Town of Carmel Historical Society

Location, location, location! Howard Craft, born near Lake Gilead in 1844, was a teacher in the town’s district schools when the Putnam railroad’s path was laid out. Sensing an opportunity, he created a general store at the south end of the Drewville viaduct, the perfect location for a station to serve the hilly neighborhood.

All you need are the Mount Nimham fire tower, a clear day, a good telescopic lens and a little bit of luck -- and there it is, the magnificent Manhattan silhouette, over 40 miles away! Photo - mkohan00 for TripAdvisor

This old barn stood in downtown Carmel, a few doors uphill from the high school on Fair Street.

At the 1989 groundbreaking ceremony for the Great Buddha Hall at the Chuang Yen Monastery in Kent, a most dignified guest was present, shovel in hand: the leader of the Tibetan Buddhists. Born as Lhamo Thondup in July 1935, he was recognized as the 14th Dalai Lama at age 2. At left in the photo is Kent Town Supervisor Anthony Cazzari; at right, Carmel Superintendent of Schools Ralph Bilbao. The Dalai Lama returned to Putnam in 1997 and conducted three days of public teachings on the 37 Practices of the Path to Enlightenment. The recipient of the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize, he continues to be the spiritual leader from his home in exile in India today.

Another landmark house in the Town of Carmel has been lost. 31 Mechanic Street, known on old maps as the Lyman Craft house, has been cared for by the Kemp family for over a century, who treasured it for its history. It was built before the Revolution as the parsonage of Rev. Elnathan Gregory, who farmed on the property south of the early Gilead meeting house and burying ground on what was the Horse Pound Road. Time took its toll on the manse, and the surrounding woods went to development. The property changed hands in recent months; the new owner has now demolished the house and is erecting a new two-story residence.

From the Courier, Dec. 1925.

I live on Mechanic Street, down Gilead way. Remind me to never argue with the lady gardeners of my neighborhood! From the Courier, May 28, 1926: A woodchuck that had evaded all efforts of a Mechanic street farmer to catch it, came to grief on Monday through the ingenuity of two members of the gentler sex in the household who with the aid of a steel trap, pitchfork, axe and club killed the animal. The woodchuck emerged from its hole and crossed the driveway into the garde...n while the madam was at the mail box. While feasting in the newly planted garden, the animal failed to notice the lady until she stood in the driveway cutting off the return of the animal to its home and shelter was taken under a rock. While she stood guard, the other lady was summoned and a steel trap procured. Together they set the trap near the opening under the rock and then from a secluded spot watched for developments. Soon out came the fuzzy creature and stepping into the trap, bing, and he was fast. The old fellow jumped around and haste was made by the ladies for an implement with which to kill it, before it got away. A pitchfork was tried but the strength of the ladies was insufficient to drive the tines through the touch hide and the animal became more ferocious. Next, an axe was tried but in some manner the ground hog dodged every blow jumping more widely than before. At last a club was tried and after a few swings the aim became perfect and the fatal blow struck. When the Mechanic street farmer reached his home down Gilead way that afternoon he found the ladies standing guard over their game. (Artwork by Watkins 2000 in Fine Gardening)

Amanda Ayala of Mahopac, rock / pop singer, released her latest album last year and her popularity continues to grow. Here's how her school friends wrote about her career 5 years ago: https://www.facebook.com/MahopacSchools/posts/982470758461965

You probably never heard about the little passenger railways around us, a century ago. These tracks never arrived in Carmel, but they came close. It all started with the tedium of wagon rides. The folks living in Carmel who wanted big city stores nearby could travel to Danbury. Those in western Mahopac and Putnam Valley had an equally long ride, about 10 miles, to their closest city Peekskill. In the 1890s, the big cities of Westchester thought they deserved the st...reet railways of Manhattan, and set out to create them in their own downtown and between villages, using overhead electric lines. Mount Vernon’s line was immortalized by Fontaine Fox in his Toonerville Trolley cartoons as a rickety backwoods wreck that somehow kept running by primitive means. And so there was the Peekskill Lighting and Railroad Company. In 1899, a route was laid out in the streets to their favorite nearby day-trip resort, Lake Mohegan. An affiliate, the Westchester and Putnam Traction Company, extended that branch in 1909 to a station in Putnam Valley, on a triangle of land at Trolley Road and Red Mill Road in Oregon. They had hopes of extending it again, to Lake Mahopac and if they went that far, why stop? Another route was plotted from Mahopac to Danbury but, ignoring Carmel hamlet, it would go through Drewville and Brewster. Obviously, it never happened. As automobiles became more numerous. Peekskill’s trolleys were failing financially by the 1920s. The Oregon route closed in 1925. Downtown service was taken over by the Peekskill Motor Bus Company. Another railway company planned a route from Danbury to a Harlem Division station in Westchester, and actually laid out the route as far as the state border before the venture failed.

