Town of Red Hook Bicentennial

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RED HOOK BICENTENNIAL 1812-2012

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th th Happy 2oo Happy 300 Birthday, Birthday, Red Hook!

Germantown! from your neighbors at Williams Lumber, helping build Hudson Valley communities for three generations

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RED HOOK BICENTENNIAL 1812-2012

CONTENTS CONTRIBUTORS:

Red Hook 1812 by Robin Cherry

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Christopher Brazee Robin Cherry Sue T. Crane Kathy Leonard Czepiel Jen Kiaba Christopher Klose Claudine Klose Olivia Klose Christopher Lindner Laura Pensiero

A Blink in Time by Sue T. Crane

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Welcome Letters begin

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Town of Red Hook Bicentennial Celebration Calendar of Events begins

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The Land, the River, the People Bicentennial Concert

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Historic Map: 1797 map of Red Hook and Rhinebeck Courtesy Historic Hudson Valley

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Town of Red Hook Bicentennial Committee

Red Hook’s Timeless Treasure: The Elmendorph by Christopher Klose

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Egbert Benson Historical Society of Red Hook

Ready Made Red Hook

by Olivia Klose and Christopher Brazee

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Chocolate: Red Hook’s Sweet Success

by Claudine and Christopher Klose

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Beer, Wine, Cider, Shrub, Ratafia, and Usquebaugh: The Spirits of 1812

by Robin Cherry

30

Red Hook’s Violet Past

by Kathy Leonard Czepiel

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Puppet Power by Robin Cherry

34

Into the Light: Photos from the Egbert Benson Historical Society

by Christopher Klose

36

The Bicentennial Quilt by Robin Cherry

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Red Hook’s Historical Archaeology: Bicentennial or Tercentennial?

by Christopher Lindner, PhD

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Grilled Pork Tenderloin with Strawberry Barbeque Sauce by Laura Pensiero

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SPECIAL THANKS:

Historic Hudson Valley Ray Armater Didi Barrett Ed Blundell Loretta Campagna Bryan F. Cranna Marcus Molinaro Stephen M. Saland On the Cover: Neko’s, formerly known as the Red Hook Drug Store, photo by Jen Kiaba.

Inset L to R: View of East Market Street, photo by Jen Kiaba; Horse drawn carriage outside of Madalin Hotel, photo courtesy Egbert Benson Historical Society (EBHS) of Red Hook; Red Hook sunset, photo by Jen Kiaba; Red Hook Hotel c. 1900, photo courtesy EBHS; St. Christopher’s church, photo by Jen Kiaba. All photos this page by Jen Kiaba, except top.

The Town of Red Hook Bicentennial Commemorative is published on behalf of the Town of Red Hook Bicentennial Committee

by Rising Tide Communications, publishers of

Hudson Valley Mercantile.

Jim Gibbons: Publisher jgibbons@hvrising.com Heather Gibbons: Creative Director calendarhog@hvrising.com Contents ©2012 Rising Tide Communications, LLC No portion may be reproduced in whole or in part without the express written permission of the publisher

a publication of

P.O. Box 178 Red Hook, NY 12571 845-546-3051 hvmercantile.com

RED HOOK BICENTENNIAL 1812-2012

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Best Wishes Red Hook on our 200th Leocadia (Lottie) Kittner licensed real estate broker 7481 South Broadway - Suite A P.O. Box 8 Red Hook, NY 12571-0008 845-758-8891

applevalleyrealty@frontiernet.net 7514 N. Broadway Red Hook, NY 12571 758-5808 Thurs: 11am-11pm Fri-Sat: 11am-Midnight Sunday: 3pm-11pm ~ Pizza ~ Hot Subs ~ Cold Subs ~ ~Dinner ~ Calzone ~ Salads~

HAPPY 200th BIRTHDAY RED HOOK!!

Two Hundred Years Congratulations!

Town of Red Hook 2012 Sue T. Crane, Supervisor Sue McCann, Town Clerk Theresa Burke, Highway Superintendent Brenda Cagle, Town Board Harry Colgan, Town Board William O’Neill, Esq., Town Board James Ross, DDS, Town Board

Congratulations, Red Hook!

You’ve hatched quite a celebration!

Congratulations & Sincere Thanks

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We’re proud to help honor 200 years of rural traditions & community connections.

from your friends at

to the Town of Red Hook’s Bicentennial Committee for working to preserve and celebrate Red Hook’s History.

Mayor Bryan F. Cranna & The Village of Tivoli Board of Trustees

www.tivoliny.org

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Village of Red Hook congratulates the RED HOOK BICENTENNIAL COMMITTEE on its excellent work planning the Bicentennial Celebration!

������������������������ from Mayor Ed Blundell and the Red Hook Village Board of Trustees

Keep the party going throughout 2012 at these Village-sponsored events!

Friday, May 11, 8 PM • Red Hook Recreational Park

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Saturday, September 22, 2012

HARDSCRABBLE DAY

RED HOOK HALLOWEEN October 2012

Winterfest December 2012

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RED HOOK 1812

by Robin Cherry

Two hundred years ago Red Hook split

La Bergerie, River Road, Barrytown, Dutchess County, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Complete photo credit opposite page.

RED HOOK BICENTENNIAL 1812-2012

...although things between Rhinebeck and Red Hook were cordial, 1812 was not a peaceful time in the newly minted United States. The country was at war.

from Rhinebeck, becoming an independent, self-governing township. It was by all accounts, a peaceful separation, authorized by the New York State Legislature to make it more convenient for residents to attend town meetings as horse and carriage were the primary means of transport. But although things between Rhinebeck and Red Hook were cordial, 1812 War of 1812 Battles: Fort Erie Bastion Blown Up. Source: Lossing (1), Armstrong was appointed Brigadier was not a peaceful time in the newly minted Benson J. Our Country. New York: Johnson and Bailey, 1895.

General in 1812 and Secretary of War ushistoryimages.com/war-of-1812-battles.shtm United States. The country was at war. in 1813. His oldest sons, Horatio Gates The war between France and Britain Armstrong and Henry Beekman Armstrong were sent into service on disrupted trade between the two countries and the United States. the Canadian “frontier” where Horatio led the 23rd Infantry and Henry President James Madison’s request that they respect his nation’s neutrality helmed the 13th. As soldiers, their daily rations were 20 ounces of beef, and commercial interests was ignored. And although both countries 18 ounces of flour, .64 ounces of both salt and soap, .24 ounce of candle, targeted American trade, Madison declared war on Britain because of and one gill (4 ounces) of both rum and vinegar. Henry was wounded in its additionally annoying habit of seizing American ships and forcing her the war’s first significant contest, The Battle of Queenston Heights but sailors into the service of the Royal Navy. recovered sufficiently to return to battle in 1813.

Red Hook resident General John Armstrong, who married Alida Back at home, John Hermance married Elizabeth Hapeman on Livingston (sister of Chancellor Robert R. Livingston) started work on his January 19, at St. John’s Low Dutch Reformed Church in Upper Red estate La Bergerie (later christened Rokeby) in 1811 but the war delayed Hook. Their first daughter, Catherine Marie was born on September 17, the completion of the mansion and Mrs. Armstrong received many letters 1812. They would go on to have 19 more children. As couples married concerning beams, flooring, cellars, and farm buildings from her absent earlier, large families were not exceptional. Four of John and Elizabeth’s husband. According to later Rokeby resident, Margaret Chanler Aldrich, children would not survive until their first birthday; one would die shortly in the early 1800s, “people lived as they had in Europe, producing the wool after her 18th birthday; the rest would live exceptionally long lives with six they wore, the flax for their household linen, and preparing their winter of their children living past 70 and three living past 90. supply of meat.” And dueling was still considered the gentlemanly way to The average white couple in 1812 could expect to have 7-8 children. settle a dispute.

On average, one would die before their first birthday and another would

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RED HOOK BICENTENNIAL 1812-2012

Portraits L to R: Alida Livingston & daughter; General John Armstrong; Robert R. Livingston; Rober Fulton. See full image credits below.

Red Hook resident General John Armstrong who married Alida Livingston (sister of Chancellor Robert R. Livingston) started work on his estate La Bergerie (later christened Rokeby) in 1811, but the war delayed the completion... die before the age of 21. (African-Americans, some still slaves, had higher rates of infant and childhood mortality.) Pneumonia, typhoid, and dysentery were the primary causes of death in babies. For children, the risks were chicken pox, measles, mumps, scarlet fever, and whooping cough. Adults were usually done in by tuberculosis euphemistically called “consumption.” The average life span was roughly 39 years old. And unlike today, a woman’s life span was shorter than a man’s because of the inherent dangers of child birth.

On July 9, 1812 Red Hook lost one of its more colorful citizens when Colonel Andrew De Veaux died after a fall. The South Carolina native and British loyalist had settled in Red Hook (after capturing the Bahamas from Spain and returning them to Britain). He married the wealthy socialite Anna Maria Verplanck but lived beyond both of their means and four days before his death, offered their estate for sale “on accommodating terms.”

De Veaux was interred in the Cemetery at the Reformed (Dutch) Church in Upper Red Hook. One can assume that, in the tradition of the day, he was buried in a casket made by the local cabinet maker/undertaker as both tasks were frequently performed by the same person.

Sheep continued to thrive in Red Hook; in 1824, there were 6,406 sheep recorded.

De Veaux’s estate boasted “a garden of four acres with all kinds of the most valuable fruit, as well as a considerable stock of horses, cattle, sheep, farming utensils, wagons, carts, and oxen.” The estate reflected the area as during this time, although trade was difficult, agriculture thrived.

The aforementioned Armstrong estate was called La Bergerie, the sheep pen, after the flock of Merino sheep that Napoleon had given to Armstrong at the end of his diplomatic service to France. Sheep continued to thrive in Red Hook; in 1824, there were 6,406 sheep recorded.

James Williams’ advertisement in an 1812 edition of the Poughkeepsie Journal highlights the diverse selection of fruit trees that thrived in the area.

His apple trees were Spitzenburgs (Thomas Jefferson’s favorite), Swaars, Gloria Mundi (a variety which some say originated at Crooke’s Farm in Red Hook in the early 1800s), Ox, Pie, and Paradise. His peach trees were Pine Apple, President, Lemon, and Congress. There were Moorpark apricots and Swan’s egg pears; Queen Claude plumbs (sic) and Brentford Rhaspberries (sic).

The Massonneau family, best known for the Tobacco Factory, got its mercantile start in 1790 and in 1812, French immigrant Claudius Massonneau opened his general store at Red Hook’s four corners on land purchased from John Armstrong. Massonneau was well-connected, having married Robert G. Livingston’s daughter Catherine.

In 1807, Robert Fulton invented the steam boat (with the financial support of Clermont’s Robert Livingston). Fulton, Livingston and their heirs held a monopoly on Hudson River travel between New York City and Albany until 1824. In 1812, the price of passage from Albany to Red Hook was $2.75; from New York City to Red Hook, $4.50. The NYC-Red Hook trip took about 30 hours. An advertisement of the time advises that: Young person 2 to 10 years of age are 1/2 price. Children under 2 are 1/4 price. Servants who use a berth are 2/3 price, without a berth 1/2 price.

In 1812, the price of passage from Albany to Red Hook was $2.75; from New York City to Red Hook, $4.50.

Slavery, alas, was still prevalent in both the grand estates and humbler homes of New York although it had been abolished in the neighboring states of New England and Pennsylvania in 1784. Although New York passed an act in 1799 calling for slavery’s gradual abolition, a gazette claims that as late as 1824, there were still 182 slaves in Red Hook.

Fortunately, 200 years later, slavery, dueling, and high infant mortality are relegated to history’s dump heap. Instead as we celebrate Red Hook’s bicentennial, we honor the river, estates, politicians, farmers, entrepreneurs, ancestors, and immigrants that made Red Hook the vibrant town it is today -- 200 years of rural traditions and community connections.

Robin Cherry is the treasurer of the Egbert Benson Historical Society and author of Catalog: The Illustrated History of Mail Order Shopping. She’s working on a book on the history of garlic and blogs on garlic and travel at www.garlicescapes.com.

