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Leo Satakansa is the host of the podcast "Hudson Valley Historian" and his guest is Mike Frazier, the village historian for Rhinebeck. Mike is also the deputy historian for the town of Rhinebeck and the archivist for the Rhinebeck Historical Society. He is originally from France but is also an American citizen. Leo asks Mike about the changes that occurred in the Hudson Valley during the 19th century. Mike explains that the Hudson Valley was settled early on by Henry Hudson in the early 1600s. Native Americans were already living in the area, and encounters with them were both positive and negative. The settlement of Rhinebeck came later, around 1688. The east side of the Hudson River remained untouched by European settlers until that time. consent to that. Okay, so, um, hello. I'm Leo Satakansa. This is my podcast, Hudson Valley Historian. If you want to introduce yourself, Mr. Frazier. Sure. My name is Mike Frazier, and I am the, I live here in the village of Rhinebeck. I've lived here for a little over 50 years. I am not what they call a native. I was not born here. But I've been here a long time. And in addition to being the village historian, village of Rhinebeck historian, I'm the deputy historian for the town of Rhinebeck. And I'm also the archivist for the Rhinebeck Historical Society. I'm actually a native of, and I'm actually a citizen of, France. But I'm also an American citizen, and that's a much more complicated story. So I won't bore you with that. But I'm looking forward to answering Leo's questions about history. And yeah. All right. Okay. All right. So yeah, a couple of questions I had. I was just thinking, like, I feel like this is such an, like, an interesting, like, very detailed, like, interesting, like, very detailed French history. So I was wondering, first of all, like, how did the Hudson Valley, like, change over the course of the 19th century? Like, how did it go from what it was to what it was at the end of the, or the start of the 20th century? Well, the Hudson Valley has gone through enormous changes. It was one of the earliest areas to be settled in the, what is now the United States. You know, of course, we go back to Henry Hudson in the very early 1600s, when he was looking for a way to get across all that water and looking for what was known as the Northwest Passage. And he did manage to find this Hudson River and navigated up it and managed to make it up to what is today Albany. 1609 that was. And, you know, at that time, there were Native Americans on that. Fortunately, he had somebody on his, it was named the Half Moon, this boat that he sailed up the river, who made all kinds of notes about what they saw, what they experienced. And a lot of their encounters with Native Americans were positive, but a few of them were not so positive. And they went back to the Hudson River and navigated up to what is today Albany. And he did manage to make it up to what is today Albany. And he did manage to make it up to what is today Albany. And he did manage to make it up to what is today Albany. And he did manage to make it up to what is today Albany. And he did manage to make it up to what is today Albany. And he did manage to make it up to what is today Albany. And he did manage to make it up to what is today Albany. And he did manage to make it up to what is today Albany. And he did manage to make it up to what is today Alb And he did manage to make it up to what is today Albany. And he did manage to make it up to what is today Albany. And he did manage to make it up to what is today Albany. And he did manage to make it up to what is today Albany. And he did manage to make it up to what is today Albany. And he did manage to make it up to what is today Albany. And he did manage to make it up to what is today Albany. And he did manage to make it up to what is today Albany. And he did manage to make it up to what is today Albany. And he did manage to make it up to what is today Albany. And he did manage to make it up to what is today Albany. And he did manage to make it up to what is today Albany. And he did manage to make it up to what is today Albany. And he did manage to make it up to what is today Albany. And he did manage to make it up to what is today Albany. And he did manage to make it up to what is today Albany. And he did manage to make it up to what is today Albany. And he did manage to make it up to what is today Albany. And he did manage to make it up to what is today Albany. And he did manage to make it up to what is today Albany. And he did manage to make it up to what is today Albany. And he did manage to make it up to what is today Albany. And he did manage to make it up to what is today Albany. And he did manage to make it up to what is today Albany. And he did manage to make it up to what is today Albany. 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And he did manage to make it up to what is today Albany. And he did manage to make it up to what is today Albany. And there was earlier settlement in that area, going back to the mid-1600s, earlier than in Rhinebeck, which didn't really get any interest in it until much later in the 1600s, around 1688. So this area on the east side of the Hudson River remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around then, around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around then, around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around then, around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around then, around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around then, around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around then, around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around then, around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around then, around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around then, around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around