Exhibits: Hudson Valley History as Seen Through British Colonial Documents: First licensed ferry between Poughkeepsie and Kingston, 1752

The 1911 Capitol fire destroyed most of the state's Revolutionary War-era records and almost a quarter of its British colonial documents.  The documents that survived are charred and are so vulnerable to damage that researchers are not allowed to use the originals.  
 
A generous $20,000 gift from AT&T made it possible for us to conserve and digitize a selection of those badly damaged British colonial documents.  They are now available to students and scholars eager to learn more about life in the Hudson Valley in the 1700s.

The Hudson River was the great interior highway of New York Colony, permitting ocean vessels to travel as far north as Albany. Yet the river was a barrier to commerce between the two shores. Ferries appeared in some places in the Dutch period, and Jacob Kip started running a ferry between Poughkeepsie and Kingston about 1700. The British government reserved the right to grant the legal privilege of operating a ferry service. In 1749 Abraham Kip, Jacob’s son, petitioned the Governor and Council for a ferry patent. Legal objections were raised, but in 1752 the patent was finally issued to Kip and a former competitor, now partner, Moses Cantine. The petitions, related documents, and the patent (with its detailed list of charges) tell a story of investment and enterprise in improved transportation in the mid-Hudson Valley.