Tour 21

(Montreal, P.Q.)—Rouses Point—Plattsburg—Glens Falls—Saratoga Springs—Albany—Poughkeepsie—New York City; US 9.

Canadian Line to New York City, 327.1 m.

Hard-surfaced throughout, mostly concrete; narrow macadam between Schroon Lake and Warrensburg.

The Delaware & Hudson R.R. parallels route between Rouses Point and Albany; New York Central R.R. between Albany and New York City.

US 9, the main highway through the Lake Champlain-Hudson River Valley, swings westward from Lake Champlain through the eastern section of the Adirondack State Park, touches the lower end of Lake George, and crosses the low divide between the St. Lawrence and the Hudson River watersheds. At Albany, near the head of Hudson tidewater, it crosses the Hudson River to the east bank, which it roughly follows to New York City. Through the Hudson Valley, the Catskills rise on the west and the Berkshires and Taconics on the east.

For the French—and after 1776 for the British—the Champlain-Hudson Valley was an excellent route for the advance of troops from Canada to the heart of the Atlantic seaboard. It provided water transportation and was protected against flank attacks by high, heavily forested mountains, so that fortifications at a few strategic points could hold the entire valley. Conversely, the same route afforded an approach for a swift attack on Montreal and Quebec. When the Revolutionary War broke out, both sides based their strategy largely on the occupation of this natural thoroughfare. The Patriots got the jump on the British when Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold captured Ticonderoga, and Seth Warner took Crown Point in May 1775. But the issue of the control of the valley was not settled until Burgoyne’s surrender at Saratoga (see Tour 22) in October 1777. Similarly, the threat of British invasion from the north during the War of 1812 was halted by Macdonough’s destruction of the British fleet on Lake Champlain in September 1814.

Section a.  CANADIAN LINE to LAKE GEORGE; 130.8 m.  US 9

Immediately south of the border US 9 runs along the low, level shore of Lake Champlain. South of Plattsburg the road turns inland and enters the Adirondacks, becoming a mountain road winding down creek valleys and over ridges.

US 9, a continuation of Que.9, crosses the NEW YORK STATE LINE, 0 m., at a point 40 miles south of Montreal, P.Q. European visitors marvel at the absence of armed guards at the international boundary; the only uniformed officials are customs and immigration officers. At the U.S.CUSTOMHOUSE (R) 0.1 m., mirrors in the floor of the covered entrance reveal the undercarriages of vehicles (for customs regulations see General Information.)

More than 60 per cent of the population of ROUSES POINT, 1.4 m. (120 alt., 1,920 pop.), is of French-Canadian descent, and numbers of Canadians cross the border daily to enjoy the motion pictures and to buy American cigarettes.

Rose Ave. leads (L) to the ROUSES POINT BRIDGE (tolls: car $1, trailer 50¢; pedestrian 25¢), to Vermont, opened in 1937.

ISLAND POINT, an island in the lake, was the SITE OF FORT MONTGOMERY, which replaced what had been called Fort Blunder, a fortification planned to guard the northern end of Lake Champlain but never completed. In 1819, when construction on the older fort was in progress, surveyors announced that the island belonged to Canada and the place was abandoned. Immediately after the boundary was established in 1842 by the Webster-Ashburton Treaty, a new fort was erected but it was never garrisoned.

Rouses Point is at the junction with US 11 (see Tour 18).

US 9 leaves the lake and turns inland to CHAZY, 10.8 m. (160 alt., 500 pop.), on the Little Chazy River. The first settler here was Jean Fromboise, who arrived in 1763 but was driven off by Burgoyne’s forces. He returned at the end of the Revolution and became the first apple grower in the North Country. The river and the village were named for Lieutenant de Chézy of the Carignan Salières regiment, who was killed near by in 1666 by a party of Iroquois. The regiment, brought to America in 1664, played a prominent part in the destruction of Iroquois villages by the French.

The COLONIAL HOUSE (L), 11.5 m. (open May–Nov., adm. 50¢), a two-and-a-half-story stone structure built in 1824, is now a private museum containing, among other relics, a chair that belonged to William McKinley, a sugar-loaf cutter once owned by Andrew Jackson, a wine cooler made for Abraham Lincoln, early American china, and Colonial furniture.

At 19.2 m. is the junction with a macadam road.

Left here 1 m. to the sandy beach of POINT AU ROCHE.

At 23.7 m. is a junction with a macadam road.

Left on this road 0.3 m. to CUMBERLAND BEACH, the municipal bathing beach of Plattsburg. Here in Cumberland Bay, on September 11, 1814, was fought the naval Battle of Plattsburg, in which the British advance up the Champlain Valley was repulsed. The American commander, Thomas Macdonough, anchored his little wooden fleet across the mouth of the bay; auxiliary anchors were thrown out astern with cables running to the bows so that the ships could be readily swung around. The slightly larger British fleet was anchored in a parallel line. The first British broadside killed or disabled one fifth of the men on the Saratoga, Macdonough’s flagship. When his starboard battery was disabled, Macdonough turned his ship around and brought his port battery to bear on Commodore Downie’s flagship. Within two hours many of the British ships were disabled and the Union Jack was struck.

Tradition has it that when a cannon ball shot away the hencoop on the deck of the Saratoga, a rooster perched on the rigging, crowing and flapping his wings. The crew regarded him as a symbol of victory, and he is said to have been the inspiration for the innumerable weathercocks that adorned York State courthouses and barns in the nineteenth century.

PLATTSBURG, 25.3 m. (140 alt., 14,713 pop.), is at the mouth of the Saranac River, which has provided water power for manufacturing since 1785. The first mills ground corn and cut lumber for the settlers; the present ones make wood pulp and manufacture paper products, such as napkins and wallpaper. Nearly half the population is of French-Canadian descent.

The land engagements of the Battle of Plattsburg were fought in and north of the village. General Alexander Macomb, with a force of about 3,000 Americans, had advanced to oppose 11,000 British troops moving south under Sir George Prevost. On September 6, 1814, two skirmishes occurred north of Plattsburg. The Americans retreated south of the Saranac River and threw up fortifications. The British waited north of the river for Commodore Downie to clear the lake of the American fleet under Macdonough. On September 11, while the naval battle was in progress, the British attacked on land; but the news of the defeat on the lake caused Prevost to retreat during the night.

The MACDONOUGH MEMORIAL, S. River St. in front of the city hall, was designed by John Russell Pope. It is an obelisk of Indiana limestone, 135 feet high, and is decorated with reliefs and the names of the principal ships of Macdonough’s fleet—Saratoga, Ticonderoga, Preble, and Eagle.

The KENT-DELORD HOUSE (adm. 50¢), 17 Cumberland Ave., is a long two-story structure with end chimneys and a one-story pedimented entrance portico. Chancellor James Kent is associated with the house only by virtue of having represented his wife in the sale of the property. It was purchased in 1810 by Henry DeLord, a French refugee from Martinique, who remodeled it. In the house are the DeLord family records and household treasures, including fine old furniture, an early Chickering piano, portraits, silver, and curios from Europe and China. An old chaise stands in the barn.

