Inviting 700 people to celebrate Thanksgiving at the Hastings High School gym and preparing food for several hundred more homeless people in Yonkers sounds like it’d be chaotic, but decades of experience keeps the chaos in check.
You may have heard of Johann Wilhelm Stolting, also known as “The Hermit of Irvington,” and his eccentricities, such as sleeping in his own coffin and burying his treasure behind the former Hastings Press Building. He was an oddball and a genius, to say the least. Aside from speaking French, Dutch, German, English and a reported three other languages, Stolting lived in our area and worked a variety of jobs. At some point or another, he was a teacher, a scientist, a mailman, and a button maker.
By Mark Sameth In the dead of night, well past one in the morning, President Abraham Lincoln passed through Hastings on a secret trip from Washington, DC to West Point. It was June 24, 1862, in the midst of the Civil War, and the President was on his way to […]
Mars Plater For our annual meeting in 2018, Mars Plater — then a doctoral student in History at Rutgers University — used photos and historical accounts to give a program titled, “Up at Dudley’s Grove: 19th Century Steamboat Excursions to Hastings-on-Hudson.” Dudley’s Grove was a recreation area on the riverfront that […]
By Barney Smith Last year, then-freshman Barney Smith asked the Historical Society for information on the derivation of the “Yellow Jackets” as the High School team name. We had fun digging around in old yearbooks and sent him a TON of raw info. This is Barney’s resulting article, which was […]
by Henry Levin According to Rich Steeves, a local resident and frequent contributor to the Historical Society, the Hastings marble quarry located along the Old Croton Aqueduct had more uses than previously assumed. Hastings may seem unconnected to soda, being a somewhat health-occupied village, but in the 1800s carbonated beverages […]
By Chris Kemble I recently inherited a painting, a gift to my mother decades ago. Hidden in a corner of my parents’ bedroom, I had never seen it before. The curious title on the back says The Terrace of the Artist’s at Hastings, NY. The artist and date were unreadable, […]
by Mark Sameth Minnijean Brown — one of the historic “Little Rock Nine” — lived in Hastings in 1958 and 1959. Minnijean came to Hastings when she was 16, after having been harassed, threatened, and ultimately expelled (for “verbal retaliation”) from the Arkansas high school she helped integrate in 1957. […]
by Natalie Barry For the last several years, I’ve been asked to come into Hillside School and talk to the 2nd graders about Hastings history. I always look forward to it, as the kids are always great fun and so appreciative of learning about our village’s past. This year, for […]
By Mark Sameth Abraham Lincoln was here. More precisely, he passed through here. Four times. This winter marks the 160th anniversary of Lincoln’s first passage through – as it was known then – “Hastings-Upon-Hudson,” as President-elect aboard The Inaugural Express a little after 2:30 PM on the afternoon of February […]
