DOCENTS NEEDED

This Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Claverack Reformed Dutch Church building, there is to be a tour of seven early Dutch houses, all of which are as old or even older than the church, which was built in 1767--six years before the Boston Tea Party and sixteen years before the New Englanders who founded Hudson arrived in the Hudson Valley.

Van Rensselaer Lower Manor House, c. 1700

Van Ness House, c. 1730

Van Hoesen House, c. 1715

Ten Broeck House, c. 1750

Conyn-Van Rensselaer House, 1766

Cornelius S. Muller House, 1767

Tobias Van Deusen House, c. 1740

The tour, which offers a rare opportunity to see inside these early houses, costs $40, but if you are willing to spend three hours working as a docent in one of the houses, you can see all the houses for free. You can volunteer to be a docent from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and tour the houses in the afternoon. Or you can tour the houses in the morning and be a docent from 1 to 4 p.m. To become a docent for this extraordinary tour of 18th-century Dutch houses, contact Ian Nitschke. 
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