The CHAMPLAIN MONUMENT, Cumberland Ave., is a granite shaft surmounted by a statue of Champlain, who discovered the lake in 1609.

The PLATTSBURG STATE NORMAL SCHOOL, corner of Beekman and Brinkerhoff Sts., was established in 1889. The old buildings were destroyed by fire in 1929; the new structure is of modified Tudor Gothic design. The school prepares men and women for teaching in the elementary grades.

The UNITED STATES MILITARY RESERVATION, on the lake shore south of the river, covering 703 acres, was established six months after the Battle of Plattsburg. Many of the present buildings were erected in 1838. Troops of the Regular Army are stationed here and thousands of men attend the annual sessions of the Plattsburg Citizens Military Training Camp.

Plattsburg is at the junction with State 22 (see Tour 20) and State 3 (see Tour 17).

CLIFF HAVEN (L), 28.4 m., belongs to the Catholic Summer School of America. Extension courses of Fordham University and leadership courses of the Knights of Columbus Boy Life Bureau are given here.

Offshore at this point, in October 1776, the first Colonial Lake Champlain fleet had its initial engagement. The 16 little ships of the fleet, which were planned by Arnold and Schuyler after Montgomery’s death before Quebec, were built by New England carpenters at Skenesborough (Whitehall) and were manned by New York and Massachusetts landlubbers. The British fleet of 29 vessels was intercepted here. On the first day the British guns did considerable damage to the American boats, but in the dense night fog Arnold crept through the enemy’s line and reached Schuyler’s Island, eight miles south, where he repaired his larger ships with lumber salvaged from the smaller craft. The next day he fought again and managed to bring off most of his boats to within ten miles of Crown Point. He burned the vessels to the water’s edge in the shallows of Arnold’s Bay on the Vermont shore and escaped overland with his men to Ticonderoga. The British fleet lingered near Ticonderoga until cold weather drove it back to St. Johns. As a result of the battle the British advance southward was delayed until the following year, thus giving the Colonials an opportunity to prepare defenses and arouse public support for the campaign of 1777, which ended at Saratoga.

In the summer of 1935, following a revival of public interest aroused by Kenneth Roberts’s novel, Rabble in Arms, the hulk of the American vessel Philadelphia was raised and towed south to ports along the lake and was visited by large crowds. It is on display each summer at Crown Point (adm. 25¢).

The boundary of the ADIRONDACK STATE PARK is crossed at 37.3 m. The park—5,575,000 acres of private and public mountain, lake, and valley—embraces about two thirds of the great lobe of the State north of the Mohawk River between Lake Champlain and Lake Ontario, and includes the State-owned Adirondack Forest Preserve of 2,165,150 acres, which by law ‘shall be forever kept as wild forest land’ (see Conservation). Five separate mountain ranges—Luzerne, Kayaderosseras, Schroon, Bouquet, and the main Adirondack Range—parallel each other about eight miles apart through the eastern and southern regions of the park. The main range stretches 100 miles from Lake Champlain across Essex, Hamilton, and Herkimer Counties to the Mohawk River; rising from its back are the humps of Mount Marcy, the State’s highest peak, Mount McIntyre, Mount Haystack, and Mount Skylight.

A network of picturesque lakes, rivers, and ponds interlace the valleys between the pine- and spruce-cloaked shoulders of the mountains. The principal lakes form an almost continuous chain, making possible a 150-mile canoe trip, with short carries, through an unspoiled mountain wilderness that in 1858 inspired Emerson’s poem ‘The Adirondacks’ and, later, gentle fishing essays by Henry van Dyke. Here profitable lumbering was in some sections impossible, so that part of the Adirondack forest was saved from ruthless destruction. More than 500 miles of foot trails have been blazed over the principal mountain peaks. In 1938 more than 650,000 persons used the State campsites built along the lakes, rivers, highways, and foot trails.

In addition to conservation of forest lands, the Park insures improved water resources, increases fish and game, and provides recreation—hunting, fishing, hiking, skiing, and canoeing (see also Tours 14, 15, 16, 16A, 17, 18, 20).

Beneath the bridge spanning the gorge of the Ausable River, 38.9 m., the water plunges 75 feet over a brown rock ledge to form Rainbow Falls at the southern end of the chasm.

Just north of the bridge is the entrance (L) to AUSABLE CHASM (open May–Oct.; walking tour, 75¢; tour and boat ride, $1.50; boats do not operate on rainy days because of danger of high water). Privately operated as a tourists’ wonderland for 65 years, the chasm is crisscrossed by paths and steel bridges. Galleries cut in the face of the rock high above the river lead around rock formations named Pulpit Rock, Elephant’s Head, Devil’s Oven, Jacob’s Well, Cathedral Rock, and the like. The boats run mild rapids at the northern end of the gorge.

The first settler of KEESEVILLE, 40.7 m. (400 alt., 1,794 pop.), was the Quaker John Keese, who arrived in 1806. Soon afterward he was joined by French Canadians attracted by the lumbering and iron-mining industries. A missionary priest was sent from Montreal and in 1835 he built the Church of the Immaculate Conception, establishing the second parish in the Ogdensburg diocese. Keeseville continued to be a roistering place for lumberjacks on the Ausable until 1919. At present its chief industrial activity is the manufacture of radio cabinets.

At Keeseville is the junction with State 9N.

Right on State 9N to AUSABLE FORKS, 11.3 m. (551 alt., 2,200 pop.), at the fork of the Ausable River. The largest single industry is a paper mill, whose wide yards along the river are pyramided with peeled, bleaching pulpwood chunks. On a farm just south of the village is the Cape Cod style cottage of Rockwell Kent, etcher and illustrator.

South of JAY, 17.9 m. (644 alt., 350 pop.), at the junction with State 86 (see Tour 16), State 9N follows the valley of the East Branch of the Ausable River through UPPER JAY, 21.6 m. (680 alt., 250 pop.), summer home of Donald Ogden Stewart, author-humorist, to KEENE, 28 m. (860 alt., 380 pop.), at the upper end of beautiful Keene Valley. With few arable acres in the mountain-shadowed valley, Keene’s economic life depends upon tourists and vacationists. Immaculate white frame houses rise close to the tree-shaded sidewalks. Snug against a hotel is a gigantic elm with a spread of 91 feet and a base circumference of 21½ feet, reputedly the largest elm in the Adirondacks. Jagged mountains, the highest in the State, thrust their peaks above the village; Mount Marcy, blue in the cloudy distance, rises 5,344 feet in the southwest.

In Keene is the junction with State 86A (see Tour 16A), with which State 9N runs in common for 1.5 miles, then swings east through hilly country toward Lake Champlain.

At 37.6 m. is the junction with a dirt road; left here 2.4 m. along a swift mountain stream through a private forest plantation, to the end of the road and a foot trail to HURRICANE MOUNTAIN (3,687 alt.), 4.5 m. From the fire observation tower on the bare rock cone summit is a majestic view of the Adirondack terrain to the north, south, and west, and the blue waters of Lake Champlain to the east.

