Main Page

This page has been reorganized so that articles appealing to folks interested in the following types of topics are grouped together:

• Town, farmers and other businesses.
• History and genealogy
• Visitors to the hill towns

The whole site will gradually be reorganized the same way. The article above under Goals shows some of the pages that are now grouped this way.

Big SKY looking towards the Catskills.
Eric Chamberlain

Farming

Local Harvest

From Erin Barnett, Director; Local Harvest:

It's March and all around the planet, farmers and gardeners are beginning to tuck their seeds into the dark soil. If you're one of them, you already know the pleasures of this quiet activity, and its eventual rewards. If you have been thinking of growing a little of your own food, this might be your year. A few seeds, a little time, what could it hurt to try?

Here are my favorite reasons to grow food:

• It's aesthetically pleasing and it pulls me outside.
• My family likes the food.
• It saves money. (According to the National Gardening Association, on average, a well-kept food gardens "yields a $500 return when considering a typical gardener's investment and the market price of produce." Nice!)
• It gives me something to talk about with the neighbors.
• Last night's supper: tomato sauce and roasted eggplant I'd put in the freezer in September over polenta and cheese. Yum, yum, yum.
• My daughter is growing up knowing that raspberries grow on canes and potatoes grow underground.

Speaking of March, it happens to be LocalHarvest's birthday, and again this year we're making merry with a Seed Giveaway. Our catalog is packed with seeds -- veggie, herb, tree and flower.

From now through Friday midnight, we'll be giving away every tenth seed order! That's right -- respond to this email by ordering some LocalHarvest seeds, and if yours happens to be one of every tenth order, we'll give contact you, letting you know it's *FREE!*

Lord's Acres

Lord's Acres Christian Fellowship has been serving the hilltowns for 22 years. Lord's Acres' ministry serves people with special need and the homeless. The provide food, in some cases shelter, hope and guidance to get the back on their feet. We serve children, adults and families, including single families.

Community Supported Agriculture

Hundreds of thousands of people all over the country are signing up for a CSA. Visions of tender new potatoes, taut, warm melons, and tomatoes, always tomatoes dance in their heads. Many - most - will end the season deliciously satisfied. Some, though, will not be pleased with their CSA experience. This month's Local Harvest newsletter is devoted to maximizing your chances of finding yourself among the sated and contented.

Know Thyself! Utterly fantastic idea though it is, community supported agriculture is not for everyone. Deciding whether or not CSA is for you requires a healthy dose of self knowledge. Some of us confuse how we are with how we would like to be. Not that there's no room for movement, but if you truly do not like vegetables, signing up to receive five to 20 pounds of them a week is probably not going to go well. When considering whether or not to join a CSA, there are a few questions that you might ask yourself. Be sure to answer for yourself and the people you live with since asking other people to change their eating habits is no small thing.. Read on

To find a CSA near you... whether East Berne or in East LA, California!

Helderberg Landscapes

Photos by Dan Driscoll of Knox Town Park. See Helderberg Landscapes for more of Dan's beautiful photography of Knox.

Knox wetlands

Knox wetlands

Dan J. Rundell
Windegard / Mullen Families, Ancestry.com

Daniel J. Rundell

Daniel J. Rundell was born July 14, 1880, Westerlo, NY, son of Jeremiah Rundell (1806 - 1890) and Eliza Lockwood (1809 -1849).^[1]. He served in the Civil War. After the war Daniel md. Lucy Lake (ca. 1849 - 1910). They had one child, Dan J. Rundell (1884 - ).^[1] In 1910 the family was in Emmett, Norton, Kansas. In 1920 he was widowed, in Emmet, Kansas, in the home of his son.^[1]

His father and step-mother:

Jeremiah Rundell (1806-1890) Windegard / Mullen Families, Ancestry.com

Maryetta Dearstyne Rundell Windegard / Mullen Families, Ancestry.com

Posson family

A biography has recently been added of William Posson. He and his wife Mary Catherine Becker were the parents of Civil War Soldier William Henry Harrison Posson (1840 - 1906) who settled in West Berne and ran a general store after he married.

Methodist Church of Township

The Methodist Church of Township was erected in 1851. It was just across the street from what was school district number 2; converted to a Knox firehouse in 1966. Collapsed under the snow load Feb. 27, 2010.

