Voorheesville Public Library Online Collections

The New Scotland Historical Association, chartered by New York State in 1975, welcomes you to our new museum, which opened May 4, 1997. The New Scotland Museum is located on Old New Salem Road, just off Route 85, in New Salem, New York. Our purpose is to preserve local history and to make it available to the public.

Our exhibits depict various aspects of the history of the Town of New Scotland. Our opening geology exhibit shows this area BEFORE THERE WAS AN ATLANTIC OCEAN. Other displays look forward in time, with many demonstrating life in the 1800s and early 1900s.

We invite you to sample our exhibits and history. We know it will whet your appetite to see the museum itself and we invite you to come. The New Scotland Museum is a twenty minute drive SW of Albany. Hours: June-October, Sundays 2 PM-4PM. July and August, Thursdays 10-noon and Sundays. Otherwise by appointment..

 
The Gould Map

This map was drawn by the young Jay Gould in 1854 and shows Albany County and the towns within it. The Town of New Scotland is directly in the center. We say it’s "plumb in the middle." New Scotland was formed in 1832 when the Town of Bethlehem was bisected to make it possible for people in the Helderbergs to get to town meetings and home the same day.

Jay Gould went on to become a railroad magnate and a notorious millionaire. He tried to have these maps, which revealed Gould had once been a "lowly cartographer" destroyed, but we have one which survived in our collection. The Gould map was a gift from Martha Oden in memory of her late aunt, Jane Blessing, New Scotland school teacher.

 
Photo of the Helderbergs

The Helderberg Mountains are the prominent feature of New Scotland. Their limestone cliffs hold fossils from the Devonian period (390 to 340 million years ago). They were named "Helderberg", which is Dutch for "clear Mountain," because the formation can be seen from miles away. This photo was made for the museum by Dietrich Gehring, a member of the NSHA.

The Mohican Indians resided in what is now called the Hudson River valley for hundreds of years. They welcomed the Dutch and their trade goods.

 
Barrel, Axe and Kettle

The Indians traded beaver pelts, desired by the Europeans for making their beaver hats, for these items.

 
Beaver Pelt

In 1629 the Dutch started to settle what is now Albany and Rensselaer Counties primarily to protect their trade with the Indians. Kilean Van Rensselaer, a wealthy Amsterdam diamond merchant, sent boatloads of indentured farmers here at his expense. The farmers cultivated the land and were required to pay rent in the form of goods (wheat and fat fowl) and service (a day working for the patroon) every year.

 
(1789)

 
(1836)
Indenture

After 200 years, during which time generations of farm families paid rent to the patroons without being able to own their property outright, an anti-rent war broke out.

 
Rent War "Indian"

Farmers disguised as Indians protested, refusing to pay rent when the patroon declined to let them purchase their farms outright. Usually, the sheriff was sent to the outlying towns in the Helderbergs to collect the rent, sometimes bodily removing the farm family from their home. The Calico Indians, as they were called, signaled the approach of the sheriff by blowing the tin dinner horns ordinarily used by the women to summon the men from the fields at mealtime.

 

 
"View of Great Pass on the Helderburg Mountains with the lines of March in service December 1839 Inscribed to the different Corps under Orders. From drawings at that time and place by T. Grenell."

Eventually the New York State Militia was sent out to quell the anti-rent war. This picture is a photograph of an original drawing which is owned by the Cherry Hill House Museum in Albany, In it we see the militita marching past a broken farm wagon in the road as the top-hatted patroon himself watches from the back of his horse. In the center of the picture one can make out a cannon being dragged into the woods, while in the background troops are climbing up the hill to join horsemen already at the summit.

Apparently there were no fatalities at the time of the drawing, but the rebellion continued until 1846 when the New York State Legislature passed legislation to end this feudal system. However, even then matters were held up in the courts until a ruling by the New York State Court of Appeals in 1863.

 
Tracks Crossing In Field

In 1864 two railroads were built through the Town of New Scotland, headed west from the Hudson River, both trying to find a way around the Helderbergs. The Albany and Susquehanna line and the New York, West Shore and Buffalo railroads crossed one another in a farm field. Subsequently a village grew up around the crossroad and in 1899 the Village of Voorheesville (named for a railroad attorney) was incorporated.

 
Voorheesville Station

This photo, taken in 1962 by James Shaughnessy, shows the unique train station built at the crossing in the 19th century. It is no longer standing.

 
The Present

Today New Scotland remains a mostly rural town, though most of its farms have given way to homes of people who work in Albany and vacant picturesque fields.

Credits: Helderbergs from Hennessy Road by Barbara Cureau, New Scotland farm by Chris Horn and barn and tree by Mildred Zimmerman.

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