Sullivan County In The Day

In 1873 James E. Quinlan published History of Sullivan County. A Catskills newspaper editor (the Republican Watchman was his charge), Quinlan wrote the book after retiring from the rigors of the daily press. The history was something of a labor of love. It is a compendium, an old-time history with lots of names and a less than clear structure. If it interested Quinlan, he included it in the history. As the editor of a reprinted version, David Gold notes, “the book is long on anecdotes and short on analysis.”

Nonetheless, the History remains an important overview of the early years of Sullivan County in lower New York State. The book highlights the scattershot nature of economic development and white settlements in the years up to the early 1800s. With no real center or dominant industry in the region, European settlers moved in, made a go of things, and either moved on or remained and survived. More than a few perished, though. Early life could be nasty and brutish.

The book helps to identify names and events that would later become well-known to all of Sullivan County. It offers some gripping accounts of battles with native Americans, or “savages” in Quinlan’s words. Early plans for bridges, canals, town centers, churches and the like figure prominently in the history. Development did not happen quickly in the region. There simply were not enough people, sufficient capital or even opportunities to propel rapid growth. Instead, things proceeded slowly and, with the benefit of decades, steadily.

Some of the stories stand out, though, personal histories of families, crimes, and day to day life. In that the history can read like a column in a local newspaper. For example, William A. Thompson, the original permanent resident of Thompsonville, receives several pages of attention.

A Presbyterian, Willam was a “weak, puny child, much afflicted with salt rheum.” That is eczema in today’s language. William studied law in New Haven in the 1780s. He was from Connecticut and his professional life began Sharon, CT. He moved around the state before marrying Fanny Knapp. She was described as “tall, genteel, 16 years old, and much marked with the small-pox. Her uncommon strength of mind, great elegance of manners, and lovely disposition, completely veiled her misfortune from the eyes of the scholarly young gentleman who made her his wife.” The young couple was not able to spend too many years together. Fanny died of consumption three years into the marriage after bearing two children. 0

Two years later, in 1791, Thompson married Amy Knapp, Fanny’s sister. According to Quinlan, a widow marrying the sister of a wife carried with it a significant penalty in Connecticut. Thompson, accordingly, decamped to New York City. His career took off and he found financial success as an attorney. It was not easy for Thompson, though, for the stresses of work and city life led to poor health. In 1794 he purchased land in Sullivan county, taking residence in one of his parcels by Sheldrake Creek. The family had been living on Cherry Street in Manhattan.

Like many New York City families with upstate homes, the Thompson’s found the first winters uncomfortable, so they returned to the city. The family moved back and forth as their home, and the surrounding area, improved. This is a pattern even common today, as wealthier city dwellers figure out how they want to live in the Catskills. Thompson’s upstate homestead increased in size and comfort. He invested in Sullivan County and became a very important person in the area. Thompsonville was named for him in 1803 (he was politically connected). Thompson enjoyed the status. He invested in a larger home – Albion Hall – and when his career as a magistrate ended he became an amateur scientist, studying local geography. He passed away in 1847 with a lengthy legacy.

Absent from Quinlan’s account are the voices of Fanny and Amy. We do not read of other family members, the many people who may have worked with or for Thompson, or of any detail about daily conditions. History from the nineteenth century was mostly about white men.

Quinlan’s history is far from modern or complete. Nonetheless, we can learn a great deal from local tales.

David Potash

December 31, 2024 Reviews

Jewish Eden in the Borscht Belt

A Summer World: The Attempt to Build a Jewish Eden in the Catskills from the Days of the Ghetto to the Rise and Decline of the Borscht Belt is an expansive cultural history from Stefan Kanfer. Published in 1989, when the memories of the Catskills Jewish resorts was still fresh, the book is long on anecdotes, personal stories and jokes – lots and lots of jokes. While the Catskills have changed since it was written, the book’s relevance remains. A Summer World has value and an immediacy that shines through its pages.

