Upcoming Events
at the New Castle Historical Society
Horace Greeley's 213th Birthday & "Ask the Historian"
Feb. 3 from 1-4pm
New Castle Landmark LEGO Exhibition
Feb. 3-4 & 10-11 from 1-4pm
Lecture from WWII Veteran Sgt. Dan Santagata
Feb. 25 at 2pm
| |
Thank you to everyone who made our annual Great Holiday Train Show a Success!
Thank you to all of our volunteers, sponsors, local businesses that donated goods and services, and attendees who helped make this our best Train Show yet. We had over 2,000 attendees come through our doors to enjoy our most magical and important fundraiser of the year.
A special thank you to Chris Fresiello and Michael McNamee for their tireless work designing, assembling, maintaining and taking down the train sets and to Toni Magnotta of Chappaqua Cleaners and Tailors for the train show gift basket she provided for our raffle.
| |
| |
Historic Homes of New Castle
What is the oldest house in New Castle? Very few can be traced back to Colonial times, and even those with Colonial roots have usually been so altered as to be unrecognizable. An exception is at 335 Douglas Road, at the corner of Hardscrabble Road. Early records and maps establish this as the residence of Quaker settler Benjamin Kipp. It may well be the earliest of all.
| The Kips, or Kipps, were a leading family in New York when it was still New Amsterdam. The principal family homestead was at Kips Bay in Manhattan, but Benjamin’s father lived in Newtown, Queens. Benjamin moved from there about 1732, and was married to fellow Quaker Margaret Davenport in 1735. | The Kipp house has been enlarged, but its original form, with its small “eyebrow” windows on the second floor, is still evident. A 1930s photograph shows it as it used to be. It was tiny, like other homes of the period, which were hastily constructed to provide basic shelter. Nonetheless, Benjamin and Margaret raised a sizeable family here. Heaven knows where they all slept. | |
Behind the Scenes
Our Collections team started the year with an important textile conservation project. Madelyn Eldredge, our current collections intern, assisted with the photography and documentation of the items, while we labelled and wrapped each garment in protective acid-free tissue / unbleached cotton muslin before packing them in conservation boxes for long term preservation.
Our textile collection covers wide ranging categories, periods and styles to help preserve and tell the story of New Castle and its people.
| |
The NCHS actively accepts donations of objects and archival material. Please contact us to find out more: researchcollections@newcastlehs.org
| | | |
New Castle Memories: Bobsledding Down King Street
by Gray Williams, Town Historian
"In winter, bobsledding was the favorite sport. They used to coast down Chappaqua Hill (King Street), starting way up beyond Orchard Ridge, and then coming down. The aim was to reach the railroad tracks first. The racing was not done with individual sleds, but with bobsleds. I still have the bell my brothers had on their sled. When my father (George Washington Haight) was young, I don’t think they had bobsleds, but as he grew older he became very good at the sport, and eventually no one could beat him. I still have his sled. The runners are made of steel that were put on by Farrington’s blacksmith shop."
-- Mildred Haight Struble, New Castle Historical Society Archives
|
Among the treasured documents in the society’s archives are the recollections, written and oral, of long-time town residents. Mildred Haight Struble, for example, lived as a child in the early 1900s at the Horace Greeley House, which her family rented from Greeley’s daughter, Gabrielle Greeley Clendenin. The quote above is how she recalled the popular winter pastime of bobsled racing when she was growing up.
Bobsleds were invented independently in Switzerland and upstate New York during the 1880s. They differed radically from ordinary coasting sleds or horse-drawn sleighs, for they had two sets of runners, front and rear, and so could be steered. Thus, they were ideal for racing down curving slopes. And in New Castle, the ideal slope was King Street, from the top of the hill near Bedford Road down to its end beyond the railroad tracks.
| A twelve-rider bobsled preparing to race at Albany, New York, about 1900. Library of Congress. |
These bobsleds were also very different from the sleek, four-rider models that compete in today’s Olympics. Their bodies were essentially plain platforms, long enough to hold several riders. In addition to the steerer in the front, there was usually one in the back as well. There were three bobsleds that raced in Chappaqua, the Senator, the Shoemaker, and the Jumbo. The largest, heaviest, and fastest was the Jumbo, which had 18 riders.
Race winners might be determined by time, but more often by distance – how far the bobsleds could pass beyond the railroad tracks onto what is now Hunts Place. The riders might be seated, as shown in the photographs, but men might lie prone on the backs of one another, to cut down air resistance. On curves, they would shift their weight to the inside, to counteract centrifugal force.
| A bobsled with eight riders, "leaning into the curve" on Central Drive in Briarcliff Manor, about 1900. Westchester County Historical Society. |
The steel runners were considered the most important elements of the sled. They were forged by skilled blacksmiths and polished to a mirror gloss. Mrs. Strubel’s father’s bobsled was probably the Senator, and the runners were fashioned by Thomas Farrington in the shop next to his house on Bedford Road, directly opposite the intersection with King Street. The Shoemaker was probably made at John Young’s blacksmith shop on North Greeley Avenue, not far from the shoe factory, and crewed by the young men who worked there. The Jumbo was definitely the product of blacksmith and wheelwright George Crosson, whose shop was in the front yard of his home at what is now 45 Hunts Place.
In winter, King Street would have been only lightly plowed, if at all, since sleighs, sleds, and bobsleds all required beds of packed snow to run on. The era of street bobsled racing undoubtedly came to an end when horse-drawn vehicles gave way to trucks and automobiles, the wheels of which needed better traction than snow provided. From then on, the roads were salted, sanded, and plowed to get rid of the snow as quickly as possible.
In fact, the era probably extended over just a few decades, from about 1890 to 1920. But it sure must have been fun while it lasted.
| | |
The Haight Sled
George Washington Haight’s own sled, mentioned in Mrs. Struble’s recollection, is now in the collection of the historical society. According to the record that accompanied its accession, it was given to George in 1857, when he was eight years old. The Haight homestead where he grew up was at the top of King Street hill, where Walgreens is now. The Farrington blacksmith shop on South Bedford Road was just a short distance away.
The sled is sturdily built, but it consists of just a short oval platform mounted over fixed runners. The only way George could have controlled it was to lie prone and drag one or both feet in the snow behind. Flexible Flyers were far in the future.
| | |
|
Museum Shop
Cuddle up this winter with a historic New Castle throw blanket, part of our collection of locally-inspired merchandise and memorabilia.
| | | | | | |