Stanford pines along route 5 or Albany Turnpike

Stanford pines along route 5 or Albany Turnpike

The pines that were along this edge of the road, route 5 or State Street, and on the other side of the mansion, on Balltown road, were so thick that people now in their 70s and 90s whom I interviewed, said that as children it was difficult to see the house for the pines were so dense on the edges of the property. The land, once 800 acre in John Duncan’s 1760s, then 200 acres in Charles and his parents’ times of 1850s on, was along what still is called the Pine Bush area of sand dunes and pine forests that went from the Albany Pine barrens to Schenectady and even into Saratoga. In many cases, very special plants and creatures lived there and many still do. The Karner Blue butterfly is protected, and these lands were its haunts, fast decreasing, and thus this area is endangered for the nature as well as the buildings remaining.