Piney Rest Farm

Thanks to a group on Facebook (thank you Bethlehem Central Randomness!), this wonderful postcard sent me down a small research rabbit hole this afternoon. Procrastination at its finest if you ask me!

And since it is easier to write up said research here instead of on Facebook, and because typing in "Piney Rest Farm" into the Old Fulton newspaper website turned up exactly one lonely, but very informative article, I've got good stuff to share. So here goes...

Please meet Mrs. Milton Slingerland, the former Carrie Mae Wiltsie, age 88.  This profile appeared in the May 8, 1962 Albany Times Union.  

In this delightful and long article about Gram Slingerland we learn some interesting facts about the Piney Rest Farm.   

Carrie Mae Wiltsie was born in 1874 and raised on the Wiltsie farm in Bethlehem.  She married Milton Slingerland when she was 19 and went to live with Milton at his family homestead. The 32 acre farm, where Milton was a truck farmer, was located on River Road in the town of Coeymans. It sat high with the land sloping down to the Hudson River. Carrie Mae and Milton lived there their entire married life - Milton died in 1947 and Carrie in 1963.  Carrie was a busy member of the household - well let me just quote the article...

"She helped to garden, sold eggs and home-made cottage cheese from a Model-T Ford truck, provided breakfast and lodging for tourists and, in spare moments, knitted and crocheted, sewed, painted pictures and tended her flowers.   The tourist business was discontinued at "Piney Rest Farm" 15 years ago, when her son brought his wife and three daughters to join her in the big house."

So there you have it, Carrie Mae Wiltsie Slingerland ran Piney Rest Farm as a tourist rest stop from about the time she got married until 1947 - which was the time her husband passed - say about 50 years. Pretty cool.

I did take a quick look through the census. Piney Rest Farm was on River Road in North Coeymans, town of Coeymans, but did not have a street number, so I can't exactly place the homestead.  I did find Milton and Bessie's son Carmen's WWII draft card and that shed some light.  In the 1940 census he and his wife Ruth lived right next door to Milton and Bessie. (Remember the article says they moved into the "big house" in 1947.) His draft card says his address is "RFD Selkirk"  That's it.  No street name or number.  His phone number was Ravena 14f2.  And his draft registration was filed by the town of Coeymans.  

So, once again I am going to blame the post office delivery system for the above postcard labeled Selkirk, even though the building it shows is really in Coeymans.

Do any of you out there have more information on Piney Rest?  Let me know!

PS: Please search for the the exact phrase "Piney Rest Farm" on https://fultonhistory.com/Fulton.html and read the whole article about Bessie Mae - she was quite the gal!

UPDATE (7-27-2020)

Here she is - 42 Fox Street, Selkirk, Town of Coeymans.  Owned by Carmen Slingerland until 2004.

Thank you Facebook and Blog commentators for the helpful hints!

Another Update (8-11-2020)

I was at Schodack Island State Park over the weekend and lo and behold what do I see across the Hudson, but a distinctive roof line. Confirmed it is our very own Piney Rest by checking with Google maps.  I was wondering why that cupola was added, must be an amazing view!

Lantern Slides

Buried in the vault at town hall is small box of what I assumed were glass plate negatives. They were given to me for the town's archive ages ago and I haven't really thought about them since.  Well, BHA is doing a small exhibit on photography, and I remembered those interesting slides and dug them out for a closer look.  It turns out they are actually lantern slides. And what gems they are!

They were created by J. A. Glenn of Albany and look like a set for the First United Methodist Church of Delmar's 1928 Build or Bust campaign.  I think they were taken all about the same time.  I imagine a gathering at the church, perhaps with a potluck supper, a presentation of the slide show, and then the fundraising pitch.  The campaign, by the way, must have been successful.  It resulted in the construction of the Parish House, the Norman Gothic addition at the rear and west side of the main sanctuary. 

Below is the whole set of slides. Please note that these are digital snapshots of the slides resting on an LED light box.  The light box (yes it is a cheap one I ordered online) has a glare reducing mask on it that I had to cover with a sheet of paper.  Unfortunately, this makes the images muddy - like the pictures were shot on a cloudy day.  The actual slides are crisp and clear black and white images.  If anyone has a better light box or idea on how to digitize, please let me know!

Delmar Methodist Church

Poster for the Build or Bust Campaing

Delmar Fire Hall former Adams Hotel

District #10 - Delmar School 

The new Delmar School

The new new Delmar School

District # 15 -  Elsmere School

St. Stephen's Church on Elsmere Ave.

Unknown church, perhaps for architectural inspiration.

Another unknown church, architectural inspiration perhaps?

One of the actual slides. 
My supervisor in the back there was saying "get back to work and leave me alone!"

