CIVIL WAR SOLDIER, POSSON'S STORE, FARM ACTIVITIES

I have just finished the weekly update to Albany Hilltowns main pages. It summarizes changes made this past week and gives links to them: Civil War soldier biographies, Lot numbers, farm houses, farm activites, ideas for farmers, and much more. Here are a few of the new or updated pages:

• William Henry Harrison Posson
  
  
  was born 1840 in the Town of Wright, Schoharie, son of William Posson and Mary Catherine Becker. He saw four years of active service in the civil war Co. G, 45th Inf. After the war he married Mary Zimmer of Gallupville. They moved to West Berne where William purchased and ran Posson's Store. William H. Posson was a member of Charles McCulloch post, No. 645 G.A.R., West Berne and served as commander of that post for three times.
  
  
• William Henry Harrison Posson moved to West Berne after the Civil War and purchased and ran a Posson's Store until his death. After his death, his son Fred Posson took over the store. The Posson home was next door to the west.

Reformating Albany Hilltowns web site

The main page of Albany Hilltowns has just been updated. 

I have started adding 18th C. Van Rensselaer survey notes and leases.

 Westerlo barn, by Andy Arthur

The Albany Hillotwns wiki site will gradually be reorganized to emphasize the unity of the Albany hill towns. Now the basic organization of the site is by hill town. This will be overlaid with the same content also organized by subject. Think of the content as being organized on a grid or spreadsheet with the names of the towns heading the columns along the top and the subject matter heading each of the rows going down. Users of the site will be able to choose the subject in which they are interested and go to a page with all the links on that subject regardless of which hill town they are in.


The first subject to be consciously reorganized with this is mind is that of Hill town trails. The thinking is that is if someone wants to Head for the Hills - the Albany Hilltowns for hiking, they don't want to have to look at each of the following pages to find all of the various hiking opportunities:

• Berne visitor attractions and facilities.
• Knox visitor attractions and facilities.
• Westerlo visitor attractions and facilities.
• Rensselaerville visitor attractions and facilities.

This should work as well for history buffs and farm visitors as it does for nature lovers. Folks interested in visiting farms, exploring old cemeteries, or admiring our historic homes don't care in which town they are located, they want to have an easily accessible list of everything in the hill towns of interest to them.


The site will also retain the present organization by town.


 KNOX CEMETERIES

 Dan Driscoll in Elsass Cemetery

A transcription of the stones at the Elsass Cemetery has just been posted. The name was a corruption of Alsace. It is located in the town of Knox at the corner of Pleasant Valley, Witter Road and Route 156. The cemetery has been abandoned and is overgrown. Dan Driscoll tells me that a Boy Scout is planning to clean up that cemetery as a Eagle Scout project.

Other Knox cemeteries transcriptions just posted:

• Frink Cemetery
• No. 13‎
• Barckley Family Burying Ground‎
• Cornell Family Burying Ground‎
• Quay Road Cemetery
• Schoonmaker Family Burying Ground‎
• Jonathan D. Wood Family Burying Ground

Can anyone tell me the name of the cemetery in Knox on Quay Road?

ALTAMONT ENTERPRISE FEATURE ARTICLE

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

ALTAMONT ENTERPRISE ARTICLE


Proposals on the Albany Hilltowns web site to encourage folks to visit the hill towns as a means to preserve the farmlands and the scenic beauty, and at the same time boosting the local economy, are the subject of The Altamont Enterprise  Feature Story for the week of December 24, 2009. Barb Husek tells me the front page article in weekly the Altamont Enterprise, by Zack Simone, also includes several nice photographs, and that the editor wrote a "glowing editorial" about our efforts. (Barb's words. My copy won't arrive here in Oaxaca, Mexico for another week.)


HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO US!

This Christmas season Albany Hilltowns is celebrating its first anniversary! It was only a year ago that the first few pages of my site went online. There are now 2063 pages, "and growing daily." The main page is viewed over 1000 times a month, and that rate is also increasing steadily.

HEAD FOR THE HILLS - Economic benefits from visitors

High Point Road in Partridge Run WMA
Charles Sloger, Oct. 2008.

Here is a link to more of Charles Sloger's incredibly beautiful photos.