then, around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around then, around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around then, around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around then, around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around then, around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around then, around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around then, around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around then, around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around then, around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around then, around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688 And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. And until around 1688, this area remained untouched by these predators in Europe. Over time, a lot of that land got cut up into lots. And where you had the Albany Post Road going north and south, crossing with Indian Trails going east and west, one of which we had here in Rhinebeck, it was called the Pasco Indian Trail. And it went from, what is today, Rhinecliffe, east through Rhinebeck, along what is now known as County Route 308. And actually would have passed just north of where you live, I think. Enterprise Road, and heading over towards Connecticut. And that was the Pasco Indian Trail. And those old Indian Trails are often, today, are routes, county routes, sometimes even state highways, sometimes just local trails, local roads. And that established what would be the, you know, later lines of growth, development, merchants, and where communities would begin to grow up. And that's how we have the village of Rhinebeck today. It's actually the earliest development in the land area here on the east side of the river. It was not in what is today's village of Rhinebeck. It was actually about three and a half miles north where Route 9G intersects with US 9. And that was known as Rhinebeck, whereas the village was known as Rhinebeck Flats. The area up there further north at 9 and 9G, where today there is a, what's known as the Stone Church and Way Road, and those were Palatine settlements. And the Palatines who settled there in 1727 were actually a group of individuals who had come down here from Germantown up in Columbia County. And how they got to Columbia County is another story. The Palatines, and it actually comes from, the Palatines came originally from Germany. And in 1709, they had left, many of them were originally in the Württemberg area of Germany in the area, and north of there in an area of Germany known as Rheinland Pfalz, P-F-A-L-Z. And it's from that Pfalz that you get the word Palatine. And they were unhappy in the late 1600s, early 1700s, with all these wars going on in the borderlands between eastern France and what is today Germany. Of course, in the late 1600s, we didn't have a Germany, we had a lot of smaller states. Yes, that's right. And armies going back and forth all the time, and pausing to take whatever crops might be in their way. So it was like a total economic devastation, I guess, in Europe? It was, it was a mess. So in any event, understandably, these folks left that area, they went to the Netherlands, they were not too welcome in the Netherlands, because they were viewed as immigrants who, you know, you guys are not from the Netherlands, get out of here. Well, some of them went back to the Rhineland, others, more of them went over to England. They weren't too welcome in England, because they were hanging out in the various parks. We didn't, England didn't want all these immigrants. They put them in boats off the, off Southampton, that were waiting to fill them up. And then they, at the direction of the Privy Council in England, they wound up going west to the New World and to the Hudson River. They tried to, they wanted to unload themselves in New Amsterdam. They were not welcomed. We don't want a lot of immigrants. A lot of you guys have been on these boats for a long time. A lot of you were sick. Get out of here. So those boats went further up the river to what is now the Germantown area. And well, they unloaded a bunch of them on the west side of the river and created this area called West Camp. Today we know what is Saugerties. And then they went up a little further north and unloaded the rest of them on the east side of the river, created an area known as East Camp. Now it's Germantown. 1709 this is, 1710. And why did they go up there? Well, because there was somebody by the name of Livingston who owned all this land up there. Livingston is an English name, Scott's name actually. And he had all these connections. In the Privy Council in England, Livingston owned, had been given a grant for hundreds of thousands of acres on both sides of the Hudson River. And, but, you know, the deal was that you've been given this grant of land, but you've got to have people settle it and use it. So he agreed, all right, you know, you've got these people in boats that you're trying to get rid of and clear out your parks and you don't want all these immigrants and I'll take them. But as long as you give me a little money so that I can feed them. And yeah, in return, what I will do is have them cut down a lot of trees up here. We have a lot of trees. And I know you guys over there in England are expanding your fleet. And in order to expand your fleet, you've got to make sure those boats don't sink. So you need some kind of glue to, you know, keep those pieces of lumber together that make up a ship. And we have these trees, these evergreens that are probably going to be as good as your, you know, you guys are paying in England are paying a lot of money to the people in Norway to, to get this sap from those trees that you use to caulk the bottoms of these ships. And I can get it, I can, I can have these Valentine settlers, put them to work, cutting trees, wetting them. We'll put that stuff in