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Photos

Ron Selkirk with vintage egg carton from family poultry farm, February 2025.
Ron’s paternal great-grandparents Francis Selkirk (1841-1915) and wife Florence Anna Ten Eyck (1850-1921), with children (L-R) Claire, Charles (Ron’s grandfather), Ida, and Florence Anna. Photo likely taken during very early 1900s on former family farm, now part of Selkirk railyards.
Ethel Almira Rockwood Blake (1880-1952), Ron’s maternal grandmother.

Ron Selkirk

Selkirk, NY

1933

Interviewed on location at Ron & Judy Selkirk’s Maple Avenue homestead February 12, 2025

Bethlehem remains home to many direct descendants of those who took up arms for freedom’s cause during the American Revolutionary War.  Familiar surnames like Slingerland, Sager, Oliver, Britt, Leonard and Winne all share that connection, but perhaps none had as direct a role in the course of American history than James Selkirk (1756-1820), a direct descendant of our narrator, Ron Selkirk.

Ron’s 3rd great-grandfather served in the Revolutionary War and settled the very hamlet bearing his name today.  He emigrated to New York province from Scotland in 1775 and served in the 2nd New York Regiment, making him one of only a few soldiers within our current borders who served in Washington’s Continental Army (most joined the fight through regiments of locally-organized militias). He served under General Benedict Arnold in the Battle of Saratoga (Bemis Heights), which resulted in General Burgoyne’s surrender in October 1777. This result is commonly acknowledged as the war’s turning point, as victory there convinced France to enter the conflict in support of the colonies.

Selkirk also endured the hardships of the winter quarters at Valley Forge, witnessed the surrender of General Cornwallis at Yorktown, and was honorably discharged by Gen. George Washington, who signed those papers himself.  Soon after, he married Elizabeth Henry, whose nephew Joseph Henry invented the electro-magnet while teaching at the Albany Academy, earning the city a place in world history as the “Birthplace of Modern Electricity.”  In 1846, he was appointed by President James K. Polk as the first secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.

Like many veterans of the Revolution, Selkirk took up farming to support his family after the war (though he was a tailor by trade), and that tradition was passed down through five generations to Ron. The original Selkirk lands in Bethlehem – at one time approximately 600 acres – were taken by New York Central Railroad in 1917, for a massive classification railyard and its roundhouses. This is today’s Selkirk Railyard, the centerpiece of NY Central’s 27.5-mile-long “Castleton Cut-Off,” which opened in 1924 as a freight bypass around a highly congested Albany terminal area.

Before then, Selkirk Station was a small stop at Maple Avenue on the Albany Branch of the West Shore Railroad, built around 1883.  According to Ron, this was how the hamlet of Selkirk came to bear his family name.

“When they put (the railroad stations) in, they normally name them after the largest landowner, but it wasn’t my grandfather – it was Jacob Soop,” he explained. “At one meeting a conductor asked what would happen when they stopped the train here and said, ‘All off for Soop!’ So, then they said, “OK, well, Selkirk is next so let’s name it Selkirk.”

Following the construction of the railyard, Ron’s Grandfather Charles Selkirk (1874-1956) bought 100 acres further east in the hamlet and established a large poultry farm closer to the Hudson River, along Maple Avenue and River Road.  This was smart in mid-century America, when New York was one of the largest egg producers in the country. “We used to have very good egg routes in the city,” Ron recalled. “Not house-to-house, but for restaurants and the stores.”

In his interview, Ron shares memories of working with his father to modernize farm operations, enlisting in the Army during the Korean War, and returning home to see their property again taken, this time for the construction of the New York State Thruway – including the footprint of today’s Exit 22. This effectively divided the farm in half and increased input costs substantially.

Ron’s father, Robert Selkirk (1907-1999), retired from farming in 1965 and placed his son at the helm, but the golden age of poultry farming here was at its end. Federal food policies under President Nixon began subsiding production in a way that flooded markets with cheap meat and produce, driving prices down and making it too expensive for many small farms to stay in business. “In eight months, I made only a couple of nickels,” said Ron.

Eventually, the family farmland was sold to a New Jersey interest that built a truck stop near the new Thruway (now the site of Burt Crane & Rigging), and Ron went on to carve out a new career in freight hauling. Together with his wife Judy, they raised four children on Maple Avenue, on the 40+ acres that remains of their farm.  Their home, built in the late 1980s, is filled with family photos, art, heirlooms and memorabilia that spans more than a century in Bethlehem. It was BOHP’s great privilege to be invited in to hear his story.

Photos

Ron Selkirk in traditional Scottish garb with historian & writer Susan Leath, at the dedication of the Selkirk hamlet historic marker.(2009)
Trophy pin from one of the First Reformed Church of Bethlehem’s bowling leagues, which operated from 1933 to 1977. Members enjoyed their own two-lane alley in an outbuilding on church property (no longer standing). Established in 1763, the original church on the site predated the founding of the United States and was the first house of worship in what would become Bethlehem 30 years later.
Panoramic view of Selkirk’s Poultry Farm, River Road, Selkirk, possibly 1940s.
Three generations at Selkirk’s Poultry Farm, late 1940s: Charles Henry Selkirk (1874-1956) – Ron’s grandfather Anna Mae Myers (1880-1960) – Ron’s grandmother Robert Myers Selkirk (1907-1999) – Ron’s father Sybil Rockwood Blake (1907-2001) – Ron’s mother Charles Russell Selkirk (1905-1993) – Went by Russell, Ron’s Uncle Mildred E. Boughton (1907-1994) – Ron’s Aunt Charles Blake Selkirk (1932-2007) – Ron’s brother John Russell Selkirk (1927-1997) – Ron’s cousin OR Robert Francis Selkirk (1928-2016) – Ron’s cousin Shirley Jean Barton (1928 – 2016) Robert’s spouse ?
Ron and a Bethlehem buddy in Korea, 1953.
Aerial photograph of Selkirk’s Poultry Farm, showing extent of Thruway Exit 22 footprint on land previously in agricultural production. Late 1960s.
Francis Eugene Blake (1875-1956), Ron’s maternal grandfather. A mechanical engineer by trade, Blake and his wife Ethel lived at 1 North Street in Delmar, directly across from the original Delmar train depot.