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November 2025
All-digital Hurley Heritage Society Prologue
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President's Message
Holiday Greetings from Main Street
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As the Museum season draws to a close, I am deeply grateful to our members and the community who helped make 2025 so successful.
A few highlights of our 2025 season were the unveiling of our new exhibit, (The Wynkoop House, Inspiring the arts across the centuries), a record number of visitors to the Museum and sold-out walking tours of Main Street, successful Spring and Fall flower sales, well attended Zoom lectures, and enjoyable school group visits. In addition, our Fall auction fundraiser was an enormous success, thanks to the generous donations of our supporters. The last of the auction items, a beautiful grandfather clock was delivered to its new home, courtesy of Lee Goldstein and Mike Rice. See the happy clock recipient in the photo below!
At this time, I would like to recognize and thank the hard-working members of the Hurley Heritage Society’s Board of Trustees. It has been my pleasure to work with Dale Bohan, Maureen Bowers, Katherine Chansky, Pat Findholt, Kathy McMahon, Mike Rice, Bill Ryan, Virginia Starke, Ellen Young and Barbara Zell.
Although our Museum season has officially ended, we have one more event planned. Be sure to kick off the holiday season with a visit to our annual Holiday Boutique on November 29th and 30th.
Lastly, be sure to visit our website, www.hurleyheritagesociety.org for event announcements, information on our museum exhibits, Hurley history, online versions of our ZOOM lectures, and an archive of our Prologue newsletters. I am looking forward to next season when our new exhibit, Hurley in the Revolution is unveiled, and for the return of the much-anticipated Hurley Heritage Day.
My wishes for a very Happy and Healthy Holiday. See you next year!
Diane Blakely
President
Hurley Heritage Society
dianemblakely@gmail.com
| | Member Tribute - Viola Opdahl | | |
Viola Opdahl, a beloved long-time volunteer for the Hurley Heritage Society passed away on November 4, 2025 at age 100. Viola contributed to HHS in a variety of roles. She served on the accession committee for many years, in the Museum as docent and shop clerk, and, in recent years, on the Winslow Homer exhibit committee. She relished living in the historic Wynkoop House and was inspired to research the Wynkoop family and preserve its papers and legacy. She opened her house on the Hurley Reformed Church’s Stone House Days and regaled visitors with her many stories of Hurley and the Wynkoops. In the 1980s, she welcomed the crew of Tootsie to film on the property. She wrote two lively historical articles for the Prologue relating to Homer’s time in Hurley and to her life on the Hurley Flats. Two recent donations to the Museum were an archive of Wynkoop papers and an 18th-century New York slat-back great chair.
Viola had the heart of a teacher, a fine quality that never left her. We at HHS are grateful to have known her as a friend and to have benefited from her wisdom, generosity, and unflagging curiosity in the history of our town. Her life is a model for us all.
| A Fond Farewell to our Post Office Exhibit | | |
In the Spring of 2023 we opened a new exhibit in the Hurley Heritage Society Museum. Post Offices of Hurley: 1837 to the Present focused on the colorful evolution of town post offices. Even to this day, post offices remain a hub supporting the social and business life of residents. Visitors entering our exhibition room were transported into the reconstructed interior of a vintage post office. A dozen display panels circling the room guided the visitor through the seven iterations of the hamlet of Hurley post offices, and through the upheaval caused by reservoir construction of the Ashton, West Hurley, Glenford, and Spillway post offices. Children were given the opportunity to open a vintage mailbox for a gift, and visitors could listen to our curator, Bruce Whistance, narrate stations of the exhibit.
One highlight in the room was the original sorting station that was in the Hurley Post Office on Main Street before it was relocated. We are grateful to Katie Greaves and Alex Perfect who generously loaned us this beautiful piece for the duration of our exhibit. Many Hurley residents discovered their own names on the sorting station, which turned out to be a photo-op! Visitors, some international, were able to send postcards imprinted with a Hurley postmark.
The Hurley Heritage Society is deeply appreciative of this dedicated team who contributed to the exhibit. It is through their creativity and generosity that we were able to offer this unique exhibit:
Bruce Whistance – creator, narrator, Gail Whistance – curator, Dale Bohan, Joan Castka, Katherine Chansky, Jim Chansky, Angie Mahdavian, Kathy McMahon and Arlene Ryan
And a special thanks to Dan Zalewski who recreated the Post Office display using the actual parts retrieved from our Hurley Post Office.
If you missed the opportunity to see this exhibit, we are planning to add it on-line to our website next year. Watch for the announcement!
| | Capital to Capital 5K Run/Walk | | |
On October 19th, The Hurley Heritage Society welcomed runners from the Rotary Club of Kingston’s Fourth Capital to Capital 5K Run/Walk as they crossed the finish line. Refreshments were provided at the awards ceremony. The event raised money for the Ulster County SPCA.
