Grace Van Nalts and her sister Louise 1917

In 1914 when my sister Louise was 2 and I was 3, my parents, Rev. Aubrey H. and Elizabeth Dodge Derby, bought 2 acres of land by the Beaverkill River, adjacent to Theodore and Sylvia Willich’s property on the road to Lew Beach. The Willichs were parishioners of my father’s in Leonia, N.J. A bungalow was built on the site and with additions it is there today.

In 1917 my parents bought a farm and 50 acres for $2,500 on Ragin Road from a N.Y. manufacturer of silk ribbons, Mr. Derringer. He had bought the farm from Kate McNamara in 1909. The McNamaras had a single barn with a horse stall and a chicken coop and a couple of cows, but they made their living at the tannery. Mr. Derringer bought the farm from the McNamaras for his young cousin who was deaf. The plan was for the cousin and wife and baby to live there and raise chickens, but this plan was not successful. Adjacent to this property were 100 acres for sale for $500 by Mrs. Clark, who lived in DeBruce, which my parents also bought.

At the time of purchase, there was no bathroom, just an out-house; no running water, just a bubbling spring below the house; no electricity, so we used candles and kerosene lamps; no furnace, just an old-fashioned wood stove which was used for cooking as well as for keeping warm. No luxuries, as we take them for granted today, but a house in a beautiful setting surrounded by lush green trees, clear blue skies and pure clean air.

Even the roads from N.J. up through N.Y. were rough and unpaved and narrow. The cars were not yet made to go very fast. Our model T Ford had a top speed of 30 mph. We counted on a full day to get from Leonia to Beaverkill, a distance of about 120 miles. Several stops along the way had to be made. One was a picnic lunch stop near Goshen, N.Y. Others were made to cool the boiling engine up the steep Shawangunk Mountain and stops in Monticello for ice cream cones, and Liberty for rolls at Katz’s bakery. The final steep grade was made after we crossed the Beaverkill Covered Bridge. Rounding the corner, three of us had to get out of the car so my father could make the steep sharp curve onto Ragin Road. Then the road became a rough, single lane dirt road, which it still is today.

In the first few years, men were hired by the town to make the road better. On one occasion these workers told my father that the source of a wonderful spring was above our house. As a result, Ike Kinch was hired to build a reservoir and together with his brother, Henry, the 2 men laid pipes to bring water to the house. Prior to this, my father had to go down to the spring, dip his pail in the water and carry the full pail of water up to the kitchen.

After 80 years of living in this house (as a summer retreat) the very same white enamel sink with a large deep tub for washing clothes is still in use. There was a big wood stove which was converted to 2 oil cylinders with a water-back which held a few gallons of water which was heated by the oil cylinders. In 1919 my father and grandfather built a bathroom with windows and a door taken from the old chicken coop. First came a toilet and sink, followed by a tub the next year. What a delight it was to see our old out-house taken away by Farmer Kinch, pulling it down the road by his team of horses! We didn’t have to go to the river and swim under the covered bridge in order to make ourselves clean!

We used candles to go upstairs to bed. My sister and I slept in the little room off my parents' larger one. There were 2 glass kerosene lamps, and one large metal lamp to read by. We didn’t have electricity or a telephone until after 1943.

Our family would sit outside on the porch when it was dark, bundled up against the cold, listening to my father’s stories.

As a young child I walked once with my father up the hill to make a call on Mike Reagan who was an old man (Ragin is a misspelling of his name). He didn’t live much longer, for we never saw him again. Frank Kinch would break a path in the wintertime to see how he was.

For a number of years a farmer, Jewett Allen, who owned a place on Berry Brook Rd., came to our farm with several sons, Archie, Charlie and Louis, with equipment to cut the hay. He had 2 pair of horses. My sister and I were so delighted, riding on the hay wagon as it was loaded and taken back into the barn. We even got up on the horses. Once, when Louise was astride 'Jack', he started bolting towards his home. Just in the nick of time, Jewett Allen halted the run-away horse.

Mr. Allen planted a field of buckwheat on our ‘flats’ and potatoes on another ‘flat’, which he harvested for us and sent to Leonia. He also sent several barrels of apples from trees on our farm.

