Minutes Book of the Schoharie Kill Bridge Company

Item — Container: Manuscript Shelves

Identifier: MV 1732

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

Ledger contains the handwritten minutes of the Schoharie Kill Bridge Company from its incorporation in 1810 to the dissolution of the business in 1903. Each meeting lists the location of the meeting, officers present, and detailed resultions concerning the governance and maintenance of the turnpike road and its toll houses.

Dates

1810 - 1903

Biographical / Historical

The Schoharie Kill Bridge Company was reorganized at a meeting of residents living in the modern vicninities of Windham, Ashland, and Prattsville in 1810 for the purpose of improing a road as a for-profit venture running from the intersection of the Susquehanna Turnpike at Cairo going west through Windham, over the Schoharie Kill at Prattsville, and westward into Roxbury. The first meeting was held in the home of Medad Hunt, and those present for the meeding were Elisha Shelden, Jehiel Tuttle, Isaac DuBois, William Avery, Peter Van Orden, and Elisha Thompson.

A more complete history of the Bridge Company, the location of its toll houses, and the eventual disposition of the sections of the route are recounted by Reverend Hitchcock in Beers' "History of Greene County" on pages 400-401.

Extent

75 (approx.) Sheets (Bound volume.) : A ledger book bound in boards with a leather spine. "Schoharie" is handwritten in script on the cover. ; 8" x 13" inches approx.

Additional Description

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Ledger was donated to the Vedder Research Library by Larry Tompkins, a historian who has spent his free time on the study of the Town of Windham. He saved it several decades ago from disposition when the contents of a defunct law office in Widham were being removed to the town landfill.