Rosendale's Reusable
Resource
In the 1950's, before the owners fenced and
sealed it, you could walk deep into the abandoned cement mine beside
Route 213 just outside the village of Rosendale. A moist, steady
52-55 degree-air poured from the mouth of the cave, summer and winter.
It was often our destination in the early evening of a hot summer.
We would fish in the Wallkill near Perrine's covered bridge and
then go to the caves to cool off. The water in the caves was clear,
but other than throwing the occasional stone, we were not tempted
to disrupt its mirror surface. There is something uninviting about
cave water.
Over and above the Rosendale caves' natural
air conditioning, the livelihoods that have arisen from the limestone
beds of the town are many, varied, and in some cases, ongoing. When
natural or hydraulic cement was discovered during excavation for
the D&H Canal system in the early 1820's, it brought good times
for many local families. Before long as many as five thousand people
were employed in and around the small rural village. In fact, it
was the cement that spurred the formation of the Town of Rosendale
in 1844. According to author Ann Gilchrist in the History of
Ulster County, 11,413 acres were taken from the towns of New
Paltz, Marbletown, and Hurley to form the new town because the booming
cement industry could be more easily governed under one political
unit. The vein of natural cement ran the entire length of Rosendale
from High Falls to Rondout.
Natural cement's allure was that it could
set up and harden underwater, making it very useful in building
canals, dams, bridges, docks and bulwarks-just the ticket in the
building boom of a frenetic America. In 1899, cement's peak year,
4,000,000 barrels were produced by more than a dozen mills in Rosendale.
Natural cement from Rosendale was used in the base of the Statue
of Liberty, the foundations of the wings of the US Capital, the
US Patent Office, the US Treasury building, and the Brooklyn Bridge.
Small lighted replica towers of the bridge grace the current entrance
pillars of the Snyder Estate on Route 213.
By 1910 there were only a million barrels
produced in the entire United States. Natural cement was being replaced
by the quicker setting Portland variety and the local industry all
but disappeared by the mid 1960's.
Before its demise though, a mixture of Portland
and natural cement was used in building the New York State Thruway.
The mixture, called masonry cement, provided the best of both materials—it
was sturdy and fast setting. The mixture was also used in other
major roads and for the runway at Kennedy airport. According to
Gilchrist in her book about Rosendale, Footsteps Across Cement,
Andrew J. Snyder continued to produce masonry cement in Rosendale
until the properties of natural cement were duplicated by a chemical
in the 1960's.
The abandoned cement mines took on a new life
when a mushroom business took advantage of the darkness and constant
temperature to grow crop after crop of the tasty edibles on beds
of horse manure. After each box of horse manure had grown its final
crop, it was dumped outside the caves in high mounds which were
visible until recently along Binnewater Road. Caves that contained
ice all year were also used to store corn.
Mushrooms weren't the only good thing to come
out of the darkness of the old cement mines. Water, filtered and
purified by limestone, is still harvested to fill pools and tanks
throughout the region.
Eventually, the mushroom business went to
spore and the once again abandoned caves came into a new use: record
storage. Iron Mountain Record Storage took over a large section
of the cave system. Today, according to Gilchrist, "...between
the 24-foot, limestone columns which were left by the miners as
ceiling supports, two-story buildings contain the records and some
living quarters." She continues that the quarries are excellent
for storage-protected naturally from fire, flood, and even atomic
attack.
Another old site, the Widow Jane Mine on the
Snyder Estate, has been used for theater and music. It has unique
acoustics and other properties making it a natural.
The old caves had another benefit to give-the
piles of old horse manure from the mushroom days. Apparently, the
stuff is still an excellent material for growing things and entrepreneurial
owners of the “matured” manure began to sell it off. Now it is difficult
to tell where the mounds once stood twenty to thirty feet high.
Ads appeared in local papers for “mushroom dirt as people got wind
of its horticultural uses. Today, it is pretty difficult to find.
And finally, because of its history, natural
beauty, welcoming residents, and charming village, tourism is another
thriving business for Rosendale. Along many roads, especially Binnewater,
you can see the banks of cement kilns, odd cave entrances, railroad
beds, and buildings once part of the cement industry.
Williams Lake Resort, Hidden Valley Lake Campground,
cozy B&B's, great restaurants, interesting village shops, artists'
studios, hiking, cross-country skiing, fishing, canoeing, and the
area's history coalesce like the cement underlying them, to make
Rosendale a solidly interesting destination for resident and visitor.
---
Thanks to Ann Gilchrist, researcher and author
of Footsteps Across Cement, A History of The Township of Rosendale
(published 1976), for her detailed and fascinating book. She is
a fine teacher and historian.
Vivian Wadlin
