Although sparsely attended, this year’s 2004 DuBois Family Reunion was a time for re-newing friendships and making new ones.

Highlighted by a delicious dinner of salads and sandwiches, we enjoyed getting to know some newer members.

We also spent some time looking over the computer software tool that Boyd Harrold is using to enter our genealogy information so that it can be easily updated and printed. There is more information on that project inside this newsletter.

Won’t you consider coming to our next one?

I put my hand on the large stone next to the gun port which faces out onto Huguenot Street, closed my eyes and time traveled, just for a moment, back 300 years to the actual days of the construction of the Fort. It was only one room back then, a farmhouse really, built to satisfy the Governor’s un-funded mandate to protect us from the Indians, and other troublemakers.

Who else had put their hand on this stone over the years I wondered? Perhaps a neighbor lady leaned into the window to share some gossip or a farmer rested against this wall after a hard day tending the crops across the river. Maybe even the reputed resident “ghost in the nightgown” had put her hand here on her evening rounds.

But suddenly, a loud drum roll began to call the militia to arms, and once again it was time for me to go on duty as a tour guide of the Family Fort during the New Paltz Colo-

(Continued on page 4)

2004 COLONIAL STREET FESTIVAL FUN FOR ALL AGES BY CAROLINE DUBOIS

WE MISSED YOU AT THE 2004 DUBOIS REUNION!

DuBois

Family

News Volume 1, Issue 3 December 2004

Some of the family members in front of the fireplace

Inside This Issue:

From the President’s Desk……….2

Genealogist’s Corner…………….7

News from the Fort……………....7

Special Interest:

300th Fort Anniversary………….3

Quest for the Crest……………….5

New DuBois Documents………...6

New HHS Curator………………..6

Two New Sections:

DBFA Family News.....………….2

Genealogical Queries…………….7

The front porch of the Fort was a popular place.

New Expanded Edition! More Pictures! More News!

2

119 North Ohioville Rd. New Paltz, New York 12561

Phone: 845-255-9050

Website: www.dbfa.org

DuBois Family Associa t ion

DBFA Officers President Dina DuBois PO Box 473 Corinth, VT 05039 president@dbfa.org Vice President—Webmaster Terry DuBois 3914 Chaucer Lane Sarasota, FL 34241 webmaster@dbfa.org Vice President—Treasurer Pamela Bailey 13 Beech Hill Drive Newark, DE 19711 Vice President—Secretary Carol Edelman 108 Buck Drive Ruckersville, VA 22986 dndedelman@firstva.com Vice President—HHS Family Liaison Adrienne Wiese 10 Kilmer Ave. Ext. Poughkeepsie, NY 12601 Vice President—Newsletter Editor S. Michael Benson 220 Plutarch Rd. Highland, NY 12528 newsletter@dbfa.org Genealogist Catherine Smith 119 N. Ohioville Road New Paltz, NY 12561 dbfa@juno.com Genealogy inquires: genealogy@dbfa.org

FROM THE PRESIDENT’S DESK BY DINA DUBOIS, DBFA PRESIDENT

PLEASE PLAN NOW WITH YOUR CHIL-DREN AND GRANDCHILDREN TO COME OCTOBER 14, 15, AND 16, 2005 FOR THE 300TH BIRTHDAY CELEBRA-TION AN CEREMONY.

Boyd Harrold has taken on putting the genea-logical information into the Family Treemaker data base. DBFA is so grateful to him for start-ing this time consuming project that will help future updates and corrections be made easily. He needs help copy editing. See the job descrip-tion on page 6 and offer to lend a hand. We need three or four people. It can be done at a distance.

Warm regards and see you on the street,

Dina DuBois DBFA President

Dear DuBois family members,

What fun we had at our mid-summer family reun-ion. Every other year we are going to have the reunion on the Colonial Street Festival date , and the other year will be the third weekend in Octo-ber. Mike took great pictures so you'll see the kids who did the Quest for the Crest and some of the other activities at our social supper, and during the day at the Fort.

