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
Hardenburgh
Bearing Witness: Exploring the Legacy of Enslavement in Ulster County, New York
In New York State, Ulster County in particular had high rates of enslavement of people of African descent owing to its vast, bountiful farmland and its early settlement by wealthy Dutch, English, and French families.
The stories of those enslaved in Ulster County have long been underserved by historians, and the lives and identities of many are now lost forever, but new research continues to uncover important genealogical and societal information on who the enslaved and their enslavers were, what their lives were like, and the fate of newly emancipated Blacks and their families. [Read more…] about Bearing Witness: Exploring the Legacy of Enslavement in Ulster County, New York
2024 Catskills Fire Tower Challenge Underway
For nearly a century, observers watched the forests of New York State, including the Catskill and Adirondack Forest Preserve, from more than 100 fire towers perched atop the highest peaks, to search for dangerous, telltale signs of forest fires. The 2024 Catskills Fire Tower Challenge highlights the park’s remaining public fire towers. [Read more…] about 2024 Catskills Fire Tower Challenge Underway
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
Rangers Recover Body; Battle Late Season Wildfires, Conduct Search & Rescues
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Forest Rangers respond to search and rescue incidents throughout New York State. Working with other state agencies, local emergency response organizations and volunteer search and rescue groups, Forest Rangers locate and extract lost, injured or distressed people.
What follows is a report, prepared by DEC, of recent missions carried out by Forest Rangers. [Read more…] about Rangers Recover Body; Battle Late Season Wildfires, Conduct Search & Rescues