New York Almanack

History, Natural History & the Arts

Milton Sernett

Milton C. Sernett is Professor Emeritus of African American Studies and History, Syracuse University. His published academic books include ones on abolitionism, African American religious history, Harriet Tubman, and the Great Migration. A longtime student of all things agricultural, Sernett has published books about the transition from heavy horse farming to tractors, cheese making, chickens, Holstein history, and Jared Van Wagenen. He is a founding member of the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum, Peterboro, New York.

The Killing of Schoharie Deputy Sheriff Huddleston in 1818

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Jared van Wagenen, Courtesy of Jared van Wagenen’s family;On the ninth of October 1818, William Huddleston, a resident of Lawyersville and a deputy sheriff of Schoharie County, rode out to the farm of John van Alstine. Van Alstine had run over and injured a child the previous summer.

Huddleston intended to collect several judgments from Van Alstine arising from the injury to the child and secure some of Van Alstine’s property as collateral against various outstanding judgments. Van Alstine picked up a wooden bar and clubbed the deputy sheriff to death. The killing was, as the ghost says in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, “a murder most foul.” [Read more…] about The Killing of Schoharie Deputy Sheriff Huddleston in 1818

The Night the Lights Came On: Electricity on New York State Farms

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Few New York State farms had electric power in the 1920s. Even as late as 1930 ninety percent of farm families nationwide had no line-run electricity. On long winter evenings city dwellers could read and sew long past sunset, but farm families sat in near darkness and did chores, such as milking the cows, in the dim light of kerosene lanterns.

Some farmers used Delco-Light Plants made up of ranks of glass-jarred lead-storage batteries located in dirt-floored basements for electric power. As Delco’s slogan was, “Delco systems sell best by night,” Delco salesman cleverly arrived at dusk with small Delco systems to demonstrate to farmers how these DC-units, when sufficiently massed, could bring to the farm what folks in the cities enjoyed. But Delco systems were expensive, and the batteries had to be recharged with a generator powered by a gasoline engine. [Read more…] about The Night the Lights Came On: Electricity on New York State Farms

The Destruction of Gerrit Smith’s Mansion

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SmithMansionFTT copyHistorical research using old newspapers fascinates but also frustrates me. Had you read the March 5th, 1936 edition of The Cazenovia Republican you would have learned that the historic Gerrit Smith mansion in Peterboro, New York, burned to the ground two days earlier. [Read more…] about The Destruction of Gerrit Smith’s Mansion

Crimes Against Butter: The Oleomargarine Controversy

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Hippolyte Mège-MourièsThe butter trade was once so important to dairy farmers in Orange County, NY that the bank in Goshen, the county seat, printed its currency on yellow paper. Popularly known as “butter money,” this currency symbolized how significant the trade in butter was to dairy farmers in dairy regions across the state prior to the introduction of refrigerated railroad cars to ship raw milk, first using blocks of ice and then mechanical cooling.

The original shipment of milk from Orange County to New York City is believed to have taken place in the spring of 1842 via the New York & Erie Railroad. Prior to this raw milk could be transported only short distances by farm wagon.

Butter, however, could be transported to markets many miles from the farm or factory where it was produced. As symbolized by “butter money,” blocks of butter were once as good as gold. [Read more…] about Crimes Against Butter: The Oleomargarine Controversy

Cornell Agricultural Dean Liberty Hyde Bailey: A Man for All Seasons

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“Groundbreaking repeats elements of ’05 ceremony,”I joined the faculty of Syracuse University in 1975. I was surprised to learn that my institution once had a farm and hopes for a college of agriculture.

To my chagrin, I learned that my school lost out to Cornell back in 1904 when Liberty Hyde Bailey (1858-1954) bested Syracuse University’s Chancellor James R. Day in getting legislation passed in Albany to provide Cornell with state funding for an agricultural school. [Read more…] about Cornell Agricultural Dean Liberty Hyde Bailey: A Man for All Seasons

Farm Paper of the Air: WGY & The Sage of Lawyersville, Jared van Wagenen

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WGY broadcasting station in SchenectadyThe boom in home radio usage began in the early 1920s. The Department of Commerce issued regulations to control the chaotic spread of radio stations in December of 1921.

