My studio and the New York office of Planet Waves are located in Kingston, the first capital of New York State. I am actually inside a part of the city called the Stockade, the original 1,300 foot square that was barricaded with a log wall to keep out the savage natives.
It’s no longer the capital and not a terribly exciting place, but this is an interesting weekend. Today is the anniversary of the British burning of Kingston; there is annual reenactment each year at this time. Tonight’s event, as part of the festivities, was a reenactment of the Committee of Safety meeting where the members, identified above, were informed that British vessels were about to land at Kingston Point. In 45 minutes of reenactment, outside the Hoffman House tavern and restaurant two blocks from my studio (built before October 1679, that is, nearly a century before the American Revolution, and still intact), I acquired a greater sense of our incredibly rich local history than I’ve ever had. Suddenly it was just obvious where I was standing.
According to an historical website, “Perhaps the most vivid account of that afternoon of agony is given in the journal of Colonel Abraham Hasbrouck, which also shows the spirit and the ardent faith of his Huguenot father, one of the patentees of New Paltz,” then called The Paltz. Here is Hasbrouck’s diary entry: