History  is all around us. But often we don’t see it.

Just before New Scotland’s mammoth, century-old Hilton barn was moved across the street to its salvation, we printed a letter from two town board members who helped to save it. They described how it was better to have a standing monument to the past, adapted to a modern use, than to see it demolished for a housing development with only an historical marker to tell of its existence.

We agree.

But many structures are already long gone. And many events, like the Battle of the Normanskill, for example, are part of the landscape now. Once the site of the battlefield was commonly known, but the memory died with the people who fought there.

Other places, like the Vale of Tawasentha, have served as a backdrop or inspiration for artists and writers. The vale is the setting for the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s famous poem, “The Song of Hiawatha,” which Longfellow based, in part, on research done by Guilderland’s native son Henry Rowe Schoolcraft. “In the vale of Tawasentha/ In the green and silent valley/ By the pleasant water-courses/ Dwelt the singer Nawadaha./ There he sang of Hiawatha/ Sang the song of Hiawatha/ Sang his wondrous birth and being,” wrote Longfellow.

Outside of school, few of us devote much time or attention to studying our local history. New York State is unique in requiring every “city, town, or village” to have an official historian, according to a 1919 state law. Many of these unsung heroes are unpaid volunteers who labor to unearth, reclaim, and educate us on our own history.

When large anniversaries occur, we in the general public tend to pay more attention. Last September, for example, Westerlo marked its bicentennial. This served as a grand celebratory occasion not only for a picnic and parade, but also for the Town of Westerlo Heritage Museum, 20 years in the making, to be opened to the public. We hope the town historian and historical society members carry on this important work. And we hope others, in whatever town they live, join in the work of their local historical societies.

The Altamont Free Library this year is celebrating its centennial. We wrote about its founding on the front page of our newspaper 100 years ago. We’ve covered its many events, and its many moves over the years, ending with its final and fitting home — the historic Altamont train station.

The library continues to center the village just as the trains once did. We hope the public will take in the library’s history in the exhibit at Village Hall assembled and told by curator Marijo Dougherty, featured in our story last week — an account that may shed a light on the library’s history 100 years hence.

But what about those of us who aren’t as skilled as Dougherty in piecing together history from old newspaper pages? What about those of us who don’t devote ourselves to showcasing local history at town museums and exhibits?

Even as a casual passer-by, each of us can be aware of important places in local history from the gold and blue roadside markers in our midst; over 2,800 of them dot New York State. It was a big anniversary that started the state’s historic marker program in 1926  the sesquicentennial of the Revolutionary War.

We believe that reminding New Yorkers of their history was a good use of state funds — the program was administered through the State Education Department — and were saddened when the state dropped it in 1966.

The markers serve as guideposts to our past. The village of Altamont has applied for grants that would make the village into a living museum, with detailed explanations of many of its historic buildings.

Sometimes a marker can lead to a new insight that even those who posted it didn’t intend. For example, Aaron Mair, a Guilderland resident, drove by the marker for the Battle of the Normanskill, the only Revolutionary War battle to be fought in Albany County.

The late Guilderland town historian Arthur Gregg lobbied for the marker in his 1930s column in The Altamont Enterprise when he wrote, “Is not the definitely established location of this engagement worthy of an appropriate marker that it may no longer be called the ‘lost’ battle of the Revolution?”

The blue and gold State Education Department marker was placed along Route 146 in 1954 and says simply that the Schenectady Militia with 40 Rhode Island Troops dispersed a large group of Tories in a skirmish north of the creek.

“What the historic marker doesn’t say and what locals don’t know, is that their ancestors’ freedoms were defended in part by African-American patriots who were part of the 1st Rhode Island Regiment,” Mair told us.  His research led to a story in this paper and presentations at local historical societies on seeing the Battle of the Normanskill through an African-American’s eyes.

If the marker hadn’t caught Mair’s eye, we’d all know less about our local history.

John Haluska, a Guilderland retiree noticed that some of the markers in Guilderland were faded and hard to read from the road. He took it upon himself to start painting the markers — in Midnight Blue and Buttercup Yellow — and had already painted 22 of the town’s 32 markers when The Enterprise ran a picture of him next to some of his handiwork.

That was the first that Guilderland’s town historian, Alice Begley, had known of Haluska’s project.

Begley had for years been working with the town’s highway department, refurbishing the signs on a rotating schedule. Begley had also written a series of columns, printed in The Enterprise, and later published as a book, describing the history of each of the 32 signs.

“I’m pretty sure the color the state uses is gold, not Buttercup Yellow,” Supervisor Peter Barber told our Guilderland reporter, Elizabeth Floyd Mair — who is married to Aaron Mair — as she wrote a story last week contrasting the reactions in Berne and Guilderland when a retiree in each place repainted his town’s historical markers.

Barber also said that the town has a process for taking care of its property. He gave the hypothetical example of a bench in Tawasentha Park and said he would not like to see residents decide it should be stained a different color, and then stain it that color, since the town has plans in place to maintain its property.

The formerly unidentified Berne sign painter was named Monday night at a Berne Historical Society meeting: Frank Brady. We salute him.

We had received a letter from Sandra Kisselback of the Berne society, praising his work: “You can see, as you drive about town, markers that pop at you in a brand-new light,” she wrote.

The Berne town historian, Ralph Miller, and town supervisor, Kevin Crosier, were equally pleased. “Those acts of generosity of their own time are what really make communities great,” said Crosier.

He’s right. But it doesn’t have to be an either-or choice. Harnessing the talents of someone who wants to help can work well as long as the would-be helper works with the town.

Brian Wilson, who runs the sign shop for the Guilderland Highway Department, may have said it best. He went out to look at Haluska’s handiwork after hearing about it from The Enterprise and said of Haluska, “He’s doing a heck of a job. The colors aren’t the same as the DOT blue and yellow, but the signs look beautiful.”

He did say, though, there is one thing he would have done differently: “I probably would have asked somebody at Town Hall, before I got started.”

So, if each of us were to follow both Crosier’s dream — just think if we could get everyone in town to spend just an hour noticing something in need of improvement and then taking the initiative to make it better — and Wilson’s advice — coordinate with the town first — we’d be making history and nicer places to live.

— Melissa Hale-Spencer