A Provisional Timeline*

1615: The Dutch East India Trading Company establishes a trading post in Fort Orange, near present day Albany.

1656: Zacharias Wageonheiser (1614-1686) is appointed chief executive officer of the Dutch East India Trading Company, the only European trading colony allowed by the Japanese. He oversees operations in Albany and beyond.

c.1750: As part of the Palatine migration and building on their generational ties to the East India Trading Company, the Wageonheisers settle in what is now Berne, Rensselaerville, and Middleburgh.

1798: The Federal Library of Rensselaerville is founded and housed in several private residences on and around Main Street.

1832: Rensselaerville Library is dissolved.

____: Yata, the only surviving child of haiku master Kobayashi Issa, is born in Japan.

1869: Frederick Wageonheiser (1852-1932): travels to Japan on family business and meets Yata. The two start the The International Society of Haiku Poets (ISHP) in Shinano Province, Japan.

1880: Wageonheiser returns to Rensselaerville for business reasons. Issa’s daughter continues with ISHP in Japan. The fellowship spreads far and wide.

1882: The first American chapter of The International Society of Haiku Poets is founded in Rensselaerville. Haiku poets meet regularly.

1895-1896: Society members start to meet in the Traveling Library, which is set up in a house which is now the Catalpa House. They then move to the Reading Room, which occupies the rooms over the store owned by Charles Oswald (1855-1928).

1899: The Library moves into the Felter Building on Main Street, and Society members hold their meetings there. A wooden ISHP sign, designed by Lotte (nee Becker) Wageonheiser (1876-1900), is placed on a post in front of the library.

1911: Librarian Helen Golden (1882-1967) commends Society members’ contribution to the fundraising effort for the library’s holdings.

1913: ISHP’s wooden sign is recreated, cast in metal and paid for by Frederick Wageonheiser.

1914: Ezra Pound acknowledges the influence of haiku on his poetry in his essay, “Vorticism,” in The Fortnightly Review, a literary journal, which is added to the library’s holdings by the librarian, Bertha Jenkins (1879-1967).

1942: ISHP’s sign is removed as a response to local complaints that it signaled support for Japanese culture after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Society goes underground, meeting in private.

c.1954: Beat poets from New York City visit Rensselaerville Library looking for the Society with a polaroid picture of the sign. They are turned away.

1963: A wrapped package is left on the Library's doorstep on June 15th, containing the collectible haiku book series published by Peter Pauper Press, Mount Vernon, New York. Included in the package is a note written on a print of a mountain, signed by the ISHP as an offering to the library commemorating Issa’s date of birth on June 15th, 1832.

1982: The Institute on Man and Science — now Hilltown Commons — hosts a program on Japanese culture. Members of the ISHP contribute to this program in a rare public appearance.

1996: The library expands to adjacent property from the estate of Vivian Anderson Borthwick (1913-1994). While redecorating, paint from a second floor door is stripped, revealing a sign reading, “Office of the ISHP.”

c.2010: Renovation efforts to the library basement unearth the original metal ISHP sign removed in 1942, wrapped in white silk, and buried in the dirt floor. When touched, the rusted sign disintegrates, but most of the design is preserved in rust on the silk.

2013: First year of the Haiku Project, which was part of the Rensselaerville Library’s Festival of Writers (FOW). For three consecutive years, the Project produces limited edition haiku books, broadsides, and ephemera.

2014: Seattle Poet Laureate Shin Yu Pai (b. 1975) presents a workshop on haiku at the FOW. Several Society members attend and approach her afterwards, telling her there are over 5000 members worldwide.

2025: On New Year’s Day, known as Shōgatsu in Japan, the Rensselaerville HQ of The International Society of Haiku Poets reboots with a new Board of Directors. They produce bookmarks, notepads, and membership cards. Membership is only available in person at The Rensselaerville Library.

____: In October, a replica of the original 1913 metal sign is installed, and an annual Haiku Writer’s Residency is announced.

*For a more complete history of the Society, please see the ISHP Provisional Dossier, available on our website.