Sugarloaf Hill is a peak along the

Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between N ...

in Putnam County, New York, part of the

Hudson Highlands The Hudson Highlands are mountains on both sides of the Hudson River in New York state lying primarily in Putnam County on its east bank and Orange County on its west. They continue somewhat to the south in Westchester County and Rockland Count ...

. It was named by the

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

for its resemblance in outline to a

sugarloaf A sugarloaf was the usual form in which refined sugar was produced and sold until the late 19th century, when granulated and cube sugars were introduced. A tall cone with a rounded top was the end product of a process in which dark molasses, a r ...

when sailing up the river towards it.

Topography

Sugarloaf Hill is part of a ridge running northeast and southwest close to the east shore of the Hudson. The peak of Castle Rock lies off the northeast end of the ridge, while NY 9D runs along the west side. A small stream runs along the southeast side and flows into the Hudson, while to the northwest, the ground declines gently to the Hudson. The hill is high at its summit, towards the middle of the ridge. A red-blazed trail climbs its western side, and then runs along the ridge, across the summit, to end at a viewpoint over the Hudson of about elevation.

New York–New Jersey Trail Conference The New York – New Jersey Trail Conference (NYNJTC) is a volunteer-based federation of approximately 10,000 individual members and about 100 member organizations (mostly hiking clubs and environmental organizations). The conference coordin ...

Trail Map 101, East Hudson Trails:

Hudson Highlands State Park Hudson Highlands State Park is a non-contiguous state park in the U.S. state of New York, located on the east side of the Hudson River. The park runs from Peekskill in Westchester County, through Putnam County, to Beacon in Dutchess County, in ...

7th ed., 2006

Flora

Somewhat unusually, ''

Opuntia humifusa ''Opuntia humifusa'', commonly known as the devil's-tongue, Eastern prickly pear or Indian fig, is a cactus of the genus ''Opuntia'' present in parts of the eastern United States. Description As is the case in other ''Opuntia'' species, the gr ...

'', Eastern prickly-pear cactus, can be found growing on ledges atop Sugarloaf Hill. The oceanic warmth brought upstream by the estuarine Hudson and the sunny, exposed rock allows this cactus to grow on the hill, and elsewhere in the Hudson Highlands.

History

Appletons' Arnold Benedict - Beverley Robinson house

Beverley, the house of Col.

Beverley Robinson Beverley Robinson (11 January 1721 – 9 April 1792), was a Virginia-born soldier who became a wealthy colonist of the Province of New York and is best known as a Loyalist during the American Revolutionary War. Robinson married Susanna Philips ...

, was built at the foot of the peak in 1758. Robinson, a

Tory A Tory () is a person who holds a political philosophy known as Toryism, based on a British version of traditionalism and conservatism, which upholds the supremacy of social order as it has evolved in the English culture throughout history. The ...

, lost his house and estates there to confiscation in 1777. It was used as a headquarters by several American generals during the

Revolution In political science, a revolution (Latin: ''revolutio'', "a turn around") is a fundamental and relatively sudden change in political power and political organization which occurs when the population revolts against the government, typically due ...

, and Benedict Arnold chose to dwell there when he took command of

West Point The United States Military Academy (USMA), also known Metonymy, metonymically as West Point or simply as Army, is a United States service academies, United States service academy in West Point, New York. It was originally established as a f ...

in 1780. It was at Beverley that Arnold learned of the capture of John André and the failure of his treason, and fled thence to HMS ''Vulture''. Beverley later passed into the hands of

Hamilton Fish Hamilton Fish (August 3, 1808September 7, 1893) was an American politician who served as the 16th Governor of New York from 1849 to 1850, a United States Senator from New York from 1851 to 1857 and the 26th United States Secretary of State ...

, and was destroyed by a fire in 1892. The hill was donated by the Osborn family to the Taconic State Park Commission in 1974, and now forms part of the Osborn Preserve of

References

{{Mountains of New York Hudson Highlands Mountains of Putnam County, New York Mountains of New York (state)