§7 Early Families and Historic Homes

Some of the earliest families of Bethel, according to Huntting, were those names that were prominent in the church records of Round Top. Names such as Keefer, Rowe, Strever, Hoffmann, Silvernail, and Smith. Most of the names are of German origin, and the spellings vary. This chapter will attempt to trace the history of the houses that appear on both an 1858 map and the 1867 Beers Atlas map of Pine Plains, and the families who have lived there, from the present day back to their earliest references.

The hamlet of Bethel is historically that area along lower Carpenter Hill Road, commonly called Bethel Road, and the surrounding vicinity, although the site of the Moravian Mission and Indian village of Shekomeko to the south is usually also considered part of Bethel. For our purposes, we have taken the liberty of extending this boundary as far east as the Deuel homestead on County Rte. 83, where the sycamore tree stands alone today and as far west as the Mashomack Fish and Game Preserve.

Section of 1867 Beers Atlas Map of Pine Plains, showing Bethel.

The concentration of houses in Bethel has always been on lower Carpenter Hill Road. Most of this section of Bethel is situated in lot thirty of the Little Nine Partners Patent. Many of these houses were tenant homes for Briarcliff, and later Bethel, Farms in the first half of this century. Eunice Menti, who currently lives in the trailer home on the east side of the road, has lived in most of the houses in the center of Bethel at one time or another while her late husband, John, worked for Bethel Farms.

Beginning on the west side, working from north to south, the residents in 1858 were C.(Charles) W. Hoag, M. Grey, P.(Peter) Hydorn, and (Josiah) Johnson. On the 1867 map, the house occupied by M. Grey in 1858 does not have a name associated with it; perhaps it was unoccupied for a period. The residents of the other houses in 1867 are, north to south: Win. Case, W. Hydorn, and J. Johnson.

The first house on the west side is now and has been tenanted for several years. It is owned by the Adams family of Pine Plains. The previous owners were Waverly and Ruth Bartholf, who lived there with their family, and before them, Henry Keefer (Kiefer), who is mentioned as being the present owner in Huntting's time. The Keefers kept a boarding house, and the 1870 census of Pine Plains lists 22 railroad laborers as being boarded here. The earliest owner of which we have a record is Charles Hoag, who settled here in 1798 and opened a Quaker boarding school at his residence in 1812.

The second house on the west side is currently owned by Morton (Mort) Jackson. It was purchased by his late brother-in-law, Irving Jackson, in 1958 from Byron L. Tice. It was purchased by Mr. Tice in 1949 from Edward L. Baker, who purchased it in 1938 from George C. Mowris. Beyond this, the property becomes very difficult to trace. The name M. Grey, which appears as the resident on the 1858 map, cannot be found with any certainty on the deeds of this period.

The third house is currently owned and being renovated by Dyan Wapnick, which she purchased in 1986 from the estate of Mildred McGhee. It had been purchased by Mildred and Collins McGhee in 1952 from Henry Jackson, owner of Bethel Farms. In 1936 it was purchased by Bethel Farms from Briarcliff Farms. It had been purchased by Briarcliff Farms from John Juchem in 1911, and by Juchem from Catherine Bergin and the heirs of Edward Bergin, her late husband, in 1909. Edward Bergin had purchased the property from Simin Levi in 1879. Simin Levi and his wife Hattie had purchased it that same year from Catherine Hydorn (Hidorn), widow of Peter Hydorn.

Peter Hydorn's will is dated 1862, and the W Hydorn on the 1867 map was probably "Widow" Hydorn. In 1872 Catherine sold the property to Hannah Loucks. But in 1879 Loucks foreclosed and the property reverted back to Catherine, who turned around and sold it to Simin Levi. It appears from the deed conveying the property from Levi to Bergin in 1879 that Catherine held the mortgage. Reading through these deeds over one hundred years later, one must contemplate and admire the fortitude of Catherine Hydorn, who was not a young woman at the time, for enduring such difficulties with this property in what was very much a man's world.

