HISTORY OF SAUGERTIES

In the spring of 1811 the Town of Saugerties in Ulster County began its life when it separated from the Town of Kingston. Its history, however, starts 131 years earlier when the current land was part of “The Kingston Commons” created by the 1688 charter to the Corporation of Kingston. Early documents, survey maps, stone houses and our earliest roads are our reference points to this Colonial period.

In these early times there was little privately owned property. Our first European inhabitants farmed, herded cattle and cut wood for many generations on the Common lands of the Town of Kingston. The few privately owned lands were parts of several Crown patents granted along the river or close to the main road -- the Kings Highway, or were Kingston Trustees’ leases to Palatines who, after 1712, began pioneering at Kaatsbaan, along the Saxton Flats and toward the Woodstock Valley.

By the time of the American Revolution, small clusters of stores and settlements had stabilized in three hamlets at intersections of clove roads (coming down from the mountains) with the Kings Highway at Trumpbour's Corners, Kaatsbaan and Plattekill.  These ancient pathways with direct access to the interior brought the British fleet to occupy its Hudson River frontage in 1777.  It took decades after the Revolution to have a few dozen homes in the area we now call the Village of Saugerties, and have river front development plans begin to attract settlement to the south along the Glasco bluffs and to the north at what is now Malden.

After the Town of Kingston in 1804 divided and sold its common lands in what was to become the Town of Saugerties, few of the buyers actually settled on their newly purchased acquisitions because many of them  already lived in the village of Kingston. However, that changed around 1815, when the population began to expand along the turnpikes that carried the heavy wagon traffic towards the river from mountain tanneries and the farms of Central New York. By 1825, Saugerties had developed three major east – west land routes and three tidewater shipping ports to handle the increasing commercial traffic. New hamlets sprouted up at Shultis Corners, High Woods, Veteran, Blue Mountain, Quarryville and Brett’s Corners (the Saugerties side of Palenville). This early settlement period is preserved in the cluster of churches, shops, schools, and houses of some of the old hamlets and the village.

The Colonial Period in Saugerties ended when in 1824 Henry Barclay started developing water powered milling industries where the Esopus Creek meets the Hudson River. Factory workers, dock workers, masons, merchants, civil engineers, teamsters and assorted craftsmen arrived in large numbers, mostly from Ireland and England. The large and sudden population growth provided the impetus for incorporating the Village of Saugerties in 1831 but had also a domino effect on the surrounding countryside. Hamlets began to prosper as Village demand for fuel supplies, agricultural products, and other merchandise produced in the rural areas increased.

In addition to developing an industrial center, Barclay took a leading role in urban development. He planned a model village for the stream of immigrants attracted to the booming paper and iron industries as well as the more recent bluestone industry. Churches and stylish homes on a street grid with river and mountain views came to symbolize community prosperity and stability. In 1827, after creating the most sophisticated water power distribution system of its day, Barclay imported and installed the first machine to produce roll to roll paper in America.  Other technological visionaries followed, including John Simmons who brought to Saugerties the “puddling” process for purifying iron.  This “first” in America presaged the steel industry. The strength and durability of bar and plate made the Saugerties' Ulster Iron Works a prototype for all advanced metal processing businesses that followed.  Saugerties developed a reputation as a hotbed of inventiveness and a showcase of progressive industry. When Silas Brainard, brought by Henry Barclay to Saugerties to help build the first bridge across the Esopus, began the first commercial quarrying of bluestone around 1832,  he established the first non-agricultural land use in the countryside. It became Saugerties' signature industry over the next decades.

By the Civil War, the generation that had founded the industries in Saugerties and created its prosperity, had passed on. Within the next decades, their heirs used this wealth to redirect Saugerties into a mercantile and banking center, which brought a new order to both village and countryside. By the 1890's the iron mill’s smoky and loud reputation had been lost to Pittsburgh, and the quarrying that had brutalized the local countryside, had moved its center westward but both had left Saugerties with a reputation as a place of profitable investment.

When during the Gilded Age of the late nineteenth century the wealthy social set of urban New York City acquired country seats along the Hudson, most of these grand estates were built on the other side of the river. But Saugerties’ local businesses and services also benefited and flourished, due largely to the railroad and steamboat connections.  Even some of the grand estate architect’s renditions filtered down to stylistic new homes in the Village. Examples of buildings typical for the social aspirations of that time were located in the Saugerties’ business district or on large tracts on the river. The late century Maxwell House Hotel, Maxwell Opera House, Esopus Rowing Club, horse racing tracks and an expansive system of bicycling roads were all attractions for the members of the high society of the time. They carried on a local tradition of housing guests in style and sharing scenic outdoor pursuits as a venue for planned social gatherings that dated back to Henry Barclay’s way of entertaining to lure prospective investors to Saugerties.

By 1900 the old Woodstock-Saugerties turnpike was being improved for bicycles and the new automobile to encourage recreation and tourism.  The old commercial roads were becoming links to new art centers and summer boarding houses in the Saugerties–Woodstock heartlands. It was not until the mid 20th century that the interstate road systems and the decline of river and rail transportation caused Saugerties to lose its long status as the social center for summer guests.

The last quarter of the 20th century saw a renaissance in Saugerties. The National Register listing of the business district of the Village, of the Saugerties Lighthouse and of Harvey Fite’s Opus 40 brought renewed attention to the strengths of Saugerties' past. The 25^th anniversary concert of the Woodstock Festival held on the Winston Farm in 1994 brought international attention to Saugerties‘ many attributes.

Since then, Saugerties has featured its past as one of its most important assets, has created strong historic preservation policies, and has centered its planning imperatives on a solid quality-of-life foundation that honors its past.

Michael Sullivan Smith, Town of Saugerties Historic Preservation Commission  ©