Between August 3 and August 9, 2026, New York State Forest Rangers responded to a surge of backcountry rescues, many due to inadequate gear, poor navigation skills, and physical exhaustion. The following Forest Ranger reports show how unpreparedness and unpredictable events can turn a fun hike into an emergency. Use the links to navigate to stories about that geographical area. [Read more…] about Backcountry Rescue Surge: Axe Injury, Cascade Fall, Lost Party of 9, Many Unprepared
Dutchess County
Rangers Recover Body, Make Multiple Backcountry Rescues
New York State Forest Rangers recently participated in at least seven wilderness rescue missions across New York State, including on the Appalachian Trail and near Kaaterskill Falls; two hikers within an hour near Hurricane Mountain; and several in West Canada Lake Wilderness. [Read more…] about Rangers Recover Body, Make Multiple Backcountry Rescues
A French Officer’s Visit To Fishkill Supply Depot, 1780
The following is an excerpt from Travels in North-America, in the years 1780-81-82 by François Jean de Beauvoir, Marquis de Chastellux (1734-1788), a French military officer who served during the American Revolution under General Comte de Rochambeau. Here he describes his travels in Dutchess County, including a visit to Fishkill Supply Depot.
The country is well cultivated; affording the prospect of several pretty farms, with some mills; and notwithstanding the [Revolutionary] war, Hopel township [Hopewell Junction in Dutchess County] is building, inhabited chiefly by Dutch people, as well as the greatest part of the state of New York, which formerly belonged to the republic of Holland, who exchanged it for Surinam. [Read more…] about A French Officer’s Visit To Fishkill Supply Depot, 1780
The Fate of Loyalists After the Revolution
By 1783, the Revolutionary War was winding down. It had been a year and a half since the Franco-American victory at Yorktown. Since then, peace negotiations had taken place, with preliminary terms agreed to between Great Britain and the United States in November 1782.
With the British still occupying the city of New York, Washington moved much of the Continental Army to the Hudson Valley. [Read more…] about The Fate of Loyalists After the Revolution
Recent Wildlife Rescues Around New York State
New York State Environmental Conservation Officers (ECOs) recently rescued six baby opossums on Long Island, and a whitetail fawn that fell down an abandoned well in Dutchess County.
They also released a previously rescued Bald Eagle along the Mohawk River in Montgomery County. [Read more…] about Recent Wildlife Rescues Around New York State
A New York State 19-Century Baseball All-Star Team
Major League Baseball’s annual all-star game (taking place Tuesday in Philly) invariably fosters debates. Who’s the more worthy first-baseman, Vladimer Guerrero Jr. or Ben Rice? Should Aaron Judge be on the roster if he hasn’t played in over a month? Why is Cody Bellinger starting in the outfield over Randy Arozarena?
Baseball fans love arguing these sort of questions every year as the midsummer classic approaches. They lead naturally to questions about who was the greatest of all time. Babe Ruth? Ted Williams? Barry Bonds?
I don’t have the answers, but I would like to recognize a class of players who are often overlooked in these debates: the nineteenth-century greats. [Read more…] about A New York State 19-Century Baseball All-Star Team
Old Hudson Valley Churches Now Community Venues
Due to shrinking congregations and finances, many abandoned church buildings in New York’s Hudson Valley have been reused for other purposes. Some are now apartments or condominiums, fraternity houses, museums, historical societies, businesses and vibrant art venues and community centers. [Read more…] about Old Hudson Valley Churches Now Community Venues
Hudson Valley Loyalists and the Violence of Revolution
In many respects the American Revolution was a civil war pitting Americans loyal to the Crown against other Americans loyal to the vision of a new nation they sought to create. Neighbor fought against neighbor, brother against brother, father against son. One of the epicenters of this desperate struggle was New York’s Hudson Valley.
Suffering for the Crown: The Hudson Valley Loyalists and the Violence of Revolution (University of Virginia Press, 2026) by Kieran J. O’Keefe details the extreme violence, persecution, and displacement experienced by white, Black, and Native American Loyalists during the Revolution. [Read more…] about Hudson Valley Loyalists and the Violence of Revolution
Fake Turkey Shot From Road; Poaching Canada Geese; Illegal Fishing
An angler caught in the act filleting his illegal catch, and a large group ticketed for poaching more than a dozen striped bass are just some of the cases NYS Environmental Conservation Officers (ECOs) encountered in recent weeks.
The most surprising occurred on Sunday morning, May 10th, ECOs Brown, Dorrett, Heckler, and Hilton were using a robotic wild turkey decoy to catch people illegally road hunting in Williamstown, Oswego County, NY– it didn’t take long. [Read more…] about Fake Turkey Shot From Road; Poaching Canada Geese; Illegal Fishing
Rangers Fight Wildfires, Respond to Ill, Injured, Lost Hikers, Paddler
New York State Forest Rangers have seen a dramatic increase in missions with the advent of the summer hiking season. They recently responded to more than a half-dozen distressed recreationists in the Adirondacks, several of whom were poorly prepared, along with others in scattered other parts of the state. They also fought two wild land fires, one at a logging header. [Read more…] about Rangers Fight Wildfires, Respond to Ill, Injured, Lost Hikers, Paddler
New York’s Provincial Congress: From Association to State Government
The New York Provincial Congress on May 26, 1775, appointed a “standing committee of correspondence” and the next day ordered all the counties in the Province of New York to name committees for the counties, towns and districts and to have the “general association” signed, in order to execute the orders of the Second Continental Congress.
