Retired NYU history professor David William Voorhees is the director of both the Jacob Leisler* Institute for the Study of Early New York History and the Jacob Leisler Papers Project, headquartered in Hudson. He’s also managing editor of de Halve Maen (The Half Moon), a quarterly scholarly journal published by The Holland Society of NY. The former managing reference history editor at Charles Scribner's Sons has published many historical works and articles, and been a consultant on historical exhibits at the Museum of the City of New York and the Bard Graduate Center in Manhattan. In April 2010, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands made him a Knight in the Order of Orange-Nassau. Voorhees grew up in Princeton, NJ and now lives with his partner in Hudson. [*Jacob Leisler was a German-born colonist in the American Province of New York who, in 1689, led an insurrection and seized control of the city from appointees of deposed King James, appointing himself Acting Lieutenant Governor. He was arrested in 1691, condemned and executed for treason. His name was later cleared.] I first began visiting this area 23 years ago. The initial impulse was to come up here looking for a weekend place to get away. Hudson offered everything -- it’s a walkable town with a wealth of architecture, and the Catskills are right across the river. You couldn’t ask for a more beautiful or more historic location; it’s an ideal place for a historian. In 2000, we bought a c.1790s house, with a large garden, that we’re restoring. The Jacob Leisler Papers Project started in 1988 as an outgrowth of my dissertation. It’s a pivotal event in Colonial American history that very few people are aware of anymore. For the Hudson River Valley, it created a division in local politics that lasted for decades.
The Jacob Leisler Institute is a nonprofit study and research center that houses the Papers Project. There’s so much of this material being lost and it’s important for it to be preserved for future generations. It’s about a neglected period that still needs to have a lot of research done on it. Leisler came to a very gory death, which is what some people remember most about him. [Shown right.] I’ve been on the board of the Columbia County Historical Society for many years, and I’m on the City of Hudson Preservation Commission. I was appointed by the mayor to the Waterfront Advisory Steering Committee, and I’m also a member of the Friends of the First Presbyterian and an elder with the church. I’m on the Mrs. Greenthumbs Day committee with Carol Osterink, which leads a Hudson garden tour each year. Hudson is an extremely exciting community that’s diverse, and has lots of energy and creativity. The Institute is outside of the usual art and music scene, and more of an academic pursuit, but I hope I’m contributing to that ferment and growth.
