Washingtons Headquarters Holiday Event

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Washington’s Headquarters State Historic Site is hosting a open house at Washington’s Headquarters, in Newburgh on Sunday, December 11th, from 12 PM until 4 PM. The event is free and sponsored by the Friends of the State Historic Sites of the Hudson Highlands.

Participants will be able to chat with historic interpreters, enjoy seasonal music performed by the Salmagundi Consort, and snack on hot cider and cookies by an outdoor fire for an afternoon that recreates the mood of warmth and hospitality the Washingtons extended to their war-weary guests.

Washington’s Headquarters State Historic Site is a registered national landmark. It is located at the corner of Liberty and Washington Streets, within the city of Newburgh’s East End Historical District. For more information call (845) 562-1195.

Photo: Washington reenactor in his office (provided).

Networking: Association of Public Historians of NYS

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The August 2011 issue of The Public Historian focused on both the richness of the history of New York State and the diverseness of the systems in place to protect and promote that history. This same issue has been seen in recent blogs and articles on the online site New York History and elsewhere.

I appreciate the focus on our state’s history and the concern of many to ensure that our heritage is properly preserved for everyone. Unfortunately, too little attention has been paid to a system that already exists that links and networks with every other agency in the state – the Association of Public Historians of New York State. Read more →

Books: Selected Rensselaerwijck Papers

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Papers from the New Netherland Institute’s annual Rensselaerswijck Seminar has long served as a platform for local historians to present their latest research on the only successful patroonship in New Netherland.

A Beautiful and Fruitful Place: Selected Rensselaerswijck Papers, vol. 2 (SUNY Press, 2011) includes papers delivered at the seminar from 1988 to 1997 and features New Netherland’s distinctive regional history as well as the colony’s many relationships with Europe, the seventeenth-century Atlantic world, and New England, these cogent and informative papers are an indispensable source toward a better understanding of New Netherland life and legacy.

Leading scholars from both sides of the Atlantic critique and offer research on a dynamic range of topics: the age of exploration, domestic life in New Netherland, the history and significance of the West India Company, the complex era of Jacob Leisler, the southern frontier lands of the colony, relations with New England, Hudson Valley foodways and Dutch beer production, the endurance of the Dutch legacy into nineteenth-century New York, and contemporary genealogical research on colonial Dutch ancestors.

Edited by Elisabeth Paling Funk and Martha Dickinson Shattuck, the newest volume of papers includes chapters from Rensselaerswijck Seminars on domestic life in New Netherland, the Age of Leisler, New Netherland and the Frontier, The Persistence of the Dutch after 1664, The Dutch in the Age of Exploration, Manor Life and Culture in the Hudson Valley, Family History, Relations between New Netherland and New England, The West India Company and the Atlantic World, and more.

Note: Books noticed on this site have been provided by the publishers. Purchases made through this Amazon link help support this site.

Books: Adirondack Hotels and Inns

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The Adirondack region evolved over years from vast, impassable wilderness to a land of logging camps, tanneries, sawmills, and small settlements. By the end of the 19th century, the area grew again, becoming a tourist destination famed for its great hotels, quaint inns, cottages, and rustic cabins.

The hotels and inns spread throughout the Adirondacks, beginning after the Civil War and continuing during the Gilded Age between World Wars I and II. The region drew the rich and famous, as well as workers and families escaping the polluted cities. This volume contains 200 vintage images of those famed accommodations that catered to years of Adirondack visitors.

Although Most of the buildings seen in Adirondack Hotels and Inns&#8220>Adirondack Hotels and Inns no longer exist, having been destroyed by fires, the wrecking ball, or simply forgotten over time, the book stills serves a guide to those old places on the landscape.

Author Donald R. Williams has written eight other books on the Adirondacks, among them The Adirondacks: 1830–1930, The Adirondacks: 1931–1990, Along the Adirondack Trail, and Adirondack Ventures, all in Arcadia Publishing’s Images of America series.

Note: Books noticed on this site have been provided by the publishers. Purchases made through this Amazon link help support this site.

Adirondack Land Use and Ethics Symposium

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The SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry’s Northern Forest Institute At Huntington Wildlife Forest invites submissions for a symposium of interdisciplinary scholarship in land use and ethics, to be held at Huntington Wildlife Forest, Newcomb, Essex County, NY on June 1-3, 2012.

