A Journal of Life in the Small Village of Waterville, in Upstate New York
This blog, "Hub of the Huddle," was founded in November 2015 by Philippa Brown and Jeff Reynolds, Director of the Waterville Public Library, to serve as successor to "At Home in the Huddle," the extraordinary community blog created by Mrs. Brown in 2006, and maintained assiduously by her each year since.
In her first posting of the "Huddle Blog's" 10th annual volume on January 1, 2015, Mrs. Brown reviewed her original purposes for "At Home in the Huddle" as follows:
Begun in June, 2006, when the Village was half-way through a two-year New York State Department of Transportation Highway Reconstruction Project, [the blog, At Home in the Huddle] was intended not only to document changes that were taking place, daily, but to look back in Waterville's past and share stories of other historic events and the people who, since the community's settlement in 1792, have made Waterville, originally called "the Huddle" and once the "Hop Capital of the World", what it is, today. The new highway was finished in 2007, Victorian lamp posts were installed in 2008, the Memorial Bandstand constructed in 2010, and still the blog - and life in "the Huddle" - goes on.
As successor, Hub of the Huddle will be published by the Trustees of Waterville Public Library pursuant to Mrs. Brown's vision for the original blog. In addition to chronicling life in and around the Village, publication of the blog will complement the Library's mission to inform, entertain and inspire our patrons, the taxpayers of Waterville Central School District and their guests. Surely it will serve to augment the Library's splendid physical facilities as a virtual gathering place or "hub"-- where we can nurture community fellowship--- cherishing our surroundings, caring for our neighbors, welcoming visitors and newcomers, and honoring our forebears.
We dedicate the new blog to Flip and her late husband, Dick Brown, both devoted friends of the Library with boundless curiosity and enthusiasm about the past, present and future of our small upstate village.
Managing Editor: Jeff Reynolds
Associate Editors: Amanda Briggs and Jill Kervin
Consultant and Contributor: Philippa Brown
