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Have you ever passed this sign on Route 209? In 2000, a 35-mile section of Route 209 was named Clayton “Peg Leg” Bates Memorial Highway. So who was Clayton "Peg Leg" Bates?
Clayton Bates was born on October 11, 1907, in Fountain Inn, South Carolina. This was during segregation. Clayton's family was very poor, and so when he was twelve, he got a job at a cotton mill. Just two days after he started his job, Clayton's leg got mangled in the conveyor belt of a cotton gin. Because the local hospitals were for white people only, Clayton had to get his leg amputated on the kitchen table in his house.
Clayton had loved dancing since he was a little kid, but everyone told him he would never dance again. He decided to prove them wrong! He started dancing again using two broomsticks under his arm, until his uncle made him a wooden leg. That's how he got the nickname, "Peg Leg." He became such a good tap dancer that he performed in Broadway shows, he appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show more than twenty times, and he even got to perform in front of the King and Queen of England!
Clayton "Peg Leg" Bates performs on the Ed Sullivan show:
Despite being a world famous tap dancer, however, Clayton "Peg Leg" Bates was often not allowed to stay overnight at the hotels and resorts where he performed, because he was Black.
So in 1951, he and his wife, Alice, moved to Kerhonkson, NY, where they bought a 60-acre turkey farm (on Apple Valley Road) and turned it into a resort that welcomed Black people. Clayton "Peg Leg" Bates modeled his resort after the white resorts in the Catskills where he used to perform but was not allowed to play.
Clayton and Alice were the first Black resort owners in Ulster County. They began with four rooms in 1951; by 1985, there were 110 units for guests. It was one of the largest Black-owned and operated resorts in the country.
The Peg Leg Bates Country Club in Kerhonkson operated for almost forty years, closing in 1989 when Clayton retired. The site is currently vacant.
During his later years, Clayton "Peg Leg" Bates was active in the Ellenville Lions Club, and helped found a local Senior Citizens Center in the area. He died on December 6, 1998, at the age of 91. He is buried in Palentown Cemetery in Ulster County.
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