Participants ran or walked along the new segment of the O&W Rail Trail, beginning on Washington Avenue to School House Lane in Hurley, ending at the Museum.
The Rotary Capital to Capital 5K commemorates the Burning of Kingston, when, in October 1777, over 2,000 Kingston refugees fled to the Town of Hurley as British soldiers burned their city to the ground.
Congratulations to all!
| | Hurley Heritage Society's Annual Holiday Boutique | | |
‘Tis the Season! Mark your calendar! Hurley Heritage Society’s Annual Holiday Boutique is the weekend following Thanksgiving, Saturday, November 29th from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. and Sunday, November 30th from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Join us in the Museum at 52 Main Street, Hurley, for fun and refreshments.
You’ll find a treasure trove of holiday items including seasonal decorations, tree ornaments, Christmas stockings, china, crystal, glassware, candlesticks, linens, books, toys, games, puzzles, and more! This is a perfect chance to discover some wonderful holiday bargains.
In addition, the Museum gift shop will be open with a great selection of Delft ware, Hurley tee shirts, ball caps, books, rooster mugs and other gifts. Don’t miss this great opportunity to get the perfect presents for friends and family!
We appreciate the many donations from the community that have always made this a fun community event. We will continue to collect your gently used holiday treasures until Sunday November 23rd. Donations can be left on the back porch of the Museum.
The Annual Holiday Boutique is a fundraiser for the Hurley Heritage Society and Museum, an all-volunteer organization dedicated to Preserving, Protecting, Educating and Celebrating Hurley’s unique heritage, including the operation of the Hurley Heritage Society Museum.
We kindly ask that you refrain from parking in the Hurley Library parking lot while visiting our Museum. You are welcome to park in the old library parking lot located next door to the library at 44 Main Street. Thank you for your cooperation.
| | Notice of Hurley Heritage Society Annual Meeting | | |
The Hurley Heritage Society’s annual membership meeting will be held Tuesday, December 2nd, 2025, at 6:00 PM at The Hurley Heritage Society Museum, 52 Main Street, Hurley, NY. We invite HHS members in good standing to attend. We will be voting on the slate of trustees for 2026.
To view the current roster of Officers and Trustees for the 2025 year, please refer to our website www.hurleyheritagesociety.org, under About Us.
The slate of trustees up for election will also be posted on the website prior to the meeting; an e-mail will be sent when it becomes available.
The Constitution and By-Laws can also be viewed on our website.
If approved, the 2026 Board of Trustees will be as follows:
Diane Blakely
Dale Bohan
Maureen Bowers
Pat Findholt
Kathy McMahon
Mike Rice
Bill Ryan
Virginia Starke
Erin von Holdt - Gilbert
Ellen Young
Barbara Zell
| | Winslow Homer Exhibit featured in The Overlook | | |
Book Review --- A Hudson Valley Reckoning: Discovering the Forgotten History of Slaveholding in My Dutch American Family, by Debra Bruno with an afterword by Eleanor C. Mire;
Cornell University Press; 2024
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In the summer of 2022, Eleanor Mire and Debra Bruno visited the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown to view the Van Bergen Overmantel, a long narrow piece of cherry wood with a depiction of the Van Bergen family farm in Leeds, Greene County, painted between 1728-1738. Martin Van Bergen and his wife stand in front of their red-roofed farmhouse, surrounded by lively scenes—their children playing, 2 White indentured servants and 4 Black enslaved people working, livestock grazing, and a Native American woman and man walking past in the foreground. Now recognized as the first pictorial representation of the multiracial, varied class structure of rural colonial New York, the overmantel meant much more to Mire and Bruno. In investigating their respective family genealogies, they had discovered that Mire’s African-descended ancestors had probably been enslaved by Bruno’s Dutch ancestors—ancestors who were represented in this picture.
Debra Bruno recounts the story of their collaborative research in A Hudson Valley Reckoning: Discovering the Forgotten History of Slaveholding in My Dutch American Family. Bruno grew up in Athens, NY, near Coxsackie, and while she always knew her mother’s family had deep roots there, going back to the Dutch, she was not aware that slavery had been such an integral part of the New York State economy since its earliest days; at least 20 of the Hudson Valley families she is descended from held people in involuntary bondage. Eleanor’s grandmother had told her that they had Dutch and Native American ancestry from New York State, but also claimed that none of their family had ever been enslaved; she would uncover evidence that showed this was not true.
