Cold Spring, New York

Prior to contact with Europeans, native perspectives regarding land ownership and usage rights were based on an oral tradition of religious and spiritual teachings. These teachings described the land as a living relative who helped in providing for native peoples' existence. As the concept of landownership was therefore at odds with these religious teachings, land was often used communally by those within their community. This perspective differed greatly from increasingly rigid concepts of land ownership and property rights which existed in Europe, Asia (originally the Middle East) for millennia.

These conflicting perspectives regarding concepts of ownership and usage rights resulted in mutual frustration and violence between natives and settlers. While natives quickly understood and adapted to European models of property rights and land ownership, the colonial government in New Amsterdam (seeking to improve trade with natives by limiting violent conflict) created a procedure for land transactions involving natives holding original Indian title of the land to be sold to settlers.

According to this procedure, settlers seeking land ownership in colonial New Amsterdam were required to apply to the colonial government for a license that would allow them to negotiate with and purchase a deed to land held by Native Americans. Only after securing a deed to the land with the consent of local natives would the settlers be granted a land patent to the property.

On December 2, 1680, Dutch traders Lambert Dorlandt and Jan Roelof Sybrandt (Seberinge) applied to purchase a license from Colonial Governor Benjamin Fletcher for a roughly 15,000 acre tract along the eastern shore of the Hudson River shore in present-day Putnam County. At the time, the region sparsely inhabited by Wappinger villages. According to local historians, Dortlandt and Sybrant "obtained a license... in October [of] 1687 permitting their purchase of a deed from the Native Americans." According to historians Oscar Handlin and Irving Mark, the deed "described as a strip of land along the Hudson shore in the Highland, 'beginning at the north side of a hill called Anthony’s Nose at a marked Red Seader Tree, and along said River Northerly to the Land belonging to Stephanus Van Cortlandt and the Heirs of Francis Rhombout and G. Verplanck, and Eastwards in the Woods as far along the said Lands of Stephanus [Van] Cortland and Co. aforesaid to a marked tree...”

On July 15, 1691, Dortlandt and Sybrant secured a deed to the tract from Wappinger leaders, totaling as much as much as 17,480 acres (according to recent historical analysis)[3] along the eastern bank of the Hudson River from the peak on Anthony's Nose to (and including) Pollepel Island, and east to a marked tree which would establish the tract's eastern border.[3] This tract contained a large portion of modern-day Phillipstown, NY, including the entire the Village of Cold Spring.

While many land transactions in colonial America were disputed by settlers and natives, the original lands deeded to Dortlandt and Sybrant (containing the Village of Cold Spring) appear to have been legitimately obtained with the consent of the Wappinger. This is evidenced by testimony from Wappinger leader Daniel Nimham, who, in 1765, sought the assistance of the New York Common Council (and eventually the British Crown) in resolving land disputes over land claimed both by the heirs of Adolph Philipse and Wappinger natives. In this testimony, Nimham states that Wappinger ancestors had sold a tract of "Low Lands on that Part of the Peeks kill [north of modern-day Annsville Creek]... and also a pine swamp containing... a few Acres called Kichtondacongh and a piece of low Land lying Southeasterly from Kichtondacongh called Paukeminshingh."[3] Nimham goes on to contest the sale of any land beyond this initial tract deeded by the Wappinger to Dortlandt and Sybrant, however, recognizes the initial transaction of land (including present-day Cold Spring)as legitimately ceded by the Wappinger to the Dutch.[4]

The first permanent settler in the village of Cold Spring was Merrick Williams in 1730. In 1772, a highway master was chosen for the road from Cold Spring to the Post Road from New York to Albany. Prior to Williams presence, the land was woodlands. A small trading hamlet grew alongside the river by the early 1800s.[5] A couple of sloops made regular weekly trips from Cold Spring to New York, carrying wood and some country produce, which came over this model road from the east. Those trips by sloop usually took a week.

