The tour will begin with a slide lecture by Elizabeth Chilton on area archaeology and history. Dr. Chilton is a professor of archaeology and anthropology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and the Director of the Center for Heritage and Society.
We will then take a bus to Germantown to visit the Bard College Archaeological Field School, Directed by Christopher Lindner. The earliest mass influx of Germans to America settled this part of the Hudson Valley in the 1710s. The descendant community and Bard College are excavating and exhibiting the homes of the 18th-century Reformed (Calvinist) ministers; see http://inside.bard.edu/archaeology. Dr. Christopher Lindner has done extensive research on local history of Native Americans, Palatine Germans, and African Americans.
After we tour the field school, we will travel by bus to the Church of St. John the Evangelist in Barrytown (http://www.stjohnsbarrytown.org/). The Church of St. John Evangelist was founded by a Trustee of St. Stephen’s after years of pastoral ministry by students of the College among workers on local estates. A premier example of Hudson Valley architecture, the church is undergoing an historic restoration while continuing its original mission.
After lunch we will travel back to campus and continue with a walking tour of Bard College (http://www.bard.edu/about/). John Bard founded St. Stephen's College – its original name -- in association with the New York City leadership of the Episcopal church. His grandfather's country estate, Hyde Park, lent its name to that Hudson River town. For its first 60 years, St. Stephen's offered young men a classical curriculum in preparation for entrance into the seminaries of the Episcopal church. In support of this venture, John Bard donated the Chapel of the Holy Innocents and part of his riverside estate, Annandale, to the College.