Love the Catskills? So, too, does the writer of these essays, a catalog of Catskill Mountain people, places, stories, and events. History? Yes, plenty of it, with an extensive index to aid researchers and genealogists. But A Catskill Catalog is 84 separate explorations of Catskill life and culture across many generations of mountain life. Together, these essays form a mosaic that tells the story of a region, one that has long played a prominent role in the American imagination.

A Catskill Catalog

History

Bill Birns

Americas

Purple Mountain Press

The Catskills : A Geological Guide

TITUS, ROBERT

This book is the only attempt at a connected account of the 150 years of French dominion over northern Vermont and New York. It is thus of importance for the earliest history of the two states as well as the Province of Quebec. 
A "Biographical Index" has been added to Guy Omeron Coolidge's original work, which was published in 1938 in the Proceedings of the Vermont Historical Society (now Vermont History). The index lists vital data for the person indexed: date of birth or baptismal, date of marriage, name and ancestry of spouse, date of death, etc., along with references to further events in the life of the person in question. It contains a mass of information not found in the text and makes the book a prime source for the geneology of the French in North America.

The French Occupation of the Champlain Valley from 1609 to 1759

Guy Omeron Coolidge

Europe

This volume covers the eastern portion of the Adirondacks, especially the Delaware & Hudson from Whitehall to the Canadian border. All its branches and connecting lines are described. The book includes a chapter on Amtrak and on non-connecting rail lines. The maps in the Mountain Railroads of New York State: Where Did the Tracks Go? series combine detail from multiple sources and will greatly assist the reader in the field to locate precisely sites of historic railroad activity. Volume I, published in 2005, and Volume IIred the western and central Adirondacks. Volume IV>/i> (2011) will cover the Catskills.

Mountain Railroads of New York State, Volume 3: Where Did the Tracks Go in the Eastern Adirondacks

Michael Kudish

Glorious names like Concord, Saratoga, Valley Forge and Yorktown still ring in American history and are universally recognized. Far fewer people have heard of Wallabout Bay on the Brooklyn shore of the East River or know the terrible story of American sailors who were imprisoned there on wretched hulks like the Jersey. Probably more Americans died there than in all the battles of the War for Independence. The author, Larry Lowenthal, uses prisoners' own accounts to describe the agony of imprisonment. He analyzes the number of deaths, examines the reasons for the tragedy, and describes the 100-year struggle to erect the present Prison Ship Martyrs' monument in Fort Greene Park, Brooklyn.

Hell on the East River: British Prison Ships in the American Revolution

Larry Lowenthal

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

Shirley Dunn s new book presents a stirring look at historic events in which the Mohicans (called River Indians) participated: Leaders among the native nations on the Hudson, Mohicans welcomed Henry Hudson, who visited them for 13 days. They initiated the upriver fur trade and continued it for a century. Mohicans were close friends with the Dutch leader, Arent Van Curler, and helped save the farms of Rensselaerswyck. They fought beside English soldiers in wars against Canada from 1690 to 1765, protected Albany from attack from Canada, and enlisted in the Revolution on the American side. Dunn emphasizes the importance of the Mohicans to the history of New York colony and state. Today, many of us live on land from Dutchess County to Lake Champlain that once was theirs.

The River Indians: Mohicans Making History

Shirley W. Dunn

This is the fourth and final volume of Mountain Railroads of New York State by Michael Kudish. Like his three previous books on Adirondack railroad lines, this is a monumental atlas. It covers the Catskills region from the Hudson Valley to the West Branch Delaware River Valley. Included are the Ulster &amp; Delaware; the Delaware &amp; Northern; the New York, Ontario &amp; Western s Delhi Branch; and the Catskill Mountain Railroad with its connecting narrow-gauged lines in Greene County. A series of short lines that served individual industries and construction sites are also described along with a few railroads that were partially built but never completed. Included are brief chronologies of the two recent tourist lines: the (second) Catskill Mountain Railroad and the Delaware &amp; Ulster Rail Ride. A catalog of 379 railroad-related industries and facilities is included, and each rail line is illustrated in detail on 191 maps.

Mountain Railroads of New York State, Vol. 4: Where Did the Tracks Go in the Catskills?

Cadwallader Colden is a forgotten figure in colonial American history. Although he and Franklin were frequent correspondents, his name is not mentioned once in Franklin's autobiography. To quote the preface to Colden's papers published by the New-York Historical Society, "had Cadwallader Colden been a patriot to the Cause of the American Revolution instead of a staunch Loyalist and upholder of the Crown his name to-day would have shared equal honors with the men of his time such as Benjamin Franklin. . . . As a matter of fact he was the most learned man in the colonies during his long public service. . . . He was an important factor in settling Boundary disputes. . . . His interest in the native Indians was very great and he had distinct ideas as to the management of Indian affairs which led him as early as 1727 to publish his History of Five Indian Nations. 
 In political matters, however, Colden was a royalist so narrow in his views, so rigid, and so concerned about his personal rights and privileges as lieutenant governor that even men of his own party considered him an obstinate old fool. 
 According to New York historian Michael Kammen, "While the vox populi grew in volume, royal authority was on the wane, and the figure who must bear much of the responsibility for undermining it is Cadwallader Colden. The irony, of course, is that this intelligent man, who served intermittently as acting governor and lieutenant governor between 1760 and 1775, wanted nothing so much as to uphold the royal prerogative. Despite all of his political maneuvering, he lacked politique; and for all of his vast learning, he remained one of the most naïve and tactless figures in the British colonies. It would not be unfair to call him an unwitting provocateur of the early revolutionary movement in New York." 
 The place in history of his daughter Jane, however, has emerged since the last half of the twentieth century and the increasing interest in social history and the role of women. In 1963, the Garden Club of Orange and Dutchess Counties published a selection of fifty-seven of Jane's descriptions of species native to North America in a limited edition of fifteen hundred copies in commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Garden Club of America. They were chosen because they were of familiar common plants or those of particular interest, such as native orchids, or because the descriptions best illustrated Jane's "remarkable powers of observation and description." The Jane Colden Native Plant Sanctuary was named in her honor at the Knox's Headquarters State Historic Site in Vails Gate, New York.

Jane Colden: America's First Woman Botanist

Paula Ivaska Robbins

Empires in the Mountains is the first volume to focus entirely on the campaigns and forts along the Lake Champlain, Lake George, and Hudson River corridor during the French and Indian War (1754-1763). It covers the epic battles of the war in the lake valleys, as well as the arduous task of building fortresses and warships in the wilderness of northern New York. Relying on original documents, the book provides a firsthand human dimension in recounting the extraordinary events of the war. Nicholas Westbrook, director emeritus at Fort Ticonderoga, has suggested that "Not since Francis Parkman. . .has the epic story of the "Warpath of Empire" been told with such sweep and such rich detail." Gary Zaboly, author of A True Ranger, called Empires "a commanding history. . .highly readable and authoritative, easily the best single book" on the subject. 150 illustrations.

Empires in the Mountains: French and Indian War Campaigns and Forts in the Lake Champlain, Lake George, and Hudson River Corridor

Russell P. Bellico

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