A Palenville Footbridge

E. & H. T. Anthony & Company’s dominance in the Stereoviews market in the years following the Civil War left plenty of room for niche photographers to make their mark. John Jacob Loeffler of Tompkinsville, Staten Island, was one such practitioner who availed himself of the chance to compose stereographs of scenes sometimes off the beaten path and overlooked by his peers. Across the Catskills he captured countless images of both the majestic and rustic, creating what would become an authoritative catalog of some of the most iconic corners of this celebrated vacationland. All indications seem to point to his catalog of work being considerable in scale, but today relatively little is known of him and his artistry. The Library of Congress offers seven images by him in their catalog, and a few miscellaneous websites purport to have scattered selections of his various stereographic series. 

None of these resources offer definitive dates of publication for Loeffler’s images; instead they offer broad circa dates covering the 1860s and 1870s. As discussed in my last article on the topic, dating stereographs so broadly over this date range has profound implications if one needs to understand the photographer’s process and technique, because taking a picture in 1860 was a vastly different experience than it was even fifteen years later in 1875. The monumental changes that occurred in the development of the Northern Catskills following the Civil War also meant that within twenty years many published stereographs showed scenes that were gone or otherwise transformed beyond recognition. Add another century and score to that and historians looking at Loeffler’s views are sometimes hard pressed to determine where a picture was taken, let alone a precise date of composition. One such example of a mysterious Loeffler image is a stereograph of a small pedestrian bridge in Palenville.

J. Loeffler’s Stereograph “[Number] 297, Foot Bridge, Near Griffin’s Store, Palensville [sic]” from Catskill Mountain Scenery, Fourth Series. Undated but likely circa 1870. Image PC-0000-0021-0068, Vedder Research Library.

The scene is rather inconspicuous, as it shows a small crossing of the Kaaterskill Creek in a working class corner of Palenville downstream from the Clove and its popular natural scenery. There are no mountains in the background, indicating that the scene looks downstream and eastward. None of the buildings are recognizable, and were it not for the fact that the stereo card’s reverse said “Foot Bridge, Near Griffin’s Store, Palensville [sic]” one would be hard pressed to say the scene was in Palenville at all. 

Fortunately the clues given in Loeffler’s description were enough to locate the general vicinity of “Griffin’s Store” on the 1867 atlas map of the Town of Catskill. On that map appear several buildings and manufactories owned by “G. & S. T. Griffin” on both sides of the Kaaterskill north of the Malden Turnpike at the southeast end of the hamlet. One of the buildings they owned was a chair factory near the home of G. Griffin, several others may have been worker’s housing, and one is shown as S. T. Griffin’s (probably his house) nearby their store. Interestingly, a stone rubbing mill is nested alongside the Griffin complex on a small dead end path near the turnpike. No informal crossings like the one in the picture are shown on the 1867 atlas, but with businesses and family homes on both sides of the Kaaterskill creek it is not surprising that the Griffins may have had a foot bridge to allow workers and themselves easy access between properties. 

Detail from the 1867 Atlas of Greene County showing the hamlet of Palenville within the Town of Catskill. Giles Griffin and Samuel Griffin’s expansive complex of homes and workshops can be seen above the Malden Turnpike.

In the 1865 Census of New York State both Giles Griffin and Samuel T. Griffin are listed as merchants and heads of households in Catskill’s Third District. Theodore Teal, another Palenville resident, was the enumerator for the third district. Many of the people listed in Griffin’s neighborhood were European immigrants, and the occupations given alongside their entries offer a window into the composition of the community around Samuel Griffin’s house and store.  One neighbor of Griffin’s named Archibald Davis was a chair maker, possibly living in one of the homes shown near the chair factory; neighbors John Graff and Jacob Baslee were tanners who may have been employed at the tannery opposite their homes over the wooden footbridge in Loeffler’s stereograph; also close by were James and Isaac Newkirk, stonecutters. Margaret Herald, the 38-year-old German wife of Augustus Herald (himself age 48 and from Russia), gave her occupation as “Tanner” as the only employed member of their household. All of these people living near Griffin’s Store and the wooden footbridge seem to have worked within view of their front doors.

Entry from the 1865 New York State Census showing Margaret Herald listed as a Tanner. Enumerator Theodore Teal’s script employs a more highly stylized uppercase “F” compared to his uppercase “T,” otherwise the words “Tanner” and “Farmer” would be entirely conflated.

On a preceding page we find Giles Griffin, also a merchant, living alongside wood turners Aaron Smith and Albert Craft. Two other neighbors named John Mower and Peter Craft were stonecutters. The stonecutters who lived near Giles and Samuel are most intriguing, as it was likely all these men were either employed in nearby bluestone quarries or at the stone rubbing mill near Griffin’s store itself. Stone rubbing mills were a facility for finishing quarried bluestone before reaching market, though they were often run by middlemen and located near docks on the Hudson. 

A NYS Museum Bulletin from 1903 describes in considerable detail the operation of bluestone quarries in the northern Catskills — listing different grades and types of bluestone, their uses, and the finishing processes employed to make the stone marketable. It is possible that the rubbing mill in Palenville was devised to cut out middlemen at the river landings and help get quarrymen more revenue for their work. Whatever its objective, this stone rubbing mill helps definitively place Loeffler’s stereograph of the footbridge, because in the background to the right on both views can be seen piled bluestone and tailings which would have been typical of the reduction debris and unprocessed stock seen at a rubbing mill. 

Detail of the right image from Loeffler’s stereograph showing stacked Bluestone and reduction debris behind the Rubbing Mill. From J. Loeffler’s “[Number] 297, Foot Bridge, Near Griffin’s Store, Palensville [sic]” from Catskill Mountain Scenery, Fourth Series. Undated but likely circa 1870. Image PC-0000-0021-0068, Vedder Research Library.

Based on the description Loeffler gives for his stereograph and clues present in the images themselves the above marker and arrows illustrate the probable location where “Foot Bridge Near Griffin’s Store” was composed. South of the photographer’s position appears Griffin’s store. The bridge further upstream is not an alternate candidate, as it wouldn’t allow for the appearance of the rear of the Rubbing Mill. Likewise the Tannery would be too close, but the Griffin's chair shop is more correctly spaced.

What remains unknown is a precise date for Loeffler’s scene, because the rubbing mill in the 1867 atlas may have operated for several years prior and subsequent to the atlas’ publication and there are no other features shown which would narrow the date beyond the period between 1865 and 1875. We do however have a much clearer idea of the exact location of this scene as well as the social makeup of the neighborhood surrounding Loeffler’s footbridge. It is interesting that Loeffler, in a departure from typical stereographs showing scenes of natural beauty, prominent buildings, and locales often only accessible to people of means, would decide to compose a view of a rustic and utilitarian footbridge in a predominantly immigrant neighborhood of a working class Catskill Mountain hamlet. 

By Jonathan Palmer, Greene County Historian

Email Jon with questions via archivist@gchistory.org