Town of Halcott
A BRIEF HISTORY
What we know as the Town of Halcott was first part of the Town of Woodstock, then the Town of Windham, then the Town of Lexington, before finally being set apart as its own town in Greene County in 1851. There were at one time several roads that led over the mountains to adjoining communities, but these were eventually abandoned so that for much of its history the only way to get to Halcott has been through Fleischmanns (Middletown) or Roxbury. Town residents are therefore more closely connected socially and economically with Delaware County.
The Halcott family gave its name to the town, and to Halcottsville, a Middletown hamlet a few miles away as the crow flies. John Halcott came to the colonies as a British soldier during the Revolutionary War. He switched sides and created a new life, raising 12 children with Letitia Jenkins. Most were born in the Town of Middletown, and several migrated to Halcott where John died at the home of son Thomas in 1831. John is buried in a tiny graveyard near West Settlement Rd. and County Rd. 3 in the area that came to be called Halcott Center because the general store and post office were located there.
Early settlers cleared homesteads along Vly (sometimes called Fly) Creek and its tributaries which tumble off an imposing ridge at the head of the valley. Among early arrivals were Helms Chrysler, Nathan Stanton, Timothy Tyler, Joseph Brooks and Tenant Peck. Others included members of the Miller, Lockwood, Vanderburgh, Smallie, Garrison, Denton, Parker and Covel families. Still later Maben, Griffin, Mead, Ballard, Crosby, Johnson, Bouton and Moseman families established farms here.
The first birth and the first death among the early settlers occurred in 1814.
John P. VanValkenburgh, his small brother and widowed mother ventured into the area in 1813 and occupied the Chrysler farm. John helped establish the Halcott Methodist Church in 1829 and ministered to that congregation for more than half a century. The church structure was dedicated in 1849. Now part of the Upper Catskills Larger Parish, the Halcott Methodist Church holds regular services and Sunday School classes, conducts service projects and sponsors dinners and special events.
An Old School Baptist Church was established in 1822 with parishioners meeting in homes and schoolhouses until a church was built in 1847. It no longer stands and the congregation dissolved long ago.
There were four one-room schools in Halcott. The first, made of logs, was erected in 1816. Halcott students traveled to Fleischmanns to attend high school until 1968 when it merged with Margaretville Central School, though elementary students continued to go Fleischmanns through 1984.
In 1860, there were twice as many residents of the Town of Halcott as there are today – 505 men, women and children in 97 families. Eleven Halcott men served in the Civil War; four died, three were sickened or injured.
Most families subsisted on small dairy farms. There were a couple of blacksmiths, a sawmill, several carpenters and in 1869 just one merchant, I. T. Moseman, dealing in everything from boots to hardware to drugs.
The Ulster & Delaware Railroad arrived in Fleischmanns in 1870, providing a market for local milk and farm products. Two creameries were established in Halcott (today’s highway department garage and the Grange hall). Greene Valley Grange #881 was organized in 1899 as a farm advocacy and education association and a social hub. Although there is just one operating dairy farm remaining in Halcott, the Grange hall continues to be a gathering place and houses the Town offices.
After 1870, city dwellers began to find their way from the train depot in Fleischmanns up the Halcott Valley to stay at hotels like Mountain Star, The Maples, and, reflecting the many Greek immigrant owners and guests, the Acropolis and the Parthenon. Many farms opened to boarders who came year after year for the fresh air, good food and outdoor recreation. Clean water, too, which in the 21st century became Halcott’s principal ‘export’ with a Johnson Hollow plant bottling and marketing it to individuals and companies throughout the region and in New York City.
The bounty and the beauty of this part of the Catskills are attractions that continue to draw visitors, transplants and second homeowners to this quiet valley on Vly Creek.
SOURCES: Munsell’s 1880 History of Delaware County (with an appendix chapter on Halcott); US Census records on Ancestry.com; As the River Runs, a History of Halcottville, NY (Diane Galusha); 1927 History of Greene County, NY Vol. 1, (J. VanVechten Vedder); Halcott Methodist Church history 1949, Halcott Valley History 1851-1976 and Catskill Mountain News, 1902-73.
TOWN OF HALCOTT PHOTO GALLERY
Click for a larger view of each image…
Mtn Star House, Halcott
The Mountain Star house, built by Avery and Annie Catherine Lasher Bouton, catered to summer boarders for many decades. It burned in the 1980s.
EPSON MFP image
1867 Beers, Town of Halcott
Halcott aerial, 1966, Michael Morse farm, now C DiBenedetto, P Kelly
The Halcott Valley, 1966. Pam Johnson Kelly
Feed store, later PO, Halcott, poss J M Moseman on sign, at W. Settlement Rd. P Kelly
Mosemans feed store, later the post office in Halcott Center. Pam Johnson Kelly