I’ve tried to explain to friends and colleagues who’ve never been here, that even in the worst of times, Nyack at Christmastide through the Nights of Chanukah and the Festivities of the Yule and the Principle Seeking of Kwanzaa still has a *suspicion*, a little frosting as it were, of pure unadulterated magic. All through the Season we light our homes and even the sky on New Year’s Eve with joy, with fellowship and with fun. Give Nyackers yet another reason to celebrate through the dark days and they’ll take it. Which is why you’ll find Haitians celebrating Sint Niklaus Day and Irishmen munching Latkes while a Russian Jewish lady puts ornaments on her friends’ Christmas Tree and an Italian Teen hangs with his bros at the Nyack Center listening to the Principals and a Catholic Nun joins her friend at a Sacred Oak.  Cause it’s Nyack. And we truly LIKE to share some of our fun with our neighbors who celebrate something else… and because we’ve never EVER done things the way any other place does. And that’s why only Nyack could have had these folks pictured below come by to help us celebrate the Winter Holydays for so many years… who knows, maybe some future December, Santa’s sleigh will once again be drawn by Elephants in the Snow…

Photo from the Bernard Collection, Hudson River Valley Heritage

Mom, Juno and Babe out for a frolic in the snow!

photo from Bernard Collection; Hudson River Valley Heritage

Back home for some Cocoa… by the gallon!

 

And so to all of you – in my tradition - a Very Merry, Very Nyack Christmas! May you have a Bright and Blessed Season no matter what you celebrate! Hold close to your friends and your family and remember THEY are the true gifts of the season… cherish them and it, and may all your holidays be Nyack-y! 

THE VANILLA FACTORY:  This quirky building on the corner of Piermont Avenue and Main Street is the oldest brick commercial building in the village, having been constructed in 1836. It originated as Ross’s General Store on the main floor with various manufacturing businesses occupying the upper floors. For many years all of the space above was a shoe factory (Nyack was for a time known as “Shoe Town”). A hoist still present in the building was installed during the tenancy of a furniture moving and storage company. In 1924, Seeley & Company began manufacturing of extracts and flavorings here, and the pleasant aromas would lead to the building being known forever after as “The Vanilla Factory”. One of the most interesting incarnations was from the early 1970s to the 1990s – “The Elizabeth Seeger School” an alternative High School founded by 5 breakaway teachers from the Dalton School in NYC. Currently the building houses offices and residential space, but the old hoist and other mercantile details can still be seen around this fascinating building that has changed so little on the outside!

CASCADIAN BOTTLING COMPANY: Ever been driving or cycling on River Road in Grandview and wonder what in the world that long low Grecian Temple was on the west side of the road approaching the bridge? That building and the large mostly unseen warehouse behind it were for years Grandview’s only industry.

photo courtesy of Rich Ellis

COUCH COURT: The building on the southwest corner of Broadway and Depew has been many things in past years, including the Orangetown Town Hall and the location where the New York State Supreme Court met several times when needing to do “downstate” business.

photo by Barbara Gill Porta

Built in 1854 for A.J. Storms of the Storms Tub and Pail Company, it would then pass into the hands of Captain Edwin Stillwell of the Nyack Ferry until 1882. In 1885 it was purchased by the Couch Family and gained its current name.  Dr. Louis Couch would use the building to house his Homeopathic Practice and his family, including his ground breaking daughter, Natalie. I’ve mentioned the formidable Ms. Couch in a number of prior postings – she was a suffragette and great proponent of women’s rights and she was in charge of the ambulance crew that were first on the scene of the Analine Dye Factory explosion.  Natalie Couch Williams was born in Nyack and graduated Wellsley College in 1907 and continued onto Fordham Law School where she graduated first in the class and became Rockland County’s first woman attorney. In Nyack, she organized the first women’s Republican Club in New York State immediately following passage of women’s suffrage in 1920. While maintaining a law office in Nyack, she would also go on to become Journal Clerk to the New York Assembly (another ‘first woman” achievement for her) and be legal secretary to NYS Supreme Court Justice Arthur S. Tompkins. She was nominated by the Republican Party and ran for the State Assembly as early as 1934 (and was defeated by another woman, Democrat Caroline O’Day who had the support of Eleanor Roosevelt, in the first woman vs. woman US election).  She was married to State Senator Lawrence G. Williams.

In her 66 years, she would become the first woman elected President of the Rockland County Bar Association, the first woman to be Vice-Chair of the Rockland County Republican Committee, and the Police Justice for Grandview-on-Hudson. She was considered a key member of the election committees of Governor Thomas E. Dewey and the failed Presidential bid of Wendell Wilkie. She was hosting a “Citizens for Eisenhower” rally in Nanuet when she was stricken with a fatal heart attack in 1956. In a story about her death, The New York Times would call her “New York State Republican Leader”.  Her law offices at Couch Court would become from 1942 to 1951 the Town Hall for all of Orangetown, and the Supreme Court of New York met there several times. During the time that she was the only female lawyer in Rockland, she had two male lawyers as employees of her practice. 

