When I asked Ken Sargeant if he wanted to make a short film about Barry Keegan’s visit to the Arboretum I knew it would be great—but not this great. Ken went to the trouble to shoot some of Theodore Cornu’s art at the Croton Historical Society and a rare 1674 Dutch map we have at the office that’s one of the few visual records showing what Lenape canoes looked like.
[Here’s the backstory of how the Dutch map ended up in Ken’s film. I took the Wednesday off before the event because there was so much to do to get ready and went to the Arboretum to see Barry working with one of the 4th grade classes. While I was there he told the kids about the huge log canoes the Lenape made to travel up and down the Hudson River. As he held up a miniature replica he said that the reason we know what these canoes look like is that’s there’s an old Dutch map that shows one. I suddenly realized he was talking about Hugo Allard’s rare 1674 map of New England that we have at work.]
