I could have called this “Mystery near Minekill”, or “kōan in the Catskill Sea,” and those alternate titles will require some explaining.
You’re probably thinking . . . how is this different. It’s a partly disassembled truckable tug surrounded by woods and other construction equipment. What’s the mystery or the kōan about this? And what/where is the Catskill Sea?
Here are some answers. First, mystery, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. The beholder aka the photographer here was driving north on NY 30, not quite 150 miles from the sixth boro, about 30 miles as the birds fly inland from Catskill NY. The surroundings aka the Schoharie Valley are always quite magical, especially to me, given my interest in the Palatine settlement of the area over 300 years ago. A few days before I’d said jokingly to a friend that I was hoping to play some nine-pins with old-fashioned, nefarious Dutch ghosts up in the Catskills. I’d already stopped at John Burroughs’ [an original vagabond] Woodchuck Lodge and Mine Kill Falls and was heading for the Gilboa fossils of the oldest trees in the world and after that to Howe Caverns, a place not on the face of the earth. I hope you’re picking up on the vibe of this context, this blogpost.
That’s when I turned right off NY 30 N and downhill on 990 V and had not yet seen the waters of Schoharie Creek or Gilboa Reservoir. Right there was a fenced off parking lot on NYC Road, and in that lot was this hull of a tugboat.
Yup, not what I was expecting, neither NYC Road nor a tugboat.
So I have a few answers like . . . it was NOT a NYS Canals tugboat, as I initially suspected. The small tugboat called V002, was being disassembled after working for a few years in that area for a company called Southland Holdings out of Midland TX. Southland owns American Bridge, and Gilboa Dam is involved in NYPA power production for the electric grid and clean water impoundment for NYC’s drinking water supply. I’ll put link after the post this time.
Job complete? A truckable tug can be broken down and the parts loaded onto a road trailer for transport to the next job. No, I did not trespass to get these photos, and the crew was very professional, of course.
The effect of spotting the tugboat near the dam was sort of like old Rip van Winkle heading into the woods and playing nine-pin with those ghosts of Henry Hudson’s crew as conjured up by Washington Irving.
All photos, any errors, any anything else, WVD.
Some links in no deliberate order:
John Burroughs’ Woodchuck Lodge
The vagabonds
Palatines of the Schoharie Valley
It’s almost summer. I hope you can see something different and be pleasantly astounded by something. We were fortunate and went camping here, a spot I highly recommend.
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June 13, 2024 at 5:49 pm
Linda Roorda
Sounds like a great visit to part of Schoharie Co.! You hi-lited the Palatines of Schoharie Valley, ancestors of my mom’s German and Swiss lines. Johann Peter Kniskern was Listmaster of immigrants at Hunterstown along the Hudson, removing to Schoharie Co., settling Kniskernsdorf, now an extinct settlement remembered only by a state highway sign, opposite village of Central Bridge on Schoharie River. Tons of my German Palatine and Swiss ancestors resettled from Hudson River area to Palatine Bridge and Stone Arabia, including my Jorg Martin Dallenbach, now Tillapaugh, from Lauperswil, Switz connected to the Stone Arabia Patent with License to Purchase March 1722, Indian Deed May 1723, and Warrant for Patent Sep 1723. My family research years ago showed a Schaeffer family of two brothers provided direct lines – one to my mom’s dad with other brother ancestor to her mom. My families gradually resettled south in Carlisle, near Cobleskill. I have Early Palatine Emigration by Walter Allen Knittle, Ph.D., an excellent in-depth study of the Palatines, along with Dallenbachs in America, which give in-depth looks at the extensive part these Palatine immigrants and my family played in history of NY state, as did my mom’s early Dutch ancestry from 1630s on in New Amsterdam and greater New Netherlands, Albany, Schenectady, etc. Someday I’ve got to see Stone Arabia!