Peter Hydorn, who was born in 1806, is mentioned by Huntting as being the proprietor of the blacksmith shop in Bethel from 1837 until 1865. Peter made two purchases which added significantly to the property. In 1843 he purchased "the piece of land on which the blacksmith shop stands" directly across the road, from Samuel and Margaret Deuel and Margaret Bockee. Recent renovation work that has been done on Dyan Wapnick's garage has fueled speculation that this was the blacksmith shop, which at some point was moved and the land on which it stood sold off to become part of Eunice Menti's property today Peter also purchased a little over an acre in 1847 from Lewis Rowe and his wife, Maria.

Peter bought the house and original parcel of property from Jacob Barringer and his wife Margaret in 1837.Jacob was the first blacksmith in Bethel, beginning in 1828. Jacob had purchased the house in 1834 from Charles and Betsy Hoag, and this is the farthest back this property can be traced.

The fourth house, now owned by Roger Akeley, was purchased in 1992 from the estate of Joseph Chatlos. It had been purchased in 1946 by Joseph and Edna Chatlos from Henry Jackson of Bethel Farms. The earliest reference to this property shows it being purchased in 1828 by Hiram Davis, a shoemaker, from Tripp Hoag. On the 1867 map, the house is shown as being occupied by Josiah Johnson, who also operated a boot and shoe shop here, but according to the deed he did not own the property until 1872. Josiah passed away in 1883 at the age of 94. That year, the property was purchased from his heirs by Isaac B. Wright. According to Huntting, Edward Huntting owned this property at some point in the 1800's.

Huntting states that this house was once the girls' section of the Quaker boarding school which was moved to form a separate dwelling after the boarding school closed. This is very possible, since in those days lumber and other building supplies were scarce, and often additions to existing structures, as can easily be seen in some of these homes today were made by using any available materials, sometimes whole other buildings. This home is also being renovated.

Situated on the east side in 1858, from north to south, were A. Thorne, A. Rowe, B.S.SH (blacksmith shop), and the M.E.(Methodist Episcopal) Church, which was the Bethel Union Church; in addition to the above, J. Rowe and Cem. (the church cemetery) are noted in the 1867 Beers Atlas, the residence of I. Rowe appearing to be north of the church property. The J. Rowe dwelling is no longer standing.

The first house is currently the home of Evelyn Allen. It was purchased with her husband Edwin in 1956 from Edna Chatlos, who had inherited it in 1940 from her parents Harvey and Mary Doyle. They had purchased the property in 1928 from George C. Mowris. Edna had been born in this house around 1900 and grew up in Bethel, and she returned to Bethel to live with her husband, Joseph. At the time of Edna's death in 1992, she was one of the oldest members of the Pine Plains Presbyterian Church.

Edna cut quite a figure years ago in this farming community, a "real lady" who had had some secondary education and who knew how to play the piano. She used to relate many stories of early Bethel to her neighbors. One thing she said was that the road to Amenia (County Rte. 83 today) used to pass by the OTHER side of the Allen house, apparently at the time the house was built, since the south side of the house is actually the front of the house. This is very interesting since it does not seem to correlate with any of the early maps, which show the road passing on the north side of the Allen house as it does today We know that the present road was laid out in 1919, and its course seems to deviate only slightly from the road as shown on the early maps. Perhaps at some point, then, in the early part of the nineteenth century, the road was moved to the north side of the house, but why is not clear.

The second house was purchased by William and Catherine Bancroft in 1988 from the estate of Beatrice Campbell, who had kept a boarding house there for the elderly or disabled. Beatrice and her husband George had purchased the property in 1933 from George C. Mowris.

The third house, currently the home of Scott and Jeanne Valentine Chase, is a fully-renovated Greek Revival with unusual frieze band eyebrow windows. It was purchased by the Chases in 1978 from William (Bill) Fletcher, after standing vacant for several years. Prior to the Chases, the house had been rented by Tim and Susanna Feldsine, and prior to Feldsines it was rented by John and Eunice Menti until 1972. The owner of the property at this time was Henry Jackson. Prior to the Mentis and beginning in 1937 a family by the name of Bowman lived here. Dale and Katharine Fletcher occupied the house from 1935 to 1937, and before them a family by the name of Potter. A deed from 1846 shows the sale of this property from Samuel Deuel to Lewis Rowe, and that is the farthest back its history can be traced.

