Future Plans

I'm going to go look for and possibly explore Pleasantville's Lost Cave with Renfield next time I visit New York. A visit to the Mount Pleasant Historical Society may be necessary to get background information.

I have my Anthrocon 2008 pictures up. Only about a dozen of them, mostly fursuiters. I didn't have a lot of time to take pictures this year.

Albany Post Road / Graymoor

Milestones on the Old Albany Post Road in Putnam County: Milestone 55 is about 100 yards north of where the Appalachian Trail crosses. Milestone 54 and 53 are south of there.

Abandoned stone structure near Graymoor, NY: On the hilltop west of Route 9, approximately parallel to the south entrance of Graymoor, there appears to be an old stone structure with a turret of some sort.

Milestones on the Old Albany Post Road

Nobody knows exactly when the milestones were placed along Old Albany Post Road. Some guess between 1769 and 1779. The were definitely in place by 1789.

The Old Albany Post Road was created to deliver mail between New York City and Albany. Though it has been widened and straightened over the years, the route still follows much of present-day US Route 9. Here are some of the pages with information on the road and milestones, sorted by county:

New York City and Bronx:

• The Post Road – William Bryk's column in the New York press describes some of the history of the road and locations of some of the milestones in New York City.


• Historical Guide To New York – Published in 1909 by the City History Club of New York, this guide has a list of the milestones on Manhattan.


• The New York and Albany Post Road – Published in 1905 by Charles Gilbert Hine is a book about walking tours of the entire route and points of interest to be found along it.

Westchester County:

• Hudson Valley Ruins: Milestones – Rob Yasinsac's page with pictures of the existing milestones in Westchester County.


• Requiem For The Post Roads – General overview of the history behind the road and details on the route through Westchester.


• A Toast To Taverns – Also of interest, it has information on the taverns along the route.


• A Handy Book Of Curious Information – Published in 1913 by William Shepard Walsh, this book contains a section on milestones and their locations in Westchester County.

Putnam County:

• Capsule History of Old Albany Post Road – General information and history of the road near Philipstown in Putnam County.

Dutchess County:

• The Milestones Of Dutchess County – A video presentation by Marist College documenting the locations of current and former milestones along the route in Dutchess County.

Columbia County:

• Village of Kinderhook – A page on the history of Kinderhook mentions Milestone 137.

There was also apparently another post road on the west side of the Hudson. No information yet on whether this route had milestones or not.

Recently Visited Links

Well, let's see what fun things I've been surfing around at lately, according to my bookmarks...

• Xydexx's MiniCity — Minicity is like a web version of Sim City. Post a link to your city in your blog or journal, and each click you receive improves your city by adding population, industry, transportation, security, environment, and so on. Some of the cities are ginormous. There is also a small chat window where you can talk to your neighbors and encourage them to visit your city. A fun time-waster.


• The David Rumsey Map Collection — A collection of old, old maps! I could spend hours on this site. There are old maps of New York which include the long-vanished village of Eastview (obliterated in 1931 when the Putnam Division railroad was re-routed). Of current interested is Christopher Colles' A Survey of the Roads of the United States of America, published in 1789. It depicts the old route of the historic Albany Post Road, complete with notes of where the taverns, blacksmiths, and milestones were. The only problem is it requires Insight viewer to actually view maps.


• How To Make A Gingerbread House — A recipe for a gingerbread house. Usually, one makes gingerbread houses during the winter holidays, but I think they're so delicious that any excuse to build and devour one is a good one. I also think it would be interesting to experiment and see if one could use a difference cookie dough for the walls, i.e., build a sugar cookie house. That might be fun.


• NumSum — NumSum is a free online tool that allows you to create sharable spreadhseets and connect with folks who have a similar interest. I set one up to keep track of my bowling scores, then used the graph creator to chart it, and discovered my average has slowly been going down this year. I may set one up to track my biking mileage as well.


• Search Bloomingdales for Xydexx — Nope, you can't find Xydexx here. Try next door at the inflatable rubber pony factory.


• Tegaki — A Flash-based online drawing blog where all entries and comments are handwritten. Extremely addictive... I've been spending a lot of my free time there lately. A drawing tablet is highly recommended but not mandatory. Lots of amazing drawings despite the limited tools you get to use.

Test

Testing.