Our Incrredible Valley Page 3 - Columbia County Historical Society

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Columbia County Historical Society www.cchsny.org Columbia County HISTORY& HERITAGE COLUMBIA COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY BOARD OF DIRECTORS John B. Carroll President Willis Hartshorn Vice President Woodruff L. Tuttle Treasurer Russell Pomeranz Assistant Treasurer Susan Gerwe Tripp Secretary Dr. David William Voorhees Assistant Secretary Lawrence P. Ashmead Arthur Baker Nancy Clark Joan K. Davidson John R. Dunne Sheldon Evans Henry N. Eyre, Jr. Peter Haemmerlein John Hannam Timothy Husband Cathy M. Kaplan Deborah Dutton Minton Dianne O’Neal Julia Philip Richard Ryan Samuel O.J. Spivy Colin Stair Dr. Will Swift STAFF Sharon S. Palmer Executive Director Helen M. McLallen Curator Ruth Ellen Berninger Educator Rita Laffety Membership Juanita Knott Administrative Assistant COLUMBIA COUNTY HISTORY & HERITAGE EDITORIAL BOARD Editor Henry N. “Jim” Eyre, Jr. Assistant Editor Dr. John C. Fout Editorial Committee Lawrence Ashmead, George N. Biggs, III, Albert S. Callan, Joan K. Davidson, John R. Dunne, Mimi Forer, James P. Hamilton, Mary Howell Dominick C. Lizzi, Julia Philip, Mary Faherty Sansaricq, Dr. Will Swift, Ron Toelke, Dr. David William Voorhees Design and Production Ron Toelke and Barbara Kempler-Toelke Ron Toelke Associates, Chatham, NY Columbia County History & Heritage is published by the Columbia County Historical Society and is mailed to all members of record at the time of publication. Copies may be obtained, as available, at $4.00 per copy from the Society offices at the Columbia County Museum, 5 Albany Avenue, Kinderhook, New York, 12106; 518-758-9265; www.cchsny.org Hours: Monday, Wednesday, Friday 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m., Saturday 10:00 – 4:00 p.m. (May 28 through September 3) 2 In our technocratic society we have become accustomed to, and even expect, the quantification of all discussions, even those of cultural issues. We have all seen, even on these pages, arguments that the value of historic preservation in our county cannot be reduced to economic terms of employment, tourism income, and appreciating property values. Equally important, but harder to reduce to formulas, are the aesthetic values of preserving what has been called our cultural landscape. The impact of the built world on all of our senses and our reaction to it individually and as a community has a profound influence on the quality of our lives. This is part of the reason why people choose to visit and move to Columbia County rather than many other areas of the country. We are the custodians of the work, sacrifice, and legacy of our ancestors. For the most part that legacy exists in the context in which they left it to us. This interplay between architecture and landscape is a natural resource that also deserves attention and preservation. Aesthetic and spiritual values and the richness and vibrancy of our community cannot be quantified but they are no less valuable because they cannot be reduced to numbers. We should strive to preserve our historical context for these reasons and let the economic benefits which will ensue be a pleasant secondary benefit of enhancing the quality of our lives. John B. Carroll President A Message from the President Editor’s Foreword It is of continued and great amazement to me that our magnificent Hudson River is presently so little known and heralded by travelers from both near and far. It is easily as rich and colorful as the heavily traveled Rhine, the fabled and serenaded Danube, or the barge filled rivers of France. In fact James Fenimore Cooper said it so well: “The Hudson is this nation’s Rhine… The mighty river complete with our own humble castles, legends and ancient associations.” The river served as the major gateway to our country and county. The settlements, and the towns and homes that line its banks are time laden with colorful tales and history. Its waters bounded by cliffs, woods filled mountains and valleys — its waterfalls and spectacular sunsets — are immortalized by famed artists such as Frederic Church, Thomas Cole, and Sanford Gifford. Native Americans traversing in their canoes called it “Orioque,” meaning beautiful river. The river’s very being and bounty provided the sustenance upon which the settlers, merchants, whalers, fishermen, industrialists, and sportsmen who followed would prosper. It provided the raison d’etre for the many ports and grand estates that were to develop on its shores. Steamboats would in their day carry both passengers and cargo on runs from New York to Albany and back making scheduled stops at key ports. Sometimes they would race each other — run aground — or overheat and explode. Gaily decorated single mast private vessels named after — and thus advertising available maiden daughters of the wealthy would gracefully slither over the waters for all to see and admire. Heavily-laden barges would plod Continued on page 37
By Joan K. Davidson Joan Davidson is President of Furthermore Grants in Publishing, Former Commissioner Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation and is a Board Member of our Society. She lives in Germantown. Reprinted from the Foreword to The Hudson River, Monacelli Press, 1995, New York’s Hudson Valley belongs to all Americans — and to me alone. For decades I have known and revered the valley from afar for the beauty of its mountains and waterways, for its grand and vernacular architecture, its classic river towns, broad farmlands; redolent history, and the most splendid of vistas — and for the mysterious symbolic power it appears to hold in the American psyche. Today it is my good fortune to live there. The Hudson Valley of legend provides inspiration and engenders pride while never letting us forget that natural and historic resources, marvels on so vast a scale, are always vulnerable to depredation and loss. Here, intimations of our national future can be caught, if we attend. The centerpiece of the region is the great river that runs from the Adirondacks to the sea. Only three hundred miles long, it is deep and wide. Its nether reaches ebb Columbia County History & Heritage Spring 2005 and flow with the salty tides of the Atlantic: and its upper end drains bubbling springs and lakes of the Catskills, Shawangunks, and Taconics. The valley is a large scale integrated economy — a historic area in which natural and cultural resources, and a population diverse in background and talent abound. Public and private sector forces are endeavoring to come together in common cause. This is an experiment of immense importance for and potential benefit to states, regions and communities throughout the land, attempting to discover if local authority and character can be preserved at the same time that more wide ranging societal goals are pursued. There is much to learn in the Hudson Valley about land — how it fares in the care of public and private entities and in the face of competing claims. Seventeenth and eighteenth century ownership of land on a colossal scale by families of rank and fortune has — through the passage of time, through circumstance, through changing mores and values — been translated from patrician excess to populist benefaction, even entitlement. The great Dutch and English Hudson Valley estates, some exceeding hundreds of thousands of acres, once marched side by side along the Hudson shoreline. In some pockets their remembrance is still surprisingly intact — and in one particular instance, more than twenty miles of their glorious riverfront, distinguished by dazzling natural and cultural resources, have been enshrined since 1990 as the Hudson River National Historic Landmark District, the first and one of the largest such protected areas in the country. Some properties within this official district have entered public realm as parks: most remain in private hands. Together they protect air and water quality, plant and animal life, open views and human scale communities. The Hudson Valley lays out dramatic lessons not only in landscape, agriculture, and land management but also in the story of human habitation and in how the War Never has there been more urgent need to uphold the public interest in the way Americans organize their neighborhoods, their local economies, their surrounding environments, and the quality of their lives. 3 for Independence was won. There is much to learn here about our culture, its early literary and visual aspects as evinced in the Knickerbocker writers and the Hudson River School of painters; about specialized industry, and about the modern environmental movement, which arose out of the 1960s struggle to to save Storm King Mountain from despoliation by a power plant. We live in unsettled times when hard environmental advances are being rolled back in state and national legislatures, fast moving sprawl is engulfing cities, towns, Our Incredible Valley Photo “ The Catskills from Hudson” by Jake Rajs from The Hudson River, Monacelli Press, 1995, courtesy Joan Davidson.
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Our Incrredible Valley Page 3 - Columbia County Historical Society

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