Anyone who has fallen down the ancestry.com rabbit hole will appreciate the dogged determination both women demonstrate as they wade through old wills, local histories, census records (some charred at the edges), legislation, cemeteries, and the rare manumission record, trying to keep track of sons who are named after fathers, and the shifting name changes of Black people. It became clear that they required more historical context to make sense of the puzzle pieces they were trying to piece together, from the local perspective of Greene County to larger state and national events. Bruno relies on contemporary scholarship and meticulous archival research to provide information about the legislation and cultural attitudes that shaped how the institution of slavery operated in rural upstate New York for more than 2 centuries. Of particular value is her discussion of New York State’s slow and complicated Gradual Abolition Act (1799-1827) and its long aftermath, especially as the 200th year commemoration is on the horizon.
Bruno’s career as a journalist is evident in her ability to draw together a range of sources, but she is also a wonderful storyteller. What makes this book so engaging are the individual histories she gleans from their detective work: Mary Egberts Van Bergen Vanderzee, Eleanor’s 3X great-grandmother and the matriarch of a prosperous family with a branch in Kingston who lived to the age of 103; Reverend Wilhelm Christoph Berkenmeyer, whose controversial decision to baptize enslaved children and perform interracial marriages in the early 1700s was eclipsed by later accusations of sexual misconduct; the Abeel family, Patriots who were surprised when Native American and Loyalist raiders burst into their house in 1780, and perhaps just as surprised to find out that the enslaved people in their household knew about this planned attacked and plugged all their rifle barrels with ash so they wouldn’t be able to defend themselves.
Throughout, Bruno is also forthright about how uncovering this information about slavery affected her as the descendent of so many enslavers. “I’m changed,” she writes in her last chapter, titled “Repair.” “I see now that my vision had been clouded with the blurry haze of simplistic history. My lens now makes it impossible for me to see my nation’s story without the overlay of slavery.” In her afterword, Mire explains that she went into the project with the desire to “tell the real story of real people.” A Hudson Valley Reckoning succeeds in bringing the real story of slavery in Greene County into sharper focus, but it also reveals how much work remains to be done to repair the gaps in our understanding of US racial history, beginning with our own local histories.
| | Hurley Heritage Society Annual Meeting | | |
The Hurley Heritage Society’s annual membership meeting will be held Tuesday, December 2nd , 2025 at 6:00 PM at The Hurley Heritage Museum, 52 Main Street, Hurley, NY. We invite HHS members in good standing to attend. We will be voting on the slate of trustees for 2026. There will also be a report on the board approved changes to the By-Laws, if any.
To view the current roster of Officers and Trustees for the 2025 year, please refer to our website www.hurleyheritagesociety.org/about-us.
The slate of trustees up for election will be posted on the website prior to the meeting; an e-mail will be sent when it becomes available.
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In October, we met to discuss the book Patriots and Spies in Revolutionary New York by A. J. Schenkman. Next month we will look back in time by way of an exciting new film. Join us as we brush up on local lore and learn some new facts about our shared heritage.
The American Revolution by Ken Burns, Sarah Botstein and David Schmidt takes a fresh look at the founding of our nation. This new film airs on PBS starting November 16th.
“Thirteen American colonies unite in rebellion, win an eight-year war to secure their independence, and establish a new form of government that would inspire democratic movements at home and around the globe. What begins as a political clash between colonists and the British government grows into a bloody struggle that will engage more than two dozen nations and forever change the world”—Ken Burns website https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/the-american-revolution/#sticky-about-the-film.
The American Revolution is available to stream on pbs.org and the free PBS App, available on iPhone, Apple TV, Android TV, Android smartphones, Amazon Fire TV, Amazon Fire Tablet, Roku, Samsung Smart TV, and Vizio.
Join us for a film discussion at the Hurley Heritage museum on Friday, December 5th at 3 P.M. You do not have to watch all 6 episodes to join the discussion! Email Katherine at k.chansky507@gmail for a copy of discussion questions, and a reading list.
| | We are taking orders for Heritage Walk Bricks | | |
The bricks on our beautiful walkway on the front lawn of the Museum serve as a lasting tribute to our loved ones. Last month we were excited to announce that after a brief pause, we are once again offering the opportunity to purchase a commemorative brick.
Show your support of the HHS Museum by purchasing a brick in your family’s name or to honor someone close to you. For a $125 donation your brick will be added to the walk.
The inscription may be composed of as many as four lines of eighteen characters. If interested, please contact Maureen Bowers at (845) 331-3665 (home), (914) 466-0710 (mobile) or send an email to mobowers@aol.com.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank Wally Cook for his years of dedication to managing the brick program. And a big thank you as well to Maureen who is taking over the ordering, and to Eric Fiore who has graciously volunteered to manage the installation of the bricks and upkeep of the walk.
| Walking Tours of Historic Main St. resume in May | | |
Our walking tours of historic Main Street saw record breaking numbers this season. Many thanks to this year’s guides, Angie Mahdavian, Richard Cattabiani, Mike Rice, Joan Castka and Lise Hopson.