After her death, Couch Court would house a Medical Supply outlet and other healthcare related businesses. Later renovated and refurbished, the gracious building now serves as home to my own office – Better Homes & Gardens Rand Realty of Nyack; along with the real estate investment company Rock-n-Real Estate; K.A. Consulting; internet designers Center Line Design; and a residential unit on the top floor.

photo by J.P. Schutz

Wasn’t this supposed to be about Rockland Lake and the Nyack area?

Yes, it was – I was just filling in a bit about the approximately 13 villages and hamlets Rockland surrendered to the State.  One of the most egregious cases was that of Rockland Lake.  John Slaughter settled the area on the Hudson below Rockland Lake in 1711 (the piers and docking area were called “Slaughter’s Landing”).  Harvesting of ice for storage purposes and meal enhancement at restaurants began commercially in the USA in 1805 and demand skyrocketed as “modern” convenience and the middle class both expanded to become part of the everyday life of the young USA.  The Knickerbocker Ice Company incorporated at Rockland Lake in 1831 (changing the name officially from Quaspeck Lake). Rockland Lake was known to have had the cleanest and purest ice in the area. The stored ice was placed on inclined railroad cars, transported down the mountainside, placed on barges on the Hudson River, and shipped to New York City. So much ice was shipped that Rockland Lake became known as the “Icehouse of New York City”. The nearby Knickerbocker Fire House was established 1862. The Knickerbocker Ice Company closed in 1924 as commercial refrigeration and freezers took the place of Ice Harvesting.

photo: J.P. Schutz

The firehouse still bravely struggles on, even to this day, and a few homes remain.  As for the rest, taking a walk from the Firehouse over the ridge and down to the Hudson along what was the main road of the old village brought me to a ghost town where I found ruins, lots of ruins: of houses, of the old inclined railway, of the shipping piers, and even of the grand hotel that used to be right on the Hudson shore.

photo: JP Schutz

I found myself very sad, and oddly, a bit angry. Why destroy a living, breathing village, or 13 of them in the case of Rockland County’s full total? Greenspace is a wonderful thing, but at such a price? And sadly, so much of what had been inhabited is almost unreachable anyway – it’s never been utilized or even properly cleaned and returned to wilderness. It was just taken away. Some will say for the benefit of all, and they may very well be correct – on the great ledger of society, it may be that Rockland County’s loss of the Mountain Hamlets for Harriman State Park, the heart of the Village of South Nyack for the Thruway and the Bridge, and the Village of Rockland Lake for Rockland Lake State Park is a “net gain”.  But I must submit that the gain does not come without sorrow or bitterness… after all these years, my mother has NEVER returned to the spot that was the source of so much of her early happiness – despite having lived just a few miles away in the ensuing 45 years. (She has promised she will come – with me – so I can give a more first hand tale from one of the old “summer people”).  Before the park, Rockland Lake was a beautiful lake that was frequently used by “city people” and other non-residents who would come and rent here, or buy here, and shop the local stores and businesses during their summer stay. Now, busloads are shipped in from the city to use a man-made pool and then head back to the city just hours later without ever becoming involved in the local communities or adding to their economies while utilizing their resources – resources that were taken AWAY from the locals. Is this progress? Was this what was intended? Again, in light of the beauty that is Harriman State Park, the peace of Rockland Lake State Park, and the needed interstate and river crossing we have now – perhaps it has been for the best common good.  But Rockland has given and given and given for the common good and too infrequently receives back.  The mountain villages and Rockland Lake Village are no more… I hope that those in charge take serious consideration of just how much this area has sacrificed to the common good before they plunge into the sadly necessary need to rebuild the Bridge. Before anymore homes, dreams, communities, memories and history get trampled in the mad rush of expediency and ”for the common good” may those in power take some time to consider treading as lightly as is humanly possible in a place that has already sacrificed so much of itself. Karma is supposed to come around, isn’t it? Hey Albany, are you listening?

photo: JP Schutz

 

photo: JP Schutz

The building and grounds currently known as the Nyack Field Club on Midland Avenue in Upper Nyack for a time belonged to Pierre Bernard (aka “Oom the Omniscient”) who called it “Braeburn Country Club” when he acquired it in 1918. However, prior to 1918 it was called “The Nyack Country Club” and that was the period of its’ national reputation.  The savvy planners of this tournament generally timed it for the month of September, allowing world-class and seeded tennis players – male and female – to finish up the competition at Forest Hills and then stay in the New York metro area while they then competed in Nyack.  Held under the auspices of the United States National Lawn Tennis Association (now the National Tennis Association), the Nyack Open even had its’ own corporate sponsor, the Spalding Tennis Ball company.  I found references to the tournament as far back as 1893 in The New York Times and 1894 in The New York Sun – both references making it clear that it was already a fairly well-known tournament by the early 1890s.  As far as I can find in my research, I can verify the tournament continuing at least through 1915, and it was reported daily in the Times and the Sun, as well as being previewed in both papers months in advance.

