Explanation:
1. Henry Hudson (1570?-1611?)
The man who started it all. An English explorer and experienced sailor, Hudson was hired by the Dutch East India Company to find a quicker route to China, India, and the “islands of spicery” in the Far East. He and his 80-ton ship, the Half Moon, set sail from Europe in April 1609 with a 20-man crew. After plumbing the American coastline from Maine to the Chesapeake Bay, Hudson entered the Hudson River in September. Although not the first European to sail the river’s waters (that honor belongs to Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazano), Hudson was the first to venture beyond the mouth of the river, sailing as far north as Albany before realizing that the waterway was not the hoped-for northwest passage to the Orient. Dubbing it the “River of Mountains,” Hudson laid claim to the land for the Dutch, paving the way for the scores of settlers who soon followed. Although his travelogues are lost to history, Hudson did write that the Valley “is as pleasant a land as one can tread upon.” Amen to that.
2. E.W. Harriman (1848-1909)
A railroad executive who amassed a fortune by reviving bankrupt lines, Harriman apparently never forgot his humble boyhood roots. Born on Long Island, he spent his adolescent summers working at the Parrott family’s Greenwood Iron Furnace near Tuxedo, Orange County. In 1885, when the land came up for sale, Harriman plunked down more than $50,000 for the 7,800-acre estate, which he renamed Arden. An early environmentalist, buying large tracts of land became a habit for Harriman: over the next several years, he purchased close to 40 parcels — 20,000 acres — and had bridle paths constructed to connect them all. A year after his death, Harriman’s widow donated 10,000 of those acres to New York State. Christened Harriman State Park, it’s the state’s second largest park and welcomed over 1.8 million visitors last year.
3. Ralph Radcliffe Whitehead (1854-1929)
The well-heeled son of a Yorkshire industrialist, Whitehead studied at Oxford, where he became interested in the Arts & Crafts Movement. Promulgated by English artists like John Ruskin and William Morris, the movement encouraged people to create handmade furniture and crafts as an antidote to the boring, repetitive jobs associated with the Industrial Era. Whitehead moved to the U.S. and married Philadelphian Jane Byrd McCall in 1892; together, they used his inheritance to found the Byrdcliffe Arts Colony in Woodstock in 1903. Many leading artists of the time settled in the utopian-style colony, producing furniture, pottery, textiles, metal works and ceramics. Although the original colony did not last long, Woodstock is still known as a haven for artists of all stripes — a reputation that began with Whitehead’s dream.
4. Emma Willard (1787-1870)
When her husband suffered financial losses in 1814, Emma Willard opened a girl’s school in her home in Middlebury, Vermont, to help make ends meet. At the time, women were taught to paint and sew and little else; most people believed females were incapable of understanding complicated subjects like math or science. Having been denied admission to Middlebury College because of her sex, Willard used her nephew’s textbooks to teach herself about geography, algebra and grammar – and then helped her distaff students master these subjects as well. In 1821, the town of Troy raised $4,000 to fund Willard’s Troy Female Seminary, which offered a college preparatory education for girls. Known today as Emma Willard School, this Collar City landmark continues to prepare young women for future challenges.
5. Matthew Vassar (1792-1862)
As the founder of Poughkeepsie’s esteemed Vassar College, you might assume that Matthew Vassar was himself an educated man with a burning desire to bring higher learning to the masses. Nothing, apparently, could be further from the truth. With little or no formal education, Vassar left home at age 14 to work in a country store. He joined his father’s brewery business in 1810; over the subsequent years, a series of astute business partnerships left the resourceful entrepreneur financially prosperous, socially respected, and civic-minded. Wanting to immortalize his name for future generations, Vassar was eventually persuaded by a local clergyman to found a college for women; Vassar Female College opened its doors in 1865 (“Female” was removed from the title two years later). His two nephews, John and Matthew Jr., opposed the college idea, favoring a hospital instead; Vassar Brothers Hospital admitted its first patients in 1887. And Matthew’s summer home at Springside, a 50-acre estate near the river, includes public gardens designed by renowned landscape architect Andrew Jackson Downing. The end result: The Vassar name lives on at three of the Valley’s premier institutions.
