The Jacob T. Walden House

This week, the Curatorial staff is eager to share a 19th-century image of a familiar local treasure. This glass plate negative from 1888 offers a view of the Ro...sendale Trestle, and Joppenbergh Mountain beyond. Rosendale cement mines can be clearly seen in the side of the mountain. These cement mines were a part of Ulster County’s nearly 150-year history of cement production. Due to the large deposits of dolomite limestone found in the area, Rosendale became a thriving production site for more than a third of the country’s cement plants. Cement from the Rosendale mines was used in a multitude of quintessential landmarks and monuments including the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty’s base, the wings of the U.S. Capitol, and the Washington Monument. Today, the bridge is a part of the Wallkill Valley Rail Trail and one can walk across it just like the individuals pictured over 100 years ago, albeit now with significantly safer guardrails! Glass Plate Negative, 1888. Historic Huguenot Street Archives, Gift of Amy LeFevre.

Happy Halloween from the Trustees of the Historical Society of Walden and the Wallkill Valley!! Is the Jacob T. Walden House haunted? You'll have to attend meetings and see! Happy History Haunting--Hunting, that is! From the March 2007 Walden House Tattler newsletter, an excerpt of a Times Herald-Record article that appeared sometime in the 1960s, by Mildred Parker Seese.

This popped up on the Pine Bush Memory Lane page. So funny!

By popular request . . . here’s our amazing Hudson Valley in all of its Fall splendor, enjoy