The Hoag Farm

photograph by Jane Radocchia

East Hoosick, NY

Published November 2013

Johnson Hill Road – the back route from East to North Hoosick – cuts across the hills. All along the way people have placed their houses to take advantage of the marvelous views.

One farm doesn’t. It is tucked down in a hollow between 2 hills.

It’s been here a long time, more than 250 years, a land grant from King George III through the Royal Governor of New York to Henry Lake in 1762. Lake gave it to his daughter, Charity, when she married Van Dyke Quackenbush. In 1926, George Wolfrum, the last farm manager for the Walter A. Wood Farm, bought the land. His son-in-law, James F, Hoag, purchased it in 1945. Today the farm is owned by his son, James F Hoag, Jr.

I love this farm’s attention to its specific climate, as well as its rhythm as the barns and sheds step down the slope, a red and brown backdrop to the graceful white house.

The farmers here knew what the weather could be and how to work with it. On this side of the Green and Taconic Mountains, here where we live, the wind comes from the west, across flat New York all the way from the Great Lakes. Here the farmers tucked the barns below the hills and the wind with their doors to the south and east, their backs to the west and north.

As the farm grew, the ‘little cow barn’, a sheep shed, an oat house, granary, ice house, corn house, and blacksmith shop were added down the western edge of the farm yard.

Together with judicious use of solid fencing, the barns form, then and today, a protected work yard, a sun pocket: a warm corner out of the wind.

Farmers do not place their buildings on good pastures or fields. Here the sheds and barns stretch down from the woods to the road, between the fields on each side. They sit beside a creek that joins Woods Brook, with several springs up hill. More barns once stood just below the road.

About 1840 the Quackenbush family built a new house, 2 stories with a wing – the one we see today. The original farm house sat just in front to the large barn to the north. It became the ‘wool house’, a place to turn wool from fleece into yarn.

The new house, like the old, faced south to catch the sunlight all year long. Two maples were planted in front to give shade in the summer.

The house also faced the road, welcoming visitors, its front door an inviting entrance with sidelights and columns. The small side porch, now enclosed, would have protected family and company from sun, rain, and snow. Built in the latest style, today called Greek Revival, its broad corner boards with applied columns and wide frieze board under the eaves were inspired by the columns and architrave of a Greek temple. All this molding, even on the west wing, along with its entrance and large windows showed those passing by that this was a prosperous modern farm.