Fine Art Prints and Framing
In 1678, a small but brave group of French-speaking Huguenot refugees from what is today southern Belgium and northern France set out to create a community of their own — and so began an American Story that continues today.
After purchasing 40,000 acres stretching between the Shawangunk Ridge and the Hudson River and receiving a patent from Governor Edmund Andros, eleven French-speaking Walloon families set out from Nieuw Dorp and Wiltwyck, two small Dutch villages in the Hudson River Valley of colonial New York, to strike out on their own. It was 1678.
They settled inland, in a valley centered on a small river. They called their village New Paltz after Die Pfalz, the region of Germany where their families had first found refuge in back in Europe. The river they called "Wall Kill," after the Wall Valley of Europe from which their families originally hailed.
They built their first houses out of necessity — simple earthfast and log structures, pit houses and perhaps even a palisade for protection. Once protected from the elements, they began establishing farms and set about creating their own village on a raised flat area previously inhabited by Native Americans.
Recent research suggests that they began to replace these simple log and wooden structures with permanent stone buildings in the early 1700s. With one remarkable exception, their houses would have originally consisted of only one room and were added to over the subsequent generations. Of the eight original houses, six survive at Historic Huguenot Street. Archaeology and oral history confirm the location of the other two. The survival of these houses in their original setting attests to their physical strength and the cultural value placed upon them by the many generations which have passed since their construction.
Camera Data
Canon
Canon EOS 5D
1/332 second
F/7.1
93 mm
50
Jul 21, 2011, 3:27:22 PM
Adobe Photoshop CS Windows
Canon EOS 5D
1/332 second
F/7.1
93 mm
50
Jul 21, 2011, 3:27:22 PM
Adobe Photoshop CS Windows