Mr. Allen made maple syrup every year and my parents bought the syrup at $4.00 a gallon. He had 17 children. His first wife gave him 8 and his second wife 9: Charlie, Louis, Ernie, Francis, Marion, Hilda, Elsie, Nora, and Howard.

We always bought milk from the Kinch farm at 10 cents a quart. They had all Jersey cows. They had a contract with Borden’s that they would sell all their milk to them, except when the Derbys were in Beaverkill. Mrs. Nettie Kinch and her daughter Emma wore bonnets as they milked. Louise and I would get 4 quarts and carry it back in a pail. Once mother went to Kinch’s milk house to pick up our milk, and by mistake got Kinch’s pail that had 4 quarts of cream!

Tid Ingram lived alone down near the river. He traveled with a wagon and horses. One day he came to my father and asked if he could use an old wagon road through our field to get out. This was an odd request because he had always come up through Kinch’s field before. Father told Frank Kinch about Tid’s request and Frank answered, “Yes, I guess he did ask you and I’ll tell you why. One day when he was coming through my pasture, he left the gates open and my cows got out. They went down to the river and ate Tid’s corn. When Tid presented me with a bill for his corn, I paid him and then nailed the gate shut so he couldn’t get through any more.”

Every week we were in Beaverkill we went to Tom Griffin’s farm on Elm Hollow (now Stuart Brown’s) to purchase a chicken (plucked and ready to roast), buttermilk, pot cheese and butter. Mrs. Griffin prepared these things for us.   A two-mule team and surrey brought the mail with bells on the harnesses, ringing out. It was brought to Andrew Ackerly’s (now Adams) where Kate Vernoy was the postmistress. For a while, John Clum drove the mail route.

Grampa and the girls

We swam regularly at the river each afternoon before N.Y. State took over the land and formed a state park. In those days, the land along the river was pastureland for Ackerly’s cows. We would hear a jingle, and knew that John Clum’s two-mule team and surrey with bells on the harnesses was bringing the mail to the Ackerly place. Kate Vernoy’s husband, George, was handicapped with a crippled leg. He helped in the store and ran the gas pump by turning it by the handle.

Count Sosnosky

  John Clum, and Barnhardt before him, brought passengers from the railroad in Livingston Manor. People for the ‘Davidson’s Hotel’ (Trout Valley Farm) came also. We became good friends with Count Sosnosky and his wife who were staying at the hotel. They saw us swimming at the Beaverkill River where my mother was dressed in her long black bathing suit with stockings and tennis shoes. Their daughter, Lydia, later came to Leonia to take vocal lessons from my mother.

My mother had a beautiful voice. She took private lessons in Boston and then taught music for six years. She went to New York to study with Bjerksten. He recommended her to the George Vanderbilts who were looking for a private musician for their events at the Biltmore House in Asheville, North Carolina. She sang for them during their Christmas celebrations and they were so pleased, they sent her to Europe for more training. She took her mother with her, and they were in Europe for eight years. She returned to the United States to sing with the opera, but she met my father and did not pursue her opera career.

In our teens, we got together with other kids, the Simpsons who rented the Husk place (now Root), Ed Whitehill, the Derringer boys who rented a place from Kinch and were notorious for jumping off the Covered Bridge.

During the depression, Ed Whitehill’s father and mother lived in the cabin on Ragin Road now owned by Ellen and Mike Loizeaux. It was first built as a hunting lodge. William Whitehill was the original architect for the Livingston Manor High School, but after completing that, he was so restless because of little work, he built stonewalls to keep his sanity.

My husband, Lou, and I owned a farm on Pelnor Hollow for 3 years. I taught music in Roscoe and we had four boys with us on the farm, 3 adopted and one of our own. Our two sons, Gene and George, were adopted from St. Christopher’s School in Dobbs Ferry. Soon after we moved to Pelnor Hollow, the social worker came to check on things. George told me, “You tell her, we’re going to stay here.”

Grace Van Nalts 2006

After moving to Califrnia almost 50 years ago, I continue to return each summer to the same Beaverkill property my parents bought in 1917. It has always remained Derby property. About ten years ago Gene and Susie Koon became co-owners with me, Grace Derby Van Nalts. We continue to enjoy this rural, peaceful and relaxing home, with many good friends in this heavenly valley.

Grace Van Nalts of Ragin Road (1911-2007) passed away on April 30, 2007.

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