The big news this issue is the 300th anniversary of the building of the DuBois Fort in 1705. We are going to celebrate that three ways in 2005.

1. With the Huguenot Historical Society, DBFA is launching a five year project to create enticing period rooms upstairs in the Fort. Please read about that in another article on page 3 of this newsletter

2. DBFA will have, instead of a buried time capsule, an archival collection of current day descendants of Louis DuBois for the HHS archives. Send or bring your artifacts for the ceremony. Instructions for sending in your articles of the archival collection are included in an article on page 3 of this newsletter.

3. Send in photos of your DuBois line from the 1860-1890's and I'll paint them on screens to put on display on the Fort's lawn for the 2005 season. Instructions for sending in copies of your photos are included in an article on page 3 of this newsletter.

Terry has more ideas for the celebration that he'll fill you in on in the next newsletter.

HHS has received the money from Alice DuBois' bequest, so they will have much of the restoration of the exterior of the building completed for the celebration.

Beginning in the next issue of the DuBois Fam-ily Association Newsletter we will be introduc-ing a new column to recognize “family mile-stones”.

Since we are all “family” it makes sense that we recognize those among us who have major achievements or events in their lives.

Therefore, we are soliciting information from all of you on events that have occurred in your own families since the last newsletter publication. These events can be marriages, births, gradua-tions, and just about anything else that you would like to “crow” about or like us to know.

At my wedding many years ago, the minister said sharing our joys will multiply them and sharing our sorrows will divide them. Our de-sire is to draw us all closer together as family through sharing these life events.

You can send your family news to newslet-ter@dbfa.org and they will be compiled and placed in the next issue for everyone to see! Please let us share your “family milestones”.

DBFA FAMILY NEWS

3

DuBoises NOW– Time Capsule You can participate in the archive time capsule collection by bringing or sending in something flat that represents a meaning-ful representation of yourself. This collec-tion of current DuBois descendants of Louis DuBois will be part of the permanent archives of the Huguenot Historical Society and will serve as a kind of time capsule that will be opened and looked at. What do you want saved that will be a DuBois legacy in the future? How fascinating to figure out what one piece can stand for who you are. Is it a poem you wrote, an award you re-ceived, a picture of family and friends, a picture of something you built, a resume? Is it a contribution to your community or your own genealogy? How will it give future descendants a picture of who we are NOW?

Send these to Mike Benson or better yet BRING THEM TO THE CEREMONY. Photocopy in color on good paper and on the back include: your name, date of birth, and place of residence and which DuBois line you are descended form. They need to fit into a 19x25 x 2 1/2 inch archival box. Mike Benson 220 Plutarch Rd. Highland, NY 12528

DuBoises THEN- Gallery of DuBois spirits To commemorate and venerate those who went before us, portraits will be painted on screens that will be displayed on the lawn of the Fort. If you have a photograph of a

descendant during the early years of photog-raphy, 1860's through 1890's, send it to Dina and she will paint that person's life size por-trait on screening. Painted in acrylic paint in black and white and gray, the portraits are spirit like and can be looked through. Repre-senting many different lines of DuBoises will

be important to imbue our homestead with the spirits of a far flung clan.

Send your photos to Dina by January, 2005 so she has time to complete the paintings by the opening of the 2005 season in June. Send a photocopy in black and white. Send a slide if you can. Be sure to say the name and birth and death dates, and where the person lived at the time of the picture.

Dina DuBois P.O. Box 473 Corinth, VT 05039.

HELP US CELEBRATE 300 YEARS AT THE FORT IN 2005

FORT TO DEPICT A “SLICE OF LIFE” stairs rooms will be used, it will be some time between the 1830's and 1890's. Other houses on the street represent other time periods.

