A HISTORY OF TIVOLI FROM FIRST SETTLEMENT TO INCORPORATION by James Elliott Lindsley (Mr. Lindsley, Rector of St. Paul's and Trinity Parish, Tivoli, wrote the following for serial publication in the church's Midweek Messenger last spring as the Village prepared for the Centennial celebration of its incorporation.)
By looking at the map of this Hudson Valley we can begin to understand the early settlement of the area now called Tivoli. The Village is located 100 miles north of the place where the Hudson River empties into New York Bay. On one side of the river here, a creek flows into the Hudson, offering fine harborage for small boats as well as water power for mills; the name Saugerties is derived from the Dutch sawyers, and suggests the saw mills, abundant lumber, and busy life on the west side of the river. On the Tivoli side, the bluffs which line the river pull back ever so slightly, offering a natur al, level place for a
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small settlement. Since this place — it is where the railroad station was later built — is now unoccupied and probably much similar to the primeval condition, one can see how the early traveller would find the site inviting. Those early travellers were, as far as we know, the American Indians who lived on the land, fished the waters, and made the trails for centuries prior to 1492, and for a good time thereafter. They continued to live hereabouts in dwindling numbers; an elderly parishioner of St. Paul's recalls her mother telling about serving suppers to indigent Indians in the dooryard. This would have been soon after the Civil War, but in his Reminiscences, John N. Lewis implies that the last Indians died somewhat
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