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Why New Hamburg? |
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To early river boatmen the rocky point of land in the angle between the Hudson and the mouth of Wappinger creek was High Point, and the low area which projected into the river a couple of miles south was Low Point. Today High Point is New Hamburg, and Low Point is Chelsea. New Hamburg is an early riverfront settlement which had three other names before its present one was accepted, long before the Hudson River railroad, now the New York Central, was built in the late 1840s. There were shipping facilities at New Hamburg at least as early as 1770, for road records of that year speak of a road to "the Hook Landing." In 1815 John Drake Jr. had docks, a store and 30 acres of land there assessed at $9,550, a lot of money in those days. It was then "Wappingers Landing," and standard sources agree that New Hamburg's first postoffice used the name "Wappinger Creek." Members of the Drake family had docks at New Hamburg for several generations. It is said that one of the Drakes was influential in having the road built between Hughsonville and Hopewell, to encourage farmers to use his landing, and that he built the first bridge over the lower Wappinger. Aside from its shipping, New Hamburg had another important early industry, lime burning to produce lime both for building and to sweeten New Jersey's acid, sandy soil for agriculture. Dr. Benjamin Ely's map of 1797 shows lime kilns at New Hamburg as well as Barnegat. Sing Sing lime from the Ossining area ruined the local lime industry. The local lime made especially strong mortar for building, but a mason had to mix and mix and mix it with water, then cover it and let it stand before he could mix it with sand to form mortar. Sing Sing mortar could be slaked - mixed with water - more quickly and used immediately. (Now that's an interesting sidelight on masculine criticism of today's women for their reliance on ready mixes.) The riverfront near the lime kilns was a favorite local bathing area called the Sandy Bottom shore. When the railroad was build, excess stone was tossed in there, making this natural sandy beach a rocky one. In the early 1820s New Hamburg acquired a new industry, one which was to prove more important than either the landing or the lime kilns. Charles Millard expanded his Ulster county lumber business by opening a lumberyard in New Hamburg. He also operated a ferry between Marlboro and New Hamburg. Since most lumber and log shipments were made by water, Charles Millard's son, Walter, branched out into shipbuilding and freighting. Uriah Mills was his partner in this as well as the
ferry. Millard and Mills built the barge, Lexington, which carried freight up and down the Hudson, and the steamer, Splendid, which carried both freight and passengers. |
With all that shippping at Drake's Lower landing and Millard's Upper landing, it's not surprising that the residents of thebusy little riverfront settlement decided that it should be named New Hamburg after the great European port of Hamburg, Germany. When the Hudson River Railroad was build, one of its toughest problems was drilling and blasting the 900-foot New Hamburg tunnel. Rail service north and south was established in 1849, before the tunnel was finished, so through passengers were carried in a small boat from one train at Old Troy, just south of the mouth of the creek, to another at what was to be the north end of the tunnel. You might expect that rail service would have ruined New Hamburg's shipping. It didn't. Shipping continued to expand. So did the Millard company and its activities. One member of the Millard family opened a tile yard in New Hamburg where drainage tiles were made with super-strong Rosendale cement. By 1880 New Hamburg also had a foundry which employed about 25 molders and approximately the same number of men in its machine shop. The old quarry which had supplied limestone for the kilns had reopened, this time to produce limestone for the Tower blast furnace in Poughkeepsie. The limestone was burned with charcoal as flux to produce pig iron form iron ore mined in eastern Dutchess. The limestone was shipped from a third dock, the Lime dock, near the site of the present New Hamburg Yacht club. The two other docks were doing a big business, both in passengers and freight. Nine boats stopped there every day. Some carried only freight. Some carried only passengers, and some carried both freight and passengers. The glamour river passenger boat of the period, the Mary Powell, stopped there, and so did night boats. Captain William Drake's Jenny, then his larger Hudson Taylor, named for a Poughkeepsie bank president, made two trips a day between New Hamburg and Newburgh, and one between New Hamburg
and Poughkeepsie. There was also a Wappingers boat, which traveled from Newburgh up Wappinger creek through the drawbridge. This boat stopped at New Hamburg on signal. It's all gone now, the lime industry, the shipping and the shipbuilding, the lumberyard and tile yard, the cooperage. New Hamburg is now essentially residential.
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