In ELIZABETHTOWN, 39.8 m. (550 alt., 636 pop.), is the junction with US 9 (see below).

Southward from Keeseville US 9 and State 22 (see Tour 20) are united for 4.1 miles. Continuing southwest, US 9 crosses low hills toward the black dome of Poke-O-Moonshine Mountain. According to authorities, the name is of Indian origin (the place where the rock is smoothly broken off), but local legend insists that the mountain was so named because of the moonshiners who set up stills near the summit in the days when stages ran to the lumber camps along the Saranac and Schroon Rivers. Here raw liquor, in delivery lots, became known as ‘poke o’ moonshine.’ The dirt roads around the mountain were heavily traveled by bootleggers during the prohibition era.

In the shadow of the barren face of the mountain are entrances, (L) and (R) at 48.2 m., to POKE-O-MOONSHINE STATE CAMPSITE (free; open Memorial Day to Labor Day; two-week camping permits subject to renewal), one of the 36 camping grounds operated by the State in the Adirondack area. A foot trail leads from No.1 fireplace to the wooded summit (2,162 alt.) of Poke-O-Moonshine, where a fire tower affords far-reaching views of the mountains and Lake Champlain.

ELIZABETHTOWN, 63.6 m. (550 alt., 636 pop.), hemmed in by the Adirondacks, lies at the head of a mile-wide flat land created by the Bouquet River. Lumbering reached its peak here about 1870, then rapidly declined. The rambling hotels were built when the invasion of summer visitors began in the seventies. In the ESSEX COUNTY COURTHOUSE is a painting representing the trial of John Brown, whose body lay in state in the building before its burial at North Elba.

In the village is the junction with State 9N (see above).

South of Elizabethtown the road follows the valley of the Bouquet River for eight miles, running along the eastern base of the main range of mountains. At 73.1 m. is the junction with State 86A (see Tour 16A), the most beautiful route in the park.

Within a five-mile radius of UNDERWOOD, 74.3 m. (1,120 alt., 235 pop.), are 14 ponds, all regularly stocked with game fish. SHARP BRIDGE STATE CAMPSITE (L), 78.4 m., is on the bank of a branch of the Schroon River.

SCHROON LAKE VILLAGE, 94.2 m. (840 alt., 650 pop.), lies at the head of lovely nine-mile Schroon Lake. The name is believed to have been given by French scouts in the early eighteenth century, who compared the beauty of the long slim body of water with that of the young widow of Paul Scarron, the dramatist, best known as Madame de Maintenon, consort of Louis XIV. Hotels and tourist homes line the main street for two miles and spread along the side streets leading toward the lake. The village is the trading center for the large number of summer visitors in outlying cottages, hotels, and camps. Within a five-mile radius are 70 lakes and ponds.

The EAGLE POINT STATE CAMPSITE (L), 101.3 m., borders the lake for a mile.

At 108.4 m. is the western junction with State 8 (see Tour 14), which unites with US 9 to the eastern junction in CHESTERTOWN, 112.3 m. (854 alt., 700 pop.). The area was settled in 1780 by New Englanders, who built gristmills and sawmills along the creeks.

A boundary of the CHARLES LATHROP PACK DEMONSTRATION FOREST of 2,300 acres is crossed at 118.3 m.; it contains 240 acres of virgin white pine. During the summer, students of the New York State College of Forestry come here for practice work in planting, weeding, thinning, and cutting. The tract was presented to the college in 1926. Charles Lathrop Pack (1857–1937), the donor, was long active in the conservation movement and wrote Trees as Good Citizens and Schoolbook of Forestry. His grave is in the forest about two miles from the administration building.

WARRENSBURG, 124.4 m. (720 alt., 2,000 pop.), on the northern shore of the Schroon River, was named for James Warren, who settled here in 1804. Like Chestertown, it is a village with a year-round existence largely dependent on the trade of farmers. During the middle years of the nineteenth century, hemlock bark from the upper Schroon was shipped to local tanneries. In the spring the settlement was overrun by loggers, as drives from the upper Hudson and the Schroon met at the near-by junction of the two rivers for the final rush to the mills in Glens Falls.

Identified by its bandstand and a tall flagpole is FLOYD BENNETT MEMORIAL PARK, a small square of land given to the village in 1930 by the local American Legion Post, N0.446. Floyd Bennett (1890–1928), born at North Caldwell, came with his parents to a small farm near Harrington Hill, west of the village. After completing an automobile engineering course in Schenectady, he returned to work as a mechanic in a garage at Hague, and spent most of his waking hours tinkering with engines. In 1925 he was one of the naval mechanics assigned to service on the Donald McMillan expedition to Greenland; and he piloted Richard E. Byrd on the first airplane flight over the North Pole, completing the round trip from Kings Bay, Spitzbergen, to the Pole and return in 15½ hours. In April 1928 Bennett developed pneumonia while on a rescue flight and died on April 25 in a Quebec hospital.

LAKE GEORGE, 130.8 m. (350 alt., 848 pop.), seat of Warren County and a year-round sports center, lies in the foothills of the Adirondacks at the southern end of Lake George. All summer long, shoppers and strollers throng the streets, parking space is at a premium, and the lake is alive with boats and the seaplanes of wealthy New Yorkers who commute to their offices by air four or five days a week. In recent years facilities for winter sports have been developed on a large scale.

At the southern village limits (L), on the grounds of the Fort William Henry Hotel, are the remnants of FORT WILLIAM HENRY, built in 1756 by Sir William Johnson to protect the portage between Lake George and the Hudson. The fort, after having been successfully defended against 1,500 French soldiers and their Indian allies in March 1757, was captured by Montcalm in August of the same year. Montcalm had given promise of safe conduct for the garrison but he could not control the Indians, who massacred a large number of men, women, and children, and carried others into captivity. The French razed the fort, which was never rebuilt.

Montcalm St. leads west to a marked foot trail up PROSPECT MOUNTAIN (2,021 alt.). From the steel observation tower on the summit a vivid panorama of woods, mountains, and lakes unfolds, and on a clear day the, spires of Albany are vaguely outlined. There are two Adirondack lean-to shelters for picnickers or overnight campers. South from the fire tower is the three-mile PROSPECT MOUNTAIN SKI TRAIL, approached in winter by a roundabout dirt road off US 9 just north of the village.

Lake George is at a junction with State 9N (see Tour 23).

Section b.  LAKE GEORGE to ALBANY; 60.2 m.  US 9

US 9, here a three- and four-lane highway, leaves the Adirondacks, crosses a monotonous plain, and descends gradually to Albany. During the French and Indian and Revolutionary Wars, this district was a bloody battleground; in the early years of the nineteenth century, it was the scene of much lumbering and paper making. Today the communities are supported by manufacturing and the tourist trade.

South of LAKE GEORGE, 0 m., at 0.7 m. is the entrance (L) to State-maintained BATTLEGROUND PARK CAMPSITE, from which a graveled road winds into the LAKE GEORGE BATTLEGROUND PARK. At the main entrance is a large monument with two bronze figures representing King Hendrick, chief of the Mohawk, demonstrating to William Johnson the futility of dividing his forces.

