Family Day at Historic Huguenot Street

Today (Sunday, 17 June) is Family Day at Historic Huguenot Street.. Admission is free and includes the historic house tours and exhibits. Tours will be done on a first come first serve basis with a limit to 12 people per tour. You are welcome to bring a blanket and bagged lunch and have a picnic on the grounds. 

Learn about the families who founded New Paltz, including Pierre Deyo. The Pierre Deyo House, built in 1692, is one of the house on the tour.

We went awhile back, not on Family Day but just a regular day. My husband is descended from Jacobus "James" Deyoe (1760-1819) and Annatje "Hannah" Walker (1764-1835). The Deyoe and the Deyo families are of the same family. 

Those interested in tracing their family lineage to one of the 12 lines may also be interested in this (from a March 2018 press release):

Thanks to a grant from the Consulate General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Historic Huguenot Street (HHS) has digitized records from the Reformed Church of New Paltz dating back to the 1680s and early 1700s. Two volumes of records, consisting of over 100 pages, document the community’s first marriages and baptisms, revealing the growth of the town and the social relationships between the French and Dutch settlers during the early colonial period. 

“These records contain illuminating information, and scanning them supports their long-term preservation,” said Josephine Bloodgood, Director of Curatorial and Preservation Affairs. “Prior to the digitization, access to the books was limited to those able to visit the HHS Archives in-person. Now scholars, researchers, genealogists, and general audiences from around the world can discover and study their contents.” 

Both volumes have been digitized and uploaded online in their entirety, courtesy of the Reformed Church and through the efforts of HHS staff members and interns. The documents have been uploaded to Hudson River Valley Heritage, a digital library that provides visitors with free access to search and browse historical materials. The records can be accessed by searching for “first register” and “second register” at hrvh.org/hhs, as well as by searching for names that appear within.

Historic Huguenot Street encompasses 30 buildings across 10 acres comprising the heart of the original 1678 New Paltz settlement. Seven are stone houses which date to the early eighteenth century. Historic Huguenot Street was founded in 1894 as the Huguenot Patriotic, Historical, and Monumental Society to preserve the nationally acclaimed collection of stone houses. Since then, Historic Huguenot Street has grown into an innovative museum, chartered as an educational corporation by the University of the State of New York Department of Education, that is dedicated to protecting our historic buildings, preserving an important collection of artifacts and manuscripts, and promoting the stories of the Huguenot Street families from the seventeenth century to today.

© Jeanne Ruczhak-Eckman, 2018