The Cooperstown Graduate program that designed the orientation exhibit for the Fort will be given a proposal by HHS to design the initial upstairs exhibit. HHS will provide the historical materials and guide the stu-dent's design work. To begin this five year project, the rooms will be a research-in-progress using archival documents and ob-jects from the HHS DuBois collections. Du-Bois documents from the treasured HHS archives will help bring alive the people and the times. Questions will be raised to help the viewer engage with the documents. I remember how well Eric Roth intrigued us by reading from a Christmas wish list...the child requested stationary. What is so special about that? Well, at that time, stationary was expensive and not an everyday item.

The DuBois collections, objects that family members have given, will also convey the story of the family and the house and the times. Just as documents speak to us, the objects in HHS collections speak and tell a story. The grandfather clock isn't just an artifact, but provides a narrative that holds a story.

Commemorating the 300th anniversary of the building of the DuBois Fort in 1705, HHS is launching a five year research project to create an authentically docu-mented slice of life represented in two period rooms on the second floor. It seems most likely that the alterations to the fort, adding the second floor, were made in the 1830's. Daniel I. DuBois and his wife Magdalene Hasbrouck had four children by that time. Two rooms and the hallway of the second floor will evoke a pivotal time in the intimate, private life of the family. The rooms may portray a birth, or getting ready for a christening, or just getting ready for an ordinary day.

This coming year, 2005, we begin the process of achieving the final documented product. Imagination and authenticity will combine to allow the visitor to peek into the lives of the residents, seeing the upstairs room as if they just stepped out. This will be a self guided space that will provoke the audience to think about their own family objects and history.

The first step is to use the Historic Struc-tures Report (HSR) to determine what period to focus on: a period that will tell about the DuBois family in the house, and about the house itself. Because the up-

4

2004 COLONIAL STREET FESTIVAL (CONT.)

nial Festival, and share the exciting story of religious turmoil in Europe and courageous taming of the wilderness with eager visi-tors. My job was much easier this year due to the new display inside the Fort. Colorful banners with maps, paintings and large type narrative are hanging from the ceiling illuminated by mini spot-lights. They provide a historical setting for the journey of our Huguenot fathers and mothers as they traveled from France to Germany to Holland to New Amsterdam to Kingston to New Paltz looking for a peaceful home to call their own.

The setting was still relaxed and “old-fashioned” on this warm August afternoon despite the crowd. Visitors rested in the shade of the porch watching a spinner with her wheel, as she turned a pile of brown wool into a ball of yarn. Children played at hoops

and jacks and other simple toys they had just purchased at the gift shop, which has b e e n enlarged and moved to the front room.

Citizen sol-diers and their fami-lies relaxed around the liberty pole

(Continued from page 1)

We were entertained by a multi-talented Italian juggler

Many children were ready to join the militia

The militia reenactment included fife and drum

Even sheep enjoyed the beautiful day!

Historical Society. Student interns from the theater ward-robe department at SUNY New Paltz had been hard at work during the winter helping to build a stockpile of outfits for both men and women to use during the festival.

These stories, crafts, costumes and old stones helped all of us, visitors and guides alike, look back across the years, and for one magic day, envision how our ancestors turned a remote wilderness village into a thriving community. ■

on the lawn, before marching in formation and demon-strating their weapons. A stone carver positioned near the old graveyard offered elegant back yard ornaments for sale, as did a tin-smith, broom-maker and rocking-chair vendor.

A fish net weaver, who learned the skill from his grandfa-ther and has passed it down to his own grandchildren, told stories of his life in the village. Domestic children repeat-edly dipped strings into hot pink wax to make candles and dyed cloth for handkerchief dolls.

I felt right at home with my own home-made costume, complete with starched white cap and apron depicting a simple “milk maid”. Several of the other DuBois “family” guides were much fancier with authentic repro-duction outfits they had borrowed from the Huguenot

5

QUEST FOR THE CREST CHALLENGED YOUNG AND OLD!

