Ulster County

Historic Huguenot Street Holiday Events

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Santa may not have been a Huguenot, but he will be residence on the well-known street for the holiday season. Activities begin on Friday, November 26th and will center on three of the historic museum houses: the iconic Jean Hasbrouck House, the grand Deyo House and the DuBois Fort Visitor Center.

Holiday programs include:

* Giving Thanks Day. Spent the Thanksgiving Day inside with the family? Well then come on out and enjoy a very different Black Friday. For this one special day, we’ll offer tours of the homes on Historic Huguenot Street for just $5 per person and get the first jump on the special gifts and vintage-style ornaments in the Museum Shop at the DuBois Fort Visitor Center. Make it a day with a visit to the unique shops of downtown New Paltz, which are just steps away. Friday, November 26th, 11am to 3pm.

* Photos with Vintage Santa. A real holiday favorite. For the third year in a row, Santa in all his vintage jolliness, will be visiting the Street. This year, he’ll be found at the hearth of the Jean Hasbrouck House. Photos by professional photographer France Menk. Saturday, November 27th and Saturday, December 4th, 11am to 2pm. $15 per sitting.

* Christmas Quest. The Deyo House manse, in all its Victorian splendor, will be turned over to the kids for two special days! Hidden among the holiday decorations will be items taken from the popular holiday favorites Twas the Night Before Christmas and These Are A Few Of My Favorites Things. All are invited to hunt for these hidden treasures and a holiday prize awaits all who do! Ages 4 and up. Saturday, November 27th and Saturday, December 4th, 11am to 2pm. $7 per child. Accompanying adults free.

* Candlelight Christmas: Holiday Tours of the Deyo House. At night, the Deyo House is the setting for very special holiday themed tours. Enjoy the house by the soft light of candles and Christmas light and see the Broadheads preparing for a turn-of-the-century holiday celebration. Saturday, November 27th and Saturday, December 4th. Tours at 7, 7:30 and 8. $12 per person in advance. $14 at the door.

* Storytime in the Deyo House. New this year is a unique opportunity for kids to enjoy holiday stories at the foot of the decked-out holiday tree in the Deyo House. Local actor and storyteller will delight kids with a wide variety of multi-cultural holiday favorites, including many loved standards and others such as El Regalo de Navidad (The Christmas Gift) and the story of the Maccabees triumph and the Hanukkah miracle. Saturday, December 4th, 11th, and 18th, 11am to 12pm. Limited to 25. FREE.

The Museum Shop at the DuBois Fort Visitor Center will be open every Saturday and Sunday from 11am to 3pm. The shop features a variety of exclusive items inspired by the collections at Historic Huguenot Street, unique and related books as well as a generous offering of vintage-inspired ornaments. Gift wrapping is always complimentary.

For more information about any of these holiday programs, visit www.huguenotstreet.org or call (845) 255-1660 or 1889.

Museum Professional Joins Historic Huguenot St

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John H. Page has joined the board of trustees of Historic Huguenot Street after being elected at the September meeting of the organization’s board. Page, a member of the organization’s collection’s committee prior to his election, brings a wealth of experience to his new role, according to Historic Huguenot’s Richard Heyl de Ortiz.

Page manages and operates the reconstructed 18th century gristmill at Philipsburg Manor, a historic site in Sleepy Hollow which is owned and operated by Historic Hudson Valley. In this role, Page manages the daily operations of the mill and cooperage, contributing to its interpretive and educational programs and managing on-site staff and both its public and school group visits.

Prior to this, Page has served as the executive director of The Hermitage, a National Historic Landmark in Ho-Ho-Kus, New Jersey. The site features a mid 19th century Gothic home that incorporates a colonial-era stone house. He has also worked as an independent contractor, and brings over a decade of building restoration experience to his new role at Historic Huguenot Street.

Mary Etta Schneider, president of Historic Huguenot Street, says of Page’s election, “We are thrilled to welcome John and very pleased to have a museum professional of his caliber on our board of trustees. John has been a valuable member of our collections committee. We look forward to his input and hope to leverage his experience in museum operations, restoration and program development.”

After receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Swain School of Design in 1985, Page completed a Master of Arts History from Hunter College in 2007. He also has a Certificate in Museum Studies from Harvard University. Page is a practicing artist, a painter in landscapes with over twenty-five years of professional experience. Examples of his work may be seen online. He lives in Nyack, New York.

The Lenape: Lower New York’s First Inhabitants

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This Saturday, November 13th, at 7:00 pm, Historic Huguenot Street will host another in its Second Saturday Lecture Series. David M. Oestreicher will combine archaeological and historical evidence with decades of firsthand ethnographic and linguistic research among present-day Lenape traditionalists, to arrive at a full picture of the Lenape from prehistory to the present. The presentation includes a slide program featuring native artifacts, maps, illustrations, and photographs, as well as images of contemporary Lenape who are among the last repositories of their culture. This lecture offers a unique opportunity to learn about lower New York’s original inhabitants, the Lenape &#8212- not the romanticized figures of popular mythology or new-age literature, but a living people as they really are.

Dr. David M. Oestreicher is recognized as a leading authority on the Lenape (Delaware), our region’s first inhabitants, having conducted linguistic and ethnographic research among the last tribal traditionalists for over 30 years. Oestreicher is curator of the award-winning traveling exhibition, In Search of the Lenape: The Delaware Indians, Past and Present, which critic William Zimmer in the New York Times described as &#8220an extended reverie,&#8221 capturing &#8220the vitality and poignancy of the Lenape saga.&#8221 Oestreicher’s writings have appeared in leading scholarly journals and books, and he completed the final portion of the late Herbert C. Kraft’s The Lenape-Delaware Indian Heritage: 10,000 B.C. &#8211 2000 A.D. &#8212- a tome subsequently hailed by scholars as the seminal work on the Lenape. Oestreicher’s monograph, &#8220The Munsee and Northern Unami Today&#8221 in The Archeology and Ethnohistory of the Lower Hudson Valley and Neighboring Regions (1991), marked the first ethnographic account of the Hudson River Lenape (now the Canadian Delaware) since the work of anthropologists M. R. Harrington (1908, 1913, 1921) and Frank G. Speck (1945).

Cost: $8 per person/$6 for Friends of Huguenot

Vanderlyn Expert to Speak on Huguenot Street

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The Vanderlyn name, long associated with the Mid Hudson Valley, will be front and center at the October Second Saturdays talk at Historic Huguenot Street in New Paltz. “The Portraits of John Vanderlyn,” will be presented on Friday, October 9th at 7pm by Katherine C. Woltz, a scholar with the University of Virginia. Woltz has become a central figure as interest in Vanderlyn, an Ulster County native and one of the country’s first nationally recognized artists, has undergone a resurgence in recent years.

Born in Kingston in 1775 and educated at the Kingston Academy, John Vanderlyn was protege of statesman Aaron Burr and portrait painter Gilbert Stuart. Burr’s uncommon generosity allowed Vanderlyn to study first with Stuart in America, and then in Paris with the famous French painters Vincent and David at the e cole-des-beaux-arts. Meeting with acclaim in both Europe and the U.S., he was perhaps the first American artist to gain an international reputation and following.

Woltz is currently working on a book about Vanderlyn and will be featured at “Appraising Art, Re-Appraising Vanderlyn,” a special forum being offered by the Senate House State Historic Site in Kingston later this month.

The talk will be offered in the newly reopened LeFevre House. The museum house now features a portrait gallery. Currently on exhibit is “An Excellent Likeness,” a selection of portraits from the permanent collection of Historic Huguenot Street. “An Excellent Likeness” includes several portraits attributed to John Vanderlyn Jr. The LeFevre House is located at 54 Huguenot Street in downtown New Paltz. Parking is available in municipal parking lot across the street. There is an $8 charge ($6 for Friends of Huguenot Street). For more information, visit www.huguenotstreet.org or call (845) 255-1889.

Illustration: Abraham D Deyo. Attributed to John Vanderlyn, Jr. From the permanent collection of Historic Huguenot Street.

Month of the Macabre At Historic Huguenot Street

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October is the month of the macabre at Historic Huguenot Street in New Paltz. The six-acre site, continually occupied for over 330 years and lived on by Native Americans as far back at 8,000 B.C., is filled with the stories of those who have come before us. Two events this weekend help kick off the month, which will wrap up the organization’s popular Haunted Huguenot Street event at the end of the month.