On the morning of September 8, 1755, against the advice of King Hendrick, Johnson dispatched 1,000 Colonials and 200 Indians under Colonel Ephraim Williams to prevent Baron Dieskau from cutting his lines of communication with Fort Edward. About two miles south Williams encountered Dieskau in command of 1,000 or more Indians, Canadians, and French regulars; a sharp engagement—the ‘bloody morning scout’—ensued, during which Colonel Williams was killed. Later in the same day Dieskau led his French troops in several futile charges against Johnson’s barricade on this site. After several hours of fighting the Colonial forces poured over the barricade, charged the retreating French, and took many prisoners, including the wounded Dieskau. Johnson was given credit for the victory and was rewarded with a baronetcy.

In the park is the FATHER ISAAC JOGUES MONUMENT, a bronze statue by Charles Keck erected by the State of New York in 1939. The inscription describes the Jesuit martyr (see Tour 12) as an ‘ambassador of peace from New France to the Five Nations of the Iroquois’ and mentions his discovery of Lake George.

The RUINS OF FORT GEORGE consist of a mound 15 to 20 feet high and 100 feet long, covered with moss and grass, except where small sections of stone still stand. Construction of the fort was begun by Amherst in 1759 but was never entirely completed. Revolutionary troops sent to occupy the place retired before Burgoyne in 1777. After the Battle of Saratoga, the fort was again occupied by the Americans, who held it until surprised by Sir John Johnson in 1780.

At 1 m. is the entrance (R) to FORT GAGE PARK, a wooded area including the SITE OF FORT GAGE, on a rise of ground; this post is supposed to have been established early in the French and Indian War. Tradition has it that Lord Howe encamped here in 1758 with the advance guard of Abercrombie’s troops and engaged in a game of ‘jumping the stick’ with other officers; Howe won when he cleared the bar at 6 feet 6 inches. The hill was later named for Brigadier General Thomas Gage, second in command under Amherst in 1759.

At 1.4 m. is the junction with State 9K (see Tour 23).

BLOODY POND (L), 2.4 m., was so named because into it were thrown the bodies of French soldiers killed by a relief party during the Battle of Lake George.

The WILLIAMS MONUMENT (L), 3 m., marks the spot where Colonel Ephraim Williams was killed during the opening moments of the ‘bloody morning scout.’ On his way to join Johnson, Colonel Williams had a presentiment of early death and at Albany made a will leaving most of his property to found a free school at Williamstown, Massachusetts. After 30 years this fund was used as the original endowment of Williams College.

Most of the business blocks of GLENS FALLS, 9.1 m. (343 alt., 18,715 pop.), show the trimmings of the mid-nineteenth century; the simplicity of the several new structures is in marked contrast. The residential districts, with large houses on broad lawns, reflect the high per capita wealth of the city. Paper, machinery, chemicals, dresses, and gloves are manufactured here.

The site of Glens Falls was part of the Queensbury Patent, 23,000 acres of land granted in 1759 to 23 men. The water power provided by the 60-foot falls in the Hudson, which the Indians called Chepontuo (a difficult place to get around), determined the location of the settlement. During the Revolution the village was in the direct path of invasion and in 1780 it was destroyed by the British. In 1788 Colonel John Glen of Schenectady acquired land and built mills here.

The history of Glens Falls is the story of a succession of industrial activities. First came lumbering, during which the huge log drives sent millions of feet of timber down the Hudson annually. The ‘big boom,’ built of timber and chains to catch and sort the logs, is still used near by. In addition to lumbering, the townspeople carried on the manufacture of lime from the limestone along the northern riverbank. When the demand for lime decreased, the limestone was used to make cement. The manufacture of paper began in the sixties, and by 1896 Glens Falls was producing 275 tons of paper a day; but after a bitter strike in the largest mill shortly after the turn of the century, most of the paper mills were closed. The mill that suffered from the strike now manufactures cellulose products on a relatively small scale. Shirt manufacturing began in 1879, expanded till it gave work to large numbers, and then succumbed to outside competition.

The FINCH PRUYN & COMPANY PLANT, 1–27 Glen St. (open; guides at office), with a huge pile of pulpwood always in the yard, produces paper, principally newsprint.

COOPER’S CAVE, beneath the bridge over the Hudson connecting Glens Falls and South Glens Falls, is reached by a spiral stairway. The low rock cavern at the foot of the falls is the scene of one of the most dramatic episodes of Cooper’s Last of the Mohicans.

At 14.6 m. is the junction with a dirt road.

Left on this road 1.5 m. to a STATE FISH HATCHERY (open April–Oct.), containing open ponds and breeding pools for brown and lake trout. Approximately 500,000 fingerlings are grown here each summer, then transferred by tank car, truck, and airplane to Adirondack streams and lakes.

At WILTON, 20.4 m. (348 alt., 200 pop.), is the junction with a macadam road.

Right on this road, which runs up the slope of Mount McGregor, to the MOUNT MCGREGOR SANITARIUM (R), 1.5m., a group of seven stuccoed buildings operated for employees of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. Near by is the GENERAL GRANT COTTAGE (adm. 10¢, children under 16 free), a two-story frame building. Suffering from cancer of the throat, General Grant came to this cottage on June 16, 1885, finished his memoirs, and died on July 23. The living room, dining room and office contain the furniture used by the Grants.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, 27.8 m. (330 alt., 13,670 pop.) (see Saratoga Springs), is at the junction with State 29 (see Tour 13) and State 9K (see Tour 23).

1. East from Saratoga Springs on State 9P to SARATOGA LAKE, 3.7 m., popular summer resort. The Mohawk believed that the lake reflected their god’s peaceful mind and that anyone crossing it would be drowned if he uttered a single sound. A white woman, to prove the superstition false, shouted while being taken across in a canoe, and nothing happened. The Indians brought her to shore and explained, ‘The Great Spirit is merciful. He knows that a white woman cannot hold her tongue.’

Across the road from the WHITE SULPHUR SPRING HOTEL, 8.6 m., where Jack Dempsey and Bob Pastor trained for world’s heavyweight championship fights, is (L) WHITE SULPHUR SPRING (open, free).

At 12.1 m. State 9P rejoins US 9 (see below).

2. South from Saratoga Springs on State 50 to an entrance (L) to the SARATOGA SPRINGS RESERVATION, 1.6 m. (see Saratoga Springs). The COESA MINERAL SPRING (L), 2.9 m., and the HATHORN No.3 MINERAL SPRING (L), 3 m., are both known for their naturally carbonated, laxative waters.

BALLSTON SPA, 6.3 m. (340 alt., 4,433 pop.), has knitting mills and tanneries. Before the Civil War the place outranked Saratoga as a fashionable resort and watering place, but after the war the race track and the elaborate casinos attracted the crowds to Saratoga.

SCOTIA, 21.9 m. (240 alt., 7,944 pop.) (see Tour 11), is at the junction with State 5 (see Tour 11).

