Browse Exhibits (7 total)
Peter Sinclair's Hurley Mountain Album
A collection of photographs given to Peter Sinclair for his 1994 exhibit on Hurley Mountain Communities at the Kingston Area Library.
Hurley Mountain Origin Stories
Many residents of Hurley grew up hearing stories about how the multiracial families known as the Eagle’s Nesters came to be living on Hurley Mountain. Though no date is typically given, the story alleges that Native people living in the area of waht is now Eagle's Nest Road offered safety to escaped enslaved people. Some whites, uncomfortable with the laws and mores of town, also joined the community.
Is this story true? Tracing the roots of rural, multi-racial communities is extremely difficult. Neither written nor oral records are easy to come by.
For this reason, our project focuses on the years after 1790. By then, deeds were recorded and survey maps were available. Census records present a clear picture of enslaved people living in close proximity to what the census calls "free others." Free others were either Blacks, Natives or multi-racial individuals-- the census only differentiated whites from free non-whites or slaves. For instance, in 1795 at least one family, the Robinsons, described in the census as "free others," owned and paid taxes on a parcel of land in Lapala. The Robinsons lived near familes enslaving Blacks.
By 1840, several extended families of Color own Hurley Mountain property and paid taxes. We know where each of them lived. By 1800, Eagle's Nest or Lapala would not have been a comfortable place to hide "runaways"-- the woodlots were busy places where fenced animals grazed and homesteads dotted the hill roads.
It is well worth noting, however, that every individual from a family of Color from Lapala or Eagle's Nest to whom we talked referred to their multi-racial or mixed cultural heritage-- part Black, part Native and part white.
In this section we offer what we have learned about who was living up these two particular mountain roads in the early 19th C.
Exploring the Neighborhood
By the mid 19th century, readers of the local newspaper, The Daily Freeman, were often regaled with seemingly shocking or humorous tales of misdeeds among the residents of Eagle’s Nest or Lapala. By setting these accounts alongside other documents like census records, court decrees or family research, we are able to know residents in new ways and trace family connections.
Genealogy
From the Outside In
From artist Winslow Homer to writers like Croswell Bowen or Charles Gilbert Hine, Eagle’s Nest provided colorful stories or models. Before the 1920’s newspapers did not generally use bylines and references to actual events or interviews were few and far between. Often we could not trace the claims and the articles appear more like gossip that fact.
Coming to Save Us
The reputation of Eagle’s Nest as a site of neediness and recklessness brought reforners to the neighborhood. Some, like Brother Louis Huthsteiner, became longterm-residents, while others like the social workers who came to assess the adequacy of a parent, came and went quickly.
Early Residents
Both Lapala (in Marbletown) and Eagle’s Nest (in Hurley township) were known as areas where persons of color resided, despite the fact that both neighborhoods were predominantly white. Still, the earliest multi-racial residents who bought and sold land there, eked out a living working as farm laborers, servants or quarrymen lived in an integrated community. Early deeds and census documents provide especially useful data.