To the Editor:

In our region, early Dutch architecture abounds, a testimony to and a reminder of our area’s heritage.

On March 30, the New Scotland Historical Society will host Walter R. Wheeler, senior architectural historian at Hartgen Archeological Associates, who will discuss the early Dutch American building traditions of our region and how they evolved in response to availability of natural resources, changing technologies, and cultural influences.

Mr. Wheeler is one of our region’s foremost architectural historians focused on “vernacular architecture,” the local architecture of everyday life using designs based on local needs, availability of construction materials, and reflecting local traditions.

Mr. Wheeler was the director and lead author of a recent large-scale survey of Dutch heritage resources in the Greater Hudson Valley that included properties and structures built before 1850. This survey was made possible and necessary because over the past 30 years our knowledge and understanding of what constitutes New World  Dutch material culture and building traditions has evolved and been enriched by field-collection data and the work of individual scholars. 

For an informative afternoon on how the available local building materials, traditions, and cultures fused together to create the remarkable 17th- through early 19th-century architectural structures still present in our area, please join us at 2 p.m. on Sunday, March 30, at the Wyman Osterhout Community Center in New Salem at 7 The Old New Salem Road.

Admission is always free. 

The New Scotland Historical Association Museum will be open for a hal- hour before the program.

Judy Kimes, Publicist, New Scotland Historical Association