Independence Day in the Hudson Valley

Kingston seemed like the place to be yesterday. On October 13, 1777, the city was razed to the ground by the British – retaliation for the Continental Army’s defeat of the British at the two-pronged Battle of Saratoga.

You would think the local Chamber of Commerce might try to get some mileage out of the Independence Day holiday since the history of Kingston is so tied up with the history of the Revolutionary War, but you would think wrong. The town was absolutely deserted. A number of little houses, this one included, survived the burning, plus Main Street in the Old Town has an absolutely pristine façade of 19th century shop buildings. Really lovely. But much of the town totters at levels of Poughkeepsie- or Newburgh-like levels of urban devastation. A pity.

TBH and I did the whirlwind tour of Kingston after watching a few intrepid Revolutionary War enactors at the Huguenot houses in New Paltz:




In the evening, the house party plus the ever-charming Pat did the fireworks-watching thang on the banks of the Hudson.

So, all in all, a charming day, but I felt oddly out of it. Some combination of low-level physical dyspepsia plus that continuing feeling I’ve had for several days now of being an alien from Mars and really, really homesick for my native planet.