.00 for his Bay Clydesdale Stallion. Mr. C.R.C. Masten once again took first prize for his collection of varied fruits, displaying 221 plates of different varieties of apples, pears, plums, etc.[37]

Bartlett & Mead had a very large display of agricultural farm implements, including a Walter A. Wood mowing machine, a Walter A. Wood reaper, a Perry spring-tooth harrow, a Buckley

potato hoer & digger, a Buckley double-shovel plow, and many more items. The first prize, however, went to Frank Baylis for his hay carrier, praised for its ease of putting up and hoisting hay, with a swinging track.

The trotting was reported to have been very good throughout the three days of the fair. However, on Wednesday, shortly after the trotting commenced, “the selling of pools and beer was stopped, owing to the action of certain parties who threatened” to sue the Society if it did not cease.[38]

(Author’s note: One can only speculate as to the threat of a lawsuit. This year the races and accompanying beer drinking occurred at the same time as the onset of the fall term at nearby Amenia Seminary, a Methodist boarding school, whose bylaws strictly forbade gambling and the consumption of alcohol amongst its students.)[39]

The 14th Annual Fair of the Eastern Dutchess Agricultural Society, as posted in Amenia Times, was scheduled for September 2-4, 1884, with the Millerton Band providing rousing music for the event. All of the many and varied exhibits and attractions were bound to be better than ever, was the prediction. A listing of all the trotting entries and purses were given in detail.[40]

The New “Eastern Dutchess Agricultural Park Association”

Following the 1884 fair, however, a reorganization of the Society took place. In the next several pages of the old record book, the formation of the new “Eastern Dutchess Agricultural Park Association” was laid out: its constitution, its by-laws and a roster of its stockholders.[41]

The constitution of the Association was adopted on June 20, 1885. The defined purpose of the organization was essentially the same as that of the previous society, i.e., “to promote and advance Agriculture and Horticulture in the eastern and middle towns of Dutchess County, N.Y., and Litchfield County, Conn.”

However, the addition of the word “Park” in the name chosen by the group definitely signaled the great importance of horse racing for the Association. “Driving Parks,” as they were called, were designed for trotting and scattered across the country, as shown in Spirit of the Times, the publication of the National Trotting Association.[42]

The section of the constitution having to do with membership stated that “Any person of good character can become a member of the Association…for one year by payment of a sum not exceeding $1.50.” Only paid members had the right to exhibit and to compete for premiums at all the fairs of the Association.[43]

In regard to exhibits, “All animals and articles to be exhibited must belong to and live at the homes of the exhibitors in Dutchess or Litchfield counties.” This regulation did not seem to apply, however, to the entries for trotting. The horses and owners could be from any location so long as they were members of the National Trotting Association.[44]

The stockholders of the Eastern Dutchess Agricultural Park Association (EDAPA) were listed in the record book by name, address and the amount of shares each owned. There were 56, though several of the names were added at a later date. Twenty were from Amenia, six from Wassaic, six from Dover Plains, two from Pawling, three from Millbrook, three from Millerton, three from Pine Plains, two from Poughkeepsie, one from Bangall, four from New York City, three from Columbia County and three from Sharon, CT. [45]

A meeting for the election of officers was held on June 6, 1885. Since this was the first election, and in the middle of the year, the new officers would hold their office until November 1, 1886: president – Dudley G. Culver; the six vice-presidents included David H. Sherman, George Williams, Wm L. Tanner, Albert M. Card, Wm O. Wheeler, and Albert C. Smith; secretary – William H. Bartlett; treasurer – Lewis F. Eaton. The directors included Miles K. Lewis, George T. Willson, Walter B. Culver, Philo R.

Cline, George T. Belding and David Bryan.[46]

The First Annual EDAPA Fair

On July 11, 1885, the officers met to approve the premiums list and to set the dates of the first Annual Fair of the EDAPA for September 1-3, 1885.[47] In the newspapers that same week, there were articles about the upcoming fair. Amenia Times announced that the Trotting Circuit of the Gentlemen’s Driving Park of Pawling and the Eastern Dutchess Park Association together held a total of $2,500 in purses for the races in Pawling on Aug. 25-27 and in Amenia on Sept. 1-3. The program for each day was listed.[48]

The Pawling Pioneer enthusiastically anticipated the great success of the first annual fair and cattle show of the Eastern Dutchess Agricultural Park Association:

This association has been reorganized this year with a large capital and comprises among its members some of the leading farmers … Hon. John H. Dutcher and Hon. D.H. Sherman …will have some fine cattle there on exhibition. …new buildings … and driving track in proper order … no expense has been spared … The trotting will be

Horses and Buggies at the Amenia Fairgrounds, c. 1902, AHS Collection

unusually fine….

Additional attractions highlighted in the article included baseball games, band music, refreshments, and half-price tickets for the train, including admission to the fair, would be sold by the Harlem Railroad at all stations from Mt. Kisco to Chatham.[49]

The minutes in the record book reported that the First Annual Fair of 1885 was a great success. “The new buildings, the neat appearance of everything, the large exhibit and many attractions drew forth loudest praise from the multitudes attending each day. Total receipts $2,832.42.”[50]

The Second and Third EDAPA Fairs

The Second Annual Fair of the EDAPA won even greater praise. On September 8, 1886, the Newburgh Daily proclaimed,

The Eastern Dutchess Fair opened brilliantly at Amenia yesterday, and the exhibition of cattle was one of the finest ever seen in this country. Exhibitors of Holsteins were John B. Dutcher, D.H. Sherman and Mrs. L. Barnum; of Alderneys, C.W. Barnum, J.D. Wing and D.B. Haight. The trotting was for 4-year-olds. Ada D. won in three straight heats. Time – 2:49 ¾; 2:50; 2:54.[51]

In preparation for the Third Annual Fair in 1887, the Executive Committee of the Association met at the Pratt House on June 18, 1887. The secretary reported that he had made arrangements (as directed in a previous meeting on June 4) for a circuit with the Pawling, Hudson and Chatham Trotting Associations, each track offering purses amounting to $1,250.[52]

On August 6, 1887, the Executive Committee met again at the Pratt House. The treasurer reported that he had made arrangements (as directed in a previous meeting on July 9) for the baseball games for the fair. The “Cuban Giants” and the Danbury clubs were to play on the second day of the fair and the local “nines” were to play matches on the first and the last

days of the fair. He also arranged for special trains on both the Harlem and the NY & Massachusetts railroads.[53]

A report of the Third Annual Fair was added to the record book as follows:

The attendance was large. Exhibits in all departments very large and fine. In registered stock (cattle) there was a magnificent showing (over 90 head). C.W. Barnum showed a mammoth pair of steers weighing 5,600 #, finest and largest ever seen in this section. Joseph Field exhibited four very fat steers, weighing about 2,000 # each. In the trotting purses there were 105 entries and some of the finest trotting ever seen here took place. The baseball game and other special features attracted a great number of people.

On Wednesday, the second day of the Fair, a very heavy shower came up and many were wet through in getting home, which kept many from coming the third day and materially lessened the receipts. Everything passed off smoothly and satisfactorily.[54]

The Fourth Annual Fair

On March 24, 1888, a meeting of the officers was held at the Pratt House. A vote was taken to amend the constitution, enlarging the number of vice-presidents to 20 or less, which carried. Ten men from towns other than Amenia were elected as additional vice-presidents. Perhaps this was done to encourage a wider participation and, also, greater financial contributions. All of the men were stockholders, even if some only owned one share of stock.[55]

At a meeting on May 17, 1888, the officers voted to increase the sum of the trotting purses by $100 to $1,350. The dates of the fair were changed to September 11-13.[56]

Although there is no report in the record book of the fair of 1888, the Amenia Times offered ahead of time their expectations for its success in the newspaper edition of August 13. The article was filled with the usual superlatives: “splendid,” “finest,” “larger,” “some of the best”. On the Wednesday of the fair, September 12, Lieut. Governor Edward F. Jones was to give an address, while on the following day there was to be a cavalcade of exhibition stock, led by two bands playing music. Mule and mustang races, baseball games, and music were to be counted on every day.[57]

Getting Organized

Something unforeseen must have occurred between the fair of 1888 and Spring 1889. Instead of the officers of the EDAPA holding their usual Spring meeting to plan the next fair, there was a notice in the Amenia Times on May 13, 1889, issuing a call for assistance from the general public, “all who are interested (in helping to plan the fair), whether stockholders of the Eastern Dutchess Agricultural Park Association or not” to meet later that month at the Pratt House.[58]

What transpired to make such a change in routine is not known. It was certainly uncharacteristic of the leadership of the Association and even conflicted with the duties of the executive committee as written in their constitution. It may be that by increasing the number of vice-presidents so drastically the year

before, the usual balance of power among the officers was thrown off completely and a reassignment of duties needed to take place.

The Amenia Times reported the following year, that on June 14, 1890, a meeting was held at the Pratt House for the purpose of planning the Sixth Annual EDAPA Fair. The following statement about the meeting was written by the new secretary of the organization, Charles Walsh, who was also the editor of the newspaper:

Much unity and enthusiasm was manifested and a great deal of important preliminary business was dispatched. A general committee to drum up exhibits and awaken interest in fair matters was appointed from the different towns in this section.[59]

The fair committee was huge. The Times listed their names and the town or hamlet of origin. There were six men from the village of Amenia, six from Northeast and six from Sharon, Conn. There were variously 2-4 men from each of the following towns or hamlets: Amenia City (aka Smithfield), Amenia Union, Stanford, Dover Plains, Lime Rock, Lakeville, Lithgow, Pine Plains and Pulver’s Corners; one man was from Millbrook. There were 42 members on the committee, plus 14 men who were assigned to oversee the livestock and horticulture committees. The superintendents who in the previous year had been in charge of baseball, bicycling and bands were reappointed. The ladies were asked to look after their departments, as they had in the past. The purses for trotting were listed. Additional competitions and premiums were planned for the cow with the most milk production throughout the three-day fair, for an owner’s skill and strength, and for the best-arranged display of beneficial worms and insects.[60]

From the looks of that report, one could say that EDAPA was back on track and fully organized for the Sixth Annual Fair. The Poughkeepsie Daily Eagle announced on September 16, 1890, that the recent fair cleared $200 in receipts, after expenses were

The Seventh and Eighth Annual Fairs

The seventh Annual Fair was scheduled for September 1-3, 1891. The Pine Plains Register Herald of August 28 gave a complete rundown of the fair schedule, announcing the balloon ascent that was going to be a special attraction for the Wednesday and Thursday afternoons. The cattle shows and the trotting entries were expected to be superb.[62]

The following year’s EDAPA fair promised to be another grand event to be held August 30-Sept. 1. The New York Times of September 1, 1892, reported that on the second day of the fair, “the weather was fine and the attendance very large. The prize stock gathered there this year has attracted universal attention. The articles and stock in all departments excel those of previous years.” [63]

Financial Woes

It looked as if EDAPA was doing fine at the time of the Eighth Annual Fair, but an announcement in the Poughkeepsie Daily Eagle on September 6, 1892, just a few days after the fair, revealed the EDAPA had sold the fairgrounds in Amenia to David S. Hammond of New York City. The article broadcast the sad headlines:

No More Fairs to Be Held at Amenia. David Hammond Buys the Property -- Mr. Hammond is a lover of fast horses and will turn the fairgrounds into a stock farm. The grounds comprise about 30 acres, a handsome two-story exhibition hall, stable room for forty horses…, and also indicated the other benefits of the place.[64]

Evidently, although not written in the minutes, either EDAS or EDAPA had at some point purchased the fairgrounds from A.B. Rice and Henry Rice. EDAPA must have purchased about five more acres, probably from George Morgan, a neighboring farmer, whom EDAPA had approached for land in May of 1886.

Fading Away

Each year, at the annual meeting, the results of the election of officers were recorded in the minutes. But after the 1888 meeting, no other items of business were mentioned in them until 1895. Was EDAPA in decline even then? The 1892 fair was the last fair sponsored by the association even though it continued to hold trotting events at the fairgrounds for a few more years.

The Poughkeepsie Daily Eagle of May 21, 1894, stated that Peter Pratt was “leasing the old fairgrounds and having the track put in condition for exercising his colts.”[66] A few months later, the New York Spirit of Times announced that a three-day trotting event was scheduled for August 7-9, 1894, at the Eastern Dutchess Agricultural Park.[67]

The Poughkeepsie Daily Eagle had this to say the following year, on August 6, 1895:

Mr. & Mrs. Peter Pratt and Horses, AHS Collection

The Eastern Dutchess Agricultural Park Association will make a specialty of bicycle racing at their trotting meeting the first week in September. A three-mile relay race, open to teams of all towns in this section, will be a prominent feature. A handsome, large silver cup, gold-lined and suitably inscribed will be the prize offered.[68]

No mention was made of the annual agricultural fair. It was now a thing of the past.

The record book provides us with the minutes of only two more meetings of EDAPA.

On December 31, 1895, a special meeting of the Association was held. The following resolution was offered and unanimously passed: “Resolved – That the Society execute a mortgage on real estate belonging to said Society of $1800 to secure the payment of $1800 in bonds now existing and owed by said Society.”[69]

This resolution about a mortgage prompts more questions than it answers as to how the association was winding down. Did it own additional real estate? Could it have sold the fairgrounds, but not the track?

