Slavery was a bigger part of the history of the Hudson Valley than I was ever taught in school. The first slaves arrived in the 1620s; the last were freed just 20 years before the Civil War. Slavery lasted in New York State into the 1840s — later than any other Northern state except NJ. It didn’t look quite like Southern-style plantation slavery, but it was just as cruel, and just as foundational to the local economy. In my research for this reel I was shocked to discover how widespread it was h

Thrift Trip to Hudson Valley: What I Found!