Denning's Point Musing 6

Denning’s Point Musings 6
Historic Winters on Denning’s Point (continued)

With the Denning’s Point trails closed for the winter to protect the American Bald Eagle foraging, perching and roosting habitat, I have been pondering what changes people living on the Point would have experienced during this season over the past 6,000 years. The present winter-time closing takes the high road of environmental conservation … but what about the other years? Let’s pass a few of our own blustery weeks, continuing what we began with Denning’s Point Musings 4 and 5, considering winter as experienced on Denning’s Point over the years, one era at a time.

Throughout the 1800s the Denning’s family dominated the history of the Point. They purchased the land in 1821 from the Allen family which had owned it for less than ten years, but during that time had built a large summer hunting lodge near the middle of the Point. After making their purchase, the Denning’s family enlarged the existing building to a 34-room mansion, tightening up the many drafty spaces of the original Allen building thus making it more suitable for cold weather habitation. While the Denning’s men cleared the forested land and developed an extremely successful working farm, the women held sway over the social life … except in winter when they fled to their home in New York City. When the lease expired on their New York City house in 1842, the family took up year-round residence on the Point. The diaries of the Denning’s women speak fondly of wintertime on the Point. They enjoyed hosting ice-skating parties and travelling bundled up in horse-drawn sleighs. The local newspaper reported social events for which horse-drawn sleighs pulled up to the beaches along the bay side of the Point transporting party goers. Winter weather failed to inhibit the society-bent Denning’s women.

The Point provided an excellent view of the ice yachting races which had become a common wintertime activity. As mentioned in the previous Musing, by 1790 Poughkeepsie had become the center of ice yachting on the Hudson and in the mid-1800s ice boats were extremely fast vehicles, reaching speeds of 60 plus miles an hour. Denning’s Point residents and visitors would have had a perfect view of the races.

Another thoroughly spirited wintertime activity on the Point involved freezing apple cider from the Denning’s Point Cider Mill located on the bay side of the Point. Much of the cider was sold before winter, but because there was no refrigeration, there was no “sweet cider;” cider had the alcoholic content of weak wine. The newspapers called this first yield “Fishkill Champagne.” During the wintertime, unsold barrels of cider were set into the frigid river for several days and then plucked back out, drained of all that had not frozen, and then the remainder was bottled for consumption. This was real applejack, approximately 80 proof. William H. Denning, the last of the Denning’s men, delighted in shocking the local townspeople by presenting several bottles of this “hi-test” cider to the local parson. There is no mention of his gift ever being refused!

Winters on the Point included fun as well as hard work as I’ll highlight in my next Musing. You’d likely still experience both on this land even during winter except that we modern-day people choose for good reason to stay off the Point for the season, and look forward to returning in the spring. In the meantime, let’s finish with one last Musing about winters on Denning’s Point in more recent eras.

Jim Heron, author of Denning’s Point - A Hudson River History and Project Historian of Beacon Institute for Rivers and Estuaries.