Small Towns in New York's Hudson Valley: Valatie (Cycle 01)

My good friend and former coworker lives in Valtie, New York. He suggested we participate on the Cycle the Hudson Valley 5-day bike tour along the Empire State Trail from Troy to New York City. That sounded fantastic! After some training, I shipped one of my bicycles to Valatie, booked a flight to Albany, and joined him in mid-August (2025). 

Valatie is a village a short distance southeast of Albany in Columbia County. This is classic rural upstate New York, near the home of President Martin Van Buren and near the setting of Washington Irving's popular short story, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. This is beautiful country, with rolling hills, hollows, winding roads, farms, traditional barns, and forest. 

Here are some scenes in and near Valatie (no bicycling yet)

Shop local, drink coffee local

Fred and Peter patiently waiting for me to take some pictures

Beaver Mill Falls, Kinderhook River

Harry Houdini filmed scenes from Haldane of the Secret Service on the waterfall. 

Barn (or house?), 2098 River Road (Hwy. 9J), Schodack Landing

Old house with partial asphalt shingles, 601 River Road (Hwy 9J), Schodack

Note how the original (or at least old) wood clapboards are now exposed on the front. But at some stage in its history, this house was clad with asphalt shingles. We think of them as a cover for low-grade housing, but in reality, they are durable, colorfast, moisture-proof, and resist bugs.

Barn on County Rte 2, Schodack, NY

Stuyvesant Landing Depot, Stuyvesant, built in 1880

Former State Farm for Women Prisoners

We drove on State Farm Road and came across several derelect multi-floor buildings. My friend said the county had used it for office space, but he did know its original use. To me, they had the appearance of early-20th century hospitals or asylums. With some searching, I found a reference that these buildings were intended to be the State Farm for Women Misdemeanants. More detail is in the appendix below.

I took these photographs on Kodak Portra 160 film with a Canonet GIII QL17 camera. It has a superb 40mm ƒ/1.7 fully coated lens. Northeast Photographic in Bath, Maine, processed the film, and I scanned it with a Nikon Coolscan 5000ED film scanner.

Appendix: History of the State Farm

 

From the New York History of Medicine and Public Health:

By 1908, the Women’s Prison Association had successfully lobbied for 315 public acres for such a place, the State Farm for Women Misdemeanants, in Valatie, New York.8 The site was planned in accordance with the early 20th-century trend of cottage-designed prisons, which placed inmates in small cottages scattered across a rural setting. The cottages were set up like small homes, with a dining room, kitchen, and sitting room. Household tasks were divided among the women. The idea was to engender self-esteem in the inmates, who then might be better positioned to take on these roles once released.9

“Cottage on State Farm for Women.” In “The Modern Way,” 1913, page 14.

Bordered by the foothills of the Adirondacks, the Berkshires, the Matteawan Mountains, and the Catskills and Helderbergs, State Farm in Valatie offered tillable land, ample space, and a healthy environment. At completion, the farm was projected to have 27 buildings on the cottage plan, and would stress rehabilitation and careful supervision by an all-female staff (except for typically male roles, i.e. leadership roles like warden). Prisoners over 30 who had been convicted five times in two years qualified for accommodation.10

“Inmates’ Room, State Farm for Women.” In “The Modern Way,” 1913, page 17.

When “The Modern Way” went to print, two cottages were ready for occupancy. Fifteen hundred New York women were eligible. According to the pamphlet’s writers, every farm implement had been purchased, and the grounds were populated with horses, cattle, and poultry.11 And yet, the pamphlet’s frustrated authors argued, the land remained vacant. Appeals to two different governors and the Senate Finance Committee to fund the opening of the cottages all stalled.12 At the close of “The Modern Way” we are left wondering what happened to State Farm. Was it ever operational?

“Cattle on State Farm for Women.” In “The Modern Way,” 1913, page 20.

The answer was yes. State Farm at Valatie was completed in 1914. But in total, the Columbia County facility accommodated only 146 inmates. These were mostly white women between the ages of 30 and 60, accused of public drunkenness. Funding was always scarce. By 1918, all the inmates had been paroled, and the grounds were turned over to a treatment center for women suffering from venereal disease.13 The efforts of the Women’s Prisoners’ Association to install State Farm as a viable alternative to the Workhouse model appears to have been only successful in the short term. Nevertheless, “The Modern Way” captures an important moment in the history of the Women’s Prison Association of New York, an organization still very active in lobbying for the rights of women prisoners today.