barrels and we'll ship it back to you. Well, it turned out that when they shipped them back to England, the English found out that, you know, the Norwegians make a better product. This stuff that's coming from Livingston and his Valentine guys, this is junk. It does not protect our boats from leaking. Was it like the wrong type of tree or was it just like they were? Well, it was a different kind of evergreen and it just, you know, it didn't work. I don't know the, you know, I'm not aware of anybody who's actually done the science to determine why it is that that sap was any less good than the sap from the Norwegian trees. But at some point, somebody will do that research and come up with a more specific answer. But what happened as a result of that was that Livingston, who was getting this money from England to keep these guys going, you know, he had several thousand of these settlers and a lot of them had young children and they were cutting trees down. And he said, wait a minute, you know, we don't want these guys. He decided to cut his losses and England wasn't going to send him any more of this welfare money, keep these guys alive. So instead of being responsible for a couple thousand of these Palatine settlers, he decided that he only wanted to keep about 300. The rest of them left. A lot of them went to the Schoharie Valley, the Mohawk Valley. A bunch of them also went down to Pennsylvania, which is why we call it now the Pennsylvania. You know, a lot of people miss the misnomer is that it's called the Pennsylvania Dutch country. It's not the Pennsylvania Dutch country. It's the Pennsylvania Deutsch country. It's German, not from the Netherlands. It was these Palatines who were no longer wanted in New York. But 27 of those families who hightailed it out of who were no longer wanted by Livingston up in the Germantown area came down to Rhinebeck and they came down to that area that I'm telling you about, that's at 9 and 9b. And they were the original settlers in that area and we still have many of those Palatine names here in Rhinebeck. So that was one form of development and then later on we had Rhinebeck Flats, the village itself. And, you know, over time, the industry that developed in Rhinebeck was originally a mercantile. You know, people selling farm goods of different kinds and the fact that it was at the intersection of the Old Post Road and this Pasco Trail made it a very attractive location to develop a business. You knew a lot of people going by there all the time and eventually, you know, going into your original question was about in the 1800s and 1900s, you know, what changes were taking place. By the late 1800s, what happened was that somebody named Saltford, was his last name, S-A-L-T-F-O-R-D, there were several members of that family who were originally in the Poughkeepsie area. They came there from England in the, I guess it was around the mid-1800s and they realized that the soil was really good for growing violets. And they realized that the area north of Poughkeepsie, around Rhinebeck, Red Hook, Hyde Park, that the soil was even better and the climate conditions for growing violets. And it wasn't just that they could grow them there, but that there was an enormous demand in New York City for violets. Where did this demand come from? Like, did they just, they're pretty? Or is it like... I'm sorry, I... Oh, so I was wondering, where did the demands come from? Was it just like they were pretty or was it just like... I think, yeah, part of it was they were pretty, they were delicate, and there was some publicity given to the attractiveness of those flowers. And the other thing was that the Salford family were very good promoters of the value of violets. And they did some advertising in New York City papers and word got around and they were ahead of the game compared to a lot of their other business competitors in terms of promoting their product. So the, you know, eventually by the late 1800s, the violet industry was, you had over 300 violet houses. These were greenhouses that were on individual properties in the, just in the village of Rynebeck alone. I mean, that seems outrageous, but that was partly because of Salford's promotion. And he had written a book that explained how you could build your own greenhouse and how, and also had made arrangements with the, there was something called a Railway Express Agency, which was sort of like an early version of FedEx that was located on East Market Street in the village of Rynebeck. And they would collect violets that were brought to them in these special boxes and take them to the railway station in Rynecliffe. And the railroad had reached Rynecliffe by 1850. And they would be taken, trained to New York City and just be gobbled up. And it was guaranteed sales. And that was a business that was very successful for many individual homeowners who would have these greenhouses in their backyards right into 1905, 1910. According to the records kept by the, by Dutchess County, by the tax people, the amount of revenue brought into Dutchess County through the sales of violets, and the tax revenue on that was greater than any other single source of income for a period of about five or 10 years. Right around the turn of the, you know, the end of the 18th, I'm sorry, at the end of the 19th century and early 20th century, you know, 1890, 1910. Just violets? Just like the sale and distribution of violets? The sale of violets, yes. That's right. That's right. And today, you know, the violet industry is almost non-existent. We have a single grower of violets in the town of Rhinebeck. It's Battenfels out on Route 308. I'm sorry, is it? Yeah, I guess that's 308, which is in the, I think that's the town of Milan, just east of Rhinebeck. And, you know, he just has one strip in one greenhouse where he grows those. Violets are very difficult to grow. They're very sensitive to changes in temperature. And, you know, I mean, I'm looking