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Hi, Friends!

We are moving our website to Tremanparkfriends.org. Please follow us there!

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Our May meeting will take place on Wednesday, May 8, at 4:30 p.m. in the lunch room in the maintenance building in the lower park.

Friends of Treman president Bob Kellogg introduces Josh Teeter, Finger Lakes State Parks environmental educator and our speaker at our annual meeting last month.

Our secretary, Molly Adams, would like to share some information from Hanford Mills, an educational grist mill to our east south of Oneonta: She says that Hanford Mills has put in action “the power transfer system between the horizontal steam engine and the sawmill.”  

“In September, our work culminated in a successful test operation of the restored water turbine (watch an impressive video). Molly says it is “a pretty impressive video of a water turbine in action.”

And indeed it is. The significance for Treman? Our “Old Mill” was powered in its later years by a similar horizontal metal turbine. You can see its “rose wheel” in back of the mill below the porch.

Molly says, “Hanford Mills is celebrating its 40th year, a good time to go visit. They are south of Oneonta in a somewhat tricky rural location, so prospective visitors might want to get a Google map and also check open hours, etc.” 
See their website at http://www.hanfordmills.org

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Dear Friends of Treman,

We would like you to join us at the annual meeting of the “Friends of Robert H. Treman State Park” on April 21, 2013 at 2 PM at the Tompkins County Public Library in the Borg Warner Room.

At this annual meeting members will elect officers for the period of April 2013 through March of 2014. We will give the members and public present a brief update of our activities last year. Our current treasurer Alice Garey will give a financial report.

We will have a presentation by Josh Teeter, Environmental Educator for NYS Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, Finger Lakes Region title: “Our Ephemeral Environment”, a discussion of some of the short-lived plants, animals and natural displays of beauty.

Dues to be a member of the “Friends of Robert H. Treman State Park” for April 2013 through April 2014 are only $10. If you are not able to attend this annual meeting and want to be a member of this organization please mail your dues to “Friends of Robert H. Treman State Park”, 105 Enfield Falls Road, Ithaca New York 14850.

Robert Kellogg
President of “Friends of Robert H. Treman State Park”

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Hi All,

   Happy New Year all. Let us look on 2012 as fond memories in all that we did. Let us start 2013 looking to make a difference in all we plan and do!

   Let us all think of how the Friends of Treman can make plans for a great 2013 and bring those ideas together in our first meeting on Jan 9, 2013 at 4:30 PM….at the Lower Treman  maintenance building.

Thanks…..Smiles….

Bob Kellogg, President

Friends of Robert H. Treman State Park

This model of the old CCC camp in upper Treman is being built by archeology students at Cornell.

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Generally, our Friends of Treman board meetings (to which members are welcome), occur on the first Wednesday of each month. This month, however, we will forego a meeting on December 5, and instead will meet on Tuesday, December 11, at 5:00 p.m. on the Cornell campus in Prof. Sherene Baugher’s archeology lab for a presentation on plans by her students for new exhibits in the Old Mill.

We invite you to join us on Dec. 11 for this first major presentation at McGraw Hall, 5:00 PM, Rm. B 65, Cornell.

Parking is free after 5:00.  McGraw is on the west side of the Arts Quad, two buildings south of the Johnson Art Museum and has a lovely tower on it.  We hope to see you there.

The existing exhibit case, that combines artifacts and displays about archeology in the Hamlet of Enfield Falls with those from the CCC camp, is located in the CCC exhibit room on the west side of the Old Mill. A new exhibit case would allow us to move this case into the main part of the mill and dedicate it to the theme of life in the hamlet. Neil Poppensiek’s CCC dishes on the top two shelves would go into the new exhibit case that would exclusively feature the CCC camp, and would include a new scale model of the camp!

At this presentation, we will be giving the students feedback on their plans so far. Directions to this meeting will follow soon. You are invited to join us!

Park Manager Jim Dunn and Friends of Treman President Bob Kellogg (rear) stand by the current exhibit case in the CCC room in the Old Mill in Robert H. Treman State Park.

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Neil Poppensiek, first president of the Friends of Robert H. Treman State Park, would have loved to have been there. For the rest of us, he certainly was in spirit.

Neil Poppensiek stands by Fishkill Creek behind the Old Mill. A dam above the waterfall once impounded water that powered the mill. Neil loved the mill and the park.

