The Roeliff Jansen Historical Society 

In recognition of the nation's  250th, our upcoming exhibition Patriots, Plowshares & Post Roads: Chapters from our Local Journey to Independence.

​

Rather than focusing solely on battles, generals, and military campaigns, Patriots, Plowshares & Post Roads explores the hidden infrastructure that made American independence possible.

 

Through stories of iron furnaces, mills, post roads, tenant farms, taverns, textile production, and local industry, the exhibition reveals how ordinary people, working landscapes, and networks of labor and transportation helped sustain the Revolution in the Hudson Valley. By tracing these oft-overlooked connections, the exhibit offers a fresh perspective on how a rural region of Columbia County helped contribute to the making of a new nation.

 

In essence, the American Revolution was a series of local, small-scale actions, decisions, and grassroots movements that ultimately merged to create a massive, coordinated rebellion against British rule.

​

Against the backdrop of the Revolutionary War, we will tell the small but significant stories of individuals, innovations and self-sufficiency that laid the foundations for eventual independence and growth. 

​

​

The 2026 summer exhibit at the Roeliff Jansen Historical Society will engage visitors in understanding how, at the local level, the physical and commercial infrastructure of the Roe Jan region helped form civil society during the Revolutionary period and the early republic (1776 to 1826). ​

​

During the Revolutionary War period (roughly 1775–1783), Columbia County, New York, functioned as a critical agricultural and strategic resource hub for the Continental Army, transitioning from a, largely self-sufficient colonial economy to an emerging, war-driven industrial sector.