The Family Name

Since beginning this project last spring I have been searching for remnants of Coldengham. I’ve done research using histories, government records, maps and various letters and papers. I’ve visited known sites on the farm property and guessed at the boundaries. I’ve followed and photographed portions of Tin Brook and have tried to find old trees and other possible 18th c. candidates. I’ve also spent time with Jane Colden’s botanical manuscript and begun researching native plants.

Concurrently I’ve been looking at the farm from the other end of the story and have searched for contemporary traces of the Colden family while cataloguing the transformation of this part of the Hudson Valley. Looking at this land from two directions allows me to work backward as I also work forward through history, piecing together the story of Coldengham/Coldenham.

Adelaide and Jane

Photographic Times was an illustrated monthly magazine devoted to artistic and scientific photography that began in 1871. In Volume XXXII from 1900 there is an article by Adelaide Skeel describing a camera field trip she made to Coldenham in search of the village and farm. Her article contains a description of her trip by trolley, the landscape in autumn and various facts about the activities of the Colden family. The larger part of the piece is a fantasy about a conversation she had with Jane Colden and a visit to the original home including the Cadwallader Sr. library and glimpses of the family coach "with yellow wheels". It seems Adelaide resorted to this device because on first viewing, there was little she could see of historic Coldengham. I can sympathize with her because 110 years after her article, Coldengham is even less visible. I can also thank her because she included a very helpful paragraph she found while reading a local history. It states:

The buildings erected by the Coldens are thus enumerated: "the old stone academy house, Coldenham stone house on the turnpike, long, low house east of stone house at the foot of the hill, house known as the Thomas Colden Mansion north of the turnpike, two dwellings east of the last one named and the dwelling on the hill south of the turnpike, a homestead subsequently deeded by Colden to his son Cadwallader, Jr."

I've already marked my map with the location of the original dwelling south of the turnpike with it's adjacent cemetery and also the stone house on the turnpike belonging to Cadwallader Jr. With the help of Suzanne Isaksen, Town Historian, I've identified the site of the Thomas Colden Mansion and it is now marked at the top of my map forming the most northern boundary of Coldengham I have found.

I've also received recent help from the members of the Coldengham Preservation and Historical Society including Joe Devine who has researched the Colden Canal. The southern two dots on my map represent known canal locations, one of which is located in the current day Stewart State Forest, south of Interstate 84 and the southernmost point of Coldengham on my map.

Adelaide Skeel took her camera with her on her excursion but none of her photographs appear with her article. Perhaps she was so discouraged by the changes she didn't take any pictures. Maybe I should take a hint from Adelaide but instead I'm feeling encouraged as I continue to look for Jane Colden.

3000 Acres

So exactly where was Coldenham? There are old maps with dates of 1749, 1755 and of course Cadawaller’s own map dated 1760, that have Coldenham clearly marked but give no indication of the boundaries for the 3000 acre patent granted to Cadawallader. I asked Joe Devine from Montgomery what’s known about the property lines and he said this is a question the Coldenham Preservation and Historical Society is trying to answer.

More recently I came upon a map created by Claude Joseph Sauthier that was published in 1779. This means that the map was being created in the years shortly after Cadawallader Sr. sold the entire property to his son. This map differs from its’ predecessors in that it is very detailed and focuses on property boundaries. Coldenham and its’ neighbors are identified, as are geographic details and the roads of that time period. Tin Brook can again be clearly seen and the east/west road running through the property probably closely follows present day Route 17K. I think the road running to the south is what is now named Maple St. seeing as it is the road closest to the site of the original Colden home. All this seemed really helpful until I started comparing the 1779 map to our satellite map and began to see how the proportions don’t match which makes sense given early mapping methods but is disappointing none the less.

I gave up the idea that I would be able to trace the property lines from an old to new map and decided the boundaries would slowly reveal themselves as I found more locations known to be part of the original property. I’ve marked what I currently know. The single red square shows the site of the Cadwallader Jr. mansion ruins and the pair of squares shows the family cemetery and my best guess at the location of the original Colden home.

The Orchard

The Colden family cemetery once sat in an extensive orchard located to the east of the original Colden house. According to the letters and papers of Jane’s father the orchard produced cherries, pears, nectarines, peaches and later grew plum and apricot trees that were a gift from John Bartram. The apple varieties included Spitzenberghs, Newtown Pippins, Golden Russets, Pomroy, Golden Rennet and Kentish Codlings. The full name of the Spitzenbergh was probably Esopus Spitzenbergh, an apple that was found in the early 18^th century in the Ulster County town of Esopus not very far north of Coldengham and very close to where I live.

Apple trees are grown either from seeds or by grafting. Seedlings often stray widely from their genetic origins producing an array of apple types often unusable for much besides cider of which American settlers drank a good deal. Sometimes, however, a seedling grows that produces a superior apple and that tree would be grafted to others to produce the now sought after apple. Esopus Spitzenberghs were such a type and it’s said to have been the favorite apple of Thomas Jefferson. Where this information comes from I’m not sure, but I do see the trees listed, amongst others, in his farm and garden diaries. The Colden family obtained both seedlings and apple scions for grafting from their Hudson Valley neighbors and ate the apples fresh, dried for winter, and turned into hard cider.

You won’t find Esopus Spitzenburgh or other evocatively named old varieties in your grocery store. Most commercial apples come from the same small group of parents making for uniformity in both genes and taste. This makes apples particularly vulnerable to attack, similar to the attack on the potato in Ireland in the 1840’s and eliminates the variety of tastes available from a diverse apple crop. Fortunately, there is a sea change taking place in the way we think about food and how it’s grown and distributed. In fact this sea change in many ways returns us to the way food was grown and eaten during Jane Colden’s life; producing diverse crops that are appropriate to the local climate and consuming it not far from it’s source.

It’s now possible to buy heirloom variety fruit trees in nurseries. In current nursery catalogues and foody websites the Esopus Spitzenburgh is described as aromatic, spicy and crisp, or having floral notes and hints of peach and perhaps pineapple. Sounds delicious. I wonder if Jane, having eaten this apple, would agree.

Coldengham/Coldenham

There still is a town of Coldenham near the Colden ruins although it doesn't consist of much more than the intersection of Coldenham Rd. and Rte. 17k. The most obvious traces of the family name are the Coldenham Fire Department and the Colden Manor, a banquet facility located at the traffic light. There were a few guys working on a car in the parking lot of the Fire Department and after taking pictures of the gleaming row of trucks, I asked them where the name Coldenham had come from. They didn't seem to know but one of them said there was something going on further down 17k and I should keep a look out for a big green sign. It's always interesting how names are absorbed into a community and while some people are interested in preserving local history, others are living their lives, in their town, no matter what the name.

Coldenham Preservation and Historical Society

The project Looking for Jane Colden officially began when I attended the May meeting of the Coldenham Preservation and Historical Society which took place in Montgomery, NY near the ruins of the Colden estate. Montgomery may very well sit on land that was part of the original 3000 acre farm that belonged to Jane's parents, Alice and Cadwallader Colden in the 1700's but I neglected to ask any of the well informed people attending the meeting. Our time was spent listening to an interesting lecture by Sara Stidstone Gronim titled What Jane Knew. It appears Jane knew a good deal, especially for a young woman of that time period, and my interest is in finding traces of that knowledge and of Jane herself.