I really liked the candle making, and helping to clean the wool for spin-ning. I think it would have been fun to live

back then. Also the quest for the stamps to get the DuBois crest was fun.—Keith Os-terhoudt, age 8

What I like about New Paltz

I liked to learn about how we are related to the DuBois family and

the rest of the families that lived in New Paltrz. Seeing people in 1700s costumes was cool. It was fun to find 4 stamps that together make the DuBois family crest. We got to go in the house my grandpa spent the summers in as a little kid. Visit-ing New Paltz was fun.—Kenny Oster-houdt, age 11

At the Colonial Street festival I was one of the kids who did the quest for the crest. I was so excited because if you complete it you get your very own Dubois Crest.

What I did to solve the quest is to look at the map to see where to go so I would charge through the crowds to get there. When I got there, I would read the clue, and hunt around until I found it. Last of all, I would stamp my sheet and find the word that goes in the blank.

Actually, that isn't the exact last thing be-cause then I'd act like I'd won a gold medal at the olimpics. Then I'd charge on to the next place.

The Quest took me all over the festival to places like the Dubois fort, the cemetary, and the smoke house. There was one on the front porch of the Dubois fort. It was probably the easiest one. Yet the last one you had to use a geneology chart to figure out a name that was hard for me and my mom to solve.

What fun, and I received a Dubois crest too. Now I have it framed and hung on my wall. I would go back and do it again any time!

At this year’s Colonial Street Festival, our DuBois family members were able to participate in the “Quest for the Crest”. The prize for completing the quest was a beautiful DuBois family crest suitable for framing.

Participants were given a sheet that had “clues” to find rubber stamps that repre-sented four quarters for the crest. Once all of the crest stamps were located,

Kenny and Keith Osterhoudt in front of Daniel DuBois’ grave stone

Caroline DuBois helps with a Quest

there was one last question to test your skill at using our Du-Bois family geneal-ogy books.

There were several family members who took the challenge of locating the rubber stamps during the festival. Both young and old scurried through the crowds to find the hidden stamps and claim their very own Du-Bois family crest.

We have included some pictures and stories from some of the younger participants who enthusiastically searched for the hidden stamps using the clues. It was a wonderful way to include several generations in a family activity.

The DuBois Family Crest was created using four stamps MY QUEST FOR THE CREST BY CHANCE RAINE

6

HHS UNEARTHS 1,500 COLONIAL ERA MANUSCRIPTS SEEKS CONTRIBUTIONS FOR TRANSLATION OF DUBOIS FAMILY DOCUMENTS BY ERIC ROTH

the Janneje DuBois Account Book, 1773-1791, and the Hendricus DuBois, Jr. Ac-count Book, 1771-1783, all three of which are in Dutch. HHS asks the DBFA to raise $2,300, ½ the cost of translating the 95 Dutch pages in these documents. HHS will cover the other half.

Contributions are 100% tax deductible and can be sent to Susie Kilpatrick at the Hu-guenot Historical Society, 18 Broadhead Ave., New Paltz, NY. Checks should be made out to the Huguenot Historical Soci-ety and include in the message line: Trans-lation Project – DBFA. The Society can also accept contributions by credit card (Visa and Mastercard only).

All those interested in contributing by credit card should contact the Society’s Development Officer Susie Kilpatrick by phone at (845) 255-1660 or by email at susie@hhs-newpaltz.org. You can also contact the Society’s Archivist, Eric Roth by phone at (845) 255-6738 or by email at library@hhs-newpaltz.org.

VOLUNTEERS WANTED! We need volunteers who can help proof-read our newly input Family Tree Maker genealogical data. We will provide you with both the original archival copy and the new FTM copy for you to compare. While having computer and internet ac-cess is helpful, it is not absolutely essen-tial. This is a wonderful opportunity to learn more about our DuBois family while helping ensure the accuracy of our new database. Please contact Carol Edel-man for more information or to volun-teer.