Tonight, Friday, October 1st, from 8 to 9:30pm, HHS will host a Lantern Walk in its historic burial ground. The autumn night is the perfect time to venture into the graveyard, one of the region’s oldest. By the flame of the lanterns, guests will learn about the tragedies and triumphs of the people buried there. The dead are among us on Huguenot Street.

On Saturday, October 2nd, from 10am to 12pm, HHS will take a small group of individuals underground to the organization’s archives. Here, among documents, photos and images that go all the way back to 17th Europe, Curatorial Assistant Ashley Hurlburt will select glimpses of the ghoulish and the macabre from the archives. Space is limited to 15.

he cost is of each program is $12 per person or $10 for Friends of Huguenot Street. Advance reservations are strongly recommended. Individuals may register online at www.huguenotstreet.org or call 255-1889 to register over the phone. Both programs leave from the DuBois Fort Visitor Center, which is located at 81 Huguenot Street in downtown New Paltz.

Haunted Huguenot Street will be offered on the evenings of Friday, October 29th to Sunday, October 31st. More information about this event is also available at the website for Historic Huguenot Street.

New Paltz: Nov Events at Historic Huguenot Street

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Historic Huguenot Street (HHS), located on the banks of the Wallkill River, is where small group of French-speaking Huguenots settled in 1678. Today, just steps from downtown New Paltz, the site features seven stone houses dating to 1705, a burying ground and a reconstructed 1717 stone church – all in their original village setting. HHS offers six acres of landscaped green space and public programming to the local community and visitors from around the world. For more information about Historic Huguenot Street visit www.huguenotstreet.org or call (845) 255-1660.

Saturday, November 6, 10am to12pm
Behind the Scenes: Coverlets with the Curator

This program is offered in conjunction with the Binary Visions Exhibit at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art. Limited to 15, the morning offers an opportunity to see up close the historic coverlets too fragile to exhibit. Cost: $25/$20 for Friends of Huguenot Street

Saturday, November 13, 7 to 9pm
Second Saturdays: The Lenape, Lower New York’s First Inhabitants

In this lively and engaging talk, David M. Oestreicher combines archaeological and historical evidence with decades of firsthand ethnographic and linguistic research among present-day Lenape traditionalists, to arrive at a full picture of the Lenape from prehistory to the present. The presentation includes a slide program featuring native artifacts, maps, illustrations, and photographs, as well as images of contemporary Lenape who are among the last repositories of their culture. This lecture offers a unique opportunity to learn about lower New York’s original inhabitants, the Lenape &#8212- not the romanticized figures of popular mythology or new-age literature, but a living people as they really are. Dr.David M. Oestreicher is recognized as a leading authority on the Lenape (Delaware), our region’s first inhabitants. Cost: $8/$6 for Friends of Huguenot Street

Friday, November 19, 5 to 8 pm
Downtown Unwrapped/ Tree Lighting

What a great way to do your holiday shopping. Downtown New Paltz, including Huguenot Street, will be open late to start the holiday shopping season. Start the evening with the traditional tree lighting ceremony being held on Huguenot Street. Stop in the museum shop, enjoy some homemade hot chocolate and find some unique items in the shop, including holiday decoration and cards.

Saturday, November 20, 4-7 pm
Third Saturday Art Walk: As the Seasons Turn, Holiday Greetings Card

The collections at Historic Huguenot Street include an impressive collection of holiday cards from the late 19th and early to mid 20th centuries. Many are richly detailed. Others contain &#8220holiday&#8221 motifs that are just puzzling in our modern world. This exhibit gives guests rare opportunities to see the celebration of holidays through cards that span several decades.

Friday, November 26, 11am to 3pm
Giving Thanks Day

It’s Friday, the day after Thanksgiving and you’re all cooped up in the house. Don’t go to the mall. Come enjoy a special &#8220Giving Thanks&#8221 day at HHS. Cost: For this day only, tours are just $5 per person or $20 for the whole family.

