I’ve been reading a treatise by John D. Monroe,“The Settlement of Delhi”. Our Delhi story starts in the 1600’s in what the Dutch called New Netherlands, now known as New York State. In 1609 Henry Hudson sailed up the Hudson River on a ship named the Half Moon, from New York City, then called New Amsterdam, named for the Dutch city of Amsterdam, to Albany, which the Dutch called Fort Orange, named for William of Orange. It was known as The Age of Exploration. Henry claimed everything from the western border of Massachusetts to the east side of the West Branch of the Delaware River for the Dutch. Delaware Academy is on the east side of the Delaware River and SUNY Delhi is on the west side. In 1664 the British took New York City from the Dutch. They put a gunboat in New York harbor and the Dutch surrendered without a battle, so they effectively exchanged one colonial power for another.
During the late 1600’s millions of acres of American land were under Dutch then English control. Land owners were called Patroons with manorial rights, meaning they could do pretty much anything they wanted. After the English took over they continued the Patroon system because they were making lots of money. They controlled the lives of thousands of immigrant tenant farmers, as indentured servants, and enslaved persons from the Dutch West India Company, who worked the land. Settlers in other New York counties outside the Patroon system and in states bordering New York, like Vermont, Massachusetts and Connecticut, could live on a piece of land they could rent and eventually buy. This was the only part of 17th, 18th and 19th century America where this feudal system of land management endured for generations. All the land around Delhi was either the Whitesborough, Franklin or Verplank Patent.
Kingston, in Ulster County, NY was settled in 1652 and became the first Capitol of New York State in 1777. During the Revolutionary War Kingston was burned by the British. As a result of the loss of their homes and livelihoods, land in Delaware County was offered to them by Robert Livingston as a desirable place to live. Their Delaware County home was named New Kingston. Only we don’t say ‘New’, it’s more like ‘Nuh’ Kingston.
The late 1700’s brought a surge of settlers to our rugged wilderness in the hope of finding a home to settle down, farm and raise a family. Some men received land here instead of payment for service during the Revolutionary War. People traveled here using the Hudson and Delaware Rivers, the Albany Post Road, between Albany and New York City, Native People’s footpaths, and they turned wagon tracks into roads along the way. In the 1800’s many toll roads, called turnpikes, made travel easier for the people who were determined to move west. The gates used on early toll roads were the old military weapons called pikes. It was a long pole with sharp spikes and could be attached horizontally to a tree stump. When the toll was paid, the pike was turned. Turnpike.
The Susquehanna Turnpike, started in 1800 in Catskill, Greene County, NY, then through Delaware County by way of Stamford, Treadwell and Franklin to Unadilla and the Susquehanna River in Otsego County. In Delhi, Elk Creek Road was a ‘Shunpike’, a road created by travelers who refused to pay the toll on the turnpike. Below is a schedule of fares on the Susquehanna turnpike.The letter f is pronounced like s and a score is 20. There are several roadside markers following the paths of local turnpikes. A fun car game is to find Historic Markers along the roads your family travels. You never can tell what you’ll find.