1973 is a forgettable year in the annals of Akron’s All American Soap Box Derby. This film follows two 11-year-old competitors from our neck of the woods, Diane Mills of Carmel and Chris Noyes of Ossining. They both did very well, and might have done even better -- were it not for another entrant and his magnet car. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2Fl-6JbWR0&t=454s

Turnabout's fair play -- The Google Streets camera truck, invading everyone's privacy, shot a photo of a Carmel man. So he shot back -- seems fair! https://www.google.com//data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sSb8JvqZwzH2mdH

The Putnam Symphony's concert season was very effectively destroyed by the pandemic, so they've taken their revenge on the year 2020 with this posting. They expect to return in the Spring. https://www.facebook.com//a.63122133692/3154816627894584/

The boating and social life at the hotels on Lake Mahopac in Victorian times, as recorded by a New York poet, two New York artists and a lakeside photographer of those days. Lake Mahopac Saturday Night BY GEORGE AUGUSTUS BAKER, JR.... "Yes, I'm here, I suppose you're delighted: You'd heard I was not coming down! Why I've been here a week! 'rather early' I know, but it's horrid in town. A Boston? Most certainly, thank you. This music is perfectly sweet; Of course I like dancing in summer; It's warm, but I don't mind the heat. The clumsy thing! Oh! how he hurt me! I really can't dance any more. Let's walk - see, they're forming a Lancers; These square dances are such a bore. My cloak oh! I really don't need it Well, carry it, so, in the folds I hate it, but Ma made me bring it; She's frightened to death about colds. This rather cooler than dancing. They're lovely piazzas up here; Those lanterns look sweet in the bushes, It's lucky the night is so clear. I rather tired in this corner? Very well, if you like I don't care. But you'll have to sit on the railing You see there is only one chair. ' long since you've seen me' oh, ages! Let's see, why it's ten days ago 'Seems years' oh! of course don't look spooney It isn't becoming, you know. How bright the stars seem to-night, don't they? What was it you said about eyes? How sweet! why you must be a poet One never can tell till he tries. Why can't you be sensible, Harry! I don't like men's arms on my chair. Be still! if you don't stop this nonsense I'll get up and leave you; so there! Oh! please don't I don't want to hear it A boy like you talking of love. 'My answer!' Well, sir, you shall have it Just wait till I get off my glove. See that? Well, you needn't look tragic, It's only a solitaire ring, Of course I am 'proud of it' very It's rather an elegant thing. Engaged! yes why, didn't you know it? I thought the news must have reached here Why, the wedding will be in October The 'happy man' Charley Leclear. Now don't blame me I tried to stop you But you go on like a goose; I'm sorry it happened forget it Don't think of it don't what's the use? There's somebody coming don't look so Get up on the railing again you seem as if nothing had happened? I never saw such geese as men! Ah, Charley, you've found me! A galop? The 'Bahn frei?' Yes; take my bouquet And my fan, if you will now I'm ready You'll excuse me, of course, Mr. Gray."

The Dean House was unique among the great old hotels of Lake Mahopac. It was the only one that didn’t burn down! Starting small in the 1850s on the southwestern corner of the lake, it never really stopped growing. There were billiard tables and a bowling alley, tennis courts, playground, boats, cottages, various outbuildings, a lakeshore pavilion, a hilltop observation tower and a golf course across Route 6N. Eggs, vegetables and dairy products were delivered fresh from the hotel’s farmland. Outliving its sister hotels, the Dean House was finally taken down in 1971, replaced by single-family residences.

