Hastings-on-Hudson, New York

, Welcome to Hastings , Hastings did not officially become a village until 1879. Compared to its Westchester neighbors that was very late. Even the local volunteer fire company is older. But with a population of 1,228, the community was hardly "new". It was already both a factory town and a country village. This diversity gave Hastings a personality all its own., Along the river, where every one told time by the factory whistles, were mills, modest homes, boarding houses and what some boasted was the highest percentage of bars per capita in the country. On the three treeless hills above the business district, were working farms, grand estates, summer houses, and a growing number of homes for people who would become known to commuters., No one is sure how Hastings got its name. Perhaps it was the name of an early settler. Perhaps former residents of a lost 18th-century Hastings on Long Island Sound brought the name here. The most popular explanation is that William Saunders, owner of the village's first factory and a British immigrant, named the town because the Palisades reminded him of the cliffs as Hastings on England's south coast. The name stuck, but until the early 20th century it was called Hastings-Upon-Hudson., Arrowheads and ancient trails suggest that Native Americans, probably Algonquins, camped and hunted here. With the coming of the Dutch in the 17th century, the area became part of the Philipse family holdings that stretched from the Bronx to Croton. The Philipses, however, sided with the British during the American Revolution. Afterwards their land was divided up, and auctioned off to speculators and local farmers, such as the Lefurgys in Hastings., During the Revolution, two local institutions served both sides: a blacksmith's shop (12) and Peter Post's tavern (4). In September 1778, Post overheard a barroom conversation about a raiding party of British-hired Hessians that would be moving north from Yonkers. He tipped off the American forces, and when the mercenaries passed near the Edgars farm in Hastings they were ambushed by a cavalry troop. (4 and 24) Post was severely beaten by the British for his role in what's been called The Battle of Edgars Lane, but after the war he became a major village landowner. A less successful land speculator was the author Washington Irving, who owned most of downtown Hastings between 1814 and 1817 but lost money on the deal., Water, first the power generated by a stream rushing towards the river and later the Hudson River itself, brought manufacturing to Hastings. And after the railroad arrived in 1849 industrialization continued: axel and cable mills, sugar refineries, an asphalt paving block works, a chemical plant. Underground, a hidden water course runs the length of Hastings. The Croton Aqueduct was built in the 1840s to bring fresh water to Manhattan. Today, its route is one of many public paths running through the village., Quarrying was probably the village's first industry. Beginning in the 1830s, small marble and granite quarries provided stone for building all along the eastern seaboard. The remains of one of the most picturesque quarries can be seen along the Aqueduct (15) near the former sculpture studio of Jacque Lipchitz., Lipchitz settled in Hastings in the 1950s, and one of his works stand in front of Village Hall (18). Over the years, the village has attracted a wide range of residents. Giuseppe Garibaldi, the Italian patriot, spent part of the summer of 1850 living on what is now Whitman Street. David Farragut, America's first admiral, chose Hastings as a refuge for his wife during the Civil War (11). In the 19th century, three painters settled here: Carl Brandt from Germany (28), George Harvey from England (19) and, best known, Jasper Cropsey from Staten Island. John William Draper brought his family of scientists here in the 1840s, and one of his sons built two observatories that dramatically advanced the use of photography in astronomy. (11 to 14), Another photographer was Lewis Hine, who documented the beauty and ugliness of the Industrial Age. His neighbor, architect Richmond Shreve, is remembered for the Empire State Building though he also designed public buildings in his village. (8 and 18) Other familiar Hastings names include impresario Florenz Ziegfeld and his wife Billie Burke (the good witch in The Wizard of Oz) (33), Frank Morgan (the Wizard himself), cellist Leonard Rose, comedian Jonathan Winters, civil rights theorist and sociologist Kenneth Clark, and at least four winners of Nobel Prizes., In 1930, 66% of Hastings' 7,097 residents were foreign born, almost all Eastern Europe or the British Isles. Seventy-five years later, the population number remains almost the same, but now 22 different foreign languages are spoken in homes of students in the school system. Spanish is the largest percentage, while others include Japanese, Korean, Hindi, and Mandarin., The details may change, but the diversity of Hastings continues.,