Thomas Cole Historic Site Community Day

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It has been ten years since the Thomas Cole National Historic Site opened its doors, and they have a great many milestones to celebrate, so they are opening their doors on Sunday, September 25, from 1-4 pm for a Community Day, featuring a new exhibition focusing on the past decade. Admission is free.

In the ten years since the 2001 opening, over 60,000 people have visited the historic site and attendance is now 400% higher than it was in the first year. Once near ruin, the house and grounds now provide an evocative environment where visitors can learn about the founder of the Hudson River School of art.

This Weeks New York History Web Highlights

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Each Friday afternoon New York History compiles for our readers a collection of the week’s top weblinks about New York’s state and local history. You can find all our weekly round-ups here.

Subscribe! Nearly 2,000 people get New York History each day. You can follow the site via E-Mail, RSS, or Twitter or Facebook updates.

Curators Finds Focus of John Jay Talk

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Curator’s Fabulous Finds, a series of artifact talks at John Jay Homestead, will continue on Sunday, October 2 at 2:00 p.m., and will be repeated on Thursday, October 6 at 7:00 p.m. This fall’s lecture will examine and discuss portraits of members of the Jay family from the Homestead’s historic collection. The cost of admission will be $10.00 per person- members of the Friends of John Jay Homestead may attend at no charge.

The functions of portraiture and the differing ways people were portrayed over history will be explored, discussing pictures by such famous painters in the Homestead’s collection as John Trumbull and John Singer Sargent. The techniques of oil painting and watercolor will also be covered. Participants will get a close look at several paintings, and details of the lives of the people in them will round out the talk.

Space at the lecture is limited, and reservations are strongly suggested. To reserve seats, call John Jay Homestead at (914) 232-5651, extension 105.

John Jay was a President of the Continental Congress, the second U.S. Secretary for Foreign Affairs, the first Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, and the second Governor of New York State. He retired to Bedford in 1801 to live the life of a gentleman farmer. His home is now a beautiful sixty-two acre historic site that includes lovely walks, several gardens, farm buildings, and a richly-decorated main residence restored to the 1820s, the last decade of Jay’s life.

John Jay Homestead State Historic Site is located at 400 Route 22, Katonah, N.Y. John Jay Homestead is regularly open for guided tours Sunday through Wednesday from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., and at other times by appointment. The site is one of six historic sites and 15 parks administered by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation – Taconic Region. For additional information about John Jay Homestead, please visit www.johnjayhomestead.org.

Schoharie Crossing to Host Flooding Discussion

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Schoharie Crossing State Historic Site will host a lecture on “Fort Hunter Flooding Through the Ages: An Eyewitness Look” on Tuesday, September 27, 2011 at 6:30 pm at the Fort Hunter Library, 167 Fort Hunter Road, Town of Florida. The lecture is sponsored by the Friends of Schoharie Crossing and presented by education coordinator Tricia Shaw. The lecture will be followed by refreshments and the September meeting of the Friends of Schoharie Crossing. All are welcome to attend- the meeting and lecture are both open to the public.

Tricia Shaw will lead a discussion about the history of flooding in the Fort Hunter area. The Schoharie Creek is famous as a flood prone area. Shaw will set the tone by talking about the floods of 1904, 1914 1938 and 1977. Then using eyewitness accounts of the 1955 and 1987 floods, she will compare those earlier “bad” floods to the recent 2006 and 2011 floods. An open discussion will follow, allowing individuals to share their own memories and thoughts.

For more information about this event or how to join the Friends of Schoharie Crossing, please call Shaw’s cell phone at (518) 878-6915.

New Website Features Big Maps

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There is a new New York City addition to the Big Map Blog, a bird’s-eye view of the Brooklyn Bridge in 1885 made by noted print makers Currier & Ives. The image is freely downloadable by anyone at its highest resolution [8,999px ? 6,293px].

The Big Map Blog was begun in March and already has a considerable number of large, unusual maps. &#8220I came across many of the maps you’ll see on the Big Map Blog while doing research for a film I’m working on,&#8221 The Big Map Blog’s curator, who calls himself 59 King, reports. &#8220While searching, I found thousands of old, beautiful maps that are sadly being kept from the public that deserves them — sometimes by clumsy or unwieldy government ftp sites, and other times by archives with steep fees for research, and steeper fees for reproduction. I felt strongly that something should be done about this.&#8221

The site adds new maps five days a week. There are also several other NYC maps on the Big Map Blog, which can be found using the New York City tag.

