Upcoming Events
Tree Tour October. 8
Guided Walk of the Saw Kill Trail, October 17
Guided Walk of the Saw Kill Trail, October 17
Join us with William Mennerick for a guided tree tour at Montgomery Place on Thursday, October 8 at 12:30.
Then on October 17, join the Saw Kill Watershed Community on October 17, 10 a.m. to 12 p.m., for a free guided walk along the Saw Kill at Montgomery Place Campus of Bard College. Meet at the visitors center, 55 Montgomery Place, Red Hook.
Our route will hug the shoreline besides the Middle and Lower Falls that powered 18th- and 19th-century lumber, grist, and fulling mills. We’ll observe the remnants of the 20th-century hydroelectric plant that provided power to the local community for over 40 years. This stretch of the Saw Kill was the basis for the first environmental protection pact in our nation and was the site of a key event of the American Revolution.
This is a moderate hike of approximately 1.5 wooded miles over some uneven and hilly terrain. Our pace will be set to accommodate everyone in the group, but it is not wheelchair accessible. Please wear sturdy shoes and long sleeves. The walk will be canceled in the event of heavy rain or threat of lightning.
The Saw Kill Watershed Community is fiscally sponsored by the Open Space Institute, Inc., as part of their Citizen Action Program. OSI is a nonprofit public charity exempt from federal income tax under Sections 501(c)(3) and 509(a)(1) of the Internal Revenue Code. Contributions should be made payable to “Open Space Institute, Inc./Saw Kill Watershed Community" and are tax deductible to the extent permitted by law.
John Cage Mycological Foray
September 25-26 2026
'Adapted to this Country and All Grades of Life': A Revolution in American Foodways
Saturday, October 3, 11:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
Join us at Montgomery Place on Saturday, October 3 for a discussion of the foodways of the Colonial Period with historians Beth M. Forrest and Maureen Costura of the Culinary Institute of America. Amelia Simmons’s 1796 groundbreaking work American Cookery, is often celebrated as establishing culinary independence through local ingredients, including maize, cranberries, and pumpkin. However, Revolutionary-era foodways were vastly more complicated than Simmons’s text suggests. Her pages largely omit the essential contributions of enslaved and free African Americans, whose ingredients, labor, and culinary expertise fundamentally shaped and subverted the understandings and use of food in early American kitchens. Furthermore, food was deeply tied to medical and moral anxieties, including the persistent European belief in "colonial degeneracy"—the fear that the American climate and diet would enfeeble the mind and body. This talk-in-conversation considers what was “revolutionary” about a new cuisine in the new nation, alongside the limits of inclusion as a foundational national identity was being forged.
Beth M. Forrest is a professor of history in the School of Applied Food Studies and Liberal Arts at the Culinary Institute of America.
Maureen Costura is a professor of archaeology in the School of Applied Food Studies and Liberal Arts at the Culinary Institute of America.
Beth M. Forrest is a professor of history in the School of Applied Food Studies and Liberal Arts at the Culinary Institute of America.
Maureen Costura is a professor of archaeology in the School of Applied Food Studies and Liberal Arts at the Culinary Institute of America.
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