Decoding Dutchess Past

Hudson’s arrival depicted in public places: historically, a purely European perspective By Bill Jeffway As you know, the September 1609 arrival of Henry Hudson on behalf of the Dutch East India Company, was the commencement of a very different experience for the Dutch, than it was for the indigenous people. The depictions of the event by artists in public spaces in the US are clearly from the European perspective. An important function of the thrusting of the narrative into public view was to show that those of Dutch ancestry had an equal claim to the founding of the US as did the larger, English Protestant establishment settlers.    Hudson’s “first contact” is depicted in the the 1939 and 1940 Post Office murals of the Rhinebeck and Hyde Park Post Offices. In adjacent towns, they are the work of the Rhinebeck artist Olin Dows, a neighbor and trusted friend of Hyde Park’s FDR, US President at the time. Dows was among a handful of Dutchess Couty friends who supported FDR’s interest in local history. The two post offices, based on two, local, Dutch stone houses, were designed to be educational Rhinebeck Post Office Embracing his commission on the Rhinebeck Post Office with confidence, Dows persuaded FDR to abandon the idea of having individual, personal framed portraits in favor of a historical mural that ran from “first contact” to the dedication of the post office building.  Among several depictions of Native Americans, just above the front door, the mural starts with the event referred to as the “first contact.” The scene is a happy exchange between the Dutch and indigenous people. Dows wrote of  the scene, “A sailor chopping a tree is watched by Indians. The Aborigines burned a tree around its base.” Hyde Park Post Office In the Hyde Park Post Office, shown here at its dedication with President Roosevelt, the mural commences in the same way, with the depiction of “first contact.” The difference is that the Native American stands alone, not among a varied group of his people. In the Hyde Park Post Office, shown here at its dedication with President Roosevelt, the mural commences in the same way, with the depiction of “first contact.” The difference is that the Native American stands alone, not among a varied group of his people. Verplanck and Roosevelt, two politicians of Dutch heritage, were eager to elevate the Dutch story Gulian Crommelin Verplanck, of New York City and Fishkill, was a congressman in the early 1830s when the country was forming its ideas about what art would be celebrated in public spaces. Verplanck was chairman of the Senate Committee on Public Buildings and oversaw the commissions that went out to artists for works that would be a central feature of the US Capitol Building . Verplanck’s ancestral family included the Van Cortlands, who collectively owned swaths of land from Westchester to Dutchess County. Verplanck’s Point is in Westchester County. The Verplanck family home is known as Mount Gulian in Fishkill …and still stands and is open to the public. Franklin Delano Roosevelt of Hyde Park started his political career in 1910 as a NY State senator, and culminated in an unprecedented four term US President wins, ending upon his death in 1945. It was FDR who was responsible for the concept design of the post offices in Rhinebeck and Hyde Park. They were modeled on authentic, earlier Dutch stone houses. They reflected his priorities in preserving Dutch history, architecture and culture, and the stories of Dutch influence in founding the nation. In 1929, FDR wrote the forward to “Dutch Houses in the Hudson Valley before 1776” working with DCHS founders Helen Wilkinson Reynolds and photographer Margaret DeMott Brown, both of whom FDR involved in this post office projects. Weir, artisit with an eye on the US Capitol The artist we can credit with kicking Hudson’s arrival as a subject deserving public display and endorsement, is Robert Walter Weir. Weir was angling to get a commission for the new US Capitol building in the 1830s.Weir shamelessly created a painting specifically for Congressman Verplank that put Verplanck’s Dutch ancestors in the most positive light, stopping at a point along the Hudson known then, and  known now, as Verplanck’s point in Westchester County. The scene is one of joy. The land is lush. The Native population is robust, equal in scale and enthusiasm and physical stature. Weir painted this in 1835. He soon became head of Art at the military academy West Point, however. The influence of several years of schooling young men in military matters, as the second wave of the Seminole Wars in Florida were ramping up, prompted Weir to re-do this ‘first contact” in a different light. Weir depicts not only Verplanck’s ancestors, but shows them landing at Verplanck’s Point Weir, ensconced at the Military Academy West Point, starts to see things differently What a difference a few years makes. From the same artist’s hand, the land is barren and unfruitful. The Native Americans are small in scale, recessive in their presence. The burnt orange color creates a feeling of foreboding.  Success. The lobbying seemed to work. Weir got a commission to paint for the Capitol. It is not of Hudson’s arrival but that is less important to him. His painting is of the Embarkation of the Pilgrims, and remains in the Capitol today. From then on, Weir had set this dichotomy of message, where the arriving Europeans found a rich land, of abundant and strong people, or they found a unkempt and declining land, among people who were not their equals. The US Capitol finally has a scene depicting Hudson’s arrival The first depiction of Hudson’s arrival at the US Capitol ends up being years later, when Albert Bierstadt gets a commission and paints this rather optimistic picture in 1872. To remove any doubt about the message, a rainbow arcs across the entire canvass. Or is it a nod to Weir, whose Embarkation of Pilgrims has a more modest, but clearly depicted

