Northeast Historical Archaeology Volume 22 From Prehistory to the Present: Studies in Article 13 Northeastern Archaeology in Honor of Bert Salwen

1993 Representations of the Local Past: Gilded Age and Bureaucratic Accounts of the Minisink, 1889 to the Present Wendy Harris

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Recommended Citation Harris, Wendy (1993) "Representations of the Local Past: Gilded Age and Bureaucratic Accounts of the Minisink, 1889 to the Present," Northeast Historical Archaeology: Vol. 22 22, Article 13. https://doi.org/10.22191/neha/vol22/iss1/13 Available at: http://orb.binghamton.edu/neha/vol22/iss1/13

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Cover Page Footnote In writing this paper, and in several earlier versions, I have sought the insights of Fred Myers, Faye Ginsburg, and Tom Bender of New York University, Anne-Marie Cantwell of Rutgers University-Newark, and my colleague Roselle Henn at the New York District, Corps of Engineers. Without the guidance of Peter Osborne, Executive Director of the Minisink Valley historical Society, much of the research would have been impossible. It was Bert Salwen, however, who first convinced me that studying local pasts (whether in Indonesia or the Minisink) was worthwhile. He always believed that regional studies had a place in the university. Bert encouraged a generation of students who shared his interest in Native American and early European cultures of the northeastern United States. I'm sorry he is not around to read this.

This article is available in Northeast Historical Archaeology: http://orb.binghamton.edu/neha/vol22/iss1/13 Northeast Historical ArchaeQlogyNol. 21-22, 1992-1993 183

REPRESENTATIONS OF THE LOCAL PAST: GILDED AGE AND BUREAUCRATIC ACCOUNTS OF THE MINISINK, 1889 TO THE PRESENT

Wendy Harris

The process wltereby local pasts are made meaningful varies through time and among different communities. While historians, philosophers, and anthro­ pologists have long been intrigued by the problem of historical practice, their discussions remain speculative. This paper examines the specific social conditions of production of a single local past. During the late 19th century, the members of the Minisink Valley Historical Society in Port Jervis, New York, engaged in the imaginative construction of a place they named "the Minisink" -an early frontier region encompassing portions of the Upper Delaware River Valley. The Society's account is examined and compared to accounts produced a century later by .cultural resource management professionals engaged in the interpretation of the same past.

Le processus par lequel les passes locaux sont rendus parlants varie avec le temps et entre differentes collectivites. Les historiens, les philosophes et les an­ thropologues ont longtemps ete intrigues par le probleme de la pratique his­ torique, mais leurs propos demeurent conjecturaux. L'article examine les conditions sociales particulieres de la production d'un passe local. Au cours de la fin du XIX: ,siecle, les membres de la Minisink Valley Historical Society a Fort Jervis (New York) se sont occupes a la construction imaginative d'un endroit qu'ils ont appele "the Minisink," soit une region frontiere tres ancienne cotnprenant des parties de valUe du Haut-Delaware. Le vues de la Societe sont examinees et comparees avec celle formulees un siecle plus tard par des professionnels de la gestion des ressources culturelles qui ont cherche a expliquer le meme passe.

Introduction Minisink "Province" or "Country." Straddling both sides of the Upper Captain Arent Schuyler visited the Delaware River, extending north from region in 1694, referring to it in his the Delaware Water Gap, and contain­ journal as "the' Minissinck Country." ing portions of the states of New York, He did so, most likely, in deference to New Jersey, and Pennsylvania is a 60 the Na~ive American inhabitants of mi stretch of territory said to be one of the region, known then as the North America's "earliest and most Minnissincks (Kraft 1981: 29). For important" frontiers (Bertland, Va­ Europeans of that time, the Minisink lence, and Woodling 1975: vii, 47-64; lay on the edge of the known world Fischler and Mueller 1991: 58). On late (FIG. 1). . 17th- and 18th-century maps and in Eventually the Native Americans travellers' writings, it appears as the were driven away or died of disease. 184 Representations of the Local Past/Harris

