Historical Highlights of The Owlskill Valley
By Dave Thornton

Note: Most residents know the valley discussed in the following narrative as the “Cambridge Valley”. But long before the Cambridge Patent opened it to European settlers it belonged to Soquon (the “Owl”), wise chief of the Mohicansacs. Thus, “The Owlskill Valley”.

GEOLOGIC FORMATION
Noone knows when the first people came to the Owlskill Valley. We do know that 15,000 years ago, glaciers covered this area. Ten to eleven thousand years ago, they began to recede.
Their movement scoured out the Owlskill/Owlskill Valley, which because of a giant wall of scree down about Pownal, Vt. was one huge lake. We like to call it Lake Cambridge.
The original path of the Battenkill was down the Owlskill Valley. A subterranean flow continues via marshland south of Shushan through Plains Rd., entering the Valley above Cambridge Village. Some experts believe that the Village sits above a vast, untapped aquifer of pure water.

EARLY HABITATION
West of the Hudson, archaeologists find evidence of ice age hunter-gatherers.
Archeologist William O'Donnell, in working a site near the Owlkill in Cambridge Village, has exhumed hearth charcoal that carbon-dates to 2,200 B.C., as well as numerous stone artifacts.
One historian lists eleven "calendar sites" in this region, as evidence of an even earlier, pre-historic culture.
When the first Europeans arrived, almost 4,000 years after the events just cited, Mohicansacs occupied the valleys of the Hudson and Hoosick Valleys, as well as the valley of the Owl's Kill, from Lake Champlain to the Catskills, and from Amsterdam on the West to central Massachussetts on the East.
The first Europeans are thought to have arrived in the vicinity via the Hudson and Hoosick Rivers, about 1540.
At that time of the arrival of the first Europeans, the Owlskill Valley was a major, north-south passageway. The Great Northern, Indian War-Trail passes down the Valley, generally following the route later chosen for The Northern Turnpike, a toll road opened in 1799 between Troy, NY and Rutland, Vt.
In 1600, before the coming of the Dutch, the population of the Mohicans in the Upper Hudson, Hoosick and Owl's Kill valleys may have exceeded 5,000.
After 1676, when the Witenagemot Oak (The Tree of Peace) was planted near the Knickerbocker Mansion in the Hoosick Valley, the Europeans began to make inroads into the holdings of the Mahicans.
The first conflict on New York soil that involved caucasians took place in this county,d as the fur traders that accompanied French explorer Samuel Champlain followed the Indian trail south through the Owlskill Valley to the junction with the Hoosick River.
A few miles upstream, they established a trading post and fort. The priests with them raised the first flag of christianity over this land and dubbed this first white settlement St. Croix. By 1669, at the heighth of Mahican strength, the Indian societies of the Northeast were rapidly changing from a nomadic, hunter-gatherer existence to a life more dependent upon agriculture.

EUROPEAN SETTLEMENT
When the first Dutch settlers moved into the Hoosick and lower Owlskill Valleys, the Mohicans were farming. The first land acquisitions were negotiated with these agrarian Indians.
In 1683 the State was divided into counties and settlement began. Between 1688 and 1765 a concentrated effort was made to put peoplle on the land. Many patents were granted.
The Owlskill Valley down to its junction with the Hoosick Valley was the fiefdom of Soquon, the "Owl" or wise man of the Mohicansacs.
Early permanent settlement involved a Dutch mill at St. Croix in 1724, a fort at the same time. A considerable Village grew up around where the Little White Creek spills into the Hoosick.
The first settler north of the Hoosick River was a fur-trader, one Bartholomew Van Hogleboom. His Christian name, "Bart" was given to the stream that flows into the Hudson just north of us, forming the natural boundary between the Old Cambridge District and Town of Salem. Originally called the "Bart's Kill", we know and love its pristine waters and undeveloped shores today as "The Battenkill".
Another important Indian settlement was in the mountains three miles east of the Valley. As the Europeans encroached more and more into the ancestral lands of the Mohicans; and as they negotiated more and more of this land from the dwindling tribes, Maquon, the great war chief of the Mohicansacs, retreated to a narrow defile through those mountains.
The defile was an ancient path that led east and west, from the Hudson near the present Villages of Greenwich and Schuylerville west through what is today the Main St. of Cambridge. This great east-west primitive arterial crossed the Great Northern War-Trail at Cambridge Village, and traversed the Valley roughly on a line with the present Main St.

