Slideshow this Sunday: A Voyage up the Hudson in Historic Photographs

Palisades from Englewood Landing (repairing shad net), ca. 1870

The Historical Society’s annual meetings are important but painless affairs, generally lasting from 5 to 10 minutes. Then we get to sit back and relax and enjoy a great lecture or concert, which is always free and open to the public.

This year we are combining our efforts with the Friends of the Hastings Public Library, and we will both have our annual meetings at the Library this Sunday, June 6th, at 2PM. Our program will be a lecture by local author Tony Peluso, who will guide us up the Hudson River from Manhattan to Lake Luzerne using some of the many fabulous items in his personal collection of old photographs, stereo views, and ephemera, some as old as 1850 and as “modern” as 1930.

Tony, who lives in Yonkers, has been writing for the Maine Antique Digest for the last thirty years. Last year he lent us several items for our 1909 Hudson-Fulton Celebration exhibition, including two fabulous miniature replicas of Robert Fulton’s ship, the “Clermont.” And then, a few months ago, Tony showed us a PowerPoint slideshow he had put together on the Hudson River. Well, we were bowled over, both by Tony’s collection and by the fascinating information on the history of our river that he had pulled together. We know you will enjoy his presentation as much as we did.

The lecture will take place at the Library in the Orr Room. If you have any questions about the program, you can call the Library at 914-478-3307.

Breakneck from Cornwall (Sunday), ca. 1870

House Tour Preview: Henry Draper’s Observatory

Save the date! May 22 & 23
Get acquainted with fifteen historic Hastings houses and the celebrities who lived in them. Come to our 2010 house tour and learn more about Civil War Admiral David Farragut, women’s rights activist Margaret Sanger, Hudson River School artist Jasper F. Cropsey, African-American sociologist Kenneth Clark, Empire State Building architect Richmond Shreve, and ten more! For more information and to purchase tickets, click this link.

Henry Draper's observatory, ca. 1880, showing both the first dome, built in 1860, on the far right, and the 1897 rotating dome in the center.

Also on the house tour will be Henry Draper’s 19th-century astronomical observatory, now Draper Observatory Cottage, the home of the Hastings Historical Society. At the end of the 19th century, the observatory was a mecca for scientists, and Henry Draper, while still a young man, developed an international reputation and became the guiding light and mentor for a new generation of American astronomers. The following is an edited version of an article written for us by Marion Martin in 1992 telling the story of Henry, his observatory, and the ‘new astronomy.’

“Unlike ‘old astronomy’, which was concerned with figuring the location of planets and stars by means of mathematical calculations, ‘new astronomy’ used photography as a tool for learning about the appearance, position, and composition of heavenly bodies. Although extremely popular in Europe, new astronomy was slow to take hold in this country. Indeed, until the mid-1880s, Henry Draper and Lewis Morris Rutherfurd were the only American astronomers to keep pace with—and sometimes surpass—their European counterparts.

Engraving showing Lord Rosse’s telescope in Parsonstown, Ireland, from the Nov. 28, 1846 issue of Scientific American.

[Henry’s father] John William Draper had pioneered this new science when he first photographed the moon in New York City in 1840. He introduced the techniques and applications of photography to Henry who, at age 13, helped his father take the first photographs of slides through a microscope (photomicrographs). After graduating from medical school in 1857, Henry, accompanied by his brother Daniel, went to Europe where they examined the giant six-foot reflecting telescope that the Earl of Rosse had constructed outside Birr Castle in Parsonstown, Ireland. Henry returned to New York inspired to build his own telescope and observatory.

He found the highest point on his father’s estate a superb location … Built by a village carpenter whose name goes unrecorded, Henry’s observatory was a beautiful piece of cabinetry with a revolving roof and a curving staircase leading to a viewing platform that encircled the room. It was designed specifically to accommodate a 15 ½ inch Newtonian reflecting telescope that Henry and Daniel painstakingly built with advice from their father, who was then in England. …

Interior of the 1867 rotating observatory dome with its 28-inch telescope.

When the telescope was finally finished in November 1860, Henry began taking photographs of the moon that were the clearest of any yet obtained. … In 1863, Professor Joseph Henry, the great physicist who headed the Smithsonian Institution, visited the observatory. Impressed with Draper’s accomplishments, he invited Henry to produce a report entitled “On the Construction of a Silvered Glass Telescope.” The following year the Smithsonian published the study, which included a description of the layout of the observatory. Henry’s detailed instructions encouraged others to build their own instruments and observatories and was responsible for a tremendous growth in amateur astronomy. To those caught up in the astronomy craze, Henry Draper and his Hastings observatory became revered household names.

In 1867 Henry married Mary Anna Palmer [who] … proved to be an enthusiastic and talented assistant to her husband. … In 1869 Henry added a second dome to his observatory, this one a large equatorial dome regulated by Seth Thomas clockworks. With his wife’s help, he constructed a larger, more powerful telescope. … With this new arrangement, Henry achieved a major astronomical triumph in August 1872 when he successfully photographed the spectrum of the bright star Vega. Over the next few years Henry and Mary Anna photographed the spectra of more than 100 stars. In September 1880 he achieved another “first” when he photographed the beautiful nebulosity—the luminous clouds—in the constellation of Orion, with an exposure time of 50 minutes. …

Two of Henry's photographs of the Orion Nebula. The one on the left is one of his first, taken in 1880, and the on the right is one of his last, taken in 1882 and showing far more detail of the nebula.