First Quilt Exhibit at Fenimore in 15 Years

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The Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown, New York will open a new exhibition on September 24 titled Unfolding Stories: Culture and Tradition in American Quilts, organized by renowned quilt scholar Jacqueline M. Atkins. The exhibition will be on view through December 31. This marks the first time in over 15 years that the Fenimore will display selections from its substantial collection of historical quilts some dating from the early 19th century.

The exhibition explores the many connections that are made throughout and across cultures through the art ofquilting, as well as how these connections have changed over time and place. Almost every culture offers some form of quilting within its textile tradition, yet only in the United States do we see a confluence of traditions, cultures, ethnicities, and innovations that produces the richly diverse quilting culture that exists today.

On view will be approximately 24 quilts distinguished by their design, pattern, and workmanship. The quilts are organized to examine six themes ranging from the history and inventiveness of this time-honored practice to the role that quilts play in revealing values, culture, traditions, and beliefs. Unfolding Stories pieces together this intricate patchwork of diverse connections into a fascinating narrative that grows out of stories embedded in the quilts themselves. Quilts on display include pictorial narratives, one-patch designs, crazy quilts, cut-outs, star quilts, and signature quilts.

“Unfolding Stories looks at how various cultures interpret different designs within the quilting tradition,” remarked Director of Exhibitions at the Fenimore Art Museum, Michelle Murdock. “It demonstrates how cultural and cross-cultural connections are made through design processes as well. Quilts continue to provide visually powerful yet ever-changing texts for us to read, interpret, learn from, andenjoy,” Murdock added.

Also included are the three award-winning quilts from The Farmers’ Museum’s 2010 New York State of Mind Quilt Show. The exhibition is sponsored in part by Fenimore Asset Management.

The exhibition will compliment the many folk art related activities taking place this fall at the Museum including the exhibition Inspired Traditions: Selections from the Jane Katcher Collection ofAmericana opening October 1. Join us across the street at The Farmers’ Museum for this year’s A New York State of Mind Quilt Show – October 8 and 9.

The Fenimore Art Museum’s 2011 Americana Symposium will be held on September 30 and October 1. This new annual event will bring together leading scholars and experts on American history, art, and culture.

Photo: &#8220Trade and Commerce&#8221 Quilt Top by Hannah Stockton Stiles (b. 1800), ca. 1835. Possibly Delaware River Valley. Cotton, cotton chintz. 105 x 89 in. Gift of Hannah Lee Stokes. Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown, New York.

Meet New Netherland Centers Resident Scholar

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Dr. Eric Ruijssenaars, the New Netherland Research Center’s first Senior Scholar in Residence and founder of Dutch Archives, a historical research firm in Leiden, will discuss his research at a luncheon on Wednesday, October 5 at the National Register-listed University Club of Albany, 141 Washington Avenue at Dove Street. The buffet lunch will begin at 12:00 noon, with the presentation commencing at 12:30 p.m., followed by a question and answer period.

Although a specialist in the history of Russia and the Netherlands, he is also a scholar of the Bronte sisters’ time in Brussels and has published two books on the subject.

He is currently researching the life of Abraham Staats. In 1642, Staats arrived in the Dutch colony of New Netherland to serve as a surgeon on patroon Kiliaen van Rensselaer’s vast estate, Rensselaerswijck, which is now part of Albany and Rensselaer counties. Over the course of his life, Staats became a magistrate of the court, a captain of the burgher guard, the owner of a sloop that made regular trips to New Amsterdam (New York City), and an Indian language translator. Something of an oddity in rough-and-tumble New Netherland, he remained a very respectable man and was, for that reason, regularly called on to mediate disputes between his less respectable and more litigious neighbors.

The New Netherland Research Center is a partnership of the New Netherland Institute and the New York State Office of Cultural Education. It continues and extends the work of the New York State Library’s New Netherland Project, which since 1974 has preserved, transcribed, translated, and published 17th century documents in order to make the history of the Dutch colonial presence in North America more broadly accessible for study.

