Putting Down Roots: An Interview with Tom Lindtveit
Fall 2025
In February of 2024, I dropped a note to Woodsman Forest Products in West Hurley, NY, seeking a donation for the John Burroughs’ Woodchuck Lodge annual April Auction. The note was one of perhaps seventy-five I sent to businesses I hoped would want to help preserve the lodge. Woodsman Forest Products’ owner was among the [Read More…]
Commencement…
Fall 2025
The laying of a cornerstone signifies an intention to build something important — a structure for the ages. A beginning to be celebrated by the communities involved. That was certainly the case for the cornerstone of the Hudson River’s Mid-Hudson Bridge 100 years ago this October 9th. It commenced a connection long dreamed of by [Read More…]
Historic Timbered Crossings
Summer 2025
Longer covered bridges were constructed to span major streams like the Wallkill, Rondout, and Esopus, shorter covered bridges helped bind communities in the Catskills where narrow ravines and rushing water made travel difficult. Without exception, covered bridges provided practical crossings for widely separated hamlets that helped integrate rural economies based on agriculture with emerging villages [Read More…]
Putting Down Roots: The Ostmark Family
Summer 2025
Rex Schneider pointed at the young man sitting on the Schneider sofa, “This is Jack Ostmark. He’s a Trooper.” Rex, a man of few words, always said more than most because his were chosen words–not the stream of consciousness we are so used to hearing. Rex was a kind of physical structure to many of [Read More…]
The Other Burroughs
Spring 2025
Passers-by could be forgiven for not noticing the grave site of Julian Burroughs. It’s easily overlooked by those cruising along Route 9W in West Park, NY. The entire cemetery there is dwarfed by a complex of stone barns just south of it—flashes of them through the trees are glimpses of another era, perhaps even another [Read More…]
Putting Down Roots: Lee Barrington, Jr.
Spring 2025
Marlboro, NY, May 9, 2024, Lee Barrington, Jr. and I took a six-hour meander along memory lane. We found we had traveled a lot of that same roads and shared a good number of interests. I hope our paths continue to cross and that I continue to learn more about this funny, interesting man. But [Read More…]
ICE
Winter 2024
May Miller turned sixteen more than one hundred years ago. Her diary of 1904 was included in a box of small black diaries of her brother, John. The siblings lived in a farming family in Bullville, (Orange County) NY […] January 2, 1904, was a Saturday and May related, “It snowed all day to-day George [Read More…]
The Rise and Fall and Rise of Kingston, NY City Hall
Fall 2024
Number 420 Broadway, Kingston, NY, is a large red- and white-brick High Victorian Gothic municipal-style building. Its history often closely mirrored much of the economic and cultural turmoils of its nearly 150-year existence. Completed in 1875, it commanded its hillside heights with three main stories and a five-story tower with a belfry. Typical of the [Read More…]
Ulster County Bluestone
Summer 2024
The number of fascinating websites and books containing information on the bluestone industry in Ulster County and its neighbors indicates the resources’ importance in the development of our area and beyond. They cover not just bluestone’s impact on the physical places, but its impact on the lives of thousands of families. Bluestone was so crucial [Read More…]
Time Travel
A Short Trip on Ulster County Roads & Bridges
Spring 2024
“Public records are the frozen mind of the people.” Thus begins the introduction to transcriptions of Early Records of New York State showing the meetings and laws covering Road Commissioners of Ulster County, Volume I, 1722-1769. The book is an interesting read, especially if you ever wondered who laid out some of the rural roads [Read More…]
Putting Down Roots
Three countries, three families, three stories. All Americans.
Winter 2023
Sidgwick Family: England Tantillo Family: Italy Polischuk Family: Russia This pictorial layout is presented here as a downloadable PDF file: Putting Down Roots (PDF)
Water Works
Fall 2023
Following the example of natural waterways, this article meanders. Hopefully, it makes connections between that H2O and some other facets of our vast land and its history that led to America’s unparalleled prosperity. Water was a natural bounty that provided a figurative and literal path to earnable wealth for our forebears, and continues for us [Read More…]
Connecting Oceans / Carleton Mabee
Fall 2023
The globe in my New Paltz Campus School fifth-grade class- room clearly showed the Panamanian isthmus; Mrs. Compton, head-enlightener, pointed out that a channel was dug to connect the two oceans. Shipping options increased. Ho Hum. Not until the book, The Path Between the Seas, by David McCullough, made it onto my reading list that [Read More…]
The Social Relief Society Welcomes You to Cottekill…
Summer 2023
The Inviting Postcard The bucolic image above is a postcard. Its postal cancellation reads: “Cottekill, N.Y. August 6, 1941, AM.” The Social Relief Society (SRS) advertising text on reverse sets the mood: “The S.R.S. Home is beautifully situated in the Catskill Mountains 900 feet above sea level in Cottekill, Ulster County, N.Y. Reasonable rates. All [Read More…]
Ulster County Hamlets: A-Z
Summer 2023
The list below requires a little explanation. For instance, Rosendale is listed as a hamlet, but that is the common name for the village running along Route 213. The Town of Rosendale, however, encompasses many hamlets and the village of Rosendale is just one. Acccording to the town’s website, others are Binnewater, Bloomington, Bruceville, Cottekill, [Read More…]
Thanks To You, Our Advertisers & Readers, We Begin Our 40th Year
Spring 2023
About Town began in the Summer of 1984 as The Guide To New Paltz. The Guide’s founders were Liz Weisz, Elena Erber, Karen Thompson, and yours truly. By 1988, the publication had grown to incorporate other Ulster County towns. To accommodate the expanded area, we changed its name to About Town (AT). Within a few [Read More…]
A Solid Heritage
Spring 2023
This article is edited, corrected, and shortened from its original publication in About Town, Summer edition 1993 Head west from Rosendale village on Route 213 and after the Turco Water Company caves, make a right at the Brooklyn Bridge. OK, so it is not precisely the Brooklyn Bridge. It is a replica of John and [Read More…]
College Hill, Poughkeepsie, NY
Winter 2022
Looking at the postcard images throughout this issue, it is easy to understand Poughkeepsie’s “Queen City” designation. In the 1800s, Poughkeepsie was a beautiful, bustling, wealth-generating place bursting with industry, culture, philanthropy, imagination, and education. The city’s most significant enabler, the Hudson River, and later the railroads, brought materials, people, and investment to the area. [Read More…]
Where There’s Smoke…
Fall 2022
This is a story that jumps around like water on a hot griddle. It jumps in time and it jumps in geography. When the smoke clears, I hope you have a greater appreciation for the history of our local fire departments, your investment in them, and their hundreds of volunteers. March 17, 1891. Highland. The [Read More…]
Perrine’s Bridge: Celebrating 200 Years
Fall 2022
For two hundred years, Perrine’s Covered Bridge has crossed the Wallkill River at Rifton in the Town of Esopus just four miles north of the New Paltz village. In the early nineteenth century, it was one of three bridges within a 10 miles span of the Wallkill in the Town of New Paltz, which had [Read More…]