At 34.2 m. is a junction (L) with State 9P (see above).

The privately owned LUTHER FOREST PRESERVE (L), 37 m., contains nearly 10,000,000 trees, chiefly varieties of pine. Red pine is best adapted to this region because of its immunity to the diseases that attack the other species.

In CLIFTON PARK, 43.9 m. (344 alt., 150 pop.), is (L) STEVENS’ TAVERN, built about 1800. The 14 chimneys have been removed, but the heavy doors have the original wrought-iron hinges and iron bars. The second floor of the long wing was for a time used as a courtroom. Because the building was on the town line the court met at one end of the room for Clifton Park and at the other for Crescent.

CRESCENT, 47.6 m. (210 alt., 250 pop.), lies on the north bank of the Mohawk River at the top of the crescent made by the river in its bend toward the Hudson, four miles southeast. The village, with its neighbor Halfmoon, was one of the first Dutch settlements north of Albany.

The old Erie Canal formerly crossed the river on an arched concrete aqueduct just west of the bridge. Along the water front and on near-by farms live a number of the old ‘canawlers’ and their kin. In the village stand the decadent inns, once noisy with dances and ‘shows’; the old red brick bank building; a two-story white house built around Granny Andrews’s one-room select school where ‘canawlers’ paid 15¢ every Monday morning for their children’s ‘schoolin”; the community well; a country store with chairs around a big stove; the old mill and dam; and several squatters’ homes.

At 53.5 m. a traffic circle marks the junction with State 7 (see Tour 10).

At 54 m. is a junction with State 155.

Right on State 155 to the ALBANY AIRPORT (R), 2.5 m., owned and operated by the city of Albany.

The ANN LEE HOME (R), 2.6 m., established in 1930 by Albany County as a farm colony for the care of the aged and homeless, comprises 787 acres of the richest farmland in the county purchased from the United Society of Shakers in 1926. The home is named for Ann Lee, the Mother Ann of the Shakers (see Tour 8). The SHAKER CEMETERY (R), 2.7 m., is a small plot with symmetrical rows of simple white slabs. Ann Lee’s grave in the center is distinguished only by a slightly taller headstone. At 3.3 m. stand (R) the simple red brick buildings once occupied by the North Family of Shakers.

ALBANY, 60.2 m. (18 alt., 130,447 pop.) (see Albany), is at the junction with US 20 (see Tour 8), State 43 (see Tour 9), State 5 (see Tour 11), and US 9W (see Tour 21A).

Section c.  ALBANY to POUGHKEEPSIE; 75.9 m.  US 9

Between Albany and Poughkeepsie US 9 runs from two to five miles inland from the eastern bank of the Hudson River, following in stretches the route of the Albany Post Road of Colonial days.

This section of the State contains many reminders of Dutch settlement, especially family and place names—often puzzling in their Anglicized forms—and solid old houses with low first stories and steep gable or gambrel roofs, small windowpanes, and thick doors. Below Hudson, stretching to New York City, is a magnificent succession of historic manor houses (see also Tour 21B) and great country homes.

The lovely countryside was one of the last strongholds of agricultural feudalism. The Dutch West India Company parceled out the land in enormous patroonships, and the British confirmed and extended the manorial system. Most important on the east bank of the Hudson were Rensselaerswyck, Livingston Manor, Van Cortlandt Manor, and Philips-burgh. The tenants who cultivated these estates were restless under the semifeudal system of long-term leases. In 1769 a real estate speculator on his way to his lands along the Mohawk kept a diary that reveals the unrest pervading the countryside. A tenant of Philipsburgh complained that his rent was seven pounds a year for 200 acres and that ‘on his demise or Sale his Son or Vendee is obliged to pay to the Landlord one Third of the Value of the Farm for Renewal of the Lease.’ A little farther north another said that he and his neighbors were planning to migrate because they had to pay seven pounds a year for ‘about 100 acres including Rocks and Mountains.’

The hope of improving their economic lot made these tenants eager fighters in the rebellion against the Crown; but the political settlement after the Revolution did not break up the huge estates. After the Revolution, in a movement that reached its peak in the thirties and forties, tenant farmers took matters into their own hands and by the threat of force tried to prevent sheriffs from serving eviction notices for nonpayment of rent in arrears. In these ‘antirent wars’ the tenants often disguised themselves as Indians; and the old ballad relates that:

                The moon was shining silver bright;

                The sheriff came in dead of night;

                High on a hill an ‘Indian’ true

                And on his horn this blast he blew:

                Keep out of the way, old Bill Snyder;

                We’ll tar your coat and feather your hide, sir.

These outbreaks were quelled by the militia; but wide popular disapproval and the opening of abundant cheap land in the West caused the breakup of the leasehold system. The tenants turned to political action and won their greatest victory in the adoption of the constitution of 1846, which abolished all feudal tenures in land and limited agricultural leases to a twelve-year period.

The industrial revolution caused another change in the cultural character of the valley. As new fortunes were made in finance, land and stock speculation, manufacturing, and trade, the Hudson Valley became a fashionable suburb of New York City. Everyone who made money wanted a country place where he could live in the style of the English gentry. The descendants of the old landed aristocracy set the tone of living in a tight little society of their own, to which newcomers were admitted only after they had shown in long years of residence that they understood and accepted the code. The city mansions of these gentry served as town houses, used during the winter social season and when business required that the head of the household be near his offices. Stages, carriages, boats, later the railroads, and finally the automobile provided transportation.

The Hudson reached its peak of fashionable importance in the decades following the Civil War; since 1900 that importance has dwindled steadily. The young people of today still dutifully go up the river for family reunions; but when the members of the older generation die, the heirs, preferring to live near the gay casinos and beaches of Long Island, sell the estates or give them to the State as public parks or to religious organizations or schools. So many of the places are being transferred to tax-free bodies as family memorials that the tax burden on the remaining property, especially in the case of farmers with small holdings, is becoming serious.

In ALBANY, 0 m., US 9 unites with US 20 (see Tour 8).

RENSSELAER, 1 m. (20 alt., 10,818 pop.), technically a separate municipality but actually a suburb of Albany, contains division shops of the New York Central and the Boston & Albany Railroads, and the water front is part of the Port of Albany, used particularly for lumber. Behind the wharves are factories producing dyes, chemicals, felts, and woolen goods. The city, formed in 1897 by the union of the villages of East Albany, Greenbush, and Bath-on-the-Hudson, stands on ground that was part of Rensselaerswyck, most successful of the patroonships.

FORT CRAILO (open 10–4, adm. 25¢, children under 16 free), Riverside St. (L) south of Columbia, is a much restored brick dwelling now maintained as a public museum. The front or river block is believed to have been built by Hendrick Van Rensselaer in 1704, shortly after he received the Claverack tract and the Green Bush farm from his brother Kiliaen, the patroon. Within are huge hewn beams, large fireplaces, and broad floor boards. The interior of the rear wing, erected in 1762, illustrates, by contrast with the earlier structure, the progress of half a century: rooms are more spacious, paneling is more extensive, and double-hung sash supplant casements.

