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Vermont Days Events at Western VT Historic Sites

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Vermont Days, June 12 and 13, a weekend of free admission at the Vermont State Historic Sites and State Parks, will be the occasion for a number of special events at the Mount Independence, Hubbardton Battlefield, and Chimney Point State Historic Sites. All events are free and open to the public.

At the Mount Independence State Historic Site in Orwell—

&#8211Saturday, June 12, 1:00 PM Mad Matt the Democrat Historian Vincent Feeney talks about Matthew Lyon, indentured servant, Green Mountain Boy, son-in-law to Thomas Chittenden, land speculator, entrepreneur, and Vermont congressman. Lyon served at Mount Independence and in 1785 bought its abandoned cannons and other scrap iron. Sponsored by the Vermont Humanities Council.

&#8211Sunday, June 13. 1:00 PM Wildflowers of the Mount Join wildflower expert Ann Honan on another walk to discover the wildflowers of Mount Independence. What blooms in June? Wear sturdy shoes and dress for the weather. Sponsored by the Mount Independence Coalition.

Mount Independence is six miles west of the intersections of VT Routes 22A and 73 near the end of Mount Independence Road. Call (802) 948-2000 for information.
At the Hubbardton Battlefield State Historic Site in Hubbardton&#8211

&#8211Saturday, June 12: Staying Connected: Wildlife Habitat, 1:00 PM Monica Erhart, Linkage Coordinator for Staying Connected, talks about Vermont’s critical wildlife corridors and their importance for wide-ranging mammals. Hubbardton is in the center of an important corridor between the Green Mountains and Adirondacks. A wildlife-focused walk follows, if weather allows.

&#8211Sunday, June 13: War Stories: New Tales from the Battle of Hubbardton, 1:00 PM Historian Kate Kenney from the University of Vermont Consulting Archeology Program shares fascinating “new” stories about the soldiers of Hubbardton from her recent research in Revolutionary war pension records and other period sources. “Who were those guys?”

The Hubbardton Battlefield is on Monument Hill Road, six miles east of Vermont Route 30 in Hubbardton or six miles north of exit 5 on US Route 4 in Castleton. Call (802) 273-2282 for information.

At the Chimney Point State Historic Site in Addison—

&#8211Saturday, June 12, Second Saturdays, 2:00 – 4:00 p.m. Explore the French colonial past at Chimney Point (Pointe a-la-Chevelure) with hands-on activities for all ages. Try the dress-up box, play games, and learn what archaeology and the study of period sources can reveal.

&#8211Sunday, June 14, Sunday Afternoon Special, 2:00 – 4:00 p.m. Hands-on activities and period games. Learn about ancient stone tools or how to throw an atlatl, play period games, and enjoy other fun for all ages.

Chimney Point is located in Addison at the intersections of Vermont Routes 125 and 17, just west of the temporary Lake Champlain ferry. Call (802) 759-2412 for information.

For information about Vermont’s state-owned historic sites, visit www.HistoricVermont.org/sites or contact John Dumville at (802) 828-3051.


Illustration: Mural of Mount Independence 1776-1777, by Ernest Haas
Commissioned by the Mount Independence Coalition. On display at Mount Independence State Historic Site in Orwell, Vermont.

Lecture to Focus on Southern Otsego County

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Join Mark Simonson as he discusses the development of southern Otsego County as well as the preservation work of Hanford Mills and Hyde Hall &#8211 both co-sponsors of the lecture. Mr. Simonson is the Otsego City Historian and an interpreter at The Farmers’ Museum. The lecture will be held in the auditorium of the Fenimore Art Museum on Tuesday, June 8, beginning at 7:00 p.m.

The Fenimore Art Museum, located on the shores of Otsego Lake &#8212- James Fenimore Cooper’s “Glimmerglass Lake” &#8212- in historic Cooperstown, New York, features a wide-ranging collection of American art.

Fenimore Art Museum exhibits include: folk art- important American 18th- and 19th-century landscape, genre, and portrait paintings- an extensive collection of domestic artifacts- more than 125,000 historical photographs representing the technical developments made in photography and providing extensive visual documentation of the region’s unique history- and the renowned Eugene and Clare Thaw Collection of American Indian Art comprising more than 800 art objects representative of a broad geographic range of North American Indian cultures, from the Northwest Coast, Eastern Woodlands, Plains, Southwest, Great Lakes, and Prairie regions. Founded in 1945, the Fenimore Art Museum is NYSHA’s showcase museum.

This Weeks New York History Web Highlights

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Communipaw Story Marathon in Jersey City

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A Communipaw Story Marathon will be presented tomorrow, Friday, June 4, as part of Jersey City’s quarterly arts and culture festival, JC Fridays. There will be dramatic readings by professional actors of several short stories by Washington Irving, including three set in Communipaw, from his 1855 collection, Wolfert’s Roost And Miscellanies.

Also included will be an excerpt from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Trish Szmanski will be reading A Tale of Communipaw / Guests from Gibbet Island, the story on which she is adapting a script for theater. According to Trish &#8220The play is coming along well, not done, but close to final in form. Lots of new characters, dialogue, drama, four acts &#8211 exciting!&#8221

Communipaw is the historic European place of origin for Jersey City begun in 1634 when one of the first &#8220bouweries&#8221, or farnmsteads, in New Netherland was built there. The homestead was part of Pavonia, a patroonship of Amsterdam businessman Micheal Pauw. Plantations, worked by enslaved Africans, were located there. The Tappan and Wecquaesgeek took refuge there in 1643 before being attacked by the Dutch in the Pavonia Massacre, which led in part to Kieft’s War.

The village of Communipaw was originally part of the Dutch West India Company holdings. After the British takeover it became part of the Province of New Jersey although it retained its Dutch character for hundreds of years. Washington Irving visited the area often and referred to Communipaw as the stronghold of traditional Dutch culture.