Photo credit, opposite page, top: Southwest front, looking northeast - La Bergerie, River Road, Barrytown, Dutchess County, NY; Reproduction Number: HABS NY,14-BARTO.V,2--9; Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print; Top L to R: Alida Livingston Armstrong and Daughter, by the American artist Rembrandt Peale depicts the wife and daughter of American diplomat John Armstrong Jr., son of Revolutionary War patriot General John Armstrong Sr. Oil on canvas., 1810; http://www.the-athenaeum.org/art//full.php?ID=20330; Portrait of United States patriot and diplomat John Armstrong Jr. by Rembrandt Peale. Oil on canvas. Courtesy of the Independence National Historical Park, National Park Service, circa 1808; Robert R. Livingston, oil on canvas, by the American artist Gilbert Stuart. Courtesy of Clermont State Historical Site. Image courtesy of The Athenaeum; Robert Fulton, holding a watch fob in his right hand, oil on canvas, 19th century, All portraits via wikipedia.org; all are in the public domain.

Photo by Jen Kiaba

RED HOOK BICENTENNIAL 1812-2012

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‘a blink in time...’

by Sue T. Crane, Town Supervisor, Town of Red Hook When I was a young mother, we were privileged to have living with us my maternal grandmother, Alma Griffing. I grew up with her and my grandfather, Harold, coming and going, our village home within a stone’s throw of their own. I knew her well, having played at the feet of my mother, while the two women discussed the “situations” of the day and “neighborhood news.” “Curious behaviors,” were code words to convey serious discussion with raised eyebrows. I overheard but was unimpressed, being solely engrossed with stacking spice cans while I “played store” in our tiny kitchen while my mother ironed.

Gram had a clear mind until her death at 96. Her stories of Red Hook past were enchanting and amazing, since she described years not so long ago. In truth, 70 years are a blink in time. I can see that now.

She described her children and their friends, “playing at the front stoop” on West Market Street in huge snow drifts. Waiting. Waiting with their sleds and ropes. At a predictable hour each morning came the Sylvania Farm milk wagon, having performed a daily run to village markets and shops. The kind driver slowed while in turn, the children hitched their ropes to his bumper and each others’ sleds. At their call “READY,” he towed them west to the top of “Barrytown Hill” (or Trow’s Hill as we knew it.) There they untied ropes, turned and faced east to the breathtaking snow-covered road and the village of Red Hook beyond. “On a good day they made it almost back to the house!”

When Gram was a girl, orchards covered the northside of West Market east to Linden Avenue. “So many apples, we were encouraged to pick up free drops for applesauce and pies at season’s end. It was grand!” Today the Red Hook Central School and lovely private homes occupy this space and to the west, Hardeman’s Farm Market.

Farming has always been Red Hook’s most familiar landscape. I recall a day in seventh grade at Red Hook Central School when the principal called an unscheduled assembly of junior and senior high students. Heavy hail was predicted within 24 hours. The orchards were heavy with fruit - the farmers needed help. We would be dismissed immediately after signing up to pick apples on Red Hook farms. The crops must be saved. Buses would transport students willing to work to Red Hook farms. “Are you kidding?” “A day off?”

“Let’s go to Tripps’ Farm!”

That day we, who were not farmers, learned indelible lessons heavy lifting of wooden ladders, care in picking ripe fruit, aching feet,

As the community grows, so does our shared appreciation for this unique place we call home, with glorious mountain views, rich fertile soils and abundant aquifers. back and arms, cooperation loading crates on farm trucks, unquenchable thirst, joy of helping hands, end-of-day accomplishment: out-racing the hail and wind home. One day of unexpected farm labor... lifetime of respect.

It is with this perspective of Red Hook’s storied past that I approach my role in the community today. I have been privileged for more than fourteen years, as Town Supervisor and past town board member, to be part of serious projects that have resulted in improved quality of life for residents of this town I cherish.

We have changed the landscape in the Village of Red Hook by leading the village, Dutchess County and New York State in partnership with a private developer. We cleaned up an abandoned commercial site and supported 96 units of affordable senior housing known as Red Hook Commons. Residents are safe, happy and many have been able to remain in or return to Red Hook to be near their families.

Red Hook now has more than 5000 acres of land preserved.

Much of it is prime farmland. The land is our future. Agriculture is still our small town’s largest industry. As the community grows, so does our shared appreciation for this unique place we call home, with glorious mountain views, rich fertile soils and abundant aquifers.

Public officials and private citizens are committed to protect what we have for future generations. Seventy years pass in the blink of an eye.

Among countless Red Hook blessings are thousands of volunteers who support the town; their contributions are immense and of incalculable value: businesses, committees, houses of worship, organizations, libraries, Red Hook Central Schools, Bard College, sports programs, veterans, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, fraternal, civic and environmental clubs, arts coalitions, musicians, authors/playwrights, physicians/nurses, professionals and craftsmen, students of all ages and ever-present farmers.

May it always be so.

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RED HOOK BICENTENNIAL 1812-2012

rural traditions, community connections Photo by Jen Kiaba

Dear Friends and Neighbors, On June 2, 1812 Red Hook split from Rhinebeck to become its own independent, self-governing township. In recognition of this fact, on September 28, 2010, a group of seven community-minded residents came together for the first meeting of Red Hook’s Bicentennial Celebration Committee.

Their purpose was four-fold: to create a town-wide bicentennial celebration for the town, villages and hamlets of Red Hook; to promote 200 years of Red Hook’s history; to provide a lasting legacy through long term historical preservation of records and history of the land and buildings; and to promote the Egbert Benson Historical Society in its efforts to preserve the history of Red Hook.

Over the past 18 months, this small group has grown to encompass a larger gathering of volunteers from all aspects of our community.

These wonderful people have given generously of their time, energy, and creativity to prepare a truly memorable celebration. At the same time, the financial support by the greater Red Hook Community – and many friends near and far – has been remarkable. Together, everyone has made our 200th anniversary year the best it can be.

I strongly believe that everyone should know their roots, should understand where they come from and how their community was formed. Red Hook is truly a community-minded town. I can’t tell you how proud I am to be “from Red Hook,” and to have been a part of our town’s bicentennial celebration of our rural traditions and community connections.

Sincerely,

Loretta Campagna, Chairperson Red Hook Bicentennial Celebration Committee

Moving Forward By 1812 the Revolutionary War was over and the estates along the Hudson River prospered where tenant farmers grew crops, harvested firewood and lumber from the forests and built various small mills for processing the natural products of the valley. History pictures our local society as agrarian but this included a dependency upon the large landowners and their demands, along with the harsh vagaries of crops and weather. We often romanticize the past but those people had their own daily toils unique to living in that era. It had to be hard and tiring to get through the seasons 200 years ago.

In 1812 there was military turmoil looming close to home at the New York border with Canada. New York State government, now moved from nearby Kingston to Albany, was looking to the future and setting up the process to create a new town by splitting a portion off the existing Town of Rhinebeck. In that year, 1812, they created the Town of Red Hook. Our area held to its farming roots and estates lifestyle along the river. By 1894 the small hardscrabble area at the intersection of the Albany Post Road and the road to the river had developed to a point where the residents and merchant shops and homes and decided to form the Village of Red Hook.

Looking back is great fun and shows us the reality of the American dream and the nature of our people. People came to the U.S. from all over for their own reasons and those that migrated here helped build what we know as Red Hook. They all came here for a better future for themselves and their children. This is true whether they arrived 200 years ago or two months ago.

Our town is still beautiful with its proximity to the Hudson River, its farms, its views and its great public educational system and Bard College. As residents we still benefit from the positive attributes of community and local pride that started 200 years ago.

As Village of Red Hook Mayor, along with the Board of Trustees, we remind residents to partake in the Bicentennial festivities; look at and celebrate our past but also take that locally unique perspective to build our future. I’d also like to thank the amazing volunteers who started work on this project over a year ago. So, on Apple Blossom Day 2012, come on out and start the festivities with us and mark your calendars for a year of community events.

Ed Blundell, Mayor, Village of Red Hook

RED HOOK BICENTENNIAL 1812-2012 Dear friends: Two hundred years and still growing and evolving everyday! What a wonderful town we live in and call home.

As Mayor of the Village of Tivoli, I am proud to join my fellow village residents and the Tivoli Board of Trustees in sending congratulations to the entire Town of Red Hook and all bicentennial celebration committee members; as collectively we celebrate the rich history that is Red Hook.

Red Hook’s sense of community is strong. One only has to look at the soccer fields on a Saturday to see the many dedicated and caring parents volunteering their time to coach their child’s soccer game. Look at the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts who get involved with many community events, and give of their time and energy, and pitch in because they care.

Look at the many Red Hook residents who volunteer to sit on the various boards and committees that move our Town and Villages forward. And the list goes on.

All of this takes place because of the pride and care that so many residents have for the Town of Red Hook. It is this that makes Red Hook the wonderful place it is to live in, raise a family in, visit, and work in. This is why my wife Christina and I decided to call Red Hook home and begin our family here.

Tivoli is proud to be part of today’s celebration and play our part in ensuring that everyone, not just Red Hook residents, but our neighbors as well, are aware of our community and just how proud we are to call Red Hook home.

With best wishes,

PAGE 12 Congratulations Red Hook!

How lucky we are here in the Hudson valley to be surrounded by so much that is historic and lasting.

As we celebrate the Town of Red Hook’s Bicentennial Anniversary, we have a chance to applaud both our history and how it melds into the everyday present.

One only has to take a drive down one of our country roads to see the blend of historic and present-day. On Actor Joseph Jefferson as one road, we see ancient trees, historic landscapes, Rip van Winkle, 1869 beautiful stone walls and extraordinary architecture. source: wikipedia.org But another, we may find ourselves passing through Bard College, past the very modern Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts, modern-day orchards, CSA farms and open space protected by easements.

Each day, when I stop at the Barrytown stop sign on my way to work, I take an extra moment to look at the Catskills beyond the water tower of the Unification Theological Seminary. They are stunning for sure. It is no wonder that this view from our town inspired the young Washington Irving to write about the magic of the Catskills in his opening paragraph of Rip Van Winkle.

In this historic year, I hope each of you has the opportunity to participate in the many events and activities organized by your friends and neighbors on the Bicentennial Committee. They have worked long and hard to deliver a year’s worth of fun, affordable, entertaining and educational events for the whole family. It is at these events that each of you will discover something old, new, inspiring and relevant about Red Hook. This is no time to snooze like Rip. Come celebrate Red Hook at 200!

Ray Armater Bryan F. Cranna, Mayor Village of Tivoli

Residents and Visitors to the Town of Red Hook: Congratulations!

I am excited and honored to be able to participate in the Town of Red Hook’s Bicentennial Celebration.

The Town of Red Hook is one of the most beautiful locations, perched as it is along the banks of the Hudson River. The regional foliage lent its part in the naming of the Town of Red Hook, but it is the vibrancy of the population that lends itself to the welcoming nature of this community.

May the celebration be noteworthy in its vigor so that two-hundred years hence, they will try to rival the spirit of family and community that has been practiced in Red Hook for the past two hundred years!

Sincerely,

Ray Armater, president Red Hook Chamber of Commerce

Dear Residents and Visitors to the Town of Red Hook, I hope you will join me in toasting the historic Town of Red Hook on the occasion of it’s 200th birthday. This Bicentennial is a true milestone and I am honored to share in this great celebration. The Town of Red Hook is one of the most beautiful in the region, with a particularly engaged and dynamic population. I have been so pleased to be part of this community with our District Office here in the Village of Red Hook.

May this birthday commemoration be a lively and joyful celebration that brings together multi-generations of Red Hook residents, families and friends to honor the past two hundred years of this special community while looking ahead towards the next two hundred years.

With all good wishes,

Stephen M. Saland Senator Didi Barrett Member of Assembly 103rd District

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RED HOOK BICENTENNIAL 1812-2012

Dear Friends: Red Hook’s Bicentennial Celebration is a wonderful opportunity for each of us to remember what a special place Red Hook is and why we call it home. Red Hook truly embodies the character and friendliness of a small town with quiet country charm that many believe can only be found in books or movies.

Red Hook remains the beautiful gem along the Hudson River the early Dutch navigators first discovered when charting the Hudson and found Cruger’s Island turning red with sumac and Virginia creeper in early autumn.

From the generations of farmers and laborers, academics, poets, painters and musicians whose families’ histories in Red Hook stretch back generations to our newer neighbors who have discovered Red Hook and found they couldn’t leave; we are a close knit community who know we have found a truly special place indeed.

My career as an elected official has provided me the great privilege to see all that our wonderful Dutchess County and neighboring counties have to offer. As Dutchess County Executive, I take tremendous pride in representing the residents of our County and celebrating all that we have to offer in our rich and diverse communities. Yet at the end of the day, I head home to the place that has always called to me...Red Hook. Red Hook, with Tivoli, is where many of my most special memories have been made and I am blessed to be able to raise my family here and take part in our unique history. So let us celebrate Red Hook’s Bicentennial just as we’ve done so often before in our town – together as a community that cares about each other and our future.

