Kingston, city, seat of Ulster County, eastern New York, on the western bank of the Hudson River, at the mouth of Rondout Creek, near the Catskill Mountains; incorporated as a city 1872. It is a manufacturing, shipping, and tourist center in an agricultural region. Manufactures include electronic equipment, boats, bricks, clothing, and machinery. The Old Dutch Church (1659) and a community college are here.
Fur-trading posts were built here in the 1610s, and a settlement known as Esopus was established by the Dutch in 1652. Nine years later the community was chartered as Wiltwyck, and in 1669 the British renamed it Kingston. In 1777 Kingston was selected as the first capital of New York State, and during the same year it was the scene of the adoption of the first state constitution, the initial meeting of the state legislature and supreme court, and the inauguration of George Clinton as New York's first governor. The house (built c. 1676) in which the state senate met is maintained as a museum. In October 1777, the British sacked and burned the town, and the state capital subsequently was moved to Poughkeepsie. Kingston annexed the adjoining communities of Wiltwyck, Rondout, and Wilbur in 1872. Population 24,481 (1980); 23,095 (1990); 23,456 (2000).
