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First book on village of Chatham hits shelves
By Karrie Allen
It has finally been published — the first historical book on the village of Chatham. And it has been written by the village’s own historian and president of the Chatham Village Historical Society, Gail Blass Wolczanski.
A fifth-generation Chatham resident, Wolczanski said she started formulating the book in her mind many years ago.
“Among my mother’s attic treasures was memorabilia reflecting Chatham’s history. My family, many of them village residents, added to my interest in recording local history. When Arcadia offered me the book opportunity, it further inspired me to learn more about my hometown augmenting my knowledge to better fit the position of the village historian.”
Now, Wolczanski was only officially installed as village historian this year. “The village had been without one for a number of years,” she said. The historical society applied for a Restore NY grant this year (which they didn’t receive), so “it was felt having an official historian would be beneficial to the efforts of obtaining grants,” she added.
She became the historical society president in May 2006, just prior to moving “home” to Chatham. The president at the time was stepping down and though she had not intended on becoming president, Wolczanski said it was either “fill the position or have no village historical society to work with to retain Chatham’s history.”
With an investment in preserving the history of the village, Wolczanski began serious research and tracking down images for the book last November. She said there are more than 200 photographs and related images in the book.
She said the Arcadia format is “really a photo history of an area with captions,” which is “highly effective because not only are you internalizing information, but also you can apply the facts and additionally ‘read’ the photos that refer to the caption information. … It was a very comfortable format to use and one that visual learners like myself can appreciate,” she said.
When asked how she obtained the images and information, Wolczanski said they came from a variety of sources. Jon Meredith of Kinderhook has an extensive collection of local history memorabilia, including postcards, which he was “extremely generous” in sharing, she said. She also credited Dwight and Mace Sawyer, Molly Harding, Frank Cappozzo and Calvin Pitcher, the former Ghent historian, with being generous with their collections. She added that family friend, Bill Wood, offered information and photos relating to the railroad.
Wolczanski also utilized local resources in the village, such as the Chatham Public Library, which “has an extensive collection of ephemera that has grown over the years with personal donations.” One collection in the library, she said, belonged to Mary E. Dardess, former principal. The village historical society also has a collection of donated photos, newspapers and artifacts. She also used the Hudson library, whose history room “provided much background information” and the Columbia County Historical Society’s Monthie collection.
To piece together the captions with the photos, Wolczanski started by interviewing everyone who had a photograph and a “lifetime of memories about the village.” She also read through the old collection of newspapers, some Chatham Couriers, as well as the vertical files and every one of the archival boxes at the Chatham Library.
“In some instances information dictated the photos to be used and in other cases photos dictated what information needed to be found. The best of either source was selected to create the vignettes and stories I tried to relate in as close to a photo essay as possible within the Arcadia guidelines,” said Wolczanski.
Her family was very much a part of the village history. She explains her history like this: In the 19th century, John Strever, with the help of his sons, built a farmhouse and out buildings along Route 66. On the same road, the Angell farm descended from father to son, Joel, who later erected the large home on Cemetery hill to the left of the driveway. The Strever and Angell families merged with the marriage of Delmer Strever and Helen Sipperly (her mother was Mary Thorne Angell). These were Wolczanski’s maternal grandparents.
Her paternal grandparents, Cora and Grant Blass, came north from Boston Four Corners to settle in Chatham. They purchased a farm on the same road as the Angells and Strevers in the 1930s, prior to moving to Grove Street. Both sets of grandparents were farmers and trainmen, she said.
Delmer Strever was an engineer on the New York Central and his son was a hostler on the turntable in the Chatham yard. Blass was a brakeman on the Boston and Albany Railroad and then a conductor for New York Central. His oldest and youngest of three sons became railroad trainmen. Louise Strever married her high school sweetheart, Ralph Blass, and they had Wolczanski.
“I fondly remember dad taking me to the caboose to restock the refrigerator with the chopped block of ice he ran along the rails while I shook down the pot-bellied stove coals and put more bricks on,” she said. “I was rewarded by being hoisted up to the cupola seats where I could peer out the windows onto the busy village.”
