Book Review
by Debra Adamsons
I had a lover in Denning’s Point this summer. No, it wasn’t “Naked Guy” living on the sailboat anchored off the Bay side of the Point, nor one of the workers constructing Building One of the Beacon Institute, or any member of DPW re-capping the landfill. Neither was it anyone from the Vassar archeological team digging on the south side of the island, or any of the daily joggers or fishermen fishing off the Point, and finally it wasn’t a local resident walking their dog along the loop. It was Denning’s Point that called to me every day. And it was Denning’s Point I developed a relationship and fell in love with.
The Point speaks to me, and after reading Jim Heron’s Denning’s Point: A Hudson River History, I learned it speaks to others as well. Spanning 6,000 years, and generously illustrated with maps, line drawings and photographs, the book begins with archeological discoveries of the Archaic Period and ends with the construction of the Beacon Institute for Rivers & Estuaries, scheduled to open within months of this writing.
The structure of the book is linear, with stories unfolding chronologically and a well-researched, solid account of who owned the Point and what impact they made. Chapters open with Heron’s charming reverie, as he walks the Point, processing what he learned in the chapter before. The pace moves along, and the narrative, although changing between first and third person, is enthusiastic with an easy delivery.
The book visits the records of the Vassar archeological team, whose digs revealed human life on the Point in 4000 BC. In 1682 85,000 acres were purchased from the American Indians in a real estate transaction known as the Rombout Patent, declaring Francis Rombout’s daughter, Catharyna Brett, owner of the Point, which at the time was known as, “Island in Fishkill Bay.” Madam Brett’s impact on Beacon was as great and powerful as was her spirit and character. Heron pays homage to her in his book by including a quote by historian Henry MacCracken, “The historical records tell of a competent woman of business, unafraid to borrow on credit, to sue or be sued, to withstand her opponents or stand by her friends; a woman generous and fair-minded, and of heroic fiber.” Testament to Brett’s tenacity, her house still stands 300 years later, as an historic landmark and museum.
We learn that the Point was an island before the Dennings filled in a narrow causeway in 1821, inspiring Catherine Denning to bestow the name Presqu’ile, French for peninsula. The name de Peyster’s Point was later used after Jacobus de Peyster purchased the island from Madam Brett in 1738. The Revolutionary War Years reveal a powerful cast of characters who forever changed our young country’s history. William Denning Sr., a friend and peer of General Washington, and a member of the Continental Congress, lived across the river. Heron’s research shows Alexander Hamilton, Lafayette, Washington and Denning made trips to Fishkill via de Peyster’s Point.
The author proves himself quite the sleuth in his commitment to telling the story honestly, and much history is gleaned. One example of the author’s intelligent detective work is a brilliant discovery, worthy of national attention. We learn that Hamilton rented quarters on de Peyster’s Point in 1781 while writing the influential 32 page letter to the young country’s Superintendent of Finance, which included the famous quote, “Tis by introducing order into our finances-by restoring public credit-not by gaining battles that we are finally to gain our object.” Heron’s use and choice of quotes serves to propel the story forward with depth and significance. In Heron’s words, “The letter was a work of financial genius…Much of our current national fiscal policy was set by Alexander Hamilton’s 1781 letter to Robert Morris written from Denning’s Point.”
Other Hamilton writings contained seeds of ideas forming The Federalist Papers. Heron muses: “The serenity of the Point must have been as conducive to contemplation and creativity during Revolutionary War times as it is today.” The reader experiences a deeper understanding and appreciation of the young United States in the making, which we now understand took place right here, in what Pete Seeger, in his Prologue to the book, so sweetly declares, “…an extraordinary 64 acres on the eastern edge of the Hudson River, 60 miles north of New York City…the Hudson Valley, that extraordinarily beautiful part of God’s great green world.”
We then enter, from an environmental point of view, the Dark Years. Beginning in the 1870’s, when the brickworks and railroads took possession of the Point and began clear-cutting, striping and mining the Point of its clay and sand, and ending in 1939 when there was little left. Heron gives a detailed history, complete with labor practices, industrial genius, barons and greed. A fascinating story with mind-boggling facts, such as the production of 300,000 bricks a day, and the obvious economic impact to the surrounding area, with great pride attached to being a vital supplier of bricks to NYC, but in the end, a story of sadness and loss. The relationship humans share with the natural world is tenuous, bound in a constant struggle for power; nature with its desire to be free, and humans with their need to exploit, control and temper that desire. A photo in the book shows the Point, barren and ravaged; her sides torn apart, innards ripped out, stripped of her dermis and laid bare. It was a sad moment when the Dennings lost the land; the birth of a time when river and land were exploited, with no thought for the future.
This summer I went down to the Point after a thunderstorm. The sky had opened up just as high tide hit, which caused the river to surge. To my sorrow I found 6 felled trees. Trees that just the day before had precariously hugged the dirt wall with their roots. Heron’s book helped me understand why this happened: Erosion from sand mining during the Point’s dark years made the land less capable of sustaining life, making my beloved beach a row of dying trees, their tops touching the water, waiting for high tide to take their bodies out to sea.
Nothing remains the same. So we let go. Off it travels, with the tide, current, and time. Buddha said, “Loss is emptiness, and space brings possibilities”. So does time. Decades have passed since any major daily human activity has occurred on the Point. Aside from birders, fishermen, hikers, joggers and an odd camper now and again (and of course, Naked Guy) the Point had been left undisturbed. Left to lick its wounds and heal after the torment of the industrial age, left unfarmed, undeveloped, unmined, unstripped, and untamed.
Heron continues with the history of a handful of interesting, low-impact businesses coming and going between 1939 and the 1980’s, in1988 the sale of the Point, by its last owner (whom the land shall forever be grateful.) to the NY State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, and finally in 2003 the Governor Pataki announcement of Denning’s Point as the chosen site for the Beacon Institute for Rivers and Estuaries. Thankfully, 55 of the 64 acres remain undeveloped parkland under the NYSOPRHP.
The Institute, and the possibilities it holds for the future of the Point and the world are far-reaching and stirring. With John Cronin, (who wrote the eloquent forward to Heron’s book, and who was the Hudson River’s first River Keeper), at its helm, the center is driven by his passionate, unabashed vision and determination. A member of an ardent group of individuals who, along with Pete Seeger, spearheaded an environmental movement in the 60’s and 70’s, forever changing the relationship between industry and nature, by serving to protect the beauty and fragility of the Hudson River and Highlands, and holding corporations financially responsible for any damage done.
Heron poses many questions, embarking on countless adventures, enthusiastically seeking answers, which often give birth to more questions. As e.e. cummings once observed, “Always a more beautiful answer, that asks a more beautiful question.” It is the deep, dark, gentleness of a place, steeped in human and natural history that moves us; to create, ask questions, seek answers and sometimes moves us to tears. It is Jim Heron’s questions and answers that reveal the history of Denning’s Point. A history Mr. Heron captures with the passion Denning’s Point deserves.
nice article ;-)
Posted by: BR | October 27, 2006 at 05:33 PM