By Patricia Breakey
Delhi News Bureau
DELHI _ Land use in Delaware County has
long been a source of contention, according to local
historian Tim Duerden, who has written a book
outlining the county’s 210-year history.
“A History of Delaware County New York _ A
Catskill Land and Its
People” focuses on the
county’s more-modern
history and skimps on
early history that has
already been documented,
Duerden, director
of the Delaware County
Historical Association,
said.
“There really hasn’t been a complete history
written in more than 100 years,” Duerden said
Friday. “I began thinking of doing it after working
here for over four years and seeing the number
of people coming in asking for a Delaware County
history.”
Duerden said most of the
book is based on secondary
sources that he pulled together.
“I have been working
on it off and on for over a
year,” Duerden said. “In addition
to bringing Delaware
County’s history up to date, I
like to think it’s just a good
read.”
In the foreword, Duerden
writes, “A general history
of Delaware County now
in the first decade of the
twenty-first century is sorely
needed. The last attempt at
such a history was John D.
Monroe’s ‘Chapters in the
History of Delaware County,’
published in 1949, and even
that book, despite its numerous
attributes, does not really
discuss much of anything
beyond 1900.”
Duerden zips though the
first century of the county’s
history, then settles in to explore
the sweeping changes
that began with the advent of
the telegraph and continued
with railroads, automobiles
and electrification.
Duerden said county residents
opposed the advent of
cars, fearing that rich city
people would come up and
endanger people by driving
recklessly.
Other topics that shaped
the county’s recent history
included tourism, education,
20th-century wars and New
York City’s quest for water.
“Land use and the conflicts
it caused have always
been a contentious issue,”
Duerden said, pointing to
the Anti-Rent War, farming,
the harvesting of timber
for the acid factories,
continuing opposition to
New York City’s land acquisition
and, more recently,
power lines and
wind turbines.
Toward the end of the
book, Duerden looks at the
effects of flooding on the
county.
“Indeed a brief perusal of
county newspapers from the
past 200 years provides the
reader with a veritable litany
of flood-related stories,”
Duerden wrote. “Most notable,
perhaps, in recent times
have been the floods of 1970,
1973, 1996 and more recently
still in June 2006 and again
in June 2007.”
Duerden said the earliest
white surveyors in the area
were well aware of the danger
of floods.
Jay Gould in his “History
of Delaware County” relates
the story of surveyors sent
out to map the land around
Walton in 1770. The surveyors
noted that in the area
where the village of Walton
now stands, “it would be
dangerous to build within at
least two miles of the river,
on account of the annual inundations
of its banks, similar,
indeed, to the far-famed
inundations of the Nile.”
Throughout the book,
there are photos, most of
them from the DCHA archive,
maps and historic
documents.
The book was published
by Purple Mountain Press in
Fleischmanns and is available
at various local outlets
and at DCHA.
Duerden will hold a book
signing from 2 to 4 p.m. Saturday
at the Delaware County
Historical Association.