The last entry in the EDAPA record book is that of September 7, 1897:

The annual meeting of the Association was held at the office of Willson & Eaton, Amenia. Six Stockholders were present. The following were elected: Pres - D.G. Culver; Vice-Presidents – D. H. Sherman, Oakleigh Thorne, A.M. Card, John E. Dutcher and C.W. Barnum; Sec. – Charles Walsh; Treas. – L.F. Eaton; Directors for 2-year term – John M. Haskins & M.K. Lewis; for 3-year term –W.B. Culver & Chas Walsh.

At this meeting, one other item of business was recorded: “The motion was made and carried that the renewal lease, on expiration of present lease, be by bid or open competition and the same be made to the highest bidder.”[70] Again, more questions arise. What lease? Between what two parties?

On September 4, 1898, the Amenia Fire Department held a “Grand Field Day” at the fairgrounds.[71] For several years, the Grand Field day was an annual event, and it usually included trotting races. [72]

In 1899, written on Pratt House stationary, is a receipt dated Oct. 28, 1899.

Received of Peter Pratt— The sum of five hundred dollars ($500), the same being twenty percent of purchase price of Fair Grounds in Amenia Signed- T. R. Goodenough, Clerk [73]

David S. Hammond died of a heart attack just six months later, in

April 1900. Peter Pratt, an Amenia trotting enthusiast and hotel1899 10-28 Peter Prat Purchased Fair Grounds, AHS Collection

owner, continued to use the fairgrounds for his horses until his death in 1925.

In conclusion, one would surmise, by reading between the lines, that the Eastern Dutchess Agricultural Park Association was not able to bring in enough revenue from the agricultural fair and from the trotting circuit to continue. The competition from other fairs and from other driving parks in the area brought an end to the grand enterprise in Amenia that had begun with Barney Bartram in 1871. Twenty-two annual fairs were held during the years that the two agricultural organizations were active and successful, with the last Eastern Dutchess Fair held in 1892.

ENDNOTES

[1] Record Book of Eastern Dutchess Agricultural Society, p.68, DCHS Collection

[2] Melodye Moore, Dutchess County Fairs: Sustaining a Great Tradition through Times of Trial,” Northern Dutchess News, June 10, 2020

[3] “The First Dutchess County Agricultural Society,” Amenia Times, Dec. 26, 1903

[4] “Obituary, Barney Bartram,” Amenia Times, July 1, 1878

[5] “Fairfield County, Redding, Fifty Years Ago,” Newtown Bee, February 3, 1899

[6] “Livestock Market,” New York Times, July 9, 1857 & March 22, 1855

[7] “$30,000 Fire Saturday Morning,” Harlem Valley Times, May 27, 1927

[8] “W. H. Bartlett, Dies at 88,” HVT, November 3,1927

[9] “Dudley Gregory Culver,” HVT, August 23, 1913

[10] “Death of Ambrose Mygatt,” Amenia Times, July 7, 1884

[11] “Walter B. Culver,” Commemorative Biographical Record of Dutchess County, p.590

[12] “Obituary, Franklin P. Mead,” Amenia Times, December 20, 1919

[13] “Dr. Isaac N. Mead,” Commemorative Biographical Record of Dutchess Co., p. 422

[14] Record Book of Eastern Dutchess Agricultural Society, DCHS Collection

[15] op.cit., Record Book, p. 1

[16] Ibid., p. 2

[17] Ibid., p. 3

[18] Ibid., p. 5

[19] Ibid., p. 6

[20] “From Amenia,” Hudson Weekly Register, September 9, 1871

[21] “Eastern Dutchess Agricultural Fair in Amenia,” Poughkeepsie Daily

Eagle, Sept. 28, 1871

[22] op. cit., Record Book, p. 10

[23] “Eastern Dutchess Fair,” Red Hook Journal, September 8, 1872

[24] “Doing the Fairs,” New York Times, September 7, 1872

[25] “The Eastern Dutchess Fair,” Red Hook Journal, October 3, 1974

[26] “Fall Meeting, Eastern Dutchess Association,” Spirit of the Times, October 1, 1873

[27] “Eastern Dutchess Association, Spring Meeting, Spirit of the Times, May 1, 1875

[28] “Trainers are Invited,” Spirit of the Times, May 1, 1886

[29] op.cit., Record Book, pp. 18-19

[30] Ibid., p. 26

[31] “Eastern Dutchess Fair,” Amenia Times, September 9, 1878

[32] Ibid.

[33] Ibid.

[34] op. cit., Record Book, pp. 26-27

[35] Ibid., p. 28

[36] “Trotting Entries – E.D.A.S,” Amenia Times, September 4, 1882

[37] “Eastern Dutchess Fair,” Amenia Times, September 8, 1883

[38] Ibid.

[39] 1843 Amenia Seminary Catalog, pp. 30-31, Amenia Times Pub., AHS Collection

[40] “Eastern Dutchess Fair,” Amenia Times, September 1, 1884

[41] op.cit., Record, pp. 33-53

[42] “Driving Parks,” Spirit of the Times, May 1, 1886

[43] op.cit., Record Book, pp. 35-37

[44] Third Fair & Cattle Show, Eastern Dutchess Agricultural Park Association, Amenia, N.Y., September 6th, 7th and 8th, 1887, p. 15

[45] op.cit., Record Book, pp. 51-53

[46] Ibid., p. 55

[47] Ibid., p. 57

[48] “Trotting Circuit,” Amenia Times, July 15, 1885

[49] “The Amenia Fair,” Pawling Pioneer, August 26, 1885

[50] op.cit., Record Book, p. 59

[51] “The Eastern Dutchess Fair” Newburgh Daily Register, September 8, 1886

[52] op.cit., Record Book, p. 64

[53] Ibid., p. 64

[54] Ibid., p. 65

[55] Ibid., p. 66

[56] Ibid., p. 66

[57] “Eastern Dutchess Fair,” Amenia Times, August 13, 1888

[58] “Amenia,” Poughkeepsie Daily Eagle, May 17, 1889

[59] “Eastern Dutchess Fair,” Amenia Times, June21, 1890

[60] Ibid.

[61] “Amenia,” Poughkeepsie Daily Eagle, September 16, 1890

[62] “Eastern Dutchess Fair at Amenia, Pine Plains Register Herald, August 28, 1891

[63] “A Successful Fair,” New York Times, September 1,1892

[64] “Fair Grounds Sold,” Poughkeepsie Daily Eagle, September 6, 1892

[65] op.cit., Record Book, pp. 59-61

[66] “Amenia,” Poughkeepsie Daily Eagle. May 21, 1894

[67] “Amenia, NY, Eastern Dutchess Agricultural Park,” Spirit of the Times, May 1, 1894

[68] “Bicycle Racing in Eastern Dutchess,” Poughkeepsie Daily Eagle, August 6, 1895

[69] op.cit., Record Book, p. 69

[70] Ibid.

[71] “Grand Field Day,” Millbrook Round Table, September 4, 1898

[72] “Sixth Annual Field Day,” Amenia Times, August 18, 1906

[73] October 28, 1899, Peter Pratt Purchased Fair Grounds, AHS Collection

Transporting Clean, Cold, Pure Farm Milk: “Milk Spoils Quickly”

by John Desmond

[Editor’s note: You’ve probably heard the expression “a milk train” many times. While it conjures up something moving very slowly, milk trains were actually intended to move something very quickly, or at least more quickly than it had ever been transported before—milk, not surprisingly.

In the excerpt below from pages 48-50 of their book Hopewell Junction: A Railroader’s Town (Albany, NY: State University Press of New York, 2022, www.sunypress.edu; used with permission), John Desmond and Bernard Rudberg show how the developing taste buds of 19th century New York City had an impact on industries supporting agriculture in Dutchess County. Bernard L. Rudberg (1932-2016) was a railroad aficionado and grandson and great-grandson of railroad men in Sweden. He served as President and Historian Emeritus of the Hopewell Depot Restoration group and as Vice-President of the Dutchess County Genealogical Society. John M. Desmond is Professor Emeritus of English at Dutchess Community College. He serves as a member of the board of the Hopewell Junction Museum. He co-authored Adaptation: Studying Film and Literature.]

During the nineteenth century, the population of American cities obviously increased. The inhabitants’ desire for high-quality milk not-so-obviously increased also. In Milk Trains and Traffic, Jeff Wilson explains why they desired high-quality milk:

Although some cows were kept in large cities, the lack of grazing fields and low quality feed they were given (often spent mash from breweries) resulted in “swill milk,” which often had an off-taste and odor—and that was even when it was fresh. Customers much preferred “country milk” from cows grazed on grass in pastures*.

How was the raw milk to get from the country to the city, from farm to table? Not by horse and wagon, Wilson declares.

Before pasteurization, hermetical sealing, and refrigeration were discovered and widely practiced, raw milk could not be transported by horse and wagon. It was better immediately churned into butter and cheese.

Another major revenue source for the Newburgh, Dutchess & Connecticut Railroad was transporting milk. The railroad used two milk cars that ran the length of the line and back each day. These “milk cars,” or “can cars,” were wooden box cars or baggage cars attached to passenger trains. Passenger trains provided the better service for picking up raw milk rather than freight trains, for they traveled at a faster rate and more-orless kept to a set schedule. Time was of the essence for both passengers and raw milk.

A standard milk container, or can, held 40 quarts, or ten gallons, of milk. Dairy farmers filled the cans with early-morning raw milk and placed them on specially built platforms situated next to the tracks, either at railroad stations or on platforms constructed on the farms themselves and next to the tracks. These platforms remind one of the backyard decks frequently found outside the sliding-glass doors of houses today.

In creameries, milk must be pasteurized, hermetically sealed in bottles, and kept cold to last even for a short period of time. Pasteurization is the process of applying heat of up to 212 degrees Fahrenheit to foods and beverages, such as wine or, in the case of this book, raw milk, to destroy the pathogens in it that cause spoilage and illness. Hermetical sealing is pouring the pasteurized milk into air-tight bottles to safeguard even more against spoilage.

After the milk was hermetically sealed in bottles, it had to be kept cold with ice until a train arrived to transport the milk to dealers and from them to household ice boxes and kitchen tables. The ice often came from ponds located on farms. In the winter, when farming slowed down, the relatively idle farmers cut ice from their ponds and sold the blocks to local creameries. The farmers also sold hay to the creameries in which to pack the

ice in order to keep it cold. One such creamery was Borden’s Creamery located in Hopewell Junction, right next to the depot.

Weather and traffic delays sometimes delayed milk trains. Snow often filled the tracks between the Connecticut state line and Hopewell and blocked the trains until work crews shoveled the tracks clear again. In this circumstance, raw milk could neither be picked up nor delivered and may well have had to be churned into butter and cheese at the farm or spoiled in the milk cans. Stalled and late trains occasionally held up traffic until the bottleneck could be cleared, with the same results for the raw milk.

In the 1880s, the New York Central Hudson River Railroad did not own milk cars suitable to operate with high-speed trains, Thus the Newburgh, Dutchess & Connecticut transferred its milk cargo at Dutchess Junction to steamships for transportation to New York City. However, an older style of milk cars did run on the New York and Harlem Railroad, so the ND&CRR connected its milk cars to that railroad for shipment into New York City.

In the 1890s, milk shippers and dealers pressured railroad lines to use “refrigerator cars.” These cars did not have the refrigeration as they have today. Instead, the cars were insulated to prevent the ice from melting and to keep the milk cold. By then, the New York Central Hudson River Railroad ran four such cars daily between Dutchess Junction and New York City.

In Their Time

The term “milk train” derives from these early-morning trains that during this period of railroading pondered their way along past the dairy farms and railroad stations on their way to a creamery for pasteurization and bottling. Today, a “milk train” is usually a commuter-railroad train that stops at every station along the line, picking up its customary customers.

Footnote cited in the original publication: Wilson, Jeff, Milk Trains and Traffic (Waukesha, Wisconsin: Kalmbach Media), 2019. Print, page 4

The Hessian

Fly:

Its role in the ecological history of Dutchess County and the threat to early agriculture that brought two future presidents to the region

by Charles D. Canham

[Editor’s note: Interesting how insects can stand in the vortex of Dutchess County agriculture, national politics, and international intrigue. Here Charles Canham, Senior Scientist Emeritus at Millbrook’s Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, tells us about Thomas Jefferson and James Madison visiting our neck of the woods in search of solutions to Hessian fly infestation. But early conspiracy theorists saw in their trip a more nefarious purpose, to obtain information that would help in them in their campaign to reorient American trade to France from England. That is a story for another yearbook.]

I have argued elsewhere[1] that there have been two important themes in the ecological history of the Hudson Valley since the founding of the republic, and indeed for forests throughout the eastern United States. The first has been the vast clearing and then equally remarkable recovery of forests due to the waxing and waning of acreage devoted to agriculture. The second—and unfortunately ongoing—has been the introduction of destructive insects and diseases that have decimated so many of our native tree species.

Those two narratives are linked by what is believed to be the first insect pest introduced to the U.S. —the Hessian fly. The insect— with the less pejorative but perhaps more dramatic scientific name of Mayetiola destructor is a species of gall midge, and is an important pest on cereal grains, particularly wheat and barley, worldwide. It was first identified in a North America wheat field in 1777 in what is now Brooklyn. By 1785, it had spread to the Hudson Valley and was laying waste to local fields of wheat.

The insect, now believed to be a native of Asia, was apparently present in Europe well before its arrival in North America. Early writers were unabashed in admitting that naming such a destructive insect as “Hessian” was a “useful National Prejudice,” given the role of Hessian mercenaries during the Revolution.[2] It was assumed that the insect arrived in straw with Hessian troops who landed in Flatbush in 1776.