In 1818, Gouverneur Kemble established the West Point Foundry opposite West Point to produce artillery pieces for the United States Government. The nearby mountains contained veins of ore, and were covered with timber for fuel. A brook provided hydropower, and the Hudson a ready shipping outlet. In 1843, the Foundry built the USS Spencer, the first iron ship built in the U.S.[6] With the influx of workers at the Foundry, local housing, businesses and churches increased, and Cold Spring was incorporated as a village in 1846. The first President of the Village was Joshua Haight. The Foundry became famous for its production of Parrott rifles and other munitions during the Civil War, when the foundry grew to a sprawling 100-acre complex employing 1,400. It also manufactured cast iron steam engines for locomotives, gears, and produced much of the pipework for New York's water system. The rise of steel making and the declining demand for cast iron after the Civil War caused the Foundry to cease operations in 1911.[7]

Many artifacts from the Foundry's history can be viewed at the Putnam History Museum on Chestnut Street. Built in 1830, the building was originally a one-room schoolhouse for the Foundry's teenage apprentices and the children of employees.[8]

On January 22, 1896, local businessmen of Cold Spring formed a fire brigade known as the Cold Spring Hose Company, No.1. A horse-drawn hook and ladder was donated in 1899.[9] The Municipal Building, designed by Louis Mekeel, was constructed in 1926 to house the company's first firetruck, an American LaFrance. The company, renamed Cold Spring Fire Company No.1 in 1900, serves the Villages of Cold Spring, Nelsonville and a district in the Town of Philipstown.[10]

Mr. Willis Buckner, a former slave from the South, was a driver and groom for Susan and Anna Bartlett Warner at their farm on Constitution Island. Mr. Buckner taught Sunday School at the Methodist Church.[9] In the early decades of the 20th century, blacks who stayed in this part of New York state migrated away from rural towns to nearby cities with waterfront manufacturing such as Peekskill, Beacon, Newburgh and Ossining. During the 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan had a presence in Cold Spring[11] as well as Fishkill and Nelsonville.

View from Breakneck Ridge hiking trails

Pete Seeger formed the Clearwater organization, an environmental group dedicated to advances in sewer treatment, industrial waste disposal, and addressing the discharge of major pollutants into the Hudson. In 1970, the sloop Clearwater docked for a songfest at Cold Spring. As Seeger appeared on stage to thank the audience for coming, fifteen drunks stood up waving little American flags, yelling “Throw the Commies out.” That night someone cut the sloop's moorings and there were threats to torch the boat. All of this created tension within the Clearwater organization. [12]

Towards the latter part of the nineteenth century artists, writers and prominent families were drawn to Cold Spring by the beauty of the Hudson Highlands. Mansions were built along Morris Avenue, including "Undercliff," the home of publisher George Pope Morris, and "Craigside," the home of Julia and General Daniel Butterfield.[5] To the south, West Point Foundry employees Dr. Frederick Lente built "The Grove," Robert Parker Parrott built "Plumbush," and Hudson River School painter Thomas P. Rossiter built "Fair Lawn."

• 
  Undercliff
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  Fair Lawn
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  Plumbush

Stereoscopic view of the church

Many of the workers at the Foundry were Irish immigrants. As early as 1830, Rev. Fr Philip O'Reilly O.P., from County Cavan, Ireland visited Cold Spring to minister to Catholics. At that time, O'Reilly was also attending to congregations in Newburgh and High Falls. O'Reilly raised money to build a church, and Foundry owner Gouverneur Kemble, an Episcopalian, donated the land and funds. Kemble was denounced in the local newspaper for "abetting the idolatry of the mass".[22] The building was designed in the Greek Revival style by Thomas Kelah Wharton. It was constructed in 1833 of locally made red brick covered with stucco. The church stood twenty-five feet above the river and fifteen feet from the edge of promontory on which it was set. The church was consecrated on Sunday, September 21, 1834 by Bishop John DuBois.[23] In 1837 Rev. Patrick Duffy became pastor, with mission outposts in Newburgh, Poughkeepsie, and Saugerties.[22]