Illustration: Joan Vinckeboons (Johannes Vingboon), &#8220Manatvs gelegen op de Noot [sic] Riuier&#8221, 1639. &#8220Manhattan situated on the North Rivier&#8221 with numbered key showing settlements at Communipaw.

Tracing Your Ancestors to the Dutch Settlers

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Theodore P. Wright, Jr., Ph.D., Vice President of the Dutch Settlers Society of Albany and a trustee of the New Netherland Institute, will discuss resources to aid in tracing your ancestors to the Dutch Settlers, specifically in an area under the jurisdiction of the Court of Rensselaerswijck prior to the year 1665 or in Esopus (Kingston, NY) prior to the year 1661. The program will be held in Librarians Room, New York State Library, Cultural Education Center, 7th floor 310 Madison Avenue, Albany 12230 on Thursday, June 17th, 12:15 &#8211 1:15 PM Online registration is available.

The Dutch Settlers Society of Albany was founded in 1924, in connection with the celebration of the tercentenary of the settlement of the City, and was instituted to: perpetuate the memory and virtues of the individuals who resided here during the time it was a Dutch colony- and to collect and preserve records and information concerning the history and settlement of Albany and its vicinity, including genealogical records of the settlers and their descendants without regard to race, creed, or country of origin.

For more information about this program, contact Sheldon Wein or Mary Beth Bobish at [email protected], or call at 518-474-2274.

Why New Netherland Matters Lecture by Joyce Goodfriend

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The prevailing history of the Dutch settlers in America has been illustrated with depictions of quaint Dutch villages, and tales of characters such as Rip Van Winkle and St. Nicholas . Dr. Joyce Goodfriend offers a new look at the story of the Dutch settlement called New Netherland.

On Saturday, June 12th, 2:00 pm, at the Schenectady County Historical Society, Dr. Joyce Goodfriend will give a talk titled, “Why New Netherland Matters.” Her presentation answers fascinating questions about our founding myths and legends, including a new look at the lives of slaves in New York. Celebrations throughout 2009 of Henry Hudson’s discovery of the Hudson River in 1609 inspired many researchers, Dr. Joyce Goodfriend among them, to bring to our attention the latest research on the history of early New York.

Dr. Goodfriend’s scholarly research into contemporary traveler’s accounts and her examination of period artwork reveals a more complete picture of our nation’s early
multicultural history. Dr. Goodfriend’s talk is based on an essay by the same title, in which she writes: “New Netherland may have been dissolved as a political reality by 1674, but it remained a cultural reality well into the nineteenth century, and in this guise indelibly influenced the course of history in the mid-Atlantic region.” The audience for her talk on Saturday, June 12th, will be treated to a broader understanding of the importance of early New Amsterdam and the Dutch in New York.

Dr. Goodfriend has written extensively on the subject of New Netherland including articles on religion and women’s roles. Her books include Before the Melting Pot: Society and Culture in Colonial New York City, 1664-1730– Going Dutch: The Dutch Presence in America 1609-2009 and Revisiting New Netherland: Perspectives on Early Dutch America, as well as numerous articles in collective history on Dutch New York. Goodfriend is a professor of history at the University of Denver and received her B.A. from Brown University and her M.A. and PhD from UCLA.

Only 75 tickets are available for this event. A $5.00 donation per person is requested. For reservations call (518) 374-0263, and for more information e-mail [email protected].

Staten Island: Old U.S. Gypsum Plant to Host LUMEN Festival

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Staten Island’s once abandoned waterfront will be hosting LUMEN, a cutting-edge video art festival on the site of the Atlantic Salt Company, presented by COAHSI, the Council on the Arts & Humanities for Staten Island. This raw, magnificent, old, beautiful, decaying space, originally opened in 1876 as a plaster mill. In 1924, the building was bought by United States Gypsum, a plant that made wallboard and paint. The gypsum plant employed Staten Islanders for 52 years, before closing in 1976. Now owned by the Atlantic Salt Company, the 10-acre property is a depot for road de-icing salt for New York State, New Jersey, and Connecticut.&#8221

It’s that grungy, creepy, abandoned feeling that keeps people coming to industrial sites like Atlantic Salt, but normally these spaces are off-limits. Now’s your chance to see the space — without breaking any laws. The site will be open to the public for LUMEN, Saturday, June 26, 4pm-12am. The LUMEN Festival will showcase amazing contemporary video/projection and performance art both outside and onto the space. Atlantic Salt is right on the waterfront, so get ready for views of NYC and NJ, plus up-close views of the many tugboats & container ships that float up and down the Arthur Kill.

The festival will include performances throughout the day, raffles featuring artists’ work, as well as an open bar sponsored by Brooklyn Brewery from 9pm-11pm. Participating artists and collectives include: Alex Villar, Alix Pearlstein, Scott Peel, Lena Thuring, Grace Exhibition Space, Flux Factory, and Steven Lapcevic, among many others. For a complete listing of all participating artists, visit: LUMENFEST.org. Atlantic Salt is located at 561 Richmond Terrace, a 10-minute walk or bus ride from the Staten Island Ferry.

LUMEN will be free of charge and open to the public. Contributions are welcome at LUMEN’s Kickstarter page.

About COAHSI:

The mission of COAHSI is to cultivate a sustainable and diverse cultural community for the people of Staten Island by: 1) making the arts accessible to every member of the community- 2) supporting and building recognition for artistic achievement- 3) providing artists, arts educators, and organizations technical, financial, and social resources to encourage the creation of new work. COAHSI does extensive outreach to communities that are underserved geographically, ethnically, and economically. The organization works hard to impact the arts across all borders.

This Weeks Top New York History News

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