Saturday, November 27, 11am to 2pm
Photos with Vintage Santa | 11am to 2pm

Come and have your picture taken with our vintage Santa Claus seated next to the period fireplace in the historic Jean Hasbrouck House. These are timeless photographs, of exceptional quality, taken by a professional photographer familiar with the interesting backdrops that our house interiors offer. Every photo will be inserted in a replicated card form the vintage holiday card collection we have here at HHS. For this event we will again partner with Rite Aid, a trusted local business and, at your request, send a .jpg oh your photograph so that they can create your holiday cards with convenience and ease. Imagine, pictures with the most authentic Santa in New Paltz and your holiday cards all wrapped up &#8211 and it isn’t even December yet!! Cost: $15 first photo, $5 for each additional photo

Saturday, November 27, 11am to 2pm
Christmas Quest

Children will search through the grand Deyo House on Huguenot Street looking for Christmas themed clues (vintage cards, stockings, antique cookie cutters&#8230-). Exploring this stately colonial revival will be a delightful challenge as you discover the clues and solve the mystery of the hunt! Holiday treats and warm cider will be provided back at the DuBois Fort Visitor Center upon completion of the hunt. Please note this event is suitable for ages 5 and up. Cost: $7 per child

The Furniture of Historic Huguenot Street

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Known throughout the region for its unique architecture and for the preservation of the early stone houses, Historic Huguenot Street also boasts an extraordinary collection of carefully preserved furniture and accessories spanning over a three-hundred year period. This intimate tour will focus on the many treasures found in the house museums as well as in the collections storage.

Antiques expert Sanford Levy has a particular love for and knowledge of historical items from the Hudson Valley. Owner of Jenkinstown Antiques, Levy specializes in furniture, fine art, and accessories from the Valley, including kasten, country and formal pieces in original surfaces. He is also well-known as a dealer in regional artists such as D.F. Hasbrouck, T.B. Pope, Michael Kelly, Joseph Tubby, and Julia Dillon.

The tour begins at 4pm on Sunday, September 26th, at the DuBois Fort Visitor Center at 81 Huguenot Street in New Paltz. Two hours in length, the event is limited to 15 guests. Reservations are strongly suggested. There is a $25 charge per person ($20 for Friends of Historic Huguenot Street).

Arts Forum: Appraising Art, Re-Appraising Vanderlyn

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The artistic and historic treasures of the Hudson Valley receive special attention from renowned appraiser and television personality, Leigh Keno, at Senate House State Historic Site on Saturday, October 23, in an arts forum, Appraising Art, Re-appraising Vanderlyn, 10 am to 4:30 pm. Also, regional experts on Hudson Valley art and culture examine the artistic Vanderlyn family, including John Vanderlyn, painter of six U.S. Presidents and an important American artist born in Kingston, NY. Tickets are $10. An evening reception with Leigh Keno in the Vanderlyn Gallery of the Senate House Museum, with wine, food and music, is $50. per person. For more information and to reserve tickets, please call (845) 338-2786.

Television personality and keynote speaker Leigh Keno shares his antiques discoveries, including the auction of early Kingston native Anna Brodhead Oliver’s portrait for $1.1 million.The forum introduces the Vanderlyn Catalogue Raisonne Project to document John Vanderlyn (1775-1852), first American painter to receive a gold medal from Napoleon Bonaparte for his art. If you have Vanderlyn family art or letters to submit for evaluation, call (845)338-2786.

Presentations include talks on Pieter Vanderlyn and John Vanderlyn contemporaries. Paintings and antiques from audience members will be evaluated by Leigh Keno and art experts during the afternoon session. Post-forum, join Leigh Keno for a soiree with chamber music, period French wine and hors d’oeuvres in the Senate House Museum. Tickets for the evening event are $50 per person. Senate House State Historic Site houses the world’s largest collection of Vanderlyn paintings, documents and ephemera.

“’Appraising Art, Re-Appraising Vanderlyn’ will be a fun-filled day for the home antiquer and the art connoisseur with a few surprises thrown in” stated Katherine Woltz, Vanderlyn Project director, who expressed her thanks to the Saugerties Historical Society and Historic Huguenot Street for their assistance in organizing the forum with the Friends of Senate House and the staff of Senate House State Historic Site.

Senate House State Historic Site is located at 296 Fair Street, Kingston, NY 12401, and is part of a system of parks, recreation areas and historic sites operated by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, and the site is one of 28 facilities administered by the Palisades Interstate Park Commission in New York and New Jersey. For further information about this and other upcoming events please call the site at (845) 338-2786 or visit the State Parks website at www.nysparks.com.

