Transcription
Paul: My name is Paul Supley and I am the vice president of the Schoharie County Historical Society. And I’m going to talk a little bit about my personal involvement in the community through the years. My introduction to Schoharie County was in the early seventies, 1972.
As a young man, I was spending my summers up in Gates and Armlin Hill Road in Middleburgh, in the hills where my uncle had built a camp and really, really enjoyed my time running through the woods, hunting and fishing and leading a rustic life that we used to joke about was a lot like a wolves. We’d go down and use the school swimming pool in the summer. I would shop down in downtown Middleburgh, and the IGA that was on Route 30 on the Grand Union went to the movie theater to see movies. Down in Middleburgh, just was a nice, nice community away from home and a great, great, wholesome place to spend your summers.
Throughout the years, particularly in the early 1990s, as I started coming back to Schoharie, this time in a different capacity, it was after college working and I got back into living history and ended up in an organization called the Burning of the Valleys Military Association, the BVMA and ended up chairing that for nine years. And the high point of that was spending time at the Old Stone Fort and putting on events. Living history that’s it.
I’m sure a lot of people are familiar with the burning events. It was just a special time. It was a special time of the year, absolutely beautiful. We used to say the hills were on fire in October because of the gorgeous, gorgeous views of Table Mountain and all the leaves turning and just everybody was very personable and the fort steeped in its history, which it always interested me ever since a kid looking at the Civil War displays and such, who would have thought that I would have been back there doing that?
Within the last couple of years with genealogy research. I’ve actually found out that my paternal great, great, great great grandfather was the Reverend Al, who came over in 1725 and was ministering at a Lutheran church. The old church prior to the 1772 present museum, which was a new church. And to find out that my family ties go back that far In Schoharie, It was thrilling. And to think that ponders is a genetic memory.
That brings me back to one of my happiest places that I know. Today I’m very fortunate, as I said, I sit on the board for the Historical Society. We’re moving in a lot of new directions. I’m getting to meet so many more people in the community. New venues and old. And I really push and promote the county itself. It’s natural beauty, the wonderful businesses, the museums. It’s just a terrific place for anybody to want to come and see and experience. And I have to say that Schoharie for me just brings you back generation after generation, I guess. I’m a great example of that and happy to be a part of it.