Once A Farm

Once A Farm. Schoharie Crossing. , Along with remnants of an English fort, a Mohawk village, and the original Erie Canal, this location also contains features that echo back to the time when the hamlet of Fort Hunter was an agricultural community. Two modest farm houses, a corn crib, and the foundations of a barn that burned down in 1969 are all that remain of the Enders family barn., According to the 1855 census, the Enders farm was 522 acres. The family grew broom corn, wheat, potatoes, peas, oats, and applies, and raised sheep for wool and cows for milk and butter. Broom corn was an important crop for the Fort Hunter area., The Erie Canal opened the Mohawk Valley and the wilderness of New York State for commerce, allowing for easy transport of both industrial and agricultural products throughout the 19th century. Today Fort Hunter is mainly a bedroom community whose residents commute to surrounding towns and cities., The 1834 Holmes Hutchinson map depicts the area around the Erie Canal's Guard Lock. The Enders House, built ca 1800. may have been used as a canal store. The map also shows a blacksmith shop, and a toll house adjacent to the lock and house., This ca. 1880 photograph of the Enders farm shows the Schoharie Creek retaining wall and the home that stood at this location before the farmhouse that is now how to the Visitor Center. Although we do not know what happened to the original farmhouse, we do know that the second farmhouse in this location was standing in 1900., This 1950s aerial photograph shows the Visitor Center, corn crib, farm yard, and barns. At this time there were rental apartments in the farmhouse. The barn burned down in 1969., Broom corn is a type of sorghum in the same family as wheat. The branches of its flowering head were fashioned into brooms. The Shakers began production of broom corn New York State in 1790. The Mohawk Valley was the center of this thriving agricultural industry.