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Cayadutta Great Pre-Colonial Mohawk Village Site Percy M Van Epps Schenectady NY For Sale
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Cayadutta Great Pre-Colonial Mohawk Village Site Percy M Van Epps Schenectady NY:
$99.99
Cayadutta : a great pre-colonial Mohawk village site / by Percy M. Van EppsVan Epps, Percy Myers 1859-Schenectady County Historical SocietyCover title.\"Reprint from 2nd annual Schenectady County Historical Society.\"1909Robson & Adee Schenectady NY 1909Physical description9 p., [2] leaves of plates : ill. ; 24 cm
Also includes a page from the Glenville Center (Archaeology)
Percy M. Van Epps was the first Glenville town historian – and as a young history nerd who loved very little more than combing through the local history vertical files at the Scotia Public Library, itself an historic site, Van Epps was something of a hero. His name was on everything, and his papers, loose in documentation though they may be, provide the most complete picture we can get of life in Glenville at the time that my ancestors seem to have suddenly appeared there.
What we know of him personally comes from another long-time town historian, Donald Keefer, who wrote about Van Epps in the Scotia-Glenville Journal in 1966. The article was later reprinted in “The Van Epps Papers,” issued under another important town historian and mother of a friend, Joan Szablewski.
According to Keefer, Van Epps was born in Germantown in Columbia on August 30, 1859, to a family that was already established in West Glenville; he was brought home at two weeks and lived the rest of his life in Glenville – and it was a nice long one, as he reached the age of 92, passing away in 1951. Keefer writes: “He was a man who controlled his own destiny with vigor and intelligence. Self educated, he excelled in many fields: geography, archeology, history, music, geology and, in his spare time, agriculture. Percy numbered among his close friends many of the leading scientists, scholars and authors of the day. His many publications of the fields of archeology, local history and folklore form a large part of the recorded history of our vicinity. He had an interesting mind; quick, accurate, and filed with amazing and delightful stories. Yet for all his knowledge, this fine old Glenville scholar was a man who at all times was modest and unassuming. His humor was whimsical. It had no slap-stick air about it because it was real humor.”
He was an avid geologist, and a speleologist who must have loved exploring the caves in the area that Hoxsie, having a sensible fear, will never see. His first scholarly writing was published in 1894, and he co-founded the Epps-Hartley chapter of the New York State Archeological Association. He also played in numerous bands and taught music. He was appointed as the Town of Glenville’s first historian in 1926, and three years later became Schenectady county historian; he held both those posts until his death. He was also an avid hiker who “walked over the countryside with a slow and measured stride and with the confidence of a man who knew it inside out.”
Keefer wrote that Van Epps was in a band that was invited to play at the second inauguration of Grover Cleveland (real name: Stephen Grover Cleveland. Stephen Cleveland. Look it up.)
“The fellows knew his love for natural history and archeology and one of them kidded him about riding down the street in a buggy with the head of the Smithsonian Institution. ‘That,’ answered Percy, ‘wasn’t the head of the institute. That was Grover himself, and as we drove along, Grover said to me, ‘Perc, when I get through with this business and all my postmasters are appointed, I want you to meet me and give me lessons on the saxophone!’”
The reason Van Epps came to mind this week was that we were posting a number of Glenville markers over on Instagram, and in trying to dig up some more story on them, we found out that Percy Van Epps was directly responsible for them.
“State Erects 10 Markers in Glenville,” screamed the headline in the St. Johnsville Enterprise and News on November 13, 1935. Well, if 10 point semi-bold is screaming. But still. Must have been a slow news day over in St. Johnsville, and grateful we are. “State Education Department Division Will Place Five More. Advised by Van Epps. Town Historian Prepared Copy and Selected Sites,” the subhead reads.
Cayadutta Great Pre-Colonial Mohawk Village Site Percy M Van Epps Schenectady NY $99.99
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