Tag: Kinderhook

Kinderhook is a town in the northern part of Columbia County, New York, United States. The population was 8,498 at the 2010 census. The name of the town means “Children’s Corner” in the language of the original Dutch settlers (Kinderhoek). The town of Kinderhook contains two villages, one of which is also named Kinderhook, where Martin Van Buren was born. Lindenwald, Martin Van Buren’s retirement home, is in the town of Kinderhook.
Henry Hudson sailed as far north as Kinderhook on his exploration of the Hudson River and named the location “Kinderhoek.” Kinderhook signifies in the Dutch tongue “the children’s corner,” and is supposed to have been applied to this locality, in 1609, on account of the many Indian children who had assembled on one of the bluffs along the river to see his strange vessel (the ‘Half Moon’) sailing up stream. Another version says that a Swede named Scherb, living in the forks of an Indian trail in the present town of Stuyvesant, had such a numerous family of…