Best Wishes,

Marcus J. Molinaro Dutchess County Executive

RED HOOK BICENTENNIAL

CONTACT INFORMATION www.redhook200.org 845.758.1920 rhbicentennial@earthlink.net The Egbert Benson Historical Society of Red Hook Bicentennial Celebration Committee P.O. Box 397 Red Hook, NY 12571 For Handicapped parking and accessibility information for specific events call 845-758-1920 or go to: www.redhook200.org

RED HOOK BICENTENNIAL 1812-2012

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RED HOOK BICENTENNIAL 1812-2012

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RED HOOK BICENTENNIAL 1812-2012

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Town of Red Hook

Bicentennial MAY-SEPTEMBER

SATURDAY, MAY 12

QUILTS: SIGNS OF THEIR TIMES IN RED HOOK

BICENTENNIAL OPENING CEREMONY

DISPLAYS AT LINDEN AVENUE MIDDLE SCHOOL AND RED HOOK HIGH SCHOOL

LOCAL WINE & BITES TASTING EVENT

The Village Fabric Shoppe, 33 West Market Street, Red Hook 11 a.m. – 5 p.m., Tuesday-Saturday: In pattern and color, quilts reflect our past. Monthly at The Village Fabric Shoppe, proprietor Diana Louie will display favorites from her collection, many dating to the 19th Century. Some record national events, others exhibit strong bonds of community or offer intimate glimpses of the maker’s life and family history. Ms. Louie will gladly answer your questions.

Linden Avenue Middle School & Red Hook High School To view, sign in is mandatory at school administrative offices.

9 a.m. -2 p.m., Monday-Friday: Larry Thetford, Upper Red Hook resident, accomplished amateur archaeologist and recognized expert in Native American cultures, has organized: Tools That Built America showcases tools from the 1600’s–1800, with descriptions of how they were used to construct early post-and-beam frame barns, houses and other buildings.

Native American Games demonstrates Native American devotion to inventing and playing an extreme variety of contest games – many with significant similarity to some modern games.

Prehistoric Art of the Americas focuses on exquisite stone, bone, wood, shell and clay artifacts covering 8,000 years of Native American artistic accomplishments.

Red Hook Village Parking Lot, South Broadway, Red Hook 1 p.m. on Apple Blossom Day: Join the fun at the official Opening Ceremony of Red Hook’s 200th Birthday. View the unveiling of the Red Hook Bicentennial Quilt. Local government officials, Bicentennial committee members and the public will kick off six months of festive tribute to our town’s “Rural Traditions and Community Connections.”

Music provided by the Red Hook High School Jazz Ensemble.

Corner Store at Route 9 & 199 East (formerly Merritt Books), Red Hook 11 a.m.-3 p.m.: Enjoy Tousey wine, Flatiron nibbles, Amazing Real Live Food samples & Taste Budds’ chocolate. Plus, live music & art display.

Information: 845.233.8939; www.barightrealty.com.

SATURDAY, MAY 19 HERITAGE HOUSE AND BARN TOUR

Elmendorph Inn, North Broadway & Cherry Street, Red Hook 10-11:30 a.m., Check in; 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m., Tour; 4:30 p.m.6 p.m., reception: Explore two centuries of Red Hook architecture in a self-driven tour of rarely open houses, barns and churches. Informative displays and knowledgeable docents enhance the visit. Highlights include Barrytown’s elegant Edgewater, one of America’s finest classical revival houses, and a closing reception at Red Hook’s stately Maizeland.

Admission: $25 ($30 after May 13; children 12 and under free).

Reservations required. Information/Reservations: 845-758-1920; rhbicentennial@earthlink.net; reservation form @ www.redhook200.org.

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RED HOOK BICENTENNIAL 1812-2012

May-October 2012

celebration

All photos by Jen Kiaba, except lower left this page, Jim Gibbons.

SATURDAY, MAY 19 and SUNDAY, MAY 20

SATURDAY, JUNE 2

HERITAGE WEEKEND AT MONTGOMERY PLACE

THE LAND, THE RIVER, THE PEOPLE: A BICENTENNIAL CONCERT CELEBRATING RED HOOK’S HISTORY, CULTURE AND COMMUNITY

Montgomery Place Historic Site, River Road, Annandale 9 a.m.-4 p.m., Grounds open; 11 a.m.-4 p.m., Mansion tours: In honor of the Bicentennial and New York State Heritage Weekend, Montgomery Place Historic Site is opening its grounds and mansion free to the public. View the rare 1797 map of Red Hook and Rhinebeck, presented for the first time. Marvel at the stately public rooms, stroll the gardens, picnic on the broad lawns overlooking the Hudson. Take a selfdirected hike through the West Meadow, the South Woods, or down to the falls of the Sawkill.

SUNDAY, MAY 20 MUSIC OF THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY: A PARLOR CONCERT FOR THE CLASSICAL GUITAR WITH DAVID TEMPLE

Elmendorph Inn, North Broadway & Cherry Street, Red Hook 3-5 p.m.: The formal parlor of larger homes was perhaps the most popular venue for singers and instrumentalists of the 18th and 19th centuries. The intimate setting lends itself to more personal musical expression, rewarding the listener with a more immediate, unique experience. Classical guitarist and composer David Temple has performed throughout the country as a soloist, accompanist and ensemble player. Reception to follow.

Admission: $12 at the door. (Proceeds go to support production of Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town,” September 14 and 15).

Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College, Sosnoff Theater, Annandale 7 p.m.: Enjoy a musical tribute to Red Hook by award winning Carnegie Hall, Broadway and Lincoln Center performers. Baritone John Cimino leads flutist Donna Wissinger, singer-actress Christine Clemmons McCune, pianist Jon Klibonoff and percussionist Richard Albagli in a special medley of song, prose, poetry and historical images at the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College. Program by Creative Leaps International.

Admission: $15 ($12 for seniors and children 12 & under) Information: For tickets and special seating assistance, call the Fisher Center Box Office 845-758-7900; tickets also available at the Red Hook Public Library; for more info: www.redhook200.org; 845-758-3031

SUNDAY, JUNE 3 - TUESDAY, JUNE 5 AUDITIONS FOR THORNTON WILDER’S “OUR TOWN”

Red Hook Central High School, 103 W. Market St., Red Hook 3 p.m.-5 p.m. , Sunday, June 3; 6 p.m. – 8 p.m., Monday & Tuesday, June 4-5: Auditions for “Our Town,” directed by Deborah Temple.

All roles open, with adults cast as adults, children in children’s parts.

Performances scheduled for Friday, September 14, and Saturday, September 15, at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, Red Hook.

Information: Deborah Temple: 845-758-2242, ext. 3254; 845-758-0174

continued on page 18 C

RED HOOK BICENTENNIAL 1812-2012 continued from page 17 G

THURSDAY, JUNE 7 HISTORY HAPPENED HERE: UPPER RED HOOK

Elmendorph Inn, North Broadway & Cherry Street, Red Hook 6 p.m.: Local writer Roger Leonard discusses Upper Red Hook’s rural roots and signs copies of his new book, “Upper Red Hook: An American Crossroad” (available for purchase). Sponsored by the Red Hook Public Library. Light refreshments. Admission free.

SUNDAY, JUNE 10 BLITHEWOOD GARDEN TOUR AND ARTISTS’ PAINT-OUT

Bard College (behind the Levy Economics Institute), Annandale 11 a.m.-4 p.m.: Visit Blithewood’s beautiful Gilded Age gardens, designed by Francis Hoppin for Captain Andrew Zabriskie. Interact with artists from Red Hook Community Arts Network (RHCAN) painting “en plein-aire” (outdoors in nature) with the gardens, Hudson River and Catskills as backdrop. Blithewood rose to prominence in the 1800s as the birthplace of the first distinctly American style of architecture, “Carpenter Gothic.” At 2 p.m. Bessina Harrar, author of “Blithewood – A History of Place,” leads a garden tour. Admission free.

Paint-Out information: Joanna Hess, 845-758-0335; paintblithewood@gmail.com

SUNDAY, JUNE 10 TIVOLI HISTORY AND WALKING TOUR

Tivoli Village Hall, 3rd floor, 1 Tivoli Commons, Tivoli 1 p.m.: Join local historian and former Tivoli mayor Tom Cordier for an entertaining afternoon of Tivoli history and anecdote, including who named Tivoli, why the eastern part of the village was called Madalin and more. Following his talk, Tom leads a tour of the business district and some of Tivoli’s historic buildings. Light refreshments. Admission free.

SATURDAY, JUNE 16 A PEACEABLE SECESSION: RED HOOK SPLITS FROM RHINEBECK

Rokeby, 845 River Road, Barrytown 2 p.m.: With Town Historian J. Winthrop Aldrich’s knowledgeable, amusing guidance, Red Hook’s founding and early days come to life with this illustrated talk at Rokeby, his family’s historic Hudson River estate.

Jointly sponsored by the Red Hook and Rhinebeck Historical Societies, the talk features rare period maps and images. Light refreshments.

Admission: $5, Space limited. Reservations required.

Information/Reservations: 845-758-1920; rhbicentennial@earthlink.net; or reservation form www.redhook200.org

MONDAY, JUNE 30 – FRIDAY, JULY 13 GIANT PUPPET COMMUNITY WORKSHOPS

For location of workshops, visit www.redhook200.org Hours tbd: Help build Red Hook’s Bicentennial pageant! Work with artists Sophia Michahelles and Alex Kahn to create giant puppets, mobile architecture and other visual elements for a colorful “Portrait in Procession” on Community Heritage Day. No experience necessary.

Geared to adults and teens but all ages invited. Please wear clothes that can get messy! This project is made possible in part through a grant from the Dutchess County Arts Council, administrator of public funds through NYSCA’s Decentralization Program.

PAGE 18 SUNDAY, JULY 1 COLE PALEN’S OLD RHINEBECK AERODROME OPEN HOUSE FOR RED HOOK

Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome, 9 Norton Road, Red Hook 10 a.m.-5:00 p.m.; 1:45 p.m. – Bicentennial “Welcome!” 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. – World War 1 Air Show: See Cole Palen’s world-famous ‘living museum’ of antique aviation. Thrill to World War 1 aerial combat demonstrations. Witness a melodrama pitting the Red Baron (boo!!!) against Sir Percy Goodfellow (hurray!!!) over the affections of Trudy Truelove. Take a barnstorming biplane ride over the Hudson River Valley, $75 per person, “first come/first served.” Free admission to Red Hook residents only, reduced admission for others.

SATURDAY, JULY 14 COMMUNITY HERITAGE DAY

Montgomery Place Historic Site, River Road, Annandale 10 a.m.-5:00 p.m.: Journey back in time with your family and friends on the beautiful grounds of Montgomery Place, enjoying demonstrations, displays, performances and hands-on activities celebrating Red Hook’s rural heritage from 1812 to the present. At day’s end, join in a magical “Portrait in Procession” of giant puppets. Free admission. PLAY 19th century games, help saw a log, raise a large-model Dutch barn. SEE antique tools, horse drawn farm machinery, rare iceboats and more.

LEARN about local archaeology, Native American culture and Red Hook history. ATTEND class in a 1912 schoolroom but mind the schoolmarm! ASK the blacksmith, tinsmith and other craftspeople what they are making and how. MEET “FDR” in an astounding portrayal!

ADMIRE beautiful works of art by local amateur and professional artists. ENGAGE with 1812 and Civil War re-enactors. LISTEN to country folk musicians. SHARE your love of Red Hook in brief, recorded “living history” interviews. PARADE, GAMBOL AND SPIN in the colorful “Portrait in Procession” pageant of giant puppets (procession starts at 4 p.m.). ENJOY fresh, tasty foods available for purchase from local vendors. Rain date: Sunday, July 15. In case of inclement weather, go to www.redhook.org for information.

A Dutchess County sponsored hybrid transit bus, which is wheelchair accessible, will be available to take residents to Community Heritage Day. For information on scheduled times and pick up locations visit: www.redhook200.org This event is sponsored in part by the New York State Council for the Humanities.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 18 A TASTE OF THE PAST

Elmendorph Inn, North Broadway & Cherry Street, Red Hook 6 p.m.: Culinary historian Gary Allen serves up an inviting smorgasbord of Hudson Valley food history, including what Red Hookers were eating 200 years ago. Enjoy tasty treats provided free by local restaurants.

