…the highest peak of the Hudson Highlands, located behind the City of Beacon, New York, in the Town of Fishkill. Its two summits rise above the Hudson River behind the city and can easily be seen from Newburgh across the river and many other places in the region. The more accessible northern peak, at 1,531 feet (467 m) above sea level, has a complex of radio antennas on its summit; the 1,610-foot (491 m) southern summit has a fire lookout tower…In the past, North Beacon was home to Dutchess ski area, and the remains of three ski trails can still be seen from the north. Additionally there was once the Mount Beacon Incline Railway (for more information see here), which stopped running in 1978 but has since been added to the National Register of Historic Places. Its track can still be seen going up the mountain and can be used to climb it, albeit steeply. At various other times in the past this summit housed a restaurant, a casino and a hotel. The mountains provided a key vantage point over West Point and Hudson River, lending it historic roles in the American Revolution. Signal fires on the mountain gave both it and the nearby city their name. In 1901 the local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution erected a monument at the site of the original signal fire near the summit of North Beacon.

It’s not an easy walk – or at least it wasn’t for me. It’s all uphill and took me about an hour to get to the top. I almost gave up when I’d walked for almost an hour with no end in sight. Then I noticed that the trees were thinning out and guessed that the top must be near. It was. A few minutes later we got there. I was breathless and Jackson was not even panting. In fact as we were going up he kept running ahead. The slope was often very rocky and he jumped around like a little mountain goat. From time to time he would stop and look back at me with a pitying expression as if to say: is that the best that you can do? The view from the top was well worth the climb though.

This is how the peak used to look with its hotel and casino. Pity it’s no longer like that. It would be nice to go to a restaurant with such a spectacular view.

Sybil Ludington has been celebrated as the female Paul Revere because of her ride through Putnam and Dutchess Counties to warn the militia that British troops were burning Danbury, Connecticut.

There’s a spectacular statue of her in Carmel by the famous artist Anna Huntington.  It seems that she lived to what must have, in those days, been the fairly ripe old age of almost 78.  If you look at the post with the statue you’ll see that her name is spelled “Sybil” instead of “Sibbell”.  The biography says:

There is much confusion concerning the spelling of her first name. Although it is mostly spelled “Sybil”, her tombstone displays her name as “Sibbell”. However, she signed her Revolutionary War pension application as “Sebal”, which is apparently the spelling she preferred. Her sister Mary spelled her name “Sebil.” In the 1810 census, she is listed as “Sibel.”, and appears on other records as “Cybil.” Her name does not seem to appear on any official documents as “Sybil.”