Grahamsville Historic District | |
Location | Grahamsville, New York |
---|---|
Nearest city | Middletown |
Coordinates | 41°50′49″N74°32′20″W / 41.84694°N 74.53889°W |
Area | 20 acres (8 ha) |
Built | 19th century |
Architectural style | Italianate, Greek Revival, Gothic Revival |
NRHP reference No. | 79001634 [1] |
Added to NRHP | December 6, 1979 |
The Grahamsville Historic District is a historic district located along both sides of NY 55 just east of that hamlet in the Town of Neversink in Sullivan County, New York, United States. Its church is across the road from Tri-Valley Central School. In 1979 it was added to the National Register of Historic Places.
Five buildings are located on its 20 acres (8 ha). The centerpiece of the district is the Grahamsville Reformed Church, which dates originally to the 1840s. In 1874 it was expanded and a cemetery was added. An 1847 boarding house, also within the district, now serves as a gallery for a local artist.
The area of today's Grahamsville had initially been settled during the colonial era, but raids by Loyalists and their Native allies killed or drove them away during the Revolution. So, after independence, the landowners of the Hardenbergh Patent invited tenants to settle in the area, named after an officer who led a unit killed in the area, once again. [2]
The first known house in Grahamsville dates to 1788. The minimal farming opportunities in the region were supplemented by lumber, which the Catskills had in abundance, and soon that business picked up. In 1813 the town of Neversink raised taxes to build a road (now Route 55) from the Neversink River (now dammed to create Neversink Reservoir) to more-established routes at Wawarsing in Ulster County, to the east. The Marenius Dayton House, an impressive Greek Revival building in the district, was an inn and official stagecoach stop during this era [2]
Lumbering gave way to tanning, as the Catskills' vast Eastern hemlock stands had plenty of tannin in their bark. Judge Stoddard Hammond became rich through this industry, building a tannery complex along nearby Chestnut Creek and a Gothic Revival cottage overlooking it in 1857. Like many Catskill tanners, he did extremely well during the Civil War, supplying the Union Army with all its leather. [2]
He sold the tannery and its associated properties, including a Greek Revival company store that still survives, to his partner John Reynolds New York City after the war. Reynolds kept the tannery going, even after the Panic of 1873, and the citizens of Grahamsville were able to build their church, meeting house and cemetery at the east end of the district the following year. But in 1878 he finally closed it, and the hamlet's tanning days were ended. [2]
With the pollution from the tanneries gone, Sullivan County became a summer resort destination in the late 19th century. The Italian villa-style Southwick House, dating to 1882, is representative of this period. [2]
That business either faded or shifted southwards after the 1920s, and Grahamsville reverted to its farming and lumbering days. The center of the hamlet is now to the west of the district, near the junction of routes 42 and 55, in the wake of the construction of Tri-Valley Central School and Rondout Reservoir to the east. The buildings from Grahamsville's early years are still mostly intact. [2]
The six elements of the district are:
Forestburgh is a town in Sullivan County, New York, United States. The population was 808 at the 2020 census. It is where the Neversink River enters the Neversink Gorge and flows over High Falls. The ZIP code of Forestburgh, New York is 12777.
Neversink is a town in Sullivan County, New York, United States. The population was 3,366 at the 2020 census.
Phoenicia is a hamlet of Shandaken in Ulster County, New York, United States. The population was 268 at the 2020 census, making it the second highest populated community in the town. The village center is located just off Route 28 at its junction with Route 214 and is nestled at the base of three peaks, Mount Tremper, Romer Mountain, and Sheridan Mountain. The community sits at the confluence of the Esopus Creek and Stony Clove Creek. A popular getaway for New Yorkers, the hamlet has frequented many tourism guides as among the best vacation towns in the greater New York City area.
The Neversink River is a 55-mile-long (89 km) tributary of the Delaware River in southeastern New York in the United States. The name of the river comes from the corruption of an Algonquian language phrase meaning "mad river."
Rondout Creek is a 63.3-mile-long (101.9 km) tributary of the Hudson River in Ulster and Sullivan counties, New York, United States. It rises on Rocky Mountain in the eastern Catskills, flows south into Rondout Reservoir, part of New York City's water supply network, then into the valley between the Catskills and the Shawangunk Ridge, where it goes over High Falls and finally out to the Hudson at Kingston, receiving along the way the Wallkill River.
Bridgeville is a hamlet southeast of Monticello located in the southern Catskill Mountains in the Town of Thompson, County of Sullivan, and State of New York, United States. Bridgeville is located on the Neversink River on New York State Route 17, at an elevation of 1,081 feet (329 m). It has hilly terrain.