Her parents bought a house in 1955, when Wolczanski started kindergarten. After 33 years of teaching in the New Hartford Central School District, she retired and in 2006, moved back to this home.
“I am fortunate that when the railroads left Chatham and our family moved ‘down the line’ during my high school years, they had the foresight to not sell the house but rent it,” she said.
Now a full-time village resident, Wolczanski has also become active in community activities, many of which her mother participated in. She helps out with Meals on Wheels and the American Legion Auxiliary Post #42 and last year, joined the Northern Columbia County Rotary Club. She has led the club’s Red Cross Blood Drive and participated in its annual Harvest Sale and Haunted House. Since 2006, she has worked part time at the Payn Home for Retired Persons.
For the last two springs, she has also volunteered to lead second graders from the Mary E. Dardess Elementary School, her alma mater, through the village on a historic walking tour.
Probably not included in the walking tour is the Blinn-Pulver Farmhouse, which Wolczanski has focused on preserving, since it is the oldest farmhouse within village limits.
“My classmate, Laurel Pulver, lived in the now historically registered Blinn-Pulver Farmhouse when I was in elementary school,” she said. When she became historical society president, “saving the farmhouse had been abandoned as a project, but with the urging of local individuals and the support of my trustees, we have picked up the banner to save this 1811 landmark for posterity,” said Wolczanski. “Much work has been done inside the building with just the support of membership.” Plans for the farmhouse include a museum, library, local archive and historical society headquarters.
Another project for the future is the Green Shanty, the first railroad station in the village. Wolczanski said that it sits on CSX property and they don’t want it there, so it has been donated to the historical society. “Where to move it and how to move it remains another project to be addressed to ‘Save the Charm that’s Chatham.’”
Wolczanski hopes the book clarifies many of the accepted beliefs in village history. When asked what some of those beliefs are, she referenced the “Buckleyville Bombers.” Buckleyville existed between Chatham and Ghent on the railroad line. Tom Buckley owned and ran a cider mill and saw mill there that had its own shipping station, making it a prominent site, she said.
She mentioned Louis Payn, who was a Republican politician, friend of Theodore Roosevelt, proponent of Chatham as the county seat, extensive landowner and philanthropist. He endowed a foundation, the Louis F. Payn Foundation, to maintain a home for older residents, which is the retirement residence where Wolczanski works part time.
Though a village resident with a long family history here, there were things that she learned anew or was surprised by. Tidbits she found interesting were that there were three railroad turntables in the village — one on Fairview Avenue, one in Depot Square and one near Blue Seal Feeds — or that in 1869, the same year the village was incorporated, half of Main Street burned to the ground.
She said she was “most surprised to learn that a tavern and restaurant on the corner of Hoffman Street and Hudson Avenue (known to locals for the longest time as Garvey’s Restaurant) had originally been built by a Civil War veteran as a private home.” One such occupant was Payn, she added. The home became a business with boarding rooms, but was eventually torn down to build True Value hardware store.
The book includes these photos and so much more, but “There was so much rich history that I found myself concluding the timeline around 1940,” said Wolczanski. “The photographs and information dictated the time period covered.”
She said there have been inquiries about another book that would continue the village history from 1940, but right now Wolczanski will go back to focusing on her historical duties, community activities and more immediately, book signings.
The first book signing will be 1 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 8 at the Chatham Bookstore on Main Street. There will be two book signings on Saturday, Nov. 14 — 10:30 a.m. at Fairview Books, Fairview Plaza, Hudson and 1 p.m. at Evenstar Book and Gift Shop, 3019A Main St., Valatie. The next day, Nov. 15 at 2 p.m., she’ll be at the Payn Foundation, Coleman Street, Chatham. At 3 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 5, she’ll be at the Chatham Public Library, Woodbridge Avenue. The book will be sold at these select bookstores, as well as through Arcadia, at www.arcadiapublishing.com.
