Category: Hudson Valley
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Backwoods Butchershop
Many years ago when I was a student at the Culinary Institute of America the scheme was that the newer student/chefs start off learning the basics of all things related to cuisine and by the end of your time there you are designing your own restaurant and cooking in one…
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Field Work
Back in 2023 I took a trip down to Tuxedo Park in Rockland County to visit the site of the hangout of the villains in my novel. Claudius Smith’s “Den” is a well-documented location on one of the peaks that make up Dunderberg Mountain in the middle of Harriman State…
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Licence to Thrill?
“The Clove” is my attempt to retell part of the story of Claudius Smith’s notorious gang of terrorists, the latest and probably not the last of historical fictions to deal with the subject. Over the years, there have been more than a few variations on the story. Most published versions I…
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A Timeline of Crime
“We have not thought ourselves secure for a long time. We live so scattered that they can come in the dead of night to any one family & do what they please.”
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Some background on Claudius Smith
As in all things related to the Smith Gang, take with a grain of salt. SOURCE: “History of Orange County, New York” Ruttenber EM and Clark,LH. (Philadelphia: Everets and Peck, 1881) reprinted 1980 Claudius came to Knight’s Mill’s in the present town of Monroe with his father“where he grew up,…
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A new beginning.
From The Clove: “Rachel watched John change from the good-hearted, smiling farmer she married to a driven, hard-hearted land broker. Rachel finally put her foot down. She told him, “John Earl, you have no friends, you rarely see your family, and (with the slightest pout), I am quite sure you…
