Hyde Park is
located in the former Dutch colony of New Amsterdam. Many colonial homes
doted the landscape which Franklin Roosevelt would frequently visit on
weekend drives through the countryside with his parents. Those drives
served as a connection to the Roosevelts' own Dutch heritage. Claes
Martenszen Van Rosenvelt - Roosevelt's ancestor - first arrived in New
Amsterdam from the Netherlands around 1650. His family's past continued to
be of great interest to FDR. He gathered extensive genealogy records,
joined the Holland Society, founded the Dutchess County Historical Society,
and entitled his Harvard history thesis "The Roosevelt Family in New
Amsterdam Before the Revolution."
"Our early forbears brought from the Netherlands a
quality of endurance against great odds - a quality of quiet determination
to conquer obstacles of nature and obstacles of man. That is why for many
years I have been so deeply interested in the preservation of the records
and monuments left in New York City and the Hudson River Valley by the
Dutch pioneers. The influence of New Netherland on the whole Colonial
period of our history, which culminated in the War for Independence, has
not as yet been fully recognized. It was an influence which made itself
felt in all of the other twelve Colonies, and it is an influence which
manifests itself today in almost every part of our Union of States."
FDR, Greetings
to the Holland Society of New York on January 17, 1935
Click Image to
Enlarge
|
Creek Meeting
House, Clinton Historial Society, 1777
|
Wildercliff,
Rhinebeck
|
Grasmere,
Rhinebeck
|
|
Tremper House
|
Stone Cottage
on Rogers Estate in Hyde Park
|
Stoutenburgh
House, Hyde Park
|
|
Victorian
Gothic House on Creek Road, East Park, 19th Century
|
Vernacular
Stone House, East Park, early 20th Century
|
|
