As a boy, Tom Scott was fascinated by railroad engines that passed by while he worked on his father’s 35-acre farm. He also liked to heat and shape metal. At 16, Tom was apprenticed to Jake Maas, Cochecton Center’s blacksmith. In 1906 he took over Schneider’s smithy in Cochecton. He would custom make horseshoes, cool and fit to horse’s feet for 50¢. Some farmers paid Tom with vegetables. His craft included mending pots, plows and wheels.

Once an Italian man visited with his dancing bear whose nose ring was loose. The man held the bear’s head on the anvil with a rein; Tom gripped the ring with pliers in one hand and swung the hammer in the other. His shop was packed with locals to watch and the bear danced afterwards.

Tom would stop whatever he was doing to wave a lantern at passing railroad engines. He told ghost stories, played a fiddle he handmade and spent three months in New York City to shoe horses for the mounted police.

Contributed photograph from Alice Scott. The Cochecton Preservation Society’s next meeting will be in March of 2017 at the station. The January raffle is now on sale. For more information or to make an appointment for a tour call 845/932-8104 or email cps12726@gmail.com. Visit Cochectonpreservationsociety.com.