Wheat was a critically important crop for early Dutchess County farmers. In addition to being a staple of a farm family’s diet, any excess not consumed on the farm was the major and often only cash crop. Wheat yields on the region’s typically thin, rocky, and infertile soils were already low, so anything that reduced the yield was a significant threat to the economic survival of a farm.[3]

Wheat was indeed an important crop throughout the mid-Atlantic region, and the insect spread rapidly following its introduction. Initial infestations typically completely decimated crops. News of this threat reached Thomas Jefferson, who was well-known for his interests in science and natural history.[4] Jefferson, at that time the first Secretary of State, successfully lobbied the American Philosophical Society at a meeting in Philadelphia on April 15, 1791, to establish a committee to investigate the threat, and was appointed its chairman.[5] He appears to have almost immediately determined to tour regions of New York and New England that had reported infestations of the fly. He recruited his friend and political ally James Madison to accompany him on what became a month-long journey from New York City north to Lake Champlain, before crossing into Vermont to travel south along the Connecticut River.[6]

Jefferson arrived in New York City on May 19, 1791, where he met up with Madison, who had been there for several weeks.[7] Madison appears to have been more preoccupied with political threats from Alexander Hamilton and the Federalists than with an agricultural pest, and his own writings on the journey describe his goals as “health, recreation, and curiosity.”[8] Two days later, Jefferson and Madison boarded a sloop headed up the Hudson

River to Poughkeepsie, where they met up with his phaeton and horses, which had been brought up from the city by an enslaved servant.

Jefferson recorded observations on the Hessian fly throughout the journey.[9] The most detailed notes were from a visit to the farm of Conrad Lasher, “16 miles above Poughkeepsie,” which reported the farmer lost his entire crops of wheat during the three years from 1786-1788. By 1789, the farmer had resorted to planting a different variety. The new variety—a white bearded wheat—was less desirable for both bread-making and as forage for livestock but did not appear to be as vulnerable to the fly. Twenty-three miles north of Lasher’s farm they visited the Pulvar farm, which lost its crops in 1787-1789, after which that farmer also switched to white bearded wheat.

Changing varieties of wheat did not, however, eliminate the threat, and outbreaks of Hessian flies continued to devastate crops throughout the region for decades. The insect continued its invasion southward, and by the time Jefferson was elected president in 1801, it had reached Washington. By 1813, it had reached his own wheat fields at Monticello.

Jefferson’s notes from the 1791 trip through the Hudson Valley contained an observation from the Pulvar farm that spring wheat was more “totally destroyed” than fall wheat. This simple observation forms the heart of what became and to this day is a widely practiced means of reducing infestations of the Hessian fly. Adult flies emerge in the spring after over-wintering as pupae within wheat stems. Adults live for only a few days while laying eggs on leaf surfaces. Additional generations can develop and mature during the summer. Delaying planting until the fall, after adults from any of the generations have emerged, reduces the sites (new wheat leaves) the insects need to lay their eggs. Oddly enough, although this practice of fall planting became common and was promoted in scientific publications by 1817,[10] Jefferson was slow to embrace his early observation. He declared it a “poor remedy” in a letter in 1803[11] but adopted the practice

by 1814, once his own crops at Monticello were being infested.[12] Hessian fly remains an important pest of wheat worldwide. Wheat has not been a major cash crop in the region for almost 200 years, although it continues to be grown by local farmers for a variety of uses, including by the growing collection of Hudson Valley distilleries.[13] Today, Cornell Cooperative Extension reports that the Hessian fly free planting date for wheat in the Hudson Valley falls on the historical first frost date (roughly September 15).[14]

As a forest ecologist my interest in the Hessian fly comes from its role as one of the first triggers that encouraged Hudson Valley farmers to consider abandoning their land and move to more fertile and productive farmland to the west, allowing the beginning of regrowth of the valley’s forests. The opening of the Erie Canal in 1825, the series of agricultural depressions of the 1870s, and ultimately the Great Depression beginning in 1929 each triggered transformations in Hudson Valley agriculture, and each resulted in some farmland being abandoned and allowed to regrow to forests. Dutchess County today is 55% forested, and this story of land clearing followed by forest recovery has played out throughout the eastern U.S. In many ways it is a remarkable ecological success story. The 365 million acres of forestland in the eastern 31 states make up more than half of the forestland in the entire country and provide enormous ecological and economic benefits. But every time I reflect on that success, I am reminded that it occurred because ultimately agriculture continued its westward march onto the Great Plains, which contained some of the world’s most productive and diverse native grasslands. An even greater percentage of those grasslands have been plowed under or put under heavy grazing than the fraction of forests originally cleared in any eastern state. It is hard to imagine conditions that would allow half of the nation’s grasslands to recover the way forests have in the east.

ENDNOTES

1 Canham, C. D. 2020. Forests Adrift. Yale University Press. New Haven.

2 George Morgan to John Temple, August 26, 1788, Thomas Jefferson Papers, Library of Congress. Jefferson’s copy available online. See also Editorial Note: The Northern Journey of Jefferson and Madison, PTJ, 20:447n48. Note available at Founders Online.

3 McDermott, W. P. (ed.). 1987. Clinton, Dutchess County, N.Y. – A History of a Town. Clinton Historical Society, Clinton Corners, NY. pages 76-77.

4 Indeed, his Federalist political opponents mocked Jefferson’s interest in science and natural history. https://www.monticello.org/research-education/ thomas-jefferson-encyclopedia/hessian-fly/#fn-3

5 https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-23-02-0384#TSJN-0123-0384-ks-0901

6 https://www.monticello.org/research-education/thomas-jeffersonencyclopedia/northern-tour-1791/ see also https://founders.archives.gov/ ancestor/TSJN-01-20-02-0173

7 https://founders.archives.gov/?q=Ancestor%3ATSJN-01-20-020173&s=1511311111&r=1

8 https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-20-02-0076-0005

9 https://founders.archives.gov/?q=Ancestor%3ATSJN-01-20-020173&s=1511311111&r=3

10 Samuel Akerly, “An Account of the Wheat Insect,” The American Monthly Magazine and Critical Review vol. I, no. IV (1817): 278. Cited in https:// www.monticello.org/research-education/thomas-jefferson-encyclopedia/ hessian-fly/#fn-28

11 https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-40-02-0431

12 https://www.monticello.org/research-education/thomas-jeffersonencyclopedia/hessian-fly/#fn-32

13Branchwater Farms grows organic wheat to distill into an excellent gin.

14 Personal communication via e-mail from Christian Malsatzki,Agricultural Program Leader, Cornell Cooperative Extension, Ulster County, to Kevin Pike of Branchwater Distillery, dated December 21, 2023.

Dyan Wapnick is the president of the Little Nine Partners Historical Society of Pine Plains, NY, and an executive producer of their documentary, “Our Farms, Our Farmers.” She is also a Vice President for Pine Plains of the Dutchess County Historical Society. She has a BA in history.

This article is meant to be a companion piece to the Little Nine Partners Historical Society film, “Our Farms, Our Farmers,” which was released in 2023.

Pine Plains and the Loss of the Small Family Farms

by Dyan Wapnick

Imagine you could travel back in time to Pine Plains at the turn of the twentieth century. Standing at the intersection of Main and Church Streets you might catch the whistle of the Poughkeepsie and Eastern train as it leaves the Borden Creamery at the P&E station, where local dairy farmers dropped off their milk twice a day in 10-gallon aluminum cans – fully loaded weighing over 80 pounds[1] – to be processed and shipped. Every Tuesday was cattle day, in which a cattle car was placed at the Newburgh, Dutchess and Connecticut railroad stockyard on South Main Street and where farmers drove their beef cattle to be transported to New York City. With 18 trains going in and out of the hamlet daily, it was a busy place, and a lot of that activity revolved around the farms.

Today you would be hard pressed to picture this peaceful hamlet sequestered in northeast Dutchess County capable of supporting two weekly newspapers (the Pine Plains Herald and Pine Plains Register), two drug stores (Bowman’s Pharmacy and Cole Drug Store), two large hotels (the Ketterer Hotel and the Stissing House), several boarding houses for the tourists (including The Pines, a 25-room mansion), Bowman’s Opera House, multiple shops, and a renowned school (Seymour Smith Academy), not to mention over 40 small- to mid-sized family farms dotting the

Looking down South Main Street from the intersection, with the Stissing House on the right and the Ketterer Hotel on the left. Before 1920. Property of the Little Nine Partners Historical Society

surrounding countryside and nearby communities. Yet that’s how it was in 1900.

This article will attempt to show how the loss of these farms, with a focus on dairy farms, has had a direct, negative impact on the vitality of the once-thriving hamlet of Pine Plains If you could stand on the same spot in 1935, other than horse and buggies replaced by automobiles, you wouldn’t see many changes from 35 years earlier despite it being the middle of the Great Depression. Sure, the opera house closed, but now there’s a popular cinema across the street, the Pine Plains Theatre, which is also a testing site for first-run films before they debut in New York. There’s a clock tower next to the Stissing House, memorializing long-time Doctor Henry Clay Wilber. Yes, the two weekly newspapers have merged into a single weekly, the Register-Herald, and the Seymour Smith Academy was recently torn down, but it’s been replaced by the Pine Plains Central School, the first centralized school district in Dutchess County.

The tourists continue to flock here every summer, with boys’ and girls’ camps on Stissing Lake owned by the parents of future composer and lyricist Jerry Herman (a camper here from the age of 6 to 23, and later the camps’ musical theater director). A former large dairy enterprise called Briarcliff Farms just south of the hamlet ceased operation, but it’s now an Aberdeen Angus championship beef farm supplying the stock for 95% of the Angus cattle in the United States.

However, by the end of the decade the railroad was no more, with the last freight service in 1937 and the tracks eventually all pulled up; yet if you were to stand on that same corner in 1950 you might be surprised to see the railroad’s demise has not had a noticeable effect on the community. Truck transport has taken the place of the trains, and in the years since World War II, with the help in part of the GI Bill which provided loans and educational opportunities for farmer veterans, Pine Plains has continued to flourish, looking much the same as it did 15 years earlier. But change was coming—and when it came, it changed the life of the hamlet.

Above: With the help of Barry Chase, map showing many of the former dairy farms in Pine Plains.

Beginning in the 1960s, a small-town version of urban renewal began to take place in the hamlet. One of the first buildings to go was a beautiful Greek Revival on Church Street , the Davis House, torn down in 1963 to make way for a Grand Union. By 1970, the former Ketterer Hotel on the corner, last known as the Piester Building, sat vacant, and it was demolished in 1974, leaving an empty lot in its place, while the venerable old Stissing House on the opposite corner had become the local watering hole, in danger of suffering the same fate. Also in 1974, Berlin’s Department Store on the northeast corner was torn down to allow for the Stissing National Bank’s expansion. Fire destroyed several buildings on South Main Street (in 1981 and 1992), which became more empty lots. The old movie theatre closed and was slated for demolition until a last-minute reprieve saved the building and it was converted into Pine Mall, supporting businesses on three floors. But that, too, failed and it became another abandoned eyesore.

The decline didn’t happen overnight, and it was not unique to Pine Plains. The seeds had been sown quite a few years earlier, ironically during a period of progress and growth, the result of technological changes and other factors which directly influenced the number and size of dairy farms. (According to the USDA, dairy farm size can be classed by headcount, with small farms having 30 milk cows, mid-sized farms from 30-500 milk cows, and large farms anything over that number).[2]

You can’t talk about the development of Pine Plains without including the railroads, which transformed this rural community in the boom years after the Civil War. Pine Plains was uniquely situated to take advantage of the east-west rail traffic afforded by the so-called “short lines” in Dutchess County. At its peak, there were three railroads serving the town. While they all provided passenger service, it was in the hauling of iron ore and milk that they expected to make money, and among the sales pitches used to entice Pine Plains residents to invest in the first of them to be incorporated, the Poughkeepsie & Eastern (1872), was the claim that their farms would gain 25% in value within three years of

its completion. For what had been mostly subsistence farms, the railroad opened up new markets, especially in New York, and once refrigerated rail cars made it possible to ship raw milk by train, production escalated to meet the demand and farmers began increasing the size of their herds.

In 1907, Briarcliff Farms came to Pine Plains and began buying up 12 small-to-medium sized farms, totaling 3,249 acres south of the hamlet. Farm consolidation, the absorption of smaller farms by larger ones, was nothing new, but this was the biggest single acquisition the town had ever seen, and from an outside source at that. The railroad provided one of the main justifications for moving this industrial-sized dairy operation from Westchester County to Pine Plains. If the $55 per acre paid for the Phoenix Deuel holdings was typical –$30,000 then, the equivalent of almost $1,000,000 today – you begin to understand why the local farmers sold out and how this set the stage for what was to come.

