“I went out after a Christmas tree and some laurel, through seas of mud,” Jervis McEntee of Kingston wrote on Christmas Eve 1881, “to the place where I always go on the cross road between the Flat-bush and Pine bush roads. It rained a part of the time and turned into a snow storm on our return.”
Another year, McEntee’s usual places for a tree were so wet that he settled for a small hemlock on the side of the hill where he lived. It was a hill that offered a panoramic view of the entire village as well as the Rondout Creek and the Hudson River. His father James, an engineer who had helped build the nearby Delaware and Hudson Canal, had built the first house on the hill and the family still lived there. [Read more…] about A Christmas in Kingston in the 1880s
A direct descendant of French Huguenots who settled New Paltz in 1678, Kenneth E. Hasbrouck Sr. had an important influence on Ulster County local history. He served as County Historian, Town of Gardiner Historian and was a founder and president of the Huguenot Historical Society (HHS). 
Phase one of the project to restore the original 18th-century roof framing of the Jean Hasbrouck House (ca. 1721) in New Paltz, at Historic Huguenot Street (HHS) has begun.
In 1850, after the State of New York took possession of the Hasbrouck House for back taxes. 
When people visit Washington’s Headquarters in Newburgh, New York they are also visiting a Hasbrouck house. This home and farm, from the 18th to mid -19th centuries, belonged to the Hasbrouck Family until it was acquired by New York State.
There are many stories circulating about Newburgh’s Colonel Jonathan Hasbrouck (better known today as Washington’s Headquarters). Some are believed true, such as Tryntje Hasbrouck sitting in “sullen silence” when told that her home was chosen as Washington’s Headquarters, and some are simply made-up. One such story involves Washington’s stay at the house from 1782-1783.
