KINGSTON, a city of New York, U.S.A., on the W. bank of the Hudson, at the mouth of Rondout creek, 9om. N. of New York city; the county seat of Ulster county and the first capital of the State. It is served by the New York, Ontario and Western, the Ulster and Delaware, and the West Shore railways, and by river steamers. The population in 193o was 28,088. It is in the midst of beautiful mountain scenery : the Catskills to the north west, the Shawangunk mountains to the south-west, and the Berk shires in the distance across the river. The immense Ashokan reservoir (with a shore-line of 4om.) of the New York city water supply system is 6m. W. The city has railroad repair shops, shirt and cigar factories, and many brick yards. The diversified prod ucts of its many factories were valued in 1927 at $15,695,336. In 1614 a small fort was built by the Dutch at the mouth of the Rondout, and in 1652 a settlement was made near by, which was abandoned after three or four years because of threatened at tacks from the Indians. In 1658 a stockade was built by order of Gov. Peter Stuyvesant, who in 1661 named the place Wiltwyck and gave it a municipal charter. In 1663 it was burned by the
Indians, and most of the inhabitants were massacred or taken cap tive. The English took possession in 1664, naming it Kingston (1669) after Kingston Lisle, the family seat of Gov. Francis Lovelace. In 1673-1734 it was again under the Dutch, who called it Swanenburg. The convention which drafted the first State constitution met in Kingston in 1777; and here the constitution was adopted (April 20), Gov. Clinton was inaugurated (July 30), John Jay held the first term of the New York supreme court, and the New York council of safety met. The low stone building (erected about 1676) where the first state senate met, is now the property of the State, and houses a colonial museum. On October 16, 1777, the town was sacked and burned by the British under Gen. Sir John Vaughan. Kingston was one of the places con• sidered in 1787 for the site of the national capital. It was incor porated as a village in 1805 and chartered as a city in 1872.