For the time being, the small family farm continued to be the mainstay of the dairy industry, helped along by several advances in agricultural technology during the early 20th century that made farming less labor-intensive, such as innovations in tractor design, the development of the self-propelled grain combine, and automatic hay-balers and milkers. Increasing mechanization meant greater efficiency, and dairy farms were now able to produce more milk with fewer workers and fewer cows: from 1950 to 1975, the average number of milk cows on farms declined by over 49%, while milk production per cow nearly doubled.[3]

However, by the second half of the century we see a gradual shift away from the “many farms with fewer cows” model to fewer but larger farms where more milk could be produced at lower cost. While the total number of dairy farms across the country fell by over 97% from 1940 to 1997, the size of farms increased, largely the result of consolidation.[4] As reported in a 1951 article by the News-Republican of Millerton, NY, and Sharon, CT., “nearly a quarter (24 %) of all sales of farms were to buyers who were enlarging their farms.”[5]

One technological change that hurt small farmers was the introduction of large, refrigerated holding tanks for storing milk. The very first of these used in the area was on the Alfred Rose Farm in Pine Plains in 1948.[6] This meant no longer having to lug the heavy aluminum cans to the local dairy, as the milk could be picked up right from the farm and bulk-shipped by truck to a large processing plant miles away. By 1957 the Borden plant in Pine Plains closed. Unfortunately, the installation of these tanks was prohibitively expensive for small farms, just one example of changes that favored large farms over smaller ones. A side effect was the loss of opportunities for socializing and business dealings when the farmers came into the dairy with their milk cans.

There was a time when most farms were passed down in one family, generation to generation. However, by the mid-1900s, faced with financial hardship in their future and with new, more dependable employment opportunities such as IBM becoming available, many children of farmers turned away from farming for their livelihood.

Once predominant across the Pine Plains landscape, the small family farms provided the hamlet its economic base. They were the glue that had held the community together since the early 1800s. According to the town’s comprehensive plan, while agriculture (farming, forestry, fishing, and hunting) was the thirdlargest employer in 2015, it accounted for just 7.7% of jobs. [7] As Successful Farming Magazine points out, farmers have historically depended on local businesses.8 Fewer farmers meant less spent on consumer goods, which had a direct impact on the businesses in the hamlet. As these farms disappeared in the 1950s and 1960s, even as the population of the town remained fairly stable, the businesses in the hamlet gradually went with them.

Although there are fewer farms today, the Pine Plains area remains agricultural, and reminders of their continued presence among us are everywhere, whether it’s the annual Future Farmers of America fair at the high school, the familiar names in the livestock barns at the county fair, the tractor dealership on the

edge of town, the occasional farm vehicle encountered on the road, the pungent smell of manure in the air, or the availability of locally-produced dairy products and meat in the neighborhood supermarket.

However, farming today is about managing risk. One way is by opening up farm stores and selling directly to the consumer. Another way is through diversification, which for dairy farms means having other sources of income outside of milk production, often with changes in how the land is used. According to Chaseholm Farm’s Barry Chase, the soil in Pine Plains is very productive, ideal for growing crops such as corn, soybean, and hay, with some used locally and the rest sold internationally. There has also been an influx of vegetable, herb, and flower farmers who rent smaller pieces of land and take advantage of farmers’ markets as far away as New York. Agritourism could be a future endeavor.

Some former farms have found new life in other capacities. A few have become horse farms. A game preserve and polo club are now located where Briarcliff Farms once was. Yet the sight of fallen-down barns and silos standing alone in empty fields is all too familiar, bearing silent witness to once viable farms that were simply abandoned, and much of this vacant land is still undeveloped. With its mission of preserving open spaces and the rural character of communities like Pine Plains, some farmland has been acquired as conservation easements by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and the Dutchess County Land Conservancy. Forty-three acres have been proposed for the site of a different kind of farm, a solar farm.

So, let’s revisit that same corner today. The Pine Plains hamlet seems to be experiencing a resurgence, gradually transforming into something akin to a “destination.” This has undoubtedly been aided by the restorations of two previously-mentioned key fixtures that are drawing people to Pine Plains: the Stissing House, now a world-class restaurant, and the former Pine Mall, now the Stissing Center, an arts & entertainment venue.

Pine Plains’ residents will need to continue to find new, innovative ways to reinvent their community to be less dependent on farming, while still supporting our farmers and honoring the town’s rich agricultural heritage. After a few decades of uncertainty, signs are hopeful that this is what is happening in Pine Plains; check out the view from the corner of Main and Church in another 20 years.

ENDNOTES

1 Larry Scheckel, “Science on the Farm for Kids”, Agri-View, July 2, 2021, agupdate.com/agriview/lifestyles/science-on-the-farm-for-kids/ article_778cc23b-ae97-5120-a986-cf90661dfe13.html

2 James M. MacDonald, William D. McBride, Roberto Mosheim, Richard Nehring, Erik O’Donoghue, and Carmen Sandretto, “Profits, Costs, and the Changing Structure of Dairy Farming: Changes in the Size and Location of Dairy Farms”, USDA Economic Research Report No. 47b, September 2007, pages 2-3, https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/45868/17034_ err47b_1_.pdf

3 Don P. Blayney, “The Changing Landscape of U.S. Milk Production,” Economic Research Service, USDA Statistical Bulletin No. 978, June 2002, page 3, www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/47162/17864_sb978_1_.pdf

4 Ibid, page 4.

5 The News-Republican, Harvest Edition, September 20, 1951.

6 Harold Faber, “Pioneer in Use of Bulk Milk Tank Is Honored on Dairy Day Upstate,” The New York Times, July 2, 1978, https://www.nytimes.com/1978/07/02/archives/pioneer-in-useof-bulk-milk-tank-is-honored-on-dairy- day-upstate.html

7 https://www.pineplains-ny.gov

8 Jeff Caldwell, “Keeping Small Towns Alive in Tight Farm Times,” Successful Farming, Oct. 14, 2014, https://www.agriculture.com/news/business/keeping-small-towns-alive-intight-farm_5-ar45625

Portions are based on information from the Little Nine Partners Historical Society website lnphs.com (with sources cited) and interviews with Barry Chase. A list of farms was provided by Barry and John Boadle (with L. Parker Stephenson), which were then located on maps with the help of Bill Jeffway

and Melodye Moore of the Dutchess County Historical Society. The rest is from the sources as noted below.

Blayney, Don P. “The Changing Landscape of U.S. Milk Production.” USDA Economic Research Service. Statistical Bulletin No. 978. June, 2002, pages 3 & 4. www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/47162/17864_sb978_1_.pdf

Caldwell, Jeff. “Keeping Small Towns Alive in Tight Farm Times.” Successful Farming. Oct. 14, 2014. https://www.agriculture.com/news/business/keepingsmall-towns-alive-in-tight-farm_5-ar45625

Faber, Harold. “Pioneer in Use of Bulk Milk Tank Is Honored on Dairy Day Upstate.” The New York Times. July 2, 1978. https://www.nytimes. com/1978/07/02/archives/pioneer-in-use-of-bulk-milk-tank-is-honored-ondairy-day-upstate.html

Feiereisel, Amy. “Early milk transportation & dairy plants, from the 1800s to the 1930s.” North Country Public Radio. July 14, 2017. https://www. northcountrypublicradio.org/news/story/34034/20170714/early-milktransportation-dairy-plants-from-the-1800s-to-the-1930s

Lakhani, Nina. “US dairy policies drive small farms to ‘get big or get out’.” The Guardian. January 31, 2023. https://www.theguardian.com/ environment/2023/jan/31/us-dairy-policies-hurt-small-farms-monopolies-getrich

Lewis, Zach. “Importance of Dairy Farming Discussed in Utica.” News Channel 2.

July 20, 2023. https://www.wktv.com/news/importance-of-dairy-farmingdiscussed-in-utica/article_8a974c7e-271f-11ee-b3a3-53d5749644b3.html

MacDonald, James M., McBride, William D., Mosheim, Roberto, Nehring, Richard, O’Donoghue, Erik, Sandretto, Carmen. “Profits, Costs, and the Changing Structure of Dairy Farming: Changes in the Size and Location of Dairy Farms.” USDA Economic Research Report No. 47b. September 2007. https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/45868/17034_err47b_1_.pdf

Pratt, James E. “The Feasibility of Milk-by-Rail Shipments from Oneida County, New York,” October, 2003. https://dairymarkets.org/PubPod/ Reference/Library/Pratt.2003.pdf

Scheckel, Larry. “Science on the Farm for Kids.” Agri-View. July 2, 2021. agupdate.com/agriview/lifestyles/science-on-the-farm-for-kids/

article_778cc23b-ae97-5120-a986-cf90661dfe13.html

Semuels, Alana. “American Farmers Are in Crisis. Here’s Why”. Time. Nov. 27, 2019.

https://time.com/5736789/small-american-farmers-debt-crisis-extinction/

Yerdon, Gabriel. “Got Milk? The Decline and Compositional Change of Dairy Farms in New York State.” Fall 2019. https://sites.tufts.edu/gis/files/2020/07/ yerdon_gabriel_GIS101_Fall2019.pdf

Zahir, Mona. “The Evolution of the Dairy Industry.” Faunalytics. March 8, 2022.

https://faunalytics.org/the-evolution-of-the-dairy-industry/

“Farming and Farm Income.” USDA Economic Research Service. March 14, 2023.

https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/ag-and-food-statistics-charting-theessentials/farming-and-farm-income/

“2017 Census of Agriculture Highlights: Family Farms.” USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service. https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/ Highlights/2021/census-typology.pdf

“New York’s Dairy Industry in Crisis.” Local Government Snapshot. New York State Office of the State Comptroller. March 2010. https://www.osc.state.ny.us/files/local-government/publications/ pdf/0310snapshot.pdf

The News-Republican. Harvest Edition. September 20, 1951. “Bigger Farms, Bigger Problems.” Union of Concerned Scientists. April 14, 2021. https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/bigger-farms-bigger-problems

https://www.pineplains-ny.gov

Melodye Moore is a Trustee of The Dutchess County Historical Society and serves as the chair of the Collections Committee. She is an author of numerous previous yearbook articles.

Dutchess Peaches, No Fuzz

by Melodye Moore

During the second quarter of the nineteenth century the agricultural economy of New York went through a period of profound change. The 1825 opening of the Erie Canal had made available more fertile western lands and eastern New York farmers were forced to diversify. While wheat remained the most important cash crop until after 1850, it began to be displaced by corn, oats, barley, rye, hay, dairy products, sheep and wool and fruit orchards. 1 As farming became more and more competitive and complicated, farmers soon realized that they needed more skills and there was a concurrent rise in interest in improved machinery and in scientific agriculture.

In her book “The Nature of the Future: Agriculture, Science and Capitalism In The Antebellum North,” Emily Pawley explores the active scientific community thriving in New York in the years preceding the Civil War that was interested in agricultural improvement. 2 One of the “improving agriculturists” she cites is the Ward family of Pleasant Valley that included Alson Ward. Pawley points to entries included in Alson Ward’s diary, now part of the collections of the Dutchess County Historical Society, that describe the Wards improving their soil with plaster, ashes, and stable manure, their use of a water-powered corn-sheller, a threshing machine, and an automatic hog feeder. On October 18, 1844 Alson records “father spent his time fitting a hive of bees in my bedroom for experimenting &c.” 3 Presumably the bees remained there through the winter for on May 6, 1845 Alson shares “We have fed the bees for a few days in the following manner by placing honey in a flat square tin pie dish with a floating board filled with holes that they may eat readily in the middle of which we placed a bottle of honey prepared with a stimulus sufficient for them. To day they used two bottles of honey the eleven hives which consist our stock.” 4

Above: US Patent Office “Machine for Peeling & Cutting Peaches” awarded to Alson Ward. DCHS Collections.

The Wards were also working on a design for a machine that would brush their peaches in order to remove the then characteristic fuzz on the outside of the peach. Presumably this design was a forerunner to the 1851 patent granted to Joshua O. Ward for improvement in machines for peeling and cutting peaches.

The Ward family, originally from England, was among the early settlers of Pleasant Valley and owned a mill and farm lands 2 ½ miles from the village on what is today Traver Road. Despite the success of their milling operation, the Wards saw themselves as farmers and self-identified as such in census records. The 1850 United States Selected Federal Census- NonPopulation Schedule provides an overview of the agricultural production on their 81- acre farm. Valued at $6,000, the entirety of the farm is listed as improved and seems similar in size and worth with others in the nearby vicinity. The farm’s livestock, valued at $500 included 3 horses, 5 milch cows, 1 other cattle, and 10 swine. The field crops enumerated in the schedule included such staples as wheat, rye, Indian corn and oats. Other produce worthy of mention was 500 pounds of butter which the diary records as being marketed in Poughkeepsie, and 15 pounds of beeswax. Numerous diary entries from 1844 – 1847 describe the Wards’ apple orchards and provide great detail about the labor intensive work necessary for the successful cultivation of peaches, so it is surprising that column 97, Value of Orchard Products in dollars is empty

Starting in the spring of 1844 Alson’s diary entries reveal what was required annually in order to create and maintain the family’s peach orchards.

“April 9 – Went to Poughkeepsie to see about getting some peach trees

April 11 – Went to valley on foot in evening to get help to work in orchard

April 13 – to Poughkeepsie to engage peach trees, engaged 300 of Daniel Beadle at 10 cents, bought those, inoculated last fall, the inoculating just starting April 15 – put ashes around peach and apple trees” 5

On April 17th Alson describes in great detail how their new peach trees were planted.

“Spent most of the day planting peach trees. The method followed by us was by placing a large scoop shovel full of manure on top of the ground where the hole was intended and also a quart or two of unbleached ashes, also dug up the ground with a stubbing hoe in order to loosen it well and get the manure and ashes well mixed with the ground, then made a hole with a space or shovel for the tree. Place the tree in and partly fill the hole with the dirt and after they were all sett in this way we put half a pail of water on each tree and pulled the remaining dirt around the tree.” 6

The rest of the summer, in addition to other farm chores, there was always weeding and hoeing around the peach trees and by August it was time to inoculate the trees. Very little diary space is given to the harvesting of the peaches but on September 16th of 1844 Joshua set off to the State Fair in Poughkeepsie with some of his peaches.