INDUSTRY, INVENTION
There prior to 1680, in what is today Town of White Creek, Maquon established the encampment of "The Last of the Mohicans". Many refugees from Indian wars raging in New England found refuge with Maquon's followers. This historic region was called "Pompanuck". Today we call it "Pumpkin Hook".
Early white settlers took advantage of its timber and water power to establish a flourishing, inventive, industrial community. Except for a few modest dwellings, Pumpkin Hook today is abandoned. But the geniuses of Pumpkin Hook produced the first steel mouldboard plow. This "plow that broke the West" was known nationally as "The Cambridge Steel Plow." Several local inventors had to share the credit for its development.
And it was from Pumpkin Hook that certain textile manufacturing technigues evolved, to blend with stolen British technology and lead to the flowering of the textile industry in New England.

WELL-SPRING OF LEADERSHIP
From Maquon's refuge at Pumpkin Hook came the great Indian leader Oceola, who moved south to found the Seminole Nation in Florida.
At one time, the immortal Uncas and his father, Chingachgook, roamed the Owlskill Valley, as did King Philip, himself, and Chief Greylock of the Wampanoags.
Uncas, hero of Cooper's "The Last of the Mohicans", is believed to have been permanently laid to rest in the Hoosick Valley in a field near Schaghticoke.
And no fewer than that two future governors of the State of Massachussetts spent their boyhood in that area.
One was Gov. George N. Briggs of Massachussetts, who served from 1844-1851. Gov. Briggs was asked what college he had graduated from, he replied "From John Allen's hat shop in White Creek." The other governor from Pumpkinhook was Thomas Talbot, who served from 1879 through 1880.
What happened to the Mohicans? In 1709 both aging leaders, Soquon and Maquon, among other chiefs in the Northeast, were taken by ship to England, where they were to be feted and other-wise honored in the Romantic tradition of "The Noble Savage".
Our Soquon, who was by then quite aged, did not survive. He died and was buried at sea. However, the warrior Maquon did survive. He was feted (and, indeed, even "painted") while in England.
But the great inroads of the Europeans were steadily grinding down the peoples of the Hoosick and Owl's Kill valleys. The French and Indian War raged over this area. Tribes were forced to side with either the French Catholics or the English Protestants.
After the French were beaten back to their lairs on the St. Lawrence River, many Mohicansacs left the Hoosick Valley and joined their brothers in Quebec. They then joined the French Jesuits in forays against the growing English protestant settlements in Western Massachussetts and Connecticutt. These vicious raiding parties were also directed against the tiny European settlements at St. Croix and in the Valleys of the Big and Little Hoosick.
Their captives, usually caucasian women and children, were force marched or dragged up the bloody war trail through the Owl's Kill Valley to Quebec. The raiders made stops at an ancient camping grounds on the site of Cambridge Village and at the head waters of the Owl's Kill, some small glacial lakes, Hedges and Lauderdale, that are five miles north of us. Their leavings has been enough to keep arrow head hunters and amateur archaeologists excited for 200 years.
That the Northern War Trail up the Owl's Kill Valley was a bloody path is undeniable. When the French and Indians attacked Fort Schaghticoke in 1746, they marched their prisoners up the Owl's Kill Valley to Canada. Subsequent raids into the Hoosick Valley and into Massachussetts were made via the same bloody path
that you sit within 100 yards of today.
The scalping forays of the French between 1869 and 1724, led down the Owl's Kill and up the Hoosac Pass to Deerfield and Northfield villages of Massachussetts. On their retreats north, the Indians dragged their hapless European captives up the Owl's Kill, always camping around the glacial lakes found five miles north of us. There great evidence of Indian occupation has been found and accumulated over the years.
This path down the Owl's Kill is the same that Baum would follow south to the junction of the Hoosick and Walloomsac Valleys where was fought one of the pivotal battles of the Revolutionary War.
The Hoosick Patent was granted in 1688. It extended up the valley from Schaghticoke or Valley Falls north to Falls Queequick or Hoosick Falls and then south down the Taconic Valley.
Noone seemed to contest that the land belonged to the Indians. Payment was always made and documents drawn and signed. A typical payment for such land might be 20 shirts, 2 guns, 12 pounds of powder, 36 pounds of lead, 8 gallons of rum, 2 casks of beer, 2 rolls of tobacco, 10 gallons of madeira wine and a quantity of pipes.
For deeding the Hoosac Patent, Soquon "The Owl" was to receive yearly, 1 blanket, 1 shirt, 1 pair of strockings, 1 apron, 1 keg of rum, 3 lbs. of powder, 6 lbs. of lead and 12 lbs. of tobacco.
A 12 acre cornfield at Tiashoke (Eagle Bridge) was set aside for his exclusive use. When he complained that the cattle of his Dutch neighbors were roaming through his crop, the Governor fenced the field for him.

