New Hamburg, New York

New Hamburg is a small hamlet along the Hudson River in Dutchess County, New York, best known as home of a popular marina and a busy Metro-North Railroad Hudson Line station. It is located in the southern corner of the Town Of Poughkeepsie.

Road records of 1770 show that there were shipping facilities in New Hamburg called “Hood Landing.” The rivermen called the rocky point of land in the angle between the Hudson and the mouth of Wappinger Creek "High Point" and the area which projected into the river a few miles south "Low Point" (Chelsea).

Lime burning became an important industry. Dr. Benjamin Ely's map of 1797 shows a lime kiln in New Hamburg. By 1800 Ephraim DuBois had settled at High Point. In 1837 he sold his property, including a lime quarry and kiln, to Adolph Brower from New York. Brower's customers were local pig iron producers and farmers and builders as far away as New Jersey, supplied by river boat. He tore down the DuBois house and built his own on the same site about 1844. New Hamburg Yacht Club is now situated approximately where the "Old Lime Dock" was. The riverfront near the lime kilns was a favorite local bathing area called the "Sandy Bottom Shore.” When the railroad was built in the late 1840s, excess stone was tossed onto the naturally sandy beach area.

In 1808 John Drake Jr. built a bridge across Wappingers Creek. In 1879 an iron swing-bridge was erected, and continued to be known as "Drake's Bridge".

By 1810 John Drake had relocated to the hamlet where he had docks, a store, and 30 acres of land at High Point, then known as "Wappingers Landing". In the early 1820s, lumber surpassed lime kilns as a business. Charles Millard, who owned a lumber business based in Ulster County, moved to the Landing in 1824 and opened a lumber yard. Since most of the lumber and log shipments were made by water, Millard's son, Walter, branched out into ship building and freighting. He and a partner, Uriah Mills, built the barge Lexington, which carried freight up and down the Hudson River and the steamer Splendid, which carried both freight and passengers.

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