by Bea Peterson
On Monday afternoon, November 8, Erin Tobin, the Preservation League Regional Director of Technical and Grant Programs in western New York presented the Pittstown Historical Society with a Grant for $7,500. This grant will support the preparation of a National Register Multiple Resource Documentation Form for historic Pittstown farmsteads and may get recognized buildings on the National Historic Register. A majority of the documented farmstead owners attended the meeting in the Historic Barns of Nipmoose in Buskirk.
The project, cumulating in this latest grant, began when the Pittstown Historical Society (PHS) received two grants, one from the Preservation League and a second from the Hudson River Valley Greenway. These grants, along with additional funding from the Rensselaer County Legislature, were used to complete Cultural Resource Surveys of 26 historic farmsteads in Pittstown. “The subcommittee of the PHS which undertook the studies of the historic farmsteads felt that one of the unique things about Pittstown was the large number of intact farmsteads. We wanted to have them documented because it is so unusual nowadays to see large numbers of historic agricultural buildings still in place on farmsteads. Also, there seems to be a lack of documentation about how those buildings were used,” said Connie Kheel, member of that subcommittee. The Preservation League noted that most of the farmsteads included four or more intact historic outbuildings, including barns, silos, dairy sheds and icehouses. “These farmsteads are threatened by development, and their disappearance and irreversible alteration occurs at an accelerating rate each year,” said Preservation consultant Jessie Ravage.
Kheel said, “The Society’s focus on the farmstead’s agricultural buildings, their uses and how they relate to each other is unique. With assistance from the Preservation League, we have been able to document the historic forms and functions of a wide variety of these agricultural buildings. The majority of these structures are obsolete, and soon people won’t recall where they were built or why. Listing these properties on the National Register will help ensure their preservation as historic resources.”
The thoroughness of the work already accomplished by the Society will make it much easier for farmstead owners to complete the forms required for eligibility on the National Register.
More than an hour of questions and answers followed the presentation as owners wondered aloud about how having buildings on the National Register would affect their taxes. According to NYS Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation Program Analyst Bill Krattinger it won’t impact them at all. Even though a building is on the Register, owners were assured that it could be torn down if they chose to do so at some point. There are no restrictions on a Registered building’s use. There was a concern over future development in Pittstown and the possible affect on these historic buildings. Krattinger noted these would be Planning Board issues. Over the coming months much more information will be available to farmstead owners interested in participating in the program.
Pittstown is fortunate to have these old buildings so carefully documented and to have a community that is so supportive of the efforts to preserve them.