Illustration: Miniature portrait of John Vanderlyn (1775-1852). From the collection of the Senate House State Historic Site.

Early New Paltz Women Subject of Sat Talk

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The Second Saturdays Lecture Series at Historic Huguenot Street in New Paltz continues tomorrow, Saturday, September 11th with a talk entitled, “Early Women of New Paltz.” The talk will focus on the often untold role of women in colonial-era New York. Included will be an exploration of the differences between Dutch law and custom and English law, and how women were impacted by these differences. Richard Heyl de Ortiz of Historic Huguenot Street, who will be the presenter, created this talk for the organization’s recent Gathering event – a “family reunion” of descendants of the early families of New Paltz.

“This talk was well-received at the Gathering. Our history is so often told through the eyes of men or through their lives and stories. The enthusiasm of those in the audience for this fresh, more complete perspective was exciting. For this reason, we decided to offer this talk as part of our Second Saturdays series.” says Heyl de Ortiz. As was done at the Gathering, the stories of three extraordinary Hudson Valley women from the eighteenth century will be the centerpiece of the talk. Their lives and experiences will be used to highlight the challenges faced and opportunities enjoyed by women during this period.

“Early Women of New Paltz” will be offered at 7pm on Saturday, September 11th in the DuBois Fort Visitor Center, which is located at 81 Huguenot Street in downtown New Paltz. Refreshments will be served. Admission is $8, or $6 for Friends of Huguenot Street. For more information, visit www.huguenotstreet.org or call (845) 255-1889.

Historic Huguenot Street (HHS), located on the banks of the Wallkill River, is the reason that New Paltz is the funky, free-spirited town it is today. Here a small group of French-speaking Huguenots settled in 1678. Today, just steps from downtown New Paltz, the site features seven stone houses dating to 1705, a burying ground and a reconstructed 1717 stone church – all in their original village setting. HHS offers six acres of landscaped green space and public programming to the local community and visitors from around the world.

Illustration: The house in Guilford, just south of New Paltz, from which the widow Elsie Schoonmaker Hasbrouck ran a large farm, raised ten children and speculated in real estate during the eighteenth century. Hasbrouck will be one of the subjects of Saturday’s talk. Image by Alfred Hasbrouck from the collection of Historic Huguenot Street.

Currier & Ives Prints Exhibition at Senate House

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The exhibit Currier & Ives: &#8220Cheap and Popular Pictures&#8221 is now open at the Senate House State Historic Site in Kingston. The prints of Currier & Ives—one of the most successful purveyors of lithographic prints in the 19th Century—are diverse, full of fascinating historical information and compelling imagery, perhaps despite their perennial appearance on calendars and cards. This new exhibit at Senate House State Historic Site, offers us forty of their prints focusing on the ideals, values, and innovations of the 19th Century.

While it’s better known for its buildings and collections representing colonial and Revolutionary history, Senate House State Historic Site, located in uptown Kingston, also has impressive collections of objects, documents, and art of the 19th Century, including over 200 Currier & Ives prints, given to the site by the late Rutgers Ives Hurry, a Saugerties resident whose passion was collecting images of the Hudson Valley made by the firm.

The Senate House exhibition focuses on three themes: the ideal of the 19th-century home, images of New York City, and Hudson River steamboats (both the luxury and potential dangers they represented). The exhibit is entitled &#8220Cheap and Popular Pictures,&#8221 a term touted by Nathaniel Currier and James Merritt Ives, who shrewdly observed and marketed their images&#8211made by many different artists of the day—to the opinions, interests, and ideals of America’s growing middle class.

The Senate House is open Wednesday through Saturday, 10 am to 5 pm, and 1 – 5 pm on Sundays. The exhibit is free and open to the public. The exhibition runs through October 31 and is available by appointment and for school groups after that date. Senate House is located at 296 Fair Street, Kingston NY, 12401. For more information and other details, please call (845) 338-2786.

Illustration: Steamers Drew and St. John. Sketched and Drawn by C. R. Parsons.
Hand-colored lithograph published by Currier & Ives, New York. Courtesy of Senate House State Historic Site.