Step into the darker corners of Ulster County’s past with County Historian Eddie Moran. In this compelling and eerie presentation, Moran examines real historical crimes from the colonial and early republic eras—offering a window into the early justice system, shifting social values, and the lasting imprint of inequality. Drawing on archival documents, period images, and […]
Join Ambie Award-winner Blake Pfeil and writer Isabel Wilder for an immersive, multimedia journey into Ulster County’s abandoned spaces. Using Pfeil’s All-American Ruins as a guide, participants will explore how local ruins reflect America’s past, present, and future—while doubling as playgrounds for creativity, imagination, and healing. The program includes an audio feature from Pfeil’s podcast abandoned, a screening […]
What did a “proper” funeral look like in colonial Hurley? How have our rituals of grief, remembrance, and burial changed—and what remains surprisingly familiar? Join Miranda J Voronoy, INELDA-trained Death Doula and Historian, for a fascinating exploration of death practices past and present. Using evocative images from the Old Hurley Burial Ground, we’ll examine how […]
Join Dr. Samantha Misa, author of Witches of the Catskills, for an engaging presentation on historic accounts of witchcraft and maleficium in the Catskill Mountains. Learn about eerie tales rooted in regional folklore and how they shaped local culture. Following the talk, participants of all ages can enjoy a hands-on seasonal craft to take home. […]
Dive into the dramatic early chapters of the women’s suffrage movement in Ulster County during this engaging lecture with historian Kelli Huggins. Explore the 1894 State Constitutional Convention and the determined—but unsuccessful—efforts of local activists to secure the vote. Learn how these women’s stories connect to national figures like Susan B. Anthony and laid vital […]
To close our Ulster in Maps season, the Sunday Salon Series turns to one of the most remarkable land grants in New York history: the 1708 Hardenbergh Patent. Originally pitched to the Colonial Government as a request for a “small tract of land,” it ballooned into a grant larger than the State of Rhode Island. […]
Immigration has defined American political life for decades — and today's debates may feel unprecedented, but they are not. From the Chinese Exclusion Act to the Immigration Act of 1924, the United States has been here before: moments when anti-immigrant sentiment hardened into law, when nativist arguments drowned out other voices, and when the question […]
Immigrant labor built America — and nowhere is that story more visible, or more local, than the Ashokan Reservoir, which still supplies roughly 40 percent of New York City's drinking water more than a century after its construction. Join local historian Steven Caselli for a presentation and conversation about the Southern Italian laborers who built […]
They are names carved into the landscape of the Hudson Valley — DuBois, Bevier, Crispell, Hasbrouck — familiar to us as founders, landholders, and pillars of colonial life. But before they were patentees, they were refugees. Driven from their homelands by war, religious persecution, and political upheaval in seventeenth-century Europe, the French-speaking Walloon and Huguenot […]
When the first waves of Dutch, British, and Scottish settlers arrived in Ulster County, they brought with them more than tools and ambitions — they brought their lodges. Freemasonry functioned as a kind of invisible architecture of colonial and early American society: a fraternal system that gave immigrant communities a framework for trust, civic participation, […]
