Grand View Farm

Celebrating Grand View Farm

Is it the Joab Baker Homestead or Grand View Farm?  Or both?  One wonders.

This beautiful, if somewhat shabby, home was the center of the historic Grand View Farm. It is currently for sale* by Scenic Hudson in an effort to preserve and rehabilitate its Italianate architectural features. The home sits well back from busy River Road with sweeping views to the east. That viewshed has been conserved by Scenic Hudson and will not be developed.  

As the center of Grand View Farm, the house is deeply connected to the Baker family. However, there has been some confusion, at least in my mind, about whether Grand View Farm and the Jaob Baker Homestead are one and the same.

It is very clear from documentary evidence that this is Grand View Farm, home of Cornelius Baker and his wife Caroline Lasher from about the time of their marriage in 1846. It remained in the Baker family until 2005 when Grant Thorn, great, great grandson of Cornelius and Caroline, sold it to Waste Management. Deeds, newspaper clippings, historic maps and census reports all support this.

The connection to the “Joab Baker Homestead” is murkier. Let’s explore.

My confusion stems from a New York State Education Department historic marker that is now missing. The blue and yellow marker is reported to say BAKER FARM SETTLED BY JOAB BAKER OF CONNECTICUT IN 1791. Then there is the line NY 144, ½ MILE NORTH OF SELKIRK.  That location is definitely 1322 River Road.

This designation as the Joab Baker Homestead appears in a N.Y. State Historic Preservation Office survey dated June 1968. The survey includes the following under History and Significance: Settled early by Joab Baker of Connecticut, and supposed to have been originally build in 1791. Altered and remodeled so probably bears little or no resemblance to original. Been kept by Baker Family descendants for over 175 years. It goes on to cite the “N.Y. State Educ. Dept. Iron Marker" and “personal observation.”

The reason I am skeptical of the historic marker is found in Cornelius V. Baker’s biography in Howell and Tenney’s Bicentennial History of Albany County. Published in 1886, the book includes many such biographies. Here is the entire first paragraph of Cornelius’

“Cornelius V. Baker is one of the most prominent public men of the town of Bethlehem, descending on his father’s side from an old English family who settled, in the person of his great-grandfather, Joab Baker, in Roxbury, Conn. His grandfather, also named Joab, settled in Coeymans, in 1791, and married Hanna Ashmerd, whose father was one of the pioneer settlers of Albany.”

It follows with the statement, “Cornelius Vroman Baker… was reared on the old homestead in Coeymans.”

Did you catch it? Joab is described almost word for word as the historic marker, except for the settled in Coeymans part. C.V. was raised in Coeymans. Coeymans of course is not Bethlehem. I believe placement of the historic at 1322 River Road in Selkirk (or NY 144, ½ mile north of Selkirk) is wrong.

So, where does that leave us?  

First, more research, which is underway. I’ve got a couple of leads about the marker to explore and have reached out to SHPO where James Carter of the Survey and National Register Unit is looking into their records. Another avenue is to reach out to the Coeymans historian to see if they have any info about a Baker Homestead. Also, an inspection of the house structure itself might turn up clues to its age as well.

Second, let’s celebrate Grand View Farm – it is certainly worthy in and of itself.

Cornelius V. Baker (1819-1893) and Caroline Lasher (1819-1895) married in 1846 and settled on a 120-acre tract acquired from the Sill family. His biography says “he early displayed a taste for agricultural pursuits and business, and devoted himself with rare perseverance to the accumulation of landed property.” With many acquisitions, Grand View Farm finally encompassed 450 acres. This is reflected in the 2005 deed between Grant Thorn and Waste Management. In the “being the same property as” section, it details 14 separate parcels described in links and chains and white oak trees, and mentions C.V. Baker, Francis Nicoll Sill and the Albany Green Turnpike (modern River Road.)

