Hidden treasures spice up the Hudson Valley

Maybe you;re sitting there with a self-satisfied smile on your mug. Like, no matter who comes visiting, you'll know where to take them.

W-R-O-N-G.

There are some really neat places you may not have heard about.

You may have seen the best, now here's a tour of some of the rest.

Like artist Peter Wing's castle in the Town of Washington; the largest Celtic cross in the country on Salt Point Turnpike in Poughkeepsie; the meteor crater in Ulster County; Top Cottage, FDR's getaway in Hyde Park; Jimmy Cagney's farm in Stanford; and Cruger Island, a Hudson River island off Red Hook where a retired mayor of New York City lived amidst artificial Mayan ruins he had an architect construct. (Because he liked Mayan ruins, that's why.)

"We get phone calls about (the artificial Mayan ruins) every now and then from people who hear about it or see it on maps and are trying to connect it with pre-Columbian civilization or to the meteor crater across the river,'' says Eileen Hayden, executive director of the Dutchess County Historical Society. "We get people with very unusual ideas who contact us for verification of their information.''

Peter Wing's house is a castle. His castle is built from rocks big and small found in and around the Town of Washington. Look for it as you drive along Duell Road.

But Wing's Castle is not a tourist stop. Nor is the modest stone ranch house that's the centerpiece of a Town of Stanford farm off County Route 76. The Cagney Farm was the home of the late screen idol, Jimmy Cagney.

The meteor crater?

Back about 200 million years ago, a large meteorite caught Ulster County in the mid-section. The confirmation of long-held theories came just a few years ago thanks to photographs taken by the LANDSAT satellite. Ground zero would have been Panther Mountain around Shandaken. The crater's diameter would have been about eight miles, according to Karl Loatman of the Mid-Hudson Astronomy Association.

But don't go looking for evidence. Most rim-like evidence was buried under sedimentary deposits that has flowed into the region from New England.

Not far from Dutchess Community College in the Town of Poughkeepsie is St. Peter's Cemetery. If you ask someone if they've seen the Celtic cross and they reply, 'Which one?,' then they haven't seen THE one.

Built during World War I, the 35 1/4 feet tall is the largest Celtic cross in the nation. It was recently reconstructed as part of the cemetery's ongoing rehabilitation, thanks to the McCann Foundation, which will pay as much as $3 million for the entire project.

But, then, the McCann family and his wife and her family are buried at St. Peter's.

"The original cross was made of precast concrete and it was disintegrating,''' says John Gartland, executive director of the foundation. "We've duplicated the original in granite and they say it will last a thousand years.''

No insider's tour would be complete without a stop at the Dutchess County Courthouse.

It was there that the U.S. Constitution was ratified. The vote in New York was the turning point in the great debate.

"Were it not for the vigorous insistence of the delegates at Poughkeepsie in the summer of 1788, we might not have had the same Bill of Rights we have today,'' says Albert M. Rosenblatt, a justice of the New York State Supreme Court, Appellate Division, from Poughkeepsie.

No claim about the importance of what took place in Poughkeepsie at that time would be too extravagant, says Justice Rosenblatt.

There's a plaque commemorating the ratification on the outside of the courthouse. A more detailed explanation can be found in the lobby. Look for a display case.

At Poughkeepsie's Rural Cemetery, look for the Livingston family plot. There are a lot of Livingstons buried there -- 74 to be exact -- in a plot that predates the cemetery. Tradition holds that the marshy area east of the cemetery is the "little resting place'' that named Poughkeepsie.

Presidential retreat

Further to the north in Hyde Park, off Dutchess Road at Vallkill Drive and Potter Bend, is Top Cottage, President Franklin D. Roosevelt's getaway.

"He was in love with the place and was going to retire there after his last term. He'd contracted with Colliers' magazine to write articles after his retirement,'' says Raymond Delamater, a history buff and researcher from Poughquag.

He'd read references to this presidential retreat, but no one could tell him precisely where it was. So he went driving around one day and found it.

Delamarter describes it as a "big fieldstone house with a 40-foot living room and an 18-foot high cathedral ceiling.'' FDR designed the house … including a special bathtub that was narrow and long.

While Eleanor Roosevelt's Val-Kill getaway is a historic site, FDR's getaway is privately owned.

The headquarters of the U.S. Chess Federation is in New Windsor. And since you're over there, take Route 207 from New Windsor into Campbell Hall. You wouldn't want to miss seeing the site of the first butter factory in the United States, would you? The spring they used for the factory and the site of the creamery are marked.

And you might want to stop off at West Point where they have three links of the 800-link wrought iron chain that was spread across the Hudson River on April 30, 1778, to block the advance of King George's forces.

A few stops in Ulster

You probably know about Huguenot Street in New Paltz, Ulster County, where visitors can tour several stone houses that remain from the settlement established in 1677 by religious refugees.

But do you know about the Tuthill Town Grist Mill on Albany Post Road in Gardiner? It's the only mill in the U.S. that grinds matzah flour for Passover by the old method.

Or the Trolley Museum in Kingston -- a collection of trolleys, rapid transit and subway cars.

Then there's the Gomez Mill House, the earliest existing Jewish residence in North America, located in Marlboro and operated by the Gomez Foundation for the Millhouse (236-3126).

Back across the Hudson, there's Manitoga in Garrison, Putnam County, Russel Wright's environmentally designed 68-acre landscape.

Moving north to Beacon, stop off at the Howland Center on east Main Street. Commissioned by Civil War General Joseph Howland, the center was designed by his brother-in-law, Richard Morris Hunt, who also designed the base of the Statue of Liberty and a wing of the Louvre.

Drive by the Fishkill Reformed Church on Route 52 in the village. It's a great looking church that happens to be the earliest house of worship in Dutchess County.

The congregation formed in 1716 with help from Catharyna Brett, she of the Madame Brett Homestead, the oldest house in the county. Ms. Brett's body lies under the church pulpit.

There are many more neat places to tell you about, but we'll have to end the tour here.