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VILLAGE HISTORY

On his first journey  up the river in 1609 Henry Hudson very likely anchored off present day Athens and spent several days here, encountering  the native American Mahicans. These encounters are described in Hudson’s journals. In the late 1600’s the Dutch settled the area naming it Loonenberg, after Jan van Loon, the patent holder of  thousands of acres that  now comprise Athens and parts of Catskill and Coxsackie. Several van Loon houses still stand in the village. In 1794, a group of speculators formed a company to develop  the northern end of the village into a town that would rival  Hudson, its competitor across the river which was prospering due to profits from whale oil.  It would be called Esperanza, and a town plan was drawn by a French architect in the neo classical manner of Washington D.C. This plan was never fully realized but  Loonenberg, later to be incorporated as Athens, continued to thrive. Its position on the river, the main thoroughfare of its day,  placed it at the forefront of ideas and commerce.  Much of Athens many industries related to the river such as ship building, ice harvesting and ice tool manufacturing, as well as brick making and potteries. The prosperity of Athens  over the years can easily be seen in the  diversity and quality of the architecture that remains from early Dutch  stone houses, brick Federals, Greek Revivals Italiantes, Second Empires to Queen Annes.  Today there are two distinct historic districts in Athens, The Lower Village Historic District which incorporates 270 buildings listed on the State and National Historic Registers, and Brick Row, a street of  27 brick townhouses built for railroad workers in the early 1860’s, on the northern outskirts of town.