| The following column appeared in The River Reporter on September 17, 1998. |
An economic history of Sullivan County: Part 2
By Bert S. Feldman
The Recusant Reporter
Thursday, September 17, 1998
When the tanning industry suddenly collapsed in Sullivan County, the residents of this area were left with no industries at all, excepting subsistence farming and a few cottage industries such as cigar making. The greed of the tanners had depleted the hemlock forests which had covered the land, leaving it a barren desert, gullied and rocky.
A few wood acid factories existed, utilizing the debarked hemlock logs that littered the ground. These plants were mainly located in the northeast parts of the county and adjacent areas in Delaware and Ulster Counties, as well as in neighboring Pennsylvania. These acids were used as the base for such things as denatured alcohol, embalming fluid, and celluloid (used to make billiard balls and guncotton). These acid factories have left some unusual names on our county and its neighbors: Acidalia, Burnwood and Methol, are a few.
At last, economic relief came, but from a most unusual source – Alexander III and Nicholas II, Czars of Imperial Russia, which included Poland, much of the Balkans, the Baltic States and part of Finland. This corrupt and feudal government decided to put the blame for everything on the Jews. The Pale was established which limited these people to certain areas of the empire, limited the kind of work they could perform and forbid them to own land, with certain exemptions. Starting around the 1890’s, over a million Eastern European Jews fled the Czar’s wrath. Their goal was the Goldene Medina – the Golden Land of America.
One of their greatest hopes was the right to own land, to become farmers, and Sullivan County was the nearest place to do so, about one hundred miles from the Lower East Side where they arrived. Since they knew little about farming, they bought whatever was offered them: acidic soil littered with rocks, eroded and gullied land in a hostile environment. The local yokels laughed all the way to the bank.
But they quickly learned. Grass will grow most anywhere and cows can step over the rocks, so they became dairy farmers. If the land was too poor even to raise cattle, one could build large sheds and raise chickens for the poultry and eggs business.
Meanwhile, down in the Big City, on Hester Street, Sam said to Malka, why don’t we go with the kids to your cousin Abe’s place up in Fallsdale for a couple of days? So they went on the O&W train, they ate fresh eggs, warm milk and fish the kids had taken from the lake earlier that day, and sat under a shade tree and watched the kids splash in the clean waters of the lake. And, as they prepared to return to the city, Malka said to Sam, Abe and Basha were so nice to us, maybe we should give them a few dollars for their troubles.
And thus Sullivan County’s resort industry was born. And like a skyrocket, it took off to unbelievable heights.
During the 1920’s and 1930’s, it has been estimated that, in the triangle made by Woodbourne, Liberty and Monticello, over 400 resorts, from huge hotels to small bungalow colonies, existed. The Mansion House in White Lake, which was built in the 1800’s, still stands - the oldest Sullivan County hotel extant.
Today there are a dozen resort industry businesses, if that. But a feeling of something yet to come is in the air in Sullivan County, mostly because of the potential success of the recent Day in the Garden, sponsored by our own Alan Gerry. There is a piece of land in the western part of our county that could realize a fortune if properly handled. A new Interstate highway could bring in manufacturing plants. Who knows?
Let’s discuss what could lie ahead of us in next week’s third and final column on this subject. As Will Shakespeare wrote in The Tempest, "What’s past is prologue."