A listing from March 10th, 1922, included 67 stations that were officially licensed to use the public airwaves. One of those would become extremely significant in the life of Jared van Wagenen, Jr., a graduate of Cornell University and a farmer who lived at Hillside Farm at Lawyersville (north of Cobleskill) in Schoharie County.

Van Wagenen (1871-1960), though a self-proclaimed “dirt farmer,” was a prolific writer and speaker on all things agricultural. He championed an agricultural civilization where human values were prized over profit. [Read more…] about Farm Paper of the Air: WGY & The Sage of Lawyersville, Jared van Wagenen

The Daniel Parrish Witter Agricultural Museum: A History

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Daniel_Parrish_Witter_Agricultural_Museum,_New_York_State_Fairgrounds_-_20210411 The Daniel Parrish Witter Agricultural Museum at what is now known as the Great New York State Fair opened officially on April 30th, 1928. Daniel Parrish Witter, a long-time New York State Assemblyman representing Tioga County was born in 1852 at Richford. Witter assumed the greater responsibility for working the family farm after his father became disabled, one of his older brothers was killed in the Civil War, and two others were seriously wounded in the same conflict. [Read more…] about The Daniel Parrish Witter Agricultural Museum: A History

‘Cradle of the Breed’: Gerrit Smith Miller & His Kriemhild Holsteins

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dedication by A. J. Strohmeyer, Jr., August 17, 1929 On August 17th, 1929, the German airship Graf Zeppelin was attempting to encircle the world. Baseball fans were still marveling about how Babe Ruth had reached the 500 mark in home runs the previous Sunday at League Park in Cleveland, Ohio. The Great Bull Market of the 1920s was yet to crash.

None of these matters preoccupied Henry A. Strohmeyer, Jr., animal photographer, as he positioned himself and his camera to capture a picture of the man of the hour. Son of a famed expert in stereoscopic photography who made a career in capturing images of the estates of the wealthy, Strohmeyer had built his own reputation largely by taking pictures of cows and bulls. He was about to photograph Gerrit Smith Miller who at eighty-four was the oldest and most respected Holstein cowman in the country. [Read more…] about ‘Cradle of the Breed’: Gerrit Smith Miller & His Kriemhild Holsteins

Peterboro’s National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum

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National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum/Smithfield Community Center. Photo taken by Milton SernettMembers of the Cabinet of Freedom of the National Abolition Hall of Fame (NAHOF) went to the Great New York Fair for several years to introduce the public to a unique museum that occupies the second floor of the Smithfield Community Center in Peterboro, New York.

On one of these occasions, NAHOF occupied a booth in the Center of Progress building. Hundreds of fair-goers went by the NAHOF location. Some who stopped to hear about NAHOF would ask, “Where is Peterboro?” NAHOF hosts explained that Peterboro is a small hamlet in the heart of Madison County. Few who passed by stayed long enough to hear about what the Museum had to offer. NAHOF representatives began wearing t-shirts that carried the words “Where is Peterboro?” on the front and on the back were the words “North of Pleasant Valley, South of Clockville, East of Fenner, West of Salem.” [Read more…] about Peterboro’s National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum

Beriah Green, Oneida Institute and Education as Liberation

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Daguerreotype of Beriah Green, courtesy of John Baker, a descendant.In his classic The Souls of Black Folk (1903), the famous activist, sociologist, and historian W. E. B. Du Bois, tells of how Alexander Crummell told Du Bois that he had experienced “three years of perfect equality” under the tutelage of Rev. Beriah Green when a student at Oneida Institute in Upstate New York.

Crummell, along with Henry Highland Garnet and Thomas Sidney, found an educational haven at Green’s school. They had been admitted to the Noyes Academy in Canaan, New Hampshire, but outraged whites used teams of oxen to drag the academy building away. Crummell and his friends then journeyed to Whitesboro, New York, and enrolled in Green’s school. Du Bois said of Green that “only [a] crank and an abolitionist” would have dared to accept students of color such as Crummell at a time when African Americans were excluded from opportunities for higher education. [Read more…] about Beriah Green, Oneida Institute and Education as Liberation