Huguenot Street - New Paltz
In our
21st century mind the history of a place is almost
always experienced through the homes and artifacts of
the rich and famous. We walk through the magnificent
homes and wander the spectacular recreated gardens restored
from an earlier age. To a great extent this results
from economy, the rich stayed and maintained their ancestral
homes, their structures survived because by their nature
they were expensive and worth keeping.
Daily life is a harder thing to approach.
The homes and places of ordinary people are almost always
either torn down or transformed beyond recognition as
historic places. We build and rebuild and then rebuild
again as time passes and neighborhoods transform from
village centers to commercial streets. The early history
of a place becomes obliterated by time and the march
of progress.
However, every so often a confluence
of people and events accidentally happens preserving
an area. And even more rarely somehow a series of events,
people and economics converge to accidentally preserve
the actual original structures and homes of a centuries
old place. Huguenot Street in New Paltz is one of those
extremely rare and very precious places where the confluence
of time and events conspired to pass by and leave the
historic and founding heart of a place nearly intact,
waiting for you to explore what life was really like.
Huguenot Street, now a National Historic
Landmark, is the oldest continuously inhabited street
in America with its original houses, a wonderful collection
of early Dutch vernacular homes. Built by the original
Patentee holders between about 1692 and 1720, Huguenot
Street is one of the very few places left in America
where you can actually go back in time 300 years and
touch the original emigrants to America. Founded in
1677, New Paltz represents one of the earliest periods
of exploration and settlement in our history. In these
very structures the original settlers of New Paltz gathered
together for protection, lived their lives as farmers
and shop keepers and gathered together to maintain their
unique Huguenot identity and religion.
In the spring of 1678 eleven Huguenot
families arrived on the promontory overlooking the Wallkill
River and established the settlement of New Paltz. Within
20 years they were building their permanent stone homes,
erecting their stone church and expanding their farms
and families. It is these very same stone houses that
still remain on Huguenot Street waiting for you.
Touring the houses of Huguenot Street
is an extraordinary experience. You are guided by well
informed locals enthusiastic in their interests and
knowledge and wanting to bring you into the experience
of Huguenot Street. Amazingly, Huguenot Street is operated
by a small typically under-funded historic society constantly
struggling to keep up with the necessary preservation
as well as struggling to upgrade the reconstruction,
restoration and furnishings of this unique collection
of houses. Each of the houses is "sponsored"
by one of the original family associations that keep
alive the pride and history of their family, resulting
in a slightly erratic collection of furnishings. Over
the centuries, as these houses were lived in changes
were made, additions were erected and in one case an
entire Victorian structure was superimposed burying
the original stone structure.
Despite all of this, or possibly as
a result of all of this, Huguenot Street displays the
full history of New Paltz. Some interiors and structures
are virtually intact back to the 17th century while
some show more recent activity. Huguenot Street proudly
represents this vital timeline of history and family
pride like no other place in the country. You are taken
right back to some of the original settlers, their lives
and their artifacts. And you are brought forward in
time into the middle 20th century with some families,
displaying the vast richness of artifacts and collections
brought together and made possible only because of the
passage of centuries and a dedication to heritage.
Experience Huguenot Street, wander
the street beneath the shady trees. Stroll and explore
the cemetery where the passage of time is displayed
in the stones. Tour the houses and discover the museum,
listen to your guide and ask the questions you want
answered. You'll discover this most unique location
and the richness of American History as it passed through
and between this unparalleled collection of historic
homes. You'll find nothing like it anywhere else, no
matter where you roam.
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