If you go ...
• What: The 32nd Annual Reuben's Run
• When: Saturday, May 25. Registration at 7:15 a.m. Race starts at 8:30 a.m.
• Where: Albany School parking lot at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Vinton Street.
• Entry fee: $20 for adults; $15 for school-age children and under. Proceeds to benefit Albany High School post prom.
ALBANY - In the runner's world, one may participate in a race without ever knowing who the race is named after or the run's historical significance. In essence, you pay an entry fee - one that often goes to charity - you get a T-shirt, and you run. That may be the case for some at Reuben's Run, which will be held Saturday, May 25 in Albany, in conjunction with the town's Yesteryear celebration.
The run has been held for 32 years and is a popular part of the weekend's festivities, but as time has gone on the race's namesake and significance sometimes floats about in the ether, drifting here and there from legend to rumor. Historically speaking, though, the race's namesake is understood by many to have been born from the true story of a man named Reuben Folsom who lived in the Albany area and spent his time hunting wolves and other varmints for money.
Local historian Tom Fey is one of those privy to the life and legend of Reuben, which he has learned about from old letters and memoirs from past area residents as well as from other historians.
Fey said he believes Reuben was born in 1797. From there, historical texts put together a blurry migration, but it is believed Reuben was a native Canadian who departed the state of New York and settled in Green County about the year 1842, putting him in his mid-40s by the time he arrived in Albany.
"He lived in Albany area for a long time ... he was sort of a hermit," Fey said.
Unlike his history prior to coming to Albany, Reuben's personality and stature in the community are as clear as a bell.
"He didn't get along with people well. He didn't talk to people much," Fey said. "He made his living hunting wolves. He knew where all the wolves dens were. There used to be a $3 bounty, and you'd have to go to the Green County courthouse with the wolves ears to collect."
In "The History of Green County," it is said that "there was nothing remarkable nor prepossessing in the make-up of this strange individual that should single him out as more noted than his fellow man, but his eccentricities and peculiar mode of living gave him notoriety."
The peculiar mode of living is in reference, at least in part, to a cave on the Little Sugar River that Reuben lived in, like that of the wolf dens in which his hunting subjects dwelled. The cave is still open and visited to this day, at least by those who know where to find it.
"I go there every year or so," Fey said, adding that it's about a 20-minute walk from just outside of Albany. The cave is approximately 15 feet deep and very narrow. There used to be a chamber that branched off, but that was blown up, Fey said, because a local farmer was worried about the safety of visiting kids in that extension of the cavern.
Fey said the entrance to the cave is right up against the flowing river and while it takes a little bit of hiking or rowing to find it, the cave is still somewhat of a right-of-passage destination for area youth.
"There's a lot of graffiti there that kids have put dates on (when they visited)," Fey said. "I'm not from Albany, but I think that every kid from Albany knows (the cave) or used to know it."
Although the cave is perceived by many to be Reuben's only dwelling, several historical accounts suggest he didn't live there the whole year round.
"Everybody thinks he lived there during the winter," Fey said, "but (in the winter) he just stayed at local farms."
Reuben's lodging with others during the cold winters was one way a select few got to know him personally, including the reason why he left Canada.
Running from blighted love
In a text written around 1890, Albany resident Henry Eldred, whose recollection of Reuben is mostly of when Eldred was a young boy, wrote "He was one of the most famous characters that this country ever produced ... He was born in Canada and grew to manhood there. He was about to marry a girl, when she suddenly married another man. He felt so badly about it that he left there and came west and settled in our neighborhood and spent the rest of his life in Green County."
Eldred's writings paint the picture of a quiet, middle-aged man who kept to his own thoughts and did his best not to impede on the lives of others, while living the life he wanted for himself.
"Reuben's mind was effected by the trouble and disappointment in Canada," Eldred wrote. "He seldom spoke, except to answer questions. He had no bad habits; he didn't drink liquor, use tobacco and I never heard him swear. He was a harmless old man who never did any work, but who spent his time roaming the country from early spring until late fall."
According to Eldred, Reuben would stay at his and other families' homes at random intervals, sometimes going a month between visits.
"He was a very quiet person, and always stayed in the kitchen," Eldred wrote. "If there was a lounge there, he slept on it, otherwise he slept on the floor. He would never sleep in a bed and never took off his clothes."
Final resting place
After his hunting and tracking days were done, Reuben spent his later years in a "poor house," Fey said, where he eventually died and was buried.
Eldred wrote that though it wouldn't prove to be his final burial site, the spot picked for Reuben's remains was an appropriate one.
"They buried him on the hill nearby in a small oak and hazelbrush grove," Eldred wrote, "where you could look for a long way over the hills and valleys of the land that he had loved so well."
The people of Albany eventually raised money and moved his remains to the cemetery at Gap Church just south of Albany where he remains to this day, below a marker that reads "Old Reuben, the wolf hunter, a good ineffusive personality gone to his final rest."
Running in Reuben's name
The 32nd annual Reuben's Run will be held this Saturday (see inset), and it will be first feature event, the kickoff to the weekend-long Yesteryear festivities.