The remaining years of Alson’s diary record the same monthly sequence of peach orchard related tasks – buying new and replacement trees, loosening the soil for the planting of the new trees and the watering of new trees. The September 8, 1846 entry indicates the commitment the Wards had made to producing the finest peaches possible when Alson notes that his father started early

for Newburgh to buy peach buds from “Mr. Downing’s nursery” rather than sourcing them from closer Dutchess County nurseries.7

Above: Alson Ward photographed at his house, and with a view of the mill just opposite to the west. Photo DCHS Collections.

Alson Ward mill

The referenced nursery, established by Samuel Downing, passed to his sons Charles and Alexander Jackson upon the death of the senior Downing in 1822. While Charles’ fame has been eclipsed by his brother who is considered by many to the founder of the American landscape movement, Charles is recognized as the primary author of the encyclopedic The Fruits and Fruit Trees of America that was published in 1845. Considered at the time to be the most complete treatise of its kind, the book established Charles as an authority on the subject. An 1844 Poughkeepsie Journal advertisement for Radcliff Van Wagenen, operator of a nursery on the northeast corner of Academy and Livingston Streets in Poughkeepsie noted that “The Ornamental Trees, Shrubbery, and &c., are obtained as wanted from Messrs. Downing & Co’s Nursery.”

While Alson’s diaries end in 1847 we can assume that it was Joshua Ward’s continued interest in peach growing that resulted in his 1851 patent.

The actual patent which is in the collections of the Dutchess County Historical Society is a unique and beautifully engraved document. Patent number 8640, it measures 15 ½” W by 21 1/8” H. The certificate issued by the United States Patent Office is the first page and its importance is reinforced by the majestic eagle and an engraving of the Old Patent Office that dominates the upper half of the page. The construction of that building, designed by architect Robert Mills, was begun only a few short years earlier in 1836 and continued until 1867. The need for such a large building was the result of the U.S. Patent Law that required inventors to submit scale models of their inventions that were to be retained by the Patent Office. Perhaps a scale model of Ward’s invention still occupies a shelf in the building. The patent is followed by three pages handwritten by Joshua A. Ward providing, in his words, a “full, clear and exact description of the construction and operation of the machine.” Inserted between the patent and the description are two drawings of the machine. The entire package is tied together with blue ribbon attached to the seal of the Patent Office.

Alson continued working with his father in the Ward’s farming and milling operations until 1856 when he moved to Poughkeepsie to take over the real estate transactions of the Poughkeepsie Savings Bank, becoming the bank’s Secretary in 1879. Joshua died in 1859. It is not known if the innovative machine for improvement in “Peeling and Cutting Peaches” that was patented in 1851 was ever successfully produced and marketed, but true to author Emily Pawley’s definition the Wards of Pleasant Valley could truly be called “improving agriculturists.”

1 David M. Ellis, et. al, A History Of New York State (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1967) p. 179.

2 Emily Pawling, The Nature Of The Future: Agriculture, Science and Capitalism In The Antebellum North (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2020) p. 63.

3 Alson Ward, Alson Ward Diary, 1843 – 1847, Diary Transcript, Dutchess County Historical Society, p. 19.

4 Ward, p. 33.

5 Ward, p. 2.

6 Ward, p. 3.

7 Ward, p. 83.

H GENERAL HISTORY

Nate Grosjean is graduating imminently from Vassar College, where he has pursued a double major in Global NineteenthCentury Studies and Drama. He enjoys art, history, art history, and his very majestic cat, Clive.

Poverty in the Archives: Poor People and Poor Relief in Dutchess County, c. 18311904

by Nate Grosjean

I’d like to begin this brief report on poverty in 19th-century Dutchess County with a delightfully curious anecdote, published in the Poughkeepsie Eagle in 1898: this article, entitled “Love in the Alms House,” tells a quaint story of romance, socioeconomic rehabilitation, and respectable working-class character set against the backdrop of the City Almshouse of Poughkeepsie, where one young inmate purportedly fell in love with another. Included in the article is a letter written by William Haegner, the story’s de facto protagonist, after he had left the almshouse and secured respectable employment as a drug clerk in Newark. Haegner writes, “I fell in love while I was in Poughkeepsie, and I cannot feel but sorry that it is as it is. […] She is an orphan, I believe, and I love her in spite of her being poor. I am not rich, but I am honest and have American common sense.” [1] According to later census records, the girl—Edith Southard—ultimately rejected Haegner’s marriage proposal; all the same, the article’s peculiar framing of romance as a reward for hard work speaks volumes about 19th-century attitudes towards poverty, labor, respectability, and morality in Dutchess County and beyond. [2] Indeed, the handling of poverty as a social issue has long been rooted in Protestant ideologies about work ethic, as well as conservative ideals of domesticity, temperance, purity, and Christian charity. In this paper, I will endeavor to examine the history of poverty in 19th-century Dutchess County in relation to these sociocultural and ideological trends; in doing so, I hope to highlight that poverty is a social issue pertaining to real, individual people whose lives and legacies are essential to our

understanding of poverty both in the past and in the present.

The day book of Amos Bryan, an overseer of the poor for Dutchess County during the early 1830s, provides insight into the methods of identification and treatment of the poor during the early part of the 19th century. While the positions of overseer and superintendent of the poor varied in purview throughout the century (based on changes and updates to poor law in New York State), in Bryan’s time, an overseer of the poor would be tasked with identifying the paupers in his county, seeing to their financial support, and, if necessary, arranging for their removal to a poorhouse.[3] The overseer’s duties would include tax collection for the benefit of the poor, as well as all associated account-keeping. Bryan’s day book documents both the financial and the interpersonal work of overseeing the county’s poor; significantly, his notes attest to the more personalized approach to poor relief which existed around this time. Bryan’s records in 1831 and 1832 attest to numerous trips to various towns in Dutchess County to visit poor people—some are named (“[going] to see Cornelius [Derrium?], a pauper”), some are unnamed (“Day going to see a pauper at P Plains”), and others are specified to be in poor health (“Day going to Plains to see two sick persons”).[4] Evidently, during this earlier period, the task of identifying and providing for the poor required overseers to travel frequently and maintain regular contact with small communities across the county. Bryan’s day book does not describe the substance of any of these meetings with paupers, nor do his lists of paupers per town include any demographic or personal information; in this sense, this earlier approach to the identification and care for paupers seems somewhat more individualized and conducive to some degree of privacy.

Practically, growing populations and increased costs in the coming decades made the older system of visitation unsustainable; ideologically, too, the burgeoning 19th-century view of labor as both an essential virtue and a prerequisite to obtaining the basic necessities for survival meant that a new modus operandi gradually came into being. Generally speaking, by the middle of the century, the treatment of—and

public discourse on—poverty had shifted largely (though not entirely) away from so-called “outdoor” relief (i.e., funds provided to poor people still residing in their own homes) and toward existing systems of “indoor” relief (i.e., removal to poorhouses, almshouses, and other such establishments). A sermon published in the Poughkeepsie Eagle in 1857 by Rev. Albert D. Traver typifies the ideal of the Protestant work ethic, which had been growing in the public consciousness throughout the 19th century. Interestingly, this sermon, which addresses poverty, idleness, labor, and charity, was published at the request of several parishioners, including James Emott, who would later become a member of the Commissioners of the Alms House of the City of Poughkeepsie.[5] In Traver’s words, “[the poor] may work—work contentedly, work intelligently, work faithfully—in their present position, as the best means (may we not say? The only means,) of rising above it.”[6] Traver’s text reflects the widespread idea that the poor are either “worthy” or “unworthy” of support, depending solely upon their capacity and willingness to devote themselves to labor. It is this ideology, both in America and overseas, which leads to the functional conflation of the poorhouse and the workhouse and frames poverty, not as a temporary economic condition, but as a fundamental moral failing which must be overcome and atoned for through vigorous work (and, consequently, some level of social degradation). In a paper read at the 1899 Convention of County Superintendents of the Poor held at Vassar College, Dr. H.C. Taylor expressed the belief that “no one is entitled to even the necessities of life without an honest effort to obtain them by work. Every man, woman and child in charge of the public charities should be made to render an equivalent in labor for the help received.”[7] This inflexible view of poverty, which so often fails to accommodate the vast range of its medical, social, economic, and structural causes, extends into the 20th century and well into the present.

As a pertinent aside, the connection between poor relief and the prison system was unavoidable across the many types of sources I consulted in my research. For instance, Amos Bryan’s book makes note of a day in 1832 which he devoted

“to inspecting Gaol”[8]; although he does not specify which prison he went to inspect, that the overseer of the poor was responsible for performing such an inspection may reflect a conscious acknowledgement on the part of the state government of New York that the handling of the poor is indelibly related to the handling of criminals. Also, many sources use the word “inmate” to refer to inhabitants of poorhouses and almshouses; while this may or may not have carried the same connotation as it does today (as pertaining almost exclusively to jails and detention facilities), the shared vocabulary of prisons and poorhouses suggests that poverty, like imprisonment, was regarded as a condition inherently preclusive of political, social, and corporeal freedom. Now and then, the connection between poverty and crime—and, indeed, the various ways in which poverty, homelessness, and addiction have been criminalized—is evident in culture, politics, and language itself.

Inevitably, the cultural and ideological conception of poverty as a quasi-criminal and often immoral condition caused a significant amount of unease and upheaval with regards to the state of women and children among the poor. In true 19th-century fashion, charitable societies and organizations abounded to address and combat the corrupting influences of poverty on women and children; one of the more active and long-lasting societies in Dutchess County was the Poughkeepsie Female Guardian Society, whose early efforts culminated in the construction of the Home for the Friendless in Poughkeepsie, which opened in 1857.[9] In an article about the Home’s dedication ceremony, the Poughkeepsie Eagle reported that “the management and discipline of the Home shall be such as to secure, as far as practicable, a correct system of physical habits and training, combined with the best moral and mental advancement to those who come under its care.”[10] The Home served as an alternative to the almshouse for orphaned or destitute children, as well as some adult women in need of employment (“Domestics ‘out of place,’ of good character, (and none other) will be received for a few days, and aided to obtain situations,” per the Eagle). The proper moral and religious

education of these children was of paramount importance to the Female Guardian Society, who required applicants for adoption or indenture of children in the Home to be observant Protestants.[11]

Despite the vehemence of the Female Guardian Society and others around the middle of the 19th century, however, poor children were not required to be housed in their own separate institutions (away, ostensibly, from the immoral influences of the idle and intemperate inmates in almshouses) until the Children’s Law of 1875 was passed.[12]

While the Female Guardian Society was concerned with raising poor children to be morally righteous American Protestants, the state was concerned with poor children’s futures as efficient laborers—these two undoubtedly connected objectives are codified in the 1870 Code Relating to the Poor in the State of New York. According to the portion of the Code pertaining to the “Binding out of Children,” male children under the age of 21 and female children under the age of 18 could voluntarily submit themselves for indentured labor with the consent of parents, guardians, or, in the case of orphans, superintendents and overseers of the poor.[13] Here, the legal precedent for superintendents and overseers of the poor to act in loco parentis reflects a strain of paternalism in poor laws, especially pertaining to children; where the domestic standard of the family unit does not exist, the poor laws and their executors occupy familial roles. The law further dictates that “every such indenture shall […] contain an agreement that the master will give to such apprentice, at the expiration of his or her service, a new bible”[14]; this stipulation reflects the idea (or ideal) of a system of “binding out” by which poor children would receive a satisfactory moral and practical education through indentured labor. Further research is required to determine the actual execution, experience, and outcome of this system of indenturing children.

One of the most intriguing documents I had the opportunity to work with in my research was the record of applicants for poor relief in Poughkeepsie from 1871 to 1904—this massive volume was my main point of entry into the treatment of the poor in the latter half of the 19th century, and it serves as a

testament of sorts to the personal, private, and human realities of poverty. Based on the 1870 Code Relating to the Poor, I surmise that the book was likely kept by the overseers of the poor, who were required by law to “keep a book […] in which they shall enter the name, age, sex and native country of every poor person who shall be relieved or supported by them, together with a statement of causes […] which shall have operated to render such person a pauper.”[15] This specific book contained designated space for these categories, among many others (e.g. marital and family status, address, trade, disease, temperance status, and general remarks, to name a few); the sheer amount of demographic and personal information for which the book provides space is overwhelming. The application process— referred to rather clinically in the book as “examination”— appears to require the applicant to volunteer a significant amount of personal information in order to receive support[16]; this expectation seems quite consistent with the established notion that the “worthy” poor must be willing to subject themselves to a certain amount of degradation in order to receive relief. This record offers ample opportunity for a demographic study of poverty in late-19th-century Dutchess County; the patterns of race, gender, age, disease, disability, trade, and nationality could—and indeed ought to—serve as the basis for further study. In the meantime, I find it worthwhile to address the final column of each page, labeled “Remarks”—this column tells us as much (or, sometimes, as little) about the applicants as it does about the bookkeeper. Here, one might find elaborations on an applicant’s reasons for pauperism (e.g. “husband out of work”), or, in some cases, a judgment written by the bookkeeper about the applicant (e.g. “filthy,” “doubtful character,” “will be helped by going to workhouse”). In entries containing the latter type of remark, these judgments serve as a harsh reminder that this book is a record not just of names, but of hundreds of difficult interpersonal meetings between desperate individuals and public officials whose job it was to support the poor.

