Rondout, New York

Originally a maritime village, the arrival of the Delaware and Hudson Canal helped create a city that dwarfed nearby Kingston.

In the Dutch records of Wildwyck (now Kingston, New York), however, the spelling used to designate this same fort is invariably Ronduyt during the earliest period, with the present form rondout (often capitalized) appearing as early as November 22, 1666.

Steamboats, sloops, schooners, and barges loaded with passengers and cargo regularly left the port bound for New York City.

At one time it had a fleet of as many as sixty-two tugboats towing barges of coal and many other materials on the Hudson River to New York and other ports.

Eventually Cornell had a virtual monopoly[clarification needed] of towing on the Hudson River and employed hundreds of workers on their boats and in their workshops along the Rondout Creek.

By 1872 more than thirty steamboats were based in Rondout, many of which, as well as a large number of barges and sailing vessels, were engaged in the transportation of stone, coal, cement, brick, and ice.

The Erie Railroad paid her to clear a passage through the ice for its barge and steamboat traffic from the rail terminal at Piermont to New York.

Jacob Dubois required one week to work the Norwich 20 miles through heavy ice to New York City from Piermont.

[6] Incorporated on April 4, 1849, Rondout served as a Hudson River port for the city of Kingston located about a mile distant.

The works consisted of twenty-one kilns for burning the stone, two mill buildings, four storehouses, capable of storing upwards of 20,000 barrels, a cooperage establishment, millwrights', wheelwrights', blacksmiths', and carpenters' shops, barns stables.

An extensive system of railways transported the stone from the quarries to the top of the kilns, where it was burned by being mixed with culm or fine coal, and then passed by a series of descents through the various stages of manufacture till it arrived in barrels at the wharf ready for shipment.

It contained ten churches, viz., Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, Episcopal, Lutheran, two Roman Catholic and two Jewish; three banks, two newspaper offices, three public schools, several manufactories and about 10,000 inhabitants.

The stage from Ellenville reached Hurley that Monday and stayed until the next day when the driver returned to Rondout with only one sleigh bob.

For decades, those who wished to cross the creek had to embark on a chain ferry named the Riverside, nicknamed the "Skillypot", a derivative of a Dutch word for tortoise.

[7] Prosperity revived briefly with boatbuilding during World War II as three shipyards operated with large work crews building naval vessels.

[4] Construction of the John T. Loughran Bridge over the Esopus Creek required the demolition of a few blocks of the West Strand neighborhood on the north side.

A portion of Rondout's former town center has survived intact and is part of the Rondout-West Strand Historic District.

They were assisted by the Irish Dominican Philip O'Reilly, who had been assigned by Bishop of New York John Dubois to develop parishes along the Hudson.

Rondout was little more than a hamlet at this time and a priest would visit in any month that had five Sundays when Mass would be celebrated at a blind and sash factory on the corner of Mill and Division St.

John N. Smith became pastor at Poughkeepsie, also serving Saugerties and Rondout, where a small frame church was erected in 1840 on land purchased from Abraham Hasbrouck.

Irish Catholic families in Rosendale and Stony Hollow were known to walk the eight or ten miles every Sunday to Mass at St.

Father Maxwell died on August 31, 1849; he was succeeded by the Irish Dominican Thomas Martin, who was pastor from November 1849 to January 1852.

Father Martin attended mission churches in Rosendale, Stony Hollow, Port Ewen, Eddyville, Whiteport, and Saugerties.

[citation needed] Downstream of the village of Eddyville was the hamlet of Wilbur which had thriving industry in trimming and shipping of bluestone.

Some years later the site of the old District School #7 on Wurts Street was purchased and a new Romanesque church was dedicated on May 26, 1872, by Archbishop John McCloskey.

The Rondout-West Strand Historic District constitutes the major portion of the extant nineteenth-century village of Rondout.

[7] Due to the decline of business and building activities after the turn of the twentieth century, what remains still displays its nineteenth-century character.

Although a large eastern portion of the Rondout area was demolished in the recent past, the section remaining illustrates what was a booming trading and industrial community.

The Clearwater has its winter home port here and visits frequently as do many historic reproduction vessels such as the Onrust and the Half Moon.

[23] According to representatives of the ICCHV, the site is important to the Irish in the Hudson Valley, as the area was once dubbed “Little Dublin” because of the laborers who built the canal and stayed to work on it.