Last Friday, April 30, 2021, was the first annual National Historic Marker Day sponsored by the William G. Pomeroy Foundation. It is a day to celebrate local history, check on the historic markers & clean them with mild soap and water if conditions allow, as well as tidy & pick up garbage around the sites.
As resident Historian at the Folklife Center, I took the day to checkout some markers around the Fort Miller/Thomson/Clarks Mills area in eastern Washington County where I grew up. The newest two are in the best condition, and I was able to wash them removing pollen, dirt, and bird poo, with no problem. All but one of the others, ranging in age from 1927 to 1999, had peeling paint & I was only able to document their condition. I only found trash at the Jane McCrea marker along US Route 4 just north of Black House Road in the Town of Fort Edward, and the River Crossing marker near the new County Route 113 bridge over the Battenkill on the Greenwich side.
As a suffrage historian, I was excited to see the Susan B. Anthony marker off of US Route 4 on Patterson Road, just south of Moses Kill bridge.
Of course, the vast majority of the historic markers in this area are related to the Revolutionary War. Six of the ten markers were from the initial NY Historic Marker program which was started to commemorate the sesquicentennial of the American Revolution. Three markers were erected by Washington County Historical Society.
Consider contacting your municipal historian about volunteering to help with the second annual National Historic Marker Day on Friday, April 29, 2022.
To locate historic markers, and informative panels near you, visit the Historic Marker Database. You can search by location &/or subject.
Tisha Dolton is Librarian/Historian at The Folklife Center at Crandall Public Library in Glens Falls, NY. Her areas of interest are suffrage music, suffragists of Warren and Washington Counties, local women and minority populations, and embroidery.