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A Halloween Story: Those Pumpkins on Patchin Mills Bridge

Posted on November 3, 2012

Every year, come Halloween, Jack O’ Lanterns, dozens of them, show up and glow on the bridge at Patchin Mills.

This is the story behind them.

If you have a good connection, enjoy the show full screen in HD!

The music is the Symphonie Fantastique, the fifth movement with the Dies Irae theme, conducted by Leonard Bernstein.

There were two mills sharing the stream and mill pond run by the Patchins.  The grist mill, still standing in the background, and a wood saw mill on the other bank but has long gone.

You can see more about Patchin grist mill in a video tour of the interior works at This Old Mill.   And, of course, you can see more of Pine Plains on this website.  Enjoy!

Thanks to John Bradley (a Patchin) and Gary Hoffman, descendants of the founders and operators of the mills, for their participation.

I’d like to crowdsource credits to the pumpkin carvers.  Just send a comment in the field below if you know who should get some credit.

And take a stroll through the videos on the rest of the site starting here. Enjoy!

6 thoughts on “A Halloween Story: Those Pumpkins on Patchin Mills Bridge”

  1. John A Krug says:
    November 1, 2021 at 7:50 am

    It’s 2021… is there an update to this warm story? Nothing lasts forever.

    Reply
    1. stan says:
      November 13, 2021 at 6:13 pm

      So far it’s hanging in pretty much the way it is. And maybe that’s just life in Pine Plains…

      Reply
  2. Pat Byron says:
    November 1, 2015 at 10:45 am

    Thank you Johnny for continuing this , your Mom would be so proud. She loved you so much.

    Reply
  3. Danica Rose says:
    September 22, 2015 at 11:33 am

    Just curious if the tradition continued with the closing of the bridge. I came across this because I am doing a college study on Pine Plains and find this very interesting.

    Reply
    1. Dori Wheeler says:
      October 30, 2015 at 9:02 am

      John Bradley and friends will be doing this again as always for a birthday gift to his mom, even long after she has passed!

      Reply
      1. lauren harter-leary says:
        October 30, 2015 at 10:39 pm

        John Bradley has done this for his Mom to carry on the tradition! He is the force behind the scene and will always do so!

        Reply

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WHY THIS WEBSITE

I came to Pine Plains by choice, not by chance of birth.

But the small-town rural community I chose is changing. The farmers have, for the most part, sold to people from the city and fields are becoming lawns.

And, like the land, people, too, are becoming subdivided as difference breeds distance rather than discourse.

I have been making these videos to preserve and reconstitute what I can of a changing way of life and to share it with the community.

On a more personal level, I am making this website as a way of holding on to the reasons why I came here.

Stan Hirson

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