In addition to the questions for further research which I have already posed, I will take a moment here to name some other

areas of interest which I was unable to explore further. Several of my sources contained caveats or statements regarding Native Americans; although they were mentioned several times in several places, it was difficult to locate definitive information about poverty among Native communities in 19th-century Dutchess County. Certainly this is an under-researched but important aspect of the history of poverty in this area. Also, my research has left me with lingering questions about what happened to poor people who died in the care of the county— aside from the Brier Hill Cemetery, where numbered graves from Poughkeepsie’s poorhouse can apparently be found, I was unable to determine much about the burial practices and locations for poor residents of Dutchess County’s past.[17]

As with any study of an issue as broad and complex as poverty, my research has ultimately raised more questions than it has answered; nonetheless, I hope that this paper’s discussion of the sociocultural, ideological, and personal aspects of poverty in Dutchess County will serve as a useful and meaningful contribution to the study of this history, which remains pertinent to the local community today.

Bibliography

1900 US Census, Dutchess County, New York, Poughkeepsie, Enumeration District (ED) 3, Sheet 24-B, Dwelling 4, Family 15, Edith M Southard; accessed via Ancestry.

Amos Bryan’s Day Book, 1831-[39?]. Dutchess County Historical Society collections.

Blouse, Susan D. “Early Social Welfare In Dutchess County Including The Poorhouse System.” Dutchess County Historical Society Yearbook 79, (1994): 4-13.

“For The Poor: Second Day of Convention Of the County Superintendents of the Poor of this State.” Poughkeepsie Eagle

(Poughkeepsie, NY), Jun. 17, 1899, https://www.newspapers. com/image/114991751/.

“Home for the Friendless.” Poughkeepsie Eagle (Poughkeepsie, NY), Feb. 28, 1857, https://www.newspapers.com/ image/114129332/.

“Love in the Alms House.” Poughkeepsie Eagle (Poughkeepsie, NY), Jan. 06, 1898,
 https://www.newspapers.com/ image/114053427/.

Platt, Edmund. The Eagle’s History of Poughkeepsie 1683-1905. Poughkeepsie: Platt & Platt, 1905.

Record of People on Relief, Poughkeepsie 1871-1904. Dutchess County Historical Society collections.

Traver, Albert D. “Sermon.” Poughkeepsie Eagle (Poughkeepsie, NY), Oct. 24, 1857, https://www.newspapers.com/ image/114037701/.

Wade, Edward. “Code Relating to the Poor in the State of New York.” Albany, 1870.

“The Children’s Home of Poughkeepsie.” Dutchess County Historical Society Yearbook, DCHS collections, beginning on p. 3921 in full PDF. Apologies for the inaccuracy of this citation.

Many thanks again to Bill Jeffway, Melodye Moore, & the Dutchess County Historical Society for all the help, patience, and access to rich archival materials you’ve given me throughout this process!

ENDNOTES

[1] “Love in the Alms House,” Poughkeepsie Eagle (Poughkeepsie, NY), Jan. 06, 1898, https://www.newspapers.com/image/114053427/ .

[2] 1900 US Census, Dutchess County, New York, Poughkeepsie, Enumeration District (ED) 3, Sheet 24-B, Dwelling 4, Family 15, Edith M Southard; accessed via Ancestry.

[3] Susan D. Blouse, “Early Social Welfare In Dutchess County Including The Poorhouse System,” Dutchess County Historical Society Yearbook 79, (1994): 5.

[4] Amos Bryan’s Day Book, 1831-[39?], Dutchess County Historical Society collections.

[5] Edmund Platt, The Eagle’s History of Poughkeepsie 1683-1905 (Poughkeepsie: Platt & Platt, 1905), 190.

[6] Albert D. Traver, “Sermon,” Poughkeepsie Eagle (Poughkeepsie, NY), Oct. 24, 1857, https://www.newspapers.com/image/114037701/.

[7] “For The Poor: Second Day of Convention Of the County Superintendents of the Poor of this State,” Poughkeepsie Eagle (Poughkeepsie, NY), Jun. 17, 1899, https://www.newspapers.com/image/114991751/

[8] Amos Bryan’s Day Book, 1831-[39?], Dutchess County Historical Society collections.

[9] Edmund Platt, The Eagle’s History of Poughkeepsie 1683-1905 (Poughkeepsie: Platt & Platt, 1905), 157.

[10] “Home for the Friendless,” Poughkeepsie Eagle (Poughkeepsie, NY), Feb. 28, 1857, https://www.newspapers.com/image/114129332/

[11] [Author absent from my notes, but traceable in PDF of all DCHS Yearbooks], “The Children’s Home of Poughkeepsie,” Dutchess County Historical Society Yearbook, DCHS collections, p. 3921 in full yearbook PDF.

[12] Susan D. Blouse, “Early Social Welfare In Dutchess County Including The Poorhouse System,” Dutchess County Historical Society Yearbook 79, (1994): 11.

[13] Edward Wade, “Code Relating to the Poor in the State of New York” (Albany, 1870), 424.

[14] Ibid., 425.

[15] Edward Wade, “Code Relating to the Poor in the State of New York” (Albany, 1870), 42-43.

[16]Record of People on Relief, Poughkeepsie 1871-1904, Dutchess County Historical Society collections.

[17]Susan D. Blouse, “Early Social Welfare In Dutchess County Including The Poorhouse System,” Dutchess County Historical Society Yearbook 79, (1994): 12.

Roy T. Budnik, PhD, is a retired geologist and former owner of the Trolley Barn. He has been active in the restoration and preservation of local historic sites for the past 30 years.

James W. Hinkley and the Poughkeepsie Trolley System

by Roy T. Budnik, PhD

Poughkeepsie’s first trolley system

The late 19th century was a period of railroad expansion within Dutchess County.[1] For Poughkeepsie, development of the first trolley system was directly associated with the construction of the Poughkeepsie and Eastern Railroad. According to Platt,[2]

“[a] street railroad in Poughkeepsie was projected as soon as it became reasonably certain that the Poughkeepsie and Eastern would be built…” Several prominent Poughkeepsie citizens simultaneously served on the initial boards of both the trolley system and the railroad.[3] Named the Poughkeepsie City Horse Railway, the trolley opened on June 2, 1870, and provided a link between the waterfront landing and the Smith Street terminus of the newly constructed railroad[4] . A second trolley line was added in 1872, connecting the river front and Vassar College to serve the rapidly expanding neighborhoods east of Cherry Street.[5]

The following year, the horse railway company abandoned its old stables on Smith Street and built a new brick car barn and stables at 489-493 Main Street, between Clinton and Cherry Streets.[6]

Although a small system, the trolleys carried 241,857 passengers in 1875, utilizing nine passenger cars, three freight cars, and 34 horses and mules.[7] The system was reorganized as the “City Rail Road Company of Poughkeepsie” on October 26, 1877.[8]

Electrification and Expansion of the Trolley System

The horse railway company received permission from the city in 1892 to electrify the system, but the company was sold to James W. Hinkley before the conversion was made.[9] With a vision

for a more extensive trolley system, Hinkley purchased the City Rail Road Company of Poughkeepsie in 1893 and established the Poughkeepsie City and Wappingers Falls Electric Railroad Company.[10] The electric railroad was incorporated on October, 14, 1893; the horse trolley system was merged with the electric system on October 28, 1893.[11]

James William Hinkley (1850-1904) was a prominent business, financial, and political leader in Poughkeepsie and the state. He started in the newspaper business, becoming the owner and editor of the Poughkeepsie News Press and News Telegraph and later the New York Daily Graphic, purportedly the first illustrated newspaper in the world. He was president of the United States Casualty Company, director of the Poughkeepsie Trust Company, and a director of a number of New York banks.[12]

In

1897, Hinkley, along with three partners, purchased the Walker Company, one of the county’s largest manufacturers of electrical equipment, including equipment used by trolleys. The four partners individually owned many trolley systems in New York state, which may have been the attraction of purchasing the Walker Company.[13]

JW Hinkley on horse trolley car. (Undated photograph courtesy of Hinkley family

Hinkley electrified the system and extended it to include four divisions: 1) the Main Street Division: along Main Street and Raymond Avenue, from the waterfront to Vassar College; 2) the Northside Division: along Main Street, Washington Street, Parker Avenue, Clinton Street, Cottage Street, and Smith Street; 3) the Southside Division: Main Street, Grand Avenue, Hooker Avenue, Montgomery Street, Market Street; and 4) the Wappingers Falls Division: from Montgomery Street and Market Street, down what is now Route 9 and Route 9D to Wappingers Falls and then extending to New Hamburg. The interurban line connected with the city trolley system at the intersection of Montgomery and Market. The interurban line replaced the passenger stage coaches that previously ran between Poughkeepsie and Wappingers Falls.[14] Trolley service to the Hudson River Psychiatric Center operated along the “Hospital Branch” of the former Poughkeepsie and Eastern railroad.

(ref. endnote 25)

James W. Hinkley died on April 11, 1904;[15] his family, James Jr. and Silas Hinkley, along with their mother, Mary Margaret Hinkley, took control of the company following his death. [16] The family resided at Eden Hill, a 40-room mansion on the southwest corner of Academy Street and Livingston Street.

Map of 1930 trolley and bus routes.

Trolley arriving in Wappingers Falls from New Hamburg. (Undated photograph courtesy of Hinkley family)

The house was badly damaged in a fire in the 1950s and later demolished; the property is now occupied by Eden Hill apartments.

The Trolley Barn

Evidence of the old trolley system can still be found in the city. For example, the old interurban station still stands at the entrance to the Poughkeepsie Rural Cemetery. Buried steel tracks and wooden ties were encountered near Grand Avenue when a new gas line was installed down Main Street, east of the trolley barn, in 2019 (personal observation). Wooden ties were also discovered beneath the paving on Hooker Avenue during utility work (Patrick Towne, personal communication, 2022). However, the old trolley barn on Main Street is the most prominent reminder of a bygone era.

The main portion of the original building, built in 1872 for the horse trolleys, was doubled in width in 1894 and the roof was raised by four feet, creating a structure large enough to accommodate up to 25 electrified trolleys. The new trolley barn had a reinforced concrete floor to support the weight of the electric cars; the roof structure was wooden.[17]

There were four sets of tracks entering the building from Main Street through two sets of large doors. Two additional tracks were laid within the eastern part of the building, connected to the other sets by a Hathaway transfer table near the center of the building. This allowed the lateral movement of cars across all six tracks. Several linear floor pits running nearly the entire length of the building allowed access to the undersides of the cars for maintenance operations; these are still visible beneath the western part of the building.[18] The tracks within the building remain in place, beneath a layer of concrete that was installed later (personal observation, 2017).

The eastern half of the stable building was demolished in 1894 to make room for the new addition to the main building. The

interior of the remaining part of the stable building was then remodeled to convert it from use for hay storage and stables for the horses to an electrical power station for use within the building. Two boilers provided steam for two steam engines that powered two 200 kW General Electric generators. The boilers were coal-fired, with 1,000 tons of coal stored in the lower level of the western half of the main building.[19] Electricity for operation of the trolley system outside of the building was generated by a facility owned by the Poughkeepsie Electric Light and Power Company, located across the Fall Kill from the trolley barn.[20] The municipal power-station buildings still stand along the south side of the Winnikee Avenue (the westbound arterial) east of Clinton Street.

The superintendent’s office and waiting room of the original trolley barn were located on the first floor, between the large trolley doors, with access to Main Street via a pass door. The general offices of the company were located on the second floor. The lower level, beneath the eastern side of the main floor, was used for the storage of parts and as a repair shop and employee break room.[21]

1894 photograph of trolley barn. (ref. endnote 17)

Several fires broke out in the trolley barn in the early 1900s. The largest of these, on February 11, 1906, started in the maintenance shop and consumed the roof and much of the interior of the main building. The east wall of the main building had to be pulled down because it was weakened by the fire. After the fire, the building was filled with twisted metal and charred wood. The spare parts, tools, office records, equipment, and all but one trolley were lost; it alone survived because it was out making the rounds on Main Street.[22] However, this car, “Old Number 6”, was destroyed by a fire in the building in 1912.[23] The power plant within the

building, which was damaged in the 1906 fire, was not restored so as to remove a potential future fire hazard from the building; after the fire, all electricity came from the Poughkeepsie Light, Heat, and Power Company.[24]

The 1894 building was completely rebuilt following the 1906 fire, to include a new concrete roof, concrete floors, and brick walls in the main building and new wood roof structure and concrete floor in the old stables building. The upper office was rebuilt in concrete (floor, walls, and roof). The façade layout was changed to place the trolley entrances next to each other; the door to the offices was relocated to the east side of the façade.

during rehabilitation of the building in 2017 (plaque in possession of author). The present structure dates from this 1906 reconstruction of the building.

End of an Era

In its franchise agreement with the city, the Poughkeepsie City and Wappingers Falls Electric Railroad Company

The reconstruction of the building after the 1906 fire was done by The Concrete Steel Company of New York City, as documented by a brass plaque found embedded in the floor

Trolley barn in 1930 (ref. endnote 25)

Brass plaque and rail found beneath concrete floor. (Taken in 2018 by author)

was responsible for certain paving costs on streets on which it operated. This put a severe financial burden on the company. Meanwhile, ridership started to decline with the introduction of the automobile. Thus the company faced mounting financial difficulties and was unable to pay the paving debt. Operational changes had to be made to keep the company afloat.