This building is also known as the ‘Yankee Doodle House.’ In 1758, while Abercrombie was preparing to attack Ticonderoga, Dr. Richard Shuckburgh, a British army surgeon, sat on the Fort Crailo well curb watching the provincial militia drill and wrote the derisive words of ‘Yankee Doodle,’ which later became the marching song of the Revolution.

BEVERWYCK, Washington Ave. opposite intersection with Eighth St., was built between 1840 and 1843 as the manor house of William Paterson Van Rensselaer, younger son of Stephen Van Rensselaer, upon the subdivision of the patroonship after the latter’s death in 1839. The mansion was laid out on a truly aristocratic scale by Frederic Diaper, young English architect well known for his suave Italianate Fifth Avenue mansions and Wall Street banks. Stucco-covered brick to approximate cut stone, broad pilasters framing the triple windows, low attic, and one-story Greek Ionic porch produce a monumental effect. In the interior, a spacious hall with cantilevered stone stairs leads to the fine library with mahogany cases and Italianate ceiling painting in false-perspective. William resided here only a few years after completion of the house in 1843, since the estate was broken up as a result of the antirent wars. The Order of St. Francis bought the place in 1912 and established a monastery and training school here.

Right from Rensselaer on State 9 J to the JAN BREESE (BRIES) HOUSE (L), 3.4 m., built in 1723, the best remaining example of the brick farmhouses characteristic of the Albany region. Based on urban house forms, the trim story-and-a-half mass with its steep gable roof is in marked contrast to the low stone cottages of Ulster and Dutchess Counties. The walls of brick in English bond surround interior vertical timber members that support the floor beams, forming a structural system which, although it developed from medieval half-timbering, yet is surprisingly close in principle to modern skyscraper construction. The rear ell and dormer and the front porch are later additions. Inside, a central hall separates parlor and kitchen, which have beamed ceilings and large fireplaces. This important architectural monument is in a sad state of disrepair.

The VAN RENSSELAER-GENÊT HOUSE (L), 3.8 m., built in 1742 by Kiliaen Van Rensselaer (1717–81), for his bride Ariaantje Schuyler, is a gambrel-roofed brick dwelling of the central-hall type. The porch and sash are nineteenth century. In 1802 George Clinton bought the house and farm for his daughter and son-in-law, Citizen Genêt, who resided here until they moved to the now destroyed Prospect Hill on the ridge.

Henry Hudson is supposed to have landed at the site of STUYVESANT, 18 m. (100 alt., 400 pop.), and named the place Kinder Hoek. The early Dutch settlers of the place moved up the hill to get away from malaria and mosquitoes and took the name with them.

At 22 m. is the junction with US 9 (see below).

On US 9–20, at 4.6 m. is the junction with US 4 (see Tour 22).

In the cemetery at the rear of the little Dutch Reformed Church (R), 5.5 m., is the GRAVE OF EDMOND CHARLES GENÊT (1763–1834). Citizen Genêt, as first Minister of the French Republic to the United States, arrived in 1793, and caused much embarrassment to President Washington by outfitting French privateers at American ports and attempting to stir up American public opinion to force the Government into active support of France in its war with Great Britain. Washington succeeded in having Genêt recalled; but Genêt remained in this country as an American citizen and married the daughter of Governor George Clinton. On his farm along the river he carried on long and costly experiments that enabled him to obtain a patent in 1825 for ‘an aerostatic vessel to be propelled by air.’

At 8.7 m. is the eastern junction with US 20 (see Tour 8).

At 17.8 m. is the junction with State 9H.

Right here 3.3 m. to the VAN ALEN HOMESTEAD (R), about 200 feet from the road behind three tall evergreens. The original brick house, built in 1737, contained two rooms, both with exterior doors, and a garret under the steeply pitched gable roof. In 1939 the house passed out of the Van Alen family for the first time. This was the home of Helen Van Alen, said to have been the original of Katrina Van Tassel in Washington Irving’s Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

The ICHABOD CRANE SCHOOL (L), 3.4 m., a one-room white-painted schoolhouse, stands on the site of the school taught by Jesse Merwin, the original of Irving’s Ichabod Crane.

LINDENWALD (R), 4.2 m. (small adm. fee), was the home of Martin Van Buren from 1840, upon his retirement from the presidency, to his death in 1862. Built in 1797 by Judge William Peter Van Ness, with whom Van Buren studied law, the house was a typical post-Colonial, central-hall brick dwelling. Washington Irving, while visiting here in 1809 after the death of Mathilda Hoffman, his only love, tutored the Van Ness children and observed local characters, who later appeared in his humorous tales.

Van Buren, who named the property ‘Lindenwald,’ in 1849 had Richard Upjohn, architect of the just completed Trinity Church, New York City, renovate and enlarge the house. Upjohn obliterated the simplicity of the old mass by adding a steep front gable, consoled and gabled dormers, an eccentric cornice, a grotesque stoop, a supposedly Italianate tower, and wings on the south and west. Inside, Upjohn altered the stair and some of the post-Colonial woodwork. The architectural antiquarian will note with interest the hot air heating furnace dated 1834! Much of Van Buren’s furnishings remain intact. Today the place is haunted by an eerie, romantic quality deepened by disrepair and unkempt planting.

At 15 m. is the junction with State 23 (see Tour 7).

At 18.7 m. is the junction with US 9 (see below).

KINDERHOOK (Dutch, children’s corner), 20.6 m. (256 alt., 822 pop.), whose Dutch settlers brought the village name with them from their first settlement on the riverbank (see above), has well-cared-for old houses shaded by tall trees. It is said that Kinderhook had its own Boston Tea Party in the stormy days that led to the Revolution: a group of Dutch housewives raided a tea shop, bound the dealer, and sold his tea for him at a ‘fair’ price. A century-old copy of the Kinderhook Herald throws some light on the neighborhood spirit of the past: ‘Slices of wedding cake have so often accompanied marriage notices that we shall for the future omit to acknowledge these dainties. Candidates for matrimony will please take notice that the following distinction will be made between those who remember the printer and those who do not—The names of the donner will be in “caps,” while the others must be contented with small letters.’

The HOUSE OF HISTORY, near the center of Main St., built between 1810 and 1819 as a residence, is the headquarters of the Columbia County Historical Society and holds many old documents as well as a collection of historical relics. This large, two-story brick structure of the early post-Revolutionary period has a dignified stoop of modern workmanship. The entrance door is flanked by leaded sidelights and surmounted by a fanlight window under a graceful elliptical marble arch, complete with molded keystone and impost blocks.

Associated with the building are many stories and legends of the people of the Hudson Valley—the Van Burens, the Vanderpoels, the Van de Bogarts, and the Burts. Here Martin Van Buren talked plans with political henchmen and toasted political victories; here Aaron Vanderpoel earned the title of the ‘Kinderhook Roarer’ because of his stentorian voice. Thomas Burt, one of the founders of the Albany Argus and publisher of Rough Hewer, a Van Buren campaign paper, lived in the house for 45 years.