DIVIDING THE LAND
When in 1683 the province of New York was divided into counties. The northernmost was Albany. This stretched north and west indefinitely, and east to the Connecticut River, the western border of New Hampshire.
The northern border was disputed by the French. In 1731, the French sought to secure the disputed territory. The English countered by inviting "loyal Protestant Highlanders" to settle the lands between the Hudson and the northern lakes. In response, various land patents were granted to English protestants and New Englanders who desired to settle here.
Of interest to us are the Hoosic Patent, which embraced the Hoosick River and south, and the Walloomsac Patent of 12,000 acres. This patent embraced the Walloomsac Valley, where the battle of Walloomsac (or if you insist, "Bennington") would be fought some 40 years later.
The Walloomsac Patent also embraced the southeast portion of what, in 1788, would become The Old Cambridge District, and ran east into what is now called Bennington Township.

In 1761, the Governor of New York granted a patent of some 31,000 acres north of the Hoosic patent, under the name of the Cambridge patent, to 61 petitioners, Edmund Wells, Isaac Sawyer, Jacob Lansing, William Smith, Alexander Colden, Goldsboro Banyar and others.
The original settlement was along the banks of the Owlkill Creek, although much early settlement took place in the highlands of the Taghkanick Range to the east.
It is generally agreed that the first permanent caucasian settlement in the Old Cambridge District began in 1763.
In 1772 Cambridge became a District, and in 1788 a Town of Albany County.
In 1791 it was annexed to Washington County. In 1816 the Old Cambridge District was divided into the towns of Cambridge, Jackson and White Creek.
In 1852 investors from Salem and Cambridge built the Eagle Bridge and Rutland Railroad. It quickly became a part of the main rail connection between Albany and Boston. This would remain so until the 1870s when the Hoosac Tunnel was completed.

