Hudson River Maritime Museum
Opens for the 2005 Season
11 am, April 30

2005 Exhibit
"A Tale of Two Ports, Kingston & Newburgh"

Mayor James M. Sottile, City of Kingston, and Mayor Nicholas Valentine, City of Newburgh, will speak at a ceremony opening the Hudson River Maritime Museum's 2005 season and the museum's 2005 exhibit, "A Tale of Two Ports: Kingston and Newburgh," on Saturday, April 30, at 11:00 am.

Schedule of Activities on April 30th
11:00 am Museum open
11:15 am Grand Opening with Mayors Sottile and Valentine
1:00 pm Lecture and Book Signing, "Hudson River Whalers," with author Margaret B. Schram
3:30 pm “A Taste of Rondout” Raffle. Drawing will include gift certificates to many of the Rondout Waterfront Historic District businesses including dinner for two (value $50) at Mariner’s Harbor and four tickets on Hudson River Cruises’ “Rip Van Winkle” (value $80).
   

Admission to the museum and exhibits will be free all day. There is a $4 admission fee for the lecture and book signing. For information, call 845-338-0071, extension 13.

A Tale of Two Ports: Newburgh and Kingston on the Hudson

Kingston and Newburgh are two Hudson Valley cities of similar size with a shared history of shipping as the dominant business locally at different times and for different reasons. Both Kingston and Newburgh had transportation barons who controlled nearly all means of public transport locally for long periods in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These families, Cornell-Coykendall in Kingston and Powell-Ramsdell in Newburgh, were the most successful business people of their time in these cities.

During the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Newburgh was the shipping port for farm products from the interior of the surrounding countryside. Newburgh is located sixty miles from New York City just north of the entrance to the Hudson Highlands, a chain of picturesque mountains which come right down to the edge of the Hudson for a distance of about thirty miles on both sides of the river.

Kingston was set several miles back from the river on a plateau of fine farmland along the Esopus Creek in what is now called uptown Kingston. Shipping was not a big part of the farming economy there until the opening of the Delaware and Hudson Canal in 1828 brought coal to the area on the Rondout Creek called Rondout. Since coal was to become the dominant fuel of the new industrial age developing in the 19th century in the Northeast, Rondout, the port of Kingston, jumped into existence and became a boomtown almost overnight. The quiet farming village of Kingston was to change into the busy shipping and industrial town of Kingston by the end of the 19th century because of the shipping of coal and other products like ice, bricks, cement, and bluestone produced from the earth and water of Ulster County.

"A Tale of Two Ports: Newburgh and Kingston"
The Hudson River Maritime Museum's 2005 exhibit,

Rondout historic district of Kingston, NY

Rondout: Hudson River Port 1850-1950,
The Hudson River Maritime Museum´s 1998 Exhibit

Directions to the Hudson River Maritime Museum

Hudson River Maritime Museum web site and calendar

Hudson River Maritime Museum 2005 hours of operation

General Admission Hours
Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday
April 30 through October 31, 2005
11 am to 4 pm
Closed Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday
Memorial Day, Independence Day & Labor Day — Museum closed

Open for group tours of 15 or more
April 30 through October 31, 2005
Reservations required, call the education manager, 845-338-0071, extension 15

These periodic newsletters and announcements are published to promote the historic, cultural, and maritime resources of the Hudson River.

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Index of 2005 Newsletters