[Leica] Castles on the water

[lrzeitlin at gmail.com (Lawrence Zeitlin)]

You don't need to travel to Europe to see castles. This one is on the Hudson
River, Americas's Rhine.


http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Larry+Z/Bannerman_s+castle.jpg.html


Pollepel Island, just north of Cold Spring, holds the massive ruins of
Bannerman's Castle. Bannerman was an arms dealer who bought up all the
surplus military supplies after the Civil War and the Spanish American War
and stored them in a warehouse in New York City. He and his sons published a
catalog of his holdings and became the Sears Roebuck of munitions. Most of
the world's rebellions from 1880 through 1910 were fought with Bannerman
supplied arms. Eventually New York's city fathers became uneasy about having
a munitions store in mid-town and convinced Bannerman to move. He relocated
his warehouse to Pollapel Island, about 60 miles up the Hudson, and nearly
across from West Point, figuring that the locals would be more tolerant of a
few hundred tons of explosive in the basement. The warehouse was constructed
to look like a medieval castle, although it was made of conventional brick
and concrete. Bannerman and his family moved there.


I know the arms business continued into the late 1930s because my father had
a Bannerman catalog from that era. Unfortunately the area is no stranger to
lightning and the warehouse was largely destroyed by fire and explosions. In
the mid 60s my kids and I used to canoe the short distance to the island and
hunt for Civil War memorabilia in the ruins. All we found was a few belt
buckles and minnie balls, but a more fortunate neighbor got a couple of
single shot breech loading rifles and a small field cannon. The whole place
is now a state park.


In my opinion, even though it has few castles, the Hudson is far more
picturesque than the Rhine, which, except for short stretches, is largely
bordered by industrial sites. After the 1880s industrial development in the
US tended to move elsewhere, leaving the Hudson between New York City and
Albany a fairly depressed but still attractive waterway. Sailing up the
Hudson is like sailing a century and a half back in time.


Larry Z