Our Towne Bethlehem July 2020: Of Railroads and White Elephants

While working on “Rivers, Roads and Rails” (an exhibit for the Bethlehem Historical Association’s Cedar Hill Schoolhouse Museum) I’ve been delving into the history of the West Shore Railroad and keep coming across the story of the Commodore’s White Elephant.

I have questions. Like who is this Commodore? And why do we use the phrase “white elephant” anyway? And is there a Bethlehem connection in there somewhere?

Here’s the story:

The Commodore is Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794-1877), shipping magnet, railroad tycoon, wily businessman, self-made billionaire. Husband of Sophia for 55years, and then Frank for 8. Father of 12 (including William, who met cute with his future wife Maria Louisa Kissam near her home in Bethlehem in 1841). The Commodore made his initial millions with water transportation. By the 1840s, his fleet of steamships served routes in the waterways around and between New York City, Long Island, and Albany, including areas of New Jersey, Connecticut and Rhode Island. During the gold rush of 1849, he expanded his steamship service to San Francisco.

In the 1860s, sensing that the future of transportation was on land, he began buying up controlling interests in existing railroads like the Long Island Railroad, the New York and Harlen Railroad, and the Hudson River Railroad, eventually merging his holdings into the New York Central. It’s said that he made $25 million in the first five years of his railroad ventures.

Of note for our story is the Hudson River Railroad. In the early 1860s, the Hudson River Railroad did not have a bridge connection to Albany from its terminal across the river in Rensselaer. In 1864, the Commodore and investor Daniel Drew conceived the Saratoga and Hudson River Railroad, a 27-mile line that bypassed Albany. Westbound passengers and freight disembarked at the City of Hudson and then crossed the river via ferry and barge to arrive at Athens where they connected with the new line. The line connected with the New York Central near Schenectady passing through South Bethlehem and Feura Bush.

In 1867, the Saratoga and Hudson was leased by the New York Central and merged into their system as the Athens Branch. The busy junction at Athens met a spectacular end in June 1876 when it was destroyed by a huge fire. The steamboat John Taylor, the barge Hercules, the canal boat Stephen Van Warren, the entire depot with its sheds and office buildings, hundreds of cars in the yard, and all the freight (sugar, corn, oats, tobacco) in these various stages of transport, went up in flames.

Not too long after the fire, the Athens Branch became known as a white elephant because it had outlived its usefulness, plus it was never very profitable. It didn’t help that a RR bridge across the Hudson at Albany was opened in 1866. In 1881, the line was purchased by the New York, West Shore and Buffalo, and the section from Coxsackie to Schenectady became part of the mainline. The part between Coxsackie and Athens limped along for a few years before the rails were completely removed in 1888.

The Commodore’s white elephant was really only a white elephant for a short time. Then it passed into legend. Several secondary sources say Vanderbilt long regretted the investment and said it was “the most foolish thing of my life.”

And what exactly is a white elephant? Dictionary.com says it is a “possession entailing great expense out of proportion to its usefulness or value to its owner” and that the phrase was first recorded in the early 1850s. The story is said to go back to Siam (modern day Thailand) where a literal white elephant was a highly prized, sacred animal. Let me just quote historyextra.com – they tell it so well:

“The term “white elephant” denotes any burdensome, expensive and useless possession that is much more trouble than it is worth. White or very pale elephants were so highly prized that when one was discovered, it immediately became the possession of the King. White elephants, however, were practically useless. As they were deemed to be sacred, they weren’t allowed to be worked and required special, expensive food and housing – making them particularly pricey pachyderms.

So the cunning kings of Siam, as the story goes, used to give white elephants away to anyone who displeased them or had fallen out of favour so that they would be forced to spend a fortune keeping the precious animals. The unfortunate recipient of a white elephant would be unable to get rid of it so the upkeep could ruin them financially.”

There you have it, the white elephant line that used to run through Bethlehem. The section in Bethlehem merged with the West Shore and provided passenger and freight service in the hamlet of South Bethlehem until about 1959.

 

Flashes and Dashes

CORRECTION: In June’s article, Cemetery Walks and Veterans Stories, I mistakenly referred to the Piers as a Gold Star Family. That is incorrect. Gold Star families are those who have had a family member die in service to our country. All of the Pier children survived their service.