NEW HHS CURATOR OF HISTORIC PROPERTIES NAMED

Linda Pate was recently named the new Curator of Historic Properties for the Huguenot Historical Society. She replaces Stew-

art Crowell who recently retired.

As curator of historical properties, she oversees the restoration and mainte-nance of all of the historical structures and grounds on Huguenot Street.

Linda joins HHS with outstanding credentials. She recently completed her master’s degree in public history at Indiana University where she concen-trated on historic preservation. Prior to that, she studied history, women’s studies, mechanical engineering, and communications.

Not one to sit behind a desk all day,

Linda pitches in to help with the actual hands on work. She has considerable carpentry experience and has restored timber framed churches, barns and houses in Maine.

Scattered throughout the archives of the Huguenot Historical Society are approxi-mately 1,500 pages of manuscripts written in Dutch and French. Consisting of church records, community legal and financial records, student educational workbooks and family genealogical registers, these docu-ments provide a wealth of information about the early history of this Hudson Val-ley community and its early families.

Despite the significant historical value of these manuscripts, their composition in French and Dutch has stood as a barrier to the American historical and genealogical communities. But thanks to a generous seed grant provided by our State Assemblyman, Kevin Cahill, the Huguenot Historical So-ciety, with the help of Dr. David William Voorhees, completed a preliminary inven-tory of these foreign-language documents.

Beginning in 2005 the Society will embark on an ambitious four-year project to trans-late these valuable historic records for the purpose of making them more accessible. HHS is asking the DBFA to raise $2,300 to help out. This figure covers ½ of the esti-mated cost of hiring a Dutch language his-torian to translate 95 pages in Dutch found among DuBois family manuscripts. Here’s how it works.

HHS will cover funding for the first and last phases of translation work from money raised through the 2004 Special Appeal (thanks to any of you who may have con-tributed!). Documents to be translated in the first phase include those we have identi-fied as Top Priority Documents, such as the Indian Deed (long in need of retranslation), early New Paltz tax lists, letters, and other papers relating directly to the patentees and their children. During this first year HHS will also translate several family genealogi-cal registers (of interest to the DBFA are the registers of Hendricus DuBois, Benja-min DuBois, and Rebecca Van Wagenen DuBois Louw). In early 2006, HHS plans to post some of these documents on its website as part of its first ever Digital Documents Project. No funding is re-quested from the families for this phase.

H H S will seek funding f r o m o t h e r sources for the f i n a l phase of the pro-j e c t , s c h e d -uled for 2 0 0 8 , w h i c h

consists of church records and other papers relating to religious matters.

However, in phase 2, HHS will translate student workbooks and account books in 2006-2007. This is where you come in. Among those documents scheduled for translation during this phase are two account books and one student work-book with DuBois family history: the Maria DuBois Ciphering Book, 1739,

An Untranslated Document

7

this fall. There was a section on the west wall that had been covered by the addi-tion for many years. That section con-tained a good example of the original type of mortar joint and the masons are recreating that raised joint all around the building.

They will continue their re-pointing work this fall as long as the weather holds out. They will return in the spring, as soon as weather permits, and finish the masonry work on the north and east walls.

HAPPENING’S AT THE FORT BY LINDA PATE, CURATOR OF HISTORIC PROPERTIES, HUGUENOT HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Winter will be the time when the Res-toration Crew of the Huguenot Histori-cal Society will return to finish the window repair and re-glazing project they began last winter. Also in the winter and early spring, the painters who painted the downstairs will return to the Fort to paint the upstairs hallway and two bedrooms in preparation for the DuBois Family Exhibit. The plan, weather permitting, is to have it all done in time for Opening Day festivi-ties in the spring.

GENEALOGIST’S CORNER BY CATHARINE SMITH, DBFA GENEALOGIST

Last newsletter, we began a story that was sent to Bill Heidgerd by Ruth Sims. In it, the Indi-ans near Elizabeth-town, KY had taken

Elizabeth Hart, a descendant of Sarah VanMeter, daughter of Louis DuBois and three of her children captive in 1792.