Tours will resume next season on the 4th Sunday of the month, May - October. Knowledgeable guides share unique stories and historical facts, as the tourist stands before stone houses 230-330 years old and imagines the life and times of their occupants.
Tours begin at the HHS Museum, 52 Main Street, Hurley, at 2PM. For more information and to register please visit our HHS website at guided Walking Tour of Hurley's historic Main Street. Registration is required in advance to ensure we schedule a tour guide. You will not be charged at the time of registration. Donations of $5 are payable at the door, children under 12 are free.
Main Street Hurley, a National Historic Landmark, is compact and small enough for easy walking to view many of the historic locations, and other properties only a short distance away. Please download or print our Walking Tour Brochure for a self-guided tour map which identifies 27 historic sites in and around the village of Hurley.
Contact us at Info@hurleyheritagesociety.org to arrange for private or group tours.
| | Become a Member of Hurley Heritage Society | | |
We are accepting membership donations for the upcoming 2026 season. If you would like to renew your membership, or become a new member, please use the form below, or join through our website at https://www.hurleyheritagesociety.org/join/
The Hurley Heritage Society maintains and operates the Hurley Museum, which is free and open to the public May through October. We strive to collect and preserve materials, documents and artifacts pertaining to the Hurley area, including Old Hurley, West Hurley and Glenford. Our mission is to raise awareness and educate the public of the town’s unique heritage through events, lectures, programs, tours and community initiatives.
Your membership dues enable us to maintain our museum building, and to continue to provide activities for the community and visitors, to our beautiful historic Hurley. You will also receive our periodic newsletters with advance notice of planned activities, our quarterly Prologue, discounts in the museum shop, and discounts to HHS sponsored events.
Thanks to the generous donations of our members, this year we were able to improve the safety of the back entrance to the museum with a beautiful new bluestone sidewalk. Thank you to trustee Pat Findholt who worked with Steve Owens to design and install this lovely improvement to our grounds.
Please help by sending your tax-deductible donation to:
Hurley Heritage Society
C/O Barbara Zell
237 Thomas Street
Hurley, NY 12443
Dues and donations can also be made through our website using PayPal
https://www.hurleyheritagesociety.org/join/
Membership levels are as follows:
( ) Single $30
( ) Family $40
( ) Patron $175
( ) Lifetime Support $300
( ) Donation ____
For timely email updates on HHS activities and our quarterly Prologue, please provide your email address.
| | Volunteer at Hurley Heritage Society | |
If you have a passion for Hurley and local history and are looking for a way to become more involved in the community, the Hurley Heritage Society offers many opportunities! Founded 50 years ago, our mission is to protect and preserve materials, documents and artifacts pertaining to the Hurley area, and raise awareness and educate the public of the town’s special heritage through events, lectures, programs, tours and community initiatives.
We are an all-volunteer organization, and sponsor a variety of activities including walking tours of historic Main Street, our popular ZOOM and in-person lectures on local culture and history, children’s activities and informative demonstrations. We also operate the Museum which remains free and open to the public, and houses the Dutch room, Gift shop and 2 exhibits.
Volunteers are always needed to greet visitors, volunteer in our gift shop, assist with events, and maintain our collections, the museum, and grounds. If you are interested, please go to the volunteer link on the HHS website: www.hurleyheritagesociety.org/volunteer/
If you would like to speak to someone about volunteer opportunities prior to signing up, please call or e-mail me I would be happy to personally discuss with you or meet you at the museum to show you around and introduce you to some of our volunteers.
(Diane Blakely, (845) 943-0493 or dianemblakely@gmail.com)
| | Hurley Heritage Day returns on September 19, 2026 | | |
We are excited to announce the plans for our 3rd Hurley Heritage Day, which returns to the Hurley Museum and Library grounds on September 19th, 2026. We once again have an incredible day planned! We will have food trucks, live music, crafts, a variety of vendors, children’s activities and informational tables from local groups. Watch our website for updated details and information about how you can volunteer to help.
Our previous Hurley Heritage Days were highly successful and enjoyed by all who attended, and our 2026 event promises to offer even more. Be sure to visit our website and follow us on Facebook at to stay up to date on Hurley Heritage Day 2026!
Vendor space is available. If you're interested please email hhd@hurleyheritagesociety.org.
| | New exhibit to be unveiled in 2026 | | |
Mark Your Calendars!
Next season, to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, we will debut a new exhibit, Hurley in the Revolution. We're taking a deep dive into old stories, and including new material, about the lives of everyday folks in Hurley. We are kicking off two years of engaging programming with spinning and weaving textile demos, and live sheep shearing (and petting) by local artisans. And you won't want to miss our Lego recreation of the village!
We hope to see you there on Opening Day, May 2nd 2026.
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