In 1904, The New York Times reported 110 Contestants for the titles which included Mens Singles, Mens Doubles, Womens Singles, Womens Doubles and Mixed Doubles.  The Spalding Tennis Annual of that year had this to say about the 1904 competition:

“The courts, which are considered especially fine, were in the best of condition. Good weather made it possible to run the tournament through to its completion without interruption and added considerably to the attractiveness of the picturesque club house and grounds. Many contestants availed themselves of the privileges of the club, which are extended to all players during tournaments, and all expressed themselves as having enjoyed a most delightful week.”

So, if we had ourselves a major stop on what was the equivalent of our modern Pro Tour, we should have had ourselves some major players in the area, perhaps even a Tennis Star? Well, it appears that we did indeed have a hometown tennis hero, or heroine as it turns out, Augusta Bradley Chapman.

photo courtesy of Rockland County Sports Hall of Fame

Born Augusta Bradley in January 1875, she was the daughter of socialite Augusta Tremaine Bradley and Stephen R. Bradley, founder of the Fiber Conduit Company of Orangeburg, known worldwide as “Orangeburg Pipe”.  She would be a lifelong resident of Nyack and Upper Nyack, and marry George L. Chapman, himself a tennis player of note, and later the Vice President of The Nyack Bank.  Her professional tennis career spanned 30 years (three decades in pro sports, there’s a record to be proud of!) and was considered one of the finest women players, indeed finest women athletes, of her era.  She won over 60 major tournaments, including the Nyack Country Club Singles Championship, the Singles State Championship of New Jersey, and 7 times won the Hudson River Tennis Association (which included Forest Hills) Singles title. Her performances in Women’s Doubles with partner Mrs. Marshall McLean would place them in Second Place in the 1915 US Open and finally win First Place in the US Open in 1917 (due to the USA’s entry into WWI, the 1917 US Open was renamed “The 1917 Patriotic Tennis Tournament”). She would also win First Place in the country in Mixed Doubles that same year and same tournament with her mixed doubles partner, Nathaniel Niles.  Augusta Bradley Chapman would go on to represent the United States of America in the Wightman Cup Tournament against the players of the United Kingdom.

As noted in the annals of the National Tennis Association, the Tennis World mourned pioneer Augusta Bradley Chapman’s passing on February 11, 1949, having been preceded by her husband. She was 75 years old and still resided in the Nyacks.  In 1977 she was elected to the Rockland County Sports Hall of Fame, becoming chronologically the first woman in the Hall, and first Nyacker as well.  She and West Nyack’s John Koster (pioneer in pro-bowling, 4 time national champ) are the earliest athletes so honored, both being at their peak in the early years of the 1900s.  Augusta Bradley Chapman is one few professional athletes in the Rockland Hall that lived their entire lives here, a distinction she shares with Pearl River resident John Flaherty, formerly of the West Nyack Little League and catcher for a little team called The New York Yankees, with whom he caught for the likes of Mariano Rivera and Rogers Clemens, and in the 2003 World Series helping to cap his 14 year career.  

It seems amazing to me that with all of the tennis courts in the area, as far as I know, none have been named in honor of our hometown tennis queen Augusta Bradley Chapman. Perhaps I’ll “lob”-by for one!

I’ve been planning a post about a certain young man for almost a year - half out of the concern that perhaps he’d be forgotten in the crush of politicization of the event; conflict over the museum and memorial; bickering between New York and New Jersey over who should be “invited”; the inevitable conspiracy theories and an undercurrent of still simmering anger and unresolved grief. I was wrong.  Mercifully  he has NOT been forgotten in the chaos of this anniversary. People have remembered to celebrate and tell the story of this remarkable young man.  The mysterious and miraculous “Man in the Red Bandana”, a Nyacker who on 9/11/2001 lived – and died – according to what he believed and what he had been taught by his family, his church and his schools growing up among us. Welles Remy Crowther, NHS Class of 1995. He did us all proud.

The Honor Student from Nyack High and volunteer member of the Empire Hook and Ladder Co. in Upper Nyack graduated from Boston College in 1999. He was working at Sandler O’Neill & Partners as an Equities Trader. From his lofty office on the 104th Floor of the World Trade Center’s South Tower it seemed that the world was literally and figuratively at the feet of this polite, dedicated, brilliant young man.  Then that dream exploded on the wings of hijacked planes and a religion hijacked by fanatical extremist devotees.  Wells Remy Crowther would counter those acts of crushing hate with acts of towering love. 

This athletic young man would have easily made it out, and could have. At 9:12 AM he would call his mother in Upper Nyack from his cellphone to say he was okay. His mother would never hear his voice again. For Wells Crowther (who had already somehow miraculously made it down to the 78th floor skylobby from the 104th) could not see the pain and fear and confusion in the Skylobby’s burning ruins and not ACT.  He led people to the only remaining usable stairwell to the lower floors and carried a facially burned woman down all the way to the 61st… and then he went back up for more people, and brought them down, then back up again… On March 19, 2002 Wells Remy Crowther was finally recovered in the company of several FDNY and EMS members – the group had been heading back UP with a ‘jaws of life’ device when the South Tower followed its’ sister in a slow cascade of doomed hopes and broken dreams. At least 18 people are known to owe their lives directly to the selfless acts committed by a man in a red bandanna. On December 15, 2006, through a Special Commendation by the NYC Fire Commissioner Welles Remy Crowther was made an honorary member of the FDNY.  This was the first time in history that the department had done that posthumously. The Crowther family was presented with a framed certificate of appointment which included a department badge and a red bandanna.

