The 19th-century one-room school experience came alive for Third Grade students from Webutuck Elementary School during their annual visit to the Indian Rock Schoolhouse in Amenia on Friday, May 31. Webutuck librarian Elizabeth Murphy authentically portrayed the schoolmarm.
AMENIA — Eager to experience the supreme authority of the schoolmarm and the possible embarrassment of a dunce cap, students from Webutuck Elementary School’s Grades 2 and 3 paid their annual visit to the Indian Rock Schoolhouse in Amenia on Friday, May 31.
First came the third graders to settle into hard wooden benches, after bowing or curtsying to the schoolmarm. They sat up straight, faced forward and paid attention to schoolmarm Elizabeth Murphy, Webutuck librarian, who provided facts about daily life and lessons in a one-room schoolhouse.
Murphy serves as school librarian and is also a past president of the Indian Rock Schoolhouse Association that was formed in 2001. Her goal as schoolmarm for the day was to show the students what school was like in the 1850s, she said.
“I’m the only one left from the beginning of the project to save the schoolhouse and establish it as a local historic landmark,” Murphy said, as she prepared to greet the two classes. The schoolhouse continued in use until 1927.
With schoolmarm Murphy in charge, a few children were selected to sit on the dunce stool and wear the traditional cap, probably with broader smiles than would have been characteristic of their counterparts in times past.
Children were invited to imagine school with no running water, drinking water scooped from the nearby brook, no electricity, light from a single kerosene lamp, no transportation, neither books nor paper, but slates and chalk, and strictly disciplined behavior.
Murphy explained that schoolmarms in the 19th century would not have been allowed to be married. If they were married, their place would have been at home helping with the farm and raising the children who would have attended the school.
Following the schoolhouse experience, students were released to the outdoors to enjoy historic games and help with planting flowers to beautify the site for the summer.
The second graders would arrive at noon.
In order to be called a museum, the Indian Rock Schoolhouse must be used by children at least once a year. This annual visit serves the purpose and provides an enriching experience for the Webutuck students.
In Victorian era costume for the occasion, Madame Datura regaled the Amenia Library’s Tea Society meeting on Saturday, Oct. 11, with the history of plants and poisons, all the rage in 19th century literature and in fact.
AMENIA — Breaking from its usual tea and pastries format, the Saturday, Oct 11 meeting of the Amenia Tea Society featured a Victorian costumed talk by area resident Madame Datura titled “Poison in Relation to Tea.”
When not inhabiting the character of Madame Datura, author Renee Fleury of Brewster has extensive experience as a botanist and has studied the properties of plants, including the long history of poisonous plants and how they impacted past generations through popular literature or use, innocent or on purpose.
“Poison was everywhere,” Fleury said. “Half of all plant life is considered poisonous, but not all are fatal.”
“As a literary device, poisoning is subtle,” Fleury explained, noting the poisonous properties of Monkshood, Moonflower and Foxglove. Because it is a slow process, it was a popular device in the Victorian era detective genre that gained popularity through the novels of Poe, Dickens, Conan Doyle and more.
Even arsenic needs more than one dose to be effective, up to four to be exact.
“Arsenic is undetectable for a long time,” Fleury noted.
“The 19th century is full of stories in the press and in literature,” Fleury said. “It was the Golden Age of Poisoning.”
Wives in the Victorian era had few rights and often resorted to poisoning to escape the trap of spousal violence, Fleury noted.
About poisons, Fleury said that they are not painless, poisoning takes premeditation.
“Alkaloids make a plant poisonous,” Fleury noted. Alkaloids are molecular structures within a plant, but they are seasonal, not always there. The species, the plant part and the dosage are all variables.
Many potentially poisonous plants are currently used in medicines, Fleury said. Moonflower, for example, is a medicinal ingredient used to treat a variety of ailments.
“We cannot survive without plants,” Fleury said speaking of the great advances in medicines used today.
For generations, it was thought that small doses of arsenic were helpful. Steaks were routinely dipped in arsenic to retard spoilage. Green dye produced from arsenic was used in fabric coloring until it was proven that contact with that fabric was fatal. Arsenic was also used in the bookbinding process.
Fleury, and Madame Datura, schedule appearances throughout the region. For information, go to refleur369@gmail.com.
Planning Board members granted a waiver to the proposed cannabis dispensary located in the historic weigh station on Route 82 allowing the business to operate within 300 feet of the firehouse and the Post Office in contradiction with Pine Plains's local law. Town attorney Warren Replansky explained the town's codes would likely be unenforceable following legal decisions handed down by the Office of Cannabis Management on Monday, Oct. 6.
