Month: April 2010

Adirondack Museum New -Social Media Event May 7th

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History related new media / social media writers and producers are invited to gather at the Adirondack Museum on Friday, May 7, 2010 from 5 until 7 pm for a networking event and backstage tour of the Adirondack Museum’s exhibit &#8220Let’s Eat: Adirondack Food Traditions&#8221.

Bloggers, Twitter users, social media writers and producers and new media journalists, will be getting together in the Adirondack Museum’s &#8220Living With Wilderness Gallery&#8221 for food, drink, and networking, before taking an early behind the scenes look at the Museum’s featured 2010 exhibit.

This event is sponsored by the Adirondack Pub and Brewery and the Adirondack Winery and Tasting Room (both in Lake George), the Adirondack Museum, and Adirondack Almanack.

Please RSVP by May 1st to John Warren at [email protected]

Long Lake Antique and Classic Boat Show Slated

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Long Lake is gearing up to host its first Antique and Classic Boat Show on Saturday, July 10th, 2010 at the Long Lake Waterfront from 10am – 5pm. With so many antique and classic wooden boats hiding along the shorelines of Long Lake a group of wooden boat aficionados have decided to showcase these treasures of yesteryear.

Organizers have scoped out a diverse group of boats including: an original 1945 Garwood, having only graced the waters of Long Lake, a 1949 Chriscraft and a 1958 Speedster. These are just a sampling of the few boats slated to be on display. Other boats on the lake that will hopefully be on scene include Chris Craft’s from 1924, 1962, 1947 as well as original handcrafted guideboats.

The day’s festivities kick off at 10am and run until 5pm with a Boat Parade “at speed” leaving the town beach at 4pm. A cocktail reception and cash bar will be held at the Adirondack Hotel at 5pm and a trophy will be awarded to “Spectator’s Choice” by fans visiting and touring the boats.

Photo: The &#8220Best Garwood&#8221 Winner at the 2007 Clayton Boat Show (Provided).

Hidden Room Highlight of Underground RR Site

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Last week student volunteers from SUNY Plattsburgh and SUNY Potsdam took part in exploratory archaeological excavations at the former Stephen Keese Smith farm on Union Road, midway between Keeseville. The Smith farm (also known as &#8220the old Stafford place&#8221) is a historic Underground Railroad site where refugees from slavery were hidden in the 1850s and 1860s. Although several of the buildings on the farm are believed to have housed runaway slaves, one barn in particular that includes a &#8220hidden room&#8221 was the target of the weekend’s excavations.

Archeologists and volunteers organized by the North Country Underground Railroad Historical Association (NCUGRHA) worked last weekend to conduct an archeological survey in advance of restoration work on the barn. The dig was organized by Andrew Black of Black Drake Consulting and SUNY Plattsburgh, assisted by members of the NCUGRHA, and with the permission and assistance of the of the property owners, Frank and Jackie Perusse.

Stephen Keese Smith was a Quaker, who shared his story of the smuggling former slaves through Clinton County to Canada in 1887:

I first became acquainted with the “Under Ground Rail Road” twenty years or more before the [Civil] War &#8230- Samuel Keese was the head of the [Underground RR] depot in Peru. His son, John Keese &#8211 myself, and Wendell Lansing at Keeseville [publisher of the Essex County Republican] were actors. I had large buildings and concealed the Negroes in them. I kept them, fed them, often gave them shoes and clothing. I presume I have spent a thousand dollars for them in one-way and another. There were stations at Albany, Troy, Glens Falls and then here in Peru. The Negroes would come through the woods and be nearly famished. We kept them and fed them for one or two days and then ran them along to Noadiah Moore’s in Champlain&#8230- He went with the Negroes to Canada and looked out places for them to work.

The archeological teams excavated three places along the exterior foundation walls of the barn in search for artifacts. Aside from some scattered 20th century trash and earlier barn construction debris (nails, hardware, window glass), they found nothing of significance, meaning that some restoration work can begin without harming historically significant remains.

The stone-walled room built into the barn’s lower level, believed to be one of the places Smith hid runaways, was too flooded to excavate. The team had hoped to establish the original floor level in the “hidden room” and see if there are deposits directly related to the room’s occupation by refugees. Unfortunately those investigations will have to wait until the groundwater level subsides, when archeologists will return to the barn to explore this hidden gem of North Country Underground Railroad History.

