CHAPTER FOUR—FISHING, CRABBING AND HISTORIC DISCOVERY

  

Rock Cut at Annsville, N. Y.

Author facing north and standing near crabbing bridge on Old Albany Post Road.

     Our first year in Continental Village was a learning experience. With the advent of cold weather in October, my step-father ordered heating oil for our furnace. He also ordered John and me to cut firewood for our fireplace.

     We had an axe and a crosscut saw and ourselves to do the work. First we cut pine and burned it, but when my step-father heard from a neighbor that pine tars could clog the chimney, he told us to cut hardwood. Hardwood, as the name implies, is harder than pine and harder to cut as we soon found out. We cut limbs of fallen maple, apple and hickory in nearby woods and fields. The apple wood had a fragrant, pleasant odor when it burned.

     When we lost electricity, which was often that first year, my mother cooked our breakfast in the fireplace. Before we left for school, we had oatmeal, a glass of orange juice and a tablespoon of cod liver oil. Thank God for orange juice, I thought, it washed away much of the awful taste of cod liver oil. My mother packed our school lunch bags with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and tuna fish sandwiches on Friday. In those days it was a mortal sin for Catholics to eat meat on Fridays.

     John and I used to fish for sunfish, perch, pickerel, eels, largemouth bass and catfish in Cortlandt Lake. We speared suckers below the dam. The suckers used to swim further north in Sprout Brook before 1930. That was the year the dam was completed.

     Joseph Plumb Martin, a Continental soldier who was recruited in Connecticut, fished for suckers in Sprout Brook (Canopus Creek) in May, 1777.  He and several hundred Continental soldiers were given small pox inoculations in Continental Village. The barracks and other buildings were located north of the lake near the junction of Steuben Road and Sprout Brook Road.

     The fish that John and I caught were given to my step-father to eat. His favorites were perch and large sunfish. He would sing old Navy songs while he fried them. The cats ate raw catfish or leftovers.

     John and I also trapped crabs in Annsville, where Sprout Brook ran under a small bridge at old US Route 9 north of the Rock Cut at Blue Rock Point. The entire family would eat the crabs that we brought home. Crab season was summertime. We read the high-low tide information in the Peekskill Evening Star newspaper, and we used carp caught in Spy Pond for crab bait. The carp were cut in small pieces and tied with wire or heavy cord to the bottom of the crab net, then the net or trap was lowered over the side of the bridge with a loud splash when it hit the water. The trap would settle to the bottom and four doors opened, allowing hungry crabs to enter and get caught. Pulling the crab trap up suddenly closed the doors and the trap was lifted back to street level, with or without crabs, with or without bait. Sometimes the crabs would enter the trap and steal the bait, then get away before the doors of the trap shut.

     We used to sell our crabs for sixty cents a dozen. We posted hand-written signs near the bridge, crayon on cardboard. We had steady customers. A thrifty shopper, a man who lived in a house at the foot of the northeast side of the Rock Cut by the creek, used to walk over to us when we were getting ready to pack up and go home with our bikes. He would offer us forty cents a dozen, and we always made the deal. We would rather sell the crabs for actual money than take them home to eat.

     I remember a day when the crab catch was low and we got bored. So we climbed up Gallows Hill on the north side of the Rock Cut, and looked around. We could see the city of Peekskill and where Annsville creek entered the Hudson river. We looked down and we could see the highway below. We continued to investigate our environment and accidentally stumbled upon a rectangular berm near the crest of the hill. Outside the earthen walls was a depression, and inside were the remains of dead and live trees.

     It looked like an old fort. Many years later I read that the old fort was Fort Lookout, a Continental army fort which was used to track movement of British troops during the Revolution.

     We were usually hungry by the end of the day, and we didn't wait for a late supper. Instead of returning home right away, we stopped at Jack Kornfeld's corner store/tavern at the junction of old Route 9 and Sprout Brook Road. Jack's son Leon would often be at the store and he would take our orders. Leon was a funny guy with a great smile. At the store we bought Baby Ruth or Clark candy bars, Hershey's ice cream, flavored Italian ice pops, Drakes devil dogs, and bottled Pepsi, Coca Cola, Cream or Birch Beer soda for five cents each. We used to joke that we were trading one crab for one soda or one candy bar. Sometimes we rode our bikes toward Camp Smith, a few miles away near the Hudson river, and bought Carvel frozen custard at Truett's store, which we called Custard's Last Stand. The store was located near the circle of South Lower Street bridge, which spanned Annsville creek.