The word “hero” is sadly overused these days.  Pampered overpaid athletes simply doing their job are not heroes.  Politicians mouthing platitudes  and slogans of every variety are not heroes. Even those who survive an act of horrifying evil, or lose someone to it, are not heroes but victims of an assault on humanity. People who put their lives on the line everyday fighting fires, crimes and dire illnesses – or fighting in service of their country – are heroes. And people who go back upstairs over and over in a conflagration of staggering proportions, knowing full well that the edifice’s twin has already collapsed, and who are not even “official” rescue workers on the scene? Well to me, that’s the definition of a superhero, or perhaps, a saint. In the spirit of “No greater love than this…” , young Mr. Crowther laid down his life - not even for friends - but for perfect strangers. Strangers he believed were his brothers and sisters in the human condition. When I reach my last day on Earth, I hope that I can face it the way Wells Remy Crowther did – with courage, honor and love.

photo: Welles Remy Crowther Charitable Trust

10 Years Ago Today: 9/12/2001 Nyack the Day After

Of course, everyone over the age of 18 remembers where they were on ”that day” 10 years ago - I was with most of the other Rand Realtors in Orangeburg at a conference that quickly came to a halt and we watched horrified as friends, neighbors, and even spouses died in front of us on TVs in the lounge of the Holiday Inn, before slowly singly and in pairs we slipped out and headed home to some perceived place of safety or at least of isolation from the horror.

But what about the next day? Do you remember where you were on September 12, 2001?

I do – I spent much of it at the Runcible Spoon cafe in the center of Nyack and just blocks from my house.  Still staggered by the events of the day before and sitting up literally all night watching the news and waiting for reports on loved ones and friends, we crept out of our homes and our modern-day isolation in desperate need of human contact. The first thing I noticed was the silence – not a single plane was traversing that blue sky. Almost no one was in a car, there were people on the street, strangely hushed and many with red-rimmed eyes. And there were… flags. In a trendy village that considered overtly patriotic displays to be inappropriate or gauche except on special holidays, suddenly Old Glory could be seen on flag poles, on porch railings, hanging from the terraces in my building the Ivanhoe and down the street at the Rivercrest, or tacked up in the windows of apartments or the few open businesses. I stifled an urge to cover my heart with my hand right in the middle of the cross walk.

Arriving at ”The ’Runce” there were some subdued greetings and some deep quiet hugs – assurance that YOU and I were still here, that there was some sanity left in this bad dream. And newspapers everywhere – I must confess, I still have not looked at that famous photo in the New York Times – it seems somehow obscene (and I mean that word in its’ original meaning) that the terror and horror of some poor soul’s last plummet to the ground could be tossed out like a vacation snapshot. I felt violated for that man when a friend reading the Times started to fold the paper back intending to show me, and I turned away. Looked around instead. Confusion. Muffled sobs. Inappropriate laughter. Then silence again. I heard a child’s voice ask “But when is mommy coming home???” and silently wept in my heart for the adult who could not answer that innocent question. A question that burned in my mind all day and that evening back home listening to Chuck and Sue continuing to give us more information on what was happening, I wrote a lyric for a children’s musical I was writing with composer Neil Berg. “Someone’s Always There For You” became the most loved song from the musical the HHPAC had commissioned us to write. 

The next morning there would be more flags, eventually every car would begin to look like it was in the Presidential Motorcade and bunting and banners were everywhere. On September 10 we were grumbling about parking, arguing over the Nurses’ lawsuit at Nyack Hospital and really oddly, on September 10, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was calling for a downsizing of the Department of Defense, giving it a grade “D” for business efficiency and comparing to “Soviet Central Planning”. The tragedy of September 11 put away our differences for a good long time – reminding us of our shared experience as human beings and as citizens of the United States of America.  We came together in a way that had not happened in some time – as shared crisis will always do.  Yes, as the tragedy receded into the past, the events of that day would be used over and over by numerous politicians of all stripes as a tool to be used to get elected; and religious denominations bemoaning perceived flaws in some other religious denomination or lifestyle, and yes, the makers of really tacky Americana kitsch would make a windfall on items that can be looked at now while shaking one’s head and thinking “how did I ever buy THAT?”  The tragedy has been used, and abused. But it did bring us together as a Nation when we had spent so much of the late ’80s and all of the 1990′s in a long era of self-interest and diffidence toward community.