Sponsored by the Red Hook Public Library. Admission free.

THURSDAY, JULY 26 THE HUDSON RIVER: CURRENTS OF LIFE

Elmendorph Inn, North Broadway & Cherry Street, Red Hook 6 p.m.: Susan Fox Rogers discusses and signs copies of her new book, “My Reach: A Hudson River Memoir,” and describes her kayaking adventures on the Hudson River, as well as the river’s historic role in shaping Red Hook. Sponsored by the Red Hook Public Library. Light refreshments. Admission free.

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RED HOOK BICENTENNIAL 1812-2012

SATURDAY, AUGUST 4

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 13

COUNTRY BARN DANCE AND CONCERT

CLOSING CEREMONY

SATURDAY, AUGUST 11

The Red Hook Bicentennial Celebration is funded through the generosity of the following supporters:

Rokeby, 845 River Road, Barrytown 7:30 p.m.: Clap, reel and stomp in the Ox-Barn at Rokeby Farm to the sweet harmonies and rhythmic energies of the Jay Ungar and Molly Mason Family Band, musicians dubbed “the heart and soul of American roots.” Light refreshments. This event is funded in part by the Outreach Fund of the Country Dance and Song Society.

Admission: $15 ($8 children 12 and under). Space limited.

Reservations required.

Information/Reservations: 845-758-1920; rhbicentennial@earthlink.net; reservation form at www.redhook200.org.

WEST POINT BAND CONCERT

Montgomery Place Historic Site, River Road, Annandale 9 a.m., grounds open; 6:30 p.m., concert begins: For the first time ever in Red Hook, The U.S. Military Academy West Point Band will give a rousing riverbank concert at historic Montgomery Place. Bring a chair or blanket, pack a picnic and come early. Stroll the gardens, hike the trails and enjoy the beautiful views. Admission free.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 21 – SUNDAY, AUGUST 26 DUTCHESS COUNTY FAIR SHOWCASES BICENTENNIAL QUILT Building E, Dutchess County Fairgrounds, Route 9, Rhinebeck 10 a.m. – 10 p.m.: The Red Hook Bicentennial Quilt will be on display in the needlework and stitchery section (at or near the Dutchess Quilters Guild Booth) during the Dutchess County Fair.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14 and SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 15 “OUR TOWN”

St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, 7412 South Broadway, Red Hook “Our Town,” a play by Thornton Wilder, recognizes that life is both precious and ordinary and that these two fundamental truths are intimately connected. Through Wilder’s depiction of small town Grover’s Corners, with its “marrying... living... and dying,” we feel the true beauty of being in the here and now; of really living in Our Town. Directed by Deborah Temple. Presented by the Red Hook Performing Arts Club, in honor of the Bicentennial. Admission: $5 at the door.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 22 HARDSCRABBLE DAY – GIANT PUPPET PROCESSION

Hardscrabble Day Parade - Center of Village of Red Hook 4 p.m.: Pick up your favorite Bicentennial giant puppet and parade up Broadway in a closing salute to Red Hook’s 200th birthday.

To participate, call 845-758-1920.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 9 DEDICATION OF BICENTENNIAL QUILT

Red Hook Town Hall, 7340 South Broadway, Red Hook 7:30 p.m.: In honor of Red Hook’s Bicentennial year, some two dozen experienced women quilters working under the supervision of Diana Louie, of the Village Fabric Shoppe, created the Bicentennial quilt.

Taking inspiration from vintage photographs of Red Hook, they spent hundreds of hours designing, appliqueing and embroidering the quilt, which is to be on permanent display at the Red Hook Town Hall.

Elmendorph Inn, North Broadway & Cherry Street, Red Hook 1 p.m.: Join Bicentennial Celebration Committee members, volunteers, friends, neighbors and visitors at our Bicentennial Celebration Closing Ceremony. Witness the placing of a time capsule not to be opened until 2112. Reminisce about Red Hook’s past, reflect on what Red Hook’s 200th birthday celebration has meant, and predict where we’ll be in another century. Light refreshments.

Legacy Leaders The Baright Family | Callendar House, LLC | Historic Hudson Valley New York State Council of the Humanities | Rhinebeck Bank | Ulster Savings Bank Community Leaders Aldrich, J. Winthrop and Tracie Rozhon | Dutchess County Arts Council Egbert Benson Historical Society of Red Hook | Griffin Insurance Stewart’s Shops | Wenner Media, LLC Heritage Partners Allstate Insurance | Appel, Kenneth & Marcella | Armater, Raymond Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corporation | Key Bank | Phelan, Ellen & Sam The Red Hook Society for the Apprehension and Detention of Horse Thieves Williams Lumber, Inc. Bicentennial Friends 12-14 East Market St. Co., LLC | Campagna, Frank & Loretta | Cherry, Marjorie Classic Auto Body | Colburn’s Mobile Home Park, LLC Country Dance & Song Society Outreach Fund | Doty, Margaret Dutchess Optometry | Freedom Propane Corporation | Freudenberger, Erica Golden Wok | Hendrick Hudson Lodge #875 | Holy Cow Horiszny, John & Maura Sullivan | Klose, Christopher & Claudine Lankenau, John & Alison | Martin, Ronald | McCann, Sue & Frank McKeon, Robert | Mid-Hudson Valley Federal Credit Union | Molinaro, Marcus Montgomery Place Orchards | Order of the Eastern Star, Chapter #814 Red Hook Alumni Association | Red Hook Businessmen’s Association Red Hook Chamber of Commerce | Ruge’s Automotive, Inc. | Schoonmaker, Paula Schlaff, Marcia | Southwood Property, LLC | Sullivan, Edward | Vogel, Patricia Waggoner, Glen & Sharon McIntosh | Winham, Bethany Xtra Mart (Drake Petroleum Company) | Zucco, Vincent Additional Supporters For a complete list of additional supporters, go to www.redhook200.org With the Collaboration and In-Kind Support of the Following Businesses, Civic & Government Organizations: About Town | Ballantine Communications | Bard College Cole Palen’s Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome ColorPage – a division of Tri-State Associated Services, Inc. Creative Leaps International/The Learning Arts | Dutchess Signs Dutchess County Council for the Arts | Dutchess County Mass Transit Friends of Elmendorph | Frontier Communications | Hudson River Sampler Integral Tree and Landscape | Jay Ungar & Molly Mason Family Band Monumental Masonic Lodge, Tivoli | Hudson Valley Mercantile Miles of Smiles Directional Company | Montgomery Place Historical Site Northern Dutchess News | Prairie House Quilting | Processional Arts Workshop Red Hook Central School District | Red Hook Fabric Shoppe Red Hook Observer | Red Hook Public Library | Red Hook Today Rokeby Farm | U.S. Military Academy West Point Band | Town of Red Hook Red Hook Chamber of Commerce | Red Hook Performing Arts Club Village of Red Hook | Village of Tivoli

RED HOOK BICENTENNIAL 1812-2012

PAGE 20

My Sincere Congratulations and Best Wishes to the Town of Red Hook As it celebrates its Bicentennial Anniversary

Best Wishes for a most enjoyable and successful celebration!

Stephen M. Saland

New York State Senator 41st Senate District

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RED HOOK BICENTENNIAL 1812-2012

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Fisher Center Photo Credit: Peter Aaron/ESTO

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RED HOOK BICENTENNIAL 1812-2012

The Land, the River, the People

BICENTENNIAL CONCERT

One of the highlights of this year’s Bicentennial Celebration is bound to be the specially commissioned concert performance by John Cimino and his stellar troupe of solo artists from Creative Leaps International. Their concert is slated for June 2nd at Bard’s gorgeous Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts. Many of you will recall the roof-raising performance Cimino and two of his colleagues, soprano Christine Clemmons McCune and pianist Jon Klibonoff, gave in this same venue for our BIG READ celebration “Freedom and Imagination in the Jazz Age” – a spectacular night to be sure. Well this time Cimino is really pulling out all the stops by calling together all six of his award-winning colleagues to participate in Red Hook’s Bicentennial Concert. Here’s what he has to say about his colleagues and his unique design for the June 2nd event.

“Well, we are certainly thrilled to be rejoining our friends in Red Hook and especially for this celebration of their history, culture, their character as a community, and love of the land and river which has sustained them for fully two centuries. This is a privileged occasion for us and one we take to heart with enormous enthusiasm. Actually, this is precisely the type of concert project we love most where the music endeavors to reach beyond the music itself into the realm of a group’s closely held ideals, values and vision. It is, in fact, this kind of work which for more than two decades has taken Creative Leaps International across the USA and around the world to partner with leading universities, professional institutes, corporate and government leadership centers, the Aspen Institute, the United Nations, the White House and dozens of museums and arts centers. We love the challenge and particular kind of imagination and synthesis it calls for. We’ve dubbed these special events “Concerts of Ideas”, celebrations “yes”, but also explorations inviting people to think and feel deeply and in new ways. So, what we’ve come up with for the June 2nd celebration might well be called a “Concert of Ideas”, but an especially heart-warming, fun-filled and uplifting one we trust will be worthy of Red Hook’s Bicentennial Celebration.

By way of a sneak preview, what can I say? We want to tell a story, Red Hook’s own story at the level of its spirit, its history, its vision and enduring values. Our tools are, of course, our music but also dozens of

historic visual images and an array of literary, historical and poetic narratives.

The concert title is also significant, “The Land, the River, the People” and so we’ve structured the program to evoke these themes at a couple of different levels. Part One we call “The Spirit of the Place” and dip to the worlds of Washington Irving, Thomas Cole, our Native American predecessors and some of our earliest American composers and musical super stars, including Stephen Foster, Louis Moreau Gottschalk and Reginald De Koven. Part Two is called “The History That Shaped Us: Evolving Values” and includes music and narratives evocative of the American Revolution, the era of slavery and Civil War, the waves of immigration into America from Europe and elsewhere, the Roosevelts and the many faces of American patriotism. Part Three, “A Vision and Values for the Future”, points to what is yet to come even as it casts a glance Janus-like back into our history to take a measure of who we are and the principles we choose to live by.

So, there you have it. Perhaps, more of a map than a sneak preview.

But this is what is guiding our musical selections and many of our creative inspirations. Best of all, however, I am proud to say you will be treated to the extraordinary talents of my great and very dear colleagues: tenor, Paul Spencer Adkins, sopranos, Dianne Legro and Christine Clemmons McCune, flutist, Donna Wissinger, percussionist, Richard Albagli and pianist, Jon Klibonoff – every one of them a stellar performer with superb credentials.

They will bring this concert to life and work the magic of this day into your hearts. And, of course, we’ve got a few surprises up our sleeves that I can’t tell you about today lest I spoil what I trust will be an extra measure of fun and inspiration for you to savor.

Here’s to a great day for Red Hook and all of us at Bard’s fabulous Fisher Center for the Performing Arts! See you soon.

If you would like to learn more about Creative Leaps International and The Learning Arts, visit www.creativeleaps.org and www.learningarts.org Photos, upper right, Donna Wissinger; upper left, John Cimino; middle L, Christine Clemmons McCune; middle R, Dianne Legro; bottom L, Jon Klibonoff, bottom R, Paul Spencer Adkins. Not pictured, Richard Albagli.

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RED HOOK BICENTENNIAL 1812-2012

PAGE 26

Red Hook’s Timeless Treasure:

the Elmendorph

by Christopher Klose “Some day I may have a 13-year old daughter... refreshed, and news of the day and gossip exchanged who will see nothing of what was the beginning of among townspeople, farmers and travelers. our country unless it is preserved,” wrote then 13Although we don’t know for certain, George year old Lori Ransford to the editor of the Red Hook Sharp was probably the innkeeper because records Gazette Advertiser in March of 1976. “I hope there indicate he was at the Elmendorph location at that are others who feel like me and will join together to time. Plus at his death in 1796, his occupation was help preserve the Elmendorph Inn.” listed as “innkeeper.” This is the first solid evidence Fortunately, many, many others had already of the Elmendorph being used as an inn. agreed that the dilapidated, asphalt-shingled old That same year “John Elmendorph’s Tavern” is Top: Elmendorph Inn 1920s; inset, Elmendorph restored. building with the boarded up windows and toppling Photos courtesy Egbert Benson Historical Society. noted officially as one of the very few places to go chimney at the corner of North Broadway and to pay duty for a carriage or to get a license to sell Cherry Street should not fall to the wrecker’s ball as proposed by its owner, wines and “foreign distilled spirits.” Whether John Elmendorph bought the the Grand Union company. place from George Sharp, or Sharp’s estate, or whether Sharp didn’t own Spurred by their twin passions for Red Hook and for what history has it and Elmendorph merely took over as innkeeper, we’ll never know. After to tell us about today – and tomorrow, a small group led by village historian 1803, his name disappears from the records – but not posterity!