CAMBRIDGE VILLAGE
During the Civil War the Owlskill Valley sent hundreds of its boys and young men as soldiers. Following the war, on April 16, 1866, the Village of Cambridge was incorporated. It was divided into East and West Districts, one part lying in Town of White Creek, the other in Town of Cambridge.
That same year, funds were secured, a hand-pumper secured from Troy and an engine house was built. The Village had a Fire Dept.
Even before it was a Village, the Corners had a band. The Cambridge Band was organized as a militia band in 1853, making it (in 1997) the oldest independent military style band in the Nation.
In the 1870s The Jerome B. Rice Seed Co. began its rise to national imminence. It would at the turn of the Century be the second largest seed packet operation in the Nation.
In 1886, private investors built the Cambridge Water Works, based on a spring that flows from Billings Hill in Annaquasicoke. The spring has never failed.
In August, 1891 the Village Board signed a contract with the Cambridge Light and Power Co. to supply elecricity for street lights.
On February 6, 1900, the Board granted permission to the Granville Telephone Co. to put service into the Village.
In 1913 Main St. was paved with yellow bricks.
In 1918 tree spraying was begun in an effort to protect the giant elms that lined the Village streets.
In 1919 free mail delivery was instituted in the Village.
In 1919 Mary McClellan Hospital opened. It was a gift to the community by Edwin McClellan, in honor of his mother.
In 1927, the "President" of the Village received the new designation of "Mayor".
In 1932 all of the Village fire companies were disbanded, in favor of a single "Cambridge Fire Dept."
The present fire house and Village hall went into service in 1951.
By 1958 the Elm trees were dying en masse. Fourteen were taken down that year in the Village alone. The next year 16 came down.
In 1966 the Village celebrated its 100th birthday with an elaborate parade and festival.
Among the original settlers in the Cambridge District, many of whom or whose sons were later soldiers in the Revolution., were James and Robert Cowan, Robert Blair, George Gilmore, and Jonathan and Thomas Morrison.
The Morrisons settled on what today would be the east end of Cambridge Village. The Blair holdings included the swamps that were once the heart of the Village, and upon which the J.B. Rice Seed Co. dand the Union School were built.
In 1762 the "Anaquassacook" patent of 10,000 acres was granted to four Schermerhorns, three Quackenbushes, two Smiths and one Jansen, all of Schenectady. The tract was situated in the north of the Towns of Jackson and White Creek, along the south bank of the Battenkill River. The area is still identified with that unusual name.
In 1764, Turner's patent of 25,000 acres was granted. This constitutes the Town of Salem today.
In 1769, German-Irish Methodists (so-called Palatines, for the region in Germany from which they initially fled), under Philip Embury, obtained a patent in the northeast of the present White Creek. The only original patent paper that remains in this community is for this Embury-Wilson Patent, which was south of the Battenkill River and extended east into what became the Town of Shaftsbury, Vt. The ancient document bears the seal of King George III.
But the land of the Embury-Wilson patent was too mountainous for a flax industry, which was the goal of the colonists, so they obtained rented lands north of the Battenkill in the area of modern day Eagleville.
In 1766, Phineas Whiteside purchased 1,400 acres in the west part of Cambridge patent. Other patents in the area included the Grant and Campbell patent south of the Embury Patent in White Creek, the Bains patent adjoining that and the Reed and Van Antwerp patent of 1770 north of the Hoosic and west of Cambridge.
To promote its settlement and meet the conditions of the grant, those who would move to Cambridge patent, build a home and cultivate within three years were given 100 acres. These grants stretched along the west bank of the Owl's Kill from the present Eagle Bridge up to and including what is now the Village.
The settlement of the Owlskill Valley was interrupted by the Revolutionary War.
In 1772, the New York Legislature formed a county named "Charlotte," in honor of the queen wife of George the Third. This would later become Washington County, although at the formation of Charlotte County, the Owlskill Valley remained in Albany County. At the same time, Charlotte County was formed, Albany County was arganized into Districts. Everything east of Saratoga District, south of the Battenkill and north of Schaghticoke was formed into The Cambridge District.
In 1775, Charlotte County was renamed "Washington" in honor of the great revolutionary soldier, and the Old Cambridge District, much against its will, was taken out of Albany and added to Washington County.
In 1815, reflecting the limited communications of the times, the Districts of eastern New York were reorganized into smaller townships. The Old Cambridge District became the towns of Cambridge, Jackson and White Creek.
Early white settlment in this community was largely in the Taghonic Mountains to the east and along the Owl's Kill. The first tavern was a log house kept by James Cowden, where the Checkered House Inn later stood, south of Cambridge Village along the Northern Turnpike. When it burned in 1907, the Checkered House Tavern was more than 100 years old.
The Checkered House was indeed a landmark. During the Revolution, the hostelry gained prominence by virtue of its being near the Walloomsac battle field. Under its roof many of the wounded were nursed.
George Washington is supposed to have visited. Likewise Thomas Jefferson and The Marquis de Lafayette, as the traveled from visiting the battlefield at Walloomsac to the battlefield at Old Saratoga (Schuylerville).
When, with the battle of Lexington in 1775, the Revolution became a reality, Old Cambridge was thrown into confusion. Many Loyalists simply fled to Canada, never to return. Others later took refuge with Burgoyne at Fort Edward. Some, especially from Camden Valley enlisted in the British army.
Patriots of Old Cambridge formed the 16th New York Militia and armed with smooth-bore muskets, presented themselves for service to the Revolution.
As the war waxed, civil authority in the Old Cambridge District disintegrated. After the rebel victories at Walloomsac and Old Saratoga, all power fell to the Committee of Safety and Correspondence. There was much unrest.
Most homes were still the original log cabins. The construction of the first church, on the Turnpike south of the Village, had been interrupted by the war. There were no schools, no newspapers, no transportation or mail service.
Such were the conditions in Old Cambridge in 1778.

