Huguenot Street

Professor Evergreen is writing a novel/screenplay that takes place on Huguenot Street in 2005, with flashbacks to the 1600s when New Paltz was founded by 12 French Huguenots who bargained for land extending from the Shawangunk Mountains to the Hudson River. In exchange for an assortment of material goods, including 50 kettles, 40 oars, and 100 knives, a group of Native American men and women referred to as Esopus Sachems drew their signature marks on the 1677 deed.

The Annual Stone House Day Festival gives you a taste of the settlers' life in the fertile Wallkill River Valley:

In the early days the French and Dutch settlers had to defend themselves against the British and the Indians and so everyone had a gun:

Today Evergreen lives on this street where the stone houses still look the way they did years ago:

Professor Evergreen's novel is narrated by the voice of the Gunks, an omniscient narrator that has witnessed millions of years of natural and human upheaval. Today the Gunks is known for its world-class rock climbing and lovely lakes:

Huguenot Street by Julia Evergreen Keefer will probably be published in 2011, although the story was copyrighted in 2006. The present day characters live in New Paltz but are from Turkey, Greece, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Iran, Iraq, China, and Manhattan as well as the beautiful Hudson Valley. The plot includes intriguing romance, shocking adultery, attempted murder, and a battle between environmentalists and developers. It is Tome I of The Rock Trilogy.