Rosemary Coons had formed the non-profit Friends of Elmendorph in 1975.

Beginning in 1813 and for many years thereafter, the Elmendorph Rallying anyone and everyone who could possibly help, from school hosted meetings of the newly incorporated Town of Red Hook and local children to the highest political contacts in Albany and beyond, over the courts of law. In 1817, the first Dutchess and Columbia County Agricultural next two years they wrote innumerable letters, held bake sales and auctions, fair – famous today as the Dutchess County Fair, in Rhinebeck – took cornered, cajoled and lobbied into the wee hours, and fought corporate place on its grounds. But by mid-century, competition from steamboats resistance to a standstill until, finally, in June, 1977 they purchased the and railroads diminished travel on the Post Road and business at the inn building – for $6,000 cash and a low-interest $28,000 mortgage. dropped.

The following year the inn was placed on the National Register of On March 22, 1854, Augustus Martin, successful farmer, town Historic Places, and in 1979 the Friends were awarded a $30,000 matching supervisor and state assemblyman, purchased the building. It would stay in grant to begin restoration, starting with the foundation. The goal was to the Martin family for the next 79 years, first as a rental house, then, between return the inn to its 1830s charm, when it served ordinary travelers up and 1887 and 1894, as a “Kindergarten school... in charge of Miss Harned,” and down the Albany Post Road and also was used as the town’s meeting hall. lastly, as a two-family house until 1933 when it was purchased by William “George Washington did not sleep here,” founding Friends member Pulver and his son Sylvester.

Barbara Bielenburg once said in a not-so-oblique reference to Rhinebeck’s While living there, the Pulvers cut a door in the center of the west tonier Beekman Arms. Built in 1766, “the Beek” bills itself as the country’s exterior about 1943, and opened a small country grocery store and Amoco “oldest continuously operating inn.” gasoline station. In 1966, they sold the inn to a developer, who was going to Operationally, yes. But Red Hook’s humbler Elmendorph could be 30 tear it down for additional parking space for the Grand Union supermarket or more years older, judging by its gambrel roof, a style quite popular in the next door (the current, closed IGA property).

Hudson Valley from the mid-1720s to the 1770s.

Fortunately Grand Union’s plans changed and, in 1977, fate in the form The first documented evidence of the building is an ad placed in the July of the Friends of Elmendorph stepped in for the last – and continuing word 23, 1783 New York Packet by Philip Jacobs: FOR SALE “...an ELEGANT on “the Elmendorph.”

HOUSE either for a store-keeper or tavern on the public road to Albany...

Without a time machine, it’s impossible to explore the past or the with three commodious rooms below stairs, a large entry through the house... future. But to sit in the ancient, low-ceilinged, wooden floored warmth of three Fire Places, a good kitchen, a good stable and barrack, a well of very “the Elmendorph” on a cold winter night, surrounded by family, friends and good water in the yard...” neighbors while listening to wonderful, live, local music on a monthly “tavern By 1785, the inn was a regular stagecoach stop on the (four day!) night,” is to experience the treasure of our Red Hook community – past, run between New York City and Albany. Mail was delivered, passengers present and future.

PAGE 27

RED HOOK BICENTENNIAL 1812-2012

Red Hook’s building stock spans (much) more than 200 years...This heritage will be on display during the Bicentennial House Tour...

Ready Made Red Hook

L: Frank Coons; R: top Gaslight Inn then (top) and now (bottom).

Photos courtesy Egbert Benson Historical Society.

The 2012 Bicentennial celebration offers a chance to reflect on Red Hook’s collective heritage and traditions, not least of which is the town’s historic architecture. Red Hook’s building stock spans (much) more than 200 years, representing styles both high and low and encompassing building types from the humble and utilitarian to the grand architectural showpiece.

This heritage will be on display during the Bicentennial House Tour, which will feature classic examples of 18th and 19th century buildings, some retaining evidence of early Dutch settlement in the Hudson Valley.

While house tours generally focus on very old or especially opulent buildings—and rightly so—every American town has just as interesting a story to tell in its ordinary, not-so-old buildings. Red Hook is no exception, and its collection of early 20th century houses speaks to the town’s population growth and economic expansion between the World Wars. On a more personal level, these modest but modern homes tell the story of the people who lived and worked in Red Hook—and in particular of Frank Coons, the self-taught farmer-turned-builder who erected many of them and helped transform Red Hook’s agrarian landscape into the town it is today.

Frank Coons was born in Red Hook in 1890 and became a farmer, like many of his peers. Perhaps it was in maintaining or expanding farm buildings that Coons picked up the rudiments of carpentry, but by 1921 he had embarked on a second career as a house builder for Red Hook’s citizens and residents of neighboring towns. Coons built more than 70 structures over a period of approximately 30 years; most of these were single-family houses, but he also built summer cottages, garages, and barns.

Many of his buildings still stand in Red Hook today, and would have remained anonymous features of the typical American landscape were it not for a small scrapbook preserved in the archives of the Egbert Benson Historical Society. This scrapbook was created in 1932 by Coons’ wife Edna, and contains black-and-white snapshots of scores of structures built or remodeled by Coons from the 1920s through the 1950s, paired with handwritten notes detailing the year of construction, the original owner, and the address of each. The Coons scrapbook provides a glimpse into Red Hook’s past by vividly illustrating how the town developed in the early 20th century—how farms were subdivided for new houses, which families were building and where, and who participated in the construction.

The houses that Coons built were designed in the nostalgic and picturesque styles popular in the 1920s and ‘30s. Many are strikingly similar to the “kit,” or mail-order, houses offered by catalogue companies such as Sears, Roebuck and Co. and Montgomery Ward during the first three decades of the 20th century. Sears was the first major company to make the leap from selling house plans to the American public to selling the

by Olivia Klose and Christopher Brazee

houses themselves—kits of pre-cut lumber, millwork, finishing materials, and fixtures packaged in the factory and shipped to the homeowner by rail or flatbed truck, with a 75-page construction manual included! So popular, and so affordable were these kit houses that by World War II practically every town in America could boast a “Sears house,” and sometimes an entire neighborhood of them.

The first house that Frank Coons built was for his own family; it still stands on North Broadway and looks much as it did when construction was completed in 1921. This one-and-a-half story stucco and wood house with a wide front porch is a classic example of the Craftsman bungalow.

It is a close match to Sears’ “Brandon” house model of 1920, as well as similar models offered by Gordon Van-Tine and Harris Brothers. Another Coons house that still stands is the two-story, gambrel-roofed Dutch Colonial Revival-style house on Route 9 in Upper Red Hook that he built for James Rifenburgh, Sr. in 1931. This house, now the Gas Light Inn, is a near perfect match to one of Sears’ most popular house models, the “Martha Washington.” Perhaps the most prominent house that Coons built in Red Hook is the Tudor Revival-style Alva Teator residence on North Broadway in the village. With its faux half-timbering and stucco, prominent chimneys, and picturesque roofline (features meant to evoke Olde Englande), the Teator house closely resembles Montgomery Ward’s “Cedars” model of 1931 and an earlier model offered by the C.L. Bowes Company of Hinsdale, Illinois.

In spite of the similarities between the houses built by Coons and those offered by Sears and other mail-order companies, it remains unclear whether Coons ever built an actual kit house or if he worked off architectural plans (either purchased through a national catalogue or a local source such as a lumber yard). Identifying mail-order houses can be a surprisingly difficult task. Comparing built examples of houses to models advertised in mail-order house catalogues is a good starting point, but only documentary or physical evidence—deeds of sale, buildings department records, or stamped lumber hidden in attics or between floors of houses, to name a few sources—yield conclusive proof.

Perhaps Coons was simply following his own knowledge of what a house should look like—using popular architectural tastes of the day to satisfy his client’s preferences. The similarity between Coons’ houses and those from the Sears catalogue deepens our appreciation of the town’s early 20th century architecture and marks these buildings as a distinct product of their historic moment.

Olivia Klose and Christopher Brazee, graduates of the MS program in Historic Preservation at Columbia University, work as architectural historians in New York City.

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chocolate Red Hook’s Sweet Success

by Claudine & Christopher Klose

As we take for granted the Red Hook of today, especially the “built environment” of our houses, shops and favorite stops, it’s virtually impossible to imagine that just a lifetime ago, Red Hook looked, moved and sounded vastly different.

But in this our Bicentennial year, we feel it is particularly important to take to heart the lesson that the more things change, the more they remain the same. If we’re lucky, that is.

Ask about “the chocolate factory” in Red Hook, for example and most villagers will be able to direct you to the sprawling red brick building at 54 Elizabeth Street. Like many former industrial complexes, through imaginative reuse it now houses a variety of 21st century ventures – from engineering and computer software, to a preschool, ceramics maker and Irish dance studio.

But 100 years ago, it was home solely to Baker’s chocolate. Not the Baker’s chocolate familiar to generations of Americans. That was created in 1780 by the Walter Baker Company, in Dorchester, Massachusetts, and is part of Kraft Foods.

Red Hook’s chocolate was made by William H. Baker, no relation, and is long gone. But in its day, it helped put Red Hook on the map.

Chocolate was introduced to Europe in the 16th Century by the Spanish, who had observed the Mayans and Aztecs consume hot chocolate for its medicinal effects. It became popular as a drink for the aristocracy in the 1700s, and by the mid-1800s new technologies made cocoa powder and solid chocolate possible, allowing it to become a treat for everyone.

Why chocolate came to Red Hook at all remains a mystery. Certainly proximity to good rail and river transport to and from New York City played a part, as did access to bountiful supplies of milk.

Chocolate Factory Annandale Factory employees, c 1897. Inset, W.H. Baker’s logo, Photos Courtesy Egbert Benson Historical Society of Red Hook.

Red Hook’s chocolate was made by William H. Baker...and is long gone. But in its day, it helped put Red Hook on the map.

Equally plausible is an old timer’s anecdote we like best: that a wealthy, influential Red Hook resident who “really liked chocolate” simply made it happen.

What is fact is that chocolate arrived in Red Hook courtesy of a relationship between William Henry Baker (“our” Baker) and Joseph Griffing.

Baker was a successful Winchester, Virginia grocer. He had an eye for expansion and a nose for opportunity. By the early 1890s, he’d expanded to New York City, capitalized on the rage for chocolate and gone into business with a second-generation New York City chocolate manufacturer, Joseph Griffing.

By 1895, the demand for W.H. Baker’s chocolate was booming and Griffing was off to Dutchess County at Baker’s request to find larger facilities. He settled on a grist mill located on the upper Saw Kill falls, in Annandale and, around 1896, converted it to “W. H. Baker’s Annandale Mills.”

The new operation soon was churning out a reported eight tons of chocolate, cocoa and cocoa butter a day. And to satisfy the burgeoning consumer taste for milk chocolate candy, Baker and Griffing built the Hudson Valley Confectionery Company close by.

By then, Griffing was overseeing 41 employees, including five children under 16 and advertising, in 1898, in the Red Hook Journal for more “girls to work in the Chocolate Factory at Annandale.” At the turn of the century, the Journal reported “business there is increasing and more room is required.”

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RED HOOK BICENTENNIAL 1812-2012

Photos: Upper Left, Annandale Factory; Lower Right, W.H. Baker letterhead; Right, Red Hook Chocolate Factory. New Factory buuilt in 1902 near the railroad tracks. Photos Courtesy Egbert Benson Historical Society of Red Hook:

Why chocolate came to Red Hook at all remains a mystery. Certainly proximity to good rail and river transport to and from New York City played a part, as did access to bountiful supplies of milk.

With steam rapidly replacing water power, W.H. Baker next expanded into the Village of Red Hook. In 1902, on a site served by the Central of New England Railroad – the “Hucklebush Line” – Griffing built the Chocolate Factory we know today.

A successful entrepreneur, our Baker (William H.), also was an aggressive, shrewd salesman throughout. All along, he knew about the “other” Baker’s chocolate, the one that had become one of America’s first national brands.

