A history of Kinderhook,
since 1750
Postcards, papers and photographs of Kinderhook from public archives, woven together by decade. Neighbors fill in the gaps.
The story
from WikipediaRead it all ↗In 1609, Henry Hudson sailed as far north as Kinderhook on his exploration of the Hudson River and named the location "Kinderhoek". This means "children's corner" in Dutch, and is supposed to have been applied to this locality on account of the many Native American children who had assembled on one of the bluffs along the river to see his strange vessel (the Half Moon) sailing upstream. Hudson had mixed dealings with the local Mohican natives, ranging from peaceful trade to minor skirmishes. As the Dutch settled in the area, they were targeted by the natives for robbery and murder. Another version says that a Swede named Scherb, living in the forks of an Indian trail in the present town of Stuyvesant, had such a numerous family of children that the name of Kinderhook was used by the Dutch traders to designate that locality. A third theory about the town's name derives from a settler, na…
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Timeline
built from the dates on the items belowFinish Kinderhook’s story
Most archives stop around 1920. The photos from after that are in family albums, not libraries.
2 of 10 decades since 1900 have photos 🔁Retake an old viewThe Birthplace of President Marti…, c. 1856: stand where they stood+15 📦Share a family photoSign in to add one+10Famous people from Kinderhook
See all 14 →
Kinderhook, decade by decade
LOCMemorial Library1930
LOCMartin Van Buren High School1930
LOCLindenwald1930
CommonsHABS NY,11-KINHO,1- (sheet 0 of 9) - Adam Van Alen House, K…1933
CommonsHABS NY,11-KINHO,1- (sheet 0 of 9) - Adam Van Alen House, K…1933
CommonsHABS NY,11-KINHO,1- (sheet 1 of 9) - Adam Van Alen House, K…1933
CommonsHABS NY,11-KINHO,1- (sheet 1 of 9) - Adam Van Alen House, K…19331990s
Nothing in Kinderhook is on the National Register yet
That’s true of most small towns. It doesn’t mean Kinderhook has no history, only that no one has written up a nomination. The closest listed place is Persons of Color Cemetery at Kinderhook in Kinderhook, 0.1 miles away.
Kinderhook and the nearest listed places
How a place gets listed
Then & now
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as Icabod [sic] Crane's schoolhouse (1809) and it appears here side by side.
🔁 Retake this view · +15Stories next door
nearby towns’ historyFrom Wikimedia Commons (8) and the Library of Congress (4). Images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.