On Tuesday, October 11 at 7:30pm, the Whallonsburg Grange Hall will present “Mapping the Landscape: Understanding Changes to the Land Through Cartographic Evidence,” with historian and preservationist Todd Goff. This is the third lecture in the fall Lyceum series entitled “Living on This Land.”
How did Essex evolve from primeval forest into what it is today? Have you ever wondered why a road, foundation, or wall is situated as it is? Why did we build homes and farms where we did? When was a structure you remember seeing added or lost? Using historic maps, this lecture will examine how the Essex landscape developed from the 1600s to present day, look at current land uses, and make assumptions of how the town may change in the future.
Todd Goff is a lifelong resident of Essex, NY with ancestral ties dating to its early settlement. Growing up surrounded by the natural beauty of the area and its past he developed a love of the landscape, joining the preservation group ECHO as its youngest member in 1985 at the age of 12. He is a 21-year combat veteran, now serving as an army lieutenant colonel with the VT National Guard. Todd has served on the ECHO board of directors and on the Essex Planning Board, and he holds a MS degree in Historic Preservation from UVM. He has rehabilitated an 1848 Greek Revival home in town, and has dedicated much of his private life to documenting the evolution of Essex.
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