If imitation is the highest form of flattery, then our Baker was a shameless mimic. Using practically identical designs and color schemes, he practically reproduced the original Baker’s Chocolate products, package for package. However soon he was sued for “committing fraud on Walter Baker & Co.”

As late as 1911, the Kingston Daily Freeman reported that ‘The Baker Chocolate Factory which has been forced to work overtime owing to increased business has broken ground for a new addition to their factory...”

The judge ordered our Baker to “place on his packages, in prominent type, the words ‘W. H. Baker is distinct from and has no connection with the old chocolate manufactory of Walter Baker & Company.’” He also restrained him from using yellow labels. Not to be deterred, our Baker switched to blue labels that prominently proclaimed “Best quality now with blue label.”

Litigation went on for years, and was further complicated by not one but two other chocolate making Bakers: William H., of Syracuse, who sold “Baker’s Chocolate;” and William Phillips Baker, precise New York location unknown, who also tried to play on the Baker Co. name and reputation.

Apparently these legal battles did little to daunt our Baker’s business. As late as 1911, the Kingston Daily Freeman reported that ‘The Baker Chocolate Factory which has been forced to work overtime owing to increased business has broken ground for a new addition to their factory...”

Alas for Red Hook, William Henry Baker died in 1915 and the business went to his four sons, who sold out to the Walker Candy Company in 1924. In turn, Walker Candy fell victim to the Depression, in 1931. Chocolate making ceased in Red Hook, for the time being.

But what of Joseph Griffing? He left quite a mark. He married three times and fathered nine children, many of whose descendants remain in the area, among them Sue T. Crane, current Red Hook Town Supervisor.

Among his credits, Griffing built the original Lyceum Theater, was president of the First National Bank, a charter member of the Red Hook Fire Company, and sponsor of the twenty-member Joseph Griffing Fire Company Band. He was a partner in the Red Hook Milling Co., a Village trustee, charter member of the Hendrick Hudson Lodge, No. 875, of Masons, and a founding member of the Red Hook Elks Club. In his later years, he operated a fruit farm in Red Hook. He died in 1939 and is buried in St. Paul’s Lutheran cemetery.

And what of chocolate in Red Hook today? For some of the best anywhere, visit Taste Budd’s Café, owned and operated at 40 West Market Street by Dan Budd, many times honored as one of America’s top pastry chefs.

Claudine Klose is president of the Egbert Benson Historical Society of Red Hook. She was formerly deputy director of a Smithsonian Institution research and education center at the Museum of American History, Washington, DC. Chris Klose is contributing editor to MedlinePlus, a quarterly consumer health magazine from the National Institutes of Health. The Kloses live at Echo Valley Farm, tending their sheep and sharing a passion for all things Red Hook.

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Beer, Wine, Cider, Shrub, Ratafia, and Usquebaugh

The Spirits of 1812

by Robin Cherry

In honor of Red Hook’s Bicentennial, I’ve written about how we ate, but now I’d like to write about how we drank ... and drank and drank and drank. In 1812, the prevailing belief in America was that alcohol was good for you and given the noxious state of the water, relatively speaking, it probably was.

The British, who believed that alcohol kept one warm, aided digestion, and cured many an ailment, had brought their drinking culture to our shores and in 1812, the annual per capita consumption of spirits was about five gallons; a figure that included women, children, slaves, and Native Americans. President John Adams started his day with an eyeopener of hard cider and his successor Thomas Jefferson imported fine wines from France.

Whiskey was prescribed for colic and laryngitis, brandy was recommended for strengthening the nervous system and controlling gout; and rum-soaked cherries soothed a cold. Pregnant women were advised to down a shot of liquor to ease their discomfort and even children consumed small beer (a low alcohol version) that was brewed especially for children, servants, and breakfast.

Red Hook had two taverns in 1812: the Elmendorph Inn (then known as Loop’s Inn and today the oldest building in the village) and The Old Red Tavern (also known as The Old Brick Tavern and The Thomas House) in Upper Red Hook. Writing in Stage-coach and tavern days, Alice Morse Earle explained that the local tavern was “for the comfort

Montgomery Place Barns, full credit bottom opposite page.

Hard apple cider was the most common alcoholic beverage among Red Hook’s 1812 residents as neither grapes nor grain grew well in this area. of the townspeople, for the interchange of news and opinions, the sale of solacing liquors, and the incidental sociability.” Like a meeting of the Egbert Benson Historical Society at the Elmendorph without, alas, the solacing liquors.

Hard apple cider was the most common alcoholic beverage among Red Hook’s 1812 residents as neither grapes nor grain grew well in this area. So-called “British wines” were crafted from local fruits and one can find historic recipes for wine made from everything from nuts and eggs to tomatoes and frozen potatoes. Settlers tried to plant the grapes that they had successfully cultivated in Europe but they were not suited to our harsher climate. Even President Jefferson tried his hand at domestic wine production, also without success. The discovery and cultivation of New World grapes was just beginning in the early 1800s.

In 1802, Janet Livingston Montgomery purchased the 242 acres overlooking the Hudson River that would become Montgomery Place. She expanded the existing apple orchards and created a commercial nursery that supplied fruit trees and seeds to local farmers. Today at Montgomery Place Orchards, Doug and Talea Fincke sell apples and produce Annandale

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RED HOOK BICENTENNIAL 1812-2012

Images L to R: Cover, Amelia Simmons’ American Cookery, source wikimedia.org; Spitzenberg apples, a heritage apple grown at Montgomery Place; photo credit: Ann Althouse.

In 1802, Janet Livingston Montgomery purchased the 242 acres overlooking the Hudson River that would become Montgomery Place.

Atomic Hard Cider using the same heirloom varieties cultivated more than 200 years ago. While early American hard cider was said to be close to rum in its powers of intoxication, New York State now mandates that hard ciders contain no more than 6.9% alcohol.

Rum was also popular until the suppression of the slave trade and the embargo act of 1807 sounded a virtual death knell to its consumption and created room for the up-and-coming whiskey trade. The strength of the rum and whiskey consumed in the 1800s was also much stronger than the 80 proof (40% alcohol) we drink today. Perhaps this explains Benjamin Franklin’s publication of The Drinker’s Dictionary, a list of over 200 words to describe inebriation ranging from Cherry Merry and Buzzey to MoonEy’d and Been to Jericho. Franklin also declared that “There cannot be good living where there is not good drinking” and a study of early American drinking patterns shows that spirit consumption was at its highest point in history between 1800 and 1830. (Alas, he wouldn’t know. Franklin died in 1790).

“There cannot be good living where there is not good drinking.” ~ Benjamin Franklin One thing our 1812 predecessors weren’t drinking was vodka which wasn’t introduced to the United States until the Smirnoff family fled the Russian Revolution of 1917 and gave a fellow emigre the right to set up shop in Connecticut; and even then, vodka didn’t really catch on in this country until the 1950s.

Our ancestors also used alcohol in cooking and several recipes are given in Amelia Simmons’ American Cookery, the first known cookbook written by an American and the best guide to how we ate in 1812. The full title of Simmons’ book is (deep breath), American Cookery, or the art of dressing viands, fish, poultry, and vegetables, and the best modes of making pastes, puffs, pies, tarts, puddings, custards, and preserves, and all kinds of cakes, from the imperial plum to plain cake: Adapted to this country, and all grades of life by Amelia Simmons, An American Orphan.

Simmons includes instructions on how to make a Syllabub, a traditional English dessert, straight from the Cow: Sweeten a quart of cyder with double refined sugar, grate nutmeg into it, then [go out to the barn and] milk your cow into your liquor. She also gives a recipe for spruce beer made using “emptins,” a mixture of hops and the dregs of beer or cider casks that the British call “ale yeast.” Emptins were also used in baking.

The Flip, a popular winter beverage, was a mixture of beer, rum, and sugar into which a red-hot iron loggerhead was plunged to give it a burnt, bitter taste. Other fashionable drinks included a variety of liqueurs and cordials including Shrubs, Creams, Ratafias and Usquebaugh. Shrubs are sweetened fruit-based vinegars to which brandy and rum were frequently added. Brandy-based creams were liqueurs spiked with everything from herbs and chocolate to wormwood and nuts. Ratafias (from the Latin phrase rata fiat meaning “to ratify”) are fruit and spice-infused brandies.

Ratafias were celebratory drinks used to toast everything from weddings and anniversaries to business deals and treaties. And finally, crossword puzzle superstar, Usquebaugh, Gaelic for aqua vitae or water of life, was a strong liquor compounded of brandy, raisins, and other spices. Usquebaugh morphed to “usky” and ultimately, “whiskey.”

It seems fitting to celebrate Red Hook’s Bicentennial with a Ratafia and here’s one made with red fruits. This recipe comes from The Art of Confectionary published in 1866 and unlike egg wine and wormwood cream, it sounds pretty good.

RATAFIA OF RED FRUITS: Infuse one pound of sour cherries, one pound of black cherries, one pound of wild cherries, one pound of raspberries, one pound of red currants, and three pounds of strawberries, in two and a half gallons of brandy for fifteen days; add a syrup made with eight pounds of sugar, and filter.

And to kick off the bicentennial, I offer the traditional toast of The Flagon and Trencher Society, Descendants of Colonial Tavern Keepers: “Here’s to our ancestors! Without them where would we be?” Exactly.

Party on, Red Hook!

Parts of this article originally appeared in the article Indian Corn, Johnnycakes & Cider published in the Spring 2012 issue of About Town.

Image opposite page: Barns, West front, looking northeast. Montgomery Place, Annandale Road, Barrytown, Dutchess County, NY. Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

RED HOOK BICENTENNIAL 1812-2012

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Violet House of W.M. Van Steenburgh, Red Hook, NY - Losee Collection, EBHS

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RED HOOK BICENTENNIAL 1812-2012

V

iole t P A S T Red Hook’s

by Kathy Leonard Czepiel

At the turn of the twentieth century, Red Hook was home to a now-

forgotten industry. In fact, many Red Hook natives are unaware that it ever existed. But at one time Red Hook, Rhinebeck, and the mid-Hudson Valley were known as “The Violet Capital of the World.” Look closely today, and you’ll notice little hints that remain: the name Garden Street, the greenhouses on the Battenfeld farm in Rock City. Some people even claim that the profusion of wild violets blooming in their back yards each spring are the descendants of cultivated violets that escaped from old greenhouses.

Cultivated “sweet violets” were brought to the Hudson Valley from England by William Saltford in 1886. The mid-Hudson Valley was the perfect location for growing violets for several reasons: easy access to the major market of New York City via train, enough seasonal laborers (many of them women and teenagers), and an abundant supply of fresh soil, which was replenished in the greenhouses each year. At its peak, Red Hook had 350,000 square feet of greenhouses belonging to 40 different growers.

Milan and Poughkeepsie were also home to numerous violet farms, and Rhinebeck boasted 115 growers.

The violets were hardy flowers. If stored properly in tanks of cool water, some varieties would last for up to two weeks after picking, and Red Hook growers shipped their flowers throughout the eastern United States, to the Mississippi River and beyond. However, the violets were not easy to grow. The plants were vulnerable to diseases and pests such as botrytis, “green fly” and red spider mites, and they required careful attention, particularly in the early, hot months of the growing season. The flowers were grown in greenhouses, which allowed farmers to maintain the desired temperature for the cool-weather crop. In the summer, when the plants were young, air was kept circulating through the houses by opening ventilating panels in the roof, and sometimes the glass was shaded with a coat of lime. In the winter, coal-fired furnaces kept the flowers from freezing. Because they were growing indoors, the plants had to be watered by hand. In those days before most farms had electricity, this meant using a hand pump and a watering can.

The violets were tricky to pick as well. Because every possible foot of space inside the greenhouses had to be planted, aisles between the raised beds were narrow. In order to reach the back of the beds, pickers rested narrow wooden boards on the heating pipes at the far side and the edge of the beds closest to them, and inched their way out on the boards, lying on their sides to pick the flowers. This feat required balance and cannot have been a comfortable way to spend a nine-hour shift. Nevertheless, a strong

picker could collect 15 to 20 bunches of 50 blooms each in an hour. The picking season ran from mid-October through Easter. For that end-ofseason holiday alone, more than a million blooms were often shipped.

Each violet greenhouse was outfitted with a packing room, where workers would add decorative galax leaves, tie off the bunches, “boot” them to keep the stems moist, and pack them in cardboard crates for shipping.