The book retails for $21.99, but profits from its sale will help support opening the Blinn-Pulver Farmhouse to the public and placing the National Register of Historic Places brass plaque by its 200th birthday in 2011.
A fifth-generation Chatham resident, Wolczanski said she started formulating the book in her mind many years ago.
“Among my mother’s attic treasures was memorabilia reflecting Chatham’s history. My family, many of them village residents, added to my interest in recording local history. When Arcadia offered me the book opportunity, it further inspired me to learn more about my hometown augmenting my knowledge to better fit the position of the village historian.”
Now, Wolczanski was only officially installed as village historian this year. “The village had been without one for a number of years,” she said. The historical society applied for a Restore NY grant this year (which they didn’t receive), so “it was felt having an official historian would be beneficial to the efforts of obtaining grants,” she added.
She became the historical society president in May 2006, just prior to moving “home” to Chatham. The president at the time was stepping down and though she had not intended on becoming president, Wolczanski said it was either “fill the position or have no village historical society to work with to retain Chatham’s history.”
With an investment in preserving the history of the village, Wolczanski began serious research and tracking down images for the book last November. She said there are more than 200 photographs and related images in the book.
She said the Arcadia format is “really a photo history of an area with captions,” which is “highly effective because not only are you internalizing information, but also you can apply the facts and additionally ‘read’ the photos that refer to the caption information. … It was a very comfortable format to use and one that visual learners like myself can appreciate,” she said.
When asked how she obtained the images and information, Wolczanski said they came from a variety of sources. Jon Meredith of Kinderhook has an extensive collection of local history memorabilia, including postcards, which he was “extremely generous” in sharing, she said. She also credited Dwight and Mace Sawyer, Molly Harding, Frank Cappozzo and Calvin Pitcher, the former Ghent historian, with being generous with their collections. She added that family friend, Bill Wood, offered information and photos relating to the railroad.
Wolczanski also utilized local resources in the village, such as the Chatham Public Library, which “has an extensive collection of ephemera that has grown over the years with personal donations.” One collection in the library, she said, belonged to Mary E. Dardess, former principal. The village historical society also has a collection of donated photos, newspapers and artifacts. She also used the Hudson library, whose history room “provided much background information” and the Columbia County Historical Society’s Monthie collection.
To piece together the captions with the photos, Wolczanski started by interviewing everyone who had a photograph and a “lifetime of memories about the village.” She also read through the old collection of newspapers, some Chatham Couriers, as well as the vertical files and every one of the archival boxes at the Chatham Library.
“In some instances information dictated the photos to be used and in other cases photos dictated what information needed to be found. The best of either source was selected to create the vignettes and stories I tried to relate in as close to a photo essay as possible within the Arcadia guidelines,” said Wolczanski.
Her family was very much a part of the village history. She explains her history like this: In the 19th century, John Strever, with the help of his sons, built a farmhouse and out buildings along Route 66. On the same road, the Angell farm descended from father to son, Joel, who later erected the large home on Cemetery hill to the left of the driveway. The Strever and Angell families merged with the marriage of Delmer Strever and Helen Sipperly (her mother was Mary Thorne Angell). These were Wolczanski’s maternal grandparents.
Her paternal grandparents, Cora and Grant Blass, came north from Boston Four Corners to settle in Chatham. They purchased a farm on the same road as the Angells and Strevers in the 1930s, prior to moving to Grove Street. Both sets of grandparents were farmers and trainmen, she said.
Delmer Strever was an engineer on the New York Central and his son was a hostler on the turntable in the Chatham yard. Blass was a brakeman on the Boston and Albany Railroad and then a conductor for New York Central. His oldest and youngest of three sons became railroad trainmen. Louise Strever married her high school sweetheart, Ralph Blass, and they had Wolczanski.
“I fondly remember dad taking me to the caboose to restock the refrigerator with the chopped block of ice he ran along the rails while I shook down the pot-bellied stove coals and put more bricks on,” she said. “I was rewarded by being hoisted up to the cupola seats where I could peer out the windows onto the busy village.”