The purpose of this Albany Hilltowns has been broadened from history and genealogy to include the following:

ADDITIONAL GOALS

• Historic building preservation
• Farmland preservation
• Boost the hill towns economy

A primary means to accomplish these goals is to make people aware of the beauty of the Albany County hill towns, thus giving them reasons to visit the hill towns. Visitors spend money, thus supporting farmers and other local businessmen and their employees. This will encourage historic building and farmland preservation.

Giving visitors as many reasons as possible to "Head to the Hills - The Albany Hilltowns" is one way to make progress towards those goals.


HEAD FOR THE HILLS


Economic benefits from visitors

Not all visitors to the hill towns are hikers and leaf peepers; or at least they don't have to be.

The secret to separating visitors from their money painlessly, is to offer them something they want to buy. Head for the Hills - The Albany Hilltowns has suggestions for farm activities that could make visitors want to spend more of their time and more of their money in the hill towns.

One of the suggestions is to have a central Hilltowns Farmers Market every weekend at a different town park pavilion.

Let's imagine that a couple from below the hills decides to attend the Farmers Market on Saturday; then they decide since they are going, why not make in a mini-vacation weekend.

Saturday morning they go to the Farmers Market and stock up on a week's worth of fruits and vegetables. While there they buy some of Bob Rowe's alpaca head-wear and scarves for gifts. They also buy a couple of dozen fresh eggs and a free range chicken from the stand of Frantzen's Scenic Acres, some antiques, and crafts made by "Sister Sue."

Time for lunch at Jersey's in East Berne, then an afternoon's hike in the Burke Wildlife Management Area in Knox. They enjoy dinner at Maple Inn, (but then so does everyone who eats there!).

They spend the night at Ralph and Jan Miller's in one of their spare rooms. Since the Miller's are renting rooms by the night or week on an occasional basis in a bedroom in their own home, they meet the criteria to call their home a Guest House.

The next morning our couple eats breakfast at the Hilltown Café in Rensselaerville. This is followed by a Sunday Drive in the Partridge Run WMA; then by lunch at the Palmer House.

They leave for home Sunday afternoon with full bellies, a trunk full of goodies bought in the hill towns, empty pockets, and smiles on their faces.

What have they left behind? Not pollution and litter!

They have left behind their money! And not just for sales tax at the MobilMart; rather they have transferred two or three hundred dollars from their pockets to the pockets of farmers and other business persons, the guest house owner, restaurants owners, and waitpersons in the hill towns.

They also took home lots of pictures and fond memories. They are anxious to tell their friends about the wonderful weekend they had, and suggest that the following weekend their friends "Head for the Hills."

And with a Hilltowns Farmers Market every weekend in a different town on a rotating basis, it would not be just one couple deciding to spend the weekend in the hill towns, it would be a dozen or two every weekend.

Where is the harm in that?

NATURAL AREAS AND OUTDOOR RECREATION OPPORTUNITES

The Albany hill towns are known for their natural beauty: pastoral rural country side, rolling hills, meandering creeks, waterfalls, forest land.

There are now separate pages for each of hill towns.

• Rensselaerville Natural Areas and Outdoor Recreation
• Knox Natural History and Outdoor Recreation
• Westerlo Natural Areas and Outdoor Recreation
• Berne Natural History and Outdoor Recreation - (Take a look at this page for ideas for making more use of the natural beauty of Berne to attract outside visitors interested in hiking, fishing, history, and photograph.)

HEAD FOR THE HILLS - THE ALBANY HILLTOWNS

I spent more of the day updating the main page of the Albany Hilltowns wiki site, and this page suggesting ways to increase the number of visitors to the hill towns, to remove the offending phrases "Tourists" and "Tourism." I had no idea they would give so many people bad connotations of the hill towns being turned into a Woodstock with tour buses, pollution, and congestion. Calm down folks! 

I changed the name of the new Facebook group promoting tourism to Head for the Hills - The Albany Hilltowns. Again I removed the phrases "Tourists" and "Tourism." You do not have to be a member of Facebook to view the site and read the discussions.

 

HEAD TO THE HILLTOWNS

Waterfall on Fox Creek
Nov. 2009, Charles Sloger

 

I have spent most of the last few days updating the main page of Albany Hilltowns wiki site. I have broadened the purpose of the site from history and genealogy to include the preservation of historic buildings, farmland preservation and the encouragement of low impact tourism to benefit the local economy. Barb Husek suggested a possible theme "Head to the Hilltowns."