Text Box: tions to mark the 400th anniversary of the journeys made by Henry Hudson and Samuel de Champlain and the 200th anniversary of Robert Fulton's steamship voyage on the Hudson River. Hudson River towns will sponsor anniversary events between July and October 2009. Planning for the 2009 events is still in the very early stages. Manack said the Henry Hudson 400 Foundation will host a regatta of Dutch vessels from the Netherlands to the New York Harbor, but hopes they can be persuaded to sail up the Hudson as well. Donskoj is seeking volunteers to help plan events in Kingston to mark the anniversary. “We would like to participate with the city of New York and Albany, to be the bridge between those two areas, so that our history is not forgotten here during that whole time of celebration,” he said. Donskoj can be reached through the Kingston Library or by e-mail at Donskoj@verizon.net. Local planning for the 400th anniversary is being done under the aegis of the Ulster County Tourism office, with the first organizing meeting, which will include town and city officials, scheduled for June 13. A city committee will likely take responsibility for organizing the events in Kingston, said Kingston City Clerk Kathy Janeczek. Text Box: By Aimee J. Frank As part of a local effort to call attention to the upcoming 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s trip up the river that would later bear his name, a talk was held at the Kingston Library Saturday on the Native American and, later, Dutch, trading routes that connected the Rondout with Connecticut, New York City and Albany. Kingston Landmarks Preservation Commission Chairman Yourij Donskoj moderated the talks by New Netherland Nautical’s Richard Manack, who operates the Golden Re’al, the 1903 Dutch sailing barge often seen around the Rondout Creek, and Lucianne Lavin, PhD, Director of Research and Collections at the Institute for American Indian Studies, a small museum and research center in Washington, Connecticut. The two speakers shared with a small gathering their common interest in the community life and trading relations of the Native American Indians prior to the arrival of the Dutch, and how the Dutch came to participate in these trading networks that reached into the Hudson River Valley. Because it was an important site along the trade routes and became one of the three large New Netherland settlements, Kingston is at the crossroads of Native American, New York and U.S. history, Manack said. Lavin said that long-established Native American trade routes relied not only on the waterways, such as the Rondout Creek and the Hudson and Housatonic rivers, but also on overland paths to Poughkeepsie and west, and up to Albany. Manack discussed the strong role the Dutch played in the area Text Box: but said that little of the whole story has been told. “What we’re trying to do today is to get people to realize that this whole wampum world...was going on even centuries before the Dutch arrived here,” said Manack, and to understand how it evolved once the Dutch recognized the importance of these trade routes. Dutch records at the New York State Library in Albany as well as records kept by Moravian missionaries on Native American birth dates, kinship networks and other information have helped researchers develop a better understand of how the Native American and Dutch communities were intertwined through trade, Manack and Lavin said. Manack is incorporating this research into the educational programs on Dutch exploration, settlement and trading he runs aboard the Golden Re’al at festivals and other events along the rivers of Connecticut and New York. Lavin said her museum received a grant to update exhibitions to include the Dutch contribution. Exhibits at the Institute for American Indian Studies feature a replicated Algonkian village, a simulated archeological site and nature trails and gardens. This event was the first of several talks that organizers will plan to present discussions about Kingston’s history. “We’re going to participate in the things that happened here, earlier and up to the present century, so that we can see how important the river was and what happened along it,” said Donskoj. New York State has organized the Hudson-Fulton-Champlain Quadricentennial Commission to work with localities to plan a series of celebraText Box:

Over the river and through the woods

Library talk relates importance of ancient Native American trading routes

Thursday, June 8, 2006