🏘️ Croton Local History
Blog posts, articles, and community histories by local historians
1,661Passages
207Source Documents
Sources
Passages
crotonhistory.org
squeezed out of the mash by the tremendous pressure of the press. Visitors can sample the cider, right out of the press. The leftover mash is used as compost or fed to pigs. The Stone Barns Center in Pocantico Hills uses mash from Thompson’s Cider
45 words
crotonhistory.org
Mill. In the 18th and 19th centuries, what we refer to as cider was “apple juice” and “cider” was the alcoholic drink we call “hard cider.” See A History of Agriculture in the State of New York by Ulysses P. Hedrick. Hedrick says cider “was more
46 words
crotonhistory.org
often quoted as an exchange commodity than apples or potatoes or any other fruit or vegetable . . . Apple juice and cider were legal tender for the cobbler, the tailor, the lawyer, the doctor, and there is at least one record . . . of a farmer’s
48 words
crotonhistory.org
paying for his daughter’s schooling with cider.” Conklin’s operation was described by James Stuart, who travelled north through the Croton area with his wife in September-October, 1829. After spending the night at “a second rate hotel, near the
38 words
crotonhistory.org
village of Croton, kept by civil people of the name of Macleod,” they head to Verplanck and along the way he includes this passage: “One of the largest orchards in this country . . . [belongs] to Mr. Conklin. It consists of forty acres. All the trees
47 words
crotonhistory.org
are raised by himself from the seed, and grafted. He sells his Newton pippins and Russell pippins, and manufactures the remainder of his apples into cider. The cider-mill is eighty feet long, and there are two cellars of equal length. The barrel of
43 words
crotonhistory.org
cider contains from twenty-eight to thirty-two gallons; the price of each barrel is from three to seven dollars, according to the quality.” This appears in volume one of Stuart’s two-volume work, Three Years in North America , which was published in
41 words
crotonhistory.org
1833. According to Bauman Rare Books, his book is important because of its “compelling descriptions of Niagara Falls, the election of Andrew Jackson, the brutality of slavery, and the majesty of the West.” Both volumes are available free on Google
40 words
crotonhistory.org
Books. Here’s a link to volume one . ↩ Conklin may be the same person referred to by Pierre Van Cortlandt in a letter dated January 27, 1787. Van Cortlandt wrote that “Joseph Conklyn” wanted to rent “the Ridge farm Adjoyning the Paper Mill Farm” and
46 words
crotonhistory.org
that Conklyn “has Way Withal to Improve the farm; he is to make an Orchard of 150 trees, to be planted within four years.” See the Van Cortlandt Family Papers , vol. IV, p. 350. Share this: Print (Opens in new window) Print Email a link to a friend
49 words
crotonhistory.org
(Opens in new window) Email Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook Share on X (Opens in new window) X Share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest Share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr Share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
44 words
crotonhistory.org
LinkedIn Like Loading... Related Tagged cider cider mill Joseph Conklyn Pierre Van Cortlandt Published October 27, 2013 October 19, 2014
20 words
crotonhistory.org
The top of the front page of the October 23, 1862 issue of the New York Times . Cost of the paper? Two cents. Now that “Autumn is touching with wary finger the wealth of forest and orchard, and carefully-tended garden spots,” let’s open our copy of
47 words
crotonhistory.org
the New York Times —from October 23, 1862—and read the letter, The Season of the Vintage, the Croton Point Vineyards, to learn about the “commodious and cool” wine cellars, the clever “Yankee” solution to an invasion of “ground moles” and the
41 words
crotonhistory.org
plum-tree lake, where the trees are “planted as to hang directly out over the water” and the ripe fruit is “gathered in boats that moor immediately under the branches.” “. . . granaries are bursting with the harvesting of the Summer’s generous
42 words
crotonhistory.org
growth, and the Autumn is touching with wary finger the wealth of forest and orchard, and carefully-tended garden spots, the vineyard, with its drooping clusters, claims our admiration. The wine-growers carry cheerful faces now, for along with the
38 words
crotonhistory.org
luxuriant abundance that has marked the growth of other fruits, the grape is worthily conspicuous. The hillsides of La Belle Riviere, 1 and the southern slopes just off from the mad Missouri, sends us their brands of “Catawba” still, or sparkling,
41 words
crotonhistory.org
their sharp “red wine” and mellow native brandy; but in all these lurks a touch of grossness when compared with the home growth of our Croton and other vineyards. The “Union” wine, which, aside from its patriotic signification, is made up of a union
44 words
crotonhistory.org
of the two popular growths of Isabella and Catawba, is the unadulterated juice of the berry. A trade card for the Underhill vineyards. Having visited the Croton Point vineyards while the luxuriant harvest was at its height, some things were observed
41 words
crotonhistory.org
which you may find noticeable. Almost within sight of Manhattan Island, a narrow point projects suddenly from the main land into the Hudson, whose waters wash its west bank, the Croton River forming its eastern boundary. This grassy, well-wooded
39 words
crotonhistory.org
point divides the river into two bays—the one lying above called Haverstraw, and the one below, Tappan Zee—names whose origin needs no explanation to New-Yorkers. Upon the opposite shore of the Hudson there are wild mountains, frowning darkly, and
39 words
crotonhistory.org
bristling with rocks, upon this saucy little point making out so boldly into the middle of the river, and threatening to come clear across and bloom and blossom about their very base; but the rural hamlets peeping out from the cultivated valleys
42 words
crotonhistory.org
preserve the balance of cheerfulness, and the mountains frown on in silence, and the saucy little point glories in the admiration of passing voyagers, and entertains by shoals her friends, the shad, the perch, and striped bass, that play about her
41 words
crotonhistory.org
pebbly borders to the music of dashing spray and whispering pines. She flings a breath of redolence to the peaceful hamlets, and sighs through all vineyards for the desolate, grim old mountain. Between forty-five and fifty acres upon the Point are
41 words
crotonhistory.org
now covered with richly bearing vines. After many unsuccessful efforts to perfect foreign varieties, Dr. Underhill has settled upon the two familiar staples, the Isabella and the Catawba. These, he is persuaded, meet—all things considered—the demand
36 words
crotonhistory.org
for table, for general market supply, and for wine. The successful cultivation of these sorts has been carried on since 1834, and his plan is quite different in the rearing and training of the grape from that practiced in Europe, and upon our western
44 words
crotonhistory.org
border. He does not wind his vines around upright stakes, as is common, but he trains them along wires which are secured to posts some seven or eight feet high. The strain upon these posts is so great that they are driven four feet into the ground.
47 words
crotonhistory.org
Detail from “Gathering Grapes—An October Scene on the Hudson,” a wood engraving published in Harper’s Weekly . The image depicts the Underhill vineyard in 1867. The plants are never allowed to be forced, either in the nursery, or afterward in the
41 words
crotonhistory.org
vineyard. This would, indeed, produce large sap vessels, but would render the quality inferior, and subject the plants to “ Winter kill .” The larger the sap vessels the greater the quantity of water, and the less the saccharine element, and,
41 words
crotonhistory.org
necessarily, the poorer the wine; for what dilutes the substance of the berry dilutes the wine. In order to concentrate the desirable qualities, the vines are subjected to a Winter as well as a Summer pruning. During the early Summer, after the
42 words