out my window here and it started to snow about an hour and a half, two hours ago here in Rhinebeck. And it's, I think, turning to rain. But if you owned a greenhouse tonight that, you know, you have to maintain an even temperature. So there would be what were known as stoke houses at the ends of every greenhouse. It was a place where you maintained a fire if you expected, you know, sub-freezing weather, even if you expected, you know, 30s or 40s. Because those greenhouses needed to be in a range of temperature at least 40 degrees and no higher than 65 degrees. If it was too cold, the violets would die. If it was too hot, they would wither and die. So that's why in the greenhouses you have these pluristry windows, which are these little windows that open up at the top of a greenhouse to let out the heat if it's getting too warm in the summertime. And why you also have what are known as the stoke houses that would generate heat in the wintertime. And the difficulty of maintaining one of these greenhouses, if you were, you know, just a single homeowner who owned a piece of property on Chestnut Street, and you had a greenhouse in the back where you might make $30, $40 a year, and at that time that was a lot of money, you needed to make sure those violets didn't die on a cold winter night like tonight, and so you needed to make sure you were out there keeping that fire going, which meant that somebody might have to get up at 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning and put another piece of wood on that stove in the stoke house. It was a lot of labor, and a lot of people would get upset if it didn't get handled properly. What happened to, like, was it a huge economic shock when the violets stopped being in so much demand? It hurt quite a bit. It wasn't sudden. There are, you know, there are some questions as to exactly why the industry went downhill. I mean, we did have greenhouses here in the village, just across from what's today the Dutchess County Fairgrounds, that grew violets right into the 1970s, but they gradually closed down. One explanation is that there were a number of individuals who were gay or lesbian who really loved violets, and who promoted those, and that others had an adverse reaction to that. Whether that's true or not, I don't know. But it is indeed the case that by the 1950s, the violets industry had certainly gone downhill quite a bit. I mean, one of the strongest promoters of violets was the wife of the president, Eleanor Roosevelt. Used to, often in her public appearances, she would wear on her dress a bunch of violets. And she would explain to people that, you know, she was from the Hudson Valley, from Hyde Park. Actually, she was from further north, but she was just in love with violets. And she loved to display them wherever she was, and it made others quite interested. And one of the other contributors to the popularity of violets was at football games. And men who were college students would have date at those games, and it was a common way of complimenting your date to give her violets and to have her wear them in the same way that Eleanor Roosevelt would display them. And so that was, you know, that helped promote them, and it increased the demand. And, you know, the climate and the soil mineral composition here in this part of the Hudson Valley was especially friendly to the growth of violets. It still is, but not that, you know, you still see, actually, a lot of wild violets growing in a lot of areas of the village, but they're not cultivated as widely as they once were. Yeah, that's all very interesting. So then it kind of just, like, petered out over time, but it did cause some economic downturn. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You answered a lot of my questions in that one thing, but one thing was, how has the railroad impacted Bridebeck and, like, the area around Bridebeck? The railroad made an enormous difference. The railroad came to, and by the railroad, we're actually talking about what is today the, you know, Amtrak that runs from, you know, New York City all the way up to Montreal. And before 1850, there was no railroad going along the Hudson River, but the development of the railroad made it possible for trade to occur much more efficiently. It wasn't easy doing all the work. I mean, especially right here in, actually, it would have been Rhinecliff. The challenge that those building the railroad encountered was that you had rock face going out, right out into the river, and that had to be cut apart to allow the tracks to go straight north. And they also ran into challenges from property owners who did not want, I mean, remember these were, many of these properties in Dutchess County and going north into Columbia County along the river belonged to the Livingston family, and they thought they could dictate things as they wanted them to be. And they got a bit of a shock when the state of New York sided with the owners of those developing the railroad and said, you know, this is a public service, and we're declaring eminent domain here, and we're going to run this railroad line right up along the river, right across your property. We'll give you fair value. We'll go to court to determine what that should be, but that's the way it's going to be, guys. That must have been a real slap in the face for them. Yeah, so it made a difference in the sense that not only that people could move north and south a lot more efficiently than they could on a steamboat or on the Albany Post Road, but it also meant that goods could be transported to and from New York City a lot more efficiently. And it certainly, you know, I just gave the example, which was a little bit later in the century with the violet industry, but even earlier than that, you know, the railroads just allowed the communities to be connected more efficiently and for trade to occur. I mean, I don't remember exactly what the year was that the refrigerated railroad