by Bea Peterson
On Friday, June 24, Rensselaer County Executive Kathy Jimino joined Hudson River Valley Greenway acting Executive Director Mark Castiglione and members of the Pittstown Historical Society at the Herb Backus farm on Johnsonville Road in Pittstown where he presented an enlarged check for an $8,000 grant to the Society. Castiglione commended the members for the innovative work they are doing in recording the history and the farm buildings in Pittstown. This grant will help continue and complete that work. In this way many of the farm buildings may be eligible for placement on the National Historic Register.
Jimino also thanked the Historical Society and the researchers for the hard work they have been doing to preserve the Town’s farming history. Farming, she said, is critical to Rensselaer County and any thing that can be done to promote the value of farming in the County is important. She hopes these preserved farms will be the future of agritourism in the County. The Backus farmstead was placed on the Historic Register through an earlier grant.
Pittstown Historical Society Treasurer Connie Kheel said they would not have been able to do the in-depth study they have done without the four grants they have received. The project, she said, is unique in that they were not just recording a building but an entire farmstead. She said it is amazing to find 26 farms, still intact, in the 60 square miles that make up Pittstown. The fact that 15 of those farmsteads meet the Historic requisites is exciting.
Castiglione said the Hudson River Valley Greenway encourages other communities to apply for grants to be used to capture the farm histories in their towns.
