Rhinebeck's "Consortium": A Bonanza for Local & Family Historians
by Cynthia Owen Philip

I don't know what I would do without the Consortium of Rhinebeck History. Despite its imposing name, it is the easiest imaginable open door to documents in the archives of the Rhinebeck Historical Society, the Museum of Rhinebeck History, The Chancellor Livingston Chapter of the DAR, the office of the Rhinebeck Town Historian, Wilderstein Preservation and the Starr Library. For early history, the Consortium draws on material in the Rhinebeck churches and the Egbert Benson Historical Society of Red Hook. (Until 1813 when the two settlements had put on a growing spurt, Red Hook was part of Rhinebeck.)

The Consortium is a finding aid. It's like an old fashioned catalogue, but oh so much more useful! It gives a detailed description of each item, say, whether it is a letter, a pamphlet, a newspaper clipping, a map, or a photograph, what individuals, families, businesses or social organizations it focuses on and, of course, which of the repositories owns it. The miracle is that you can tailor your search to pinpoint just what you need, general or particular. When I was starting out on my just-finished history of Rhinecliff, all I had to do was type in Rhinecliff and up popped the materials. Having an idea of the quantity of material available helped shape the way I plunged in. Later, I focused on a limited time span or on such subjects as the ferry service, the churches, the Rhinebeck and Connecticut Railroad, the ice industry or families, say, the Kips, Van Wagenens, Van Ettens and Heermances who settled in Kipsbergen (as Rhinecliff was once named) as early as the 1690s and whose descendants still live there. When I was ready to collect photographs, I tapped that in and that is what I got. Wunderbar!

Spearheaded in 2000 by Marilyn Hatch of the Quitman Resource Center and long-time historian Nancy Kelly, who remains its chair, the Consortium was organized under the aegis of the Quitman, with initial funding for the database from the Thomas Thompson Trust. This year the Trust continued its generous support with a matching grant that helped establish and equip the Local History Center on the ground floor of Rhinebeck's Starr Library—one of the most cheerful places I know of to do research.

One of the most important long-term projects of the Center is preparing descriptions of the Rhinebeck Historical Society's extraordinary collection of survey maps prepared by Frank Teal from 1905 through 1949 and by Robert Decker from 1950 to 1965. Discovered by Wint Aldrich, Red Hook's indefatigable Town Historian, stored in the chicken coop of Catskill surveyor Vincent Sheridan, Rhinebeck's gift from Sheridan runs to a mighty 500 maps.

Right now volunteer Michael Frazier, a historian and long time member of the Rhinebeck Historical Society, is working on the Teal maps, unwrapping each fragile roll, assessing its condition to recommend whether it should be scanned or, in fact, must be preserved before it is safe to scan, and preparing a thorough description for the Consortium's finding aid. Eventually it is hoped that the most often used maps will be accessible on the web.

Mike says: "There's a story behind each of these maps, and it's fun trying to figure it out. Teal was so careful and accurate that it's a joy to handle his work." Moreover, he went on, "Al Slingerland of New Archives in Red Hook is doing such a fine job with the scanning that sometimes I find things on the reproduced map that escaped me on the original." The results will be a boon to practitioners, who even today rely on Teal's meticulous unfolding of property transfers back, if necessary, to deeds that speak of such landmarks as "the big oak by the rivulet." They will be equally interesting to anyone who is doing genealogical or architectural research or who simply enjoys looking at old maps.

The Consortium's Local Research Center room in the Starr Library is open Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10 am to 3 pm. Drop in or, if you have a special topic to investigate, Nancy Kelly or the Center's able professional archivist, Rebeccah Johnson, may be able to help at (845) 876-4479 or rhinebeckconsortium@gmail.com. Right this minute, you can access the Consortium listings on the web just by typing in "Consortium of Rhinebeck History."