Woodstock, NY.
History[edit]
The first non-indigenous settler arrived around 1770. The Town of Woodstock was established in 1787. Later, Woodstock contributed some of its territory to form the towns of Middletown (1789), Windham (1798), Shandaken (1804), and Olive (1853).[citation needed]
Woodstock played host to numerous Hudson River School painters during the late 1800s. The Arts and Crafts Movement came to Woodstock in 1902, with the arrival of Ralph Radcliffe Whitehead, Bolton Brown and Hervey White, who formed the Byrdcliffe Colony. In 1906, L. Birge Harrison and others founded the Summer School of the Art Students League of New York in the area, primarily for landscape painting. Ever since, Woodstock has been considered an active artists colony. From 1915 through 1931, Hervey White's Maverick Art Colony held the Maverick Festivals, "in which hundreds of free spirits gathered each summer for music, art, theater and drunken orgies in the woods."[4][5]
A series of Woodstock Sound-Outs were staged at Pan Copeland's Farm on the outskirts of the village (just over the Saugerties town line) from 1967 to 1970. These featured folk and rock acts like Richie Havens, Paul Butterfield, Dave van Ronk and Van Morrison. Together with Woodstock's reputation as a summer arts colony, the Sound-Outs inspired the original Woodstock Festival's organizers to plan their concert in the town; however, the town turned down their permit,[6] and the "Woodstock" Festival was actually held almost 60 miles (97 km) away at Max Yasgur's Farm in the Sullivan County town of Bethel.[7]
Woodstock is also home to the Karma Triyana Dharmachakra Buddhist monastery, situated at the top of Mead's Mountain Road.