Fast forward to September 11, 2011. When I was on the altar at St. Ann’s this morning (now yesterday morning, good grief!) singing “God Bless America” at 9:59AM – I found myself mentally and emotionally flashing back to the horror, the fear, the anger and the pain of that day and feared I would lose my composure before I could finish the song. Then I looked out at the congregation, many of the same faces I saw a decade ago, and I remembered the day AFTER – and the sense of community that saved us from despair in 2001 saved my song and tribute in 2011. One cable TV station chose to honor the 9-11 Anniversary by playing my favorite film “Casablanca” which puzzled me at first.  Then we got to the scene where everyone at Ricks is looking at the floor while the occupying Nazi army sings a victory song. One man with the courage to risk his life and resist – Victor Laslow or Wells Crowther? - goes to the bandstand and conducts the orchestra into playing “La Marseillaise” the National Anthem of then occupied and conquered France. Eventually everyone else in the cafe joins in the song – not a fist fight or exchange of shots, but a subtler battle for the heart and mind – the offensive Nazi battle hymn is drowned out by people realizing that they are more than the sum of their parts, and that when they join together they cannot be defeated.

Donations can be made to the  Welles Remy Crowther Charitable Trust, P.O. Box 780, Nyack, NY 10960-0780;  crowthertrust@aol.com. The trust endows scholarships for Nyack High School students and helps fund local music, environmental and educational charities.  

photo: Nyack Library History Collection

The photo shows the Doersch Brothers Grocery, which was located just steps away from the current Nyack Center in the building that would come to be known as the Broadway Theater, then the Tappan Zee Playhouse.  Currently the closed Chef’s Market occupies the spot – a spot that began as a warehouse and closed, became a Grocery and closed, then a movie theater that closed for 27 years, then a live theater that closed, then rebuilt as a Grocery… that closed.  One of the topics in the mayor’s debate was the economy and the state of downtown businesses, and on September 1, 1868, Horace Greeley stopped by to make a political speech discussing very similar issues and 1500 people filled what would become the Tappan Zee Playhouse while another 300 had to be turned away. Greeley opposed monopolies and the vast accumulation of wealth by real estate developers who bamboozled the public with schemes that seemed to promise wonderful things for everyone but at heart were nothing more than ways to line the developers’ pockets. His own paper The New York Tribune, opened up the closed doors of congress and the railroad barons and openly opposed government subsidies for the already profitable railroad barons and real estate speculators, along with the vast wealth being acquired by a very few while jobs were lost all across the country. His speech would discuss his insistence that the federal and state governments should be instituting high protective tariffs and sponsoring internal improvements and infrastructure support for the benefit of the people as a whole rather than creating laws and regulations that benefited a tiny few.

Sound familiar?

Horace Greeley was a fascinating, quirky and sometimes self-contradicting figure – no wonder all of Nyack turned out to see him, he must have fit in perfectly! And by the way, he never said: “Go West Young Man”… that’s a never uttered paraphrase ranking right up there with “Play It Again Sam” and “Beam Me Up Scotty”.  Born in New Hampshire, he moved to New York City in 1831 and by 1834 was involved with the publishing of The New Yorker joining his name to political reforms along with such luminaries as William Seward (who’d become Lincoln’s Secretary of State and purchased Alaska for the USA).

He established his daily New York Tribune and its’ weekly national version The Tribune in 1841.  He was a great supporter of workers rights and his own business reflected that: excellent work conditions and hours, a profit-sharing plan, organization of his workers and cooperative groupings. His paper garnered great respect for its higher tone, lack of sensationalism, cultural additions like book reviews and straightforward reporting. It also gained him a large following to whom he could present his views and causes.  He espoused Women’s Rights and suffrage and opposed Slavery – though he bemoaned both the political machinations and the sometimes violent behavior of some Abolitionists.  He supported the Temperance movement to a point. He opposed the Mexican War feeling that it only benefited the slave owners of the south.  He was appointed to fill a Congressional vacancy in 1848 but only served 3 months as he continually reported on what REALLY went on behind closed doors in Washington and his editorials strongly condemning the Kansas-Nebraska Act (effectively opening the possibility of additional slave states in the northern prairie territories – resulting in rioting, death and political upheaval in “Bleeding Kansas”) would prove to put a gulf between Greeley and his former friend Seward. Greeley’s support of a gentleman named Abraham Lincoln over the Republican Party’s chosen frontrunner – William Seward – served to clinch Lincoln’s nomination and Seward’s everlasting hatred.

Though he supported Lincoln, Greeley was not one to let things rest when he perceived what he believed was injustice or political posturing. He was tough in Lincoln and initially argued that we were better off without the South and should let them secede. He did eventually come to Lincoln’s way of thinking regarding preserving the Union as a whole, but stridently criticized Lincoln for not freeing the slaves immediately. He was not one to wait for change to come, he demanded it now, and did everything he could to become part of the change himself. Perhaps that passion was what brought so many people (a very large crowd for Rockland County in the 1860s) out to listen to him speak.

Oddly, after the Civil War, Greeley supported amnesty for Confederate Officers and angered many Northern supporters by posting bail for Jefferson Davis!  He did continue his support for universal suffrage for all races and for women, and the rights of workers. He was not an avid expansionist, but rather recommended an orderly westward movement. What he really said was “The best business you can go into you will find on your father’s farm or in his workshop. If you have no family or friends to aid you, and no prospect open to you there, turn your face to the great West and there build up your home and fortune.”  He was frequently misquoted in his lifetime too, and once quipped, “I never said all Democrats were saloonkeepers; what I said was that all saloonkeepers are Democrats.”

