Honey Bee
Fall 2008
Two years ago we discovered a colony of feral honey bees* in a tree at my family’s old homestead in Plutarch (not far from New Paltz). This spring when I checked, the tree was silent. The colony gone. That colony had been about 8 miles from our present home in Highland. Shortly after that disappointing [Read More…]
Swamps, Trails, and Other Things
Summer 2008
Esopus: Shaupeneak Trials Coming from the south, Shaupeneak Trialhead is on Old Post Road (a left off Route 9W just north of Black Creek Apartments and Black Creek Road). Then, cross the railroad tracks and it’s on your right. Burroughs Sanctuary and Slabsides While you are in this neck of the woods, go south on [Read More…]
Milton Training Days
125 Year Old Station is Rescued, Will Be Rehabilitated, and Reused
Summer 2008
Follow the mile markers along the CSX tracks north along the Hudson River and at marker #68 you will see the Milton Train Station looking much as it did 125 years ago–except the train doesn’t stop now. No wagons line up to disgorge the bounty of Ulster County. There are no baggage handlers, no carts, [Read More…]
Joseph Tubby Retrospective
At Friends of Historic Kingston Gallery
Summer 2008
A retrospective of Joseph Tubby (1821-1896), a nineteenth century Kingston artist noted for his paintings of local landscapes, is open at the Friends of Historic Kingston Gallery. Tubby was a disciple of the Hudson River School and painted in that style throughout his career. Born in England, Tubby moved to Rondout as an adolescent when [Read More…]
Esopus Meadow Light House Lights Up
Summer 2008
It is a night in 1839. The Esopus Meadows Lighthouse sits on the edge of Esopus Meadows Flats about three miles south of Kingston. It appears to be in the middle of the river. The lighthouse beam casts its warning to the busy cargo and passenger ships making their way through the darkness and into [Read More…]
Walkway Over The Hudson
Spring 2008
Considered an unrivaled engineering feat, the bridge was the first to span the Hudson. When opened in 2009 for the Hudson Fulton Celebration, it will be the longest pedestrian bridge in the world. Thanks to the Board of the Walkway, the Dyson Foundation, and Bill Sepe, whose dream it always was.
Orchard Mason Bees to the Rescue
Spring 2008
With all the bad news for feral and domesticated honey bees (Colony Collapse Disorder), we thought a little good news for gardiners might be in order. That good news is the native Orchard Bees, a mild-mannered pollinator. Last year I purchased two orchard mason bee blocks or houses. These were made from 6x6x9 inch blocks [Read More…]
World Class Athlete, Super Star, and Local “Mystery Man”: Edward Payson Weston
Spring 2008
When his parents purchased their farm on July 23, 1921 at the intersection of the towns of New Paltz, Esopus and Lloyd, seven-year old Louis Yess, had no idea of the once world-celebrated man living a few miles away. The neighbor, Edward Payson Weston, was a world famous perambulator (walker). He lived on “the Rifton [Read More…]
Putting Down Roots: Concetta Alessi McIntosh
Spring 2008
According to the 1930 census of the Town of Lloyd, Rosa DeLena Alessi, head of household, lived with five of her seven surviving children. Joseph, Concetta, Mary, Anna, and Rose. Two, others, John and Frank, lived elsewhere. All the children were born in the United States, but Rosa and her husband, who had died in [Read More…]
Land Escapes
Winter 2007
One of the most admired figures in any community is the local artist, and our area has been playing hosts to renowned artists for hundreds of years. The first local artists, the Hudson River School painters, began their work nearly two hundred years ago, as landscape painters. Despite the name, they were widely traveled and [Read More…]
Special Delivery
Winter 2007
Sometimes it’s just the message conveyed by the sender that makes a card special. Here are a few I hope you enjoy. PM New Paltz, NY July 27 6pm, 1910: PM 1917 6am, NY: (sent to 321 E 5th, NYC) PM Rosendale Nov 18, 1909, 7am: (with [Read More…]
The New Paltz Normal School
Winter 2007
April 18, 1906 Many people remember and many more will remember, if only briefly, the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. It occurred at 5:13 in the morning on April 18th, an 8.25 on the Richter scale, on an otherwise clear day. It was a catastrophic event that brought down buildings and killed people. The earthquake [Read More…]
Walter Williams, Host and Historian, Part Two
Winter 2007
This article is continued from Fall 07 About Town and can be found here. It is the history of the Rosendale area as recounted by the late Walter Williams, one of the founders of Williams Lake Resort. This story was transcribed by his wife, Marianne Williams, from a recording of one of his “history hikes,” [Read More…]
Walter Williams, Host and Historian
Fall 2007
Introduction by Marianne Williams History, for my husband, Walter Williams, was not just a subject to be studied in school. It was, for him, a way of connecting with all that had gone before him and passing it along to those who would come after. Williams Lake Hotel was his business but it was also [Read More…]
Early Cragsmoor: The Beginning of an Art Colony
Summer 2007
Perched high on the Shawangunk Ridge in southern Ulster County, New York, Cragsmoor has long been a destination for seekers of beauty. They have been attracted by the rocky outcroppings, jagged cliffs, sheer waterfalls, and unique vegetation, and enticed by the spectacular views of the Catskill Mountains, and the Rondout, Wallkill and Hudson Valleys. The [Read More…]
Dublin, Ireland Letter About Esopus, circa 1817
Winter 2006
(In this letter several dashes indicate illegible passages or words in the original script.) An Irish Political Exile’s View of America: TIM O’DRISCOLL IN ARCADIA ON THE HUDSON – AND THE LAVISH DISPLAY AT THE HOME OF JACK HANLON From the Irish Magazine (Dublin), 1817. Letter to Mr. (“Watty”) Cox, From New York [Read More…]
Dashville on the Wallkill
Spring 2006
The north flowing Wallkill River passes through towns in New Jersey and New York before joining its larger sister, the Hudson, via the Rondout Creek near Kingston. Along its bed, the Wallkill enriches the soils and scenery of the towns of Wallkill, Gardiner, New Paltz, Rosendale and Esopus, among others. Enrichment in return was [Read More…]
Some Things I Saw This Winter
Spring 2006
Many recall the scene in Hitchcock’s The Birds. An occupied park bench, behind it a playground jungle gym. A single crow silently alights on the structure. Then another. And another. Finally, the bars of the jungle gym are just rows of large, silent black crows. This wasn’t like that. Outside my house the crows were [Read More…]
To Think Of Time
Winter 2005
Walt Whitman once wrote a poem entitled “To Think of Time.” A recent trip to Atlanta reminded me of that poem. Rather than flying to a conference, I took the train, a sleeper on Amtrak’s Crescent Limited. I know what you’re thinking: what a waste of time. Eighteen hours to make a trip that you [Read More…]