Henry Draper proved to American astronomers that photography was the best means of studying the sky. What was particularly remarkable about his astronomical accomplishments was that he fitted them in along with teaching at City Universtiy and the Medical Collge and managing his wife’s large estate [in Dobbs Ferry]. In the summer of 1882, thrilled with what he had recently accomplished in his Hastings observatory, Henry resigned his professorship. Forty-five years old and financially independent, he planned to devote the rest of his life to astronomical photography. … However, he died suddenly of pneumonia the following November, surviving his father by only 11 months.

During Henry Draper’s lifetime, virtually every eminent astronomer and physicicist in the country visited his Hastings observatory. Inventors such as Thomas Alva Edison and Samuel F.B. Morse, eminent neighbors such as Cyrus Field, and distinguished visitors from afar such as King Kalikana of the Sandwich Islands (now Hawaii) and Emperor Don Pedro II of Brazil also came to see Henry’s remarkable observatory. … In time the Draper Observatory would be eclipsed by larger enterprises, but from the mid-1860s to 1882, along with Lewis Rutherfurd’s observatory in New York, it charted the course of the new astronomy in this country.”

This photograph is from the collection of the Smithsonian Institution. Their cataloging information identifies it as Henry Draper in his observatory. If this is correct, it was probably taken in the 1860s or early 1870s, before he grew the beard that we see in his later photographs.

Hastings-on-Hudson Becomes an Official Village

In our post for March 12th we showed you our incorporation map, but we didn’t tell you the story behind incorporation.

According to the local paper, The Statesman, people in Hastings-on-Hudson had been talking about incorporation since 1875. The place had already been called Hastings-on-Hudson (or a variation on that name) for at least 40 years. But incorporating as an official village would mean that the community could elect its own government instead of relying on Greenburgh for services. The paper was all for it. “Hastings looks for progress and increased prosperity by incorporation,” wrote a reporter, “which means better streets, increased value of real estate, and higher taxes.”

In 1876 the same paper reported that most people would, in fact, rather be annexed to the city of Yonkers.

But by 1879 the tide of opinion had turned. The prominent citizens of Hastings took up a collection to raise money to pay for a survey of the proposed area to be covered by the town, one of the steps necessary to apply for incorporation. In September the surveyor, George Wiley, was working on the map. A village census was also in progress, another crucial part of the application for incorporation. (The total number of inhabitants was 1,226.) In October, everyone was invited to come to Samuel G. Dorland’s general store to see the completed map.

This postcard from about 1915 shows the building on the corner of Spring Street and Warburton Avenue where Samuel G. Dorland had his store. Dorland was postmaster and "dealer in dry goods, groceries, general merchandise, and also hay, straw, and feed."

In the opinion of The Statesman, most citizens favored incorporation. However, there were some who thought the proposed village was too large. It was, after all, two square miles. “It takes in roads which are not needed, which will be expensive to work, and keep in repair,” the paper reported. A public vote on incorporation was held in Protection Hall on November 18th.

Protection Engine Company was the only fire company in the village in 1879, and their firehouse on Warburton Avenue included a big meeting room on the second floor.

There were a lot of votes against incorporation (conflicting reports give the number as 221 to 209, or 104 to 75), but in any case the supporters won the day. And that is how we officially became Hastings-on-Hudson.

The First Official Map of the Village of Hastings-on-Hudson

For our very first post on this blog, we thought we’d take you back 180 years to 1879, the year when Hastings-on-Hudson was officially recognized by New York State as a “village.” The map you see here is one of the treasures of our collection. It is the survey that was drawn up George Wiley of Tarrytown as part of Hastings’ application for incorporation.

Central section of the incorporation map

The map shows far more than just the boundaries of the proposed village. Look closely at the detail below, and you will see a little blue vertical line in the center — the stream running through the Ravine to the river. (Does something seem to be missing? Warburton Avenue bridge was not built until 1898.) To the left of the stream is the railroad “depot”, and next to that is a “Main Street” (now the beginning of Southside Avenue). The street we now call Main Street is on the map, but without any label. Washington Avenue, however, is clearly marked. At the top right of the map is a blue band representing the Croton Aqueduct, and right below that is a building labeled “school” – that is the Fraser Free School, one of the earliest public schools in Hastings and now the Hook & Ladder firehouse at 50 Main Street. The word “Mills” to the left of the school refers not to a mill, but to Edmund S. Mills, the owner of property on both sides of what we now call Main Street. There are more familiar names on the map, too, like Draper, Chrystie, Leffurgy, and Minturn. The tiny print on the left-hand side, about half way down, reads “old Hickory,” which may be one of the trees that the surveyor used as a guide. It is possible that the large red dots in the downtown area served a similar purpose. If you can help us out on this one, let us know!

Detail of the central section, showing the business district

Our map did not always look this good. By 1982 it had started to crack. Pieces had come loose and some were already missing. We sent it to the Northeast Document Conservation Center in Massachusetts, a regional center that specializes in paper conservation, for their opinion. They recommended treatment to remove the dirt and to replace the old cloth backing with a new backing of mulberry paper, to which the loose pieces could be attached with wheat starch.

Before and after conservation

The treatment was expensive, but a long-time friend of the Society, Joel Dean, came to the rescue. Now encased in archival polyester, this piece of Hastings history resides in the map case in our upper archive room, which also houses 400 more maps, plans, and surveys of Hastings.