On September 29, the Friends of Robert H. Treman State Park held our annual Heritage Day in the upper park. The upper park was the former Hamlet of Enfield Falls and is on the National Register of Historic Places. Two buildings survive from this “agricultural service hamlet,” the Old Mill and the Miller’s Cottage. Both Greek Revival structures were built about 1839. The mill, though now closed for the winter, is open to the public and is a museum of milling technology, revealing how flour was produced in this mill and the role the mill played in the surrounding agricultural community. There is an exhibit room on the first floor telling the story of the CCC camp that was in the upper park during the Great Depression. And there are exhibits about the archeological work going on in the upper park since the 1990s. On the second floor there is an exhibit room displaying agricultural implements used in the area during the 19th century.

A Friends of Treman guide was on hand at the Old Mill entrance to lead park visitors on a tour.

A high point of this year’s Heritage Day was the unveiling of a plaque in the mill honoring the contributions of the late Neil Poppensiek, founder and first president of the Friends of Robert H. Treman State Park. Neil loved the park and the mill. He grew up near the park, worked there for a number of seasons, and conducted a prodigious amount of research into the history of the park, the mill, and the CCC camp. Much of what we know about the history of the park and the community that preceded it comes from Neil’s work over many years.

Friends of Treman President Bob Kellogg speaks during the dedication of the plaque honoring Neil Poppensiek.

The new plaque honoring the contributions of Neil Poppensiek to Robert H. Treman State Park on the side of an exhibit case containing some of the artifacts he found in the old CCC camp.

Each year on Heritage Day, the public is invited to visit the ongoing archeological dig on former building sites from the hamlet. Cornell students in Prof. Sherene Baugher’s urban archeology class explain the structures and artifacts they unearth around old house foundations that will reveal what life was like in this former community that was centered around the water power of Enfield Creek and Fishkill Creek. This year, the class is excavating the site of the “Rumsey House.” Mr. Rumsey was the owner of a sawmill that used to operate in the hamlet.

Prof. Baugher discusses a pit with her students at an archeological dig in upper Robert H. Treman State Park.

The Friends of Treman offered tours of the Old Mill throughout the afternoon, while Finger Lakes State Park naturalist Josh Teeter was on hand to lead a tour of the gorge and Lucifer Falls (once known as Enfield Falls).

VIDEO ABOUT HERITAGE DAY

Friends of Treman Board member Tony Ingraham hosts an Ithaca public access TV show called “Walk in the Park.” He dedicated the first half of the episode following Heritage Day to this event. Click on this link to see this show about Heritage Day at Robert H. Treman State Park (on Tony’s Walk in the Park video blog post: scroll down to see the video.).

Winter will soon force the park to close most trails. And the Friends of Treman will bring their monthly meetings inside. November’s meeting will take place this Wednesday, November 7, at 4:30 p.m. in the lunch room in the maintenance building in the lower park (first left after the ticket booth). Members are welcome to attend.

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Park Manager Jim Dunn and Friends of Treman President Bob Kellogg (rear) stand by CCC and archeology artifacts in new exhibit in Old Mill in Robert H. Treman State Park.

The Friends of  Robert H. Treman State Park will be hosting “Heritage Day” in the Upper Park on Saturday, September 29, 2012 from 1 – 4 pm. Events will include guided tours of the Mill, naturalist conducted tours of the gorge and an “in progress” archeological  dig at the site of the former Hamlet of Enfield Falls.  Excavations are being carried out by Dr. Sherene Baugher and her students and visitors are welcome. There are several new exhibits in the Mill which highlight aspects of life in the camp of the Civilian Conservation Corps as well as in the former Hamlet of Enfield Falls.

Come and enjoy the beauty of the park, see all of the new displays and stop by for a chat at the (always interesting) archeological dig.

Cornell archeology students work on a buried house foundation in the site of the former hamlet of Enfield Falls in Upper Treman.

Lucifer Falls. Park naturalist Josh Teeter will lead guided nature walks in the upper gorge.

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On Sunday, April 15, the Friends of Robert H. Treman State Park will hold their annual meeting at 2 pm in the Borg Warner Room at the Tompkins County Public Library in Ithaca. After a brief business meeting and election of officers, Professor Sherene Baugher and several of her students in the Archaeology Program at Cornell will talk about “The 1935 Flood and the Civilian Conservation Corps at Robert H. Treman State Park.” Students have been digging at the Upper Park at Treman for several years and can tell a lot about what archaeology can reveal about past events. This program is free and open to the public.