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Nestled in the foothills of the Berkshire Mountains, the Village of Chatham is ideally situated halfway between Albany, NY and Pittsfield, MA.
The community (pop. 2,000) was first known as Groat's Corners, after one of its most prominent citizens. It was incorporated in 1847 as Chatham Four Comers, receiving its present name in 1869.
Chatham's oldest building is the 1811 Inn on Central Square (see Walking Tour), still in business today as a tavern. The oldest building on Main Street is the wooden house at #38.
It was built as a private residence in 1824 (the bays were added in the late 19th century),
but has been in commercial use since 1902.
There would be many other old wooden structures on Main Street today, were it not for a disastrous 1869 fire that destroyed ten buildings on the east side of the street, damaging many others. "It was as great in proportion to the size of the village as that of the historic Chicago fire," wrote The Chatham Courier. From the ashes, there quickly arose a line of brick buildings that are unique today in their uniform architecture.
Chatham is best known, however, for its railroading history: the village was an important main line station on the Boston & Albany. Union Station (see Walking Tour) is on the National Register of Historic Places. The village was also the northern terminus of both the New York & Harlem and the Hudson & Boston lines, as well as the southern terminus of the Rutland Railroad. Each line had its own station and more than a hundred trains arrived and departed daily, making the community a major railroading center well into the 1900s.
Today, Chatham prospers as the retail center of northern Columbia County. In the past twenty years the area has become popular with second-home owners and day-trippers alike, and a summer weekend is likely to see Main Street filled with shoppers drawn to the village's charming diversity of stores.
From the Pamphlet, Visit Chatham New York, by Chatham Business Alliance