Cornelius and Caroline had eight children, baptizing them at the First Reformed Church of Bethlehem where they were members. Four died very young. Four grew to adulthood: Alexander, Charles, Edward and Abbie. These four were raised in the Grand View home with Charles going on to inherit it and live there with his wife Marion. Charles and Marion’s daughter Mable married John Thorn in 1910.

Grand View Farm was highly successful farm. The 1850 census notes Baker’s real estate value as $5000; by the 1870 census the real estate figure was $30,000 with $12,654 in value for personal property. The farm is listed on the U.S. Census Agricultural schedule in 1850, 60 and 70. In 1850 Baker reported harvesting (on his 200 improved acres) 500 bushels of rye, 600 of Indian corn, 600 oats, 700 potatoes and 10 of buck wheat as well as 700 lbs. of butter and 75 tons of hay.

The doings of the Baker Family were covered in the local papers. A newspaper article from 1883 noted that Baker had 2 acres of strawberry plants from which he harvested 1000 quarts a day when the berry is ripe. Another noted that he developed his own melon for the New York City market that competed with the more locally famous Bender melon. Articles about Baker’s other business interests also appeared including the annual ice crop and a proposed Albany to Coeymans railroad line.

Personally, I like this one from 1911, “Grand View Farm, the pretty home of Mr. and Mrs. Charles N. Baker of Selkirk, was aglow last Monday night, when about twenty-five of their friends who had been invited by their daughters, Mrs. John Thorn and Miss Jeanette Baker, had gathered there in honor of their home coming after a very delightful ocean trip to Porto Rico. Not until a number of guests had arrived did Mr. and Mrs. Baker realize that they were receiving a surprise party. Mr. Robert Andrews of Albany, a noted magician, entertained … with his wonderful tricks which caused much anxiety and laughter, games were indulged in also.”

In conclusion, whether this house is the Jaob Baker Homestead as well as Grand View Farm, it is a beautiful piece of property, with a significant history, deserving of preservation and listing on the National Register of Historic Places.

Altamont Enterprise, March 31, 1911

Above is from Howell & Tenney’s Bicentennial History of Albany County.

Below is pieced together the entire biography.

A portion of the Beers 1866 map of Bethlehem.  Look for C.V. Baker and his initials.

September 2019

September 2019

October 2016

October 2016

October 2016

* Hop over to one of the real estate websites, or simply Google, "1322 River Road, Selkirk" for the listing.  Or call Alex Bendon, the listing agent, 518-817-0286.

Thinking about the name Glenmont and Elisha Hurlbut

or There is Always Something New to Learn

A while back, March 14, 2017, to be exact, I wrote some thoughts about the name Glenmont and the story I heard about it. Pop over and read it.  I'll wait. 
https://bethlehemnyhistory.blogspot.com/2017/03/thoughts-about-glenmont-and-frazertown.html

Ok are you done?  Good.

Now, thanks to the detective work of Chris Philippo, I can shed some more light on the name Glenmont.  Turns out it was devised by Elisha P. Hurlbut.  Also it turns out that Hurlbut wrote pages and pages of journals from 1858-1887 and that Jeffrey Dunnington wrote his master's thesis about them.  And low and behold page 8:

"Hurlbut lived his entire life in New York, predominantly in the Albany area....

After residing in his native county for eight years, he moved southeast to a farmhouse just outside of Albany called Abbey Farm. Here, he significantly improved the property, maintaining a farmhouse that he renamed Glenmont-on-the-Hudson. Located on twelve acres, Hulbut gave the old mansion its name because it was “strongly marked by a hill and a glen,” yet it was a short carriage ride from the city of Albany. He feared appearing “snobbish” from naming his property, but he could not bear to keep the same name it possessed when the property housed debaucherous taverns prior to his purchase of the land. Hurlbut would live out the remaining thirty years of his life at Glenmont, prior to his passing on September 5, 1889."

So there you have it, the origin of the name Glenmont.