pearance of counties, townships, and N 0 v B other municipal entities, older territo­ rial divisions such as the Minisink­ with its boundaries cross-cutting those L of three states-must have seemed in­ creasingly anachronistic. The Minisink ) persisted, however, as a site of histori­ cal inscription and memory in the works of a handful of amateur scholars (Gumaer 1844, 1890; Stickney 1867; Quinlan 1851). In 1889, the forgotten landscape of the Minisink was rede­ fined in the constitution of the newly , .~:t""~aaN ~ formed Minisink Valley Historical So­ Minnes sind: ofl:• ciety (MVHS). The present article examines the t'Laudt van~·~achu: first collective effort to assemble a his:­ P E N N _J;.!.rtJ.o..,. tory for the Minisink by the founding · · 1~ ·I members of the MVHS. The article ' I :S ..! • (,..J. • • ~}' also analyzes contemporary accounts of .VMatanac: •· ~ •. the Minisink's past by cultural resource management (CRM) professionals who, Figure 1. "Minisink of the Backlands." since the absorption of much of the Up­ Detail taken from Nichloas J. Visscher's per Delaware region into the National "Novi Belgii Noveque Anglie," 1656. Piuk System, are now responsible for overseeing and interpreting many of the The association of the place name region's historical sites and events. "Minisink" with the Upper Delaware Gupta and Ferguson (1992: 11) remind us region continued into the 18th century, that "places are always imagined in however. Kraft (1981: 38), describing the context of. political-economic de­ the boundaries of the 18th-century Min­ terminations that ·have a logic all isink,. concluded: "from the personal their own." Thus, in an effort to names included in the records it is ap­ understand why divergent imagined parent that most residents of the Min­ (although not imaginary) pasts occur, isink precinct lived in and around Ma­ the author is exploring the historical hekkamack or Port Jervis, New York" and cultural frameworks within which By the end of the 19th century, the such. accounts are fashioned. The idea of the Minisink as a neighbor­ specific sites. and events constituting hood-'-a place with a distinct spatial the Minisink's history are not the identity-.,..was in eclipse. As a place primary concern of this study. Rather, name, it is absent from maps and local emphasis is upon the meaning of the newspapers. Wiebe (1967) and others historical landscape as constructed and have suggested that . traditional alle­ experienced by men and women engaged giances to older and .more vaguely in the production of historical bounded localities were severed by in­ knowledge-a form of kriowledge best dustrial capitalism and the rise of the understood, it will be argued, as nation state. Certainly, in the "something eminently social" Delaware River Valley, with the ap- (Durkheim 1965: 22). Northeast Historical ArchaeologyNol. 21-22, 1992-1993 185

