At the arrival of European colonists the area was inhabited by the
indigenous Mohican Indians. To the west of the river were the Mohawk and other four tribes of the
Iroquois Confederacy, extending past what is now the border of New York state. The first known European exploration of Columbia County was in 1609, when
Henry Hudson, an English explorer sailing for the Dutch, ventured up the
Hudson River. An accident to his craft forced him to stop at what is now known as Columbia County and there search for food and supplies. In 1612, the Dutch established trading posts and minor settlements, building New Amsterdam (now
New York City) and Fort Orange (now
Albany). Fort Orange became a center of the
fur trade with the
Mohawk people. Traders stopped at points along the Hudson River on their travels between New Amsterdam and Fort Orange; small settlements arose along the river to supply the traders' ships. As more Dutch arrived, the region slowly developed. In 1664, the English took over New Netherland and renamed it the "
Province of New York"; they also renamed Fort Orange "
Albany". Some 1,200
Palatine Germans were brought to Livingston Manor (now
Germantown). New York's Governor Hunter had also helped with these arrangements: the workers were to make
naval stores (
e.g., pitch, resin, and turpentine) from the pine trees in the
Catskill Mountains. They were promised land for resettlement after completing their terms of indenture. In the nineteenth century, the
Vermont Central Railway was constructed to the area. It provided transportation north towards
Rutland and
Burlington, Vermont, and south towards the major junction town of
Chatham, New York, for travel to points west, south and east. A large number of
LGBT artists and writers settled in Columbia County in the late 20th century, including
Ellsworth Kelly, who moved to the county in 1970, followed by
James Ivory and
Ismail Merchant (1975) and the poet
John Ashbery (1978). ==Government and politics==