A Family Monument To The Great War In The Woods Of Castleton N.Y.

From Green Avenue around the 100'sblock if you look south past the Castle Hill Housing Development of present you will see a woods line . This wooded area of Castleton N.Y. stretches from Castleton to the South Schodack area of town. An area of deer , streams and logged areas where hardwoods were forrested. Appx 1 mile in from the road in a near straight line and down a steep hill one will come to a stream that now barely flows as it has filled with silt over the passing years. There I have relocated a small boulder that holds a meaning to older members of the Hudson Family that once farmed and lived on this property from the 1830's to appx 1995. I shall call this rock initial rock. As family legend held in 1917 a young Ernest Hudson was on leave for two weeks from the Army signal corps. He was about to be shipped off to Europe to participate in what was known before WWII as the great war or the war to end wars. He and a couple of friends went off to scout the woods. talk about the war and probably the question of whether they would come back alive or even whole. They also wished to excape the look of worried parents whose sons were about to travel to a far off conflict that had claimed millions of young lives. Young Hudson was a telegrapher who sent code over wires before telephones had fully taken over the landscape. He felt as many solders must have felt. I am not coming back. So it was decided amongst friends to chisel their initials in a rock in a wooded area of the property. Perhaps a reminder of their presence upon this earth and this place he loved. I discovered this rock last summer and after cleaning moss and dirt off this average looking large rock I discovered an FB for a Bridenbeck friend and EH for Mr. Hudson. A nondiscript monument to an early 20th Century moment. Finally refound and duly noticed.

As a post script Mr. Hudson survived the war and died in 1990 at the age of 98. Imparted this story before leaving.