Saturday, June 21, 2008

BEAVERDAM HOTEL, HIRAM WALDEN, MARTHA MAURACHE


Beaverdam Hotel


Got any old postcards in your attic? This real photo postcard recently sold on eBay for $96.99 plus shipping and handling!!


It features the Beaverdam Hotel ofIsaac L. Walden in West Berne, circa 1910. Photo shows Isaac Walden (proprietor), Vertie Lee Walden (Isaac's wife), Stanton Walden (brother of Isaac / hotel clerk), Joseph Lee (Isaac's father-in-law), and Martha Mattice (servant).










Here is a picture of the family tombstone in Woodlawn Cemetery.





photo by Joan Wright

HIRAM WALDEN

Issac was the grandson of Hiram Walden. According to the Biographical Directory of the American Congress, 1774-1949 Biographies W page 1964, Hiram Walden was a Representative from New York; born in Pawlet, Vt., August 21, 1800; attended the district schools; moved to Berne, Albany County, N.Y., in 1818 and to Waldenville, Schoharie County, N.Y., in 1821; engaged in the manufacture of axes; major general of militia; member of the State assembly in 1836; was one of the supervisors of the town of Wright in 1842; elected as a Democrat to the Thirty-first Congress (March 4, 1849-March 3, 1851); was not a candidate for renomination in 1850; resumed his former manufacturing pursuits; was also employed in the customhouse in New York City; discontinued his active business pursuits and lived in retirement until his death in Waldenville, N.Y., July 21, 1880; interment in Pine Grove Cemetery [Beaverdam], Berne, Albany County, N.Y.

MARTHA MATTICE MAURACHE


Martha Mattice, the servant girl at the Beaverdam Hotel, was descended from a Palatine German family that were among the first settlers in the Schoharie Valley. In 1931 Martha married Jean Leon Maurache, an orchestra leader in the Grand Theatre in Albany during the days of Vaudeville. Jean Leon was born in France and immigrated to America in 1906. After his death in 1945 she worked in the kitchen of the Berne Knox Westerlo school cafeteria.