Collecting is hit or miss

It’s been an interesting month to be collecting the history of the mid-Hudson Valley of New York State. Random searches online found a variety of broadsides and ephemera that fit into a project I’m working on for 7 of the counties that border the Hudson River.

The first relates to the business history of Dutchess County. It’s a small broadside, 9 ½” x 12 ½” for a Hemp Dressing Machine, now established at the Village of Rhinebeck in 1824. In this period commerce was expanding unevenly. Boats could carry cargo but rope was needed to secure them. [David Lesser]

I also purchased 4 items from Bartleby Books of Washington, D.C.

Lake Minnewaska House, Minnewaska, Ulster County, New York. A promotional piece advertising the 1886 season for the then 7 year old resort. I was boatman at Wildmere in the summer of 1965 and lived at Cliff House where I was first a waiter before becoming Boatman. A lovely memory, an incredibly beautiful place.

During the War of 1812 an act laying an embargo on all ships and vessels and requiring a permission from the Collector of the port of New York to ply the Hudson River. This certificate was issued to the Fairplay on 24 December, 1813.

Last Warning! Look on these Facts. Issued at Rochester in Ulster County by order of the Committee of Correspondence. It is undated but appears to date to 1774. It is a conspicuously local piece and needs to be thoroughly studied.

The fourth piece is “The Carrier’s Address, to the Patrons of the Poughkeepsie Journal”, January 1, 1802. I have bound volumes of many of the early years of the Journal but I’ve never seen an example of their carrier address which was a plea/request for generosity for those who deliver the newspaper, then a weekly. Most Carrier’s Addresses, then and later, were smaller. This one is 17” x 10.5”. It’s a lovely find.

And there is 1 more item. It’s from another ABAA dealer, Jeffrey Marks, of Rochester, New York. It is 9 issues of the Normal School Review which was published at New Paltz, New York for its nascent college community in the 1890s. I’ve seen this printing before. When a kid I cleaned attics and was hired by the Reisner family to clear out the very dusty attic of their very old home. There I found early records of what was then “the normal school,” today the university. Among them were copies of this same publication which Mrs. Reisner gave me and which I still have. This additional group was $31.63. It feels like a homecoming.

All of these items come from established dealers, all members of the ABAA.

Intense collecting often, perhaps invariably, includes ephemera. Local history relies on it.