He was a man of diverse and sometimes odd interests that ranged from literacy to election reform to spiritualism to phrenology - and really, advocating Women’s Rights in the mid-1800s? He was never seen in public without his full-length duster coat and his bright shiny umbrella even on the hottest and sunniest of days.  And yet, even after his public gaffe with ol’ Jeff Davis, he remained immensely popular. In 1872 he would become the Presidential Candidate for BOTH the Democratic Party and the then existent Liberal-Republican Party. In his acceptance speech of the Liberal-Republican nomination, he said “The masses of our countrymen, North and South, are eager to clasp hands across the bloody chasm which has so long divided them.” But a Greeley Presidency was not to be – he lost steam and all interest in the subject when his wife tragically died, and he foundered without her, dying of a broken heart and loneliness just a few weeks after the election to which he paid such little attention. He had garnered 44% of the popular vote and his electoral college votes were posthumously assigned to three candidates of minority parties.

Horace Greeley was a real American Character, and one of the finest compliments I’ve ever received was from someone who called me ‘Horace Greeley, Jr.’ intending it as an insult.  For Horace Greeley firmly believed that the USA’s best times were ahead, and that only by joining together – North and South, Male and Female, Worker and Employer, Democrat and Republican, White, Black, Native or any other ethnicity – would we find our best destiny and fulfill the dreams of our Founding Fathers.   I’d like to think that those were precisely the reasons that on that day in September of 1868 so much of Nyack turned out to listen to a political speech.

It can be confusing even to those of us who’ve lived here all of our lives. In a broad sense, we tend to think of “Nyack” as encompassing most of the above mentioned locations – along with Grandview-on-Hudson, Upper Grandview and parts of Valley Cottage and Blauvelt! To obfuscate matters further: the zip code “10960″ encompasses the villages of Nyack, Upper Nyack, South Nyack and Grandview-on-Hudson along with the hamlets of Central Nyack and Upper Grandview and a tiny part of Blauvelt; Upper Nyack, Central Nyack and West Nyack are in Clarkstown Township while Nyack, South Nyack and the two Grandviews are in Orangetown Township – with the exception of a small corner of Nyack Village which somehow wound up in Clarkstown; and then Grandview-on-Hudson and Blauvelt are located in the South Orangetown School District, West Nyack and part of Central Nyack in the Clarkstown School District, while the rest of Central Nyack, Nyack, South Nyack and Upper Nyack and Valley Cottage are in the Nyack School District. Shall I get into which locations are served by Nyack Water and which by United Water? The number of cross-jurisdictions can be mind-boggling at times!  Many events led to the breaking up of what in the days of New Netherland were the Nyack Patent and the Vreisendael Patent into the villages and hamlets we currently know – and one of the defining moments of those divisions came in August of 1885 with the opening of the Upper Nyack Post Office.

Edward Hopper's Famous Painting

In 1870 the Legislature passed a general act for the incorporation of villages, and by 1872 local Nyack businessmen had devised a plan to incorporate the Nyack area into a large village that would include all of the present day villages of Nyack, South Nyack and Upper Nyack along with most of Upper Grandview and the Clausland Mountain section of Blauvelt.  By pulling in these outlying areas, the downtown could be improved and enhanced using the tax dollars of the property owners of the outlying areas (many of the residents of the downtown area were tenants and therefore did not pay property taxes).  Garrett Sarvent of Upper Nyack (whom I suspect is a descendent of Phillip Sarvent, the Revolutionary War hero buried in the old Palmer cemetery) got wind of these intentions, and upon gaining real proof that this was indeed the plan of the downtown business owners and planned a “counter-offensive”.  In what amounted to almost complete secrecy for a political manuever, the residents of Nyack north of the line between Clarkstown and Orangetown (near Sixth Avenue) plotted out their own village and incorporated as Upper Nyack in September of 1872, just 25 days before the original incorporation plans that included it in a future Nyack village came to fruition. So, when Nyack officially incorporated October 23, 1872, it was without its northern reaches.

To be fair, the residents of Upper Nyack had a point at the time. For instance, gas street lights and home gaslight service was available downtown starting in 1859 – but not in Upper Nyack (or anywhere else outside of downtown for that matter) and the taxes of the landowners in the outlying areas were paying for those amenities for non-property taxpayers while not getting those amenities themselves.  During the rest of the 1870s, the residents south of downtown were facing the problems the residents north of downtown had elected to flee prior to incorporation.  Finding all of their taxes going only to improve areas they did not live in, a movement to end incorporation was held, and on February 7, 1878 the original incorporated Village of Nyack ceased to exist.  On May 25 of that year, the Village of South Nyack came into existence followed by a newly restructured Village of Nyack on February 27, 1883 consisting of just the downtown area and its’ associated residential section on the hillside above.

