Hudson Chautauqua

A few weeks ago, the Stoddard Corner Bookshop, specializing in manuscript Americana, upstate New York history, and nonfiction books, opened for business at 757 Columbia Street.  Adjoining the shop in the building at Columbia and Eighth streets, sometimes known as Hudson's flatiron building, is a lecture hall and exhibition space that has been dubbed the Hudson Chautauqua, after the celebrated Chautauqua Institute. The inaugural event for the Hudson Chautauqua will take place on Saturday, November 17, at 3 p.m., when material culture authority, author, and teacher Walter G. Ritchie, Jr., will present a lecture entitled "Revealing Identities: Ammi Phillips' Portraits of Ashbel Stoddard and Patience Bolles Stoddard of Hudson, New York, c. 1812-1813." The inaugural event at the Hudson Chautauqua coincides with the appearance of Ritchie's essay on the subject in The Hudson River Valley Review, published by The Hudson River Valley Institute at Marist College.