Photos: Above &#8211 Archaeologists and volunteers gather for a photo during the Smith barn excavation in Peru, Clinton County, NY (Courtesy Helen Allen Nerska). Below &#8211 The hidden room in the lower level of the Smith barn (Courtesy Don Papson).

Huguenot Street Opens with Wickets and Wine

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Starting Saturday, May 1st, the DuBois Fort Visitor Center Historic Huguenot Street in New Paltz will be open six days a week from 10:30am to 5pm every day except Wednesday. Guided Tours of the iconic stone houses are offered on a walk-in basis during these hours, and the Museum Shop, gallery and exhibits are also open to the public during these hours. These hours continue through October. Weekend only hours start in November.

To mark the “opening,” Historic Huguenot Street is offering its popular Wickets and Wine event on May 1st from 4 to 6pm. With the Deyo House as a backdrop, players enjoy a relaxing game of croquet on the sweeping lawns. The setting is perfect for this Victorian favorite. Wine, homemade lemonade and light noshes round out the fun.

Players of all levels, including novices, are welcome. “One of the great things,” says Richard Heyl de Ortiz, Director of Marketing and Community Relations at Historic Huguenot Street, “is how more experienced players help out ‘newbies’ and gently teach them technique and the rules of the game.” Wickets and wine is $12 per person or $10 for Friends of Huguenot Street.

The first guided house tour of the day leaves the Fort at 11am. More information about guided tours or Wickets and Wine can be obtained by calling (845) 255-1889 or by visiting www.huguenotstreet.org.

This Weeks New York History Web Highlights

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County Must Clean-Up Soil Dumped at Jay Heritage Site

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The Jay Heritage Center (JHC) in Rye, N.Y., is expressing its gratitude to the New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) for the speed with which it followed up on the problems of contaminated fill on the historically and environmentally important Jay Heritage Site property.

In January, the Westchester Parks Department added fill to the grounds of the Jay Heritage Center that contained obvious trash and debris. JHC commissioned a independent study of the soils and found that it was also contaminated with SVOCs, pesticides (like DDT and chlordane) arsenic and heavy metals such as lead and chromium. The Jay Property is the boyhood home of Founding Father John Jay who is also buried in a private cemetery at the Rye estate.

Joe Stout, Westchester County Parks and Conservation Commissioner, had declared the fill safe in an email to JHC President, Suzanne Clary and the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation (OPRHP) on January 25, 2010 which said in part &#8220We are confident that the fill is safe.&#8221

Westchester County has now confirmed however, that it will abide by a DEC request to clean-up the site within 30 days. According to a press release issued by Jay Heritage, in talks with the County Executive’s office, the County assured JHC that this clean-up will be done with full protection of archaeologically sensitive artifacts and in consultation with JHC. Archaeological review will be conducted in historic garden areas and behind an Indoor Tennis House that is thought to be the 3rd oldest in the United States.

JHC president Suzanne Clary said, &#8220We look forward to working with the new County administration and NY State to safeguard and preserve John Jay’s boyhood home in Rye with renewed dedication, and historic and archeological sensitivity.&#8221

Disclosure: Jay Heritage Center is an advertising supporter of New York History.

Photo: Visible Debris in fill at the Jay Heritage Center.

John James Audubon’s 225th Birthday Event

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John James Audubon’s 225th Birthday will be commemorated on Saturday, April 24th 2010 at 4PM in the Riverside Oval (156th Street at Riverside Drive, NYC), a few steps from the site of the naturalist’s final home in northern Manhattan.

In May 1842, Audubon moved his family to a fourteen-acre farm in northern Manhattan, a large triangular plot resting on present-day 155th Street, stretching from Amsterdam Avenue to the Hudson River, and including the land surrounding the Riverside Oval, the site of one of the Audubon barns. 765 Riverside Drive, adjacent to the Oval marks the site of Audubon’s house (pictured here).

Audubon called his farm Minnie’s Land, but after his death, his sons and wife renamed it Audubon Park, selling large portions of their land to wealthy New Yorkers who inhabited villas under the forest trees, laying out their gardens and drives where Audubon once had enclosures for both wild and domesticated animals. Audubon Park was a name familiar to New Yorkers from the mid 1850s until about 1910 when developers, capitalizing on the newly-opened subway with a stop at 157th Street, purchased large portions of the land and erected the magnificent Beaux Arts apartment houses that exist in the area today. In 2009, Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the blocks between 156th and 158th Streets west of Broadway the Audubon Park Historic District.

