The dam that formed the millpond remains; an old cellar hole and wolf tree mark the clearing where roads converged on the mill. Small factories appeared in every town on the plateau. Grafton had a shirt factory, folding chair factory, and a Prussian blue dye factory located on Blue Factory Hill Road, all in the 1800’s.Settlers found little prime farmland on the plateau and a growing season shorter by 20 days than at lower elevations, but the shallow glacial till soil did support forest and that became an economic boon to the subsistence farmer. In the mid 1800’s immigrant Germans were recruited by the Glass Factory of Sand Lake to produce charcoal for the furnaces. Two families started the settlement in West Berlin in the 1830’s. Leaving their home in Bavaria, selling their possessions, land and home; they sought freedom to practice their religion and peace. They brought land on the plateau for low cost woodlots to make charcoal and developed a close knit community to preserve their culture, religion and language. This community prospered for 70 years with school and churches maintaining these German traditions. Only when the charcoal business declined and young members of the community had to seek work in Berlin did the isolated culture change with the last Annual “Deutsch Picnic” held in 1945.

 

In the woods throughout the plateau you can still discern the remains of charcoal pits, large fairly open circles 20-30’ in diameter with raised edges where charcoal can still be found within inches of the surface. Several nice examples can be found in the CDWMA near Cherry Plain State Park. This industry was mainly responsible for the removal of at least 70% of the trees on the plateau by the 1890’s.

 

Troy was one of the industrial capitals of the world in the 1800’s and charcoal from the plateau fueled its iron foundries. Thirty cords of wood were needed for a charcoal burn. Wood was cut and stacked in a circle to form a kiln which was covered with dirt, limiting air so the wood would burn slowly. The burn was tended day and night for days until the charcoal was formed. It was then sent by wagon to Sand Lake and into Troy.

 

Tibbitts State Forest holds the remnants of another historic industry, lime making. Limestone quarried on the plateau near Grafton was burned in a kiln to form lime for use in manufacturing many industrial products such as paper, glass, bleach, whitewash, as well as in agriculture and tanning. Remains of an old kiln can still be seen in the State Forest. Ice cutting of local ponds also supplemented a farmer’s income until refrigerators eliminated this as a source of income. With the building of the Erie Canal and the opening of the west, and with the deforestation of the Plateau, many folks left for more fertile western soils or employment in town.

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The Great Depression

The Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression brought further change to the plateau towns; businesses closed as the industrial east gave way to the west. In the 1930’s, coal replaced charcoal and subsistence farming alone could no longer feed families. With roads impassable in the snows of winter and the mud of spring, agriculture declined as workers sought higher paying jobs in Troy and Albany. Now a growing middle class in the county had money to support recreational pursuits.

 

With many lakes and much open space, the plateau now had cabins and hotels for tourism. Visitors spent time in hotels and camping, bathing and fishing in the fresh air and scenic environment. The Troy Record even sponsored a Fresh Air Camp for urban children in Grafton. Many lakeside communities were developed at this time with seasonal cottages for the wealthy to recreate in a cooler, greener place in the summer.

 

The working forest, environmentally and economically made a significant recovery during the 20th century under the stewardship of the Cowee and other lumber companies, and with little residential or road development on the plateau. Forest fires were a concern during the early 1900’s, prompting the building of the Dickinson Hill fire tower in Grafton and the Seventh Hill fire tower in Stephentown. The Dickinson Hill fire tower was erected in 1924 and later manned by the first woman observer, Helen Ellett. The tower has been refurbished by the Friends of Grafton Lakes State Park and provides hikers with a spectacular 360-degree view including Mt. Marcy and the High Peaks, the Green Mountains of Vermont, the Berkshires and Taconics of Massachusetts, the Catskills in southern New York and the Helderberg Escarpment near Albany.

 

The plateau landscape now holds this history of farms and mills in the many stone walls which once separated fields, cellar holes, dug wells, old lilac trees and sluice ways and mill ponds. Granville Hicks, political progressive from Grafton, celebrated the small plateau community in his book Small Town.

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Post World War II

After World War II, farms on the plateau were abandoned when young men sought more money and shorter working days in industries along the Hudson River. Abandoned fields now returned to forests; only a few fields of high bush blueberries, previously an important cash crop, remained.

 

These changing needs continued to bring change to the forests of the plateau. Upgraded roads and interstate highways made the dream of a suburban home a reality for many families. Workers in Albany and Troy now made the daily commute to some communities on the plateau. Despite these changes most of the forests are unbroken by roads and homes, providing the fifth largest forested area in NYS. Most of these large forested tracks remain in private ownership.

 

Current Day

In 2008 Cowee Forest Products, one of the largest landowners on the Plateau for a century, sold its land to the Forest Land Group, which maintains the conservation of this land through lumber production. Grafton Lakes and Cherry Plain State Parks, the Dyken Pond Environmental Education Center and state forests bring the public to the plateau for hiking, swimming, biking and boating. However, these activities have not yet brought back jobs which were lost when small industries left. Small plateau communities are limited in employment, services and tax revenue.

 

As this county faces the future, will decisions of land use be able to maintain the special environmental features that make the plateau unique while maintaining viable communities that have been home to many for generations?