Burger Hill, rising 550 feet above the Hudson River, has a long history that begins near the end of the last ice age, when roaming hunter-gatherers gradually established stable farming settlements in the region. By the time Henry Hudson arrived in 1609, the area was inhabited by the Sepasco tribe of the Mohican people. In 1697 Henry Beekman received an English royal patent for a large tract that included Burger Hill, but settlers arrived slowly until German Palatines came in 1710 after being brought to the Hudson Valley by Queen Anne to make tar and pitch for the British Navy. Beekman settled many of them on his patent under leasehold agreements requiring annual rent, and the Burger family, originally Burckhardt, became tenants there in 1717 when Elisabetha Burckhardt, widow of Johannes, came to Rhinebeck with her two children. Five generations of Burgers farmed the land until 1830, when Henry Beekman's heirs sold it to Elisabetha's great-great-grandson Fredrick and the leasehold system was abolished so farmers could own their land outright. Burger Hill has remained in continuous agriculture since the days of the Beekman Grant. When the hill was threatened with development in the 1990s, a community effort led by Drayton Grant worked to protect it, and in 1997 Winnakee Land Trust and Scenic Hudson Land Trust partnered to buy the land from the Hunter family and establish Burger Hill Park, now Drayton Grant Park at Burger Hill. Opened to the public in 1998, the park offers broad views of the Catskill, Taconic, and Berkshire mountain ranges and much of the Hudson River Valley, while its 76 acres preserve meadow, hedgerow, open water, wet meadow, and upland forest habitat for grassland birds, hawks, frogs, turtles, snakes, salamanders, butterflies, and other wildlife. In 2013 Winnakee Land Trust renamed the park to honor local attorney Drayton Grant for her work on environmental and social issues and for helping create and sustain the park.