Rare Book Monthly
The Collaborative Project:Who Says You Can't Go Home Again
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For any subject there are certain words or terms that are useful for keyword searches, the first search option. For searches of the mid-Hudson Valley I use place-names: Poughkeepsie, Rondout, Catskill, New Paltz, Fishkill and Newburgh to name a few. They are unique names and find few duplicates elsewhere. Kingston is also very good but finds its namesakes in Canada, England and elsewhere come up in the records to extend and elaborate the searches. Marlborough finds its more literary cousins in Massachusetts.
Other nearby places simply either don’t have the records or the history or simply the luck to be there. A printer may have set up shop on a site because it was cheap or convenient or was at that time thriving. Rondout, New York is such a place. It was the southern part of what is now Kingston, New York. In 1846, when river transportation was more important, the Rondout Creek flowed east into the Hudson River. Along its banks Kingston and Rondout kept each other company until the road and city builders declared Kingston the winner, the brick trade declined, and Rondout slipped into memory. But while it thrived, an interesting gem was printed there “at the printing office of Bradbury & Wells.” It is The Indians or Narratives of Massacres and Depredations on the Frontier in Wawasink and its Vicinity during the American Revolution. That place no longer exists. These days the name Rondout is given to a school district 15 miles west of Kingston while the creek itself was dammed for power more than 60 years ago. The dam did provide a vivid background for Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty in Elia Kazan’s “Splendor in the Grass” in 1961. I’ve taken my children there to calls of “Who, who and what.” History is personal I suppose.
The Indians was a book I learned about as a boy. A knowledgeable bookman told me it was unobtainable but worth the chase. That was in 1956. In 2003 I have three copies and have located a fourth. I found two of them on the net in the past three years. In 1956 it was impossible to know what other folks were selling unless you had the nose of a bloodhound, the memory of an elephant and the luck of the Irish. These days I look on line and regularly find the unobtainable. The net has simply changed book collecting both forever and for the better.
Over the past few years I’ve been able to buy on the net some amazing things – about 40 in total - to build a small but very satisfying collection of Hudson River Valley material. I’m interested in imprints if they are early or unusual and always favor items with significant content. I’ve found two items by George W. Pratt of Highland, New York.
