For everyone

Honors teachers at Dutchess County middle or high schools who bring innovation and creativity to impart a love and appreciation of local history. Prior Awardees: 2024:Jeff Ubrin, Education Specialist, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library & Museum, National Archives & Records Administration. 2022:Henry Frischknecht, Bulkeley Middle School, Rhinebeck 2021:Neil Murray, Pine Plains Central School District

THIS PAGE IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION TO AN UPDATED PLATFORM, THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATIENCE… This online exhibition offers insights into the October 1777 British action, as well as insights into Franklin Roosevelt’s unrelenting commitment to the understanding and publication of local history even as global war emerged and commenced. jump to FDR’s Yearbook Articles on the October 1777 event jump to British Ship Logs Obtained by FDR jump to June 1777 Livingston Letter: Me Worry? Won’t Happen! jump to What a Cannonball Can Do George Washington called West Point, just south of Dutchess County on the Hudson River,  the key to the North American Continent. Historians agree the success of the American patriots relied on the defense of the Hudson River Valley, which the British where the British hoped to take control to divide the emerging United States in half. In October of 1777 a single trip north by the British as far as Red Hook, Dutchess County, did show the potential for such a raid, and resulted in the complete destruction of the capital of New York at the time, Kingston. Certain homes, barns with agricultural products, and stores were targeted with cannon ball or were torched and burned. The dramatic event would attract the attention of any local historian. But the fact that the ships traversed the area of Franklin Roosevelt’s ancestral homes, gave it an extra dimension and power for him. FDR’s Yearbook Articles President Roosevelt wrote an article for each of the 1935 and 1936 DCHS Yearbooks, where his trusted partner, Helen Wilkinson Reynolds was editor. DCHS’s Helen Wilkinson Reynolds. back to top British Documents DCHS Collections: Envelope containing information from the British Admiralty directed to FDR, who then gave them to DCHS. The articles are written about the material he obtained through requests to the head of the British Admiralty and the US Embassy in London. Britain’s Lord Halifax shown at right. Middle top: with Nazi leader Herman Goering. Middle bottom: with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Right: with FDR. When Halifax was made US Ambassador in 1941, FDR broke with protocol and met Halifax in his private sloop. back to top Henry Livingston, Sr. Letter Poughkeepsie June 16, 1777 Loving Brother, Your negro just now delivered me the Bond and Tenant Books with your letter of the 7th instant and am sorry you are again attacked with the gout. Your being so long freed was in hopes it would have quitted you. Captain Phillip Cortland was here this morning and left Peeks Kill yesterday all in quietness and the Armies in Jersey as yet very peaceable. As for the English Army coming up this river I am under no apprehension of, because I think it would be great madness in attempting it. We are all in good health and join in our love to your sister and children. And am… your loving brother, Henry Livingston. back to top Henry Livingston, Jr. House The son of the author of the letter found his home hit by a single cannonball. The 1919 DCHS Yearbook published a photograph of the patched shingle at the front of the house (right). Among the artifacts in DCHS Collections is the beam that was damaged by the cannonball in 1777 (below). It was removed when the house was demolished in the late 19th century. back to top

Bill Jeffway has served as the Executive Director of the Dutchess County Historical Society since 2017. In that role, he seeks to maintain the organization’s sterling reputation for historical thoroughness, accuracy, and pursuit of historical truth, while finding creative ways to express that history in a 21st century with its many demands and distractions. Bill grew up in Northampton, Massachusetts, where he joined the local historical society at age 13. He earned a B.A. from Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT with a double major in American Studies and English. His senior year focus was on the Hudson Valley in the 19th century. Professionally, Bill spent 30 years in global corporate advertising at the firm Ogilvy & Mather working in its New York City, London, Singapore and Los Angeles