A Society to Preserve Our Early Local the 1l0th anniversary of the Battle of History . Minisinl<, a Revolutionary War skir­ mish in which many local settlers had In ~889, with a population ap­ been killed. Whereas 20 men had at­ proachmg 9,000, Port Jervis (the tended the Society's winter meeting, MVHS's home) was the Upper 600 men, women, and children turned Delaware River Valley's largest town. out on a sunny July day for an afternoon Founded in the 1820s, Port Jervis was a o.f picnicking, patriotic speeches, product of the canal and railroad eras smging, socializing, and prayers. It post-dating the Valley's first Europea~ was a very auspicious beginning for the settlers by a century and a half. As the Society (MVHS 1889). terminus of the Erie Railroad, late For the remainder of the 19th cen­ 19th-century Port Jervis supported a tury and into the 20th, the members of growing number of factories and work­ the Society continued to attend meet­ ers, many of whom were foreign born ings and banquets. They wrote and pre­ (Ruttenber and Clark 1881: 740-741). sented speeches and papers, furnished Port Jervis's wealth and power lay their meeting rooms with display cases in the hands of a small group of local and bookshelves, gathered together and highly visible .elites. They were re~cs and old documents, and made pil­ the region's businessmen, lawyers, doc­ gnmages to sites of historical interest. tors, and clergy. They held the public These are the circumstances sur­ offices, owned the banks and most of rounding the production of much of the the real estate, financed the county's extant knowledge of the history of an railroad lines, and controlled the early frontier community. Prior to this town's gas and water. The men who met time, the telling of the Minisink's his­ one winter's evening in 1889 for the tory was the pursuit of solitary, often purpose of founding the Minisink elderly, amateur scholars (Gumaer Valley Historical Society were 1844, 1~90; Stickney 1867). Why Port members of this class (Chapman Jervis's: most prominent citizens-the Publishing Company 1895; MVHS 1889, commttnity's capitalists, politicians, 1890; Ruttenber and Clark 1881). Their and professionals, many of whom were goal, as stated in their constitution in the prime of life and in the midst of was to collect and preserve the histor~ bu.sy caree:s-should suddenly appro­ of a place they called the "ancient" pnate a historical world is explored Minisink Territory. The individual below. histories of the Upper Delaware Valley, Orange County, and Port Jervis were not addressed in this document The World of the Founders (MVHS 1889). The MVHS's founders it seems, were drawn to an older, mor~ During the first ten years of its remote past. existence, the MVHS drew its Meeting for the first time at the of­ membership from the elites of Port fice of a local doctor, the MVHS's Jervis and the surrounding counties of founding members adjourned to the New York, New Jersey, and Delaware House Hotel for an eight­ Pennsylvania. Although course meal and innumerable after-din­ overwhelmingly white, male, and ner speeches. The following summer, Protestant, the membership was com­ they met again-this time to observe posed of two formerly distinct but now 186 Representations of the Local Past/Harris intermarrying subgroups-the Dutch A Time of Crisis and Huguenot gentry and an emergent Against the backdrop of the Gilded class of capitalists and merchants. Age, in Port Jervis, among one segment Those with French or Dutch sur­ of the town's population, a discourse names could trace their ancestry to fam­ describing the local past emerged. The ilies who had arrived in the region as social, political, and economic circum­ early as the1690s. Also listed on the stances associated with this discourse Society's membership rolls, alongside warrant closer examination. Cuddebacks, Swartwouts, Gumaers, Elt.. For Port Jervis's late 19th-century ings, and Van Inwegans, were the names elites, threats to the established order of other members whose wealth was ac­ originated from within as well as from quired more rece'ntly. The region's capi­ outside their own community. The pe­ talists, "new" families such the St. riod was marked by seemingly endless Johns and the Farnums, came to the cycles of depression and. recovery (Lears area with the Delaware and Hudson 1981: 29). It was a time when enormous Canal (c. 1828). Here they established fortunes could be made. During one the "scattering settlement" at Port year, 1878, however, American busi'­ Jervis. Any MVHS member who was nesses went bankrupt at a rate of 900 a not a St. John or a Farnum, or directly month (Trachtenberg 1982: 39). By the descended from a Hollander or end of the century 40°/o of the nation's Huguenot, was invariably linked to one railroad mileage was in receivership or to both groups through ties of mar­ (Wiebe 1967: 26). Even the most opti­ riage or business partnership mistic small town booster would feel (Chapman Publishing Comapny 1895; vulnerable in a· financial climate such MVHS 1889, 1890; Ruttenber and Clark as this. 1881). Old stock American elites also As a class, Port Jervis's late 19th- feared the social disorder that accom­ . century elites appear closely knit. panied economic hard times. Historian Gleaned from the pages of Orange Robert Wiebe (1967: xii) has written County's atlases, the lives of MVHS about the breakdown of the self-con­ members seem secure, prosperous, and tained 19th-century community. The successful. Local newspapers, however, health of such a place, he observes, tell a darker story of labor .unrest, "depended upon ... its abilities to man­ political upset, and financial age the lives of its members and the .be­ instability. This is not surprising. lief among its members that the commu­ Their time, the Gilded Age, was a nity had such powers." Even by the period of great economic and social 1870s, Wiebe notes, such assumptions transformation. Historian. Alan were being undermined. Trachtenberg (1982: 4-5) describes it as Prior to the Civil War, America "a. period of trauma, of change so swift was a rural, homogeneous society of and thorough that 1Ilany Americans farmers, shopkeepers, and artisans. seemed unable to fathom the extent of Although many would deny it, by the the upheaval." As discussed below, second half of the century, it had be­ the men who controlled Port Jervis had come a nation of culturally diverse reason to be uneasy as the century grew urban wage earners. Between 1870 and to a close. 1900 the population doubled. A third Northeast Historical Archaeology/Vol. 21-22, 1992-1993 187

