Ken: Up on Mt. Nimham ... Well, we had a little farm there that finally wound up as several farms in the one. Eventually he bought some for tax [ease?] and so did his son after he died. And wound up with about 550 acres all together. That goes all the way to 301 way down by the town garage and north of the tower a little ways. And he raised sheep, cows and horses, chickens, ducks, geese. And they raised vegetables and potatoes ... one thing or another. One of those farms you survived on.

Interviewer: Now you said there was a wooden fire tower there?

Ken: That was built ... there was one there before we built it. It was my brother and my father and I built one for my uncle back in the early twenties ... out of logs, chestnut poles. That was probably, I don't know, maybe 60 feet high, something like 50-60, above the trees, so you could go up and look around. Then later in the Depression years, the State built a steel one there and the CCC boys built a road back in the Depression years.

Interviewer: Why did you build a fire tower?

Ken: Why? So people could go up and look around and see the view. People enjoyed going up and looking a-round there.

Interviewer: Just for fun?

Ken: Oh yeah ... just for fun. But there was one there before that. It was a wooden one before that. They called it Zachariah's Tower. I don't know why. I think it was Zachariah Smalley. I think was the name and he was probably the one who built it. It was Smalley's on that mountain once years ago. They owned some of it. And they called it Zachariah's Lookout I believe, yeah, Zachariah's Lookout. That was quite a famous name in those days, you know, Zachariah. Have you heard of it? You probably find it in that old historical book.

Interviewer: Okay, come on Ella, tell us about how you used to go up there. What do you remember?

Ella: About what?

Interviewer: Going up in the tower.

Ella: Well I didn't! I went up as many steps as my stomach would take and I walked down before I fell down. I didn't like heights.

Interviewer: I think it's great that the tower was built for pure enjoyment. I always thought fire towers were so that everyone could see where the fires were.

Ken: It was built for that purpose-yes the metal one was built for that purpose. They had a man there. And he lived there winter and summer. And he only watched through the dry season, fall and spring. Half the time he was unemployed, was on unemployment.

Interviewer: Did you know the fire warden? Did you know this Dick Ketchem?

Ken: Yeah..kinda..Yeah they put on a fire warden.

Interviewer: I don't know of any fires. Were there fires here?

Ken: Oh we had plenty of forest fires then. We didn't have all of the volunteer firemen we got now and all the firehouses. There was only one like in Carmel or Mahopac. There was none in Kent. Maybe Lake Carmel just started one. Yeah, we didn't have the volunteers. Everybody that the fire warden would go out and he'd tell you to go to a fire, you had to go. If you was young and able to fight fires, you had to go and fight them. Forest fires.

Interviewer: Would lightening start them?

Ken: Lightening, arsonists, and everything else. Lightening set a lot of them. Yeah, people careless with cigarettes, cigars, throwing them out, dry times.

Interviewer: I remember when I was a kid, there was always fire towers everywhere. People watching...

Ken: Oh yeah, they had them all up through Dutchess, just right up on through.

Interviewer: It was a big problem.

Ken: Yeah, they could spot a fire pretty good. They had those instruments there. They could tell right just about where it was and report it in. They were quite accurate.

Well there was Indian houses they called the long houses up there then. They were made out of part stone up a ways and then logs. They called them long houses. That's what they ah ... well, the Ninham tribe, they were the Wappinger Indians, that's what they built. There were some on the west side of the hill. I never knew what was over on the west side ... northwest side was the coldest. There were a few right on top of the mountain and over on the west side. When I was a small kid, I remember one of the Indians staying there. Some of the building was there. He'd drive up there with a horse and stay over a weekend or two or three days. I don't never know why. I remember him being in there and he died. He lived to be an old man. And he died sometime when I was probably in the realm of twenties, late twenties or thirty years old. He lived to be quite an old man. He lived down around Long Pond somewhere. Do you know where Long Pond is? He lived in that area somewhere. And his name was- they called him - Indian Hen Barrett. Hen, H-E-N. Barrett, B-A-R-R-E-T- T. And he was the last one that I know of of a full-blooded Indian of that tribe that I remember around here. He lived somewhere around Long Pond or that area and I remember when I was in my twenties, he would drive up over Mt. Ninham. My uncle lived up there, then run the farm. He would drive up there once in a while with a horse and wagon. I never knew why, maybe just to take a ride, look the place over.

Interviewer: You remember...

Ken: I remember two or three of them still standing. Yeah, the one that he was in and a couple more that had the roofs on. The triple camp boys tore them down, vandalized them, bulldozed everything and some of it was on their property

Interviewer: Who owned the land before it was your grandfather's?

Ken: Before my grandfather? I think it was some Smalley's owned it. They called it Smalley Mountain at one point. They called it Fair-view Farm. That was the name of it. Smalley Mountain. They called it before it was named Mt. Ninham. I mean, before that was a real name, you know. I guess they called it Ninham back when Ninham was around there. Probably, but it used to go by the name of Smalley Mountain.

This interview was recorded over several sessions on audio tape by Katherine Kane.
Photogrpahs by Rosemarie Rogers, unless otherwise noted.