The opening of the Upper Nyack Post Office in August of 1885 firmly established Upper Nyack’s presence as an entity in and of itself.  The streets of Upper Nyack had been “macadamized” (we’d say “paved”) and street lamps installed along Broadway. The lower taxes in Upper Nyack caught the attention of some businesses and first Post Master George C. Stevens could look out from the porch of the Post Office and see the offices of the Pacific Mail Company and the Main Offices of the Union Steamboat Company.  Just down Castle Heights Avenue was the Van Houten Boatyard (later Petersens) and Upper Nyack settled in for a period of quiet prosperity.

photo: J.P. Schutz

They met at Jost Mabie’s Tavern (now known to us as the Old ’76 House Restaurant, having served food since 1686 making it America’s Oldest Dining Room) a location that would later frequently feed Washington and his officers and be the prison for English Spy John Andre. In response to the positively reckless way in which the current monarch (George III) and his parliament were using and abusing their American Colonies, and particularly in regards to the closing of the port of Boston, they wrote:

“We cannot see the late Acts of Parliament imposing duties upon us, and the Act for shutting up the port of Boston, without declaring our abhorrence of measures so unconstitutional and big with destruction… That we are in duty bound to use every just and lawful measure, to obtain a repeal of Acts, not only destructive to us, but which of course must distress thousands in the mother country… That it is our unanimous opinion, that the stopping all exportation and importation to and from Great Britain and the West Indies, would be the most effectual method to obtain a speedy repeal.”

Not exactly a cry for out-and-out war, but the threat of a total embargo of goods from England was a serious one, branding the group with accusations of treason and sedition.  A similar closing of the port of New York would destroy any exportation of foodstuffs and iron goods from Orangetown and violate the terms of the English takeover of New Netherland from the Dutch which guaranteed that the port of New York would always be an open port and allowed to trade freely with all nationalities and countries. Our locals saw their own futures in the ruinous blocking of the port of Boston – the results of the Boston Tea Party, which in itself was only the Massachusetts Bay Colony’s reaction to the “Intolerable Acts” passed by Parliament and King George III which seemed determined to kill the goose that laid the golden egg.

One of the signers of the Orangetown Resolutions – John Haring – would in turn be our local representative to the First Continental Congress.

photo from Old 76 House website

Historically, women have frequently had an easier time of it in Nyack than in many other places; able to achieve advances here earlier than in many other parts of the country.  I’ve written about some of Nyack’s important female figures like Suffragette Caroline Lexow, African-American Millionairess Cynthia Hesdra, Actress Helen Hayes, Author Carson McCullers, and Countess Alexandra Tolstoy - but the Nyacks were also home to a mid-1800′s female postmistress, one of the US’s first female physicians, and its first female Supreme Court clerk and of course the first female plastic surgeon – the beloved Dr. Martha MacGuffie who practiced for years at Nyack Hospital.  So perhaps it should come as no surprise that the first push for expanding the role of women in the workplace would arise here.

photo by H. Gibson, Nyack Library Collection

 The year was 1925, the “War to End All Wars” was seven years past, women gained the vote five years prior, and despite the mistaken idea that passing a constitutional amendment to outlaw alcohol sales would discourage alcoholism, the economy was soaring and the country’s mood was hopeful.  Having the formidable Ms. Lexow as a local resident may have helped spur them on, but whatever the reason, the female members of the Nyack High School class of 1925 decided the time was right.  There was a nationwide tradition called “Boys Week” where older High School boys were given a week where they would accompany adults around businesses, municipal offices and the like and then actually run them on the last day.  The young women of Nyack High’s senior class demanded equal time.  Their voices were loud enough to obtain national attention!

The New York Times of June 3, 1925 noted that the week began the day before, and blared the headline: “GIRLS RULE NYACK!”  The Times would go on to state: “… the first ’girls week’ ever instituted in the United States began today with the students of Nyack High School taking over the management of several banks, trust companies, the Nyack Hospital, public library and other institutions. In addition, the large estate of  Mrs. B. Adriance was turned over to the girls, who superintended its’ management for one day.”

Though the headline was a bit overly dramatic, and frankly a bit dismissive, this still was a remarkable achievement for Nyack’s young women. One can only wonder what their male counterparts were thinking as their “Boys Week” that year certainly did not make the New York Times!  In a sign of the time period however, the Times does smugly reassure readers that unlike “Boys Week”, the “Girls” were limited to non-political jobs even though it was customary to “entrust the lads with the administration of cities” during their week.  I wonder if the journalist covering the event lived to see Terry Hekker elected first female Mayor of Nyack, followed by Nancy Blaker-Weber or  Upper Nyack’s Felicia Deyrup and South Nyack’s Patricia DuBow, for it seems that Nyackers are quite willing to entrust the “girls” with the administration of our villages!