It has been suggested that perhaps this building was once the parsonage for the Bethel Union Church, which was built in 1839. This could be true; however, it must be pointed out that most of the ministers that preached at this church did not live in Bethel but were ministers from the other Pine Plains churches who took turns officiating here. On the 1867 map, a separate dwelling does appear to the north of the church and seems to be associated with it.

The former location of the church itself has been the subject of much speculation. We do know that the Bethel Union Church was built on the approximate site of the old Round Top Churches. It would seem likely that the churches were located west of where the Chase garage is today A photograph taken of the Bethel Union Church in 1896 from an angle looking northeast shows a building faintly visible through the trees on its right, which is most likely the Chase home.

South of the cemetery stands the remains of Barn B of Briarcliff Farms, now part of Windy View Farm, a horse farm owned by Robert Churton. The milk house has been converted to a small residence on property owned by Bill Fletcher to the immediate south of Windy View Farm.

The next and last historic property on the east end of lower Carpenter Hill Road is known as the Phoenix Deuel homestead, now Equinox Farms, Inc. and the home of Dr. Ian Michaels, a veterinarian who breeds and trains blooded horses. The previous owner of this house was Geraldine Maldonado, who also raised and bred horses. Prior to Mrs. Maldonado, it was lived in by Bill Fletcher and his family Bill and his father, Dale Fletcher, were managers of Bethel Farms.

The house was built circa 1830 by Samuel Deuel on a tract of land that was purchased in 1741 by Johan Tise Smith from Richard Sackett and his sons,

Phoenix Deuel Homestead on Carpenter Hill Road, circa 1900.

In 1840 Edmund Reynolds, a Quaker, lived here. The 1858 map shows M. Grey to be the resident. The property, however, most likely never left the Deuel family and the 1867 map shows Phoenix Deuel, son of Samuel Deuel, as the inhabitant. Phoenix Deuel was the last postmaster of Bethel, and when he died in 1904 the Bethel post office was closed. He was the grandfather of Newton Deuel, a co-author of this booklet. The property remained in the Deuel family until 1907, when it and the other Deuel farms in Bethel, one being where the sycamore tree lot is today, were sold to Briarcliff Farms.

Continuing south on Carpenter Hill Road across the steel bridge that spans the Shekomeko Creek is Berkshire Stud Farm, owned by Doug and Christine Koch. This is home to some of the most promising thoroughbred race horses in the area, and the beautiful white horse barn was featured on the 1994 Little Nine Partners Historical Society house tour. The property is the historic Samuel Tanner farm, also part of lot twelve in the original patent. Although the Tanner barns are still standing, the house was dismantled about 1964. It was said to have had a beautiful staircase and mantles. The staircase was removed to the house on Strever Farm Road and the mantles to various other houses.

This farm was originally the farm of Abraham Dibble, son of Isaiah Dibble, and the site of a carding mill. The genealogy of this family is well-documented.

Phoenix N. Deuel

Samuel J. Tanner, whose father emigrated from England in the middle eighteenth century, became the subsequent owner of the Abraham Dibble property through his father-in-law, Alexander McIntosh. Samuel was born in the Town of Dover in 1758. He married first Mary McIntosh, and second Rachel McIntosh (1778-1864). Both were the daughters of Alexander McIntosh and Clara Yonkhaus McIntosh. Samuel and Rachel Tanner had ten children and lived on the farm owned by her father, which after the death of Alexander McIntosh became the property of the Tanners. It remained in the Tanner family until 1907 and at that time was purchased by Briarcliff Farms.

Bethel Cross Road was laid out in 1805, although it was used much earlier. The second house on this road, heading west, is the Edward Huntting house, now owned by Carol Janeway This house is of New England architecture and has been beautifully restored. It contains the original small paned windows and kitchen fireplace in the basement. It was built in 1774 by Gerardus Winans, a Quaker, although the property was in the Winans family as early as 1762. It came into the Huntting family in 1828 when Amanda Winans married Edward Huntting, and was continuously occupied by members of the Huntting family until 1904. The historical marker by the road is technically incorrect in

Bethel Railroad Crossing at Carpenter Hill Road, looking north.

