Transcription
Clay: Hello, my name is Clay Edmunds. I work as a site interpreter at the Old Stone Fort, and I also am currently an intern simultaneously. I went to Middleburg Central School, and it was there where I learned that I have an equal passion for both art and history. So as a result, I started focusing more towards the art side. So, I ended up getting my bachelor’s degree in Graphic Design at Suny Cobleskill. And then a few years later, I decided to go back to college for history. And so I ended up doing a combined Bachelor Master program, at Suny Albany. So, I got an additional Bachelor’s in History in 2022. And then I just got a Master’s in History in 2023. And so I began working here at the Old Stone Fort in May of 2023, as I needed to do a six credit internship in order to get my degree.
So, I chose the Old Stone Fort. Met with everyone and, you know, was pretty much immediately hired. Now, I, needed to work on some exhibits for this internship, so I decided to do three virtual exhibits. And I decided to do these exhibits based on, documents that I had originally photographed and had been transcribing to put into the cataloging system Past Perfect. So, I ended up doing, Kellogg’s Company of Artillery, which is from the War of 1812. That was the first virtual exhibit. I did second one was the third New York Cavalry. That was, from the Civil War. And then the third, exhibit I ended up doing was the 108th New York National Guard Company B, and that company was the one that specifically had their headquarters at the Old Stone Fort from 1865 to 1868, back when it was in Arsenal. And these exhibits are still up there, still on the website under the virtual exhibit section. And, you know, after I graduated, I decided to stay on as an intern, but also as a site interpreter as well.
So, I continually work on projects. Currently, the biggest project I’m doing right now is digitizing the entire upstairs collection for accessibility purposes. But another project that I’ve been doing or couple projects was photographing newspapers, from a long time ago. So most recently I did the Jefferson Courier from 1907 to 1918. And then I also recently did the Schoharie Republican and the Democratic Republican, newspapers from the 1850s and 60s, specifically the Democratic Republican, specifically, the ones that I did so far was from 1855 to 1857. And the Schoharie Republican one that I did, was from 1859 to 1862. Yes. And that is my story pretty much just a little bit about me. All right.