The first operational change took place October 10, 1928, with the substitution of buses for trolleys on the South Side Line. The following month, buses took the place of trolleys on the interurban line to Wappingers Falls. This latter change was due to a convergence of circumstances: 1) the state wanted to widen Route 9, and acquisition of the trolley right-of-way along the highway would reduce construction costs; 2) proceeds from the sale allowed the trolley company to pay off all money owed to the city for the repaving of Main Street; and 3) buses were cheaper to operate than trolley cars.[25] Finally, the buses would operate on the new highway, which it did not have to maintain.

As the savings realized from operation of a bus line would allow the family-owned company to continue, the Hinkley family finally closed down the trolley system entirely on November 25, 1935, completely replacing the trolleys by company-owned buses. The closing of the system was marked by ceremonies at the end of the line in front of the Vassar College main gate. According to the Documentary Chronicle of Vassar College:

to mark the event, four of the trolleys, carrying…a large official party including many of Poughkeepsie’s notable citizens...left the station at 493 Main Street around 2:30 p.m. with a loud-speaker blaring forth popular tunes of the 1900s…after the trolley-cars’ passengers posed for photographs, they boarded the new busses that were to replace the trolleys and returned to Poughkeepsie.[26]

Post Trolley System

The company continued to operate the bus line until 1952, when it closed down. In 1956, the trolley barn property was purchased by Walter Diesing, owner of Diesing Auto Supply, Inc. an automobile parts establishment at 485 Main Street. The

Dignitaries at closing ceremony of trolley system. (Taken November 25, 1935; courtesy of Hinkley family)

building became known as the “Diesing Building” and was a popular source of automobile and truck parts and services until it closed in 1989. The façade of the building was modernized by Diesing with the addition of plate glass windows, architectural stone, and an aluminum skin over the upper level. The interior of the structure remained largely unchanged from its 1906 configuration (personal observation). The building underwent extensive restoration in 2017-2019, and is now occupied by an art center.[27]

Trolley barn before recent renovation (Taken in 2015 by author)

Trolley Barn as it appears today (Taken in December, 2018 by author)

ENDNOTES

[1]Haight, Lyndon A., “Early Railroads of Dutchess County”, Dutchess County Historical Society Yearbook, 55, (Poughkeepsie: Dutchess County Historical Society, 1970), 75-82. DCHS website https://dchsny.org/yb1966-1990/

[2]Platt, Edmund, The Eagle’s History Of Poughkeepsie from the earliest Settlements 1683 to 1905, (Poughkeepsie: Platt and Platt, 1905) 216

[3]Ibid

[4]Anonymous, The City Cars, Poughkeepsie Eagle-News, May 23, 1870, https://www.newspapers.com/image/115135283/?terms=City%20 Cars&match=1. Accessed Feb. 22, 2016.

[5]Platt, Eagle’s History, 216

[6]Ibid. Pg. 227.

[7]Annual Report of the State Engineer and Surveyor of the State of New York and of the Tabulations and Reductions of the Railroad Corporations, 1875. (Albany, Jerome B. Parmenter, State Printer, 1876) 1109 - 1111. https://books.google.com/ books?id=s7wpAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_ summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. accessed Feb. 21, 2024

[8]Anonymous, Fourth Annual Report of the Public Service Commission Second District for the year ended December 31, 1910 Vol. II, (Albany, J R Lyon Company, 1911), 186. https://books.google.com/books/about/ Annual_Report_of_the_Public_Service_Comm., accessed Feb. 21, 2024

[9]Benjamin, Charles, “Poughkeepsie Horse Cars” in Dutchess County Historical Society Year Book, 70, ed. John and Mary Lou Jeanneny (Poughkeepsie: Dutchess County Historical Society, 1985), 59-63.

[10]Ibid

[11]Anonymous, Fourth Annual Report, 186

[12]Anonymous, Sudden Death of James W. Hinkley, Poughkeepsie Daily Eagle, April 12, 1904. https://www.newspapers.com/ image/114059860/?terms=Hinkley&match=1. Accessed Feb. 22, 2024.

[13]Anonymous, The Walker Company – A change of Ownership, Street Railway Journal, vol. 13 (New York: Street Railway Publishing Co., 1897), 868. https://books.google.com/ books?id=YYhNAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_ summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false, accessed Feb. 16, 2016.

[14]Fourth Annual Report, 186

[15]Anonymous, Sudden Death, April 12, 1904,

[16]Anonymous, Mr. Hinkley’s successors, Poughkeepsie Eagle-News, May 9, 1904, https://www.newspapers.com/ image/114064347/?terms=Hinkley&match=1. Accessed Feb. 22, 2024.

[17]Vail, J.H., Poughkeepsie City & Wappinger Falls Electric Railway Company, Street Railway Journal, Vol. X. 11. (New York: Street Railway Publishing, 1894), 726. https://www.google.com/

url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwj_ Gx4EHYJPCvsQFnoECA8QAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Flibraryarchives. metro.net%2Fdpgtl%2FERJ%2Fsrj-street-railway-journal%2F1894-srjvolume-10-no-11-november-convention.pdf&usg=AOvVaw13UmORqSgL x2Wfl6bJvF-f&opi=89978449, Accessed Feb. 22, 2016

[18]Ibid

[19]Ibid

[20]Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Poughkeepsie, Dutchess County, New York. (New York: Sanborn Map Company, 1895). Map. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/item/sanborn06192_002/ on Feb. 19, 2023.

[21]Vail, Electric Railway Company, 726

[22]Anonymous, Fire Destroys Trolley Co’s. Plant, Poughkeepsie Daily Eagle, February 12, 1906, https://www.newspapers.com/ search/?query=Hinkley&t=3832&ymd=1906-02-12. Accessed Feb. 3, 2016.

[23]Anonymous , A $40,000 blaze this morning at car barns, Poughkeepsie Eagle-News, Nov. 12, 1912, https://www.newspapers.com/article/poughkeepsie-eagle-newsnovember-12-191/4208878/.

Accessed Feb. 22, 2024.

[24]Vail, Electric Railway Company, 726

[25]Anonymous, Income Increased by Coordination at Poughkeepsie, Electric Railway Journal, (New York: McGraw-Hill Publishing Co., Inc., May, 1930), 253. https://libraryarchives.metro.net/DPGTL/ERJ/erj-electricrailway-journal/erj-electric-railway-journal.html, accessed Feb. 22, 2024.

[26]Anonymous, November 25, 1935, Documentary Chronicle of Vassar College, 1930-1939, https://chronology.vassarspaces.net/ records/1930-1939/

[27]Musso, Anthony, Trolley Barn gets new life as art center, Poughkeepsie Journal, November 11, 2015.

https://www.newspapers.com/article/poughkeepsie-journal-trolley-barngets-n/11783810/

Dieter Friedrichsen is a resident of Pleasant Valley where he has been active in the Pleasant Valley Historical Society. He authored a history of the Pleasant Valley Railroad Station now on display at the Dutchess County Fairgrounds

The Great Rabbit Hunt

1911 – 1918

by Dieter Friedrichsen

As early as 1907 the farming community of Dutchess County voiced their concern regarding the negative effect the population of wild rabbits had on their crops, particularly on fruit trees and shrubs. On December 9th of that year, at the meeting of the Board of Dutchess County Supervisors, Mr. Harry Arnold, Supervisor of the Town of Hyde Park, offered the following and moved its adoption:

WHEREAS, Many farmers of the County of Dutchess suffer great loss and damage resulting from knawing and girdling of the bark of fruit trees and various other trees and shrubs by rabbits of various species, and

WHEREAS, The closed season during which rabbits can be killed or hunted is now from December 1st to October 15th in each year, and

WHEREAS, If the law was changed in regard to this County as to make a longer open season during which they could be hunted or captured, this damage would diminish, therefore be it

RESOLVED, That this board do hereby request our Assemblymen and Senator to use their influence to have a bill passed making the open season during which rabbits may be hunted or killed from October 15th to March 1st in each year, and be it further

RESOLVED, That the Clerk send a copy of this resolution to each of our Assemblymen and to our State Senator.

This resolution was then seconded and adopted by the Board.

As described by Mr. Arnold, the existing closed season was from December 1st to October 15th or 10½ months, leaving only 1½ months as open season for the “killing or hunting” of rabbits. His proposed change to an open season of October 15th to March 1st would add 3 months for a total of 4½ months for the open season and leaving only 7½ months of closed season.

On December 12th, 1910, Mr. John Rapelje, a resident of Hopewell Junction, wrote a letter to Mr. Lewis H. Wright of East Fishkill, the Chairman of the Dutchess County Board of Supervisors. The Clerk of the Board presented it to the Board at their meeting on December 14th, 1910:

Dear Mr. Wright,

I understand an effort is being made to secure an effective method of exterminating Jack Rabbits in this County by offering a bounty for the destruction of this worthless pest. I approve of the method and hope the Board of Supervisors will consider the matter important enough to take prompt action and offer a bounty large enough to clean them out this winter.

I have an orchard of 2000 apple trees set out last spring, and while no damage has yet been done, so far as has come to my knowledge, I am told on reliable authority, that orchards but a few miles away have suffered severely.

If we expect to raise fruit in Dutchess County, surely the rabbit pest must be overcome. We can combat the scale successfully, but this new pest is a greater menace to fruit growers.

Yours very truly

JOHN RAPELJE

As a result, the Chairman offered the following and moved its adoption: WHEREAS, Jack Rabbits, a worthless pest, have become so numerous within the borders of this County that unless prompt

action is taken by this Board of Supervisors, the apple orchards for which the soil is so well adapted, and one of the chief industries of the County, will become ruined. The damage these pests will do in one or two nights cannot be estimated.

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, That a bounty fee of fifty cents (50¢) be paid to the person killing any Jack Rabbit within the borders of Dutchess County, upon said person producing to the Town Clerk within the Town wherein said Jack Rabbit was killed, the whole skin thereof and said skin to be retained by him as evidence thereof. And upon the production by the person so killing said Jack Rabbit of a duly sworn statement that said rabbit was killed within the Town of the Town Clerk to whom said skin was presented. That the claim for the fee or bounty for killing any Jack Rabbit shall be presented by a certified statement from each Town Clerk to and audited by the Board of Supervisors at the annual meeting of each year and the money to pay same shall be paid by the County Treasurer out of the general fund and assessed upon the County.

THEREFORE, Be it further resolved, That this act take effect January, 1st, and that the Supervisors in his discretion may withhold the bounty, if he is not satisfied that the Jack Rabbit was killed within the County of Dutchess.

AND BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, That this Board of Supervisors take action to stop breeders of these animals from turning them loose in the County.

Then, at the December 15th meeting of the Board, Mr. Charles W. Wright, Supervisor of the Town of Clinton, offered the following amendment to Mr. Lewis H. Wright’s original rabbit bounty resolution:

RESOLVED, That this act shall not apply to any rabbit bred or killed within any enclosure, and be it further

RESOLVED, That the Supervisor or his agent shall sever the nose from the pelt, in presence of the person who killed the rabbit, the person to sign affidavit, that he is entitled to the bounty, within the meaning of this act, and be it further

RESOLVED, That the bounty on said Jack Rabbit be placed at 25 cents for each rabbit, and be it further

RESOLVED, That the Clerk of this Board forward to each Town Clerk a copy of this act and to prepare form of affidavit for use of Supervisor.

This amendment was adopted by a vote of 14 Ayes and 10 Nays.

On November 25, 1914, after the program had been in force for 4 years, and the bounty on 8,224 rabbits had been claimed, Mr. Charles N. Rickes of Union Vale offered the following and moved its adoption:

RESOLVED, That the bounty on Jack Rabbits be raised to 50 cents.

On December 1, 1914 however this resolution lost by a vote of 16 Nays and 12 Ayes.

Jack Rabbits were killed and bounties were claimed at a rapid pace, when, on December 11, 1917 Mr. John A. Hanna, Supervisor of the Town of Dover, offered the following to the Board of Supervisors and moved its adoption:

RESOLVED, That on and after December 31, 1917, the bounty on Jack Rabbits at twenty-five cents be discontinued by Dutchess County.

This resolution was adopted by a vote of 12 Ayes and 8 Nays.

As a result of this discontinuance, after 15,903 claims had been filed for the years 1911 – 1917, or a yearly average of 2,272, the number of claims dropped dramatically to 746 for 1918. The Towns of Beekman, LaGrange, Pawling, and Poughkeepsie did not submit any bounty claims at all. Only 51 claims were submitted in 1919 and none thereafter.

The main objective of this program was of course the elimination of the serious threat, which Jack Rabbits posed to the farming community in Dutchess County. There was, however, an additional economic incentive by collecting the 25¢ bounty for every successful claim.

The following graphic shows in column 1 an agricultural product, in column 2 its price in 1911, and in column 3 the number of rabbit kills required to obtain an amount of money equal to the price of the product:

Was it easier to kill 2 rabbits than to grow a bushel of parsnips or string beans? The bounty for the killing of 8 rabbits was the equivalent of a whole day’s pay for Town Employees such as Assessors, Town Clerks and Superintendents of Highways.

