Dear Editors:

I recently moved from the Seattle area to Andes. Made it all the way to DeLancey before getting lost!  As I was driving around, I saw a lot of roads with the word “clove” in the name. A friend did a “google” search and found that there are a lot of roads with ‘clove’ in their names. Can you tell me the derivation of the word relative to this usage???

Steve Swanson

Ed.:  The answer to Steve’s question was located on the website of the Catskill Center for Conservation and Development. In a document entitled Mountain Cloves Scenic Byway; Proposed Corridor Management Plan, which was prepared by the Mountain Cloves Scenic Byway Steering Committee in cooperation with the Town of Hunter in October 2008, the following footnote explains the origin of the word clove as used throughout our area:

“The word ‘clove’ derives from the Dutch word kloof, meaning a notch or gorge in a mountain wall or ridge. Kloof literally means the cleft in the hoof of an animal. Dutch settlers coming from flatlands and a pastoral lifestyle thought it an apt visual metaphor to describe mountainous Catskill gorges.”

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Dear Editor:

Thank you so much for writing the article on local summer camps.  My sister and I visited the Lake Delaware Boys’ Camp this summer and were pleasantly surprised to learn that they still call it the Wight Farm, where our grandmother lived for her first 8 years (Vera Wight Bloodgood) before moving to the Cabin Hill farm in 1900.  Her home was actually the house that is now used for the camp’s infirmary and can be viewed on the camp’s website at http://www.lakedelawareboyscamp.org/LDBC/SITE/photos.html. There was a wonderful spring that was used for many years before a well was put into place. Thank you, Fr. Donahue, for your history lesson!

Jo Ann (Cole) Kaufman