The one-story brick KINDERHOOK MEMORIAL LIBRARY (open 3–5 weekdays, 7–9 p.m. Sat.) is a rather heavy modern version of the Dutch Colonial house. Solid white shutters and a white picket fence add to the air of neatness.

The old brick walls of the BEEKMAN HOUSE (1736), Broad St., are now concealed by clapboarding. In the interior are an enormous fireplace and a Dutch closet-bed concealed by three doors with panels forming a Latin cross to protect inmates from witches.

ST. PAUL’S EPISCOPAL CHURCH, Sylvester Lane, is a fine example of ‘board-and-batten’ Gothic Revival. Richard Upjohn, who was remodeling Lindenwald for Martin Van Buren, furnished plans for the church; his original drawings are still in possession of the parish.

In the village cemetery (R) is the GRAVE OF MARTIN VAN BUREN (1782–1862), who was born on Hudson Street, where his father, Captain Abraham Van Buren, kept an inn. Van Buren has been described as ‘a bright blonde,’ wearing ‘a snuff-colored broadcloth coat with velvet collar; cravat orange with modest lace tips; vest of pearl hue; trousers of white duck; silk hose corresponding with vest; shoes morocco, gloves yellow kid and long furred Beaver hat with broad brim of Quaker color.’ He became a power in the Albany Regency, which perfected the spoils system, and was successively County Surrogate, State Senator, State Attorney General, United States Senator, Governor, Secretary of State, Vice President under Andrew Jackson, and President of the United States succeeding Jackson.

At 26.5 m. is the southern junction with State 9J (see above).

Just south of this junction are (L) a HEXAGONAL HOUSE and an OCTAGONAL HOUSE, humble examples of the hundreds of ‘spherical’ homes built following the publication of Orson S. Fowler’s treatise A Home for All (1849). After Fowler had collected a fortune by his lectures and writings on phrenology, a mid-century fad, he built a huge octagonal home near Fishkill and presented his architectural ideas to the world, asserting that the ‘spherical’ form was the most beautiful, enclosed the most space in the least compass, permitted entry of most sunlight, and made housework simpler. Dozens of the houses built during this period still stand in the Hudson and Mohawk Valleys. In the folk imagination the greatest advantage of the ‘spherical’ form is that the devil cannot corner the people who live in the house.

At 27.6 m. is the junction with a macadam road.

Right on this road, following the north bank of Stockport Creek, 1 m. to the MAJOR ABRAM STAATS HOUSE (R). Staats came to New Netherland in 1642, and after practicing for six years as surgeon of the West India Company, became a fur trader at Beverwyck (Albany). In 1654 he bought land at the mouth of Stockport Creek, built a house, and installed a tenant. In 1664 the house was burned by Indians, the tenant killed, and his wife carried off. The present stone dwelling, built soon afterward, may include foundations and walls of the original structure, but most of its original Dutch character was irretrievably lost by later nineteenth-century rebuilding of roof, porch, glass, and shutters.

The MACY HOUSE (L), 28.4 m., built in 1816, is a spacious, yellow-painted brick structure with small rear corner wings. Altered from the original only by a Greek Revival stoop, it preserves the air of an elegant and comfortable summer home as planned by Captain Seth G. Macy, one of the sea captains who founded near-by Hudson.

The TURTLE HOUSE (R), 31.8 m., on Penton Hook Farm, was built by Job Center, another sea captain, between 1800 and 1818. This unusual brick structure has a high first story and a very low second story under a low gabled roof. The central third of each façade projects forward in a semicircle that is sheltered by a semicircular two-story portico with a semicircular pediment supported by four Corinthian columns. The columns are solid timbers said to have served as the masts of old ships.

HUDSON, 33.3 m. (100 alt., 11,487 pop.), seat of Columbia County, is built on a slope that rises from the Hudson River. Its industrial plants produce machinery, woolen knit goods, ginger ale, matches, shirts and dresses, and flypaper. Two huge cement plants at the southeastern edge of the city gnaw at the limestone of Becraft Mountain.

Jan Frans Van Hoesen bought land here from the Indians in 1662, but there was no permanent settlement until 1783, when a number of New Englanders arrived, mostly Nantucket Quakers, whose fishing and whaling activities had suffered during the Revolution. The place has been called Claverack (Dutch, clover reach) Landing because of the fields of fragrant clover, but the new settlers, who had paid 5,000 pounds sterling for land and wharfage; changed the name to Hudson. On April 22, 1785, this New England community in a Dutch valley received the third city charter granted in the State. The proprietors soon built a mill, a shipyard, two tanneries, and a covered ropewalk. In 1790, 25 schooners in the whaling, seal, and West Indies trade registered Hudson as their home port.

Many of the old houses clearly show their derivation from New England precedent. No. 7 Union Street is a typical five-bay brick Federal house with delicate Adamesque doorway, upper-hall triple window, and cornice. No. 116 Union Street recalls wooden Nantucket cottages with their great central chimneys. No. 126 Union Street illustrates the early New England gambrel roof.

PARADE HILL, foot of Warren St., is a promenade terrace commanding a magnificent vista up and down the Hudson. Granted to the Common Council in 1795 by the ‘Proprietors,’ this terrace is probably the only example of eighteenth-century civic planning to take advantage of the majestic Hudson scenery.

The COLLIER HOUSE (St. Nicholas Ukrainian Church), NW. corner of Partition and Second Sts., a large frame structure with a strongly proportioned Greek Ionic portico, is a fine example of Greek Revival. Another building in the same style is the FIRST REFORMED CHURCH, 451 Warren St., a brick edifice with wooden Greek Ionic pediment, entablature, and columns.

The WORTH HOUSE, 211 Union St., similar in style to No.7 Union St., unfortunately underwent, about 1850, renovation of door hood, window sash and heads, and cornice. In this house was born Major General William J. Worth (1794–1849), who served with distinction in the War of 1812 and the Mexican War and in the interval was superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

The ROBERT JENKINS HOUSE (D.A.R. Chapter House and Library), 113 Warren St., and the SETH JENKINS HOUSE, 115 Warren St., were the stately brick residences of the sons of Hudson’s first mayor.

The GENERAL WORTH HOTEL, 215 Warren St., is a rare and unusually well-preserved example of Greek Revival architecture, rebuilt in 100 days after a fire in 1836.

The CHRIST PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH, SE. corner of Court and Union Sts., was built 1854–7 by William G. Harrison, architect of the Episcopal Cathedral in Garden City, Long Island. The exterior is of Portland red sandstone and is chiefly remarkable for its thinly proportioned lancet windows and a 210-foot spire. The nave is covered with plaster tierne vaults. Ralph Adams Cram designed the polychromed oak reredos and the marble altar.

In Hudson is the junction with State 23 (see Tour 7) and State 9G (see Tour 21B).