1972; Knox Sesquicentennial Booklet

October 2009; Eric Chamberlain

Hill towns during the Civil War

Even though it was not a battleground, the Civil War had a devastating effect on the hill towns. Hundreds of men from the hill towns volunteered to join the Union army and sacrificed the life or limbs in a cause in which they fervently believed.

• Berne during the Civil War
• Berne during the Civil War
• Knox during the Civil War
• Westerlo during the Civil War

Proposed book on the Civil War

The year 2011 is the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War. Several hundred Hilltown men served in the Union Army with a casualty rate of maybe 25% killed or injured. It had an big impact on the Towns and their families. We are writing biographies on each soldier. Information from the biographies will be used to produce a book on the lives and families of Civil War veterans. Publication is targeted for 2011.

The book will be in three parts:

• The events leading up to the war with emphasis on why the men in upstate NY seemed compelled to join the army of Father Abraham.
• The history of the units and their battles.
• Biographies of the Hilltown men. Individual biographies could be authored by family researchers.

Thanks to many people, especially Betty Fink and Pam Molle, a list of Hilltown men in the Civil War is complete, and biographies have been started for each of them. Right now some of the biographies consist of just the basic facts gleaned from Civil War Records.

The book editor will be Michael Grant Hait Jr.. Michael lives in the Washington DC area and has access to the National Archives; he is currently writing a book on Civil War soldiers and is experienced with an on-demand publishing.

Go to left column Category for the Civil War pages to see what information we have collected so far.

HELP NEEDED ON CIVIL WAR PROJECT

We need one or more volunteers for each of the towns to flesh out the biographies. If you see something below you think you might be interested in, contact me before beginning so I can coordinate who is doing what and prevent duplication.

• One of the sources would be the Hilltowns Genealogy posted on the Berne Historical Project web site. This can be done by anyone familiar with how to update biographies in this project. It is not difficult and I can help you learn.
• If the men lived until the latter part of the 19th C. or longer, I would like on line newspaper archives, such as the Altamont Enterprise, or Albany papers posted on the http://www.fultonhistory.com/ Fulton History] site, searched for additional information, such as obituaries.
• We also need someone with access to census data, such as that posted on Ancestry.com and other sites, to add census information for the Civil War men.
• Family researchers are asked to write or contribute information on their ancestors who served. We need copies of photos, letters written home from the soldiers, death notices, pension requests, military papers, medals, pictures of tombstones, family stories, etc.
• An article needs to be written about each of the units in which Hilltown men served including the history of the unit and the major battles in which the unit fought.
• A list of Hilltown men by unit is needed for the appendix. It should also have a summary of each one's fate (KIA, wounded, captured, died in prison, died as a result of wounds, life-time disability, unrelated death, unknown). All of the information for this assignment is in the biographies as currently written.
• We need someone to take photos of the headstones of Civil War veterans to add to their biographies so we will have them available for our book. This should be done by cemetery. Volunteer to do a cemetery and I will try to get you a list of the CW men buried there.

HELP NEEDED ON HILLTOWN VETERANS

One of the many projects that I am pushing is the collection of the names of the men and women who served in various wars. I was wondering how we could do that. Rich Hungerford came up with the idea of searching the Altamont Enterprise archives which are on line. Another great newspaper archives is Fulton History site which has the archives of dozens of upstate New York newspapers.

On line newspaper archives are invaluable to librarians, historians and family researchers. They are a wonderful source for researching local history, such as the who served in what wars, the history of a local organization, such as a library, grange, church or fire department.

If someone wants to write a biography of a grandparent or great grandparent, just search on their name. In fact each article mentioning their name came be copied and pasted into a digital scrapbook on a person or event. Then that could be used as a source for writing a biography.

OTHER HELP NEEDED

• Someone to add Van Rensselaer Lot numbers to each of the towns pages. This is a very simple task that takes no special computer skills. Let me know if you can do this and I will tell you how.
• A volunteer with knowledge and an interest in Westerlo to participate in this site and post articles. There is a book on the history of Westerlo, that if we can get permission, it would be great to have some of the items from it posted here. It would also be very nice to have someone scan old photos and documents from the collection of Westerlo Historical Society. There is also a wonderful compilation of cemetery records done a number of years ago by then town historian Thurman Bishop, Jr. For starters, his description of the cemeteries and their location should be added to the site. He also listed veterans who are buried in Westerlo cemeteries. These veterans should be listed on the Westerlo pages. We need someone to take photos of the headstones of Civil War veterans to add to their biographies so we will have them available for our book.