Lot 581
From Helderberg Hilltowns of Albany County, NY
- <1740 - Many Indian artifacts found in the vicinity indicate that before the first German settlers arrived this was the site of an Indian campground. While Indians did not live here, they did pass through on fishing and hunting expeditions.
- 1787 survey map shows this to be the farm of “H. Werner.” That was Hendrick, whose father Mathias who had moved to Beaver Dam, (now Berne), by 1765, when he built a sawmill half way between Berne and East Berne. Perhaps this was the site of the original Mathias Warner homestead. The irregularly shaped lot indicates that Warner was a squatter, having settled the land long before it was surveyed. The farmhouse and barn were south of the road.
- ~1790, Paul Hochstrasser, who had been living in Knox, moved to the area. His descendents report that the family first built a log cabin on the knoll where the Reinhart house is now, and later constructed two frame houses across the road.
- 1830 David Reinhart built his farmhouse, The David Reinhart House 1436 Helderberg Trail.
- 1854 map of Berne shows C. and D. Reinhart living near each other just east of Tabor Road. This was David Reinhart and his son, Chauncy, who now owned the Hendrick Warner farm. David’s wife was Cornelia Warner, a granddaughter of Mathias. It was before the Revolutionary war when David’s father, Johannes, moved from Greene County to the Switzkill Valley.
- < 1860 after David Reinhart died his son David Jr. inherited the house and continued living in the house with his widowed mother and his wife, Catherine Zeh, and his brother, Elias, and wife Christianne.
- ~1910 Frank Hochstrasser, son of Jacob Jr., bought the house
- 1915 when his father died, he moved into his parents' home, and turned his former home into a boarding house for the overflow from the hotel.
- Avery Zimmer bought the house.
