In honor of Women’s History Month and the centennial of the ratification of women’s suffrage in New York, Historic Huguenot Street has developed “In Her Words,” a women’s history tour launching Saturday, March 25, and running monthly through October. The tour will begin at 2 pm at the DuBois Fort Visitor Center.

Developed by HHS’ Public Programming department with the assistance of SUNY New Paltz intern Allison Surgeary, the tour will follow the lives and stories of several women who played a role in local history. Visitors will be guided through four historic buildings and have the opportunity to discover figures from the past through a combination of factual, historical information and cleverly composed monologues written and recorded by HHS staff and volunteers. 

Visitors will hear the stories of the Esopus women who signed the 1677 Indian Deed; Catherine Blanchan (1629 - 1713), one of the original New Paltz Huguenot settlers; enslaved Africans Rachel and Dinah; Wyntje Hasbrouck (1708 – 1787), a colonial woman who managed her own estate; Cornelia Markle VanWagenen (1775 – 1819), a widow who ran her own business in the early 1800s; Julia “Aunt Judy” Jackson (ca. 1800 – 1898), a freed slave; Eliza Varick Silvernail Ackert (1830 – 1916), the first female editor of the original New Paltz Times; Progressive-era artist Julia McEntee Dillon (1834 – 1919); and Mary Jane Snyder Freer (1862 – 1931), the first New Paltz woman to vote in 1918.