Research is welcomed from across professions and disciplines on topics related to balancing individual and community priorities with respect to land use and the associated expectations for human and ecosystem stewardship and social and environmental ethics. Submissions should generate conversation around a variety of approaches to land use, the moral implications of these approaches, as well as the ways that they influence the ongoing debate over how to achieve social and environmental justice. Submissions from a range of disciplines and professional fields are encouraged.

All submissions must be submitted as a Word document via e-mail to Symposium Coordinator Rebecca Oyer according to the guidelines below. Acceptance notifications will go out by the first week of January 2012 along with detailed travel and accommodation information (preliminary information is below).

Electronic submissions require the following:
o Submission Title
o Submission Type (including required abstract/proposal as noted below):
o Paper
o Panel discussion
o Poster presentation
o Author(s) Information:
o Affiliation (independent scholars are welcome)
o Full name
o Daytime phone
o E-mail
o Mailing address

Anonymity: Abstracts will be sent via email to the Symposium Coordinator who will respond with an e-mail acknowledgement of receipt. Abstracts will be distributed anonymously to the Symposium Chair and selection committee.

A conference fee of $75 will include housing and meals beginning with dinner on Friday, June
1 and ending with lunch on Sunday, June 3 plus a wine and cheese reception at Huntington Lodge on the evening of Friday, June 1. Coffee and refreshments will be available throughout the day on Saturday and Sunday of the symposium. (Note: This is an estimated rate that may increase by $5-$10).

Accommodations: Rustic accommodations will be provided on Huntington Wildlife Forest.

Traditional Papers: The symposium welcomes work in progress. One aim of this meeting is to
provide a collegial environment for new and in-process work and ideas to be offered for comment and critique. Submissions must include a 250 word abstract. Accepted papers/research in progress will be presented by the author followed by a fifteen minute period of open discussion. Panel Discussion: A panel discussion with at least two presenters should examine specific problems or topics from a variety of disciplinary and professional perspectives on land use and ethics. Panel proposals should include a description of the issue that the panel will address, an explanation of the relevance of the topic to more than one discipline/field and an indication of how each paper in the panel addresses each issue. Panel Discussion proposals should include an abstract of 600 words for the panel as a whole.

Poster Presentations: Proposals for Poster Presentations should be in the form of a description of the research project not longer than 1000 words including a brief outline of the problem or topic presented and its relationship to land use and ethics. Posters will be on display throughout the symposium, with presenters available in the display area for a designated time during the symposium.

Session Chairs: If you would like to serve as a Session Chair, please send a CV to the Symposium Coordinator including your areas of research interest/expertise so that we can place Chairs in the most appropriate session.

Confirmation: Anyone making a submission will receive confirmation of receipt within 48 hours. If you have not received confirmation of receipt and/or notification regarding the Program Committee’s decision about your submission by January 1, please contact Symposium Coordinator Rebecca Oyer.

Scheduling: The Program Committee assumes that it may schedule a paper or session at any time
between Saturday, June 2 at 9am and Sunday, June 3 late afternoon.

For all correspondence regarding submission and/or program content, contact Symposium Chair
Marianne Patinelli-Dubay at [email protected]

For submission questions, presentation/IT needs contact Symposium Coordinator Rebecca Oyer at
[email protected]

For information on fees, lodging and accommodations contact Business Manager Zoe Jeffery at
[email protected]

Photo of Arbutus Lodge, compliments of Huntington Wildlife Forest, Newcomb, NY.

This Weeks Top New York History News

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  • Records Reform Bill Moves in House
  • NEH Awards $21M in New Grants
  • Museum Collects Occupy Wall St Materials
  • Museum Finds a Home for the Enterprise
  • War of 1812 Bicentennial Disorganized
  • After 108 Yrs, Steuben Glass Closes Doors
  • Teddy Roosevelt’s Home Set For Rehab
  • Incubator Brings Digital Tools to History
  • 1759 Powder Horn Donated to Fort Ti
  • Noted NY Journalist Tom Wicker Dies

    • Each Friday morning New York History compiles for our readers the previous week’s top stories about New York’s state and local history. You can find all our weekly news round-ups here.

    Subscribe! More than 2,200 people get New York History each day via E-Mail, RSS, or Twitter or Facebook updates.