But did you get the part about the debaucherous taverns?  That probably refers to the old Abbey Hotel established in the 1700s possibly by a Van Rensselaer and later run by Hugh Jolley and later still by Henry Parr.  There is also this gem on page 78:

"As a man who avoided alcohol consumption, the drunkenness people exhibited on Sundays greatly irritated Hurlbut. One particular instance in May 1871 caused him to rant on the vulgarity of Sundays. After hearing the yells of “drunken carousers” at a tavern a quarter mile away from Glenmont, he saw a man, whose family Hurlbut had recently befriended, walk up the road to Glenmont where he passed out on the side of the road. After allowing the man to lie in a ditch for a couple of hours, Hurlbut summoned the man’s wife and children to carry him away."

Anyway, I am making light of Hurlbut because I like the phrase "debaucherous taverns."  He really was an important personage, influential attorney and judge (elected to N.Y. Supreme court in 1847), staunch advocate of Woman Suffrage, essayist about many topics including secular views on religion and phrenology. Husband to Catherine Cuyler Van Vechten and father to .Jeanette Cuyler,  Bertha Van Vechten, Gansevoort de Wandelaer and Ernest Cole.

You can read the whole thesis here.  https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/51290226.pdf

Figure 1. Photo of portrait of Elisha P. Hurlbut. The portrait was painted by Asa Twitchell in 1871 at Glenmont-on-the-Hudson. The portrait hangs in the home of Emily D. McDaniel in Franktown, Virginia. Photo taken by Jeffrey Dunnington

Our Towne Bethlehem February 2020: Sand

Sand, what a weird thing to be thinking about in February.  Hope you enjoy the article!

Molding Sand

While trolling around the internet, I am alert for new digital documents related to Bethlehem history.  Not too long ago I came across a map from the New York Public Library entitled “Road Map of the Albany – Troy District.” It was published in 1897 by Geo. H. Walker & Co. of Boston.  While it very much appears to be a resource for those riding bicycles, what it got me thinking about was molding sand.

But first the map. As noted, it covers a wide swath of the Capital District including Bethlehem. Regular roads are shown with a double line. Cycling roads are solid red and poor cycling roads are dashed red lines.  Hills are indicated with slanted slashes of line, tilted to the right is up hill, to the left is down.  

A crop of the 1897 "Road May of the Albany - Troy District showing Bethlehem.  (New York Public Library)

Along the red cycling lines are words like sand, clay, stony, and gravel.  I assume these indicate road conditions.  Right in the middle of what was to become my own neighborhood are the words “sand plains.” The words are right across what is modern day Elm Avenue south of where Feura Bush Road crosses. I live nearby and like to garden.  Let me tell you, there are no sand plains in evidence.  What I’ve got in my yard is heavy clay. Now I know, some of that was probably churned up in construction, but I wonder if the sand that used to be here was harvested.  Which is how this map led me to molding sand, an interesting nugget of Bethlehem history.

What is molding sand?  Sometimes spelled the British way, moulding, the sand is a naturally occurring product that is used extensively in foundries for metal casting. It has just the right combination of quartz grains and clay that, when formed into a specific shape, creates a mold that holds firm when molten metal is poured into it.  Foundries to this day use molding sand as it is effective and relatively inexpensive. 

Bethlehem’s sand is part of a large layer of sand and sediments laid down in the late Pleistocene about the time that Lake Albany held the flow of water that would become the Mohawk and Hudson Rivers. Over thousands of years, sand and clay settled out of the standing lake water creating layers. To reach the molding sand layer, first the sod and soil is removed and then the molding sand is dug out. Then the sod and soil is replaced.  For many years this was strictly a hand digging activity as the layer of molding sand in the bed could run from just a couple of inches to several feet thick.

Slingerlands and Cedar Hill were the centers of molding sand production in Bethlehem.  The December 22, 1875 issue of the Coeymans Herald reports that shipping molding sand from Cedar Hill had become an important industry.  It reports that Mr. Cutler employed on average eight teams and drivers plus a number of shovelers to help load the wagons.  Each team drew an average of about six tons of sand a day. The sand was then shipped to buyers via the Hudson River.  As the article notes, some was “schoonered” to Eastern States and some sent via canal boats to different foundries along the Hudson.

