Deck Builder in Red Hook, NY

The original inhabitants of this land were the Mohican, Munsee and Lenape people. During European settlement, Native American tribes played a fundamental role in the area’s economy as they traded beaver skin with European settlers. European settlers imported several foreign goods, such as cattle, horses, and sheep. Enslaved African American individuals were also brought. Through importing non-native species, the landscape and ecology of this region has been dramatically changed.

European settler-colonial understandings of land-ownership are different from the perspectives of Mohican, Munsee and Lenape land use, a difference not often reflected in the land deeds that establish European presence on this land. The Lenape believed that Kishelëmukòng had created the earth for all people and creatures, meaning that land could not be appropriated by any individual or despoiled for personal profit. In this way, this group of people did not understand the process of selling land but believed they would receive continued access to it to hunt, fish, forage, or even plant crops. Through Schuyler’s Patent, English settler Peter Schuyler acquired two tracts of land from unidentified native peoples, “one near Red Hook and one south of Poughkeepsie” in 1688. One of the three place-names identified in Schuyler’s Patent is given in the Munsee language.

Prior to 1812, Red Hook was part of the town of Rhinebeck. Because Rhinebeck, as well other towns, had populations over 5,000 residents, the state legislature authorized the separation of these two precincts on June 12 to accommodate and encourage public attendance at town meetings via horseback or carriage. The first documented Town of Red Hook meeting was on April 6, 1813, in a local inn and held yearly afterwards as required by law. Wealthy landowning farmers oversaw the maintenance of their assigned roads with the help of their farm workers and neighbors. The Red Hook Society for the Apprehension and Detention of Horse Thieves is thought to be one of the oldest formal organizations in the state and still holds an annual meeting.