The History Keepers' Companion is undergoing some historical changes!
Compiled and edited by Greater Hudson Heritage Network in 1998, the History Keepers' Companion is a print publication that lists historical sites, area historians and libraries in nine counties: Bronx, Dutchess, Putnam, Orange, Rockland, Ulster, Westchester and Western Connecticut.
We are in the process of updating and compiling new information and will be putting a new and improved guide online soon!
We are in the process of updating and compiling new information and will be putting a new and improved guide online soon!
Meet the heritage of the Hudson Valley through real and research explorations of this uncommon region. Nearly 350 destinations in nine core counties.
In an American region whose stunning story is expressed through the celebrated sites and sources of 300 years’ time, some of us have become “finders” and others “Keepers” of this heritage. This guide will serve both researchers and public visitors. The continuity of regional history is maintained in the public trust by the collecting repositories and interpretive museums, by municipal historians, and by the staff, boards and volunteer history keepers who preserve the sites and sources of our communities’ pasts.
The region which you are about to explore shares a common history dating to that time when a political move found Puritans, Pilgrims, Dutchmen, Black, Huguenots, Walloons, the polyglot northern European residents of Nieuw Amsterdam and Native Americans in the same boat. We have been trained to think in terms of historical compartments: New England, the Middle Atlantic States, etc., but geographical familial, political, economic and cultural links make this a region worth exploring with an eye to connections.
Out of the common boat in which 17th Century folk found themselves, have come untold historical riches: castles, stone houses and longhouses, industrial and circus paraphernalia, state and national historic sites, a Presidential Library and local libraries full of genealogical materials, galleries of folk arts and fine art, great museums and local historical societies, colleges, archives and universities; parks, planned romantic landscapes, archaeological digs and historic farmsteads, fine furniture and hand-crafted tools; silken garments and crazy quilts; Revolutionary War forts and the nation’s foremost military training academy; the oldest street in American and some of its newest ethnic neighborhoods- an encyclopedic array representing a global community growing in a regional corner of America.
History is kept and presented differently throughout the area. Both New York and Connecticut have official State Historians, but New York also has a management system of appointed county historians who guide the work of town, village and city historians. Connecticut relies primarily on historical societies and institutions at the town, village and city level to keep historical resources and make them accessible. Tourism marketing agencies, area arts councils, the Greenway Conservancy for the Hudson River Valley and a myriad of environmental resource agencies also assist in many areas producing seasonal calendars announcing historical events and circulating brochures from individual institutions.
Following an historical trail requires the imagination to see potential relationships and to discover history in both obvious and unusual places. Along the way you will encounter some of the nation’s and the world’s most exciting people, places, architecture, art and cultural objects, sited in the view shed of what we believe to be one of the earth’s most beautiful natural settings.
Some of the clues to the complex relationships within the region are to be found as you leaf through the holdings and missions of the institutions encompassed in this guide. Other connections will be apparent only by studying the original source materials entrusted to our history keepers.
Follow both the beaten and the less trodden path through the region’s communities- accompanied by this History Keepers’ Companion.
In an American region whose stunning story is expressed through the celebrated sites and sources of 300 years’ time, some of us have become “finders” and others “Keepers” of this heritage. This guide will serve both researchers and public visitors. The continuity of regional history is maintained in the public trust by the collecting repositories and interpretive museums, by municipal historians, and by the staff, boards and volunteer history keepers who preserve the sites and sources of our communities’ pasts.
The region which you are about to explore shares a common history dating to that time when a political move found Puritans, Pilgrims, Dutchmen, Black, Huguenots, Walloons, the polyglot northern European residents of Nieuw Amsterdam and Native Americans in the same boat. We have been trained to think in terms of historical compartments: New England, the Middle Atlantic States, etc., but geographical familial, political, economic and cultural links make this a region worth exploring with an eye to connections.
Out of the common boat in which 17th Century folk found themselves, have come untold historical riches: castles, stone houses and longhouses, industrial and circus paraphernalia, state and national historic sites, a Presidential Library and local libraries full of genealogical materials, galleries of folk arts and fine art, great museums and local historical societies, colleges, archives and universities; parks, planned romantic landscapes, archaeological digs and historic farmsteads, fine furniture and hand-crafted tools; silken garments and crazy quilts; Revolutionary War forts and the nation’s foremost military training academy; the oldest street in American and some of its newest ethnic neighborhoods- an encyclopedic array representing a global community growing in a regional corner of America.
History is kept and presented differently throughout the area. Both New York and Connecticut have official State Historians, but New York also has a management system of appointed county historians who guide the work of town, village and city historians. Connecticut relies primarily on historical societies and institutions at the town, village and city level to keep historical resources and make them accessible. Tourism marketing agencies, area arts councils, the Greenway Conservancy for the Hudson River Valley and a myriad of environmental resource agencies also assist in many areas producing seasonal calendars announcing historical events and circulating brochures from individual institutions.
Following an historical trail requires the imagination to see potential relationships and to discover history in both obvious and unusual places. Along the way you will encounter some of the nation’s and the world’s most exciting people, places, architecture, art and cultural objects, sited in the view shed of what we believe to be one of the earth’s most beautiful natural settings.
Some of the clues to the complex relationships within the region are to be found as you leaf through the holdings and missions of the institutions encompassed in this guide. Other connections will be apparent only by studying the original source materials entrusted to our history keepers.
Follow both the beaten and the less trodden path through the region’s communities- accompanied by this History Keepers’ Companion.