Rondout Reservoir is part of New York City's water supply network. It is located 75 miles (121 km) northwest of the city in the Catskill Mountains, near the southern end of Catskill Park, split between the towns of Wawarsing in Ulster County and Neversink in Sullivan County. It is the central collection point for the city's Delaware System, which provides half its daily consumption.
New York State Route 55 (NY 55) is a 122.45-mile-long (197.06 km) east-west state highway in southern New York, running from the Pennsylvania state line at the Delaware River in Barryville to the Connecticut state line at Wingdale. It is the only other state highway beside NY 7 to completely cross the state, from border to border, in an east–west direction, although NY 17 does so and is partially east–west. It also forms a concurrency when it joins US 44 for 33 miles (53 km).
New York State Route 42 (NY 42) is a north–south, discontinuous state highway in the Catskill Mountains region of New York in the United States. The southernmost of the highway's two segments begins at an intersection with U.S. Route 6 (US 6) and US 209 in Port Jervis and ends at a junction with NY 55 near the Rondout Reservoir in Neversink. NY 42's northern segment runs from NY 28 in Shandaken to NY 23A in Lexington. The 41-mile (66 km) southern segment is located in Orange County and Sullivan County, while the 11-mile (18 km) northern segment is in Ulster County and Greene County.
New York State Route 55A (NY 55A) is a state highway located in Sullivan and Ulster counties. It is a loop route connected to NY 55 at both ends, near Grahamsville in the west and Napanoch in the east. Inside the loop is New York City's Rondout Reservoir.
Grahamsville is a hamlet at the junction of NY 42 and 55 in the Town of Neversink, in Sullivan County, New York, United States. It is near the western end of Rondout Reservoir, and is the southernmost community in the Catskill Park. It has the ZIP Code 12740 and the 985 telephone exchange in the 845 area code.
Zadock Pratt Jr. was a tanner, banker, soldier, and member of the United States House of Representatives. Pratt served in the New York militia from 1819–1826, and was Colonel of the 116th regiment from 1822 until his resignation from the militia on September 4, 1826.
Tri-Valley Secondary School is located on 34 Moore Hill Road, near the Rondout Reservoir, east of Grahamsville, New York. It educates students from pre-kindergarten to twelfth grade and is within the Tri-Valley Central School District. It gets its name from the three streams that rise in that area of the Catskill Mountains, Rondout Creek, Chestnut Creek, and the Neversink River.
Woodbourne is a hamlet in the town of Fallsburg in Sullivan County, New York, United States.
The South Britain Historic District encompasses the core of the unincorporated village of South Britain in Southbury, Connecticut, United States. The village arose in the 18th century as an industrial center serving the surrounding agricultural community, powered by the Pomperaug River, and rivalled the town center of Southbury in importance. The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987.
The C. Burton Hotel, also known as the Sycamore House, is located on NY 55 a mile west of Grahamsville, New York, United States. It is a wooden Greek Revival structure dating to 1851.
The Hadlyme North Historic District is an 81-acre (33 ha) historic district located in the southwest corner of the town of East Haddam, Connecticut. It represents the historic core of the village of Hadlyme, which straddles the town line, and consists primarily of two north-south roads, Town Street. The village arose around a church society founded in 1743, and grew with the development of small industries along area waterways. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.
The Wallingford Main Street Historic District encompasses the historic portions of the village of Wallingford, Vermont. An essentially linear district extending along Main Street on either side of School Street, it has a well-preserved array of 19th and early-20th century residential, commercial, and civic buildings. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.
The Walker's Point Historic District is a mixed working-class neighborhood of homes, stores, churches and factories in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with surviving buildings as old as 1849, including remnants of the Philip Best Brewery and the Pfister and Vogel Tannery. In 1978 it was added to the National Register of Historic Places. The NRHP nomination points out that Walker's Point was "the only part of Milwaukee's three original Settlements to reach the last quarter of the Twentieth Century with its Nineteenth and early-Twentieth Century fabric still largely intact," and ventures that "For something similar, one would have to travel to Cleveland or St. Louis if, indeed, so cohesive and broad a grouping of...structures still exists even in those cities."
Samsonville is a hamlet in the southwestern part of the town of Olive in Ulster County, New York, United States. Bordered to the north by Mombaccus Mountain and Ashokan High Point, it is within the Catskill Park on the southeastern slopes of the high Catskills.