The Hardenburgh House

                                    THE WAY I HEARD IT, the Hardenburgh House is haunted by the ghost of a freed slave whose fate it is to fling open the top window of the house whenever it is haplessly closed.  This is her penance for having been at that window when two children in her charge were kidnapped and, we presume, later killed by Iroquois Braves who were hunting in the area at the time. According to legend, the woman was in the upper story bedroom, her body hanging half-in, half-out the window while shaking dust from a blanket when she spied the two Braves moving stealthily through the dense hemlock forest towards the children who were playing on the ground below. Crying out , she tried to warn the children of the danger at hand, but her cries went unheeded and the children were never seen or heard from again.

Hardenburgh House was built by Johannes Hardenburgh for his nephew, Isaac, near the little Dutch community of Schohary Kill, a band of pioneers that had grown up on the banks of the Schoharie Creek in what is now known as Prattsville, NY. The sturdy brick house built by Johannes for his nephew was on the other side of the creek in what is today Roxbury, NY.

More is known about the little Dutch community known as the Society of Schohary Kill than is known about Isaac Hardenburgh. Around 1757, a band of sturdy Dutch kin made their way through the wilderness to a flat stretch of land near a trout-filled creek known as the Schohary. It seemed a perfect place put down stakes so they settled down to work and worship, meeting for formal services when they could in a neighbor’s house or barn.
The earliest records bearing Isaac Hardenburgh’s name can be found in a cemetery deed for the Reformed Dutch Church in Prattsville, NY. That deed, dated June 16, 1803, names Elder Henrich Becker and Deacons Isaac Hardenburgh and Lawrence C. Decker of the DRC as receipients of land on the eastern bank of the Schohary for the purposes of burying “all corpses of the deceased persons belonging to the above society. That cemetery, known as the Huggans-Lutz Cemetery, can still be found along Maple Lane at the west end of the Town of Prattsville.

The Iroquois had long owned the land on which the Hardenburgh House was built. In 1708, Queen Anne granted nearly two million acres of land in Delaware and Ulster Counties to Johannes Hardenburgh and his heirs. Slavery was legally abolished in New York State in 1827 but some “masters” are known to have freed their slaves in the eighteenth century so the ghostly tale of the Hardenburgh House may have taken place between 1708 and 1827. Birth and death records exist for Elizabeth and Catherine Hardenburgh who were the daughters of Isaac Hardenburgh and Rachel Graham. Elizabeth was born on October 8, 1791 and died August 28, 1845. Since a death record exists for Elizabeth showing that she lived to be 54 years old, she cannot be one of the children spirited away by the Iroquois that fateful day. Perhaps the tale of the Hardenburgh House isn’t true after all but is merely a reminder of the days when Greene and Delaware Counties were inhabited by the Iroquois, Dutch, German Palatines and British and the War of Independence had not yet been fought and won.

Fall Foliage Driving Tour

State Route 23A-County Route 17-State Route 23-County Route 296-State Route 23A
           

Farm Stands

Catskill Mountain Foundation Farm Market-State Route 23A, Hunter
Kiley Family Farmstand-State Route 23A, Prattsville