Years ago, I bought a shopworn unpromising notebook that contained minutes and sundry clippings that told the story of a group of concerned citizens who wished to establish a Board of Trade for the community of New Paltz that had about 275 male adult residents. Almost half joined this effort. The first entry was dated May 7, 1900, and the last January 28, 1917. On 105 handwritten pages, the story of New Paltz’s emergence in the 20th century is told.

The community was hoping to become part of greater New York. This is a portion of their rarely remembered story. Once read, it ends with a consideration of the future. 

At the turn of the 20th century, New Paltz was transitioning from a quiet two-hundred-year-old agrarian Huguenot settlement into a bustling village, connected by the Wallkill Valley Railroad running eight passenger and freight trains a day north and south, there anchoring the recently opened New Paltz-Highland Trolley running east toward Highland and Poughkeepsie. Soon cars and trucks would begin to replace horses. What they had had in their past was – pastoral isolation, now giving way to breathtaking possibilities of inclusion, if the men of New Paltz could grasp the reins of America’s run-away growth. The setting was bucolic.  Lake Mohonk and Minnewaska, both regional resorts commanding 20,000 acres together on the Shawangunk ridge, offered an epicurean alternative to New York’s unrestrained intensity. New Paltz’s futurists believed New Paltz could emerge as the bucolic alternative to New York’s froth. The New Paltz Normal School would be where both worlds would meet.

How could New Paltz join the 20th century? It seemed it had, except by comparison to the Empire State City that already was becoming known as Gotham. New York was already the world’s second largest city by 1900 and would become the largest by 1925. New Paltz had long been in the penumbra of Gotham’s explosion of culture, cultures and ingenuity. 

Employing the concept of a steamboat invented in France, Fulton quickened travel on the nearby Hudson River in 1807. Samuel Morse of Poughkeepsie first demonstrated Morse code in 1837. The railroad airbrake invented in Schenectady in 1869 by George Westinghouse quickly increased both speed and safety of train travel. A mere one hundred and sixty miles east on March 10, 1876, it was there that Alexander Graham Bell first spoke into his handset, “Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you!”  The phonograph was invented in 1877 and the light bulb 1879 at Menlo Park, N. J. 105 miles away by Thomas Edison. New Paltz was living in the century of big ideas. Everywhere around them the world was on fire. The men of New Paltz wanted to play their part. How?

The response of the men of New Paltz, midway between New York City and Albany at the year of 1900, was their determination to bring their community to the attention of the larger world.  It was both simple and beautiful. Don’t lock the gates and offer a welcoming smile.

The gentlemen of New Paltz, according to the minutes of their soon to be organized Board of Trade, were determined to put New Paltz on the map by influencing policy and occasionally advertising in distant newspapers. Their very first action was to circulate a petition to affirm how many persons (and businesses) would be prepared to pay $5.00 annual dues to fund these plans. At the May 31st, 1900, meeting, a printed and handwritten list of 49 names was appended. Laid in separately, within their handwritten records was their organizing petition, soon signed by 123 brothers in faith. Be the undersigned hereby signify our willingness to join and become a member of the Board of Trade for New Paltz. Among the signers were the Principal of New Paltz Normal School, many merchants, many representatives of the founding families and the village’s leadership. 

On July 10th they made their first investment in promotion. “Motion carried that Secretary (would place) advertisements” in New York (City) newspapers promoting the New Paltz Summer Boarding Houses in New York papers for 3 weeks long. From a close reading of the plan, it’s clear they balanced on the highwire between word ads and display advertising and examined their budget and embraced the mercantile notices.  We today know them as classifieds.

The next entry dated May 10, 1901, the Board of Trade membership learned the committee was holding $138.68. They then wished to promote the summer businesses in the same ways they did in year past.

Over the next five years, there were 2 or 3 brief meetings each year to talk about their limited resources and how to increase and spend them. The June 12th, 1904, meeting they provided a printed list of “Subscribers to the New Paltz Board of Trade. They were making progress!

Hom. Jacob LeFever

N. VanWagenen

J. M. Hasbrouck

Bruyn Hasbrouck

Jacob Deyo

New Paltz Times Office

Ralph LeFever- Editor Independent

S. Deyo & Son – Dry Goods and General Mdse (merchandise)

J. J. Hasbrouck & Co. – Dry Goods and General Mdse

J. M. DePuy – Dry Goods and Millinery

E. Van Wagenen -Dry Goods, Mdse and Meats

Hasbrouck & Wiesmiller – Hardware

P. M. Hood – Hardware

John H. Hasbrouck – Carpenter and Builder

Henry L. Hasbrouck – Carpenter and Builder

Geo. E. Johnston – Druggist

James Barney – Druggist

D. Sutton – Choice Meats

Elting Harp – Harness

Jonas Crispell – Furniture and Carpets

M. T. Scudder – Principal Normal School

Deyo & Hasbrouck – Real Estate and Insurance

John Schmid – Clothing and Gents Furnishings

A. P. LeFever – Coal and Lumber

T. J. Pine – Livery

A. H. Donaldson – Livery

J. N. Vanderlyn – Att’y and Counselor at Law

A. A. Shafer – Proprietor of Steen’s Hotel

Luther Schoonmaker – Proprietor Colonial Hotel

New Paltz, Highland & Po’keepsie Traction Co.