PINE PLAINS — Members of the Planning Board voted unanimously to grant a waiver to Upstate Pines allowing the cannabis dispensary to operate within 300 feet of the firehouse and the Post Office at their regular meeting Wednesday, Oct. 8.
That vote came after Planning Board attorney Warren Replansky explained recent state guidance superceded the town’s ability to restrict the business on the grounds of its proximity to the Post Office and the firehouse.
Approval of the dispensary itself was not yet granted, and the public hearing will be continued at the Wednesday, Nov. 12, meeting of the Planning Board.
Replansky explained an advisory opinion handed down on Monday, Oct. 6, from the state government and the Office of Cannabis Management clarified that municipalities may only legally restrict a nonmedical cannabis dispensary’s distance to a “public youth facility,” defined as a publicly accessible space with the primary purpose of providing services to children.
“So that might’ve saved you a bit of time,” Planning Board Chair Michael Stabile said to the applicants following Replansky’s remarks.
Next steps for the project now require the applicants to undergo State Environmental Quality Review, a standard process that most major development projects are required to follow.
Planning Board members, Replansky and the applicants also discussed parking and traffic control plans after receiving input from Dutchess County Planners that requested more specific information about the potential future uses on the site including a grocery store and an ice cream shop.
County planners wanted to see a detailed description of the scope of all future uses to limit the possibility of segmentation, which is when a project is proposed and completed in vague phases that inhibit the full environmental review process.
Also on the agenda was a resolution to allow construction of a small house at 441 Carpenter Hill Road and the approval of a site plan for ground-mounted solar panels in the backyard of a residence at 560 Carpenter Hill Road. Board members approved the resolution for the small house and accepted the site plan for the solar panels, setting a public hearing on the matter for Wednesday, Nov. 12.
Built in 1820, 1168 Bangall Amenia Road sold for $875,000 on July 31 with the transfer recorded in August. It has a Millbrook post office and is located in the Webutuck school district.
STANFORD — The Town of Stanford with nine transfers in two months reached a median price in August of $573,000 for single family homes, still below Stanford’s all-time median high in August 2024 of $640,000.
At the beginning of October there is a large inventory of single-family homes listed for sale with only six of the 18 homes listed for below the median price of $573,000 and seven above $1 million.
July transfers
79 Ernest Road — 4 bedroom/2.5 bath home on 6.87 acres in 2 parcels sold to Matthew C. Marinetti for $1,225,000.
29 Drake Road — 3 bedroom/3.5 bath home on 2 acres sold to Harper Montgomery for $850,000.
6042 Route 82 — 4 bedroom/2 bath home on 1.09 acres sold to Spencer Thompson for $795,000.
125 Tick Tock Way — 3 bedroom/2.5 bath ranch on 1.9 acres sold to Fleur Touchard for $475,000.
August transfers
102 Prospect Hill Road — 3 bedroom/2 bath home on 6.35 acres sold to Karl Creighton Pfister for $565,000.
252 Ernest Road — 2 bedroom/1 bath cottage on .85 acres sold to Meg Bumie for $465,000.
1196 Bangall Amenia Road — 4 bedroom/2.5 bath home on 2.16 acres sold to Roderick Alleyne for $875,000.
Hunns Lake Road (#759929) — 59.1 acres of residential land sold to Argos Farm LLC for $3,325,000.
* Town of Stanford recorded real estate transfers from July 1 to August 31 provided by Dutchess County Real Property Office monthly transfer reports. Details on each property from Dutchess Parcel Access - properties with an # indicate location on Dutchess Parcel Access. Market data from One Key MLS and Infosparks .Compiled by Christine Bates, Real Estate Advisor with William Pitt Sotheby’s International Realty, Licensed in Connecticut and New York.
Dutchess County Sheriff’s Office Harlem Valley area activity reportSept. 18 to Sept. 30.
Sept. 23 — Deputies responded to 1542 State Route 292 in the Town of Pawling for the report of a suspicious vehicle at that location. Investigation resulted in the arrest of Sebastian Quiroga, age 26, for aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle in the third degree. Quiroga to appear in the Town of Pawling court at a later date.
Sept. 30 — Deputies responded to Woodside Street in the Town of Pine Plains for a past-occurred verbal domestic dispute between a stepfather and stepson.Matter resolved without further police intervention.
PLEASE NOTE:All subjects arrested and charged are alleged to have committed the crime and are presumed innocent until proven guilty and are to appear in local courts later.
If you have any information relative to the aforementioned criminal cases, or any other suspected criminal activity please contact the Dutchess County Sheriff’s Office tip line at 845-605-CLUE (2583) or Emaildcsotips@gmail.com.All information will be kept confidential.
