Prattsville Development and History

Prattsville
Development and History

Please visit the Zadock Pratt Museum or return to the Town of Prattsville General Information. This page describes the interesting history of the Town on Prattsville.

Prattsville is located in the northwest corner of Greene County, in the Catskill Mountains of New York State. Located on the Castkill Mountaintop at an elevation of approximately 1,400 feet, the town is near where Greene, Delaware and Schoharie counties meet above the Schoharie Valley. The area was known to the Mohawk Nation as the Onteora Hunting grounds, and later to the Dutch, English and German settlers as Schoharie Kill. Until established as a separate town in 1824, it was part of the larger town of Windham, 10 miles to the east.

Included within the old Hardenburgh Patent, Prattsville was part of the 2,000,000 acres along the Schoharie Valley bought by an agent of Queen Anne of England in 1702. In the early 18th century, a group of German emigrants moved to the area and settled the flats to the north of the current town. During the Revolutionary War the settlement was attacked by Tories and Indians under the command of the British. General Smith, the leader of the Tories, was shot .........

.... this page still under construction (Jan 2001)

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Muriel Pons, Town Historian of Prattsville, writes:

Over the years, forest pathways that later became highways have led a multitude of people to the sheltered valley of the Hardenburgh Patent, where Prattsville sits today. Attracted to the abundant supply of wood, water and game were Native Americans, traders and early settlers like to Van Alstynes, Van Loans, Beckers and Shoemakers, followed by artists, hikers, sportsmen, tourists and businessmen.

Best known in the last category was Zadock Pratt who journeyed only ten miles from Jewett where his career in tanning had already begun. In 1824, Pratt established his tannery, the world's largest at the time, in Schohariekill (soon to be named Prattsville in his honor). Pratt diverted the traffic from the path be the creek to a straight, new Main Street, and lined it with hemlock board houses, shade trees and bluestone sidewalks.

Diverse mills and enterprises sprang up, By 1842, the 1,600 inhabitants required many services, including that of two doctors and two dentists. Prattsville's only ever bank thrived. Pastures and tilled fields surrounded the village. Three churches and well as the galleried schoolhouse (now the Town Hall), and a variety of newspapers provided for religious and cultural needs.

From his country mansion (now the Pratt Museum), Pratt traveled widely, most importantly as a members of the House of Representatives in Washington, D.C. There, he dealt with the developing needs of the nation, such as the transcontinental railway.

Pratt's influence is seen today in Pratt Rocks Park, which he gave to the town. The carvings he commissioned there can be viewed by today's travelers from Route 23 or, more closely, from the hikers' path.

Pratt cared about the "Gem of the Catskills" and how it prospered. "Do well and doubt not", his family motto, might well be ours today. Go to the TOP

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Updated on:

02 February, 2008

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