History, Natural History & the Arts
What follows is a guest essay by William Keating about the opening of the rehabilitated Mount Beacon Fire Tower in June.
The colonials used the 1,400 foot north peak of Mount Beacon along the Hudson River during the Revolutionary War to set warning fires to alert General Washington at his headquarters on the western side of the river of any British presence in the valley below. From this activity, the City of Beacon got its name. [Read more…] about Rehabilitated Mount Beacon Fire Tower Re-Opens
What follows is a guest essay by F. Daniel Larkin, Thomas D. Beal, and William S. Walker, the new editors of the academic journal New York History. Editorial functions of the quarterly were recently transferred from the New York State Historical Association to the State University of New York at Oneonta.
In the 1919 inaugural issue of the journal New York History, the iconoclastic progressive historian Carl Becker published an article contrasting Patriot John Jay and Loyalist Peter Van Schaack, which, in an accessible style that appealed to both experts and non-experts, explored central questions of our fledgling democracy. Becker wrote that the story of these New Yorkers offered “a concrete example of the State versus the individual, of personal liberty versus social compulsion, of might versus right.” [Read more…] about New York History Journal Editors’ Statement
What follows is a guest essay by Chip Reynolds, Half Moon Captain and Director of the New Netherland Museum.
Don’t miss a great opportunity that presents itself over the next two months — and not on the ship, the Half Moon is in for the winter! Just step outside on a clear night and take a look overhead.
Jupiter is clear and distinct in the constellation Taurus, which can be seen in the east early in the evening, overhead about midnight and in the west before dawn. It is the brightest object in the sky (except when the Moon is around), flanked by Orion below and Gemini above. [Read more…] about Chip Reynolds: Jupiter, Galileo and the Half Moon
Dedicated on July 5, 1912, and located at a prominent site that is steeped in history, the Champlain Memorial Lighthouse serves as a monument to the 1609 voyage on Lake Champlain by French explorer Samuel Champlain.
This Champlain Memorial rises from a small point of land just southeast of the Lake Champlain Bridge. In July 1609, Samuel Champlain was the first European to record seeing this majestic lake which he named for himself.
Late that month, Algonquin, Huron, and Montagnais people in canoes guided Champlain and two fellow Frenchmen southward from the St. Lawrence River region onto Lake Champlain, so that the three Europeans might join the Algonquins in a military engagement against the Algonquin’s Iroquois enemies.
A battle took place (perhaps near the present-day site of the lighthouse), the arquebus firearms used by the three Frenchmen were said to prove decisive, and the Algonquins and French returned northward. [Read more…] about The Champlain Memorial Lighthouse: Some History