Colonie Central High School - Rougetor Yearbook (Albany, NY)

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,4 Whispering Pin: . . . While the wind rustled through the Pine Bush area, as a young unsteady sapling, I can remem- ber the Indians brushing past me on their way to the Schenectady massacre. Even today I have flint chips stuck in the roots of my frame. The wind carried many a tale to my ears of incidences hidden by the Pine Bush. I can re- member hearing the everyday noises of the Three Willows Tavern suddenly stilled by the shouts of Jacob Truax, the owner, when the Schenectady militia arrived to arrest him. They suspected him of Tory leanings. Enraged, he seized a toma- hawk, but the troops disarmed him and took him to their barracks. His sons, Isaac and John, pro- with toll gates, at Lisha Kill Road and the Al- bank County Line. I heard that many drivers complained about the rates, ten cents for one horseg fifteen cents for a team. Once only four rods wide, now the Albany- Schenectady Road, the highway was filled with stone and covered with sand and gravel and then the dirt lane ran through the middle. The high- way consisted of three sections by 1889, the middle section, cobblestone and gravel, with a dirt road on each side of it. Every man contributed time to fix the roads of the area. If he did not, a poll tax was collected from him. The toll gates 0 , ,,, ,A . V i 7 jf? f - ,iii if 7 . :is ' ' 'X E 'fy' A C A E- K. .. . 51: V R , - L A, A T 't T ' tested later when their place was searched for Tories and deserters who were never found. I can remember when I was proudly display- ing my first foliage, some women huddled to- gether under my spreading array of needles for comfort as their men-folk laboriously tried to help the driver get the wheels of a stage coach back onto the path. It was sunk hub deep in the mire which lined the road. Once again they finally righted the vehicle and eventually they wended their way along to Sha-nek-ta-de, the Trail Through The Pines. A lone stage coach through the pines was just the beginning. A real turnpike developed were discontinued in 1891 and the highway changed. The needles of my branches were really shaken when the first railroad was established by the Mohawk and Hudson between Albany and Sche- nectady. The trains had only three cars, shaped like stage coaches, which were chained together. They lurched so much that passengers confiscated rails from a nearby fence and jammed them be- tween the cars in a desperate move to remain in one place. I was afraid that they might be- come enraged enough to chop me down and use me as a ram between cars!

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TABLE OF CONTENTS 2 Administration . . . . . Seniors ......... . . . . wx Under Classrnen Activities ..... .... X fy Sports ..... .....113 x X Advertising . . . .... .133 .N X FXR If x, '5 N '. X fx X . 'X X 4 Y' N .xxx fg, R ,X r ,Vx X A 1 AIA - JS, jf i I xsxlxisl... W aff L2 xg, Fixx , xx X 1. f ra ' sxkx X ,gif ' , A ,mls Migics :sms ws ic-. f- MQ. at 1 fx so ff if 4 XX xbix 'ky ,f..X,x 'N X 1 ng ,, 1 -' sm f f' N. . N 9 jg X I, :S .fs it , A IAQ jfs 'UQ I ik if J' A' 1' NX ith ,. fritk 'ZS- ,gxx I Z X ' 'ks limi ,X i STN .+ N 'if-jg fx A, xxx. I X X XXX, ,. A 1 IAQ x I ' 4 ' I if ,AMW-f ' fran-,.. . IMI' B A -es-:lp--V W , ,I 5---w .- 'Pi ' ? - fin' -,-'S- Che Heritage af Pine Hush Proudly, patiently, atop the lonely dunes I have kept my silent vigil over the wind-swept plains of Colonic. I came with the sand, tossed from the desert left in the tomb of Lake Albany. Flourishing on the granite sand, washed from the Adirondacks into the Mohawk by glacial streams, I have nurtured the barriers which have become the symbol of the transcendental beauty of the Pine Bush. Written by the wind, I whisper to you now a rhapsody.

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