of these people were industrial class (Lears 1981: 9, 26-32; Trachtenberg workers. One out of three was an 1982: 4; Wiebe 1967). immigrant and almost all lived · in Closer to home, there. were more cities (Boyer 1978: 123-124; concrete challenges to existing hierar­ Trachtenberg 1982: 87-88). chies of power and wealth. In the 1887 With the shifting demographics elections, the Republican Party failed came unprecedented labor unrest.. By to gain control of the city. "It was wa­ the 1880s, class warfare must have ter and gas against the people and elec-: seemed unavoidable. During that tric light," proclaimed the Gazette, decade there were close to 10,000 mouthpiece of the Democratic Party, strikes and walkouts. Eighteen eighty­ "and the people, being under the benign six was known as the year of ,"The influence of the light, won" (PJG 4 Great Upheaval"; 700,000 workers April 1887). For the next two years Port struck. It was also the year of the Jervis would be under Democratic Knights of Labor strike and the controL For the many MVHS founding Haymarket Square Riot in Chicago members who had ties to the Farnum (Lears 1981: 29; Trachtenberg 1982: 89- and St. John families, the Natio:pal 90). Port Jervis had its own history of Bank of Port Jervis, the Port Jervis labor activism dating to the Erie Waterworks Company, and the Port Strikes of the 1860s, 1870s, and 1880s. Jervis Gaslight Company, such a The machine shop and roundhouse of prospect could not have been pleasant that line employed hundreds of men. (Chapman Publishing Company 1895: Accounts in the Port Jervis Gazette 961, 1071-1072, 1418-1470; Ruttenber document their participation in a series and Clark 1881: 730-738). of actions (PJG 23 July 1883; 24, 26; February 1874; 16 November 1869). The Gazette also reported the visit of Henry George of the Knights of Labor The Minisink Remembered Party to Port Jervis in September of Literary critic Frederic Jameson be­ 1887. The audience, composed of the lieves that all narrative is essentially town's "labor element," crowded the political. As collective or class dis­ Opera House, filling it "from top to bot­ course, the stories a group tells about it­ tom" (PJG 23 September 1887). self emerge as "symbolic meditations on · Other, more amorphous concerns the, destiny of community" Oameson also worried local elites. In the late 1981: 70). In Jameson's model, accounts 19th century, as the country became in­ of the past, such as those produced by creasingly industrial, urban, and bu­ MVHS at the end of the last century, reaucratic, the locally based en­ can be socially situated. trepreneurial capitalism of the early Gilded Age Port Jervis was largely 19th century had begun to give way to a creation of MVHS members and their modem forms of corporate. ownership. families. But by 1889, when they Although small town elites, such as the looked around them, many of those who MVHS's members, would never entirely had spent their childhoods in Port lose their. power, they were forced to Jervis barely recognized the place. The contend; in many aspects of their per­ town had seen virtually all of its sonal and professional lives, with the growth since the Civil War. In 1853 rise of a bureaucratic corporate state the population stood at 2,585. and the emergence of a national ruling Antebellum Port Jervis supported five 188 Representations of the. Local Past/Harris stores, three churches, three taverns, a "Vith the Minisink ancestors and all school house, and a five-story grist mill their "pecularities of language, manrter (Ruttenber and Clark 1881: 710). By and dress." He found their .homes 1892, four years after the MVHS's "humble," their food "plain and founding, the census reported ·a wholesome," and their churches population of over 10,000 (Mercantile "modest and unadorned." Mills then Publishing Company 1892: 9). The New reminded his audience that they owed York legislature would finally declare their present good fortunes to "the Port Jervis a city in 1907. At that time labors, toils and sacrifices of their it was reported to have 82 "industrial ancestors" (MVHS 1889). establishments" including the machine Peter Wells was a MVHS member, shops of the Erie Railroad that attorney, and amateur poet from Mil­ employed over 1,000 workers (Headley ford, Pennsylvania.. Speaking also at 1908: 210-211). the 1889 banquet, he offered the mem~ At the MVHS's first meeting in bers "character sketches" of the men February 1889, and at many meetings and women who had first. come to "the thereafter, members presented reminis­ wilderness ... this Minisink Region." He cences and narrative reconstructions of a noted "their religious devotion to prin­ vanished world and its inhabitants. ciple and their noble simplicity of Dr. John Conkling had come to Port life." Wells hoped that the MVHS, in Jervis as a young man in 1830, just as the gathering together recollections such as Erie Canal was opening. In an after­ Conkling's, could become. a living dinner speech before the MVHS, he re­ memorial to the ''luminous" ancestors. called the landscape . of his youth But Wells also worried that against (MVHS 1889). "the clear, steady light" of the ancestors' existence ("faithful, honest, Every building below the hill, on the flats, has been erected since the rail­ heroic"), men such as himself and the road was completed-banks, stores, other members were somehow and saloons, opera house; and even the "degenerate" (MVHS 1889). Delaware House, where you partook of your dinner of eight courses, stands Historians of the period, including where a field of rye was cultivated, T. Jackson L~ars (1981: xi, 30) and Alan and between this and the Delaware Trachtenberg (1982: 17), document simi­ River we ~athered bushels of luscious blackbernes. · lar ."undercurrents of doubt." among Gilded Age intellectual, religious, and Conkling also spoke of the town's political leaders. All the more intrigu­ early settlers, as he remembered them. ing in an era known for its vast confi­ He told the members how the people dence, the fears of old stock northeast-' em elites-fears that they were becom­ went to church in their farm wagons, with kitchen chairs for seats and cush­ ing "effeminate, weak and immoral"­ ioned with homespun coverlets or were especially pronounced in the face blartkets of their own spinning or of working-class discontent and mount­ weaving-others went on horseback or foot. (MVHS 1889) ing social disorder. Lears contends that in the midst of unprecedented modern­ The MVHS's president, Reverend ization, men and women of the upper Samuel Mills, spoke at the same dinner classes turned to pre-industrial virtues on a related theme .. In his speech, he as a source of moral regeneration. reached back to· even earlier times. He The tone and content of the MVHS imagined himself coming face to face banquet oratory supports Lears' (1981: Northeast Historical ArchaeologyNol. 21-22, 1992-1993 189