Images left to right: Sketch by E.H. Muellerleile, a priest from Minnesota. Catholic Worker Farm (1965). Children playing at the Catholic Worker Farm pool (1969). “Crying Towel” (c., 1964). All courtesy of the Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Marquette University Libraries. Professor Sally Dwyer-McNulty teaches in the Department of History at Marist College. She is the author of Common Threads: A Cultural History of Clothing in American Catholicism, Chair of the June and Aaron Gillespie Forum, and a board member of Historic Red Hook.

Kimberlee Breden of Poughkeepsie was not sure what to expect when she found a letter in her mailbox in November with a return address of New York State Governor Kathy Hochul and Erik Kulleseid, the Commissioner of the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. The letter advised Breden that she was a recipient of the 2022 New York State Historic Preservation Award for Excellence in Historic Building Rehabilitation. The recognition was for the work she had done restoring her home at 57 Montgomery Street, Poughkeepsie, just east of the historic Memorial Fountain and Eastman Park. Referring to the house as the “F. R. Bain house,” the name of its original owner in 1888, the letter went on to say, “Your diligent efforts to restore your historic Victorian home exemplify the power of harnessing the Historic Homeownership Rehabilitation Credit and the finished product is an inspiring example in the City of Poughkeepsie. The delight is in the details and your work is bound to get other homeowners thinking about potential projects for their historic buildings.” Breden attended a ceremony in Albany in December, being one of ten award recipients. Let’s examine what makes this particular “adaptive re-use” particularly noteworthy. Bain House, 57 Montgomery Street, Poughkeepsie.Left to right: 1891, 2018 and 2022. Some owners of historic homes worry that designations and recognition can limit what they can do for their home, or that they might lose control of certain decisions. But Breden feels that the entire process has enabled her to have exactly the home she had dreamed of owning and living in. Such a project takes a combination of vision, and a deep commitment to ensuring that those qualities that can only come from historic homes are made a priority, and persistence in the face of obstacles. Breden feels that the financial incentives through tax credits took a good deal of careful navigation but made the difference in allowing her to restore the home to the degree that she did. Doing a good deal of work herself, “and returning bottles to get the five-cent deposit” all added up to making the project economically feasible. Where did this depth of commitment come from for Breden? It started early. “My earliest memories relate to my father’s grandparents who were from Germany. They owned a delicatessen in Mount Vernon in a beautiful old Victorian house. It was a couple stories. The retail was on the ground floor and they lived above. It had pocket doors, a club foot bathtub like my third floor has, it had a beautiful mahogany staircase and wainscoting. I was a little girl and I remember, I remember the way it smelled, everything.” Breden thinks this was one of the reasons that when she first saw 57 Montgomery Street in 2007, in spite of its state of disrepair, “it felt like home.” Attempts to purchase the house in 2007 and 2008 were not successful. That’s where serendipity, or the sense that “this was meant to be” comes into play. At 1:30 in the morning on September 23, 2009, something prompted Breden to do an online search for the property, wondering what had become of it. To her great surprise, she found that the house was being auctioned just a few hours later at 9:00 am. Breden made sure she was at the auction, and although it became a protracted process, she succeeded in securing the property from the bid she made that morning She moved into the house in 2010. Above all, Breden credits her father’s wisdom for the depth of commitment she has to the house, explaining, “My father would say he had three things that he stood by. He said, ‘You do the right thing because it is the right thing to do. You only do a job you would be proud to put your name on. And you leave a place better than when you found it.’ And that’s exactly what I feel about here.” The project has dimensions that involve scale, “I needed 1,177 shingles that were six inches wide, with a curved bottom,” Breden said. “I made 1,200 of them.” Equally, the project has dimensions that involve great detail. Breden says she is able to restore a third floor window’s colored glass with original colors because of the shards of broken glass she discovered buried in the backyard. Breden also credits great partnership, in particular Poughkeepsie Design Historian, Holly Wahlberg. And Toni Mauro, a member of the City of Poughkeepsie Historic District and Landmarks Preservation Commission at the time of Breden’s application for City, then State and National designation. Having secured City historic designation, in March of 2015 Wahlberg wrote a 21-page statement of significance in support of the application for both State and National historic designation, both of which were successful in 2016. Wahlberg explains the importance of the statement of significance saying, “Saving vulnerable houses requires a mixture of passion, knowledge and fearless determination. But the process begins with extensive research and writing. A National Register nomination must articulate not just the history of a house, but also what that history reveals about our nation and ourselves.”