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    Shandaken
    Shandaken
    Shandaken
    Ebook152 pages42 minutes

    Shandaken

    By Mary L. Herrmann

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    About this ebook

    Shandaken is known as the Heart of the Catskill Mountains. In the town s early years, leather tanning, barrel hoop shaving, and quarrying were mainstays of employment and were relied on by local residents. With time, each of these industries became obsolete due to modern advances and developments. Shandaken was revitalized with the arrival of the railroad, which enabled New York City residents to escape the summer heat and travel to the many hotels that sprang up in town. Tourism increased with the formation of the Forrest Preserve, the Catskill Park, and the New York City watershed. Later winter tourism boomed with the popularity of skiing. Although Shandaken has endured many changes, it has retained its charm and historic character.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateNov 1, 2010
    ISBN9781439638903
    Shandaken
    Author

    Mary L. Herrmann

    Mary L. Herrmann lives in the hamlet of Pine Hill in the town of Shandaken. She works as director of the Town of Shandaken Historical Museum. Together with her husband, Joe, she has raised four children at the foot of Belleayre Mountain.

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      Book preview

      Shandaken - Mary L. Herrmann

      Museum.

      INTRODUCTION

      The first recorded settlers in Shandaken were Jacob Langjar (Longyear) and his wife, Maria Kockin, near Mount Pleasant in 1752. They were the lifelong tenants of Robert Livingston. They were soon joined by the Crispells, the Winnes, the Satterlees, the Meisners, the Furlows, the Markles, and the Hudlers. Their life was hard and not unlike the pioneers who settled the West. In fact, after a few generations, a party of Shandaken residents did go west to Grass Lakes, Michigan, and settled there also. Slowly more migrants came to the Catskill Mountain area, branching out from the colonies along the Hudson River that had already been developing for hundreds of years. They built their homes, raised their young, and started enterprises. The first innkeeper in Shandaken was Andrew Longyear; he did not cater to tourists so much as to the teamsters and travelers who depended on the wayside lodgings. They spent days completing what today would be the simplest of journeys.

      Beginning in the early 1800s, tanning was the first industry to employ workers on a grand scale. When the hemlock—whose bark was used in the tanning process—were plentiful, barges brought hides up the Hudson and teamsters had the arduous task of bringing their heavily laden horse drawn wagons up the mountain trail to the tanneries. The bark was stripped from the trees and, except for those timbers sawn for planks to pave the turnpike, most of the grand hemlocks were left to decay. During the Civil War, leather was in high demand and tanning peaked. By the 1870s, the hemlock supply was depleted. Resourceful workers turned to hoop shaving as a source of income. This was also a means for the farmers to supplement their income in the winter months. Many former bark peelers and solitary mountain men spent long winters in small shacks slicing willowy, young growth into the strips that would bind barrels and crates. After a scant decade or two, with the invention of machines that were able to do the work of men more easily, this industry also became obsolete.

      The bare mountains also gave up their treasure of bluestone for a while, and quarries became as common as farms. But, as if some nameless force was having a trial to bend the will of the mountain dwellers, the introduction of Portland cement would end yet another endeavor. Quarrying was no longer profitable by the beginning of the 1900s. The railroad had been built by this time and with it new commerce and business opportunities. Sawmills replaced the quarries as the hardwood trees, not having to compete with the majestic hemlocks that once covered the mountains, sprang up and afforded suitable wood for furniture making and lumber. It was reported that sawmills sprang up like mushrooms and stood at every accessible waterfall. While Chichester and Shandaken boasted larger chair factories (so-called because chairs were a predominant product), in the hamlets smaller furniture making shops began to cater to the tourist or boarder trade, as it was called back then. In addition to smaller pieces of furniture, they turned out napkin rings, bowls, vases, rolling pins, and such trinkets as the visitors desired from the native Catskill hardwoods.

      An exhibit from the Shandaken Historical Museum on Industry poetically states, The hard fact of the industrial collapse seems to fit the mood of our mountains. Our Catskills are a spot, not fitted for money making with its bustle and tense living; but ideal for remaking men amid the peace and loneliness of the outdoors. The Catskills remain, and probably forever will continue to be, a land of relaxation and romance.

      The lawmakers of New York State created the State of New York Forest Preserve in 1885. The Catskill Park was created in April 1904. Today, in addition to the rules and regulations that governs these entities, the residents of Shandaken and the surrounding communities must also live with the limitations on development that protect the New York City watershed. In addition to providing recreation to half a million tourist annually, the region resources serve as the water supply for 10 million downstate neighbors. What some residents see as unfair and unwarranted burdens that restrict economic development, others regard as a blessing that will keep the pristine wilderness in trust for future generations.

      A map of the school district dated 1900 shows a schoolhouse located every 2 miles. As transportation and roads improved several of these were combined until

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