xii) observations concerning the the bicentennial of the valley's "backward-looking impulses" of Gilded settlement, President Mills (MVHS Age elites. In their accounts, the mem­ 1~90) described the landscape and its bers express ambivalence towards the inhabitants as follows: modem landscape and long for an ideal­ ized past. These personal narratives, It was no light undertaking at that time to come to a country such as this. It re­ however, situated at the intersection of quired a resolution and courage and the self and a changing social order are energy now required to go to settle in embedded in more complex cultural pro­ Oregon or even Alaska. This whole valley for forty miles in either direc­ cesses than the historians' analyses tion from this point was an unbroken would suggest. wilderness thrOugh which theredman [sic] roamed unrestrained. No dwelling for civilized man was to be found in all its length and breadth and Constructing the Minisink for many long miles in any direction­ not even a log cabin-nothing but the As stated in their 1889 constitution, wigwam in either direction. the purpose of the MVHS was the ·study and preservation of "the local This descriptionof a landscape de­ history of the Minisink Region, which void of Europeans expresses the value ancient territory extended from the members placed upon the antiquity of Delaware Water Gap on the south to the Minisink settlements. Two features Wurtsboro on the north." Rather than of the landscape, the Old Mine Road calling themselves the Port Jervis and the Pahaquarry Copper Mines, Historical Society or establishing an were believed to be associated with historical society for Orange County some of the earliest European activity (there was none at this time), they took in North America. As physical re­ the name "Minisink" and appropriated minders of the ancestors' claims to the its territory. In doing so, Port Jervis's landscape, these sites figure promi­ leaders, its businessmen, bankers, nently in the narratives of MVHS mem­ politicians, and professionals, turned bers and remain contested properties to imaginatively to the past to reclaim a this day (Bertland, Valence, and landscape that had long ceased to exist Woodling 1975: 37-42, 45; Fischler and as a corporate or cultural entity. For Mueller 1991: 58; Kraft 1981: 25-27). many of the MVHS's members, the Its general contours established "ancient territory of the Minisink"-an ("embracing portions of three states; unspoiled frontier peopled with sav­ containing two of the most beautiful ages and rugged,. virtuous ancestors­ valleys upon which the sun would become a refuge from the facto­ shines ... traversed by two noble ries, railroads, and immigrant strangers rivers"), the membership then began to of the present. fill in the details of the frontier During those first years, in schol­ landscape. Members who attended the arly papers and patriotic speeches, the first meetings heard some of the members began to describe the Minisink wealthiest men in Port Jervis describe as a physical place. They recreated the Minisink's roadways, churches, the world of the ancestors and, in so do­ forts, and mills. Papers presented ing, asserted the Minisink's included: ''The Old Machackemeck significance as America's first frontier Church: Its Location, Appearence territory. In a speech commemorating (external and internal), Customs at the 190 Representations ofthe Loca,l Past/Harris

