About

Richard "Dick" Dorsey was a long-time resident of Malden Bridge. He and his wife Patricia “Pat” bought an abandoned 200-year-old farmhouse there in 1969. Over the decades they restored it, and in 1986 moved there permanently. 

​

This was the start of his fascination with the history of the villages of Columbia County. Dick wrote and published a series of books about northern county hamlets. He did all the research for the books from primary sources such as land transaction records in the local towns and from newspapers from the associated eras. He was always pleased when he could visit one of the houses covered in the books and learn more.

​

He also became a columnist writing monthly local history articles in the Chatham Press. In 2017 he was named Historian of the Town of Chatham, and held the position until 2023.

​

A member of the Old Chatham Hunt Club, he served on the boards of the Riders Mills Schoolhouse historic site and the Malden Bridge Community Center, and participated in community life in numerous other ways.