As the Hudson Valley looks back 400 years to the European explorer who first charted its banks, the river valley itself was an integral part of another celebrated anniversary America’s War of Independence.
The Fourth of July holds even deeper meaning for one resident whose great-great-great grandfather served in the Revolutionary War and settled the very hamlet he lives in today. Ron Selkirk is a direct descendent of James Selkirk, whom the southern hamlet is named after and who fought in the Battles of Saratoga.
James Selkirk was honorably discharged by Gen. George Washington after serving in the war. His descendant has an official copy of his ancestor’s discharge papers encased in a glass frame at his home, which he and his wife, Judy, affectionately refer to as the Back 40,` because it sits on 40 acres of undeveloped former farmland.
`This farm when I was a kid was a hundred acres,` Selkirk said of his property along Maple Avenue and River Road. `We raised chickens for eggs. They used to have very good egg routes in the city, not house to house, but the restaurants and the stores. At that time they had over 4,000 birds and we moved up to 7,000 when I got into the business.`
Selkirk’s father, Robert Selkirk, retired from the family business in 1965, and Selkirk took over, but it wasn’t as profitable as it once was.
`In eight months, I made only a couple of nickels,` he said about the family farmland that was eventually sold to a man from New Jersey who built a truck stop near the newly built state Thruway.
Selkirk, 75, is five generations removed from James Selkirk (1756-1820), who immigrated to the Colony of New York from Scotland and served in the Second Regiment during the Revolutionary War. He participated in the war’s turning point 232 years ago while fighting near Stillwater in a group of battles that eventually became known as the Battles of Saratoga.
He eventually went on to settle the area now known as Selkirk in 1786.
`He saw a lot over six years and five months,` Selkirk said about his ancestor’s service in the militia.
Historical records of James Selkirk’s first-hand accounts from fighting in the war are on file at the Bethlehem Town Hall. They paint a picture of a brave, yet kind man, who fought for his country in several intense battles despite becoming deathly ill more than once.
He saw companions die and looked into the face of the enemy both on and off the field of battle. James Selkirk wrote extensively about the Battle of Saratoga against British Gen. John Burgoyne’s army.
`We came where the battle was flying thick and fast. We made a short halt in a meadow where we were wholly exposed to the fire of the enemy. We immediately marched on, jumped over a brush fence and commenced fire,` James Selkirk wrote. `The smoke was very thick and the enemy was just before us. [a man] received a ball in his arm which went through his body. He turned round on his feet and fell down deadclose by where I stood.`
The battles raged on from Sept. 19 until Oct. 7, 1777, as Gen. Burgoyne waited for reinforcements from New York City that never arrived. The victory was pivotal for the Colonists because it convinced France to lend solid support to the cause.
James Selkirk fought under the command of Brig. Gen. Ebenezer Learned and alongside other notable American commanders such as Col. Daniel Morgan and Gen. Benedict Arnold.
He wrote about the scene after the fighting subsided when he came upon a gravely wounded German mercenary.
`I went and spoke to a poor Hessian grenadier that was very badly wounded through the groin looking wistfully at me. [He] asked me in broken language if I had any water seeing a canteen about my neck,` James Selkirk wrote. `He said he was almost faint. I told him I had some rum if he would drink some of that, I should make him welcome and he thankfully accepted my offer and drank what he pleased.`
The humble graciousness of the German solider left an impression on James Selkirk, who then wrote, `I have never seen a man so thankful as he was and he offered to give me his grenadiers cap for he had nothing else to give me.`
James Selkirk was also witness to another historical footnote when he saw Benedict Arnold break his leg in battle.
`General Arnold was wounded through the leg and his horse shot from under him,` he wrote.
There is a monument that depicts a boot in the Saratoga National Historical Park in honor of Arnold’s injury and valor in the Battles of Saratoga and other American victories. It reads, `In memory of the ‘most brilliant soldier’ of the Continental Army who was desperately wounded on this spot.`
However, it never mentions Arnold by name as he is forever stigmatized as a traitor in the annals of American history.
On the back of Selkirk’s framed discharge papers is a hand-written genealogy of sorts that listed the male line from James Selkirk down to Selkirk himself and his brother Charles Selkirk. Selkirk has now added his own two sons on the list.
His uncle Russell Selkirk moved to Cobleskill to open a hardware store while his father Robert Selkirk ran the family farm. Russell Selkirk went on to become the supervisor of Cobleskill and eventually the state Assemblyman for Schoharie County from 1959 until 1966.
The famous Selkirk Rail yards bear his family name as well, and were a huge development boom for the entire area. Selkirk said he heard family stories about its construction in 1924, which cost $25 million and was part of the Castleton Cut Off and encompassed the freight yards and the bridge over the Hudson River.
`The man came and said, ‘We’re gonna name it the Selkirk Rail yards,’` Selkirk said. `And my grandfather said, ‘Well that’ll be nice.`
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