Upstate NY Hidden History You Need To Know: Revolutionary War Battles, Gallows on Main Street, Teddy Roosevelt & What’s a Flockey?
Legendary local historian Jeff O’Connor knows where the bodies—and the battles—are buried. Now he’s bringing Schoharie County’s hidden Revolutionary history and local lore to life for America’s 250th.
Turning Point’s Jeff O’Connor leads a tour of Fountaintown—Schoharie.
The first recorded U.S. Cavalry charge didn't happen at Gettysburg. It happened in 1777 in Fultonham, just past Middleburgh on Route 30. The Battle of the Flockey. The good guys won. You didn't learn that in school.
Welcome to Schoharie County, the Breadbasket of the American Revolution, where history isn't something you read about—it's something you walk through.
Jeff O'Connor—tricorn hat, four history books, and endless stories—leads tours that turn Main Street into a time machine. One of the walkers on the Fountaintown Tour? David Daniels, fresh from Manhattan with his husband and looking to connect his own family history to his new home.
"This is your tour now," O'Connor tells him. "Ask your questions."
Daniels has plenty. So many that a two-hour walk stretches way longer as they climb Schoharie's hills under a brutal summer sun, chasing stories most people will never Google.
Legendary Local Lore
Like the 1743 Palatine House—possibly the village's oldest home, built for a minister who definitely wasn't poor. Or the Lutheran Cemetery, where 200-year-old trees shade the grave of Thomas Smoke, a Black messenger who traveled south during the Civil War at unthinkable risk. "If he'd been caught, he'd have been executed as horribly as possible."
Sidenote: on Juneteenth 2023, local entrepreneur, Raema Frost led a ceremony recognizing 39 long-forgotten residents in the ‘Colored Section’ of the Middleburgh town cemetery. Archaeologist Zach McKeeby from the Schoharie River Center discovered the graves using a magnetometer—and suspects there are more. Read more here.
Then there's the guy who slowly poisoned his wife with arsenic and swung from gallows erected in the cemetery. The gallows? Already there. For another murderer. (Gallows? Scaffolds built for the public execution of criminals. By hanging.)
Down the hill to Main Street, where blue and gold markers show approximate locations—hotels, taverns, the village's first school. Each spot has its own flavor. One hotel sparked the idea to close Main Street for open-air movies from 1917 to 1942. Another, the Parrot House (currently under renovation as a boutique hotel and steak house), hosted Teddy Roosevelt in 1914. His speech was delayed because he got deep into conversation with an ornithologist. A bird guy.
At the 1795 Lasell Hall, O'Connor hints at a shingle found upstairs suggesting the tavern might have been quite the "fun" place. Wink-wink. That's all he'll say.
"I give people the stories," O'Connor says. "They take away what they're interested in."
Plan Your Visit
O'Connor's tours dig into Revolutionary War battles most historians miss, 18th-century architecture still standing on Main Street, and Mohawk Valley and Capital Region legendary local lore that'll make you rethink everything you thought you knew about Upstate New York. These aren't your high school history walks—they're the hidden stories that actually shaped this country.
For tour schedules: turningpoint1777.com
The Old Stone Fort Museum: https://theoldstonefort.org/
Middleburgh Cemetery Project: SchoharieRiverCenter.org/cemetery-project
Schoharie County Town Historian: schohariecounty-ny.gov/towns/town_of_schoharie/services/town_historian.php
Jeff O'Connor's Books:
The Old Stone Fort: Guardian of Schoharie County History Since 1772
Skohere and the Birth of New York's Western Frontier (Volumes I-III)
Root Access is your guide to life, work, and community in Schoharie County, NY. Know any legendary local lore? Comment below!