The Dutchess County Board of Supervisors approved the payment of Jack Rabbit bounties for the years 1911-1918 to the individual Towns within the County as follows:

Jack Rabbit

Jack Rabbits are not rabbits at all, but hares. They are much larger than rabbits with tall hind legs and longer ears. Blacktailed Jack Rabbits can grow up to two feet in length and can weigh between three and six pounds. Jack Rabbits consume large quantities of plant material and can inflict serious damage to farmers’ crops.

Barber or Liberty Head Quarter

This 25¢ coin was minted from 1892 until 1916. It had a diameter of 24.3 mm and weighed 6.25 grams with a composition of 90% silver and 10% copper, an intrinsic value of .18084 ounces of pure silver. Today, at $17 per ounce, it would be worth approximately $3.

A ADDENDA

Board of Trustees 2023

Rob Doyle, President

James Nelson, Esq., Vice President

Jack Cina, Treasurer

Christine Crawford-Oppenheimer, Secretary

Michael Boden, Ph.D., Jim Brands, Peter Bunten, Peter Forman, Eileen Hayden, Karen H. Lambdin, Antonio Mauro, Melodye Moore, Wayne Nussbickel, Rick Soedler, Elizabeth Strauss, David Turner, Andrew Villani,

Ex-offcio: William P. Tatum III, Ph.D.

Committee Chairs

Finance: Jack Cina Development: Wayne Nussbickel

Membership: Elieen Hayden & Betsy Strauss Programs/Public Relations: Andrew Villani

Auction: Antonio Mauro

Publications: Bill Jeffway, Melodye Moore, William P. Tatum III, Ph.D.

Collections: Melodye Moore Nominating: James Nelson, Esq.

Advisory Board

Steven Effron, Bradford H. Kendall, Steve Lant, James Merrell, Ph.D., Dennis Murray, Ph.D., Albert Rosenblatt, Esq., Julia C. Rosenblatt, Ph.D., Fred Schaeffer, Esq., Denise Doring VanBuren.

Staff

Bill Jeffway, Executive Director

Cintia Osorio-Sosa, Library & Collections Manager

Local Vice Presidents

DCHS has a longstanding tradition of appointing local Vice Presidents who act in a non-executive capacity. These individuals are a single point of contact for the cities, towns, and villages across the county.

Amenia: Julian Strauss

Beacon: Diane Lapis

Beekman: Vacant

Clinton: Craig Marshall (chair)

Dover: Caroline Reichenberg & Valerie LaRobardier

East Fishkili: Rick Soedler

Fishkill: Vacant

Hyde Park: Vacant

Lagrange: Vacant

Milan: Victoria LoBrutto

Washington & Millbrook: Jim Inglis &. Alison Brookes Meyer

North East & Millerton: Ed Downey &. Jane Rossman

Pawling: Bob & Nancy Reilly

Pine Plains: Dyan Wapnick

Pleasant Valley: Marilyn Bradford

Poughkeepsie: Michael Dolan

Red Hook: Elisabeth Tatum

Rhinebeck Town: David Miller

Rhinebeck Village: Michael Frazier

Stanford: Kathy Spiers

Union Vale: Fran Wallin

Wappingers: Beth Devine

Dutchess County Historian

William P. Tatum III

22 Market Street, Poughkeepsie, New York 12601

845-486-2381 - fax 845-486-2138

wtatum@dutchessny.gov

Dutchess County Historical Society

Bill Jeffway, Executive Director

Post Office Box 88

Poughkeepsie, New York 12602

845-471-1630

bill.jeffway@dchsny.org

Cities

Beacon

Historical Society: Diane Lapis

Post Office Box 89

Beacon, New York 12508

845-831-1514

dlapis@beaconhistorical.org

beaconhistorical.org

Historian: Vacant

Poughkeepsie

Historian: Tom Lawrence

Poughkeepsie Public Library District

93 Market Street

Poughkeepsie, New York 12601

845-485-3445 x 3306

tlawrence@poklib.org

Towns and Villages

Amenia

Historian: Jordan Shook

Amenia Town Hall 4988 Route 22

Amenia, New York 12501 jordshook@gmail.com

Historical Society: Betsy Strauss Post Office Box 22

Amenia, New York 12501 strausshouse72@gmail.com

Beekman

Historian: Patricia Goewey

4 Main Street Poughquag, New York 12570 845-724-5300 historian@townofbeekmanny.us

Clinton

Historian: Craig Marshall

820 Fiddlers Bridge Road Rhinebeck, New York, 12572 845-242-5879

craigmarshall266@aol.com

Historical Society: Cynthia Koch Post Office Box 122 Clinton Corners, New York 12514 cynthiakoch@optonline.net clintonhistoricalsociety.org

Dover

Co-Historian: Valerie LaRobardier

845-849-6025

valarobardier@gmail.com

Co-Historian: Caroline Reichenberg 126 East Duncan Hill Road

Dover Plains, New York 12522 ( BOTH ) sweetcaroliner@aol.com

Historical Society: Fran Braley

180 Old State Route 22

Dover Plains NY 12522

845-832-7949

fran1braley@gmail.com

East Fishkill

Historian: Rick Soedler

845-227-5374

rjsoedler@gmail.com

Historical Society: Rick Soedler

Post Office Box 245

Hopewell Junction, New York 12533

845-227-5374

rjsoedler@gmail.com

Fishkill (Town)

Historian: Arnold Restivo

Fishkill Town Hall – 807 NY Route 52 Fishkill, NY 12524 (845) 831-7800 ext. 3507 tofhistorian@fishkill-ny.gov

Historical Society: Steve Lynch

Post Office Box 133

Fishkill, New York 12524 914 -525-7667

asklynch@yahoo.com

Fishkill (Village)

Historian: Antonia Houston

Local History Librarian

Blodgett Memorial Library

37 Broad Street

Fishkill, New York 12524 vofishkillhistorian@gmail.com

Hyde Park

Historian: Carney Rhinevault

4383 Albany Post Road

Hyde Park, New York 12538 carneytatiana@yahoo.com

Historical Society: Sharon Piraino-Buko

Post Office Box 182

Hyde Park, New York 12538

845-229-8225

hydeparkhistoricalsociety1821.org

Hydeparkhistoricalsociety1821@gmail.com

LaGrange

Historian: Georgia Trott-Herring

845-452-2911

lagrangenyhistory@gmail.com

Historical Society: George Wade III

Post Office Box 112

LaGrangeville, New York 12540 845-489-5183

lagrangehistoricalsociety@gmail.com https://www.lagrangenyhistoricalsociety.org/

Milan

Historian: Vicky LoBrutto

Milan Town Hall

20 Wilcox Circle

Milan, New York 12571 victorialobrutto@gmail.com

Millbrook (Village) Washington (Town)

Historian: David Greenwood 3248 Sharon Turnpike

Millbrook, New York 12545

845-677-5767 ngreenwd@aol.com

Historical Society: Robert McHugh

Post Office Box 135 Millbrook, New York 12545 computermail@msn.com

Millerton/North East

Town Historian: Ed Downey PO Box 496

Millerton, NY 12546 eddowney12@gmail.com

Historical Society: Ed Downey Post Office Box 727

Millerton, New York 12546 518-789-4442 eddowney12@gmail.com

Pawling

Town Historian: Robert Reilly

160 Charles Colman Blvd

Pawling, New York 12564

845-855-5040 sc31redsky@gmail.com

Historian: ( Village ) Vacant

Historical Society: Jaclyn Wagner

Post Office Box 99

Pawling, New York 12564

PawlingHistory@gmail.com

Pine Plains

Historian: Vacant

Historical Society: Dyan Wapnick

Post Office Box 243

Pine Plains, New York 12567

518-398-5344

dyan.wapnick@gmail.com

Pleasant Valley

Historian: Fred Schaeffer

1544 Main Street ( Route 44 )

Pleasant Valley, New York 12569

845-454-1190

fredinhv@aol.com

Historical Society: Mary Ellen Cowles merc@hvc.rr.com

Poughkeepsie (Town)

Historian: John R. Pinna 1 Overocker Road

Poughkeepsie, New York 12603

845-485-3646

townhistorian@townofpoughkeepsie-ny.gov

Red Hook

Town Historian: Emily Majer 7340 South Broadway

Red Hook, New York 12571

emily.majer@gmail.com

Village Historian: Sally Dwyer-McNulty 7467 South Broadway

Red Hook, New York 12571

sally.dwyer-mcnulty@marist.edu

Historical Society: Claudine Klose

Post Office Box 397

Red Hook, New York 12571

845-758-1920

claudineklose@gmail.com

Rhinebeck

Town Historian: Nancy Kelly

845-876-4592 kinship@hvc.rr.com

Village Historian/Town Deputy Historian: Michael Frazier 845-876-7462 michaelfrazier@earthlink.net

Historical Society: David Miller

Post Office Box 291

Rhinebeck, New York 12572

845-750-4486 dhmny@aol.com

Stanford

Historian: Kathie Spiers

Post Office Box 552

Bangall, New York 12506

845-868-7320 lakeendinn@aol.com

Historical Society: contact Kathie Spiers

Tivoli

Historian: Emily Majer

7340 South Broadway

Red Hook, New York 12571 emily.majer@gmail.com

Union Vale

Historian: Fran Wallin

249 Duncan Road

LaGrangeville, New York 12540

Town Office 845-724-5600 franw821@hotmail.com

Historical Society: Peter Gay (Vice President) 845-677-4837 chargaysgy@gmail.com

Wappinger/Wappingers Falls

Historian: Joseph D. Cavaccini

Town Hall: 20 Middle Bush Road

Wappingers Falls, NY 12590

Town Office 845-297-4158 ext 107 jcavaccini@townofwappingerny.gov

Village Historian: Brenda VonBurg 845-297-2697

Historical Society: Beth Devine info@wappingershistorialsociety.org

Post Office Box 174 Wappinger Falls, New York 12590 845-430-9520

DCHS Life Members

Rev. Herman Harmelink

Michael Levin

Amy Lynch

Peter & Deborah Krulewitch

Lou & Candace Lewis

W.P. McDermott

Melodye Moore & Lenny Miller

Sheila Newman

Joan Sherman

Norma Shirley

Mr. & Mrs. C.B. Spross

Peter Van Kleeck

DCHS Members & Supporters

Gaivoora Abrahaim

Susan Adams

Joshua Ahearn

Christine Altavilla

Amenia Historical Society

Anthony LaRocca

Andrew S. Antinori

Antonia Foster

Myra Young Armstead

John & Anne Atherton

Rebecca Thompson Atherton

Nancy Bachana

Harry W. Baldwin

Richard Birch

Debra Blalock and Russ Freleigh

Joan and Charles Blanksteen

Kelly Bruce

Peter Bunten

Eileen Burton

Linda Beth Card

Chen Yong Cher

Joanne S Clarke

Miriam Cohen

Community Foundations of the

Hudson Valley

Natalie Condon

John Conklin

Ilene Cooke

CR Properties Group, LLC

Christine Crawford-Oppenheimer

David Dolson

Roger and Alisan Donway

Rob and Sue Doyle

Margaret Duff

Dutchess County Government

Jean Fisher

Diane Fitton

Gene Fleishman and Judith Elkin

Peter & Anne Forman

Robert Gosselink

Julius and Carla Gude

Eileen and Ben Hayden

Linda Heitmann

John Hicks

Timothy Holmes

Linda Hubbard & the late E. Stuart Hubbard

Bill Jeffway & Chris Lee

Susan Kavy

Thomas Kearney

Randall C. Kelly

Kenneth & Ann Arigoni Winans

Nathalie Klepp

Martin Kline

DCHS Members & Supporters

Bryan Knickerbocker

Virginia LaFalce

Karen H. Lambdin

Jody Lewis

Lou and Candace Lewis

Herbert Litss III

Victoria LoBrutto

Lainie Lobus

The Members' Fund at the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar College

Stephen Lumb

Lawrence Magill

Robert Magill

Mahwenawasigh Chapter NSDAR

Antonio Mauro

The Late Stephen Mazoh

Suzanne Meunier

Scott & Alison Meyer

Friends of Mills Mansion

Susan Joy Minker

Sarah More

Michael & Beth Mostransky

Jean Musto

N&S Supply of Fishkill, Inc.

Kyle Neiswender

James & Margaret Nelson

North East Historical Society

Poughkeepsie Rural Cemetery

Poughkeepsie Public Library

Prager Metis CPAs

Caroline Reichenberg

Barbara Restaino

Town of Rhinebeck

Village of Rhinebeck

David Ringwood

Ellen S. Roberts

Curtis Schmidt

John Simpson

Catherine McWilliam Skowronski

Rev. Warren Becket Soule

Laura Strait

Elizabeth & Julian Strauss

Christopher Taylor

Kathy & Nathaneil Torgersen

S. L. Trocher

Michele Trugade

Phil and Barbara Van Itallie

Andrew Villani

Marcy Wagman

Rodney Ward

Gina Watson

Ann Wentworth

White's Hudson River Marina

Dale Whitmore

Bonnie Wood

Richard Yeno

Zimmer Brothers Jewelers

Membership, Donations, Business Sponsorship

Please contact any board member, or Bill Jeffway at bill.jeffway@dchsny.org, if you will consider supporting the preservation and sharing of our local history. There are a variety of ways that include short-term and longer-term approaches.

Each year, the “society” of members, donors, business sponsors and friends, sets the particular of focus of activities in support of our unwavering mission.

More information at: www.dchsny.org