AFTER THE WAR
The settlement of Old Cambridge District increased rapidly after the Revolution. In 1788 Cambridge District became a township. In 1791, the Legislature created Washington County from the old Charlotte, and at the instigation of Gen. Williams of Salem, added those parts south of the Battenkill and north of Rensselaer, which was formed at the same time.
Both New York and New Hampshire continued to claim the area between the Hudson and Connecticutt River, even though the British government had found in favor of New York.
Civil War raged from White Hall to the Walloomsac. So disturbed did the people become at New York's unwillingness to defend them against the predators from New Hampshire that in May, 1781 a convention was held in Cambridge. Delegates came from all of the surrounding border towns.
At this convention, believed to have been held in John Wood's tavern near White Creek Village. When the delegates voted to submit themselves to the authority of Vermont, the people of Old Cambridge District "seceded" and joined the Benning Mob as a means of achieving peace.
This caught the immediate attention of the governor at Albany, who dispatched militia to the border. Whether they were to subdue the frustrated sededers or the Benning Mob, is not clear.
The result was that in March, 1782 a second convention was held in Major John Porter's old tavern, Park and Main in Cambridge, and the secession was retracted. A petition went to the Governor asking pardon for the inhabitants of The Old Cambridge District.
The Northern Turnpike Company was incorporated in 1799. A road was built from Lansingburg to Burlington, Vt. This went up the Valley of the Owl's Kill and largely followed the Great Northern War-Trail of the Indians.
The war of 1812 also touched Old Cambridge. The local militia was called to arms in 1814, but was in such decrepit condition that it had hardly gotten out of town when Commodore McDonough conquered the British fleet on Lake Champlain. Later prisoners were marched down The Northern War-Trail or Turnpike through Cambridge to Albany.
Historian Mrs. A.D. Frisbie recorded the story of John Mitchell, a young British soldier who was captured near Plattsburgh. As he was marched down the Northern Turnpike he came to admire the Owl's Kill Valley and determined to make his life here. Just above what is today the Village of Cambridge, he found an opportunity to escape. He broke ranks and hid under the bridge where a small steam crosses to the Owl's Kill at what is today the Robert McClellan estate.
John Mitchell made good his pledge. He was not found by his Colonial captors and did spend his life living quietly in Old Cambridge. For many years he was caretaker of the United Presbyterian Church (then on the Glebe lot just north of the Turnpike Burying Ground). He and his family were buried there, but later were removed and placed in Section B, Woodlands Cemetery.

Resources for this narrative: The files of the Washington County Post weekly newspaper; The Hoosac Valley, its Legends and its History” by Grace Greylock Niles

All of Dave Thornton’s history narratives are protected by copyright law.