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Columbia County: A Lecture On Copake History

May 15, 2014 by Editorial Staff 4 Comments

Pelholm barn with Ezra PellsLocal historian and author Howard Blue will present talk on the history of Copake, Columbia County, at the Roe Jan Historical Society in Copake Falls on Sunday, May 18 at 2:00 pm. Blue’s program is based in part on interviews of local residents from whose family albums he was allowed to copy old photos.

The presentation will focus primarily on the town’s and county’s first settlers, the Mohican Indians, and the 90-year-long, sometimes violent conflict between the Livingston family which at one time owned almost all of Copake and the family’s tenant farmers. Blue will also discuss Martin Van Buren’s role in Copake’s anti-rent movement, Copake in the Revolutionary war years, the existence of slavery in Copake, and Copake’s Civil War era bond issue that helped buy out from the draft some of Copake’s young men.

Blue’ s first program was seen by standing room only crowds at the Roe Jan library, so arrive early to be guaranteed a seat. In the past, Blue has interviewed a variety of literary and political figures including Sergei Khrushchev, son of the former Soviet Prime Minister, and two Nobel Prize winners.

Blue has also done public speaking in Britain, Canada, Poland and throughout the U. S. and has been interviewed on radio or TV stations in Britain, and the U.S., including Puerto Rico. His book, Words at War was the subject of a radio documentary produced in Germany.

Photo: A Copake farm circa 1930.

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Filed Under: Events, History, Hudson Valley - Catskills Tagged With: Anti-Rent War, Columbia County, Indigenous History, Livingston Manor, Martin Van Buren, Mohican, Native American History

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Stories written under the Editorial Staff byline are drawn from press releases and other notices. Submit your news to New York Almanack here.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Dorris Sickels Smith says

    September 13, 2014 at 9:13 PM

    My gr. gr. grandmother, Margaret Silvernail Reynolds, lived at Livingston Manor ,Columbia Co. N.Y. In letters to her daughters she related the yearly trip to the Livingston Manor House to pay rent with butter & flax seed, the great feast & how kind Mrs. Livingston was to the children. Madam Livingston always wore black & a white bonnet upon her head.
    I visited the area years ago before the property was posted, a German couple living in a cottage where the Manor House once stood, nothing remained but foundations of the Manor House & the kiln. It was a beautiful view of the Hudson River. I returned some time later to visit the German couple only to find all posted. The Silvernail family departed from New York to Wisconsin via the Erie Canal and the Great Lakes after the Anti- Rent War.

    Reply
    • Howard Blue says

      January 16, 2016 at 2:51 PM

      I would very much like to talk to you about the letters that your great-great-grandmother wrote to her daughters about the Livingston manner. Would you please contact me.

      Howard Blue Memrevs@Gmail.com Or phone 718-570-4833

      Reply
  2. Dorris Smith says

    March 21, 2017 at 4:47 AM

    PLEASE CONTACT ME AGAIN.
    djssmith@hotmail.com

    Reply
  3. Dorris Smith says

    November 12, 2017 at 10:55 PM

    We lost contact, try again.

    Reply

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