April 12^th is a date with very significant date in American history for multiple reasons. In 1861 the American Civil War began in Fort Sumter, SC. In 1981, the first shuttle was launched into space at Cape Canaveral. And perhaps most significant to us here in the Hudson Valley, in 1945, one of our most historic residents, then President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, passed away in Warm Springs, Georgia.

     Franklin Delano Roosevelt resided in Hyde Park but had deep ties to Newburgh. His mother, Sara Delano, was born at Algonac, one of the family’s estates in the Town of Newburgh in 1854. Sara met her husband James Roosevelt at Algonac at a party celebrating Teddy Roosevelt’s graduation from Harvard. FDR spent many childhood summers at Algonac. After he married Eleanor, they spent some of their honeymoon here. Franklin’s aunt Annie Delano Hitch was a major philanthropist in Newburgh, perhaps most notably today as the benefactor and namesake of the Delano-Hitch Recreational Park.