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Open Space Institute and Mohonk Preserve protect historic parcel in Gardiner

The Open Space Institute and the Mohonk Preserve announced in February 2006 the preservation of a historic site in Gardiner that will help protect more of the Trapps Mountain Hamlet - the only vanished, subsistence settlement listed on the National and State Registers of Historic Places. The site protected by OSI and the Preserve was originally the homestead of Hiram Van Leuven.

"Hiram Van Leuven was a long-term Trapps resident in the 1800s," said Bob Larsen, the Preserve's ranger and historian.

"Because life was hard in the Trapps, they turned their hand to many trades. Hiram Van Leuven was a farmer, grindstone cutter, charcoal maker, and toll collector on the Wawarsing & New Paltz Turnpike, the first road over the mountain."

The Mohonk Preserve has been working for decades to preserve the historic Trapps Hamlet. To fulfill that goal, the Preserve has collaborated on several occasions with the New York City-based Open Space Institute, which has protected more than 18,000 acres on and around the Shawangunk Ridge. In securing state and federal historic designation for the hamlet, the Preserve also worked closely with nearby residents and hamlet descendents.

OSI's land acquisition affiliate, the Open Space Conservancy, acquired the parcel for $38,500 with funds from the Lila Acheson and DeWitt Wallace Endowment, a permanent fund that was transferred to the Open Space Conservancy in 2001.