Wagons piled high with violet boxes could often be seen heading down to the railway express office. Residents recalled the especially pleasing aroma of the white violets, but the aroma of manure was always close by. In a 1997 interview with the Rhinebeck Historic Society, violet farmer Richard Battenfeld recalled buying manure from New York City and having it shipped up by box car. According to the interviewer’s notes, “Everybody liked the New York City manure because it was straw-based and had very few weeds.”

The demise of the violet industry has been blamed on a number of factors. The costs of heating and labor skyrocketed after World War I. By the 1920s the violets were seen as old-fashioned, a flower one’s grandmother might wear. Women’s fashions had changed; their clothing was no longer as sturdy, and it was impractical to pin a heavy corsage of fifty violets at the waist or the shoulder. In addition, a short-lived Broadway play, The Captive, about an illicit lesbian love affair, used violets as a love token, thus giving the flower an association that, to many, seemed unsavory. The market was no longer booming, and backyard growers took down their greenhouses and gave up the business. The larger operations continued, although they, too, eventually succumbed to a continued downturn in the market. At one time, there were 400 violet greenhouses in the mid-Hudson Valley. In the mid-twentieth century, the violet enjoyed a brief resurgence in popularity, but even then, around 1956 there were just 50 or 60 houses left in Red Hook and Rhinebeck combined. The Trombini family of Rhinebeck, whose greenhouses stood near the Dutchess County fairgrounds, were the last to cease operations, in the late 1970s.

Nevertheless, nostalgic Red Hook residents can still purchase a nosegay of violets in season from Fred Battenfeld, who maintains one small bed of Frey’s Fragrant violets for old time’s sake. Battenfeld’s greenhouse is otherwise filled with anemones, the twenty-first century crop of choice.

Kathy Leonard Czepiel was born and raised in Red Hook. She is the author of the historical novel A Violet Season, which will be published by Simon & Schuster in July.

RED HOOK BICENTENNIAL 1812-2012

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Puppet Po�r Photo: Bird created for ‘Wings of Desire’ New York’s 34th Halloween Parade in ‘07. Photo courtesy Alex Kahn and Sophia Michahelles.

by Robin Cherry Most people associate puppets with children, but the puppetry of Alex

Kahn and Sophia Michahelles is anything but childish. The couple runs the non-profit Processional Art Workshops (PAW) and with the help of local communities, they craft fantastic, interactive works of art drawn from rigorous cultural and historical research. Their puppets have plumbed an extraordinary range of traditions from the ancient Celts to Burlesque, from evolution to the Day of the Dead. The couple is probably best-known as the official puppeteers of the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade.

But now, in honor of Red Hook’s Bicentennial, they’ve set their sites on our town which also happens to be their town. PAW will be holding a two-week “puppet-raising” starting June 30, and culminating in a procession at Community Heritage Day on July 14, at Montgomery Place.

Members of the community are invited to work with the artists to make the giant puppets, mobile architecture, and other visual elements that will be used in the procession. Expect painting, drilling, paper mache, and other activities. No artistic experience or expertise is required, but clothes that can get messy are. Although the workshops are geared to teens and adults, all ages are invited and children are welcome if they’re accompanied by a supervising adult.

Kahn and Michahelles live at the historic estate Rokeby in an apartment adjoining their huge open studio, a former barn. When I stopped by to speak with them, I saw what appeared to be three heads mounted on posts and thought, I really hope those are puppets. (They were.)

The two artists followed different paths to the world of community puppetry and procession. After studying visual arts and Eastern religions in college, Kahn got a grant to spend a year in Nepal where be became fascinated by the Nepali people’s capacity to invest artwork with a sense of persona, identity and presence. He traveled around the country observing rituals and was captivated by both the community involvement and the high quality of the ritual artwork and performances. He came back determined

...Members of the community are invited to work with the artists to make the giant puppets, mobile architecture, and other visual elements that will be used in the procession. to “engineer encounters with artwork in an environment charged with a sense that anything could happen here.”

Michahelles wanted to be an architect but didn’t want to study architecture as an undergraduate, so she majored in art history and got involved in set design. During her last year in college, she was asked to design some puppets that interacted with actors in a performance and realized that she really enjoyed the interaction between the human and the non-human and the suspension of disbelief it engendered. She also loved including music which is not part of set design.

In 1996, Michahelles started working with Kahn on the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade puppets. That first year, they were building giant luna moths but after working all summer, they had only finished one moth and one luna moth does not a procession make. According to Michahelles, “we put out a call for help and I remember being amazed by how many people came out. There were 25 people on the first Saturday we opened our studio. We thought people were coming because they felt bad for us, but it turned out that we were offering something that people had a need for: a communal building process. And from that, we started using the puppets as a way of exporting what we do and of exploring different ways of creating space. It comes back to architecture but what we’re creating is ephemeral space.”

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RED HOOK BICENTENNIAL 1812-2012

Photos: L, scene from ‘Ghost’, New York’s 35th Annual Halloween Parade; R, Luna Moths created for New York City Halloween Parade, 1998. Photos courtesy Alex Kahn and Sophia Michahelles.

While Red Hook’s ‘Portrait in Procession’ is still a work in progress, Kahn and Michahelles have established a framework of four intersecting lines that will represent the town’s evolution.

Kahn calls their performances “two minute operas” because the entire thing happens before your eyes and then moves on in the procession. “You have these images stuck in your head after the parade has passed and you’re left to your own devices to sort them out and see how they inter-connect.”

Representing Red Hook has posed some unique challenges and benefits. According to Kahn, “Usually we start holding sessions with people from the community to figure out what’s important. Red Hook was a little different because we’re both from here so we actually know a little history but, in some ways, it was more interesting because the things that are important to us might not be what’s important to someone else.”

And while he mentions that many people tend to devalue their local narratives saying “nothing ever happens here,” he’s quick to point out that “this has not been the case in Red Hook, especially among the Egbert Benson Historical Society people. They do not have a devaluing problem.”

(Shout out to my EBHS homies!)

One of the interesting things to come out of the sessions came from Michahelles’ uncle (and Red Hook’s official Town Historian) Wint Aldrich. Wint came to a meeting and suddenly started talking about the Twilight Bus Line. These were glorious Art Deco buses, like something out of Flash Gordon. They were magic buses that would take people down to Poughkeepsie to go shopping, back when going to Luckey Platt and Woolworths was a great thing to do. Peripheral memories like that, which are not part of the ‘established narrative,’ are part of what makes the procession resonant and relevant.

While Red Hook’s “Portrait in Procession” is still a work in progress, Kahn and Michahelles have established a framework of four intersecting lines that will represent the town’s evolution. They are the river families and their estates on the Hudson; the Sawkill waterway and its mills which were the center of early grass-roots commerce and industry; the Hucklebush Railroad; and the Old Post Road (now better known as Route 9 or Broadway). Expect Bard College, Merino sheep, violets and, they hope, the Twilight Buses to play a role. They’re also planning to incorporate some of the local dances that would have been familiar to our Red Hook ancestors.

Kahn and Michahelles take their commitment to their volunteers very seriously. “If you’re going to ask two-hundred people to be involved in a performance that you’re designing and conceiving, then you owe it to them to be organized and to come up with ways that they can meaningfully participate.” Kahn is quick to stress meaningfully. “I’ve seen a lot of community art where the organizers keep people busy for an afternoon and then send them home with a mask or a mosaic and it’s over. We’re raising the bar and saying, “Here’s our vision. We need your help.”

Although they’re committed to a specific structure from the outset, Kahn assures me that there’s definitely room for what he calls “the eccentric outliers” like (with apologies to Wint), the Twilight Buses. So if you haven’t had a chance to share your Red Hook memories yet, the workshops are the perfect place to start. Kahn and Michahelles set out to create a relaxed atmosphere that allows “freedom for chaos to come in” as that usually enhances the event.

The scale of the performance is strictly dependent on how many people show up to the workshops to participate...the more people who help build and help perform, the better the event will be.

The scale of the performance is strictly dependent on how many people show up to the workshops to participate. Kahn and Michahelles had a great meeting with all of the art teachers in the Red Hook schools and the teachers are already working on ways to involve their classes. “We always tell people that we can continue to build if people continue to come and work.” They hope to have a workshop in the center of the village so people can walk by, drop in, have a look, and join in, but the details haven’t been finalized yet.

As I prepared to leave, Kahn and Michahelles implored me to spread the word and underline that the more people who help build and help perform, the better the event will be. So residents of Red Hook: the ball is in your court. Come out on June 30th; let’s put Greenwich Village to shame.

Anyone interested in participating in the project can find out more and fill out an online form at www.superiorconcept.org/RedHook200 or contact Carol Wagner, Volunteer Coordinator, at rhpuppets@gmail.com. For more information, visit www.processionalarts.org. This project is funded, in part, by the Dutchess County Arts Council.

RED HOOK BICENTENNIAL 1812-2012

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INTO THE LIGHT

Photos from The Egbert Benson Historical Society

by Christopher Klose

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Today, when a telephone is also a camera, we are flooded with images. They overwhelm, leave us no time to appreciate.

But not archival photographs. They call us to a slice of time.

We can step in. Meander. Marvel. Stop. Take another look. Until, suddenly, “ah,” satisfaction glimmers.

The photos shown here are from the Egbert Benson Historical Society of Red Hook. Along with thousands of papers, letters, diaries, postcards, maps and surveys, business records, books, news clippings, top hats, baby dresses, military medals, cups and saucers, cigar boxes, apple and dairy crates, unidentified tools, sales ledgers and other memorabilia, they constitute but a small fraction of Red Hook’s continuing story.

Countless more fragments of our story exist for the retelling by those who, like Clare O’Neill Carr acknowledges in her Brief History of Red Hook, “seek out the true history of a community by looking at how ordinary people lived, worked and made their living.” They lie in our attics and basements, barns and garages, waiting to reemerge into the light.

Too often, however, these threads of family and community memory end up in garage sales or are simply tossed in the dustbin.

So, if you have a box or two or three of old photos or other things you are about to dispose of, please don’t!

Instead, give them to the Egbert Benson Historical Society.

There’s no better way to celebrate Red Hook’s Bicentennial than to be a part of its continuing story.

CAPTIONS: 1. (Albany steamship; Courtesy EBHS) Thanks to Harriet Martin Dey, an avid, early photographer and member of the Upper Red Hook Martin family, we see the Hudson River Day Line’s Albany on a fine summer day in 1899. Built by Wilmington, Delaware shipbuilders Harland & Hollingsworth in 1880, she was the largest steamer of the era and, as the New York Times noted, “a departure from the conventional Hudson River steamer in essential particulars, but most radically so in the fact that her long, gracefully curving hull is constructed wholly of iron.”

2. (Plowing; Courtesy David and Karen Fraleigh) This photo taken at the Fraleighs’ Rose Hill Farm about 1920 demonstrates mastery of the art of plowing, as described in the 1884 edition of the Home & Farm Manual: “The furrows must be straight and even; whether the furrows be shallow or deep, the depth should be uniform...”

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3. (Vosburgh family; Courtesy EBHS) “Ah, the cat!” What a fine summer day it was in 1890 when three generations of the Vosburgh family posed in their finery for their friend and Upper Red Hook neighbor, farmer and photographer Will Teator. The parlor palms, ornate wicker chairs and plush cushions add a note of Victorian elegance.

PAGE 37

RED HOOK BICENTENNIAL 1812-2012

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z 4. (Dutcher family; Courtesy EBHS) Here we have the Dutcher family, unknown except for their name on the back of the photo by Will Teator.

If you, dear reader, know who they were and where their farm was in Red Hook, we’d love to know. Interesting detail: the drain on the left, with its short, horizontal end – but no rain barrel underneath!

5. (Red Hook Drug Store; Courtesy EBHS) Judging from the cars on the street, it’s early spring about 1930, and Archie Paine and his wife stand

quietly in front of their Red Hook Drug Store, now Neko’s. Had a cough?

The Paines could have recommended “Euphoria Compound – Hare’s Elixir” for it. In the 1950s, when Walter Bean and his wife, affectionately known as “Beanie,” were the operators, Charms lollypops cost a nickel.

6. (Baseball; Courtesy Christopher Klose) Woody Klose (center, standing), longtime Red Hook lawyer, farmer and Dutchess County legislator, and his Red Hook Little League teammates squint into the sun about 1950.

