Introduction
In April of 2024, we were excited to hear from our colleagues at Historic Huguenot Street that they were awarded a $349,956 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to conserve and digitize documents from the archives on Huguenot Street, the Dutch Reformed Church, Town of New Paltz records, and our own Haviland-Heidgerd Historical Collection. What made this announcement even more rewarding was that it was the second such grant from the NEH, allowing all collections to continue the conservation and digitization of their materials. Since that first grant was awarded in the Spring of 2021, over 3,500 documents have had conservation work and been digitized, creating unprecedented access.
However, due to recent federal cuts, that funding for the 2024 Grant was terminated on April 1, 2025, leaving the planned digitization of roughly 12,000 pages uncertain.
Conservators from the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts examine documents at Historic Huguenot Street.
With both grants, the project's goal was twofold. The first is the conservation and digitization, crucial for the longevity and accessibility of the documents. Many documents had tears and rips, and almost all had surface grime due to age that needed to be cleaned. Some documents were eroding from the iron-gall ink used to create them or needed remediation from prior, well-intentioned fixes.
Once conservation was completed, all documents were imaged and uploaded to New York Heritage, a publicly accessible, collaborative digital repository showcasing collections from all across New York State. This work was the gateway to the second goal of this project: to use the microcosm of New Paltz to illuminate the history of national and international significance and how it has shaped us to the present day. To revisit old stories with a new lens and bring forward stories that haven’t been told.
The planning process for this work began all the way back in 2018. The four institutions compiled all their collections, preeminent scholars were brought in to evaluate the materials, and conservators assessed the scope of work to be done. From this, the narrative and guide for these two projects was born. With the completion of the second project, the first goal of conservation and digitization will be complete. The second cannot be so neatly tied up but excitingly will bear fruit for years to come.
“These four collections—containing countless overlapping references to people, places, events, and time periods in French, Dutch, and English—illuminate the development of an exceptional American community as it evolved over almost three and a half centuries. Thus, they are of national and international significance, and their preservation and dissemination through digitization are essential. These four collections may be studied across several disciplines and among many fields of study in the humanities, including wide-ranging themes and topics, such as, but not limited to:
- Early contact and negotiations between Native Americans and European settlers, as revealed in the 1677 Esopus-Huguenot Land Agreement, bearing the signatures and signatory marks of both Native peoples and the European settlers.
- History and practice of the enslavement of Africans and African-Americans by white slaveholders in the northern United States. Experiences of African descendants post slavery in the 19th-century, including economics, voting rights, social status, etc.
- Differences in the status, rights, and roles of women among different ethnic groups and over time, as revealed in personal and official documents.
- Government, politics, land management, and law, as practiced by New Paltz founders and their descendants.
- Social and military history during times of conflict, including the Revolutionary War and Civil War, as detailed through enlistment registers and unique sets of personal correspondence.
- Religion, especially Protestantism, specifically the form espoused by John Calvin, as practiced by followers in the New World.
- An American identity as it evolved in a rural, Hudson Valley town.
- 17th and 18th century French, Dutch, and English, as recorded in both legal and personal manuscripts.”
You can learn more about the project by visiting newpaltzhistory.org.