The Sullivan County Historical Society’s display about the Neversink-Hackledam project (left) sits next to one about the Town of Thompson’s one-room schoolhouses. The topics are connected by the history of a cable bridge over the Neversink River that allowed local children to get to school.
Hurleyville, NY – The Neversink-Hackledam project is a little-known and long forgotten proposal to build a hydroelectric dam on the Neversink River in Forestburgh. Proposed in 1913, it would have changed the face of Sullivan County, with a 9-mile-long reservoir stretching upstream from Forestburgh across the Town of Thompson into the Town of Fallsburg, with a 60-foot depth at Bridgeville!
Building this massive project would have included a 2 ½-mile train line, a 5 ½-mile tunnel through the Shawangunk Mountains, as well as relocating the hamlet of Bridgeville and three cemeteries. The project was abandoned when funding was diverted to the World War I effort, but the survey for this reservoir, which included property belonging to major landowner Benjamin Wechsler, would snarl the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation in a protracted and expensive lawsuit in 1986 as they acquired land for the current Neversink Gorge Unique Area.
Opening July 24 at 2 p.m., the display will also include the completed Town of Thompson One-Room School Project, with 20 historic plaques erected. A display case, featuring an 1835 lease between Elijah Clark and the still-standing Columbia Hill School #17 of the Monticello School District, is currently being renovated.
Join the Sullivan County Historical Society to learn some fabulous local history – and how these projects were connected by a cable swinging bridge to allow local schoolchildren to cross the Neversink River! The display is dedicated to former Town of Thompson Historian Al Wolkoff.
The Sullivan County Cultural Center is located at 265 Main Street in Hurleyville, New York. For more information, call 845-434-8044. The opening is free, and light refreshments will be served.
