Credit: Courtesy of the Pine Plains Bicentennial Steering Committee
Pine Plains was officially born on March 26, 1823 – a bicentennial birthday that will be celebrated throughout the spring, summer, and autumn, culminating with the annual Agricultural Fair in October.
Events include presentations on the town’s formation, walking tours, events for children, theater productions, and opportunities to learn about everything from railroad and school systems to Native American history.
Patrick Trettenero, a co-chair of the Pine Plains bicentennial steering committee, says the town’s 200th birthday is really a year-long opportunity to bring people together.
“This is a chance to celebrate this lovely little town,” said Trettenero. “It also gets people to come out as a community and spend quality time with their neighbors – to meet some they didn’t know and strengthen the bonds with the ones they do.”
The Pine Plains Bicentennial events kicked off in March with a Stissing Center screening of “Our Farms, Our Farmers,” a documentary about the town’s dairy farmers, followed by a panel discussion with the farmers themselves.
Dutchess County historian Will Tatum will follow on March 24 with a presentation at the Pine Plains Community Center on the remapping of northern Dutchess County and the politics at play when the town was formed.
From there, numerous events will be held each month, including swap meets, gardening events, fireworks, and a reading of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Thornton Wilder play “Our Town,” set in fictional Grover’s Corners – with Gregg Pulver, the chair of the Dutchess County legislature, performing the role of the Stage Manager, the play’s narrator.
The Bicentennial steering committee – which includes many of the organizers from 2022’s Community Day event – have enlisted the support of various Pine Plains organizations to keep the celebration going.
Friends of Stissing Landmarks (FOSL) will be sponsoring a number of events, the Little Nine Partners Historical Society will have programs at the historic Graham Bush house, and the Dutchess County Historical Society will stage a historical reenactment in the fall. The list of events is expected to grow: The steering community will soon be launching a website to track activities, and volunteers who want to get involved can contact pineplainsbicentennial@gmail.com.
Pine Plains Supervisor Brian Walsh ushered in the bicentennial by speaking at the start of the farming film event. He praised the work that has gone into planning for the town’s big birthday, saying the year promises to deliver events that will be meaningful to old and new members of the town alike.
Credit: Courtesy of Little Nine Partners Historical Society
“This is a community where we still have generations of people who were born and raised here, and who have raised families here, and then we also have a new generation of people who have moved here,” Walsh said. “Pine Plains keeps on growing every year, and that’s great to see. This is a great small town to be living in.”
Kate Osofsky, a member of the planning committee, says she sees the bicentennial as an opportunity to help preserve the town’s rich history so that residents can continue to learn about the town even once the celebratory events have ended.
“There used to be regular walking tours around the town – there were still people who could remember which house used to be the barber shop, and things like that,” said Osofsky, whose grandfather, David Osofsky, was one of the founding members of the Little Nine Partners Historical Society.
“I grew up here and I heard so many stories when I was younger, but I still get excited when I learn new things about the town,” she said.
(Daisy Sindelar contributed to this report.)