A MOMENT FROZEN IN TIME

All our lives we have been inundated with moving images: television, film, social media. We are so inured to the constancy of the motion, color, and sound, that when an image holds still, it causes a momentary catch – the need to register what we are seeing.

It was a moment like that that captured the […]

By |2024-03-04T13:33:45-05:00March 4th, 2024|History, Main Street News|

TREASURES ACROSS TIME AT THE DCHS

Historians understand better than the rest of us that there is nothing in the present that hasn’t been in the past. For the Dutchess County Historical Society, that goes back to the inquisitive nature of Helen Wilkinson Reynolds (1875-1943). 

Born and raised in Poughkeepsie, NY, from a young age she developed a deep love of […]

By |2024-01-31T14:47:46-05:00January 31st, 2024|History, Main Street News|

ALONG CAME ST. NICHOLAS

In 1823, a dismayed Clement Clarke Moore would learn that his poem, A Visit from St. Nicholas, nowadays popularly known as ’Twas the Night Before Christmas, had been published in the Troy (NY) Sentinel, albeit lacking attribution.

The poem has since been published in the neighborhood of 2,500 times and illustrated by such luminaries as […]

By |2023-12-01T19:12:27-05:00December 1st, 2023|History, Main Street News|

A Brief Overview of Native American History in the Region

The New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts region has an abundant Indigenous history. This November, we’re celebrating Native American History Month with a series of features centered around Native American tribes and their people. 

According to the U.S. Department Bureau of Indian Affairs, Native American Heritage Month is a time […]

By |2023-11-01T10:24:10-04:00November 1st, 2023|History, Main Street News|

Pine Plains – A Snapshot in Time

For many, the name “Pine Plains” evokes a dot on the map while driving along the Taconic State Parkway, but to relegate the Hudson Valley town to a bypassing point on a map is to commit a history lover’s faux pas.

For those who have benignly wandered into that particular offense, and I’m forced to include […]

By |2023-09-01T16:01:29-04:00September 1st, 2023|History|

The Name Game

For this special tenth anniversary issue, Main Street Magazine uncovered the interesting history behind some of our local towns and how they were granted their names – and this is just a tiny sampling!

As we go about our daily lives – going to work, shopping, attending cultural events, and gathering with friends – we often […]

By |2023-03-02T16:27:15-05:00March 2nd, 2023|History|

Collecting Local History

When you really consider the everyday things around you, they start to seem like tiny miracles. – Amy Shearn

Next June 12 marks the 40th anniversary of the dedication of the “old Copake Falls Church” as home to the Roeliff Jansen Historical Society (RJHS) and Museum. The building itself, rescued from neglect and adaptively repurposed, turned 130 […]

By |2022-10-08T16:41:34-04:00October 8th, 2022|History|

Collecting Forgotten History

Alexandra Peters gave me a private tour of her sampler collection on display at the Sharon Historical Society through October just after this enthralling exhibition opened in June. It was a very personal introduction to the art and meaning of needlework samplers which reveal the lives of American girls and their families from 1700 to […]

By |2022-08-02T16:54:22-04:00August 1st, 2022|History|

Curated by the Community

As of 2021, according to statistics from the US Department of Veterans Affairs, little more than 240,000 of the 16 million Americans who served in World War ll are alive today. Last year marked the 80th anniversary of what President Franklin D. Roosevelt would famously call “a date which will live in infamy.” The Japanese […]

By |2022-05-28T17:34:41-04:00May 28th, 2022|History|
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