Historical News and Views from the Empire State
The Fort Plain Museum is set to hold its annual Christmas at the Fort holiday event on Saturday, December 7th, from 10 am to 4 pm.
Back this year is the local author book fair featuring local authors from the Mohawk Valley and Capital Region. Authors will sign and discuss their books on Mohawk Valley history, the American Revolution, the Civil War, Science Fiction/Horror, Politics, and more nonfiction/fiction works. [Read more…] about Fort Plain Museum’s Christmas at the Fort
Ben Kemp from Grant Cottage State Historic Site is set to speak on the final days the Civil War General and U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant on Tuesday, November 5th, at the Schoharie Crossing State Historic Site. This will begin the fifth annual Tuesday Talk series to recognize New York State History Month. [Read more…] about U.S. Grant Talk Planned for Schoharie Crossing
Michael T. Keene’s new book New York City’s Hart Island: A Cemetery of Strangers takes a look at Hart Island, where more than one million bodies are buried in unmarked graves, just off the coast of the Bronx in Long Island Sound.
The islands first public use was as a Civil War prison and United States Colored Troops training site and later a psychiatric hospital. The island became the repository for New York City’s unclaimed dead. It’s mass graves are a microcosm of New York history, from the 1822 burial crisis to casualties of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire and victims of the AIDS epidemic. Important artists who died in poverty have been discovered buried there, including Disney star Bobby Driscol and playwright Leo Birinski. [Read more…] about A Cemetery of Strangers: NYC’s Hart Island
On Friday October 25, the New York City Commission on Human Rights will commemorate the 400th anniversary of the arrival of enslaved Africans at the British Jamestown colony in 1619.
“Reckoning with Our Legacy of Slavery and Charting an Anti-Racist Future” will be at the New York County Surrogate’s Court (31 Chambers Street, New York). There is no charge to attend but you must make a reservation. Email Christelle Onwu at conwu@cchr.nyc.gov by October 22nd, 2019. [Read more…] about Reckoning with Our Legacy of Slavery
On Sunday, 6 October 2019, members of the Quassaick Chapter, National Society Daughters of the American Revolution, partnered with the Salisbury Mills Fire Company, and Linda Standish, Village Historian for Washingtonville, to clean and preserve the historic Soldiers’ Monument in Salisbury Mills, Orange County, at the corner of Clove and Orrs Mills Roads. [Read more…] about Salisbury Mills Soldiers’ Monument Gets Cleaning
The Seward/Mapes Homestead has announced a talk nineteenth century American health care, set for Thursday, October 24th, from 7 to 9 pm, led by Carolyn Ivanoff.
Ivanoff will examine healthcare in Victorian America, and how Americans were their own doctors and caregivers. [Read more…] about 19th Cent Medicine: Everyone Their Own Doctor
The Lincoln Depot Museum has announced a presentation “Art and Photography of the Civil War,” set for Saturday, October 12th, which will focus on the effects of the Civil War on American landscape and genre painting, and on the new (at the time) medium of photography. [Read more…] about Civil War Art, Photography Program Saturday at Lincoln Depot
The Lincoln Depot Museum is set to host Art and Photography of the Civil War, a presentation by Cynthia Andersen, which will focus on the effects of the Civil War on American landscape and genre painting, and on the new (at the time) medium of photography, on Saturday, October 12th, at 2 pm. [Read more…] about Civil War Art, Photography Program in Peekskill
The Hadley-Lake Luzerne Historical Society is set to host a Great Civil War Beard & Hairdo Contest on Saturday, September 7th, beginning at noon, as part of the Homecoming of the 118th NY Adirondack Regiment Civil War Encampment.
Attendees are encouraged to grow and trim their beard or style their hair in a Civil War era style. [Read more…] about Great Civil War Beard and Hairdo Contest
The 118th NY Volunteer Infantry, the Adirondack Regiment, was formed in 1862 from over 1,000 men from Clinton, Essex and Warren counties. They were present at the surrender of Robert E. Lee at Appomattox.
While celebrating and memorializing the Adirondack Regiment, re-enactors are set to demonstrate various Civil War period military and civilian impressions in Lake Luzerne during events September 7-8.
[Read more…] about An Adirondack Regiment Civil War Enampment in Lake Luzerne