There is only one house on Strever Farm Road. According to Huntting, this property can be traced back to a Stephen Cumming. In 1867, it was owned by Nancy Case Smith, widow of Reuben Smith. The road bears the name of the farm of Sheldon Strever (from the German Striebel), a subsequent owner who sold 133 acres to Briarcliff Farms in the early part of this century. It then became part of Bethel Farms when Henry Jackson bought all of Briarcliff Farms on the east side of Route 82, and it was purchased from the Jackson estate by the current owners, Moushir and Ambereen Hasan, a couple from Pakistan who have made many improvements to the property. Prior to this purchase, the house was occupied by Bill Fletcher and his wife Elaine.

This house was also featured on the 1963 Little Nine Partners Historical Society house tour. At that time it was occupied by Bill Fletcher's parents, Katharine and Dale Fletcher. The Fletchers had managed Bethel Farms and later operated a famous herd of Aberdeen Angus cattle under the name of "Dal'bairn." Several interesting fireplaces were pointed out on the house tour, including one with an old Dutch oven. As has been mentioned, the staircase from the old Tanner house went to this house. Henry Jackson was always of the opinion that the north room with the slate bottom fireplace was the original site of the cabin of Gottlob Buettner, the Moravian missionary, as the other fireplaces were of brick and appeared to be of a later date. Although it cannot be known today whether a portion of this house was inhabited by any of the missionaries, let alone a specific one, this early farmhouse was erected closest to the mission site and Indian encampment and so may indeed have incorporated parts of one of the missionary dwellings.

Another farm in this vicinity that is mentioned by Huntting but is now gone was the Silas Smith-Stegar place, later owned by Smith Sackett. The 1867 map shows a dwelling close by Halcyon (Halcion) Lake occupied by H. Stegar. Little is known about this farm except from Huntting, who says that it was originally the home of John Rowe.

As already mentioned, John Rowe was one of the earliest white settlers in Bethel. A Palatine, Rowe was born in Germany in 1696 and was one of the first settlers of that name in northern Dutchess County, along with his brothers Nicholas and Michael. According to records they were the sons of Nicholas of Oppenheim, which was in the province of Hesse and near the city of Darmstadt, Germany The brothers were "free" German immigrants, that is, not bound by any association of company as were Robert Hunter's Palatines, and probably emigrated to this country around 1720-22 after the two waves of Palatine immigrations. They appear to have settled first in Rhinebeck, then at some time later Michael Rowe settled in what would become Bethel in Pine Plains and John Rowe moved to Amenia Union.

In l74O John Rowe relocated to Gore Lot 8, which was part of the disputed territory between the Little and Great Nine Partners Patents. For six significant years he lived here in a double block house, which was a one-story house called the "long house" with one long roof and an open hallway running between a square room at each gable end. It stood at the south part of what became the Silas Smith-Stegar farm and was approximately a half mile west of the Moravian Mission and Mahican encampment. During the patent lands survey expedition in 1743, Charles Clinton and his corps of surveyors spent the night at the home of a "Hannas Row" and this is almost certainly the same man who alone befriended the Moravians, and whose daughter, Jeannette, married one of the missionaries, Martin Mack. In 1746, John Rowe returned to his former home in Amenia Union, where he died June 2, 1768.

Michael Rowe, brother of "Moravian John," was one of the Church fathers of the Round Top Church, along with Johan Tise Smith. He purchased fifty-one acres of Lot 15 of the Little Nine Partners Patent on May 10, 1749 from John and Margaret Sackett, executors of Richard Sackett. A daughter of Michael Rowe, Catherine, married Nicholas Smith, son of Johan Tise Smith, thus uniting these two early families. Michael Rowe died about 1783.

The locations of the dwellings of the other early white settlers in the area that are shown on the drawing of Shekomeko made in 1745 are not able to be precisely determined, and owing to the sparse settlement of this region could have been quite a distance away According to Huntting, "Hendrickson's [Hendrysen's] Mountain" referred to Brigg's Hill, the home of Hendrick Kiefer. Interestingly the home of the only white neighbor mentioned in any early writings, and perhaps the closest, John Rowe, is not shown.

