You never know what you might find when digging through that old stuff in the basement. It seems that Lee Traver found the meeting records for the Town of Greenbush, Rensselaer, County, New York, dating from 1796 to 1802.
This is an exciting find for me personally, as I had family who lived in the area about that time… The following excerpt is from an article by Bob Gardinier, published in the March 27, 2009 edition of the Times Union.
NORTH GREENBUSH — Lee Traver was in the basement sorting through a box of family items when he came across two very worn brown books written in beautiful quill penmanship.
“I had no idea what they were when I first found them,” said Traver, a farmer who lives off Route 43. “I didn’t think they were anything special but would never think of throwing them away.”
He found the books contained meeting records of a bygone town called Greenbush. The records were from 1796 to 1802.
Before the city of Rensselaer and towns of East and North Greenbush were formed in the mid to late 1800s, the area that encompasses them was called the town of Greenbush.
Little was known about the old town because records of meetings could not be found. In those days, there were no town halls, and meetings were held in private homes or, more often, in taverns. Records usually were kept at the homes of the people who compiled them.
…
Traver and Greenfield will present the books to the town of North Greenbush, which in turn may make copies for the other municipalities, Greenfield said.
Thanks to Pat Morrow for alerting me to the above item.
WONDERFUL! I have ancestors from that region, too. This is so exciting when new records come out of “hiding.”