Runners in athletic attire will jog and walk upwards of three miles, running in the name of the man who fled Canada and came to the Albany area, where he stayed to live a life some considered peculiar, tracking down wolves for money that some suggest he had no use for anyway.
In his text, Eldred concludes the section on his old acquaintance Reuben by stating, "I consider it an honor to have known him. He was the only person that I ever knew that didn't have an enemy. Everyone that knew him was his friend."
The run has been held for 32 years and is a popular part of the weekend's festivities, but as time has gone on the race's namesake and significance sometimes floats about in the ether, drifting here and there from legend to rumor. Historically speaking, though, the race's namesake is understood by many to have been born from the true story of a man named Reuben Folsom who lived in the Albany area and spent his time hunting wolves and other varmints for money.
Local historian Tom Fey is one of those privy to the life and legend of Reuben, which he has learned about from old letters and memoirs from past area residents as well as from other historians.
Fey said he believes Reuben was born in 1797. From there, historical texts put together a blurry migration, but it is believed Reuben was a native Canadian who departed the state of New York and settled in Green County about the year 1842, putting him in his mid-40s by the time he arrived in Albany.
"He lived in Albany area for a long time ... he was sort of a hermit," Fey said.
Unlike his history prior to coming to Albany, Reuben's personality and stature in the community are as clear as a bell.
"He didn't get along with people well. He didn't talk to people much," Fey said. "He made his living hunting wolves. He knew where all the wolves dens were. There used to be a $3 bounty, and you'd have to go to the Green County courthouse with the wolves ears to collect."
In "The History of Green County," it is said that "there was nothing remarkable nor prepossessing in the make-up of this strange individual that should single him out as more noted than his fellow man, but his eccentricities and peculiar mode of living gave him notoriety."
The peculiar mode of living is in reference, at least in part, to a cave on the Little Sugar River that Reuben lived in, like that of the wolf dens in which his hunting subjects dwelled. The cave is still open and visited to this day, at least by those who know where to find it.
"I go there every year or so," Fey said, adding that it's about a 20-minute walk from just outside of Albany. The cave is approximately 15 feet deep and very narrow. There used to be a chamber that branched off, but that was blown up, Fey said, because a local farmer was worried about the safety of visiting kids in that extension of the cavern.
Fey said the entrance to the cave is right up against the flowing river and while it takes a little bit of hiking or rowing to find it, the cave is still somewhat of a right-of-passage destination for area youth.
"There's a lot of graffiti there that kids have put dates on (when they visited)," Fey said. "I'm not from Albany, but I think that every kid from Albany knows (the cave) or used to know it."
Although the cave is perceived by many to be Reuben's only dwelling, several historical accounts suggest he didn't live there the whole year round.
"Everybody thinks he lived there during the winter," Fey said, "but (in the winter) he just stayed at local farms."
Reuben's lodging with others during the cold winters was one way a select few got to know him personally, including the reason why he left Canada.
Running from blighted love
In a text written around 1890, Albany resident Henry Eldred, whose recollection of Reuben is mostly of when Eldred was a young boy, wrote "He was one of the most famous characters that this country ever produced ... He was born in Canada and grew to manhood there. He was about to marry a girl, when she suddenly married another man. He felt so badly about it that he left there and came west and settled in our neighborhood and spent the rest of his life in Green County."
Eldred's writings paint the picture of a quiet, middle-aged man who kept to his own thoughts and did his best not to impede on the lives of others, while living the life he wanted for himself.
"Reuben's mind was effected by the trouble and disappointment in Canada," Eldred wrote. "He seldom spoke, except to answer questions. He had no bad habits; he didn't drink liquor, use tobacco and I never heard him swear. He was a harmless old man who never did any work, but who spent his time roaming the country from early spring until late fall."
According to Eldred, Reuben would stay at his and other families' homes at random intervals, sometimes going a month between visits.
"He was a very quiet person, and always stayed in the kitchen," Eldred wrote. "If there was a lounge there, he slept on it, otherwise he slept on the floor. He would never sleep in a bed and never took off his clothes."
Final resting place
After his hunting and tracking days were done, Reuben spent his later years in a "poor house," Fey said, where he eventually died and was buried.
Eldred wrote that though it wouldn't prove to be his final burial site, the spot picked for Reuben's remains was an appropriate one.
"They buried him on the hill nearby in a small oak and hazelbrush grove," Eldred wrote, "where you could look for a long way over the hills and valleys of the land that he had loved so well."
The people of Albany eventually raised money and moved his remains to the cemetery at Gap Church just south of Albany where he remains to this day, below a marker that reads "Old Reuben, the wolf hunter, a good ineffusive personality gone to his final rest."
Running in Reuben's name
The 32nd annual Reuben's Run will be held this Saturday (see inset), and it will be first feature event, the kickoff to the weekend-long Yesteryear festivities.
Runners in athletic attire will jog and walk upwards of three miles, running in the name of the man who fled Canada and came to the Albany area, where he stayed to live a life some considered peculiar, tracking down wolves for money that some suggest he had no use for anyway.
In his text, Eldred concludes the section on his old acquaintance Reuben by stating, "I consider it an honor to have known him. He was the only person that I ever knew that didn't have an enemy. Everyone that knew him was his friend."