Every citizen was to be invited to sign the “association” and by July 1775, all the non-signers (loyalist, or otherwise) were to be reported to the Provincial Congress. [Read more…] about New York’s Provincial Congress: From Association to State Government
Recent Wildlife Rescues: A Turkey, A Gosling, and 11 Ducklings
New York State Environmental Conservation Officers (ECOs) responded to several recent wildlife rescues in the Hudson Valley, including a Saratoga County turkey apparently hit by a vehicle; and in Dutchess County, eleven ducklings stuck in a storm drain and an orphaned gosling. [Read more…] about Recent Wildlife Rescues: A Turkey, A Gosling, and 11 Ducklings
Ethnic Cleansing & Wartime Refugees in the Hudson Valley, 1754-1763
During the French and Indian War (1754-1763), many Mahican and Munsee-speaking people in the Hudson Valley felt themselves pressured to relocate to new areas both inside and outside of the Valley as the result of an ethnic cleansing project conducted by Sir William Johnson.
This created a refugee crisis that led to a varied of responses from both colonial officials and the Mohawks and other members of the Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) Six Nations. [Read more…] about Ethnic Cleansing & Wartime Refugees in the Hudson Valley, 1754-1763
Landscape & Social Change in Poughkeepsie
SUNY Press has re-published Main Street to Mainframes: Landscape and Social Change in Poughkeepsie by Harvey K. Flad and Clyde C. Griffen in a Second Edition. A social and urban history of the city on the Hudson River in Dutchess County, NY, tracing its transformation from a 19th-century market town to a 21st-century urban region.
The book examines economic shifts, immigration, race, housing, and revitalization efforts through a blend of social history and spatial analysis, using Poughkeepsie as a case study for broader trends in American small-city development. [Read more…] about Landscape & Social Change in Poughkeepsie
25 Properties Recommended to State, National Registers
The New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation (State Parks) have announced recommendations by the New York State Board for Historic Preservation to add 25 properties and districts to the State and National Registers of Historic Places.
The nominations include an intact 1905 metal casting foundry complex in Hudson, an 1873 house that reflects Syracuse’s layered history of immigration, urban renewal, and grassroots historic preservation, a cohesive group of Colonial Revival apartment buildings in Kenmore built during the 1920s and 1930s suburban housing boom, and an amendment to the 1971 nomination for Revolutionary-era Senate House in Kingston to include its 1920s commemorative museum annex. [Read more…] about 25 Properties Recommended to State, National Registers
OSI Supports Hudson Valley Environmental Programs
The Open Space Institute (OSI) has announced the 2026 recipients of its Malcolm Gordon Fund Awards, an initiative supporting environmental education programs, experiences that connect people to the land, and efforts to inspire the next generation of nature lovers in New York’s Hudson Valley.
For its 32nd annual round, awards were given to programs including a gardening tool-lending library in Rosendale, free guided river exploration for young people and families in Newburgh, and more. [Read more…] about OSI Supports Hudson Valley Environmental Programs
Poughkeepsie Whaling and The Old Whale Dock
According to historian Shannon Butler, between 1832 and 1833 two whaling companies were formed on the Hudson River in Poughkeepsie, NY: the Poughkeepsie Whaling Company and the Dutchess Whaling Company.
“Trained sea captains and sailors were imported from New Bedford [Mass.] and the first ship to be fitted and sent off in search of whales was The Vermont, which sailed in both the Atlantic and the Pacific for a few years before coming back in 1835 with $16,000 worth of oil,” Butler writes. “However, her captain had died under mysterious circumstances (sickness or murdered by a mutinous crew are apparently both possibilities).” [Read more…] about Poughkeepsie Whaling and The Old Whale Dock
An 1805 Visitor to the Springs in Ballston and Saratoga
On Friday, August 30th in 1805, Matthew Prendergast set off on horseback from Sharon, Connecticut. Matthew was about 50 years old, a resident of Amenia in Dutchess County, NY, just across the state line from Sharon. He was comfortably well off, but definitely not super rich, and he suffered from rheumatism.
He had a few errands to do on the way, but he was planning on heading north and taking the waters at Ballston Springs, where he had visited in the past. He took his time, stopping several times, including at Kinderhook, Albany and Troy. [Read more…] about An 1805 Visitor to the Springs in Ballston and Saratoga
America Wept: The Death of Richard Montgomery
The television series The American Revolution by Ken Burns and Sarah Botstein currently streaming on PBS gives a valuable overview of the founding era and may entice viewers to look more deeply at the personalities of some of the participants.
Richard Montgomery (1738-1775) has interested me because he was connected to the area of the Hudson Valley where I live. And he’s someone who emerges from the past as a distinct personality, someone who had been seared by war long before the Revolution. [Read more…] about America Wept: The Death of Richard Montgomery
The Ecological Impacts of 200 Years of Hudson River Dredging
The navigable portion of Hudson River provides a unique ecosystem with highly diverse habitats, despite being dramatically impacted by 200 years of dredging, retaining walls, and industrial development.
More than 85% of the river’s islands have been eliminated and most of the river’s side channels have been filled in. About half of the river shoreline between Troy and the Mario Cuomo Bridge (formally Tappan Zee) has been engineered. [Read more…] about The Ecological Impacts of 200 Years of Hudson River Dredging