Vivian Yess Wadlin
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…]
The Draining and Refilling of the Swartekill Swamp
Summer 2022
Over my almost eight decades, I’ve witnessed the transformation of land once farmed by my grandparents. It has gone from farmed to fallow, to brambled meadows, to tightly-packed small-tree groves, to now, a few good-size 60+ year-old mature trees. Another transformation on that land was quicker. Sandwiched between the mostly parallel roads of Plutarch and [Read More…]
New D&H Canal Museum to Open
Spring 2022
The website of the D&H Canal Historical Society makes this simple declaration: “The mission of the D&H Canal Historical Society is to highlight the importance of the D&H Canal and preserve its stories, landscapes, and artifacts.” One of the Society’s important accomplishments was the establishment in 1976 of a museum. They gathered artifacts, ephemera, stories, [Read More…]
America’s Pedestrian & Ulster County’s Man of Mystery
Winter 2021
Two articles on this subject appeared previously in About Town. One with permission of Rodale Press and the other I wrote in 2008. The latter is available on our website. The article below covers some of the same information but also material from a 2014 Rodale Press published book, “The Last Great Walk” by Wayne [Read More…]
The Era of Oscar of New Paltz
Fall 2021
Oscar Tschirky, aka, Oscar of The Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, NYC, NY […] was a man of the world. His featured Waldorf domains were the Palm Gardens, the Empire Room, Peacock Alley, The Sert Room (murals by Jose Maria Sert), the Grand Ballroom, and the private supper rooms, all part of the hotel’s iconic dining scene… This [Read More…]
Poughkeepsie’s Woodcliff Pleasure Park
Summer 2021
July 14, 1927, at 7 pm, it opened. Finally, Poughkeepsie had something to compete with other famous amusement parks up and down the Hudson, and in nearby cities and states. Poughkeepsie welcomed the Woodcliff Pleasure Park… This pictorial layout is presented here as a downloadable PDF file: Poughkeepsie’s Woodcliff Pleasure Park (PDF)
It’s Snow Time
Winter 2020
Whether or not we get snow, ‘tis the season for it. And that means hiking, snowshoeing, ice climbing, snowmobiling, ice skating, plowing and shoveling…or a warm toasty fire and a good book. After checking the forecast and the wind-chill chart below, decide your day’s itinerary from the possible alternatives listed. See Fireside Reads, and Out [Read More…]
Jean Vanderlyn Unvarnished
Winter 2020
My friend, Ken Ericksen, and I were talking about the race track that was on the flats west of New Paltz back in the 1920s. “You know,” he said, “there used to be a little girl from New Paltz who was a great trick rider back in the thirties. She still lives in New Paltz.” [Read More…]
New Paltz Village: Then & Now
Fall 2020
In that other lifetime, before we all learned the name, structure, and pitilessness of a virus, I was preparing a presentation titled Then And Now for the New Paltz Historical Society in November. Here are a few of the images I was planning to share… This pictorial layout is presented here as a downloadable PDF [Read More…]
Opening the Gates to Wellness
Spring 2020
Anyone heading east on the Mid Hudson Bridge or driving on Route 9 south of it can’t be faulted for thinking the huge shining edifice cropping out of the stone cliff above the roadway is a dazzling new hotel. The almost completed construction of the Vassar Brothers Hospital takes modern design and the institution’s facilities [Read More…]
A Little Kingston TLC History
Spring 2020
Care of the sick in Kingston, as in all communities and throughout history, began with home care as alternatives were few, expensive, and far away, not to mention, often not effective or downright deadly. It is only in the last half-century that we take good hospital care as a given. The earliest reference I found [Read More…]
Postal Roots
Winter 2019
Karen Berelowitz and Stephen Blauweiss’ comprehensively researched, beautifully written, and lushly illustrated account of The Life and Death of the Kingston Post Office should be in the library of anyone who appreciates historic architecture and works to preserve it. The book is a memorial to that most beautiful post office building as well as a [Read More…]
Early Ulster County Post Offices Appearing in Postcards
Winter 2019
Most of the cards below are from about 1910-1930, and the postmarks from 1908 to 1950. Any that are postmarked will be given that date, but the cards could be older. Offices moved around frequently, often because the postmasters were patronage positions until as recently as 1969. The Woodstock card above is postmarked October 5, [Read More…]
The Shoe Magnate of Marlboro
Fall 2019
Many an immigrant was drawn to the beauty and fertility of the hills of New York’s Town of Marlborough. Most seekers came as laborers, stonemasons, and farmers, but others put down roots here after already attaining prosperity in other fields. United States Patent Office patent # 92,966 was awarded to Dominick La Valle regarding “Design [Read More…]
Roebling’s Gifts
Fall 2019
Unlike today, fame once equated with substantial achievement—overcoming disease, taming natural barriers, death-defying exploration, tweaking the laws of nature. Fame was once the province of the world-changer. In that rich vein of past boundary-pushers are many inventors, entrepreneurs and scientists who saw better ways of answering the needs of their fellow humans. Henry Ford, Jonas [Read More…]
Five Locks Walk
Fall 2019
It is difficult to imagine how William and Maurice Wurts developed the concept for and then actually constructed the Delaware & Hudson (D&H) Canal System that ran from Honesdale, PA, to Kingston, NY, using the power and technology of the day–primarily men & draft animals and picks & shovels. The Wurts brothers’ main objective had [Read More…]
A Ferry Tale
Summer 2019
Midnight, New Years’ Eve, 1941. Its light shining into the darkness of the Hudson River, the Brinckerhoff Ferry left its berth in Highland making one last crossing. Its forty-year Hudson River history sealed. Its future uncertain. Prior to the American War for Independence, crossing the Hudson River between Yelverton’s Landing (today Highland) and Poughkeepsie meant [Read More…]
Other Ferry Tales
Summer 2019
Captain William Tompkins I love it when things come full circle. One of the last ferry men, William E. Tomkins, was the chief engineer of the Poughkeepsie Highland Ferry Company. Captain Tompkins was the grandfather of local resident Linda Smith. Linda and her husband, Matt Smith, have been instrumental in reclaiming the land that once [Read More…]
Patrons of Husbandry
Spring 2019
“Its primary object is to bring about a union among the farmers of the Republic, for it is its cardinal maxim that only in union can the agricultural class show its strength and make it felt.” History of the Grange Movement (Edward Winslow Martin, 1873) 1867 The United States Civil War had disrupted [Read More…]