On the verso was a list of the local boarding houses:

Bramen House. Pleasantly situated, within three minutes of trolley station or of Wallkill Valley (Railroad) depot. Boating on the Wallkill, shady lawn, modern improvements, home grown vegetables, excellent cooking. Terms $7 and $8. Wm. J. Braman

Brodhead House. Peter MxMullen, Prop. Day rate $2. Barber shop in house. Livery connected. Hudson River telephone. All modern improvements.

Colonial Hotel. Luther Schoonmaker, Prop. (Corner North Front and Chestnut streets) centrally located, board by the day or week. 

Steen’s Hotel. A. A. Shafer, Prop. Accommodates fifty, fine view of the Shawangunk and Catskill mountains, large airy rooms, recently refurbished, long distance phone booth in office, toilet and electric lights, large observatory on roof. Casino, with ice cream and soda parlor, and ballroom attached to hotel. Rates per day, $8 to $12 per week.

Shadyhurst Hotel. Fine mountain view of Catskills and Mohonk. Large shady lawns with swings, etc. Running spring water. Rates $7 and $8 per week. Livery attached. T.J. Pine.

During 1904, there were 4 meetings and the board ran many ads. One, for the first time was a display advertisement. Previously they were running classifieds. Enthusiasm may have taken wing on their justified pride about the Democratic candidate for President of the United States that year. He was Judge Alton B. Parker who lived nearby and was associated with the New Paltz Normal School. The election took place on November 8th. These Board of Trade notes do not mention the election. They need not, because Theodore Roosevelt was a regular guest at Lake Mohonk over the years. One way or the other, the President of the United States would be in town!

The official notes for the Board of Trade then have a gap of some years. Between May 12th,1905 until early 1913, no meetings were reported. Magically, mysteriously the meeting notes begin again and continue in profusion with the same officers with a few changing ranks. On January 27, 1913, the board decided to hold a general meeting of the citizens at the (New Paltz) Opera House at 34 Main Street. (Today Pat & George’s Restaurant & Bar occupies that space and is a popular watering hole.) The Board’s purpose was to “perfect a permanent organization.” To attract a broad audience, they will have a banquet, tickets priced at fifty cents.” 

On February 11th, they revealed the outcome of their efforts. They attracted 180 personages, including all members of the New Paltz (town) Board. A toastmaster provided a professional luster, and two speakers filled their ears with news, one speaking about railroad shipping rates and the other explaining the proposed water system that would soon be submitted to a vote to our taxpayers. The future was at hand!

The motivations are not mentioned but we see between the lines. On May 13th, on a motion made and carried, the Board of Trade has sent a request to the New York Central Railroad (the succeeding owner of the Wallkill Valley Railroad) requesting a telephone to be installed at the nearby station. 

One of the final notes in pencil reads, Motion that those who had paid dues before 1917, would . . .

Attached but undated, is what appears to be the original organizing petition for the hoped to be New Paltz’s Board of Trade:

We the undersigned hereby signify our willingness to join and become a member of the Board of Trade for New Paltz. One hundred and twenty-three men signed (attached). Into the 20th century, they were laying the keel for unimagined progress.

Could they have ever imagined that the New Paltz State Normal and Training School would eventually absorb 19% of the Village. In 1900, New Paltz Normal occupied less than 2% of the village land. Today they control 1,152 acres or 1.8 square miles of the village. Today their streets are congested, and their municipal services are pushed to the limit. Now the Village’s Architectural Review Board is considering 258 living units where Smitty Ruger built a business banging out dents. This is a village issue. But meantime, the University is planning to build 600 units within its own footprint. Taken together those two projects total close to 900 units. That suggests 2,000 more flushes a day and 900 additional cars looking for parking and or access and egress to the University’s ever-expanding campus.

To keep the university’s impact in line with New Paltz’s historic character and its once bucolic environment, is it time to ask those who govern and regulate the community’s growth and development to consider a non-binding vote by all who have experienced New Paltz, to support either a history-centric or college-centric model going forward so to consider how we can all best live together.

How many voters might there be? I’ll guess it will run north of 200,000. The University at New Paltz has 72,000 students who have taken courses alive today. Lake Mohonk’s guests must now have totaled 50,000 or more over the years. Many will have fallen in love with New Paltz. And then there are the old-timers. There are fewer of us, but we still care.

If we find there is broad-based interest, we’ll make it happen.