They killed the little girl just a short dis-tance from the cabin because she cried and the Indians were afraid the followers would hear her. They killed Miles JR. because he had a sore foot and couldn’t keep up. This left Joe and his Mother the only captives and she was ready to have another child and could barley keep up.

She was required to carry kettles and to cook for the Indians. During the day they waded waist-deep across an ice filled creek. They crossed the Ohio River into the Northwest Territory. At nightfall she was delegated to kindle fires for the Indi-ans and then to go aside to kindle a fire for herself, raking up as best she could rubbish from under the snow and there alone, un-aided by the kind assistance known to civi-lized life, she delivered a son.

The squaws then showed a little kindness in the morning by giving her a little water

in which a turkey had been boiled. Then cutting a block from a tree, they wrapped a piece of blanket around the infant, fastened it to the block and laid the block upon her back. They then continued their march. After six months of hard treatment the in-fant died. Elizabeth dug a grave and buried her child. The next morning as she went to fetch water, she found the baby lying in her path. The Indians had disinterred the body and placed it there. She took the baby and buried it again, but the next morning as she went to the spring she discovered the baby’s head in her path, the Indians had cut the head from the body.

She again took the baby and buried it, but the following morning the same event oc-curred. She realized she would be taunted by this as long as she showed she cared, so she just took her foot and pushed the baby’s head out of her path and went on her way. After that she never saw the baby again and she supposed that they buried it.

After they crossed the Ohio River, Joe and his mother were separated. One tribe went one way with Joe and Elizabeth wound up near present day Detroit. Joe was rescued by his uncles, but Elizabeth spent several years in captivity. She finally convinced a French trapper to purchase her, promising him that her family would pay for her re-turn.

Everyone is talking about the weather. Restoration work continues on the ex-terior of the Fort. The masons finished the south side in the summer and are working on the west and north sides

GENEALOGY QUERIES Another new section that we are adding to the DuBois Family News is the oppor-tunity for you to ask specific genealogy questions.

You can send your requests to newslet-ter@dbfa.org. For each newsletter we will select a few questions to publish. Please include a way for people to con-tact you should they have the informa-tion you are looking for. This can be a telephone number, mailing address, or even an email address.

We also provide a genealogy look up service for a nominal fee to help you find those long lost ancestors or break down that genealogical brick wall. That ser-vice continues to be available.

Look for the first set of genealogical queries in the next issue!

Working on the Windows at the Fort

8

DuBois Family Association 119 North Ohioville Rd. New Paltz, NY 12561

Postmaster: Address Service Requested

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• DuBois Family History, Volumes 1-20. A chronological history tracing the descendants of Chrétien DuBois of Wicres, France in America. - Volumes 1-8 on separate disks (Microsoft Word or text files)…...……………………….. $11.00 - Entire 8 volumes on CD…..…………………………………...………….………….…….. $70.00 - Unbounded printouts of volumes 1-8 (per volume)...…………...……...…………….…..... $16.00 - Hardcopies of selected volumes (pre-update, not all volumes are available)…………..….. $10.00

• Master DuBois Name Index…………………..…………………………………………….…. $25.00

• DuBois Family Coat of Arms. A beautiful 13”x16” replica on parchment paper …….. $10.00

• Matthew Blanchan in Europe and America. A booklet from the paper of Major Louis DuBois (1891-1965) …………………….…….. $6.00

• Roots of the New Paltz Reformed Church……………………….………………..………….. $6.00

• Notepaper with drawing of the DuBois Fort. Twelve cards and envelopes…….…...…… $7.00

• Notepaper with the family crest. Twelve cards and envelopes…………………...………... $7.00

• Postcards - A beautiful color picture of the DuBois Fort...………………………………... 5/$1.00

Make checks payable to DuBois Family Association.

Send order to: DBFA 119 North Ohioville Rd. New Paltz, NY 12561