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New York County
Columbia County, New York
Hudson's art gallery renaissance and Martin Van Buren's Lindenwald - from Hudson's extraordinary transformation from a struggling post-industrial city to one of New York's most vibrant small art and antique markets (Warren Street's concentration of galleries, antique dealers, restaurants, and boutiques has made Hudson one of the most visited small cities in the Hudson Valley) to Lindenwald (Martin Van Buren's Kinderhook estate - the 8th President's home from 1841 until his 1862 death, now a National Historic Site) and the Hudson Valley's pastoral landscape of farm-to-table dining, Olana State Historic Site, and second-home culture.
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Office: Columbia County Emergency Management – 401 State Street, Hudson, NY 12534 | (518) 828-1527
Services: Fire coordination, EMS coordination; a new dedicated 911 facility was added at the county’s Fire Training Center in Ghent.
Roads & Utilities
ROADS & TRANSPORTATION
Roads: NY-9G and US-9 serve Hudson, the county seat, on the eastern bank of the Hudson River in the Hudson Valley
Transit: CDTA and Amtrak (Hudson station) serve the area; limited local transit otherwise.
Business & Permits
BUILDING & PERMITS
Office: Hudson Planning Department – 401 State Street, Hudson, NY 12534, (518) 828-3375; Hudson Code Enforcement – 429 Warren Street, Hudson, NY, (518) 828-3133
Notes: Individual towns (Austerlitz, Canaan, Germantown, Kinderhook) issue their own separate in-town building permits.
Veterans Services
VETERANS SERVICES
County VSO: Columbia County Veterans Service Agency – Hudson, NY
Libraries
LIBRARIES
System: Hudson Area Library – 51 North 5th Street, Hudson, NY 12534 | (518) 828-1792 | Hours: Mon/Tue/Thu/Fri 10 AM–5 PM, Wed 10 AM–8 PM, Sat 10 AM–3 PM (closed Sun)
Services: Genuinely housed in a beautifully renovated former armory building, once used for community dances and military purposes; part of the Mid-Hudson Library System; open seven days across its schedule with active community programming.
Parks & Recreation
PARKS & RECREATION
Key Assets: Columbia County’s seat, Hudson, carries a genuinely remarkable founding story – in 1783, a group of New England whaling merchants and shipowners, mostly Quakers from Nantucket displaced by the disruptions of the Revolutionary War, purchased the small farming settlement then known as Claverack Landing and laid out a fully planned street grid before their families even arrived, in some cases bringing prefabricated houses by boat; chartered as a city in 1785 and renamed for explorer Henry Hudson, the new city’s population exploded to 2,500 by 1790, making it briefly the 24th-largest city in the entire country and one of New York’s largest; Hudson became a genuine whaling port despite sitting more than 100 miles from open ocean, sending ships out via the Hudson River until the industry declined in the early 19th century; the city later became a center of the Hudson River School of American landscape painting, and just outside town stands Olana, the Persian-inspired hilltop estate designed by and for Frederic Edwin Church, one of the movement’s most celebrated painters, now a National Historic Site; nearby in Kinderhook, one of the oldest chartered settlements in the region (1687), stands Lindenwald, the genuine retirement home of Martin Van Buren, the eighth President of the United States, who was also born in Kinderhook in 1782 and is buried in the town’s Reformed Dutch Church cemetery – the estate is preserved today as the Martin Van Buren National Historic Site
Notes: Hudson’s genuine origin as a planned whaling city built by displaced Nantucket Quaker merchants, paired with its role in the Hudson River School of painting and its connection to President Martin Van Buren’s Kinderhook home, makes Columbia County one of the most historically layered counties found anywhere in this project.
GIS & Maps
GIS & MAPS
GIS Portal: Columbia County GIS – accessible via columbiacountyny.gov
Parcel Search: Columbia County Real Property Tax Service – Hudson, NY
Addressing/911: Coordinated through Columbia County Emergency Management
Services: Genuinely founded in 1955, serving both Columbia and Greene counties; a no-euthanasia shelter with a notably high adoption placement rate; offers cruelty investigations, a pet food pantry, and low-cost veterinary/spay-neuter services; adopters must be at least 21.
Environmental & Waste
ENVIRONMENTAL / WASTE MANAGEMENT
Environmental Complaints: NYS Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) – dec.ny.gov
Notes: Contact your specific municipality directly for current refuse collection and recycling program details.
NOTES
Hudson, Columbia County’s seat, was genuinely founded and planned in 1783 by displaced Nantucket Quaker whaling merchants, and nearby Kinderhook was the real birthplace and retirement home of President Martin Van Buren. All contact information above was sourced from official county, city, library, and shelter pages as of this writing; phone numbers and hours should be reconfirmed directly with the relevant office before a visit.
About Columbia County
Columbia County is the Hudson Valley’s most culturally dynamic county – a pastoral landscape of historic estates, farm land, and the remarkable small city of Hudson that has become one of the most creatively vibrant communities in upstate New York.
