2006 Bluestone Festival

The annual historic Bluestone Festival, managed by the Art Society of Kingston and sponsored by NYS Assemblyman Kevin Cahill, Friends of Rondout, Friends of Historic Kingston, AOH, The Downtown Café, Keegan Ales Brewery and the Rondout Business Association, is scheduled for Sunday October 8, noon to 6 PM, at T.R. Gallo Park, Kingston, NY. The festival will feature:

• 1:00 pm: Hartwick College geologist, Dr. Robert Titus, will give his bluestone lecture at the Downtown Visitors Center.
• A work display from the North River Tugboat Museum<
• Historical exhibits of and about bluestone.
• Trades people, artisans and artists (Arts Society of Kingston) showing and selling their work.
• Historic cruise up the Rondout creek to the Fitch Building on the riverboat Teal
• Self guided tour of significant bluestone structures(with printout)
• Exhibit of tools used in milling, carving and transporting of bluestone
• Information about the uses and applications of bluestone
• Dutch sailing barge, the Golden Real at Hudson River Maritime Museum
• Information booths for Historic Societies from Ulster County
• Bluestone video documentary by Dick Crenson

The "New York State Bluestone" booklet will also be available at the festival for those who are interested in the historic development of this important industry.

The purpose of the festival is to bring attention to the historic bluestone infrastructure of walks, curbs, walls and buildings of bluestone, increase pride in the history of Kingston as the largest exporter of bluestone in the nation in the nineteenth century and to encourage persons to step forward to care for and preserve bluestone. Facts about the regional bluestones, from Dr. Charles A. Ver Straeten, of the New York State Museum of New York State Education Department in Albany include: The bluestones of the Hudson Valley / Catskills region are approximately 385-360 million years old, from the Devonian Period. It is found across eastern to central New York, though more predominantly in eastern New York, and northeastern Pennsylvania. It is certainly found in other places around the world, (though not everywhere). Kingston / Rondout / Wilbur must have been quite the place in those old days, suggests Dr. Ver Straeten.

For more information of the festival email dc07736@yahoo.com or call Dennis Connors at 845-338-0895 or Ed Pell at- bluestonefestival@yahoo.com