18. Twenty-three Vintage Reasons to "Wish You Were Here"

Festival of Geographical Postcards from Schoharie County, New York

[Schoharie County, comprised of 626 square miles, proudly displays her mountains rising to 3,427 feet and lowering to 520 feet for her lakes, creeks, streams, rivers, waterfalls, dams, Devonian-period fossil forest, and then dropping 156 feet below the surface of the earth for her six-million-year-old cavern. Her scattered villages and hamlets surrounded by rich, fertile soil conducive to dairy and crop farming, prompted our Revolutionary War Commander-in-Chief, General George Washington, to dub our Schoharie Valley the “Breadbasket of the Revolution,” a term which was well-deserved.]

.

Vroman’s Nose or Onistagrawa Mountain, Middleburgh, New York

And View From Atop Vroman’s Nose [42.589° N    74.3543° W]

[My Vroman ancestors were known for the unusual shape of their noses.  If you look closely at the photograph on the left, you will see why it was given the name it was and why I proudly display my very own “Vroman’s Nose”!]

.

.

Gilboa, New York [42° 23' 49.99" N   74° 26' 47.00" W]

[Postcards depicting the Devonian-period in Gilboa by Kristen Wyckoff, a well-known area artist who is also an amateur fossil hunter.   Her postcards are available for purchase from The Gilboa Museum gift shop, http://www.gilboafossils.org/?explore=5.  View several of the Devonian-period fossils at http://www.gilboafossils.org/?explore=9&f=1]

.

Moonlight on the Schoharie Creek [42° 39' 56.99" N 74° 18' 36.00" W]

.

Summit Lake [42°34′21″ N    74°36′4″ W]

[Summit Lake is near the village of Summit where my 2nd Great-Grandfather Parley Brown (1811-1878) raised his 17 children and where fishing through the ice is very popular.  As the locals say, "The worse the weather is, the better they bite."   Summit Lake is also only seven miles from Jefferson, the source of the Delaware River at Mount Jefferson, where my 3rd Great-Grandfather Perley Brown (1756-1816) lived, having moved there from Connecticut after serving in the Revolutionary War.]

.

Tobogganing in Schoharie County [42 39' 56.99" N  74° 18' 36.00" W]

[Tobogganing was great winter sport during my childhood.]

.

.

Blenheim Falls, North Blenheim, New York [42° 28' 14.99" N 74° 26' 44.99" W]

[Sadly, this is where my oldest brother, Kenneth Draper Brown (1927-1938) drowned whilst attempting to save his best friend, Lonnie Keyser.]

.

.

Schoharie Creek at North Blenheim [42° 28' 14.99" N 74° 26' 44.99" W]

[The home where my parents lived when I was born was just around the bend on the right.  I was born during the flood of 1936 and you can see why my Father drove my Mother to my maternal Grandmother’s home in Delaware County for my birth in order to flee the floodplain.]

.

Upper and Lower Manorkill Falls, New York [42.3806° N    74.4307° W]

[These falls were near my paternal Grandmother, Gertrude Bessie Schermerhorn’s (1882-1979) childhood home in East Conesville.]

.

Toe Path – Then & Now [42.5595° N    74.4257° W]

[Many of the present roads in Schoharie County follow the paths of Native Americans who intuitively followed the contours of the numerous mountains, forests and valleys.  The Toe Path, what is now Olde Route 30, is an excellent example.  The Iroquois Confederacy flag in the middle pays tribute to our Forefathers and Mothers, especially our 9th Great-Grandmother, OtsToch, a Mohawk of the Turtle Clan.]

.

Wahalla Rocks, Breakabeen, New York [42.5376° N    74.3985° W]

[Walhalla Rocks is a mountain summit in Schoharie County climbing to 1,283 feet (391.06 meters) above sea level, and were just a stone’s throw from where I lived during my high school years.]

.

.

Gilboa Dam, Gilboa, New York [42.3917° N  74.4496° W]

[Site of the main street of the village of Gilboa, which was razed, and the cemetery containing many of my ancestors who were removed and reinterred between 1918-1921 to make way for the dam and reservoir to supply the City of New York with fresh Schoharie County water.]

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nyschoha/gilcemrv.html

.

Howe Caverns, Howe’s Caves, New York [42° 41' 24.00" N 74° 22' 59.99" W]

[Far beneath this imposing complex of Tudor-style buildings housing the ticket window, restaurant and gift shop on a serene hilltop lies a wondrous underground world formed over the course of six million years. Tour groups board an elevator for a 16-story, 156-foot descent into the Earth and step out into a limestone cave that is every bit the marvel it was in 1842 when farmer Lester Howe discovered it ... with the help of his cows.  View a slideshow of the caverns at http://www.howecaverns.com/]

[The maps in this post are not part of the postcards; merely included for descriptive purposes.]

© 2010 Copyright, Norman R. Brown

About these ads