Upcoming Events
Sponsored by Rondout Savings Bank
Location: Lectures are hosted on the Hudson River Maritime Museum's campus in the Wooden Boat School Classroom or Homeport Barn. Check individual event details for location.
If you are interested in participating in our lecture series as a guest speaker, please contact the Museum's Education Department or call 845-338-0071 ext. 16.
December
Wrecked and Abandoned: Forgotten Vessels of the Rondout Creek and Hudson River
Wednesday December 3, 2025 - Wooden Boat School Classroom
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7:00 PM - 8:00 PM
$10 admission / $5 for HRMM members In the 19th century, Rondout Creek was a center of transportation and industry. The entrance to the over 100-mile-long Delaware and Hudson (D&H) Canal was accessed through Rondout Creek, here in Kingston, allowing barges carrying thousands of tons of Pennsylvania coal, Hudson Valley bricks, and other resources between the two ends of the canal. The Mary Powell, one of the “floating palaces”, as these large passenger steamboats were called, had its home port in Kingston and brought thousands of passengers across the Hudson River to New York City and back every year. Hundreds of sloops and schooners sailed the Hudson River, many travelling back and forth in Rondout Creek.Over the years, many boats and barges have been neglected, left to rot on the creek. Accidents were unfortunately inevitable, and the Rondout Creek and Hudson River is home to a plethora of forgotten, wrecked and abandoned vessels. Join museum educator Emma Cariello as she discusses these vessels. |
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Guest Speaker
Emma has been an educator at the Hudson River Maritime Museum for a year this December. She holds a journalism degree from SUNY New Paltz. She has previously worked as a historic interpreter at the Senate House State Historic Site and a tour guide at the Reher Center.
January 2026
Fossils to Foundations: How Geology Shaped New York Waterways
Wednesday January 14, 2026 - Wooden Boat School Classroom
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7:00PM - 8:00 PM
$10 admission / $5 for HRMM members Before the first dinosaurs, before the first mammals, just as the very first forests were beginning to form on Earth, the land that makes up New York state today was covered by an ancient ocean. How did the geology formed by this ancient world, nearly 400 million years ago, shape life and commerce along the Hudson River throughout the 1800’s and into the present? |
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Guest Speaker
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Abby Drayer works aboard Solaris and in the Education Department at the HRMM. They have a background in Physics and Acoustics, and are currently taking graduate courses on Marine Bioacoustics.
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Past Events
For more than a decade the Hudson River Maritime Museum's "Follow the River Lecture Series" has hosted historians, authors, and maritime experts covering a variety of subjects ranging from regional and maritime history to ecology and art inspired by the river.
Past lectures that were able to be recorded are available to view on the museum's YouTube channel. Due to restrictions, not all lectures may be available on video or in full. Watch via our Lecture Series playlist on YouTube or simply click on the graphics below to be taken to recordings of recent lectures.
Past lectures that were able to be recorded are available to view on the museum's YouTube channel. Due to restrictions, not all lectures may be available on video or in full. Watch via our Lecture Series playlist on YouTube or simply click on the graphics below to be taken to recordings of recent lectures.
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A Year in the Life of an Orchard
Kevin Clark, lead orchardist at Rose Hill Farm |
Vertical Divider
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Finding Joy in Color and Peace in Nature: Becoming a Coast Guard Artist with Fred Feiler
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Geology and History of the Rosendale Natural Cement Industry
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Ladies of the Valley |
Brick & Brick Ruins of Hudson Valley |
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Author Mary Mistler leads a talk on her novel 'Ladies of the Valley" Women of the Hudson Valley's Great Estates' highlighting several of these women and and offering insights and anecdotes from their lives, which largely reflect women’s changing roles over centuries.
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Thomas Rinaldi and Robert Yasinsac’s talk about brickyard ruins as well as notable ruins constructed from local bricks.
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The Land Doesn't Forget |
Manhattan Phoenix |
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All the land that makes up the United States was in its entirety Indigenous land. Learn about the policies used to remove Indigenous Nations from their homes and pushed them onto reservations. Heather Bruegl explains why the fight to regain this land is important.
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Based on his book, "Manhattan Phoenix: The Great Fire of 1835 and the Emergence of Modern New York", author Daniel S. Levy describes in detail the Great Fire of 1835 —which destroyed nearly 700 buildings in lower Manhattan—and the forces that transformed New York from a large unruly metropolis during the early years of the 19th century.
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Seasons of Life |
Marginalized Workers on the D&H Canal |
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Frank Beres, an aquatic ecologist and naturalist based out of Port Ewen, New York, examines the phenology of biodiversity as he travels through a year in our local area of the Hudson River watershed.
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The construction of the 108-mile-long Delaware and Hudson (D&H) Canal required about 5000 laborers working in hard and dangerous conditions. D&H Historian and Bill Merchant gives a presentation about the lives and experiences of the diverse group of people who worked on the Canal.
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Please subscribe to our YouTube channel to get notifications of new recorded lectures and other films and videos.