The New York and New Jersey metropolitan area hosts several leading higher education institutions, ranging from elite Ivy League and public research universities to specialist technological schools. Three of those belong to the historic group of nine pre-Revolutionary colonial colleges. [Read more…] about Rutgers, Race & The Hardenbergh Legacy
Esopus People
$2 Million Visitor Center Planned for Historic Huguenot Street
Historic Huguenot Street in New Paltz, in Ulster County, NY, has been awarded a $2 million Capital Project grant from the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) to support the construction of an Education and Visitor Center. [Read more…] about $2 Million Visitor Center Planned for Historic Huguenot Street
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
Evert Wendell Account Books Reveal Life in 1695-1789
The New York Historical Society has digitized their Evert Wendell collection, including five account books in Dutch and English covering the period from 1695 to 1758 and one docket book (in English).
Evert Wendell (1681-1750) was a Dutch-descended Albany merchant, fur trader, and attorney, who conducted business with Native Americans in upstate New York and with colonists in Albany, Schenectady, New York City, and Boston. [Read more…] about Evert Wendell Account Books Reveal Life in 1695-1789
William Starna’s History of the Mahican
From Homeland to New Land: A History of the Mahican Indians, 1600-1830 (University of Nebraska Press, 2013), is by William A. Starna, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at the State University of New York College at Oneonta.
This history of the Mahicans begins with the appearance of Europeans on the Hudson River in 1609 and ends with the removal of these Native peoples to Wisconsin in the 1830s. [Read more…] about William Starna’s History of the Mahican
Hike, Bike, and Camp in Indian Head Wilderness
The 11,500-acre Indian Head Wilderness is located in the towns of Saugerties and Woodstock, Ulster County, and Town of Hunter, Greene County, NY, and has five major peaks that offer amazing views of the Catskills and the Hudson Valley.
Adventure seekers can hike the rugged 25-mile Devil’s Path, a popular and challenging trail that crosses the summits of Indian Head, Twin, Sugarloaf, and Plateau mountains before continuing into the Hunter–West Kill Wilderness. [Read more…] about Hike, Bike, and Camp in Indian Head Wilderness
Ulster County, NY, Colonial Dutch Archive Now Online in English
In 1652, the first Anglo-Dutch colonists began arriving in the fertile lowlands of the Esopus River Valley in what is now Ulster County, NY, where the valley passes close to the confluence of the Hudson River and Rondout Creek at modern-day Kingston.
Their earliest colonial records, written in an archaic form of Dutch by colonial secretaries not known for their gifted penmanship, are now freely available online in their entirety in English for the first time. [Read more…] about Ulster County, NY, Colonial Dutch Archive Now Online in English
DEC Relations with Indigenous Nations
November is Native American Heritage Month, a nationwide celebration of the contributions of Indigenous peoples and celebration of their heritage, traditions, culture, art, and history while acknowledging how society has impacted Indigenous peoples and culture. New York State was the first state to recognize “American Indian Day” in 1916, originally observed on the second Saturday in May. [Read more…] about DEC Relations with Indigenous Nations
Nieuw Dorp, Now & Then: Dutch History in Ulster County
Traveling from Washington D.C. to Milwaukee, Dutch journalist Bas Blokker makes a stop-over in Hurley, Ulster County, NY, and discovers its Dutch history. His curiosity is piqued and he dives into the past to find the nineteenth-century views of the Dutch colonizers very different from modern ones.
During the last five years, I always crossed the Susquehanna River just north of Baltimore when driving from my house in Washington DC to New York. Once on the bridge the same scene unfolded again and again in my mind’s eye: a sailing ship changing course from the Chesapeake Bay to enter the river’s mouth and drop anchor at what is now Havre de Grace or Garret Island. [Read more…] about Nieuw Dorp, Now & Then: Dutch History in Ulster County
The Land System of Colonial New York
What follows is a 1917 essay, “The Land System in Colonial New York” by Charles Worthen Spencer published in the Proceedings of the New York State Historical Association, (Vol. 16). At the time Spencer was Professor of Political Science at the University of Nevada. It has been annotated by John Warren.
Adequate description, even in outline, of the land system of any community would comprise so much detail, both of governmental policy and practice and of the community’s reaction there-to, that in a paper of this compass only selected features may be referred to. It will be necessary, also, to confine the treatment mainly to the period between 1691 and the opening of the intercolonial war [the French and Indian War] in 1755. [Read more…] about The Land System of Colonial New York
Ulster County’s Historic ‘Osterhoudt Flats’ Protected; New Trail Planned
In July, the Open Space Institute (OSI) has acquired the historic 90-acre Osterhoudt Flats property that is expected to host a multi-use community trail in the Town of Marbletown, Ulster County, NY. OSI purchased the 90-acre property on Atwood Road from landowners Claude and Holly Osterhoudt. [Read more…] about Ulster County’s Historic ‘Osterhoudt Flats’ Protected; New Trail Planned
Fort Delaware: An Early Theme Park, Now A Museum
Although some consider California’s Disneyland, which opened in 1955, to be the first American theme park — not to be confused with an amusement park, which dates back far earlier — most argue that the first was actually Santa Claus Land in Santa Claus, Indiana, which opened in 1946. [Read more…] about Fort Delaware: An Early Theme Park, Now A Museum
Ulster County, Ramapough Lenape Renewing 1665 Esopus Treaty
On October 7, 1665, a peace treaty was signed between the indigenous Esopus people (the Ramapough Munsee Lunaape Nation / Ramapough Lenape Nation) and European settlers in what is now Ulster County, NY. The treaty brought to a close hostilities between the two parties that had begun in 1659, known as the Esopus Wars. [Read more…] about Ulster County, Ramapough Lenape Renewing 1665 Esopus Treaty
Revolutionary Albany: The Battles of Saratoga & Loyalist Opposition
In the first days of August, 1777, Albany seemed doomed to be overrun by the British. General John Burgoyne had taken Crown Point, Fort Ticonderoga, Fort George, Fort Anne, Fort Edward and Fort Miller, the last substantial fortified place protecting the city from the north. To the west at Fort Stanwix, a siege was underway requiring many of General Philip Schyuler’s troops being sent to that fort’s defense from their camp on Van Schaick Island, now in the city of Cohoes.
