May 1
Society Meeting
The speaker at the May 1 meeting of the Hoosick Township Historical Society will be Jonathan Daniel. Mr Daniel is creating an ambitious museum of his own in the old Daniel Store building at the corner of Church St. and John St. He has already set up the old store as a museum, and is working on setting up an old-time print shop in another room of the building. He has plans for other rooms in the building, and for other surrounding buildings, which he will discuss in his talk. Mr. Daniel is also very knowledgeable about Hoosick history, and will discuss many aspects of old Hoosick Falls in his talk.
The program begins at 7 pm, and refreshments will be served afterwards.
Membership Campaign
The 2001 membership drive has been very successful. To date, we have 34 single memberships, 38 family memberships, 22 company and individual $25 memberships, and 9 sponsors at $50. Our total income from dues is quadruple that of last year. We have started to grow a membership that shows the community is behind the direction taken by the Historical Society Board. It is our hope previous members who have not paid their dues yet this year will join again, and that we will see more first-time members joining in the near future.
Farm Exhibit Opens May 5
A grand opening event will be held May 5 for our new farm
exhibit. We are inviting farmers and
others who know about the history of
farming in Hoosick to come in on Saturday afternoon and record the
history of family farms in the Hoosick area on videotape. We hope farmers will show up and swap
stories of old-time farming in Hoosick Falls. Please help us get the word out,
so that we can capture some of the town’s farm history for posterity.
The exhibit consists
of an updated version of an exhibit first put together in 1991 on farms in the
Buskirk-West Hoosick area, along with an exhibit of old farm journals and tools
from local farms. The Buskirk-West
Hoosick study was designed and created by architectural historian Ned Pratt
with assistance from Constance Kheel and others.
Also on display on May 5 will be a selection of model
tractors from the collection of Charles Filkins, and posterboards on the
selection of farm implements available from the Walter Wood Company, and
weather permitting, a display of actual Walter Wood farm machinery on the side
lawn.
The event will be held from 1-4 pm on Saturday, May 5,
and refreshments will be served.
Building Improvement Plans Endorsed
At the last meeting of the Society, Bob Becker presented
a very functional provisional plan to make the museum accessible to handicapped
people. As part of the plan, it would
create a better gift shop, as well as a better organized floor plan. A motion was passed to go ahead with raising
money by grant and other means to go ahead with the construction in phases. Stop in and view the plans. They are excellent. Thanks goes out to Bob for a job well done,
and at no charge to the Society!
School Projects
Phil Leonard is working with two girls from the sixth
grade at the Central School. They are
producing a TV show to be shown on access TV in the near future.
All of the fourth graders from the Hoosick Falls Central
School visited the museum on April 23 and 24.
They are doing a project called ABC History, in which they identify
topics in Hoosick history beginning with each of the letters of the alphabet,
and then they research each one, and put together a book with an historical
essay for each letter of the alphabet.
(over)
Resource Books
The museum now has an organized program to update
our research library. We are gathering
information in loose leaf notebooks arranged by topic. Each page is in sheet protectors so that it
can be used without harming the originals.
Newspapers clippings are copied onto archival safe paper, since many of
the older ones are disintegrating and will soon be lost if they are not
copied. Several volunteers have taken
on projects and we are starting to see our library grow. A list of books finished or in progress:
Churches of this area
(four books)
Hoosick Falls murders
Homecoming 2000
Veteran Clippings WWII
Walter Wirmusky, Sarah
Guiden, Harriet Hoctor
Centralization of the
Hoosick Falls Schools
History of Hoosick Falls
Health Center
History of Public
Schools in Hoosick Before Centralization
Graduation Programs for
Both Local Schools
St. Mary’s School
Grandma Moses
Fires in the Town of
Hoosick (two volumes)
More people are showing an interest in participating, and
we welcome their input.