History, Natural History & the Arts
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
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
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
Substantial infrastructure upgrades have been made at Mills-Norrie State Park in Dutchess County, NY.
This $3 million project includes a new septic system and dumping station for recreational vehicles to help protect both campers and the environment. [Read more…] about Mills Norrie State Park Campground Upgrades
In early New York and New England, rivers offered the most accommodating transportation options available to settlers, notably the Hudson and Connecticut Rivers. Travel between these rivers began on foot trails created by native people. These were improved to accommodate military and commercial traffic by governments and by entrepreneurs chartering turnpikes to exploit the tolls.
A new historical marker near Millbrook in Dutchess County identifies one such route: the Dutchess Turnpike. [Read more…] about The Dutchess Turnpike
It was July 1942, the seventh month of the United States in World War II (1941–1945). The German military had driven into the Caucasus region of southeastern Europe. New York residents were shocked, too, by news that fascists from a German U-boat had landed several weeks earlier in eastern Long Island but the Nazi agents were captured.
Then the media reported that on July 16, six parachutists had been spotted in the skies near Hyde Park, NY, home of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The government worried that enemy spies or assassins might be near Roosevelt’s Hudson Valley residence. [Read more…] about Beware the Enemy: World War II Upstate New York Manhunts
What follows is an article published in the Sydney Morning Herald of New South Wales, Australia on January 23, 1852. Chartered in 1846, the Hudson River Railroad was built to connect the Troy and Greenbush Railroad with the city of New York.
On Wednesday, [October 3, 1851] the ceremony took place of opening the Hudson River Railroad, in its entire length from New York to Albany. Hitherto the portion of the road between Poughkeepsie and Tivoli [in Dutchess County] (twenty-six miles) was not in operation, and the passengers were conveyed in a steamboat between those two points. Last week the road was completed, and the cars ran over it privately. Last week it was [also] publicly opened, by running two excursion trains each way and returning. [Read more…] about 1851: The Opening of the Hudson River Railroad
On the afternoon of May 1, 1939, in the idyllic town of Rhinebeck, in Dutchess County, NY, a large and excited crowd gathered to witness President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) officially dedicate the new Dutch Colonial-style post office. Other esteemed guests included First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, the president’s mother, Sara Delano Roosevelt, Henry Morgenthau, Jr., Secretary of the Treasury, and James Farley, Postmaster General. [Read more…] about The Rhinebeck Post Office: Bringing Art and History to Life
The 128th New York Infantry Regiment was a volunteer regiment from Columbia and Dutchess Counties during the American Civil War. Formed in Hudson, New York, on September 5, 1862, by Colonel David S. Cowles, the regiment fought at the Siege of Port Hudson, Louisiana and was part of the Shenandoah Valley Campaign.
Over the course of the war, many of the regiment died or were taken prisoner and sent to the infamous Confederate Libby Prison. Colonel Cowles died with many of his men in battle at Port Hudson, while attempting to reopen the Mississippi River to the Union . [Read more…] about The 128th NY Regiment & Columbia County Contributions to the Union Army
On May 27, while attending the “Barn Star’s Antiques at Rhinebeck,” semi-annual antique show held at the Dutchess County Fairgrounds, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Investigators Conway and Bastedo discovered numerous items made from parts of endangered animals that are illegal to sell in New York State. [Read more…] about Endangered Species ‘Antiques’ at Fairgrounds Show Lead to Charges
The Town of Rhinebeck in Dutchess County, NY celebrated the installation of a historical marker at Quitman House on May 28th.
The building served as the Parsonage for the minister serving St. Peter’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, better known as the Stone Church, located next door. The parsonage is known today as Quitman House and was built in 1798 to house the minister, Reverend Frederick H. Quitman, D. D.
[Read more…] about 1798 Quitman Parsonage Historic Sign Installed in Rhinebeck
In 1780, a young man traveled from his provincial hometown in Baden-Württemberg to London to meet his elder brother who had settled there two years previously as a wooden instrument maker. The many small states that constituted Germany at the time had a reputation for developing and producing musical instruments. The export of technology was an important feature of German design and many craftsmen had migrated to London (and eventually to New York and other American cities).
The seedy location of his brother’s workshop must have come as a shock to the youngster and he was eager to better himself. Four years later he left the capital for the docks of Southampton, carrying few belongings and a number of flutes with him, and set sail for America. Half a century later he owned large parts of Manhattan.
This remarkable tale could have served as one of the “rags to riches” stories that made Horatio Alger such a popular author in America during the later decades of the nineteenth century. [Read more…] about The Astor Dynasty: Rag Street to Broadway, A Waldorf Tale of New York
The book The Livingston Lion: Henry Beekman Livingston’s Revolution (Epigraph, 2021) by historian Geoff Benton is the first biography of Revolutionary War soldier Henry Beekman Livingston. [Read more…] about A New Biography of Henry Beekman Livingston
David Byars’ new book, Our Time at Foxhollow Farm a Hudson Valley Family Remembered (SUNY Press, 2016) is a pictorial history of a wealthy Hudson Valley family in the early decades of the twentieth century. [Read more…] about Rhinebeck: Our Time At Fox Hollow Farm
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