Burgoyne however, had severely stretched his supply line. He was now having problems bringing up food and supplies over primitive roads that had been severely rutted and nearly destroyed by the Revolutionaries. He had to slow down to wait for food and had to keep his supply line protected all the way back to Canada, spreading his troops more thinly. [Read more…] about Revolutionary Albany: The Battles of Saratoga & Loyalist Opposition
Colonial Conflict, Native People, Anti-Catholicism & The Burning of Schenectady
In 1652, New Netherland Director General Peter Stuyvesant declared that Fort Orange and everything around it, including the village outside the fort, often called Oranje after the fort, was independent of the ownership of the Van Rensselaer family. He named the small mostly Dutch village “Beverwyck.”
Possibly at the urging of the Van Rensselaers, their earlier manager Arendt Van Curler (Corlear) began planning the construction of a new village. [Read more…] about Colonial Conflict, Native People, Anti-Catholicism & The Burning of Schenectady
New Documentary On Esopus Creek, From Headwaters to the Hudson
On Friday, December 4, at 7 p.m., Tobe Carey will take to Zoom to introduce three cuts from his latest documentary, Mountain River: The Esopus Creek, Headwaters to the Hudson.
This feature-length film follows the Esopus Creek from its headwaters on Slide Mountain in New York’s Catskill Mountains, to the Ashokan Reservoir and on to the Hudson River at Saugerties, NY. [Read more…] about New Documentary On Esopus Creek, From Headwaters to the Hudson
340th Anniversary of New Paltz Land Agreement
Historic Huguenot Street has announced that it is constructing a replica Munsee Native American wigwam to celebrate the 340th anniversary of the signing of the 1677 land agreement between the Munsee Esopus sachems and the Huguenot Refugees.
The land agreement provided for the 12 Huguenot founders to “purchase” nearly 40,000 acres of land in the lower Wallkill Valley. The village that developed within the borders of this land is now known as New Paltz. [Read more…] about 340th Anniversary of New Paltz Land Agreement
Shad: The Founding Fish Returns
![Lenapeshad[1]](https://newyorkalmanack.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Lenapeshad1.jpg)
There was a time when Lenape fishermen – or women, since they did much of the fishing in that culture— would use nets woven from branches, saplings or wild hemp to catch huge numbers of shad in the Delaware River. Much of their catch would be preserved by a unique smoking process that would keep them edible through the winter. The Lenape designated March as the month of the shad and celebrated with a festival that often lasted six weeks or more.
The early European settlers learned the importance of shad from the Natives and quickly picked up the technique of smoking them to provide food for the harsh winters when game was scarce. Some historians, including William E. Meehan writing in Fish, Fishing and Fisheries of Pennsylvania in 1893, have noted that virtually every Colonial era homestead in a broad area bordering the Delaware River “had its half-barrel of salted shad sitting in the kitchen with some choice pieces of smoked shad hanging by the kitchen chimney.” [Read more…] about Shad: The Founding Fish Returns
Munsee Indian Trade in Ulster County
Munsee Indian Trade in Ulster County, New York 1712-1732 (Syracuse Univ Press, 2013), edited by Kees-Jan Waterman and J. Michael Smith offers the full, annotated translation of a recently discovered Dutch account book recording trade with Native Americans in Ulster County, New York, from 1712 to 1732.
The ledger contains just over two-thousand transactions with about two-hundred native individuals. Slightly more than one-hundred Indigenous people appear with their names listed. The volume and granularity of the entries allow for detailed indexing and comparative analysis of the people and processes involved in these commercial dealings in the mid-Hudson River Valley. [Read more…] about Munsee Indian Trade in Ulster County
The Trials and Tribulations of Abraham Hasbrouck
I’ve been researching the Hasbrouck Family for close to twenty years. During that time, I’ve spent most of my time exploring and writing about Colonel Jonathan Hasbrouck. His home, located in Newburgh, is famous for being the headquarters of General George Washington from 1782-1783 and today it’s a state historic site.
An often overlooked member of this family is Jonathan’s oldest brother, Abraham. During his long life, Abraham kept a diary and because of this journal, we know a lot about Jonathan and his family, as well as the events (and even notable weather) of his time. [Read more…] about The Trials and Tribulations of Abraham Hasbrouck