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General News: Focus on 19th-Century Hudson Highlands
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| This engraving of the Idlewild glen appeared in Harpers New Monthly Magazine in 1858. |
October 29, 2008
Have you ever wondered what life was like in the Hudson Highlands in the 1800s? If you would like to get a look at how people viewed Cornwall, the Hudson river, and the world around them, you will have an opportunity on Thursday evening when Stephen Rice, a historian who lives in the village, will present engravings of the era in a talk at Painter’s Tavern. His talk is part of the Evening Speakers series sponsored by the Hudson Highlands Nature Museum.
Professor Rice, who teaches at Ramapo College of New Jersey, says that he became interested in engraved images of the highlands a couple of years back, not long after he moved to Cornwall-on-Hudson with his wife, Jacqui Lunchik, and their two children. The imagines that grabbed his attention included river scenes, like one of a steamboat coming past Storm King Mountain, that shows the river crowded with other ships.
A native of Washington state, Rice says that he is struck by the rich cultural history of the Hudson Highlands and he has identified three clear phases of that history in the 19th century.
In the early part of the 19th century people saw the Highlands as a place rich in mystery and legend, Rice says. The tale of the Culprit Fay, which tells a story of a fairy who inhabited the valley, was penned in the early 1800s and held sway over people’s imagination for decades, he says.
The next phase was characterized by the work of N.P. Willis, the writer and essayist who wrote of the natural beauty of Cornwall to a national audience. This was period when painters, writers and poets extolled the dramatic peaks and hidden glens of the Hudson Highlands.
As the 19th century was winding down, people shifted their focus to the history of the area and its connection to heroes in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, Rice says.
Professor Rice has illustrations from popular publications of the time that reflect how people interpreted the world of the Highlands. They will all be part of his presentation this Thursday that gets underway at 7:30 p.m.
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