History, Natural History & the Arts
The three-century-long ownership chain of the Gomez Mill House in Marlboro is a many-tiered, richly-textured layer cake of personal stories.
Specific historic periods lend unique flavoring to each personal history.
But in the case of the recently-rediscovered activist Martha Gruening (1889-1937), her early-20th dreams of a better, more just world have a distinctly modern resonance. [Read more…] about Idealist-on-the Hudson: Martha Gruening’s ‘Libertarian’ School
On Sunday, September 11, at 1 pm, Professor Susan Ingalls Lewis will give a talk at the Gomez Mill House, on her work on women’s suffrage in New York. [Read more…] about Who Really Won The Vote For Women In NYS
On Sunday, July 24, 2016 at 1 pm, J. Stephen Casscles will present The History of Fruit Growing in the Mid-Hudson Valley and Local Breeding of new Varieties of Grape, Raspberries, and Strawberries. He will offer for sale and sign copies of his book, Grapes of the Hudson Valley And Other Cool Climate Regions of the United States and Canada. A wine tasting of local vintages follows the presentation. [Read more…] about Lecture: Mid-Hudson Fruit Growing History
If the walls of the Gomez Mill House could talk, what a story it could tell.
Despite the hard stone construction of the building, the sentiment is gentle: “If you have a warm heart, you are welcome.”
The alert observer will see hearts in the designs around the home and grounds, and in the artwork. It’s a place that has been witness to over 300 years of history: not only of Orange County, but of the United States. It has seen days as a business operation, sending construction materials to New York City; it has overheard secret intelligence meetings during the Revolutionary War; it has also been a working farm growing fruit and breeding purebred animals. Built by Jewish businessman Luis Moses Gomez, it’s also the oldest known Jewish dwelling in the United States. [Read more…] about A Visit To Orange County’s Gomez Mill House
The first of three annual conferences focusing on a lesser-known role played by merchants, especially Jewish merchants, in the Caribbean and major ports of Colonial America in the establishment of the United States, will be held at the ‘Center for Jewish History’ in New York City on Sunday, October 18, 2009.
The initial one-day gathering, “Merchant Jews in The New World: 1500-1800” is being organized by ‘The Gomez Foundation for Mill House’, an organization focused upon the pioneer experience in America. The aim of this conference is to highlight current research and foster further study in this long neglected corner of New World and Colonial American history. Represented on the panels will be noted scholars in the field, including Keynote Speaker, Dr. Jonathan Ray of Georgetown University, Washington, DC.
Gomez Foundation for Mill House manages and operates one of the oldest, continuously occupied dwellings in North America, the 300-year-old ‘Gomez Mill House’ in Orange County, New York. On the National Register of Historic Places, the house was named after a Jewish merchant named Luis Moses Gomez. Other pioneers, patriots and significant owners who came after him are also honored at the house.
Gomez was born in Spain, fled with his family to Southwestern France, and came to New York by way of England and the Caribbean. His aim in building his trading post (now the house) was to help open up the Hudson River to increased trade.
The conference is open to those with both academic and non-academic backgrounds, particularly those who share an interest in the economic birth, maturity and modern expansion in the New World and early America. For further information on the conference, visit www.gomez.org.