History, Natural History & the Arts
The Palisades Interstate Park Commission (PIPC) was formed in 1900 by Governors Theodore Roosevelt of New York and Foster Voorhees of New Jersey in response to the quarrying operations along the Palisades Cliffs of New Jersey.
Before the creation of the vast Palisades Interstate Park spanning New York and New Jersey, people lived and worked there in small villages and hamlets. [Read more…] about A Palisades Interstate Park History Podcast
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Forest Rangers respond to search and rescue incidents throughout New York State locating and extracting lost, injured or distressed people and policing state lands.
This report of recent missions carried out by Forest Rangers was prepared by DEC: [Read more…] about Forest Rangers Conduct Multiple Search & Rescue Missions
Town of Woodstock historian Richard Heppner’s new book, Woodstock: From World War to Culture Wars (SUNY Press, 2024), explores the uncommon history of a small town in the shadow of Overlook Mountain in Ulster County, NY, as it moves through major changes during the twentieth century.
Few towns in America are as famous as Woodstock, New York — although Woodstock may be most famous for an event that happened many miles away. Long before the 1969 Woodstock festival put the town on the map, it had been a center for artists and free thinkers who found refuge in its rural setting. [Read more…] about Woodstock: From World War to Culture Wars
Fifty-five years after the fact, it should be clear to anyone who is paying attention that the Woodstock Festival that took place in the town of Bethel, NY, in August of 1969 was larger than life. It was also one of the best things to ever happen to Sullivan County.
One of the festival’s organizers and its main financial backer, John Roberts, once described Woodstock as “a coincidence” that resulted from the convergence of “many powerful trends.” Others, he said, decided it was “a phenomenon.” Being assigned that status, he admitted, was comforting, because it absolved the organizers of their failings and gave them “a sense of having participated in something larger than life.” [Read more…] about Woodstock, 1969: A Complicated Local Legacy
On March 8, 1908, Daniel Bennett St. John Roosa, one of New York City’s most prominent doctors and a native of Sullivan County, suffered a major heart attack and died. Few men from the county have ever risen to greater heights in their chosen profession.
Born on a farm in Bethel in 1838, and named for a well-known Monticello merchant and banker, Roosa was, at the time of his death, perhaps the leading authority in the country on diseases of the eyes, ears and throat. [Read more…] about Daniel Bennett St. John Roosa: A Sullivan County Doctor in New York City
The fact that since 1987 the month of March has been celebrated as Women’s History Month in this country provides an interesting perspective on the recent announcement by Assemblywoman Aileen Gunther that she would not be seeking re-election in November, especially given the fact that it is quite possible that the two candidates running to replace her may both be women. [Read more…] about Jean Amatucci: Sullivan County’s First Assemblywoman
For decades, Fannie Harden worked alongside her husband William to build the Forestview Lodge near Swan Lake in the Catskills town of Liberty, into a successful business, carrying on alone after his death. When she passed away, the hotel went into decline and closed in 1955.
That is the story of many Sullivan County hotels, and in myriad ways, the story of the Forestview Lodge is quite typical. One important difference, however, is that the Hardens were African Americans. [Read more…] about Black Catskills History: Harden’s Forestview Lodge
Dr. Ralph S. Breakey was the epitome of the country doctor. He was born in 1891 in Hurd Settlement in the town of Bethel, Sullivan County, NY, and graduated from nearby Monticello High School, then New York University and Bellevue Hospital.
He began practicing medicine in 1917, and was active for more than 50 years, serving nearly that long as Sullivan County Coroner. [Read more…] about Ralph Breakey: A Catskills Country Doctor
On a wintry walk in the woods, the glossy evergreen leaves and bright red berries of American Wintergreen make a pretty sight against fallen snow. Plentiful in the northern U.S. and Canada, the low-growing Gaultheria procumbens is known for the pungent aroma and mint-like taste of leaf and berry — pleasing but hard to define.
Native Americans used the leaves to treat pain and fever, and introduced colonists to the custom of drinking wintergreen tea. This “teaberry” carried them through the Revolutionary War, when British tea was scarce. [Read more…] about Wintergreen Oil: Local Employer to Bootlegger’s Subterfuge
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