THE IMPORTANCE OF (LOCAL) HISTORY

By 1875, Hillsdale’s sheep farmers were producing some 17,000 pounds of wool per year. Several textile mills were built. One, operated by just two men, produced 600 pounds of flannel and cloth annually.

Iron ore was discovered in Hillsdale as early as 1800, although mining was never a big business here. But the furnace at the Copake Iron Works required a […]

Sometimes it’s easy to forget just how much history surrounds us everyday. We wake up, commute to work or school, drive down roads and pass by places that have become so familiar to us that they seem to only exist in our present. The truth is, however, the area we call home is so steeped in the history of our […]

From Hillsdale’s earliest days, farming was a major occupation, although not an easy one to pursue. The rocky, thin soil and the hilly contours of the land made Hillsdale a less-than-perfect spot to grow crops. In fact, the steep population decline Hillsdale experienced in the latter years of the 19th century and early 20th century was in some part due […]

By Howard Blue

For decades starting in 1934 Carroll Rheinstrom and his wife Irene had a huge farm in Craryville. Actually it wasn’t a farm because most of it was woods. It started with just a dozen acres, but over the decades, thanks partly to Irene’s work as a real estate agent, they expanded it to nearly […]