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Date: 11/17/2021
HUNTINGTON – The seats were filled at Stanton Hall for the presentation on “The Forgotten Valley Remembered: Life Before the Knightville Dam,” on the afternoon of Nov. 14.
Many of the people who attended live in the area, but did know anything about the history of the dam or the houses that were torn down in the 1930s to build it. Knightville was the state’s first flood control dam when it was completed in 1940 by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Chad Donovan-Hall showed a slideshow with 75 historical photos and comparable current views, and shared his research about the people and places that predated the dam, such as Rhoda Rhoades, a Native American doctor from Indian Hollow who was well-known in the region for her knowledge of roots and herbs for cures. Her grave and that of her son Simon were two of the graves moved from Indian Hollow to the Norwich Bridge cemetery in Huntington before the dam was built.
Attendees also heard the story of Joe Burr, who was the largest landowner in Knightville, and the only one to try to sue the government for his 60 acres and several buildings and businesses that were taken for “$2 or $3 an acre,” including a gas station that was at the base of where the dam is now, and the Black Panther Ski Area that ran from Cullen Road down to Knightville Road. The ski area was very successful, and had six trails and a 1,700-foot rope tow, the longest at that time.
According to Donovan-Hall’s research, the name Black Panther was tongue-in-cheek and based on the traveling minister Samuel Chapin at Norwich Hill Church saying he saw a black panther one morning, when the locals believed it was probably a house cat. While the government did not take the ski slopes when it built the reservoir, it did take the parking lot, and the Black Panther Ski Area closed a few years later.
Local historian and teacher Bill McVeigh narrated the presentation for Chad Donovan-Hall, who ran the slideshow. McVeigh began with a moving tribute to Pamela Donovan-Hall, who had gotten the government to move a boulder from the Knightville section to the Norwich Bridge cemetery, and have it carved to acknowledge the graves that were moved there from Knightville and Indian Hollow. She is also buried there, with the words, “Historian gone to find the answers” on her gravestone.
Not all of the stories shown and told were of families who were relocated by the government. Some were about those who died tragically or whose houses burned down. One of these stories was of the former homestead of Channing Angell, a wood turner who had a small business making wooden toys. In 1907, he swapped some wood in exchange for a pig from a local farmer. A few days later, he and his wife and two of his five children died from trichinosis. The district attorney at the time determined that the ham had been merely smoked but not properly cooked. The remaining three children were separated and raised by Angell relatives in Westfield.
At the end of the presentation, McVeigh asked if anyone present was descended from one of the families in Knightville or Indian Hollow. Among the three people who stood up was Bruce Kenyon of Westfield, who said he was descended from one of the surviving children in the Angell family. He said he remembers his grandmother telling that story.
Kenyon said he came to the presentation when Pamela Donovan-Hall gave it in the 1990s, and he gave her the additional information on his family at that time.
“We were quite pleased, it was definitely more than expected,” said Chad Donovan-Hall about the crowd, after the presentation. He said he may give the presentation again in Chesterfield near Indian Hollow or in Worthington, all areas that were impacted by the building of Knightville Dam.