Daniel Ullman (sometimes spelled “Ullmann”) was born in April of 1810 in Delaware, and moved to New York City after graduating Yale University in 1829 (you’ll note, he was all of 19 years old!). He passed the bar in New York and began a law practice.  Also something of a minor politician, he ran for Governor of the State of New York in 1854, gaining 26% of the vote.  When the Civil War began, he volunteered and was made a Colonel in the 78th New York Infantry. In August of 1862 he was captured at Cedar Mountain and became a prisoner of war at Libby Prison.  He was paroled in October, and immediately went to Washington to speak to President Lincoln about an idea he thought would help save the Union, and represent just what our Nation was supposed to be all about.

The idea was the inclusion of Black Soldiers – free and those freed from bondage – as regular members of the Union Army. Not servants, not support or camp followers. Soldiers.  A somewhat radical idea for that time period (despite the numerous African-American soldiers who fought in the Revolutionary War) President Lincoln was at first cool to the idea, concerned with how some of the top brass of his own troops might feel about the concept, AND the fact that his own coup – The Emancipation Proclamation – was due to become law on January 1, 1863. Too many “radical” ideas at once might break the remaining states of the Union apart.  After that stunning proclamation, Lincoln called Ullman back to D.C. further discuss the idea.

photo: public domain

In January of 1863, Ullman was promoted to Brigadier General and sent to Louisiana under the command of General Banks, where his orders were to raise five regiments of African-American troops, given the designation of Corps D’Afrique, though commonly nicknamed Ullman’s Brigade.  Despite this victory for Civil Rights, all was not smooth sailing for Daniel Ullman and his troops.  In a letter to General L. Thomas dated May 19th, Ullman would bemoan the lack of respect for his troops – the tendency of lower level officers to attempt to use his troops as nothing more than ditch diggers and drudges and those officers’ reluctance to believe African-American troops would be “capable” under fire - and the overall lack of competence of the white junior officers assigned to his command.

Vindication for Ullman and his recruits was just days away – the troops would see their first major action on May 27, 1863 when they advanced over open ground in the face of devastating artillery fire.  Ullman’s Brigade, made up almost entirely of men born into enslavement, desperate for the freedom our Constitution promised all men, stormed the Confederates at a place on the Louisiana shore of the Mississippi River ironically named PORT HUDSON!  They would not win this military battle.  Many of the soldiers desperate for their freedom found their freedom that day only through the boundaries of death. The battle they won, however, was mental and moral. General Banks would write in his official report of the Battle of Port Hudson that: “Whatever doubt may have existed heretofore as to the efficiency of organizations of this character, the history of this day proves…in this class of troops effective supporters and defenders.”  Another “cherished” myth – that African-Americans could not effectively fight as a unit – was laid to rest.  For really, who had more of a stake in the outcome of this conflict than men for whom victory meant liberty and defeat continued bondage?  Amazingly, the display of courage shown by the Corps D’Afrique in the Battle of Port Hudson actually spurred more enslaved men to escape their masters and join the Union Army.  Please note that the more famous assault on Fort Wagner, South Carolina – chronicled in the movie “GLORY” – and fought by the African-American freemen of the 54th Massachusetts occurred several months AFTER Ullman’s troops made their history at Port Hudson. And recall, while Colonel Shaw of “Glory” fame commanded African-American freemen – tradesmen, scholars, artisans and professionals from New England – Ullman commanded former slaves fighting for their very existence.

Ullman’s Brigade was officially renamed “The United States Colored Troops” and served with distinction through the seige of Mobile in early 1865.  However, in February of 1865, Ullman was detached from his command and sent to New Orleans for “rest”. For at heart, Ullman was a thinker and advocate, not a warrior.  The stress of a command constantly plagued with prejudicial suspicion and distrust, and the constant uphill battle for equal treatment had worn him down.  By the spring of 1865 he had developed a serious alcohol problem and was mercifully taken off the front lines, and out of the command structure he’d had to constantly buck for two bloody years.  He was mustered out in August of 1865 and given the rank of Major General.

After the war, where else would he retire to but Nyack-on-Hudson?  He spent the Reconstruction years with literary and scientific studies – and speaking on tolerance and his assertion that “equality of education and universal suffrage” was the right of all citizens of this country, and would be the only means towards healing in the South. Unfortunately, his dreams of equality and suffrage would not bear fruit in the South for almost a century.  Daniel Ullman – Lawyer, Statesman, Scholar, General and Civil Rights Pioneer – died peacefully at his home in Nyack on  September 20, 1892 at the age of 82.  He is buried on the slopes of Oak Hill Cemetery in view of his beloved Hudson. An adopted son of Nyack, perhaps, but so welcome in the diverse tapestry that is our history. Heroes, real heroes, are in short supply in any century, and I’m proud to claim this hero as one of “ours”.

The Friends of the Nyacks will be conducting one of their semi-annual walking tours of the Oak Hill Cemetery on Sunday, May 1st at 2pm.  Meet at the Main Gate of Oak Hill Cemetary on US 9W, the donation is $5.  Take a walk through the magnificent burial grounds and offer your respects to General Ullman’s grave, along with the other celebrities, authors, artists and politicians making up Nyack’s “permanent” population.  For more information, the Friends can be reached at 845-358-7910 or www.friendsofthenyacks.org.



photo: J.P. Schutz