In this first book ever to be published on the Wallkill Valley Railroad, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Carleton Mabee tells the story of a gallant little railroad that connected Orange and Ulster Counties and aspired to be part of a major trunk line reaching from metropolitan New York all the way to Albany. A human, more than technological, story, it tells not only of hissing steam engines but also of trainmen high in their cabs, farmers shipping milk and fruit, children riding to school, and the weary hearing train whistles as hints of adventure in distant places.  Long out of print in hardcover, Listen to the Whistle, has just been released in paper.

Listen to the Whistle: An Anecdotal History of the Wallkill Valley Railroad in Ulster and Orange Counties, New York

Engineering & Transportation

Carleton, Mabee

Transportation

Purple Mountain Press

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

The American Leonardo: A Life Of Samuel F. B. Morse

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

Kessinger Publishing

The successful grassroots fight to stop the construction of a 400-room hotel/conference center and 500 condominiums around Lake Minnewaska in New York State s Shawangunk Mountains in the 1980s was a landmark victory for Hudson Valley environmentalists and became a blueprint for subsequent struggles to preserve open space against encroaching development in a uniquely beautiful landscape that The Nature Conservancy in 1991 selected as one of the 75 Last Great Places on Earth. But the fight did not end there. Subsequent plans for Lake Minnewaska involved the construction of a large spa complex. That plan, too, was defeated when local citizens once again banded together in opposition, and further development schemes for Lake Minnewaska were thwarted when New York State purchased the property and created the Minnewaska State Park Preserve. A previous proposal to place 500 trailers around the Shawangunk Ridge s Tillson Lake was also opposed and defeated, and then, in 2002, a plan to build 350 luxury homes on land located between Sam s Point Preserve and the new Minnewaska State Park Preserve proved that the fight to preserve the Shawangunk Ridge from development would be an ongoing struggle. As the result of continued and focused community action, the northern Shawangunk Mountains today, with their sky lakes, rock cliffs, and unique ecology, include vast stretches of preserved and wild land for public enjoyment and the benefit of future generations. In this, his final book, Pulitzer Prize-winner Carleton Mabee documents how common citizens can stop corporations in their tracks and preserve their communities and the landscape they love. Featuring 32 full-color photos by acclaimed photographer Nora Scarlett.

Saving the Shawangunks: The Struggle to Protect One of Earth's Last Great Places

History

Americas

Black Dome Press Corp.

The Poughkeepsie Railroad Bridge, the longest bridge in the world when it was constructed, was the first bridge over the Hudson south of Albany. It provided a direct link for coalfields of Pennsylvania to the New England market. More than engineering history, this book also examines the lives of the people who worked on the bridge or drove trains over it and the proposals to reuse the structure after the fire of 1974.

Bridging the Hudson: The Poughkeepsie Railroad Bridge & Its Connecting Rail Lines

Purple Mountain Pr Ltd

At the time he established his communities in Ulster County, Father Divine, an African American, was based in Harlem, He was one of the best known Americans of his time. He was also highly controversial. Time Magazine called him slick and inexplicable. When his followers were beginning to move into Ulster County, the New Paltz News reported that the county s people resent the very thought of their arrival. 
 Father Divine lifted the despairing from the gutter to self respect, but his methods troubled many observers. He commanded much wealth, but he mystified many critics as to where it came from. In the 1930s and 1940s, his movement was one of the most completely interracial movements in the US, but large numbers of Americans found this to be offensive. 
 During the Great Depression, when Divine s movement was feeding thousands of the hungry, he established his first community in Ulster County, in New Paltz. in 1935. His communities survived in the county until 1985 when the last one, in Kingston, was sold off. 
 Divine s communities were idealistic, nondenominational, unconventional. They were communities which Divine followers called collectively the Promised Land. After his death in 1965, the political scientist Leo Rosten called him adorable, and claimed he taught a sweet and beneficent faith, but added that he was also a fraud, a mountebank. 
 Divine s communities in Ulster County included farms, resorts, hotels, groceries , garages, and restaurants. They stretched from Milton, in the southern part of the county, north to the town of Saugerties, close to the Greene County border, and west into the Catskill Mountains near Samsonville. The location where these communities were most concentrated was High Falls. The most famous of these communities was Krum Elbow, directly across the Hudson River from President F, D. Roosevelt s home in Hyde Park. 
 In these utopian communities, the workers refused to be on relief. They refused to drink, smoke, gamble, use drugs, or borrow money. Only volunteers, they worked without pay, but accepted the food and housing and other necessities provided them. They were taught to work hard, sell their produce below market prices, and think positive. They were taught to have faith in God, but in the context of an unconventional interpretation of the Christian tradition, they were taught to regard Father Divine himself as a special manifestation of God. They were taught to avoid insurance, avoid Social Security, avoid engaging in sex, avoid medical care, but to believe in eternal life. During World War II, Divine taught nonviolence, as he long had, and he led many of his followers to refuse to fight. 
 While Divine s movement is now in decline and no longer exists as such in Ulster County, it survives elsewhere. It is now headed by the second Mrs. Divine, and is centered in the Philadelphia region.

Promised Land: Father Divine's Interracial Communities in Ulster County, New York

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Books by Carleton, Mabee

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Carleton, Mabee. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Listen to the Whistle: An Anecdotal History of the Wallkill Valley Railroad in Ulster and Orange Counties, New York

The American Leonardo: A Life Of Samuel F. B. Morse

The American Leonardo: A Life Of Samuel F. B. Morse

Saving the Shawangunks: The Struggle to Protect One of Earth's Last Great Places

Bridging the Hudson: The Poughkeepsie Railroad Bridge & Its Connecting Rail Lines

Promised Land: Father Divine's Interracial Communities in Ulster County, New York