Workers tested cannons by firing at Storm King Mountain. Test firing from the Foundry damaged the chapel walls, and Captain Robert P. Parrott, the then Foundry superintendent paid for repairs. Victorian additions altered the building's integrity, and the coming of the railroad cut it off from the rest of the village. The church was abandoned in 1906 and fell into disrepair. A fire caused further damage in 1927. In 1971, a group of interested persons, including actress Helen Hayes, purchased it from the Archdiocese of New York and undertook restoration. The work was overseen by architect Walter Knight Sturges, and the chapel was re-dedicated as an ecumenical site in 1977.[24]

In the 1900s Our Lady of Loretto had mission stations in Garrison and Manitou. The cornerstone of the present church was laid in 1906. The organ incorporates portions of five post-Civil War ranks of pipes believed to have been built by Levi Stuart.[25] The Grove, also known as Loretto Rest, is a historic house located on Grove Court in Cold Spring. It was built as the estate of Frederick Lente, surgeon at the nearby Foundry and later a founder of the American Academy of Medicine in the mid-19th century. The Italian-villa design, popular at the time, was by the prominent architect Richard Upjohn. After death of Mrs. Lente in 1901, it was inherited by Patrick Connick, pastor of Our Lady of Loretto, and became a convalescent home for priests run by the Sisters of Charity. It was later converted into a convent for Franciscan nuns who taught at the parish school, which operated from 1913 to 1977. In 2008 the building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The early Episcopal congregation was served by clergy from St. Philips in Garrison. In 1835 the Rev. Charles Lucke conducted services in Cold Spring. He was followed by Rev. Henry L. Storrs and then Rev. Edward C. Bull. In 1839 a number of English immigrants arrived to work at the Foundry. As members of the Church of England, the need for a formal Episcopal parish became apparent. Messrs Kemble and Parrott were chosen church wardens. Rev. Ebenezer Williams was the first pastor.[21]

The parish was incorporated on June 19, 1840. It is generally believed that the name of the parish was suggested by Parrott's wife Mary, who provided the funds to build the church. On June 30, Bishop Benjamin T. Onderdonk of the Episcopal Diocese of New York laid the cornerstone. That same year Rev. Williams recorded twenty-five burials, noting the prevalence of sickness in the area. The Gothic brick church, with a tower whose bell weighed 910 pounds, was completed in 1841 and consecrated in November. Besides Bishop Onderdonk, also in attendance were: Rev. John Brown of St. George's Newburgh, Rev. Moses Marcey of St. Peter's Peekskill, and Rev. Freeman Clarkson of St. Anna's of Fishkill Landing.[21]

A second larger church was built in 1867. Designed in the Victorian Gothic style by architect and vestry member George Edward Harney, and built under the direction of Sylvanus Ferris on land donated by Robert Parker Parrott, it was completed the following year. It was constructed of gray granite donated by the estate of Frederick P. James. Situated at Main and Chestnut Streets, the church has a commanding view overlooking the village and river. The consecration of the church took place in a ceremony led by Bishop Horatio Potter on July 23, 1869. On that day the great bell in the tower, weighing 1,100 pounds, rang for the first time.[26]

Initially Sunday school classes were conducted in the basement of the church which proved too dark, damp and cold for the children. Harney and Ferris completed St. Mary's Parish Hall in 1874. The hall was the gift of Frederick and Julia James to honor the memory of their sons Frederick and Julian, who both served in the Union army during the Civil War.[26]

A fire broke out in the north transept in July 1961 causing significant damage to the church's roof and interior. The chancel roof was completely destroyed and the transept roofs were badly burned. The original organ and most of the stained glass were lost while the furniture fortunately survived with little damage. The church was restored within a year and rededicated in 1962 by Bishop Horace W. B. Donegan. Walter Jago of Sleepy Hollow Restoration, the restoration architect, donated the "Christ Window" above the Floyd-Jones altar in the south transept.[26]