car was introduced, but that probably made even more of a difference because a lot of the, you know, New York City needed to drink a lot of milk. And there were a lot of small farms that provided that milk that were immediate neighbors of, I mean, some of them actually even in the New York metropolitan area, New Jersey or Pennsylvania or Long Island. But one of the scares that hit New York City was tuberculosis. And tuberculosis is carried by milk. It would come from cows that were infected with tuberculosis. And New York City had a health department that was very concerned about the number of their own citizens who were coming down with TB. That was much more of a killer back in the 1870s, 1880s than it is now. But what they decided was that if you were a farmer who was going to sell milk in New York City, you needed to be inspected by the New York Health Department. And you had to get a license from them. And many of the farmers strenuously objected to that, but they wound up having no choice. And the real impact of that was that if you had a... Remember, most of these were farmers that might have had a herd that had maybe no more than five or ten milk cows. But if they could sell that milk to New York City, that was a decent income for a small farm. Well, the problem was that if you had an inspection and they found one cow that was tested positive for tuberculosis, you had to kill that cow and you had to kill the entire herd. If the cow had been... You know, because tuberculosis can spread very easily from cow to cow, especially if they're kept in the same barn. And so as a result of this, many small farms in the immediate New York City region wound up being unable to get the necessary approvals. It was real tragedy for the economy of those small farms. But the impact up here in the Hudson Valley was the opposite. If you had farmers like Levi E. Morton, who had been, you know, he would be president, vice president of the United States, governor of New York, had been a congressman. Well, he owned this 2,000 acre farm in Rheinkliff. We had somebody named John Jacob Astor who owned a very large herd up at Ferncliff. We had Jacob Rupert who had a sizable herd further, a little bit further south. Well, all these guys were producing, had herds that ran not 10 or 20, but 100 or 200. In the case of Ellerslie, which was Levi E. Morton's Rheinkliff cows, group of cows, we're talking about 400. He had the largest barn in Dutchess County. I believe it may have been the largest in the state of New York at the time. It was right on the river in Rheinkliff. They were able to make sure that the conditions under which they maintained those herds did not permit, I mean, if they would be testing their animals all the time and could catch them, if any of them tested positive, and it rarely happened, that they would be able to afford to wipe out not only the animal that was tested positive, but any other animals with which that cow was housed. And even though that had a negative economic impact, they could survive that because they had so many others and were able, because of the refrigerator car, to ship that milk promptly to New York City, get approval of the New York City Health Department, and become the largest providers of milk to New York City. And it had an unbelievable positive economic impact for this county, at the same time that so many small farms closer to New York City couldn't do what these guys were doing and maintain any kind of competitiveness in the milk business. So the railroad had a lot to do with their ability to thrive. And there are a lot of other examples, I mean, for example, the ice business, we had a lot of the economy, aside from farming in this area, and I'm talking about by this area, I mean Northern Dutchess County, where the river would freeze for a good number of months during the winter because we were above the salt line, and where during the summer it got pretty warm. Well, the economy during the winter was to cut ice into ice blocks and store them in these barns that were built right along the side of the river. The economy in the summertime was to build bricks. And so, you know, between those two, and those two economies depended on New York City. The ice would be shipped in railroad cars. You know, you'd have layers of straw between the blocks of ice, and they would be shipped to New York City during the summer. And the bricks would be shipped, actually a lot of them would go to the city in barges because it was less expensive to ship them by boat. But to some extent, that was the railroad that helped transport all of that to New York City, where many buildings today are built from bricks that were manufactured, built, you know, made here in the Hudson Valley. That's very interesting. I mean, in these first two questions, you kind of answered all of my other questions. So, I mean, I just want to say thank you so much for making the time to come and talk with me. And you know so much about this whole Dutchess County area. I mean, I was just astonished. That was truly amazing. Well, I'm very happy to share that with you. And, you know, if anybody has any other questions, if you have any other questions, yeah, I'd love to hear from you. It's michaelfraser.earthlink.net is my email, which I think you have. And you also have my cell phone, 845-464-2015, if anyone wants to have further questions. And I'm the archivist at the Rhinebeck Historical Society. We are open to the public on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And free throughout the year on the lower level of the Star Library, except on holidays, such as Thanksgiving, which is coming up soon. So, yeah, this has been a pleasure talking to you, Leo. And, you know, best to you and your colleagues and your work over there at Millbrook School. Awesome. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Yep. Take care. You too. Bye-bye.
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