HISTORY & MYSTERIES
Here is a detailed map of what Croton looked like in 1872. Known then as Croton Landing, the village consisted mainly of houses and businesses along what we know today as Grand Street, Brook Street, and Riverside Avenue. If you look at the top left side you can see that Riverside Avenue got its name … Continue reading Croton Landing, 1872
A recently published book, Smugglers, Bootleggers and Scofflaws: Prohibition and New York City by Ellen NicKenzie Lawson, contains an amazing 1924 aerial photo, purporting to show rum-smuggling submarines in the Hudson River near Croton Point. The photo appears in the chapter “Rum Row”—the name of the smuggling area of the Atlantic coast from Nantucket to … Continue reading Rum-running Submarines off Croton Point?
One of the many miniature New York landmark replicas at the New York Botanical Garden’s Holiday Train Show is this rustic version of Van Cortlandt Manor—made entirely of plant parts such as twigs, bark, and leaves. The show runs until January 12 and if you’ve never been it’s a great trip for all ages. See … Continue reading Van Cortlandt Manor in Miniature
Below is issue 2 of Theodore J. Cornu's extraordinary hand-drawn, hand-lettered, self-published journal, Hudson Valley Echoes. To see issue 1 click here. Issues 3 to 4 are coming soon . . . When the publication opens you can click on the pages and enlarge them. The embedded viewer uses Flash, so if you don't see … Continue reading Hudson Valley Echoes, Issue #2
As a follow-up to our recent post, Winter on the Hudson River, here’s a postcard showing an ice boat in action on the river, circa 1910. This image is part of the Waterways Post Card Collection at the Graduate School of Library and Information Studies, Queens College (CUNY), New York—a collection of “historically significant cultural heritage … Continue reading Ice Boating on the Hudson River
Clement C. Moore, author of the beloved poem ’ Twas the Night Before Christmas, had a family connection to what was then called the village of Sing Sing. According to the biography by Samuel White Patterson, Moore “had once contemplated making a summer home on the Hudson. In 1839, he bought a beautiful estate at Sing … Continue reading ’Twas the Night Before Christmas in Sing Sing
Here are excerpts from Benson John Lossing’s classic book, The Hudson, from the Wilderness to the Sea, recording in words and pictures a winter on the Hudson River very different from what we experience today.1 From his first night visiting “Peek’s Kill Bay”—where the river was “cold, silent, glittering . . . except a group … Continue reading Winter on the Hudson River
A seller on eBay is currently offering—and has graciously allowed us to feature—a bible bearing the bookplate of Abraham I. Underhill, one of the three Underhill brothers who started the flour mill on the Croton River in 1792, under a lease from the Van Cortlandt family. 1 The bible contains a handwritten page recording Abraham … Continue reading Underhill Bible—on eBay!
Who was the marketing genius behind this bit of Jazz Age cross-promotion? The 1917 ads for Goodyear Cord Tires appeared in magazines ranging from the Atlantic Monthly and The New Country Life to Travel and Forest & Stream . Both feature detailed pen-and-ink drawings of Nikko Inn in the background, suggesting the perfect place you … Continue reading You Can Expect Immediate Benefits
While visiting a home in the Harmon area the owners proudly pointed out the Croton Point bricks used in the floor of what had originally been a large covered porch. Well-worn from more than a century of use, many are stamped with the initials of William A. Underhill, who used the clay deposits to make … Continue reading History Underfoot
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