On the north shore of Halcyon Lake, commonly called Buttermilk Pond, is the present home of the Mashomack Fish and Game Club. The property as it is today is technically not part of historic Bethel; however, it is included in this booklet because it was at one time part of the larger Briarcliff Farms, which did extend into Bethel. The house, formerly Halcyon Lodge, was built in 1838 by Dr. Benjamin Wilber, who had nine children. His son Theron owned this house at the time of the Moravian monument dedication in 1859. Another son Henry Clay Wilber was born in 1845 and began a medical practice in Pine Plains in 1867 that lasted until his death in 1919. The town clock was erected in 1920 in his memory A third son Charles Seymour Wilber was the founder of the Pine Plains Register, which later became the Register Herald. On the 1867 map the house is shown as the dwelling of Henry Meyers, who owned a significant amount of real estate in Pine Plains in the last century During the proprietorship of Walter Law, the home was occupied by George W Tuttle, manager of Briarcliff Farms, and his family Installed in the dining room by a subsequent owner, Anastasia Collins Brown (Mrs. George Brown), are prized original French scenic murals by Jean Zuber, printed from engraved blocks.

At the intersection of Carpenter Hill Road and County Route 83, on the north side of Rte. 83 and west of the turn for the Adams house is the residence of Stephen Bernstein and Herbert V. Paureiss, Jr. The previous owner was Rose Harrow, and it was featured on a joint house tour conducted by the Little Nine Partners Historical Society and the Pine Plains Garden Club in June 1972. At that time, restoration on the inside revealed six corner fireplaces, a stenciled bedroom floor, and "false-grained" painted doors. The original colors had been matched throughout.

This Federal period house was built by Job Corbin circa 1804. It was sold in 1821, and the William Van Alstynes lived there until 1856 when it came into the Case family from nearby Johnny Cake Hollow Road. Both the 1858 and 1867 maps show J. Case to be resident here. The earliest Case in the area was John Case who was baptized at Round Top Church on June 6,1767 and is the ancestor of those of that name living in the Towns of Milan and Clinton today Abner and Jonathan Case of another branch are the ancestors of those of this name living in the vicinity of Pine Plains. Abner (1754-1831) settled about two miles southeast of the hamlet of Pine Plains in the Johnny Cake Hollow Road area. His son James married Mary Rowe, and their son John married Eliza Corbin, the only child of Job Corbin.

On the hill opposite the entrance to Carpenter Hill Road was the approximate location of the Quaker Meeting House, which was torn down after the first of this century Adjacent to the Quaker burying ground is property owned by John MacBeth and occupied by his son Wayne and his family This house was the former Bethel public two-room school house of School District 3.

A few feet from the foot of the large American sycamore tree that can still be seen today on Rte. 83 was the Samuel Deuel homestead. The house is no longer standing. This farm property was purchased by Captain Jacob Bockee about 1800, and his daughter Catherine married Samuel Deuel. It was also Captain Bockee who deeded the property for the Quaker Meeting House. When Captain Bockee died in 1819 the property came into the Deuel family where it remained until 1907 when it was sold along with the other Deuel properties in Bethel to Briarcliff Farms. In 1913 the barns on this property burned, and sometime after the purchase of Briarcliff Farms by Oakleigh Thorne in 1918 the house was dismantled and used for wood and materials in the main house at Briarcliff Farms.

Samuel Deuel Homestead and sycamore tree on County Route 83

There is an interesting story about the sycamore tree that now stands alone in the empty corn field on the former Deuel place. Henry Jackson, who became owner of the property when he purchased the portion of Briarcliff Farms east of Rte 82 placed a restrictive covenant on the land to ensure the survival of this tree. Then in 1989, the tree, which is on approximately 104 acres now owned by Douglas and Ann McKechneay of Florida, was nominated by Peter Schlessinger to be officially recorded by Forest Resource Management of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. The overall condition of the tree at that time was considered very good, with some heart rot evident, but the tree was deemed structurally sound.

The Round Top Churches	Table of Contents		The Bethel Union Church
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