Hudson (the county seat, population ~6,000) was a whaling port in the 19th century and a struggling post-industrial city in the late 20th century before an influx of artists, antique dealers, and second-home buyers transformed it. Warren Street is now one of the most remarkable commercial streets in upstate New York – a concentration of independent galleries, high-end antiques, and restaurants that draws visitors from New York City year-round.
Olana State Historic Site – the Persian-inspired hilltop mansion of Hudson River School painter Frederic Edwin Church – overlooks the Hudson River with one of the most deliberately composed landscape views in America.
Lindenwald in Kinderhook preserves Martin Van Buren’s Italianate mansion and the story of the first president born a US citizen.
All Services
Browse every category and topic available for this county.
Columbia County Real Property Tax Service at 630 Route 9H, Hudson, NY 12534, phone 518-828-3442. Appeal to Board of Assessment Review.
Courts & Legal
Columbia County Surrogate’s Court at 401 Union Street, Hudson, NY 12534, phone 518-267-3150, handles probate.
Marriage & Vital Records
Marriage licenses, divorce records, and birth & death certificates are handled by the following office(s):
COUNTY CLERK
560 Warren St, Hudson, NY 12534
(518) 828-3339
Genealogy
County-level record sources
Columbia County Surrogate’s Court, Hudson (probate case files – see Probate section above).
Local societies
No dedicated Columbia County genealogical society was confirmed in available directories.
Probate & Estate
Losing someone and having to deal with courts and paperwork at the same time is hard. This section won’t make that easier, but it should tell you what to expect, what it costs, and where to go – so at least you’re not walking in blind.
Where to go
Columbia County Surrogate’s Court Columbia County Courthouse, 401 Union Street, Hudson, NY 12534 (518) 267-3150 Columbia County is in New York’s Hudson Valley, seated in Hudson.
Step 1: figure out which path applies
New York probate and estate administration is governed by the Surrogate’s Court Procedure Act (SCPA) and handled by the Surrogate’s Court in the county where the decedent was domiciled. New York has 62 counties, each with its own Surrogate’s Court.
Voluntary Administration / Small Estate Affidavit (SCPA Article 13) – available when the decedent’s PERSONAL property (not real property) has a gross value of $50,000 or less, excluding certain property automatically set aside for a surviving spouse or children under 21 (EPTL 5-3.1). Owning real property does NOT disqualify an estate from this process – only the personal property counts toward the $50,000 cap. The filing fee is just $1.00.
Probate – required when there’s a valid will and the estate exceeds the small-estate threshold or involves real property.
Administration – required when the decedent died intestate (no will); the Surrogate’s Court appoints an administrator following the statutory priority order under SCPA 1001.
Step 2: filing for probate or administration
File the will (if any) with the Surrogate’s Court in the county where the decedent was domiciled, along with a probate or administration petition.
The court issues Letters Testamentary (with a will) or Letters of Administration (without a will) to the appointed fiduciary.
The fiduciary notifies creditors and beneficiaries and inventories the estate’s assets.
Debts, expenses, and any required New York State Estate Tax are paid.
The fiduciary distributes the remaining assets according to the will or New York’s intestacy law and files a final accounting to close the estate.
What it costs
Voluntary Administration filing fee: $1.00.
Full probate/administration filing fees vary and generally scale with estate value.
UNIQUE TO NEW YORK: New York imposes its own separate state ESTATE TAX. For 2026, the New York basic exclusion amount is $7,350,000 – estates at or below that owe no state estate tax. New York has an unusual “cliff”: if the estate’s value exceeds the exclusion by more than 5% (over $7,717,500 in 2026), the ENTIRE estate becomes taxable from the first dollar. No portability between spouses. Rates range from about 3.06% to 16%.
New York has no separate state inheritance tax.
Probate filings, estate administration, and guardianship matters are handled by the following office(s):
Public Safety & Arrests
Arrest records, inmate search, and law enforcement services are handled by the following office(s):
SHERIFF
85 Industrial Tree Farm Rd, Hudson, NY 12534
(518) 828-3344
Elections & Voting
Voter registration, polling locations, and elections information are handled by the following office(s):
BOARD OF ELECTIONS
401 State St, Hudson, NY 12534
(518) 828-0511
Health & Human Services
Offices & Contacts
Health services, social services, and assistance programs are handled by the following office(s):
Health Department
325 Columbia St, Hudson, NY 12534
(518) 828-3358
Human Services
25 Railroad Ave, Hudson, NY 12534
(518) 828-9411
Public Health Information
PUBLIC HEALTH
Office: Columbia County Department of Health – Hudson, NY; runs the free Healthy Neighborhoods Program to improve home health/safety conditions countywide
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Last verified June 2026
County Facts
County Seat: Hudson
Population: 61,000
Established: 1786
Tier: 3
Public Records
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