Transcription
Joanna: Hi, my name is Joanna Case. I am currently the curatorial assistant at the Old Stone Fort, and I’m also one of the main people doing this project right now. I’m not originally from Schoharie County, I’m originally from Central New York, kind of near Syracuse, and I just started working here in September, so I haven’t been here all that long, but I do have a little bit of a longer history with the Old Stone Fort.
I am a living historian and I have been for a little over ten years and I, through my living history experience, have been to the Old Stone Fort many times. I actually even started coming before I got into living history with my parents who brought me when I was too young to honestly even remember too much of it. But I have always loved the Old Stone Fort even before I started working here. It’s a beautiful place. It’s a really unique place, I think. You know, you’ve got different historic complexes like Genesee Country Village or Sturbridge, but those are kind of near bustling metropolises. And I guess we’re kind of near Albany, but we’re really in a very rural area that’s just so beautiful and I just think it’s very unique in that way and has so much potential.
I also feel really drawn to the area because I don’t want to say I have my… the majority of my ancestry, but quite a few of my ancestors are German Palatines from the Schoharie Valley in the Mohawk Valley region. And you know, Schoharie was really first settled by Europeans anyways in the early 18th century by the German Palatines, including a lot of my ancestors. And that’s why I feel a really deep connection to Schoharie County, to the fort through that Palatine ancestry. And it’s why, you know, there’s the iconic the Old Stone Fort. But that’s why my favorite buildings on the complex are the Hartmann’s Dorf house and the Dutch Barn, because I really… I love that we have those two together. I love that we’ve got 20 acres and we have the possibility to really show what a Palatine farmstead looked like. And we have the opportunity to really expand upon that in the next few years, and I’m just so excited about that.
So, I just think there’s a ton of potential around here. I’m finally back where my ancestors were hundreds of years ago, and I’m just very excited to be back in this beautiful county where many of my ancestors lived and to be able to preserve that history.