offices, largely with technology companies like IBM and Cisco as his clients. Other roles & publications History Speaks. Bill is active as the founder/principal of History Speaks, an independent and flexible partnership which works to identify and creatively share insights related to local history, through which he has published two books. Click on any image below to be taken to the publication which will open in a new window. History of the Town of Milan. This Place Called Milan tells the story of immigrants as varied as the abolitionist Quakers, the slave-owning Palatines, and a Native population. The book examines the role of topography, water, and the role of being in-between in determining how and where we settle, and what we do for work. Rhinebeck Post Office Murals. The second is a booklet called Invisible People, Untold Stories which is the product of a community conversation, involving Celebrating the African Spirit, about the depiction of enslaved persons of color in the the Rhinebeck US Post Office. The title is respectfully taken from the landmark article on local Black history published in the 1987 DCHS Yearbook, by Lorraine Roberts and Lawrence Mamiya. Poughkeepsie Black History Trail. In partnership with the Mid-Hudson Antislavery History Project, Bill authored a storymap trail of important locations in Poughkeepsie related to Black history. Local Frederick Douglass Celebration. Celebrating the African Spirit. Bill serves on the research committee of this Poughkeepsie-based organization dedicated to raising the profile of local Black history. Among the most satisfying outcomes recently was the reenactment of a talk by Frederick Douglass at Poughkeepsie’s College Hill by Hamilton musical actor Paul Oakley Stovall, based entirely on the findings of the committee. A message from the Executive Director. One of the things that greatly attracts me to DCHS is its focus, from the very beginning in 1914, on the relentless pursuit of historical truth. This focus requires a constant search for new information, its interpretation, and its creative expression. The organization has focused on knowledge and insight that goes way beyond the traditional role of managing a historic house or featuring museum objects, although DCHS’s record there is strong as well! One of the less visible but substantial roles of DCHS is archival preservation and restoration. The wonderful 18th century stone house, Clinton House in Poughkeepsie, is the location of 4,000 linear feet of fire-safe metal shelves and storage units on three floors, archive-save boxes and containers, and year-round climate control. I hope in my time here at DCHS, we have made great progress in making all of DCHS’s extant history, historical research, and archives more accessible through digitization of finding aids, indices, publications and photographs. The Dutchess County Historical Society Yearbook, the longest serving historical journal in the state, is now entirely available online; every issue since 1914, in addition to other published books. For new research, DCHS has put an emphasis on lesser-told stories: persons of color, women’s history, and stories of veterans’ service. As a non-profit 501c3, DCHS is supported entirely by gifts from members, business sponsors, and donors, receiving no taxpayer money. This gives us the distinct advantage of be able to captain our own ship, we are answerable to the distinguished members, friends, and business supporters who enable our work. I hope you will consider becoming involved in any of the many ways available. DCHS Yearbook: Published since 1914, the DCHS Yearbook is New York State’s longest-serving historical journal with contributions from a wide range of professional and home grown historians. DCHS Awards: For historical, community and business l best practice, through its annual awards, DCHS spotlights best practice as inspiration to others. Programs and Exhibitions: DCHS is employing the most diverse and creative tools to engage the community, from online videos and trails and tours, to classroom programs and visits, to classic exhibitions in physical locations across the county. Archival Preservation: DCHS oversees an archive of thousands of objects, documents, photographs and textiles; and offers research support to DCHS member/donors through online resources and its traditional library. Library & Online Research Tools: With a class research library housed at Clinton House in Poughkeepsie, DCHS continues to expand its online tools for local research, including the Walter M. Patrice Online Library for the Study of Local African Heritage.