The University Club of Albany Foundation, Inc. is presenting this event, and one need not be a member of the University Club to attend. The cost for the luncheon and lecture is $25. Reservations are required and may be made by calling the University Club at 518-463-1151.

Photo: The Abraham Staats House, one of the finest surviving buildings from the Dutch Settlement of the Raritan Valley in New Jersey.

1871 Canadian Census Now Online

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Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter is reporting that Library and Archives Canada has placed the 1871 census online. 1871 marked the first regularly scheduled collection of national statistics. The information covers the four provinces that were part of the Dominion of Canada in 1871: New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Ontario and Quebec.

The online database provides digitized images of original census returns featuring the name, age, country or province of birth, nationality, religion, and occupation of Canada’s residents at the time. The database is searchable by nominal information such as Name, Given Name (s) and Age, and/or geographical information such as Province, District Name, District Number, and Sub-district Number.

The 1871 Canadian Census is available free of charge at: www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/databases/census-1871/index-e.html

You can learn more about the 1871 census at http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/databases/census-1871/001101-2000-e.html

War of 1812 Mini Grants Available

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The New York Council for the Humanities is offering War of 1812 Mini Grants. The Council is partnering with the State Historian and State Archives to coordinate commemoration efforts statewide.

New York’s economic prominence and long border with Canada gave the state a central role in the War of 1812. New York State’s experience of the War of 1812, from the militarization of the Great Lakes to the decisive American victory at Plattsburgh, is critical to understanding the developing political and military mindset of the young United States.


Grants of up to $3,000 are available from the Council to present humanities-based public programs exploring the legacy of the War of 1812 in new York State. Organizations must meet all of the eligibility criteria for the Council’s general Mini Grants.

Applications for these special grants will be accepted until September 30,2012. During 2012, organizations may receive one Mini Planning Grant, one Mini Grant for implementation in addition to a War of 1812 Mini Grant.

To apply, organizations should use the existing online forms for Mini Grants for implementation. Just be sure to mention War of 1812 in the title and/or description of the project and apply 12 weeks before the start of your project.

Illustration: War of 1812 attack on Oswego from the Paul Lear collection. Courtesy The Seaway Trail Foundation.

NYGB Offers Cutting-Edge Genealogy Event

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On Saturday, September 24th, the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society will present Dick Eastman, Ruth A. Carr, and David Kleiman in a full-day program designed to enhance your online genealogical searches. The program will take place in the South Court Auditorium of the New York Public Library’s Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street, New York, NY.

Dick Eastman is the publisher of “Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter,” the daily genealogy technology newsletter with more than 60,000 readers worldwide. He will deliver two lectures: Genealogy Searches on Google: Extract the Most Genealogical Information Possible from Everyone’s Favorite Search Engine and The Latest Technology for Genealogists: An In-Depth Look at Today’s Technology.

Ruth A. Carr retired in 2008 as Chief of the Irma and Paul Milstein Division of United States History, Local History and Genealogy, New York Public Library where she worked for 20 years. She will present a talk on Other Places Your Ancestors Might Be Hiding: “Non-Genealogy” Databases and Internet Resources to Explore.

A genealogist and family historian for over 35 years, David Kleiman co-founded and chairs the New York Computers and Genealogy Special Interest Group and serves on the executive council of the Jewish Genealogical Society, Inc. and on the Education Committee of the NYG&B. He will deliver two lectures: Rediscovering the Globe: Maps Online, GIS, Google Earth and Technology & Design: Looking Good in Print and on the Screen.

The program begins at 9:30 a.m. at the NYPL’s South Court Auditorium and will end at 5:00 pm- there will be a break for lunch on-your-own. Registration for NYG&B members is $60, non-members is $90. Register online at www.newyorkfamilyhistory.org. For additional information, contact Lauren Maehrlein, Director of Education, at 212-755-8532, ext. 211, or by e-mailing [email protected].

The New York Genealogical and Biographical Society has been a primary resource for research on New York families since 1869. The NYG&B seeks to advance genealogical scholarship and enhance the capabilities of both new and experienced researchers of family history through a rich schedule of programs, workshops, and repository tours- through its quarterly scholarly journal The NYG&B Record and its quarterly review The New York Researcher- and through an E-Library of unique digital material on its website www.newyorkfamilyhistory.org.