RED HOOK BICENTENNIAL 1812-2012

PAGE 38

the bicentennial quilt

by Robin Cherry When Red Hook’s Bicentennial Committee came up with the idea of commissioning a quilt to commemorate our separation from Rhinebeck, Diana Louie, who runs the Village Fabric Shoppe on West Market Street, was the natural choice to head the project. As a member of that Bicentennial Committee, let me just concede, “Easy for us to say.” The seven-month project was a huge undertaking.

The first step was deciding what should be included. “Initially,” Louie told me, “Patsy Vogel of the Egbert Benson Historical Society of Red Hook gave me a list of 25 historic buildings and I had to see which ones I could get good photographs of. I didn’t think that the picture of St Paul’s Lutheran Church, with its striking rose window, was very good so I got my husband who’s an artist and a good photographer, to take a picture of it. It was one of those beautiful, warm winter days we had this year and since he works from home, I think he was looking for any excuse to get out of the house.”

One of Red Hook’s most historically interesting buildings, the Chocolate Factory, isn’t on the quilt. According to Louie, “It’s long, low, dark building and if the whole thing was on a fabric block, it would look horrible. They considered the Hucklebush Railroad Line (socalled because it was so slow that you could hop off and pick berries as the train went by) and although the railroad was significant to Red Hook, it didn’t really work with the rest of the selections. “We also considered violets but ended up going with apples and sheep. It took a long time to decide what to include because we wanted to make sure we covered a representative range of categories: a house of worship, a government building, a firehouse, a school, and a private home.”

In addition to apples and sheep, the quilt includes St Paul’s, the First National Bank, (now the Village Hall), the Red Hook Central School, the Red Hook Public Library, the Martin/ Cookingham House, Montgomery Place, the late, lamented Red Hook Hotel, the Tobacco Factory, Maizeland, and the Elmendorph Inn, as well as Tivoli’s Old Red Church and Watts de Peyster Fireman’s Hall. The Bicentennial Seal is in the center of the quilt.

“After we gathered all the usable photos, I did line drawings of each of the buildings and made tracing patterns. Then I gave each of the quilters a baggie filled with the fabric and a copy of the drawing.” In addition to Louie, the quilters, all of whom volunteered their time, were Sandra Martin, Trish Cowperthwaite, MaryAnna Egan, Evelyn Urbom, Helen Fairbarin, Deidra

...it took a long time to a long time to decide what to include because we wanted to make sure we covered a representative range of categories: a house of worship, a government building, a firehouse, a school, and a private home.

Since word of the quilt and its squares has gotten out, people have been coming out of the woodwork to tell Louie their stories.

Thorpe-Clark, Jane Winne, Tibbie Klose, and Gail Maury. And Louie insists, “I couldn’t have done this without Patsy.”

After the quilters finished the squares, they were stitched together and sent to Teresa Husman of Prairie House Quilts in Kansas City for machine quilting. Although she lives in the Midwest now, Husman was actually raised in Red Hook. Louie knew the quality of her work from some quilts she’d done for her sister, a longtime friend and customer of the fabric shop.

Since word of the quilt and its squares has gotten out, people have been coming out of the woodwork to tell Louie their stories. “Tibbie Klose, who quilted the Red Hook Hotel, told me about how her dad and uncle used to get into trouble whenever they came home from the Elbow Room.” The Elbow Room was the bar on the side of the Red Hook Hotel so named for the action required to transfer liquor from bar to body. And Klose wasn’t the only one who had less than savory memories of the Elbow Room. Louie said she thought of making the Elbow Room’s door a different color so it stood out. “I’m kind of sorry it’s not around anymore.

It sounded like quite the hangout.”

“The one square that we get the most questions about is Maizeland, the neoclassical mansion hidden behind a brick wall on West Market Street. A lot of people don’t recognize it and ask where it is. It turns out that almost everyone knows the wall but not the building.

Unfortunately, it wouldn’t have been possible to include both the wall and the building in one block. As if on cue, when the board of the historical society and I first saw the quilt, one member pointed to Maizeland and asked, “What’s Maizeland?”

The quilt, with its stitched rays radiating from the seal and exquisite fully dimensional representations of Red Hook’s historic buildings and history, is truly a work of art. I shouldn’t be surprised. Louie has a lifelong passion for textiles. She learned to sew from one of her grandmothers and wrote her Master’s Thesis on Dyes and Pigments of the Middle Ages. In 1990, she made a baby quilt for one of her friends which got her hooked on quilting. In addition to selling fabrics and notions, and offering workshops on everything from Hand-stitching to Therapy Sewing, Louie has a gallery that features selections from her own collection on antique and contemporary quilts.

Fortunately, given all the work involved, Louie really enjoyed the project. “It has been a really interesting project for me,” she said. “I’ve learned a lot. I’m not a native of Red Hook and although I’ve lived here for about 15 years, it was nice to learn more about my community.”

After its unveiling on Apple Blossom Day, the official kick-off for the bicentennial celebration, the Bicentennial Quilt will be showcased at several bicentennial events.

Once the celebration ends, the quilt will be on permanent display at the Red Hook Town Hall.

To paraphrase Jon Stewart referring to The Book of Mormon, “if aliens come thousands of years from now and the bicentennial quilt is the only record of our celebration, I will be absolutely satisfied with that.”

PAGE 39

RED HOOK BICENTENNIAL 1812-2012

Red Hook’s Historical Archaeology

BICENTENNIAL OR TERCENTENNIAL?

by Christopher Lindner, PhD, Archaeologist in Residence at Bard College

S ince people have, over the past several months, ably published historical articles about the Red Hook of 200 years ago, what can a person in archaeology offer most aptly? As we ready celebrations for the return of warm weather, I ask: what’s to find in the ground that might take us back yet another ten decades, or even a half-century earlier than that? Where in the town are vestiges of its first settlers? Should we also try to illuminate Native Americans of the more distant past, even if these people don’t relate directly to the bicentennial?

The Palatines, who came from the middle Rhine River valley in the largest mass migration into the colony of New York, settled at Germantown in 1710. Two years later, when the British “tar making” on Livingston Manor collapsed, some of the Palatines started tenant farms on the Beekman Patent that comprised most of today’s Rhinebeck. Is it not likely that Palatines began then to settle on the Schuyler lands that are now Red Hook? By the mid-18th century, the German American descendants of the Palatines made up approximately half of Red Hook’s population. The Palatine settlers built a farmhouse that became the Elmendorph Inn, where meetings were held to establish the town that is Red Hook. The 2003 excavations in its backyard discovered a dry well near the kitchen among many other things.

Another five decades earlier, Native Americans attacked Kingston at the start of the Second Esopus War in 1663. A Dutch militia force retaliated, and dispersed a band of Lenape (people in their language) from their encampment near the east shore of the Tivoli Bays. Excavations by Bard College students and artifacts from avocationalist Alvin Wanzer’s surface collections have possibly located the camp in question. A current exhibit at the college library entrance, free and open to the public, displays artifacts from this Native American site that may date it to the mid-1600s.

A Dutch map of 1616 identifies the people of the wilderness on the east side of the river at the future Red Hook and Rhinebeck as the Woranecks. A map of 1639 names the principal feature in Tivoli Bay

Photos: L, work at the Elmendorph Inn site in ‘03; R, Students work at the Spicebush site.

Photos submitted.

after a political leader in Holland who supported exploration abroad, Jan de Witt.

Also in the exhibit are artifacts and a map that establish the location of the first known settlement on the college lands by people directly from the Old World, the Van Benthuysens. When the 1755 census of slaves was taken in the province of New York, this family was among the few in then Rhinebeck who owned large numbers of slaves. They labored on the Van Benthuysen farm. In the last decade of the 18th century the Livingstons purchased those lands that later, a half-century after Red Hook’s separation from Rhinebeck, became St. Stephens, now Bard College.

What to add to these anecdotes of history and bits of archaeology?

Bard students continue to research the Spicebush site at the river’s edge of Red Hook, where these artifacts used by Native Americans, the Dutch, and African people have come to light. Its spearpoints also suggest human activity 10,000 years ago. Nearby, pottery along with the remains of plants and animals indicate occupation thirteen centuries past, at the crucial adaptive transition from a focus on fishing to the adoption of farming. Historical archaeology of Red Hook will continue to inquire into the difficult stories of relations between slaves and their owners, most of whom had small numbers of African-Americans in bondage.

Research will also concentrate on the Palatine immigrants who were brought over by the British and forced to labor for the Queen’s navy.

This summer the Bard Archaeology Field School will return to its excavations at the Parsonage in Germantown, the home of 18th-century Reformed ministers to the Palatines followed by several generations of a free African American family. The course is open to high school students and community members as well. For more information, visit the website inside.bard.edu/archaeology. photos L to R: Excavations of the backyard of the Elmendorph Inn and its stone-covered dry well with cast iron pipe. Bard students digging the 1,300-year-old portion of the Spicebush site. Photos courtesy Bard College.

RED HOOK BICENTENNIAL 1812-2012

PAGE 40

Happy 200th Birthday Red Hook!

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RED HOOK BICENTENNIAL 1812-2012

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RED HOOK BICENTENNIAL 1812-2012 To help celebrate Red Hook’s Bicentennial, we asked local chef and author Laura Pensiero to share a Red Hook Heritage recipe, featuring ingredients available in Red Hook 200 years ago as well as today.

Grilled Pork Tenderloin WITH STRAWBERRY BBQ SAUCE

by Laura Pensiero, Chef/Owner Gigi Trattoria & Gigi Market

I have adapted the classic pork and applesauce combination by pairing it with strawberries for this late spring BBQ version.

This strawberry balsamic glaze is the perfect sweet and sour accompaniment to pork. This delectable sauce is also great slathered on bone-in pork chops, chicken, and duck. In the summer, change up the sauce by substituting peaches or fresh plums for the strawberries.

Makes 4 to 6 servings 2 tablespoons olive oil, plus additional for brushing the grill 3 tablespoons finely chopped shallot 1 garlic clove, minced1 tablespoon minced fresh chives, or a combination of tarragon and chives 2 pints strawberries, cleaned, hulled, and halved 2 tablespoons sugar 1⁄4 cup balsamic vinegar Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper Two 10-ounce pork tenderloins Heat 1 tablespoon of the oil in a medium to large nonstick skillet over moderate heat. Add the shallot, garlic, and chives and cook, stirring often, until the shallots are softened, about 2 minutes. Add the strawberries and sugar and cook, tossing or stirring occasionally, until the liquid evaporates to a few tablespoons, about 3 minutes. Deglaze the pan with the vinegar and simmer until thickened and syrupy, about 4 minutes. Adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper. Put half the BBQ sauce in a small bowl for brushing the pork and set aside to cool. Set the remaining sauce aside to serve with pork.

Preheat the grill to medium and brush racks lightly with oil. Rub pork tenderloins with remaining 1 tablespoon oil and season with salt and pepper. Grill the pork, turning occasionally, until golden brown, about 6 minutes. Reduce the heat to medium-low and brush the pork with some of sauce, turning and brushing occasionally, until an instant-read thermometer inserted 2 inches into center of the pork registers 145°F, about 5 minutes longer (discard any remaining sauce for brushing). Transfer the pork to a platter, cover loosely with foil, and let rest 5 minutes.

Cut the pork diagonally into 1⁄4- inch-thick slices. Arrange the pork slices on plates and serve with the remaining reserved sauce.

SERVING SUGGESTION: The sweetness of the strawberry BBQ make

this a perfect match for the slight bitterness of quickly sautéed spinach or Swiss chard. Arugula salad with some Parmesan shavings and lemony vinaigrette is a well-paired cold side.

LEFTOVERS: Sandwich the leftover sliced pork on a toasted onion or seeded roll with sliced red onion napped with some of the BBQ sauce;.

Stir-fry chopped leftover pork with cooked brown rice and scallions, or shred leftover pork and cook until tender, about 20 minutes, in leftover BBQ sauce for sloppy Joes.

NUTRITION: Strawberries are high in vitamin C – by weight more than

some citrus - and low in calories (less than 50 per cup). They are also high in fiber, folate, potassium, and antioxidants. Phytonutrients called phenols are abundant in strawberries. Two specific types, anthocyanins and ellagic acid, lead the charge and are associated with strawberries’ anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Like many colorful berries, they are a heart protective, anti-cancer fruit.Economy: Strawberries bought locally in season hardly seem like the same fruit as the flavorless cardboard-like variety available year-round. Take advantage when both the fruit and the price are at their sweetest.

From Hudson Valley Mediterranean: The Gigi Good Food Cookbook (HarperCollins/ Pensiero 2009). Used with permission.

RED HOOK BICENTENNIAL 1812-2012

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