Genealogy

                Mabel Fuller and Peter Sinclair met in 1986 and began a years-long friendship based on a mutual love of the isolated communities on Hurley Mountain. Peter, a well-known researcher of local Dutch architecture had stumbled upon the old legends of Lapala and Eagle’s Nest while documenting the stone homesteads around Lomontville; on Lapla and Ashokan roads. He was able to connect with Mabel, now retired and living in Kingston. Together they sifted through old family photos, census and deed records, tracked down and enlisted other family members to the cause and put together a sizable amount of documentation on these once mysterious settlements. In 1994, they exhibited their work at the Kingston Public Library. Mabel and Peter are both gone now, but I am here to archive, digitize and publish their work where it may live forever on the internet. I have confirmed and expanded their research with resources not available in their time: online databases, translations of old Dutch records, digitized collections from local historical societies that were once guarded or stuffed away, archaeological excavations and so on. It is my honor to carry on their legacy, to tell the story of Mabel’s extraordinary life…  EvH