Kingston—Ellenville—Wurtsboro—Port Jervis—(Milford, Pa.); US 209. Kingston to Pennsylvania Line, 61.3 m.
New York, Ontario & Western R.R. parallels route.
Concrete with stretches of poor macadam.
US 209, connecting New England, upstate New York, and Pennsylvania by way of the Delaware Water Gap, follows a natural route that has been used successively as an Indian trail, a stagecoach road, and the path of the Delaware & Hudson Canal. Hurriedly built frame hotels and boardinghouses between Napanoch and Wurtsboro serve this playground for New York City during the summer; in the winter they are deserted.
US 209 branches west from US 9W (see Tour 21A) in KINGSTON, 0 m.
HURLEY, 3.8 m. (200 alt., 400 pop.), first called Nieuw Dorp (Dutch, new village), was renamed in 1669 for Francis Lovelace, Baron Hurley of Ireland. Maple-arched Main Street, with its high-steepled Dutch Reformed Church and almost uniform limestone houses, suggests an eighteenth-century village.
The VAN DEUSEN HOUSE (R), Main St., in the center of town, a one-and-one-half-story Dutch house, was built in 1723 with 24-light windows and a sharp gable pierced by four shed-roof dormers. The legislature, driven out when the British burned Kingston (see Tour 21A), moved first to Marbletown (see below), and later came here, making the Van Deusen House the capitol of New York from November 18 to December 17, 1777.
MARBLETOWN, 8 m. (213 alt., 90 pop.), is named for the eight-mile ledge of limestone from which much of the stone for the old houses of the township was quarried. In the ANDREW OLIVER HOUSE (L), another stone building, the State legislature met for a month after the burning of Kingston in 1777.
The CATSKILL AQUEDUCT, crossed at 12.2 m., carries water from the Ashokan Reservoir (see Tour 15) to New York City.
ACCORD, 17.4 m. (250 alt., 359 pop.), was settled late in the seventeenth century. Shortly after the Revolution a cynical resident wrote to the Post Office Department in Washington suggesting the name Discord for this village because residents could not agree on a name. The post office was authorized, but the name was edited by an optimistic official.
The FARM OF TOM QUICK, 18.7 m., was bought from the Indians in 1672 by the now almost legendary Indian-hating woodsman, who had followed the Shawangunk Range here from his native Pennsylvania (see Tour 5).
Photograph by John J. Vrooman
Photograph by John Phillips; courtesy Life Magazine
Photographs by W. Lincoln Highton; courtesy of Federal Works Agency
KITCHEN, THE CASTLE, FORT NIAGARA
INTERIOR, FORT CRAILO, RENSSELAER
Photograph by W. Lincoln Highton; courtesy of Federal Works Agency
INTERIOR, CHRIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, DUANESBURG
Photograph by T. C. Bannister
Photograph by W. Lincoln Highton; courtesy of Federal Works Agency
FIREPLACE, SCHUYLER MANSION, ALBANY
Photograph by Paul Broady
Photograph by John J. Vrooman
HOLLAND LAND OFFICE MUSEUM, BATAVIA
Photograph by John J. Vrooman
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT LIBRARY, HYDE PARK
Photograph by Paul Broady
Photograph by John J. Vrooman
Photograph by John J. Vrooman
OLD UNION HOTEL, SACKETS HARBOR
Photograph by John J. Vrooman
KERHONKSON (Ind., wild geese), 21.9 m., (254 alt., 550 pop.), is at the junction with US 44 (see Tour 5).
At 26.5 m. is the entrance (R) to YAMA FARM (references required), a semiprivate inn of simple but extensive buildings in elaborately planted grounds. The high daily fee covers the use of all the country club facilities. In the early decades of the present century it was famous as a meeting place for literary figures, including John Burroughs and Hamlin Garland.
NAPANOCH, 27 m. (300 alt., 642 pop.), an attractive town with deep, shaded lawns, is a trading center for resorts and boys’ camps.
The NAPANOCH STATE INSTITUTION FOR MALE DEFECTIVE DELINQUENTS (L), 27.1 m., dwarfed by the sheer cliff backdrop, accommodates about 1,000 in its modern gray stone buildings. All able-bodied inmates are employed in the production of aluminum and sheet metal ware, gas billies, metal signs, wood handles, shoe materials, brooms, toweling, and baskets.
ELLENVILLE, 29 m. (360 alt., 3,977 pop.), between the Shawangunk Mountains and the Allegheny Plateau, is a center of the resort district of Sullivan and Orange Counties. Frame, brick, and cobblestone hotels and houses in and around the town feature kosher cuisines in serving the city visitors. The DUTCH REFORMED CHURCH and the COURTHOUSE are good examples of the Greek Revival period of American architecture. The OLD INDIAN FORT (R), now in disrepair, is a story-and-a-half stone building (1774) with a clapboard gable, its sweeping roof broken by two chimneys.
Abandoned DELAWARE & HUDSON CANAL LOCKS (see Tour 3) are (R) at 36.8 m.
WURTSBORO, 41.8 m. (560 alt., 423 pop.) (see Tour 3), is at the junction with State 17 (see Tour 3).
South of Wurtsboro the Shawangunks form the left slope of a 20-mile-long valley, as yet little exploited for summer tourists.
PORT JERVIS, 59.8 m. (451 alt., 9,616 pop.) (see Tour 4), is at the junction with US 6 (see Tour 4).
US 209 crosses the PENNSYLVANIA LINE, 61.3 m., in the middle of the bridge over the Delaware River, 8 miles northeast of Milford, Pennsylvania.
