By DAVID LEE
ANCRAM – In the world of outlaw motorcycle clubs, the Diamond Rattlers make no secret of their 1% status and their affiliation with the Hell’s Angels of Troy, NY, but here in Boston Corner, (sometimes called Boston Corners), a hamlet in the town of Ancram, they hope to cut a finer profile as stewards of the community. To this end they have taken charge of a little triangle of land created by the intersection of Boston Corners Road and, well, Boston Corners Road, just off Route 22 in the southeasternmost corner of Columbia County. They planted apple, pear and spruce trees and set up a basketball hoop and installed an American flag.
The Diamond Rattlers club house is about 50 yards down the road. Club President Mike Burch said, “When I first moved here 19 years ago this was a real tight-knit community. We took care of each other. Now it seems like everybody is just out for themselves.”
The club decided that this little triangle of land could be improved. “We checked town and state records and saw that nobody owned this land so we decided to fix it up,” he said.
“Every town has a town square” Mr. Burch said. “In the future, long after we’re gone, people can walk by, pick an apple and think of how we did this.”
The fact that Boston Corner has a particular history for being an ungovernable no man’s land is not lost on Mr. Burch, tucked as it was between the New York border on the west and the Taconic Hills to the east. He displays a framed clipping from the local paper (Register-Star, April 28, 1961) with the headline “Boston Corners or ‘Hell’s Acres’ Haven for Undesirable Characters of the Day.” The article recounts the story of a notorious and illegal bare-knuckle boxing match between John Morris and James “Yankee” Sullivan in Boston Corner in 1853, a fight that went on for 37 rounds and dissolved into a mass brawl without a decisive winner.
The Diamond Rattlers will host a Halloween Party on Saturday, October 28 from 1 to 6 p.m., which is open to the public.