This is the online version of a traditional exhibition called You are here! that was designed to be viewed onsite at Red Hook Village Hall, the geographic location of the original Hardscrabble, on September 18, 2021, Hardscrabble Day. References in the text that reflect the assumption that the viewer is in that location. You Are Here! focuses on the history of the immediate area, or “four corners” of the Village of Red Hook. No one is quite sure why it was first called Hardscrabble in the late 1700s, a word suggesting poor soil, and tough work. Perhaps this is why the term went to quickly and completely out of use in the early 1800s. David Van Ness, whose Maizeland home still stands adjacent to the Red Hook Central School on West Market Street, started to name and operate the Red Hook Post Office out of this area and the original Red Hook hamlet, three miles north, was forevermore relegated to the relative position of Upper Red Hook. A letter to the editor in the July 22, 1859 Red Hook Weekly Journal scolds the paper for not mentioning the original name of Hardscrabble in a recent historic profile, but then acknowledges, “Why this harsh name was applied to our beautiful village I have been unable to ascertain from tradition or historical sources.”  So the origin of the story was lost by 1859. This exhibition examines the intersection of the north/south and east/west roads that were central in establishing Red Hook’s purpose, identity and growth. We are introduced to the members of (and extant buildings related to) the Massonneau family, who were important business and civic leaders in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Maps Show Longstanding “Four Corners” ABOVE: Maps of the vicinity over generations. Contemporary map shows the location of the three extant commercial buildings related to the Massonneau family. North/South: From Footpath to Highway Several thousand years ago, the Indigenous peoples living in this vicinity were more accurate in the name they gave the enormous waterway a few miles west of today’s Red Hook village. We incorrectly refer to it as a “river,” which by definition means that it would flow in one direction. But the Indigenous Peoples’ descriptive name, Muhheakantuck, referred to the alternating flow of the massive tidal estuary, put in motion by the moon’s gravitational pull. This dual directional force was particularly handy in the days before the 1807 invention of steamboats. Red Hook sits roughly halfway between the massive waterway’s connection to the sea (New York City) and its connection to the east/west oriented Mohawk River (near Albany). This “in between” nature of the area was accelerated with the 1825 opening of the Erie Canal which amplified the Mohawk River so that canal boats could connect to Lake Erie at Buffalo. Route 9, which had been known as the Albany Post Road (connecting Manhattan and Albany), and before that in colonial times known as the King’s Road, was originally a footpath created by Indigenous people. Until a century ago, the Hudson River froze for several months in the winter, giving preference to the path or road, another reason the road grew, and was maintained parallel to the river. By 1864, the railroad between New York City and Albany stopped at Barrytown and Tivoli. The area that is today Red Hook approximates a border area between the Mahican, whose large civilization extended north from the area of the U-shaped Roeliff Jansen Kill, a stream that is the settlement area of today’s Columbia County – and the Wappinger or Delaware, whose large civilization extended south from the area of the y-shaped Wappinger Creek, a stream that is the settlement area of today’s Dutchess County. Water was so important you can feel the surveyors stretching as much as they could to include large spring-fed lakes leaving Red Hook today with a little bump on its eastern border! The Profound Influence of Water on Settlement Above: Indigenous people did not draw lines or think of land “ownership” in the way that arriving Europeans did. But waterways did influence settlement and was an organizing factor among cohesive groups. Water was so important you can feel the surveyors stretching (far right image above) as much as they could to include large spring-fed lakes leaving Red Hook today with a little bump on its eastern border! Hamlets generally emerged organically along streams The Village of Red Hook grew out of one of the several hamlets in the Town of Red Hook. Typical of the Hudson Valley, this is in contrast to the early New England approach of centrally planned towns. Although Sharon, Connecticut and Amenia in eastern Dutchess County are only eight miles from each other, they are classic examples of the difference. A High Profile Area In Between ABOVE LEFT TO RIGHT: The area that is today Red Hook, was a kind of “in between” area separating the massive Mahican civilization northward, and Wappinger or Delaware southward. Photo of a typical point that is several thousand years old, with a contemporary assembly for demonstration purposes. From Deer Terrace exhibition. Courtesy of Bard College Archaeology Field School, Christopher Lindner, Director. Images of the 1940s Rhinebeck Post Office murals by Olin Dows depicting the enslaved coachman of the family of Chancellor Robert Livingston. A newspaper ad from 1800 reflects the typical method that men, women and children were bought and sold as legal “property.” In 1790, Red Hook/Rhinebeck (one municipal unit at the time) had a population of 421 enslaved men, women and children and 66 “Free Persons of Color.”  Thomas Jefferson and James Madison passed by this place on the Albany Post Road on the morning of May 23, 1791, on a tour of the Hudson Valley. Their coach was driven by Jefferson’s slave, James Hemmings, half-brother to the better known Sally Hemmings. They had left Poughkeepsie that morning, and spent the evening in Claverack, Columbia County. A few days before Christmas in 1912, as a warm-up to the massive April 1913 march to Washington D.C. as a demonstration for women to gain the right to vote, General”