The event is being sponsored by the Riverside Oval Association, a not-for-profit neighborhood organization, plants and maintains green spaces in the Audubon Park Historic District, presents musical events, and sponsors oral history evenings at neighborhood buildings. Audubon’s 225th Birthday Celebration will kick off the 2010 gardening season and give residents in the neighborhood an opportunity to meet Oval Association members and become involved in the Association’s activities.

In the event of rain, the celebration will take place in the community room at the Grinnell, 800 Riverside Drive.

Documenting Leadership: Symposium on Public Executive Records

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The New York State Archives Partnership Trust and the Albany Law School’s Government Law Center have joined forces to sponsor a two-day event focused on the need for effective record keeping by elected government executives. Entitled Documenting Leadership: A Symposium on Public Executive Records in the 21st Century, the program is designed to explore the importance of the records generated by governors and other
high ranking elected public executives, such as presidents, attorneys general, and mayors. The symposium will be held on the Albany Law School campus, New Scotland Avenue, Albany, NY on May 20-21.

Panelists for the program are coming from throughout the nation and represent government, the media, academia, and law. Among the presenters will be former U.S. Attorney General and former Governor of Pennsylvania Richard Thornburgh, nationally renowned presidential historian Richard Norton Smith, and former NYS Comptroller Ned Regan.

Sessions will include: Public Policy and the Public Interest- Transparency, Executive Records, and the Media- Executive Records: Access and Disclosure- Access in the Digital Age- and Executive Records as Legacy.

The event is free and open to the public. For information about the program and to register, go to www.albanylaw.edu/executiverecords/

Discovering NY Harbor: The Gateway to America

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Celebrating the historic and cultural significance of New York Harbor, the National Parks of New York Harbor Conservancy (Harbor Conservancy) and National Park Service kick-off their summer harbor tours aboard New York Waterway ferries with their Gateway to America cruise, an audio tour that is narrated by actress Kathleen Turner and brings 400 years of New York Harbor’s extraordinary past to life. The boat tour runs five times daily leaving from Slip 5 at the Battery Maritime Building.

Gateway to America is in its sixth season. The boat tour experience offers visitors the opportunity to see the city from a new vantage point &#8211 from the water while learning about the role New York Harbor played and continues to play as the gateway to America for millions of people.

Gateway to America is the only official tour of the National Park Service that ties together all five interpretative themes of the national parks that ring New York Harbor- commerce, military defense, immigration, birth of the nation and harbor ecology. &#8220The tour itinerary weaves together the rich tapestry of New York harbor’s history &#8211 from its first settlement by Native Americans through the tragic events of 9/11, and it offers new insights about the unique geographical and environmental features that made the harbor our nation’s most valuable commercial asset throughout four centuries,&#8221 according to Harbor Conservancy President, Marie Salerno.

Produced by Antenna Audio in the style of a public radio broadcast, Gateway to America is introduced by David Rockefeller, Jr. a co-founder of the Harbor Conservancy and whose family was instrumental in preserving open space through the National Park Service. The Gateway to America tour was the first harbor boat tour to present recorded audio commentary by National Park Service Rangers. Prominent experts like Columbia University professor, historian and editor of the Encyclopedia of New York, Kenneth T. Jackson- Daniel Libeskind, who emigrated to New York from communist Poland as a teenager and became one of the world’s leading architects- Pulitzer-Prize winning author David McCullough- and world-class swimmer Nancy Steadman Martin, (who battled the currents to swim the 28-mile circuit around Manhattan) also provide engaging remarks and insights.

Gateway to America tells stories of the five military forts, now historic icons that protected the city from invasion. The tour illuminates the harbor’s role as the portal to the American dream for generations of immigrants &#8211 including those newcomers who are still shaping the city’s future. Passengers hear sounds, special effects and original music that bring to life the drama of the thriving commercial port.

This 60-minute tour is offered daily beginning Apr. 4 &#8211 May 31 at 11am, 12:30pm, 2pm, and Jun. 1 &#8211 Sep. 30 at 10:30am, 11:30am, 12:30pm, 1:30pm, 2:30pm, departing from the Slip 5 in the Battery Maritime Building in Lower Manhattan, located next to the Staten Island Ferry. Tickets can be purchased online or at the Harbor Conservancy’s new ticket booth at Castle Clinton in Battery Park. Prices are: Adults: $18, Seniors (62+): $16, Children: $14, Children under 3: Free.

For more information about other affordable boat and walking tours created by the National Parks of New York Harbor Conservancy visit: www.nyharborparks.org.