Hudson and Columbia County

The Urban Gem in the Country Crown

by John Rodat and photographs by Amber S. Clark, July 29, 2009

In Columbia County, you can learn to appreciate the opportunities presented by being caught behind a slow-moving tractor.

For one, it allows you the chance to scribble on your dashboard pad the variety of interesting places along the rural routes wending their ways through the small villages, hamlets, and farmland: If you’re on Route 66, for example, there’s the sign for Grazin’ Angus Acres, whose grass-fed Black Angus meats seem a great idea around barbecue time; and the Hudson-Chatham winery, which seems a pretty tasty idea at nearly any time.

Along Route 9, through Valatie and Kinderhook, you could easily fill your small notebook jotting down just the historical markers: The Burgoyne House (where the British general was entertained for an evening as a prisoner during the Revolutionary War), the Dutch Reformed Church (organized in 1712), the Benedict Arnold House (where the famed hero/traitor was allegedly cared for after being wounded in the Battle of Bemis Heights in 1777), and many others. They seem to sprout along this route like summer wildflowers.

And if you happen to be stalled at the traffic circle there, the life-sized sculpture of eighth US president and Kinderhook native Martin Van Buren, chilling nonchalantly on a park bench, might tempt you out of your car for a photo op.

But aside from the appeal for the note-taking agritourist or the history buff, there’s another reason to be thankful for the poky John Deere: Look to the right. Look to the left.

It’s spectacular.

The open and gently rolling land of Columbia County has a wealth of well-known scenic points: There’s artist Frederic Edwin Church’s breathtaking Middle-Eastern-influenced mansion, Olana, overlooking the Hudson; the High Falls on the Agawamuck Creek in Philmont; the miles of trails and the picnic spots at the Greenport Conservation Area.

But an A-ha! moment can arrive in the form of the blinking hazards of a forest-green traffic obstacle. Stop virtually anywhere in Columbia County and you’ve got a lush, unspoiled rural vista before you.

Which makes the artsy urbanity of the county seat all the more compelling.