Stillwater, Ossining

[6][7][8][9] In the early 1930's Ralph Borsodi set up the Independence Foundation, Inc. with Chauncey Stillman and others to acquire land for homesteading communities.

A detailed "Indenture for the Possession of Land" describing the rights and duties of homesteaders was prepared,[10] and in 1935 a community called Bayard Lane was started, near Suffern, New York.

Borsodi was then introduced by Mr George Mosel to a group interested in forming a similar community land trust near Ossining, New York,[11] on part of the Still property.

[11] Unfortunately the Independence Foundation board thought that the Stillwater project was unreasonably large, and encouraged Borsodi to abandon it.

Most early residents were attracted by Ralph Borsodi's visions of social reform, including the back-to-the-land movement, and were on the socialist/cooperative/mutualism spectrum.

These included Bea Fetz,[12] daughter of George and Emma Schumm, colleagues of the individualist anarchist Benjamin R.Tucker Margaret Goldsmith, granddaughter of John Humphrey Noyes, founder of the Oneida Community Helen and Tom Maley.

[19][20][21] Leon Svirsky,[22] journalist, Nieman Fellowship at Harvard 1946,[23][24] managing editor of Scientific American 1948-1958[25] Oriole Tucker-Riché,[12][26] daughter of Benjamin R.Tucker At the north end of Still Lake, near the dam but not part of Stillwater Homesteads, were cottages rented from Mrs Still during summers from about 1945 to 1955 by two New York-based musicians[27] and their families, Nadia Reisenberg and her sister Clara Rockmore, née Reisenberg, who performed under her married name.

Her son Robert Sherman is a music critic and broadcaster, who maintained his interests[28] and property ownership in Stillwater and the neighborhood since his summers there as a young man.