If this is to be a page on the Hudson River Valley and the Catskill Mountains it must begin somewhere . . . but where?
The early geologic history would have the Hudson Valley a huge lake, contained by the Catskill Mountains and the Highlands. The prehistoric peoples were hunters and gatherers, not leaving a history of their own. The Native Americans (primarily Algonquians) left only a recorded history written by their subjugators . . .
We’ll have to start with white discovery of the region – Henry Hudson’s third voyage in the fall of 1609 – to make any sense of the history. Because the ship’s log was lost, only Robert Juet’s unofficial narrative, his journal entries, remain to document the trip. The discovery of a verdant, peaceful and productive land was nevertheless a failure because it was the Northwest Passage that was sought, a way around the North American continent to the riches of the East Indies. Little did Henry Hudson realize what riches he opened for development here.
Adrian Van Der Donck did more to chronicle the riches of the region than anyone before him, and most who followed. His “Description of New Netherlands," published in 1655 and based on his personal travels and observations while employed at Kiliaen Van Rensselaer’s Hudson Valley holdings, is a carefully detailed study of the land and the people of this “naturally noble province." His treatise, in Dutch, led to an increased interest in developing and settling the region. The 1851 English translation is still read and quoted today by New York State scholars.
The North River, as the Hudson was originally called, eventually, through the Erie Canal and the Great Lakes, opened the American West for settlement, making New York the Empire State, and pivotal in the development of the United States. In 1776, the British sought to divide their unruly colony by invading in a pincher movement both up and down the Hudson Valley in the Revolutionary War. They met defeat at Saratoga. The War of 1812 saw them invade from the north, down the valley, only to fail again. Ironically, Islamic terrorists followed that same route south on the same day almost two centuries later. The Hudson River Valley was misleading as the apparently easiest and most direct route to conquest. All their attempts failed as New York, and the country, courageously survived these onslaughts.
The impact of these attacks left the Hudson Valley and Catskill Mountains rich in military history. Numerous battlefields, cemeteries, monuments and headquarters, even West Point, the very academy that trains our Nation’s defenders, all lie connected on the Revolutionary Heritage Trail that threads through the Hudson Valley.
The first literature defined as American was written about the region. The first school of art identified as American was created here. The first music identified as American has its roots here. The Hudson Valley and Catskill Mountain Region spawned an American identity. The United States was first defined by what happened here.
That identification continues here on these pages. As the Hudson Valley and Catskills go, so goes New York, and, therefore, the world. Read, subscribe and enjoy as the story of a region unfolds before you . . .
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