Meeting, etc."; "The Old Forts of the Six hundred people attended the Valley"; "The Old Esopus Road"; "The first gathering. The second annual Old Roads of Deerpark"; and "The gathering (held July 22, 1890) marked Pahaquarry Copper Mines." the bicentennial of the Minisink's set­ Descriptions of the region's flora and tlement as well as the anniversary of fauna were also presented. J. M. Aller­ Battle of Minisink. The newspapers re­ ton, a local attorney, was asked to pre­ ported that 800 were present on this oc­ pare "a map of the Minisink Valleys, casion~ As at all the other gatherings, as they were before the Revolutionary most of those attending were .trans­ War, indicating, so far as possible, ported by train from Port Jervis to Cud­ roads, houses etc." (MVHS 1889). debackville. Carriages, wagons, and More than any other MVHS activ­ trains from other towns and villages ity, however, the annual meeting, "brought in additional hundreds" (PJG which was held for 11 .summers in the 23 July 1890). It was a beautiful summer nearby hamlet of·Cuddebackville, New day. As noted by the Gazette's re­ York, provided the members with the porter, "the descendants ·. of the opportunity to collectively enact a rep­ Huguenots and Hollanders beheld the resentation that would otherwise have lands of their forefathers under the remained textual. The July event, be­ most favorable of circumstances." cause it commemorated local involve­ While families and friends of the ment in the Revolutionary War, en­ MVHS enjoyed picnic baskets or took abled members to link the Minisink's their lunches on the Hotel Caudebec's past to events of national significance veranda, the members held their busi­ (Glassberg 1987). But, more impor• ness meeting. The last meeting's tantly, it was also the occasion of a pil­ minutes were read, new members grimage-a chance for the members and elected, and donations received. Listed their families to "return" to the .Min­ among the gifts were a Dutch isink, if only for a day. dictionary, old manuscripts, and a set of early surveyor's maps (PJG 23 July 1890). After ·lunch, the proceedings were A Gathering in Cuddebackville called to order. The audience and The "gatherings," as the local speakers posed for group photographs, newspapers called them, were held in some of which remain in the MVHS's Cuddebackville at Caudebec Park possession today. The president's open­ (dedi<;ated in 1889 for this very pur­ ing speech was followed by several pose) located adjacent to Levi Cudde­ rounds of spontaneous as well as sched­ back's Caudebec Hotel, approximately uled oratory. The speeches were inter­ 1 mi south of the site of the first Dutch spersed with patriotic songs performed and Huguenot homesteads. "It is here," by Miss Marie Gumaer. An "enthusias­ explained a local . reporter, "within tic" audience and "disciplined" choir sight of the original settlement, sur­ provided periodic accompaniment (PJG rounded by mementos of their departed 23 July 1890). Of the many speeches ancestors, that the descendants of the heard that day, almost all recalled Huguenots and Hollanders annually the Minisink ancestors. In a poem gather together and pay fitting tribute written for the occasion, Peter Wells to the memories of their worthy sires" presented the image of "brave and (PJG 23 July 1890). steady arms" beating back "the wolf Northeast Historical ArchaeologyNol. 21-22, 1992-1993 191

