Ancram
The Mill on the Roeliff Jansen Kill is a wonderful book, collaboratively written by the RJHS and published by Black Dome Press, recounts the long industrial history in Ancram on along the Roe Jan River.
The town, founded in 1803, and was originally part of Gallatin. In 1814 Ancram separated from Gallatin and became an independent Town. The name was derived from the Livingston homestead in Anchoram, Scotland. Robert Livingston, first Lord of the Manor was the son of a Scotch clergyman, born in Anchoram, Scotland in 1654. The town comprises 27,000 of the total 160,000 acres the Livingston family had held from the initial grant by the English Crown in 1686. Philip Livingston, grandson of Robert, founded the first iron works in 1743, the only one of its kind on the banks of the Roeliff Jansen Kill and in the NY Colony. there were four forges, a blast furnace and a refinery forge that employed 75 to 100 men at full operation. Three iron mines and a lead mine supported the iron works.
(the following is from Wikipedia)
Recorded as part of the land grant to the Livingston family, this area on the Roeliff Jansen Kill was originally called "Livingston Forge" after the iron foundry developed on the river. Throughout the eighteenth century, the Livingston forge created metal products for the community. The town was sometimes known as "Scotchtown" due to the immigrants of Scottish ancestry who flocked there in the late 18th century. As the Revolution drew near, the factory produced shot, cannonballs, and perhaps most importantly, the huge chain which was installed across the Hudson River at West Point as a defense against British ships going upriver. The "Fort Montgomery Chain" was worked up in 1776 at the Ancram foundry and placed across the Hudson River near West Point between Fort Montgomery and Fort Clinton. On October 6, 1777, British forces attacked the two forts, choosing to outflank the forts on land rather than test the strength of the chain directly. It is believed that the chain was confiscated by the British forces when they retreated from the fort several weeks later. Its whereabouts is unknown but one prominent British historian surmises it was shipped to Gibraltar to defend shipping in that British colony.
After the Revolution, the town was established from part of the town of Livingston in 1803, and was then called "Gallatin". In 1814, the name was changed to "Ancram", after the town in Scotland where the Livingstons had their origins. Part of Ancram was taken to form a new town of Gallatin in 1830.
Mining of iron and lead was important in the early economy; the town of Ancramdale was originally known as "Ancram Lead Mines".
The hamlet of Boston Corner was formerly part of the town of Mount Washington, Massachusetts. Because it was more accessible from Ancram, it was annexed by the New York town on April 13, 1857, by an agreement between the states.