If you haven’t heard already, the Bethlehem Public Library is collecting your stories about the current pandemic. Please visit their website for more info: http://www.bethlehempubliclibrary.org/quarantine-memories-archive/

The Bethlehem Historical Association hopes to open their museum as soon as it is safe to do so.  Visit their website for details: https://bethlehemhistorical.org/    

And finally, visit my blog for the Kissam-Vanderbilt meet cute story: 

https://bethlehemnyhistory.blogspot.com/2017/01/maria-louisa-kissam-and-william-henry.html 

and

https://bethlehemnyhistory.blogspot.com/2018/03/maria-louisa-kissam-vanderbilt-revisited.html

 

Both of the above pictures are the South Bethlehem station during the West Shore Railroad era. I was unable to determine whether there was a station here on the White Elephant line.  (Town of Bethlehem)

 

The Commodore, Cornelius Vanderbilt, in an image taken by Mathew Brady sometime between 1844 and 1860. (Library of Congress)

Sophia Johnson Vanderbilt (FindAGrave.com)

This print humorously portrays the fight over New York railroads between Vanderbilt (on the left) and James Fisk.  The story of Vanderbilt’s railroad wheeling and dealing has been extremely simplified for this article.  (Library of Congress)

A Bear and a Fire House

It has been a while since I had an entry in the ongoing saga of things that just show up on my desk.  I was back in Town Hall yesterday for the first time in a long time, and was greeted by a pile of fun items. Here are my favorites.

This tale of a bear in Delmar from 1946.

And what appear to be architect renderings of the South Bethlehem Fire Department building - really Selkirk Fire Company #3 - from 1956.   Do you know which design they chose?

 Thank you Mr. Purcell for brightening my day!

Greetings from Selkirk?

I just love these Greetings From postcards!

What with the Covid and all, I've been on eBay a little more and came across this gem to add to the collection.  Enjoy debating whether it is really Selkirk or not.   

Finding Maps on Line

Don't you just love old maps?  I just finished a fun Zoom presentation about Bethlehem and Albany's changing boundary lines and everyone wanted to know where to find the old maps. So below is just a bunch of links with comments.  If you know of other sources, please let me know!

1851 map from New York Public Library

The David Rumsey Map Collection is super cool.  Type "Albany County, New York" in the search box for some great results including the 1829 and 1840 Burr atlas, and 1891 Beers atlas (which I have learned is actually an atlas of the Hudson River, so the Bethlehem maps don't go nearly as far inland as I would like.)

https://www.davidrumsey.com/

The Library of Congress has lots and lots of wonderful digital resources.  Including the 1854 Gould map of Albany County. Search under Albany County for the best results.  It is a lot to wade through, but sometimes the item is under a hamlet name (like Slingerlands or Cedar Hill) and not the town wide name of Bethlehem.  The use of Albany County is consistent. 

https://www.loc.gov/collections/

https://www.loc.gov/item/2012593645/

Ask me how much I have fallen in love with the New York Public Library?  Their digital collections are remarkable.  Just the maps alone! On the main page search on Albany County, New York and you will get fabulous stuff including the 1866 Beers map of Bethlehem. 

 https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/

The 1767 Map of Rensselaerswyck is available at the  NY Public Library link above but I like the version over here at RPI library.

https://www.rpi.edu/dept/library/html/Archives/rensselaerwyck/index.html

USGS maps are available in a couple of spots.  You can go to their main site and play around with the map function here   https://www.usgs.gov/products/maps/overview 

Here's their topo view system:  https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/topoview/viewer/#4/40.01/-100.06

If you want a quick hop to the Albany Quadrangle maps from 1893, 1927 and 1950 - hop over here:

https://web.archive.org/web/20190824060000/http://docs.unh.edu/nhtopos/Albany.htm

And don't forget the map warper I talked about in this post: 

https://bethlehemnyhistory.blogspot.com/2020/03/nypl-map-warper-1866-beers-map.html

And you can find all of Albany County's tax maps online too at 

https://www.albanycounty.com/departments/management-and-budget/digital-tax-maps/digital-tax-maps-by-municipality

Phew! Is that enough maps for you??? 

NO it is not - I forgot the link to this one!

This is page 18 of  Albany 2030 The City of Albany Comprehensive Plan Appendix E: Albany 2030 Data Book    You might be able to find it somewhere else, but this is where I found it.

https://albany2030.org/files/sites/default/files/Appendix%20E_Data%20Book.pdf

Our Towne Bethlehem June 2020: Cemetery Walks and Veteran Stories

As I am writing this, the Covid virus is turning our lives upside down in ways both profound and trivial. On a grand scale, my planned cemetery walks, now cancelled, are pretty insignificant.  I can communicate the information in different ways, and you can take a stroll in the quiet beauty of these places without me and a large group of people tagging along. I am also missing the Memorial Day Parade – a more significant cancelation in my mind.  Parades have been bringing the Bethlehem community together for a century or more while honoring those who lost their lives in service to our country.

Getting ready for the Delmar parade circa 1918.

The men and women of our town have been heeding the call to serve since before there even was a town of Bethlehem.  Those cemetery tours I am missing so much highlighted veterans from the Revolution, War of 1812, Civil War, the Spanish American War and all the conflicts of the 20^th Century.  Here are some of the veteran stories I would have shared if we were walking together.

Let me introduce you to the Slingerland cousins, John and William.*

John H. Slingerland (1844-1914) is buried at the Slingerland Family Burial Vault.  He and his cousin William Slingerland were veterans of the Civil War having served with the New York’s 177^th Infantry. Both enlisted in October of 1862 when they were 18 years old. While assigned to different companies, both marched to the Albany train station on December 15 to begin their journey to New Orleans. Headquartered at Bonnet Carre, the 177^th took part in skirmishes at McGill’s Ferry, and Pontchatoula, and saw action at the siege of Port Henry. The 177^th, including the cousins, mustered out of service at Albany on September 10, 1863.

John, the son of William H. and Elizabeth Slingerland, worked with his father as a civil engineer. He married Alice Preston about 1873 and they had four children, William, Edward, Bessie and Florence. In the late 1880s he and his family moved to New York City where he was a masonry inspector. After her husband’s death, Alice and daughter Florence moved back to Slingerlands.

William Slingerland (1844-1928) was the son of John I. and Sally Slingerland. He and his wife Ellen Van Wie had seven children and lived their entire lives in Slingerlands. For many years he was an Express Manager with American Express Company.

Now, please meet Captain David Burhans. 

Captain David Burhans

David Burhans was born in Bethlehem in 1840, the son of Rachel and David.  Before the war, he was a mail agent with the Troy to New York route. In the late summer of 1862, he worked in town to recruit a company of soldiers for the 43^rd New York Infantry.  Before the company set off, the ladies of Bethlehem presented Burhans with a sword, sash and belt. Company H was one of five that joined the regiment after the battle of Antietam.  Thereafter, the 43^rd continued to see heavy action including battles at Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg. Burhans was in the thick of it.   It was during the terrible chaos at Spottslvania that Burhans lost his life.  He is said to have been last seen cheering on his troops after having captured two rebel flags. One tribute to him concludes “He was a young man of unblemished reputation, and highly respected by all who knew him, for his many virtues.” The extended Burhans family continued to live in and around Bethlehem and you might recognize Delmar street named Burhans Place.

The Pier family plot at Bethlehem Cemetery

And finally, the Pier family, many of whom are interred at Bethlehem Cemetery.  Edwin and Dora Pier raised ten children, seven boys and three girls, in Slingerlands.  Five of their sons, Ira, Charles, J. Edwin, Clarence and Ellsworth, all served with the Army during World War I. 

In a newspaper article, Dora Pier shared stories and letters about her sons. She wrote to Clarence, who was serving with the Fifth Balloon Detachment, that his brother Charles had a perfect record and his other brother Edwin was called out only once, for not saluting properly.  Clarence wittily replied that he had gotten bawled out “because I was not shaved; my shoes not shined; my leggings not on, all my buttons not buttoned; for not standing still at attention; for having my stomach stuck out too far; for not having my chest out far enough, and about 400 other things.” All five brothers served time oversees, with only Edwin being severely wounded while serving in France. They all were honorably discharged.

The Pier family truly demonstrated a deep commitment to serving our country. Oldest son Egbert Pier served in the U.S. Marines for twelve years as a recruiting officer. Youngest son Perry Pier served in during World War II.   The family purchased Liberty bonds and participated in Red Cross activities on the home front in Slingerlands.

These are just a few of the family stories I would have shared if we were able to take a cemetery walk together.  I invite you visit Bethlehem’s Veterans Memorial Park on Delaware Avenue or have a ramble through one of Bethlehem’s historic cemeteries and remember those who have served.

CORRECTION: In an earlier version of this story I mistakenly referred to the Piers as a Gold Star Family.  This is incorrect.  Gold Star families are those who have had a family member die in service to our county.  All of the Pier children survived their service.  

Flashes and Dashes

Do you remember artist Edward Buyck?  He and his wife Mary Willard Vine lived on McCormack Road in Slingerlands. Bob Mulligan is doing some research for an article and would like to hear from you, rempundit@earthlink.net or call 518-439-3802.  

Interested in some recreational driving during safe-distancing times? Visit the Bethlehem Historical Association’s website, BethlehemHistorical.org, for a Drive It Yourself tour.  It is a bit dated, but still fun.  https://bethlehemhistorical.org/

Work has begun on rebuilding the stonework of the Slingerland Family Burial Vault.  Please visit the website SlingerlandVault.org for progress reports and to donate.  https://www.slingerlandvault.org/

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* You might recognize John and William's story from a previous blog post - just trying to reach  a wider audience!