The heart of the book is Grossinger’s Catskills Resort Hotel, a famous facility whose cultural impact extended well beyond New York City’s Jewish population, and its long-stranding owner, Jennie Grossinger. It was founded by Jewish immigrants from Poland, like many other hotels and bungalow colonies in the region. Grossinger’s grew, changed, and changed again over the years, growing more sophisticated as it catered to a more sophisticated audience. So many famous entertainers cut their teeth at Grossingers and other Jewish resorts. Kanfer, an enthusiastic fan, relishes telling tales.

A Summer World is neither scholarly nor tightly argued. The prose is nostalgic and warm. It is an easy read, perhaps best suited to those that already have a sense of the region and its history. Or for those who miss Borscht Belt humor.

David Potash

November 9, 2024 Reviews

Picturing the Ruins: Catskills Palimpsests

Having recently moved to the Catskills in New York State, I have been wandering about and reading, trying to make sense of the land and its history. It is simply beautiful country. Woods and forests, with dramatic vistas, rolling hills and meadows make for an entrancing landscape. The elevation is higher than New York City, affording clearer and cooler air. It is rural yet surprisingly near the built environment, especially when thinking about time and not distance. Making sense of it is a fascinating project.

My attraction to the region is shared by many. Since the 1800s Gothamites have been heading up to the Catskills, for vacations and a different sort of life. Thousands took the plunge during the pandemic. Remote work made it a viable region for a first home and the areas has been changing. Vacant properties were snapped up as significant investment moved in. All the recent action, though, pales in comparison the boom years before and after World War II. Then, American Jews visited the Catskills by the hundreds of thousands. It was a period of big hotels, world famous entertainers, and country luxury for a growing Jewish middle class. Known as the Borscht Belt, the Catskills played an outsize role in American cultural history.

The famous hotels have all long since shuttered, as have the spas, restaurants and pools. Signs of the downturn could be discerned as early as the late 1950s. Greater shifts took place in the following two decades. By the 1990s, the New York State Catskill tourism industry had declined tremendously. Jews and others seeking a break from the city had many options. The Borscht Belt was no more.

Traces of those boom years, though, can still be found. That evidence is the heart of Marisa Scheinfeld’s The Borscht Belt: Revisiting the Remains of America’s Jewish Vacationland. Scheinfeld is a skilled photographer. Presented are her studies of abandoned buildings, forgotten sites, neglected properties, and traces of a special past. Accompanying the rich and haunting collection of images are essays by Jenna Weissman Joselit and Stefan Kanfer.

Kanfer, a journalist, offers something akin to an expanded introduction. Joselit, a historian and scholar, gives the reader something different. She is an expert in vernacular culture. Joselit guides us in different ways of looking, understanding and appreciating the images. The pictures contain both what we see and what hovers, perhaps as an imagined, or projected, history.

The Borscht Belt presents first as a coffee table book, a collection of striking photographs. Spend time with it, though, and it morphs into something different, a window into a region and its history. Photographs always come with claims of verity, of sureness of particular spaces at exact times. They are irreducible. Our minds, on the other hand, make sense and understand photos in a context. That’s one of the powers of good photography, for while the picture is immediate and locked, it has the ability to provoke, forcing speculation and connections. Many of Scheinfeld’s photos are able to do just that.

I have long been interested in images of leisure spaces, for I find them packed with potential emotion. The idea of leisure, letting one’s guard down in pursuit of pleasure, compels some level of vulnerability. It speaks, after all, to our wishes and wants. The very nature of desire – be it for fine food, a thrill at an amusement part, or a fresh air from a mountaintop – speaks to what is lacking. That’s one of the more powerful ways in which historical studies of amusement helps to expand social constraints and ambitions. The Jews in the Borscht Belt wanted their take on the American dream – good food, the fresh air of the country far from the city, and the spaces where they could socialize, enjoy family and entertainment, and be themselves. The Borscht Belt was vital in making that happen. Scheinfeld’s photos are more than studies of ruins. They are remnants of a generation’s wishes and aspirations. Appreciation of the hopes of others can connect us as humans. Until reading The Borscht Belt: Revisiting the Remains of America’s Jewish Vacationland, I had never imagined that a photograph of chairs could stir my heart.

David Potash

September 20, 2024 Reviews