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Village History
"We began in a cornfield ..."
Pathfinder Village's roots go back to 1922, when Nurses Florence Chesebrough and Susanne Jones opened a two-building school in Edmeston, New York, to provide children and adults with Down syndrome a caring and positive environment. Highly regarded in its time, the Otsego School was in need of reform to keep pace with the national advocacy movement for the developmentally disabled that began in the early 1970s. Led by the newly formed Board of Directors and its Executive Director Marian G. Mullet in the late 1970s, a plan was devised for a residential community. It was determined a village concept would provide a warm home life among peers, constructive leisure activities, and medical and educational programs. At the same time, Village Founders aspired for the meaningful interaction of Village residents in the community-at-large: They believed that adult residents' work opportunities and students' interactions in the surrounding towns and cities would give impetus to individual growth and major steps towards independence for each person. Pathfinder Village, a private, not-for-profit organization, opened in the summer of 1980 with seven houses and a school. From its humble beginnings as a 23-acre cornfield, the village has grown to a vibrant community of 19 buildings on 187 acres.
The name Pathfinder Village pays homage to this area's famous author James Fenimore Cooper and his Leatherstocking Tales, but also reflects the mission of the community -- that each resident is able to find his own pathway in life, that each life has purpose, " ... that each life may find meaning."® |
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info@pathfindervillage.org | Phone: (607) 965-8377
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