As early as 1886, Whitehead Brothers was active in the sand extraction industry in our area.  That year it was reported by the Coeymans Herald that they were taking advantage of the fall weather and “getting out immense quantities of moulding sand from their several banks and hauling it to points convenient for shipping.  Their shipments this season have been large and they still have numerous orders to fill.” In 1891 C.B. Baker of Cedar Hill sold a farm of 51 acres to William Whitehead for $10,344.  It was said that it would yield a large amount of molding sand.

Whitehead Brothers got its start in 1841 with sand found in and around Sayreville, New Jersey.  Retired peach farmer Samuel Whitehead, Sr. established the business selling to foundries in New York City, an operation which was greatly expanded by his sons, the brothers Charles, William, James and John. Whitehead continued to be active in Bethlehem for many years, and the company is still a going concern today, known as Whibco.

Over in the Slingerlands and Delmar area, the sand was extracted from banks near Union Avenue. For example, the July 25, 1919 Altamont Enterprise reported that William McMillan of Delmar purchased the molding sand band from the Blessing estate on Union Avenue. Jones & Kilmer Sand Company were also active in Slingerlands at this time.  As late as 1960, the Altamont Enterprise reported “Much Moulding Sand Still Shipped From Slingerlands” and that William McMillen, now an agent for Whitehead Brothers, still looked after his sand business. Slingerlands sand was shipped to market via the railroad.

Over the years, I have talked with many folks who remember the piles of sand awaiting shipment  near the Slingerlands railroad station and the Selkirk station. It was a while before I personally encountered molding sand.  As it turns out, the Slingerland Family Burial Vault is built into a hill of mostly molding sand.  While working on that restoration project, I scooped up a handful and it truly does hold its shape when you squeeze it.  Molding sand just feels different than beach sand, even the wet sand I’ve left foot prints in or shaped into sand castles. Somehow, it’s very composition is just sticky. 

And, to circle back around to the 1897 cycling map, I have no idea what those sand plains are on the map.  I can speculate about a flat-ish landscape and blowing sand from fallow fields, but I am guessing it is not in reference to molding sand.

 

Molten metal is poured into the mold at the Meneely Bell Foundry of Troy. There is a fascinating video on YouTube showing the casting process and the use of molding sand.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yWbVoTmLJo  Search on Meneely Bell Foundry if the link doesn't work. The image here is from the website http://bells.danmeneely.com.

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P.S.

If you are like me and like trolling the inter-webs for old photos, be sure to visit the New York Public Library's digital collection.  They seem to add to it daily.  Search under Albany County, N.Y. and lots of good stuff will pop up.

https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/

Also if you have molding sand stories or pictures - please share!
sleath@townofbethlehem.org

And another P.S.just because I know you like old stuff.  In researching the molding sand article, I came across this auction announcement.  It is an interesting glimpse into what was available on a farm in Bethlehem in 1920.  And it touts 7 acres of molding sand.

AUCTION SALE

Of Farm, Farm Implements, Household Goods

WESLEY SIMMONS    AUCTIONEER

Will sell for the subscriber on his farm, 1 mile south of

Wemple Station on the West Shore R. R., 1 mile from the state

road west of Cedar Hill School house, 1 mile from state

road west of First Reformed Church of Bethlehem, on

Tuesday, October 12, 1920

At 10 o’clock, sharp, the following property:

FARM OF ABOUT 40 ACRES, Farm Implements and

Household Goods; also Bay horse, brown mare, 25 fowls,

about 15 tons loose hay, about 50 bushels oats in straw;

any crops that may be on ground day of sale.

14 Room house, attractive location. Good water sup-

ply. About seven acres molding sand. Ample farm

buildings.  Fruit includes Apples, Pears, Cherries, and

plums.

TERMS – Personal property, Cash day of sale. Farm,

10% cash day of sale. Remainder one-half cash, one-

Half on mortgage if desired.

By order of ABRAHAM VAN OLINDA