and hunger." His early Minisink was a lated that these individuals had gen­ cold and forbidding frontier: erated over 50,000 living descendents by 1890. 11 A number nearly sufficient," he The mountain barriers left and right observed,"to form the requisite popula­ No shelter from the savage foe; tion for a state" (PGJ July 23 1890). While through the forest swept the blast Several songs and impromptu And deeply fell the winter snow. speeches later, a benediction was read, marking the close of the ceremonies. The ancestors' suffering, however, is re­ Members lingered for a time, visiting deemed by the MVHS's recognition of old friends and relatives, enjoying the the Minisink. remaining day. By 5:30, the trains were ready to leave. There would be several And this the spot-It smiles today- more annual gatherings before the cen­ In breadth and length of happy homes, tury's end, but none so well attended. Through all the leagues of hill and vale- As the textual record of a public Which hold their ashes-and their event, the Gazette article documents sons the performative aspect of the MVHS's The same sky bends above their graves that bent upon the Wilderness ... activities. In the narratives quoted in (PJG 23July 1890) earlier sections of the present article, individuals tie social identity to place For Reverend Mills, the MVHS's as they assert claims to versions of the president, ties of blood to "the Minisink local past. Collective enactments such . country" conferred special status. He as the Cuddebackville Gatherings also acknowledged the ancestors' sacri­ powerfully dramatized such claims for fices and spoke of the Battle of Min­ the participants. isink and the "deeds of valor and Cultural anthropologist Barbara courage" witnessed there. But just as Myerhoff (1986: 261) has studied pre­ the Battle of Minisink was overlooked sent-day events wherein members of in the annals of American history, so collectivities "show themselves to too were the contributions of the early themselves." She concludes that in Dutch and Huguenot settlers. Noting such definitional ceremonies or that the Pilgrims of New England "showings," participants render visible "never wanted for those to celebrate "actual and desired truths about them­ their deeds and virtues," Mills claimed selves and the significance of their ex­ for the Minisink forbears 11 equal honor istence." On July 22, 1890, the MVHS and praise for all that they have done membership returned to and physically and endured in the cause of human lib­ "occupied" the historical landscape erty" (PJG 23 July 1890). they had imaginatively constructed as Cornelius Cuddeback, a future pres­ an alternative to Gilded Age Port ident of MVHS, followed Mills •onto Jervis. There, before an audience, the the speakers' podium. For Cuddeback, leaders of MVHS presented a reap­ a graduate of Yale and Columbia Law praisal of the local past's relationship School, the problem of the ancestors' to the larger world, stressing the Min­ marginality could be resolved statisti­ isink's primacy in the history of the cally. Whereas the original 17th-cen­ nation state and reminding all those tury settlement had contained only present of their ties through blood to seven households, Cuddeback calcu- participants in these historic events. 192. Representations of the Local Past/Harris

Through their frontier ancestors, Act, and the 1974 Archaeological and Port Jervis's Gilded Age elites pursued Historic Preservation Act), university­ claims to locaL hegemony at a time trained cultural resource management when such claims were threatened. (CRM) professionals have joined local Eight hundred friends and family mem­ groups in the production of historical bers, through song, prayers, and bearing accounts. Although the Upper witness, participated in the perfor­ Delaware at present $Upports at least mance. The community that the MVHS seven local organizations (including the created that day in Cuddebac~ville MVHS, still based in Port Jervis) shared a vision of the Minisink Terri­ devoted to the interpretation and tory and what it meant to be descended preservation of the region's past, a from or otherwise linked to the region's growing body of local historical and first European settlers. Having refor­ prehistoric knowledge is produced by mulated their relationship to the past, Park Service personnel, federal, and the members of the MVHS returned to state historic preservation specialists, their homes that evening, satisfied and government contractors and that their community's future was se­ consultants, who, in their language and cure. practice, define themselves. as members of a profession rather than residents of a particular locality. The Minisink Becomes an Acronym The history of Americi.m profes­ sionalism in part explains why CRM Today, a century after the MVHS's professionals are so. different from founding, a very different set of cultural other producers of local historical meanings inform. historical interpreta:­ knowledge. Scholars who· have tion · along the Upper Delaware. In discussed the professionalization of 1962, Congress authorized construction historical practice in this country of the Tocks Island Dam that would include Bender (1984, 1979), Russo have inundated nearly all of the Min­ (19a8), and Van Tassel (1984). King, isink. Hundreds of people lost their Hickman, and Berd (1977) approach homes and nearly 3,000 structures, many the question more directly, outlining of them historic, were bulldozed by the the epistemological roots of CRM in Army Corps of Engineers before the academic and local historical writing, project .was finally shelved in 1976. historic preservation, urban planning, The condemned properties were never and prdcessual archaeology. Their returned to their owners and anti-gov­ history of the field underscores the ernment feelings still run high in the rapid development of CRM from this region (Bertland, . Valence, and amalgam of disciplines. Woodling 1975: xii; The New York The insights of Brown (1986: 40) on Times 4 September 1990). the role of discourse in the social con­ The National Park Service now struction of profession are also enlight­ controls the land, encompassing ening. "Language," she observes, "is a approximately 40 mi of river valley. vital principal of both the social and Because of the federal presence and the epistemological aspects of profession, nexus of recent historic preservation defining both professional community laws accompanying it (the National and professional knowledge."· Indeed, Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the what distinguishes late 20th-century 1969 National Environmental Policy CRM representations of the historical Northeast Historical Archaeology/Vol. 21-n 1992-1993 193

