RONDOUT: A Hudson River Port

First Edition 1995 Published by PURPLE MOUNTAIN PRESS, LTD. Main Street, P.O. Box E3 Fleischmanns, NY 12430 ISBN 0-935796-70-3 PURPLE MOUNTAIN PRESS is a publishing company committed to producing the best original books of regional interest as well as bringing back into print significant older works. Their catalog contains more than 300 hard-to-find books about New York State.

RONDOUT: A Hudson River Port is a tale of floods, fires and plagues, of commercial enterprise and the acquisition of vast, untaxed fortunes as well as the expression of public spiritedness in both peace and war. From its early days of Dutch settlement to the boom years in the nineteenth century after the construction of the Delaware & Hudson Canal to the final flowering of Rondout at Kingston Point, this book portrays the vibrant, often rambunctious, life of one of the great river ports and the characters who built it.

Preface

My father and uncle knew Rondout well. They worshiped in Rondout, visited the relatives there, and performed as professional musicians on the Hudson River Day Line. They have told me stories about the Skillypot, which ferried their Model-T Ford across the Rondout Creek to Sleightsburgh on a chain. And they have recounted to me how the bridge was built on Wurts Street, which made this beloved craft obsolete. I have been told what it was like to ride on the Mary Powell, and I have shared, through their remembrance, the giddy pleasures of a day spent at Kingston Point Park.

As a young boy, my parents often took me to Rondout. We went there to purchase school clothing at Yallum’s, to buy building materials at John D. Schoonmaker’s Island Dock, where the D & H Canal coalyards had been, to see the tall Freeman Building on the Strand, and best of all, to enjoy the Orpheum Theatre, where I saw my first western. In summer, we rode the ferry across the Hudson. It was a great, windy adventure I shall never forget. To me, in those days, Rhinecliff seemed as exotic and remote as the moon. I can still see in my mind’s eye the long line of cars waiting on Ferry Street, their engines shut off, the thick, green color of the creek, the boats docked, the oily smell. Then, on the ferry, as it moved down the stream, me standing at the bow—the pounding engines below, the lighthouse coming up on the port side, the pull of the current on the big boat as we cleared the creek. I recall that my elementary school held its annual picnics in Hasbrouck Park, which had been mined and owned by the Newark Lime & Cement Company in earlier times. This soon became one of my favorite places, for here I could view Rondout, the river, and the creek from its historic ramparts. In 1777, rebel cannons fired from this point on the British squadron which later burned Rondout and Kingston.

Today, I know a great deal more about Rondout than I did as a youth, or even a decade ago, when I first began the research for this book. Yet, surprisingly, this increased familiarity with Rondout and its colorful past has not diminished my initial childhood delight and interest in this place. In fact, the long and gradual process of discovery which I have undertaken has only whetted my appetite for more knowledge of old Rondout. Clearly, this Hudson River port has seeped into my blood.

The story I have written traces Rondout’s history from its early sighting by the explorer Henry Hudson in 1609 to the present day. During these four centuries, the reader will meet many interesting women and men and watch a myriad of surprising things occur. By reading this book, like a ride on a magic carpet or a trip in a time machine, the reader may experience, in some measure, what it was like to live in a particular spot on earth over a long period of time. It is my hope that the reader’s journey be found an enjoyable and a memorable one.

Bob Steuding
Olive Bridge, New York
Summer 1995

Bob Steuding teaches humanities at Ulster County Community College in Stone Ridge, New York. He is also a State University of New York faculty exchange scholar and serves as poet laureate of Ulster County. His published works include The Last of the Handmade Dams: The Story of the Ashokan Reservoir, A Catskill Mountain Journal, two volumes of poetry (Ashokan and Winter Sun), and a critical biography of Pulitzer Prize poet Gary Snyder.

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Table of Contents

1. The Beautiful Land
2. Heartless Provocations
3. A Nursery’ of Villains
4. The Great Emporium
5. Natchez Under the Hill
6. A Hive of Traders and Bargemen
7. The Hum of Active Business
8. An Increasing Collective Awareness

   An Album of Old Rondout

9. The Veneration of Beauty
10. Forever Forming Associations
11. This Hand for My Country
12. This Bugbear War
13. The Bonds of Municipality
14. Railway Fever
15. Castles on the Point
16. Dear Old Rondout

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