My grandfather used to say his grandfather came from Cohoes NY, but all the genealogical and historical documents say my great-greatgrandfather was a woolen mill worker from Schaghticoke before he left for Dedham MA around 1870.  Schaghticoke – misplaced from family living memory – is still a place out of its time. 

Schaghticoke in the Mahican language means “mingling of the waters” – and indeed the Tomhannock Creek, the Hoosic River and the Hudson all meet within several square miles and likely provided a fertile environment for the native inhabitants. In fact there is evidence that Schaghticoke has been inhabited since the last glaciation – and it’s most famous edifice, the Knickerbocker Mansion, is built on land that continues to show its mysteries:

The major sites of Indian occupation in the town of Schaghticoke were from the area around the Knickerbocker Mansion on both sides of the Hoosic River to the Hudson River. Around 1990, some boys playing on the banks of the Hoosic River near the Mansion found some human bones washing out. The police were called, but so were the archeologists, and the bones proved to be from an Indian burial, dating 2000-3000 years ago. The bones were reinterred by the State Archeologists nearby, with the exact location kept secret. http://townofschaghticoke.org/

Schaghticoke was and still is a small town and by the time my great great-grandfather James Gordon Waldon left, the inhabitants of the town after four or five generations living in the same place were likely all related to each other. To make that point – I could try to stake a claim per stirpes to the Knickerbocker Mansion as it was built by the second cousin once-removed of my 7th great-grandmother. 

Incidentally, Herman Knickerbocker, the son of that second cousin once-removed, was a good friend of Washington Irving – who himself visited Schaghticoke many times (likely this house).  Irving used the pseudonym 'Diedrich Knickerbocker' to write his satirical novel A History of New York.   By the way, the house still stands and is a working museum that was unfortunately closed today when we visited.

Knickerbocker Mansion

In back of the museum is an oblong twisted mass of concrete and iron rods that has a bit of weathered wood attached to it – the so-called Witenagemot Oak.  The Oak was planted in 1676 by then Governor Andros as a covenant with refugees from King Philips’ War – the failed Indian uprising against the European New England colonists.  In actuality, he wanted them in the region to serve as a cultural buffer against the French and their Indian allies.  They were invited to settle in Schaghticoke and given generous acreage, but this grand promise sealed with an oak had a short shelf life and the land was gradually “purchased” away from the Indians.  By 1707, the authorities in Albany whittled the Indian land down to just twelve acres – with the remainder of the Schaghticoke land divided into parcels and leased to Dutch settlers

Witenagemot Oak

The Hoosic River was and still is the focal point of a number of mills originally staked out in the 17^thand 18^thcenturies.  Taking a walk down to the main Village of Schaghticoke, we struck up a conversation with one of the workers outside a mill that is still powered by the Hoosic River for the manufacture of animal feed.  He invited us in to see some 19^thcentury graffiti on the second floor walls to see if I recognized any of the names – I did not, although it would have been great to see James Waldron’s handwriting on the wall.  It is simply remarkable that these mills are still there and providing income to the modern inhabitants of this town after all these centuries.

Hoosic River Mill complex next to active water-powered turbines.

Schaghticoke village center

James moved to East Dedham Massachusetts to work in mills built by Puritan settlers in the mid-1600’s on the Mother Brook (the stream connecting the Charles and Neponset Rivers) for grist/grain milling, and later in the 18th century wool manufacture. He worked in Dedham as a wool finisher in a mill as he had in Schaghticoke.  But did he go that far from home? The Troy & Boston rail line passed right through Schaghticoke running behind the Hoosic River mills - and I can imagine him hopping on a train and riding a corridor that brought him from one mill town to another and one mill to another. Nowadays, the Dedham mills are long gone and you'd be hard pressed to find out that any industry had taken place in East Dedham MA; but were James to step into Schaghticoke today, he'd probably find it nearly as he left it with very familiar activity going on.

Rail tracks of the former Troy & Boston Line passing over the mill pond

On the more macabre side, we paid a visit to the cemeteries where we knew there were grave markers forJames' parents (Elmwood Cemetery) and one for his grandmother (a small cemetery in the yard of a neighboring farm). We searched in vain for the Waldron cemetery that was described as “on the Durant Farm, south of Route 67, just before the railroad tracks, a white picket fence surrounds it” – but the source was a Troy newspaper clipping from March 1919 (Route 67 crosses the railroad three times in Schaghticoke and the Durants and the fence are probably long gone by now).

We did "discover" the Buttermilk Falls in Schaghticoke that we stumbled upon while searching for the elusive Waldron graveyard. The falls are likely named for foamy white water dribbling through gnarled stone. It is a spooky and alien site, in the middle of an antique and also ancient town.

Buttermilk Falls