Newburgh Heritage

Take a tour through time

By Mary McTamaney
Posted 12/2/22

Is there a connection among a 185 year-old Irish immigrant’s farmhouse, a spacious stone residence meant for “elderly couples of slender means,” a 17,000 square foot Gothic …

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Newburgh Heritage

Take a tour through time

Posted

Is there a connection among a 185 year-old Irish immigrant’s farmhouse, a spacious stone residence meant for “elderly couples of slender means,” a 17,000 square foot Gothic masterpiece designed by an architect whose first name was Rembrandt, an 18th century meeting place where the ideals of a new nation were debated each night, the church of Newburgh’s first religious congregation who still honor their 16th century German roots, a soaring marble bank crowned by a ceiling that depicts scenes of Hudson Valley history, stone battlements on top of a New Windsor castle, a mid-20th century sanctuary beside a scenic pond? These are some of the seventeen sites to visit next Sunday afternoon when greater Newburgh area neighbors open their doors for the Historical Society’s Candlelight Tour.

The annual tour that showcases the amazing variety of local buildings and their backstories has been organized by the Historical Society of Newburgh Bay and the Highlands for four decades. It had to be suspended during the years of the pandemic when everyone avoided crowds and indoor mingling. This year, the tour returns to its traditional second Sunday spot on the region’s December calendar. It is a self-guided tour to take at one’s own pace, driving from place to place guided by an illustrated booklet and map. The booklet becomes a keepsake of the event, since it describes the history of each stop on the tour with a photo of its unique architecture.

Like a multi-layered old painting, Newburgh always has more scenes and stories to reveal. Three hundred and thirteen years ago, permanent settlers first walked off a sailing ship that had made it up the Hudson at the first spring ice thaw and gave thanks for their deliverance from evil. They had survived the horrors of siege warfare in Europe and been unwanted refugees in other nations until they had a chance – from an English queen who wanted her new colonies made productive – to take passage across the vast ocean and possibly create a new place for themselves. Those 52 men, women and children made a go of it against fierce odds.

Walking today through the Old Town Cemetery between Liberty and Grand Street, we are walking in their shoes. Markers still outline where they built their log meeting house. The legacy of that old German congregation lives still in the walls of Christ Lutheran Church, a stop on the Candlelight Tour. The Fullerton Avenue church, across from Newburgh Free Academy, has descended from the log cabin inside the early settlement downtown and then the brick church that followed on Johnston Street. One window from the old church was carried west and installed in the 1934 church where the congregation now resides and where their Christmas service will include old German prayers.

Beside Old Town Cemetery, (site of the original settlers’ “glebe” or common lands) is an extraordinary building that has been brought back to life after decades of decay. “Weigand’s Tavern” is what a rusted historical marker beside it said for those lost decades. The story of the colonial tavern and inn was just a paragraph in a local history book until the building was finally saved from collapse. Next weekend, the owner and his team from the Newburgh Preservation Association will give tours of the quirky old spaces being finished off inside and share a display of the archeological finds they made in the soil of the tavern’s basement.

Not all the stops on next Sunday’s tour are as old as these samples. Drive up to the top of a New Windsor road off Quassaick Avenue and discover “Windridge,” the 1870 Elizabethan villa of the writer and artist who, in his varied career, created the extraordinary ink-drawn table in the historical society’s parlor where the Candlelight Tour will begin. Windridge is the creation of the great unsung architect George Harney, who designed a beautiful variety of area buildings. Forty years after its construction, its scenic location overlooking the Hudson attracted its next owner, who transformed it to a battlement castle with a triple-height staircase hall that will amaze visitors.

For those who once had elderly relatives living in the Johnes Home or the Holden Home, both these sites will be open to showcase what transformations have taken place and continue to develop in two mansions whose original owners had a deep sense of charity toward the aged. If tour day is breezy and chilly, there will be beautiful places to retreat for a while, like Washington’s Headquarters on Liberty Street where early harpsicord music will fill the rooms, Downing Park Shelter House overlooking The Polly and the Desmond House in Balmville where local artists will be showing their paintings. Or, linger at The Crawford House where pianist James Fitzwilliam will be playing an 1850 Newburgh-made Carman and Fancher box piano until 2:30 p.m.

The Candlelight Tour is the historical society’s major fundraiser each year. Tickets are $35 at the door or $30 booked in advance. Visit: newburghhistoricalsociety.com or call 845-561-2585.