ALTAMONT — Historic Altamont, as its name indicates, wants to preserve the authentic, original nature of the village. Part of its vision is to keep the largely Victorian village, which was built up around the train station, surrounded by a ring of green rather than having it enveloped in suburban sprawl.

The not-for-profit group has, according to Thomas Capuano, recently been awarded $50,000 through Albany County’s disbursal of American Rescue Plan Act awards, money from the federal government meant to help with fallout from the pandemic.

Historic Altamont was one of 21 local organizations for the promotion of arts, culture, and tourism to receive grants totaling $1,125,000.

Capuano, founder of Historic Altamont, said some of the money will be used to hire an engineer to design trails around Altamont that will connect to trails at the Mohawk Hudson Land Conservancy’s Bozen Kill Preserve and also to the Long Path.

The 357-mile Long Path starts near the George Washington Bridge in New York City and ends at High Point on the Helderberg escarpment above Altamont.

The hiker’s path was originally envisioned in the 1920s by Vincent Schaeffer, a chemist and meteorologist who developed cloud-seeding while working at General Electric in Schenectady, to be an unmarked trail that stretched from New York City to the Adirondacks. 

Schaeffer chose the name from words written by Walt Whitman in the opening stanza of his “Song of the Open Road”:
 

Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,

Healthy, free, the world before me,

The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.
 

Capuano said that where the Long Path ends now is “in the middle of nowhere.”

Historic Altamont has secured a parcel of land, he said, near the Altamont Free Library, housed in the historic train station, and the bulk of the grant money will be spent on building a pavilion that will serve as a terminus for the Long Path, bringing hikers into Altamont with all of its amenities.

Capuano spearheaded the formation of Historic Altamont in 2018 in an attempt to save the Doctor Crounse House. A retired college teacher who grew up in Altamont, Capuano lives now in another historic Crounse home, on Brandle Road.

The early 19th-Century Doctor Crounse House was built by Frederick Crounse, Altamont’s first doctor who helped the Helderberg tenant farmers during the Anti-Rent Wars when they rebelled against the feudal patroon system.

Rare in the Northeast, the Doctor Crounse House stood as a testament to Civil War history. During the war, the 134th regiment camped in front of Dr. Crounse’s house as he stayed up all night, helping the regiment doctor with the sick and wounded Union soldiers.

The house had been jointly owned for over a decade by the village and the town. The municipalities bought it, after it went into foreclosure, for $40,000 — the amount of back taxes due — with each paying $20,000.  Although state funds had been secured for a new roof, the money was never spent on the house and it was ultimately demolished.

All that survives is the front doorway, salvaged for display at the Guilderland Public Library.