Heritage Day in Accord, from homemade pie to Father Divine

Posted

Heritage Day 2017 will be held 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 30, at the Museum, 12 Main St., Accord, and at the Accord Fire Hall nearby. The event is co-sponsored by Friends of Historic Rochester and the Town’s Recreation Commission in order to provide activities to visitors of all interests and ages. At the fire hall will be the Old Fashioned Homemade Pie Contest and the Youth Talent Show. Craft vendors will be selling handmade items, while local artists are bringing paintings and photographs for display and sale, and there will be lots of great food to enjoy. At the museum, in addition to the usual displays of historic photographs, archival and genealogical materials, a special program entitled “Father Divine and the Promised Land in Ulster County” will be presented twice by Rik Rydant, at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. There are still local old-timers who can recall a favorite treat when they were children as being a family outing to a delicious Sunday chicken dinner for a cost of 25 cents served at the Father Divine community center in High Falls. Father Divine was born George Baker Jr. in in 1876 in Rockville, Maryland, to parents who were freed slaves. As a Baptist minister in the South, he founded an International Peace Movement and promoted the New Thought philosophy of positive thinking. Moving to Long Island, he began integrating white neighborhoods and attracting white followers. In 1935, Father Divine decided to establish new interracial cooperative communities in Ulster County. By 1938 his followers had purchased over 30 Ulster County properties where more than 2,300 people lived in the interracial missions, the largest of which was in High Falls. Divine Lodge in Palentown “in the Cup of the Mountains” at the end of Rocky Mountain Road was his one location in the Town of Rochester. It was nearby to the Catskill Mountain Resort, later owned by Peg Leg Bates. Most of the buildings that were part of the Divine missions can be seen in old photographs and as they appear today. Rik Rydant’s presentations about the story of Father Divine will include a documentary, old and current photos of the properties in Ulster County, posters about the missions, and as much additional information as his audiences want to hear. There is no charge for admission or parking at Heritage Day. For more information, email fhraccord@aol.com or call 626-7103.