NEWS RELEASE: Historic Huguenot Street Vandalized on Halloween Night

NEW PALTZ, NY (November 7, 2014) – The board and staff of Historic Huguenot Street are saddened to report that on Halloween night, the Nations Historic Landmark District’s burial ground was vandalized. Photos of the destruction were taken and a police report has been filed with the New Paltz Police Department. Historic Huguenot Street is now working to remove the graffiti without doing any further damage to these nationally significant and irreplaceable stones. 

“We are lucky, in a sense, because the graffiti is not spray paint and can be removed with a water-based cleaning method,” explained Huguenot Street Historic Preservationist Weston Davey. “Any type of graffiti, however, can be damaging to stone monuments. We are working to carefully remove the graffiti to ensure that the pigment does not penetrate further into the porous stone.” 

This nearly 300-year-old burial ground dates back to the very first Huguenot settlers in New Paltz.  A number of the original Patentees are buried in this sacred place and it is the first known burial ground in New Paltz. For 120 years, it has been the mission of Historic Huguenot Street to protect the legacy of the Huguenot families that established our village by preserving the buildings, documents, and objects they left behind, including this burial ground. 

If anyone has any information about this unfortunate incident, please contact Historic Huguenot Street at (845) 255-1660 or info@huguenotstreet.org. 

A National Historic Landmark District, Historic Huguenot Street is a 501(c)3 non-profit that encompasses 30 buildings across 10 acres that was the heart of the original 1678 settlement, including seven stone houses that date to the early eighteenth century.  It was founded in 1894 as the Huguenot Patriotic, Historical, and Monumental Society to preserve their French and Dutch heritage.  Since then, Historic Huguenot Street has grown into an innovative museum, chartered as an educational corporation by the University of the State of New York, that is dedicated to protecting our historic buildings, conserving an important collection of artifacts and manuscripts, and promoting the stories of the Huguenot Street families, from the sixteenth century to today. 

###

Contact
Kaitlin Gallucci
Communications & Marketing Manager
(845) 255-1660
media@huguenotstreet.org