landscape from those of the Gilded Age and government bureaucrats. Working is the replacement of the Victorian dis­ within government agencies or environ­ course emphasizing patriotic, filial, m,ental consulting firms, CRM profes­ nostalgic, or romantic sentiments with sionals have tailored their skills and words connoting legal, bureaucratic, and their knowledge to satisfy the procedu­ scientific knowledge. ral requirements of bureaucratic organi­ The discourse of CRM as it appears zations (Gerth and Mills 1974: 214- in a recent National Park Service docu­ . 215). Following their legal mandate, ment entitled "Comprehensive Preser­ they hav~ been extraordinarily vation Planning-Historic Period Cul­ successful in protecting historical and tural Resources-Delaware Water Gap prehistoric sites from destruction by National Recreation Area, New York­ inserting historic preservation concerns New Jersey" (Louis Berger and Associ­ into the larger, national conservation ates 1990) suggests how radically CRM agenda (King, Hickman, and · Berg representations of the Upper 1977). The price paid, however, is Delaware's past diverge from those apparent in the language. Although produced in the late 19th century. In it, the linguistic construction of much of the landscape appropriated by detachment may be a product of all the founders of MVHS as "the ancient professions, the emotional distance territory" of the Minisink has been re­ expressed in many CRM documents is born as the "DEWA" (Delaware Water striking, especially in light of the Gap National Recreation Area). The subject matter-the particular pasts. of early development of the region is now places that are highly valued by indi­ subsumed under the geographical refer­ viduals and by communities. The CRM ents "northeastern Pennsylvania" and representation of the Upper "northwestern New Jersey." At times it Delaware's past, because it retains the is referred to simply as "the DEWA." positivistic biases of several parent Nowhere in the text does the place- disciplines, presents a "generalized . name "Minisink" occur as a designation past" (Myers 1988: 263) that would not for the Upper Delaware Region. Sev­ be recognizable to the 19th-century eral historical "contexts" or "themes" chroniclers of the Minisink frontier. As are identified, but "the frontier" is not a means of understanding the past, among them. The significance of the re­ CRM professionals posit gion's many historical sites and struc-: interchangeable analytic units (i.e., tures are to be evaluated in reference to "stages of development" or "types of research questions related to the societies") rather than the regionally "contexts" and to a series of "property specific and richly imagined histories types" based upon "ongoing of amateur historians. paradigms ... developed for interpreting CRM professionals typically work rural resources" in other communities outside the academy, but many were (Louis Berger and Associates 1990: trained in universities during the era of I/28). processual or "new" archaeology The document illustrates how the (Trigger 1986: 204) and of quantitative, discourse of CRM, through its economic, and social history (Higham metaphors and abstractions, allows 1983: 254-262; Russo 1988: 203). Thus practitioners to discuss a locality's past CRM, as historical practice, carries in ways that are understandable to his­ within it the neo-evolutionary assump­ toric preservation planners, academics, tion that "behind the infinite variety 194 .Representations of the Local Past/Harris of cultural· facts and specific historical cal literature (Trigger 1989, 1985, 1984, situations is a finite number of general, 1980; McGuire 1989). historical processes" (Trigger 1989: The present discussion has been 294). In the case of the Minisink, the limited to two loci of historical details of the historical landscape production: the frontier landscape of have been suppressed so that larger, the Minisink as . imaginatively more ambitious theoretical concerns constructed by the members of the may be explored. Unlike the founders Minisink Valley Historical Society of MVHS, who, as we have seen, at during the late 19th century and, more times actually inhabited this ·land­ briefly, bureaucratic and scientific scape, CRM professionals, to be credible valuations of the region's past by late (i.e., neutral) social scientists or preser­ 20th-century cultural resource vation· planners, linguistically sever management professionals. Several imaginative ties between themselves communities of contemporary non-pro­ and the sites they write about and fessional historical practitioners also study. Thus CRM, while avoiding the have found sources of meaning in the antiquarian and often nativistic biases Upper Delaware's. past. Forces such as of the Gilded Age accounts, runs the the rapid suburbanization of this for­ risk of losing the cultural substance of merly rural area during the 1970s, history-:-the accUm.ulation of memories 1980s, and 1990s, the Corps of Engineers' and ·ideas about self and place that land condemnations of the 1970s, and make local accounts so meaningful for continuing federal intervention in mat­ the public. ters of land use by the National Park Service may be causally related to high levels of historic preservation activism and .· participation in loc

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