Hidden History of the Mid-Hudson Valley: Stories from the Albany Post Road

by Arcadia Publishing

Overview

The Albany Post Road was the vital artery between New York City and the state capital in Albany in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

It saw a host of interesting events and colorful characters, though these unusual and extraordinary stories, as well as their connection to the thoroughfare, are oft forgotten. Revolutionary War spies marched this path, and anti-rent wars rocked Columbia County. Underground Railroad safe houses in nearby towns like Rhinebeck and Fishkill sheltered slaves seeking freedom in Canada, and Frank Teal's Dutchess County murder remains unsolved. With illustrations by Tatiana Rhinevault, local historian Carney Rhinevault presents these and other hidden stories from the Albany Post Road in New York's mid-Hudson Valley.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781609494148
Publisher:	Arcadia Publishing SC
Publication date:	09/09/2011
Series:	Hidden History
Pages:	192
Sales rank:	1,119,371
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Carney Rhinevault is Hyde Park town historian and is the author of The Home Front at Roosevelt's Hometown: Small Town America During World War II. He has researched thousands of deeds, wills, maps and other documents during a long career in surveying and cartography.

Table of Contents

His High Mightiness Is Wearing a Dress! 9

Prendergast's Army and the Wild Ride on the Post Road that Saved Its Leader 17

Revolutionary War Spies on the Post Road: The British 24

Nathaniel Pendleton: A Little-Known Founding Father 29

Citizen Genet of East Greenbush 42

War of 1812 Cantonment Greenbush 58

The President Who Wasn't Great Just "OK":

Martin Van Buren of Kinderhook 64

Anti-Rent Wars in Columbia County, 1751-1852 74

A Long Night in Poughkeepsie 81

Underground Railroad Stations Along the Post Road 84

Samuel F.B. Morse: Painter, Inventor, Early Photographer and Political Agitator 93

The Smith Brothers of Poughkeepsie: Their Famous Cough Drops (and Beards) 101

Gypsies on the Post Road 107

Young FDR and the Gilded Age at Hyde Park 116

The Rise and Fall of Woodcliff Pleasure Park 133

The Unsolved Murder of Surveyor Frank L. Teal 143

The 1963 Poughkeepsie Book Burning 152

Milestones 158

Notes 165

About the Authors 191