In the 1650s, Barent Cornelis Volge operated a sawmill on the Sawyer's Kill, supplying lumber for the manor of
Rensselaerswick. He had secured a title from the
Esopus Sachem to this land sometime before 1663. Volge likely left the area at the outbreak of the first
Esopus War in 1658. The "footpath to Albany" was not laid out until 1670. The Mynderse House was built by John Persen, formerly of Kingston, an early mill owner, circa 1685. The town was organized from the town of Kingston on April 5, 1811. At that time the hamlet of Saugerties contained twenty-one houses. Circa 1828, he established the Ulster Iron Works to produce bar and hoop iron. It had a capacity for manufacturing about 6,000 tons annually. and employed approximately 300 hands working round the clock shifts. At the same time he was building the iron mill, Henry Barclay built a paper mill powered by water from the Esopus Creek, which at that location had a fall of thirty-one feet. This mill was operational by 1827. Barclay imported skilled workers and engineers from England to man his mills. Upon Barclay's death in 1851, the mill was under the management of Messrs Norman White and Joseph B. Sheffield. This firm would eventually purchase the mill in 1857 and later absolve into the long-standing company J. B. Sheffield & Son. The original mill was first rebuilt in 1860 by Messrs. White & Sheffield, and again rebuilt in 1868–1869. In 1872, the mill burned and was once more rebuilt. By 1877, a second mill was built adjoining the older section. The mills produced two and one-half tons of paper daily, and employed about 130 people. The mills would operate through various companies until 1969, then after years of abandonment and structural decay were demolished in the late 1970s. The village was incorporated in 1831 as "Ulster," and changed its name to "Saugerties" in 1855. In 1832, blue stone was quarried in nearby Toodlum (now Veteran). At one time, 2,000 men were employed in quarrying, dressing and shipping about one and a half million dollars' worth of blue stone annually from Glasco, Malden, and Saugerties. Blue stone was used for curbing, paving, door sills, and window sills: much of it in New York City. The Ulster White Lead Company at Glenerie produced nine hundred tons of lead each year. By 1870, the population of the town of Saugerties was about 4000. In 1908, the Orpheum Theater was built by John Cooper Davis. It was a center for movies, basketball, vaudeville acts and roller skating. Lucille Ball, and Burns and Allen performed at the Orpheum. In 1906,
Poultney Bigelow, editor and co-owner of the
New York Evening Post, built Bigelow Hall in Malden. In April 1910, the Esopus Creek flooded the village of Saugerties. In 1930, famed cornetist, trumpeter and conductor
Ernest S. Williams founded the Ernest S. Williams School of Music at Pine Grove. Williams was a prodigious teacher, with many of his students going on to be successful soloists and first chair players. In fact, in the late 1940s and early 1950s, the principal trumpet/solo chair of nearly every major symphony orchestra and concert band in The United States was held by a Williams student. The 1939 film ''
It's a Wonderful World'' has scenes that are supposed to be set in Saugerties.
The Band began to create their distinctive sound during 1967 when they improvised and recorded with
Bob Dylan a huge number of cover songs and original Dylan material in the basement of a pink house in
West Saugerties,
New York, located at 56 Parnassus Lane (formerly 2188 Stoll Road). The house was built by Ottmar Gramms, who bought the land in 1952. The house was newly built when
Rick Danko found it as a rental. Danko moved in along with
Garth Hudson and
Richard Manuel in February 1967. The house became known locally as "
Big Pink" for its pink
siding. The house was sold by Gramms in 1977, and since 1998 it has been a private residence. Though
widely bootlegged at the time, the recordings Dylan and the Band made were first officially released in 1975 on
The Basement Tapes, and then released in their totality in 2014 on
The Basement Tapes Complete. By the end of 1967 the Band felt it was time to step out of Dylan's shadow and make their own statement. The Hudson Valley Garlic Festival was established in 1989 by Pat Reppert of Shale Hill Farm and Herb Gardens. In 1992, the Kiwanis Club of Saugerties took over sponsorship of the festival and moved it to Cantine Field where the festival is held on the last full weekend of every September. It attracts about 50,000 people during the two-day weekend. In 1994, Saugerties was the home of the
Woodstock '94 music festival, held on the 25th anniversary of the
original Woodstock Festival. Saugerties is just east of the town of
Woodstock, New York. The original festival was held some west-southwest of the town of Woodstock (on
Max Yasgur's farm in
Bethel,
New York), while the 1999 festival in
Rome, NY was away from Woodstock. HITS ("Horseshows in the Sun"), opened in 2003. They occupy of land and have a 10-ring, Olympic-sized horse show facility in central Saugerties. In 2005, the Esopus Bend Conservancy formed and acquired over with a little more than of the shoreline on the upper Esopus In 2014, Saugerties was home to the Hudson Music Project, which notoriously became known as the "Mudson Project". After two days of music and other festivities, the festival came to an abrupt halt on the third and final day as rain and mud overcame the concert and camp areas. Hundreds were left without food and water when their cars became stuck in the muck that dominated the camp ground. When the rain subsided, many campers stayed and continued to party through the night.
St. John the Evangelist Catholic laborers, principally quarrymen of Fish Creek, also known as "The Clove", were accustomed to go on Sundays to
St. Mary of the Snow, in the village, for Mass, and sometimes disorders ensued. At that time the Saugerties congregation was served by Father Michael Gilbride, pastor in Hudson. Mr. Russell, owner of the quarries offered Gilbride land for a church, and St. John the Evangelist was established. Rev. Michael C. Power, pastor of St. Mary of the Snow from 1852 to 1878, built a church in Quarryville. Rev. Michael Haran, of St. Joseph's in Kingston, was named pastor in 1886. He worked in Quarryville for seventeen years, also serving a mission in Shokan. == Geography ==