View no19, Kingston Landing and Lighthouse

Watercolor on Linen / 13“ X 18.5”

On the fourth day the Half Moon passed the Rondout tributary where Indian villages existed. Here the Dutch established an early trading post and in 1658 they relocated it upland to the new village of Wiltwyck. After the British took over the Dutch colony in 1663, the village was renamed Kingston. It became the first capital of the State of New York in 1776, and was burned to the ground the following year by the British. It was quickly rebuilt and in 1872 it was combined with the Village of Rondout to form today’s City of Kingston.

When the Delaware and Hudson Canal (linking Pennsylvania coal fields with the Hudson River) was built in 1828, Rondout became a bustling port village. At the head of the Rondout a lighthouse was built in 1837 and in the late 1800’s it also became a steamboat port for vacationers boarding trains for the nearby Catskill Mountains. The adjoining waterfront was mined for cement and brick making for over a century and has now been converted into the Sojourner Truth State Park.