Her parents bought a house in 1955, when Wolczanski started kindergarten. After 33 years of teaching in the New Hartford Central School District, she retired and in 2006, moved back to this home.
“I am fortunate that when the railroads left Chatham and our family moved ‘down the line’ during my high school years, they had the foresight to not sell the house but rent it,” she said.
Now a full-time village resident, Wolczanski has also become active in community activities, many of which her mother participated in. She helps out with Meals on Wheels and the American Legion Auxiliary Post #42 and last year, joined the Northern Columbia County Rotary Club. She has led the club’s Red Cross Blood Drive and participated in its annual Harvest Sale and Haunted House. Since 2006, she has worked part time at the Payn Home for Retired Persons.
For the last two springs, she has also volunteered to lead second graders from the Mary E. Dardess Elementary School, her alma mater, through the village on a historic walking tour.
Probably not included in the walking tour is the Blinn-Pulver Farmhouse, which Wolczanski has focused on preserving, since it is the oldest farmhouse within village limits.
“My classmate, Laurel Pulver, lived in the now historically registered Blinn-Pulver Farmhouse when I was in elementary school,” she said. When she became historical society president, “saving the farmhouse had been abandoned as a project, but with the urging of local individuals and the support of my trustees, we have picked up the banner to save this 1811 landmark for posterity,” said Wolczanski. “Much work has been done inside the building with just the support of membership.” Plans for the farmhouse include a museum, library, local archive and historical society headquarters.
Another project for the future is the Green Shanty, the first railroad station in the village. Wolczanski said that it sits on CSX property and they don’t want it there, so it has been donated to the historical society. “Where to move it and how to move it remains another project to be addressed to ‘Save the Charm that’s Chatham.’”
Wolczanski hopes the book clarifies many of the accepted beliefs in village history. When asked what some of those beliefs are, she referenced the “Buckleyville Bombers.” Buckleyville existed between Chatham and Ghent on the railroad line. Tom Buckley owned and ran a cider mill and saw mill there that had its own shipping station, making it a prominent site, she said.
She mentioned Louis Payn, who was a Republican politician, friend of Theodore Roosevelt, proponent of Chatham as the county seat, extensive landowner and philanthropist. He endowed a foundation, the Louis F. Payn Foundation, to maintain a home for older residents, which is the retirement residence where Wolczanski works part time.
Though a village resident with a long family history here, there were things that she learned anew or was surprised by. Tidbits she found interesting were that there were three railroad turntables in the village — one on Fairview Avenue, one in Depot Square and one near Blue Seal Feeds — or that in 1869, the same year the village was incorporated, half of Main Street burned to the ground.
She said she was “most surprised to learn that a tavern and restaurant on the corner of Hoffman Street and Hudson Avenue (known to locals for the longest time as Garvey’s Restaurant) had originally been built by a Civil War veteran as a private home.” One such occupant was Payn, she added. The home became a business with boarding rooms, but was eventually torn down to build True Value hardware store.
The book includes these photos and so much more, but “There was so much rich history that I found myself concluding the timeline around 1940,” said Wolczanski. “The photographs and information dictated the time period covered.”
She said there have been inquiries about another book that would continue the village history from 1940, but right now Wolczanski will go back to focusing on her historical duties, community activities and more immediately, book signings.
The first book signing will be 1 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 8 at the Chatham Bookstore on Main Street. There will be two book signings on Saturday, Nov. 14 — 10:30 a.m. at Fairview Books, Fairview Plaza, Hudson and 1 p.m. at Evenstar Book and Gift Shop, 3019A Main St., Valatie. The next day, Nov. 15 at 2 p.m., she’ll be at the Payn Foundation, Coleman Street, Chatham. At 3 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 5, she’ll be at the Chatham Public Library, Woodbridge Avenue. The book will be sold at these select bookstores, as well as through Arcadia, at www.arcadiapublishing.com.
The book retails for $21.99, but profits from its sale will help support opening the Blinn-Pulver Farmhouse to the public and placing the National Register of Historic Places brass plaque by its 200th birthday in 2011.
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