Ever heard America played in a Tango rhythm? The patriotic song we also call My Country ‘Tis of Thee is, of course, the same tune the British world knows as God Save the Queen. Researchers say the music may be 400 years old. It’s usually played and sung in a reasonably dignified manner. That was not the case at the July 4th celebration at the Methodist Church in Brewster in 1891. Their 16-year-old organist, Charles Ives (for whom the Ives Center in Danbury is named) p...erformed a seven-minute tune he had written called Variations on ‘America’ which was quite unlike Victorian church music; it was a playful organist-composer going all-out. His talents were recognized, but his versions of the song were not. Ives wrote it out over the next few months. As seen in the attached YouTube video, he noted its birth at the top of page one: concert Brewster NY July 4 1891. Of the Brewster scene that day, the Courier reported, In this village the glorious Fourth passed off without event or incident; indeed, little transpired to mark the day’s occurrence. And then it sat in limbo for 50 years. In the 1940s, organist E. Power Biggs had a weekly show on the CBS Radio Network. Looking around for new material, he asked Ives (now in his 60s) is he had any organ compositions, and it was then that his Variations came to light. The attached video is Biggs’ performance of Putnam County’s very own patriotic music. An organist manages such a complicated piece with two hands flying across the multiple keyboards plus operating the stops, while both feet are busy with their own set of bass pedals. For the gymnastics involved, see the performance by the late Virgil Fox, also on YouTube. Fox quotes Ives’ warning to his fellow organists: Hang on to your bench with one hand and pedal it just as fast as it’ll go! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UZq09F9RR4

Ian Couch remembered seeing an historical marker along Route 52 that he couldn’t locate nowadays. It had to do with an Indian attack on a house in Colonial times. He asked if we could we find where it was, and more about the story. Here is that tale, and more.

If we can squeeze it all in, here is the Dodge Telephone Directory for Carmel-Mahopac and some surrounding communities in 1932. We have an assortment of these early directories for various towns in file. (Sorry, but we cannot handle lookup requests at this time.)

How odd! Two unconnected men with the same name, at opposite ends of the Hudson Valley and 80-odd years apart, were on opposite ends of the issue of escaped slaves loose in the region. In 1860, Charles Nalle, a quadroon (one-quarter black), escaped slavery in Virginia and fled north. With him was another escapee, James Banks. They made it to Troy, NY, where Charles found friends and settled down with a job as a carriage driver. James Banks headed elsewhere and we hear no ...more of him. Eventually, Charles was betrayed by a sleazy lawyer, Horace Averill (for whom Averill Park is still named, for whatever reason). As a result, his former owner tracked Charles to his new home, and attempted to seize him and return him to slavery. Antislavery forces in town including Harriett Tubman formed a group to stand in the way of the outrageous act, by legal means and otherwise. Eventually, they offered only one option to become slaveowners themselves! They purchased Charles Nalle from his owner for $650, just as Dutchess residents had saved an escapee among them (see our Aug 16, 2016 post). Charles’ story is told in a book, Freeing Charles: The Struggle to Free a Slave on the Eve of the Civil War by Scott Christianson. But we mentioned the curious fact that there were two men of the same name with an unusual connection. And who were they? Well, it seems a slave escaped in Westchester long before, in 1774, and the owner printed notices in the newspapers of the day seeking his return. The owner’s name: James Banks.

It's that time of year when New York City's DEP culls the herd -- of rowboats. Each July, there is an auction to sell off the rowboats that have met with the city's displeasure by overstaying their welcome or other offense at the reservoirs and other city waters. The Mahopac office is coordinating the sale of 134 vessels east of the Hudson -- 20 taking separate bids and a lot of 114 in one bid. All are as-is. When we're talking boats, that means their ability to actually f...loat is not guaranteed, among other possible defects..Caveat mariner! Due to the virus, bidders can't inspect them this year, but photos have been posted at the PublicSurplus website. A few days remain for online bidding. Here's a few samples.

George Carroll Whipple III has found time to be an attorney, TV personality, genealogist, preservationist and farmer. He founded Preserve Putnam, which owns Spain Cornerstone Park, the former gas station at Route 52 and Fair Street; the park and meeting hall are leased to the county for 10c/year. He is also responsible for the Whipple-Feeley Chapel at the County Memorial Park, a replica of the original Red Mills Baptist Church, Besides his prominent house on the south shore o...f Lake Gleneida, he owns Pine View Farms, on Gypsy Trail Road in Kent. The attached video is a brief guided tour of his collection of endangered farm animals from our historic past. The previous owner of Pine View Farm was his father, George Jr., an advertising executive (whose name was borrowed for the Charmin Mister Whipple ads) and yachtsman on Lake Mahopac, who had inherited the farm from his father, George Sr. https://youtu.be/OK5Uh8fiaUc

Glimpses of the Nokomis Camp, in Putnam Valley by western Mahopac, perhaps 60-70 years ago.