    This Weeks New York History Web Highlights

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  • Alice Miner Museum: A Sampling of Platters
  • Ephemeral NY: Secret Tragedies of Defunct Midtown Hotel
  • Brooklyn Historical: Adrian Vanderveer Martense’s Lantern Slides
  • Dick Eastman: Explaining Second Cousin Once Removed
  • Don Rittner: Rensselaer Co Should Save Troy Library
  • The Beehive: The Hoosac Tunnel
  • Old Salt Blog: The USS Hornet Project
  • Historian: Canada Won War of 1812
  • Occupy the AHA: Demand a WPA Writers’ Project
  • Outtakes: Groups Spar Over Lake Placid Train

    • Each Friday afternoon New York History compiles for our readers the previous week’s best web links about New York’s state and local history. You can find all our weekly news round-ups here.

    Subscribe! More than 2,200 people get New York History each day via E-Mail, RSS, or Twitter or Facebook updates.

    Knox’s Headquarters Holiday Programs

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    For two Christmases, John and Catherine Ellison shared their home with the officers and soldiers of the Continental Army. Over the winter of 1780-81, General Henry Knox, his wife Lucy and the young Henry and Lucy were there, while two years later it was General Horatio Gates and his military family of aides de camp who shared in the season’s festivities. From 5:00 to 8:00 PM on Friday December 16th & Saturday December 17th tour the elegantly appointed 1754 Ellison house decorated for Christmas and staffed by Revolutionary War era costumed interpreters.

    In December 1774, Colonel Thomas Ellison of New Windsor, John’s father, received a letter from a grandson in New York City wishing him greetings of the season: “May you and yours see the return of many happy Christmasses & New Years & may each bring you an occasion of joy and peace – especially of that peace which passeth understanding & which this world can neither give or take away.”

    On Monday December 26th, Tuesday December 27th & Wednesday December 28th Open House at Knox’s Headquarters. The Ellison mansion is open for tours at 10:00 AM, 11:00 AM, 1:00 PM & 2:00 PM each day. Tour the elegant 1754 historic house decorated for the season in 18th century fashion.

    Knox’s Headquarters is located at 289 Forge Hill Road, in Vails Gate, New York, three miles southeast of the intersection of I-87 and I-84. The bridge over Moodna Creek, just east of Knox’s Headquarters, was damaged by Hurricane Irene, so access to the site is from State Route 94 only. For more information please call (845) 561-1765 ext. 22.

    Photo: The 1754 John Ellison house, Knox’s Headquarters, viewed from the 18th century bridge over Silver Stream (provided).

    18th Cent Holiday Traditions at Fort Ticonderoga

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    Visitors to Fort Ticonderoga can explore 18th-century holiday traditions at Fort Ti’s &#8220Hot Chocolate at Cold Fort&#8221 event. Participants can visit with historic interpreters portraying Continental soldiers from Pennsylvania in 1776 and experience how very different Christmas at that time was compared to our modern holiday traditions. Learn about Saint Crispin’s Day from a shoemaker at the Fort and experience the simple holiday pleasures the frontier garrison enjoyed. Taste a sample of hot chocolate based on a recipe from the 18th-century and experience a celebration at Fort Ticonderoga in 1776 Saturday, December 3, 10 am – 4 pm. Regular admission rates apply. Ticonderoga residents are free.

    Much of Ticonderoga’s 1776-1777 winter garrison was composed of soldiers of the 4th Pennsylvania battalion. The soldiers were from the vicinity of Chester, Pennsylvania. In large part they were Quaker or Anglican. For the few Anglicans among these men, Christmas was an occasion for a feast, but not an extraordinary one. For the Quakers, who largely rejected Anglican traditions, Christmas was a day like any other. However, just as today’s American troops serving in foreign lands seek comfort in simple pleasures during the holidays, the 4th Pennsylvania battalion soldiers at Fort Ticonderoga heartily enjoyed basic comforts that reminded them of home.

    By the end of November 1776, Ticonderoga was covered by winter’s first blanket of snow. The 3,500 men remained to garrison Fort Ticonderoga, Mount Hope, and Mount Independence under the command of Colonel Anthony Wayne watched wearily as Massachusetts and New York militia troops departed for home at the end of their terms of enlistment. Other Continental troops departed to join General Washington in the milder winter climate of New Jersey. Settling in for a long winter guarding Lake Champlain from attack, Colonel Wayne moved the men of his 4th Pennsylvania battalion into the sparse comforts of the Fort’s stone barracks.

    To learn more about Hot Chocolate at a Cold Fort visit www.FortTiconderoga.org or call 518-585-2821. This holiday experience at Fort Ticonderoga is part of the Second Annual North Country Christmas week-long celebration, November 28 – December 4. For details on the North Country Christmas visit www.ticonderogany.com.