At 38.5 m. is a view (L) of THE HILL (private), built just after 1796 by Henry Walter Livingston (1764–1810), grandson of Robert, third lord of the manor (see Tour 21B). Upon his marriage in 1796 to Mary Penn Allen of Pennsylvania, Henry Walter built this most splendid of all Livingston residences, an early example of Roman Revival style. The stuccoed brick house has a unique plan with two elliptical rooms, projecting as segmental bays on both sides but masked in front by the flat-roofed Scamozzi-Ionic colonnade. For 45 years following Henry Walter’s death, the house, known as ‘Widow Mary’s Place,’ continued to be famous for its hospitality, and today shows every sign of excellent care.

At 39 m. is the junction with State 82.

Left on State 82 to LAKE TAGHKANIC STATE PARK, 6 m. (campsites, 50¢ a day; tents, 75¢ a day; two- to five-room cottages, $3–$8 a day; fishing facilities, hiking and ski trails), which contains 750 acres with a 225-acre lake.

At 41.2 m. is the junction with a dirt road.

Right here 3 m. to the abandoned village of BURDEN, the center of iron mines worked from 1875 to 1898 by the Hudson River Ore and Iron Company. The mine shafts are now used as mushroom cellars. From Mount Tom ore, Troy mills turned out car wheels that puzzled ironmasters because of their superior tensile strength. Geologists have found that this ore contains some manganese.

At 44.9 m. is the junction with a macadam road.

1. Right here 1.6 m. to junction with a dirt road; left 0.5 m. to a mile-long, tree-lined lane leading (L) to THE HERMITAGE (private), a square brick building begun just before the Revolution by Colonel Peter R. Livingston. Colonel Peter, eldest surviving son of Robert, third lord of Livingston Manor (see Tour 21B), expected to be sole heir to his father’s huge estate under the ancient law of entail and The Hermitage was intended to provide a suitably grand manor house with spacious apartments in the latest fashionable Georgian style; but war interrupted construction above the first story. At the conclusion of the Revolution, entail was abrogated, the estate was divided among numerous heirs, and Colonel Peter, his fortune greatly diminished, could only roof the unfinished mansion. In 1939, after long occupancy by tenant farmers, the main stair finally received a second story to lead to, porches were added, and The Hermitage approximated the original design. The divided Dutch door of the main entrance leads to a spacious hall, from which rooms open on each side. Many of the original mantels and much of the old trim remain.

Farther along on the dirt road is (L) TEVIOTDALE (private), 2.1 m., the rectangular Georgian Colonial home built about 1773 by Walter Livingston (1740–97), son of Robert, third lord, brother of Colonel Peter of The Hermitage, and father of Henry Walter of The Hill. Constructed of rubble stone and covered with stucco, the house displays the typical five-bay, two-story-and-high-basement façade and hip roof of the period. The rear rooms have floor-length French doors, originally opening upon a porch that commanded a beautiful view south over the valley of Roeliff Jansen Kill. The house was inherited in 1797 by Harriet Livingston, who married Robert Fulton in 1808; they lived here until his death in 1815. After long occupation by farmers, the house and a small plot were acquired by General John Ross Delafield, who has repaired the major ravages of time and neglect.

2. Left from US 9 on the macadam road 0.7 m. to the BROCK LIVINGSTON HOUSE (R), the main block of which is a primitive one-and-a-half-story stone Dutch house. At 1.6 m. is the junction with a macadam road; right here to (R) the CALLANDER HOUSE (private), 0.4 m. Built about 1773 by General Samuel Ten Broeck, the brick dwelling is typical of Dutch domestic architecture of the late eighteenth century. Behind a rare original plaster-ceiled stoop, the heavy, divided Dutch door leads to a wide central hallway. The house was sold to General Henry Livingston, who bestowed the name Callander House after the Livingston ancestral home in Scotland.

CLERMONT, 46.6 m. (226 alt., 200 pop.), was once the chief village of the lower Livingston manor, inherited by the second Robert Livingston (see Tour 21B) from his father, first lord of the manor. In 1791, when the village happened to have a surplus of poor-relief funds, citizens petitioned the legislature for the right to use the money to erect and maintain a free public school. The enabling act, passed March 27, 1791, created the first public school chartered in the State of New York.

ST. LUKE’S EPISCOPAL CHURCH (R), built in 1857, is one of the later examples of ‘board-and-batten’ Gothic by Richard Upjohn. Less simple and dignified than St. Paul’s, Kinderhook, it illustrates Upjohn’s later tendency to elaboration of ornamental effects.

One of the original POST ROAD MILESTONES is (R) at 49.1 m., marked ‘109 miles to New York.’

At 50 m. is the junction with a macadam road.

Right on this road 0.8 m. to the REDDER HOMESTEAD, built about 1720, a one-and-a-half-story house of stone painted white, with green shutters and a very steep roof. The two-piece door has hinges, latches, and a knocker imported from Holland. The east wing, added in 1773, contains a living room with fireplace wall entirely covered with beautiful paneling.

The MARTIN HOMESTEAD (R), 53.5 m., was built in 1732. The stone walls were recently covered with white cement, but the interior remains untouched, with large solid, hand-hewn beams and wide floor planks.

RED HOOK, 53.9 m. (200 alt., 996 pop.), was called Roode Hoeck by early Dutch navigators because of the profusion of red berries they saw growing on the hillsides. The village is a trade center for the apple growers of northern Dutchess County, and four cider-vinegar mills are operated here during the fall.

The road curves around the somber yellow EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN CHURCH OF ST. PETER THE APOSTLE (R), 56.3 m., known for more than a century as the Old Stone Church. It was built in 1730 on land donated by Gilbert Livingston and was remodeled in 1824, when a tower was added, and was again enlarged in 1842. In the cemetery behind the church are numerous Palatine graves.

At 56.9 m. is the junction with State 9G (see Tour 21B).

RHINEBECK, 59.3 m. (203 alt., 1,569 pop.), is a sedate old village that, like others along US 9, has benefited by the proximity of landed gentry. Several of the houses are noteworthy for their band-saw decorations. No.44 Montgomery Street, a Gothic Revival board-and-batten house, has an especially rich band-saw porch employing Gothic motives. Such examples of enthusiastic carpentering are as true a form of folk art as are samples, quilts, and cast-iron hitching posts.

The NORTHERN DUTCHESS COUNTY HEALTH CENTER (1931) is a model unit operated under the Thompson Trust; the clinic was established about 1900 by William Thompson. Opposite are the COONS GREENHOUSES, which began specialization in the production of English double violets when they were the most fashionable flower for corsages. The CHURCH OF THE MESSIAH (L), a low stone structure of the English parish type, was built in 1897 with Astor funds from designs by Stanford White; the Episcopal service is used.

The BEEKMAN ARMS, at the village center, has grown with each generation since the first two rooms and loft were erected about 1700 by William Traphagen; by 1769 it was two stories high. The third story was added in 1865, the wings and the portico yet later. This was a famous station in stagecoach days. Prior to the Revolution a sign in the office gave the rates:

                        Lodging 3 pence

                        With breakfast, 4 pence

                        Only 5 lodgers to a bed

                        No boots can be worn in bed.

The U.S.POST OFFICE, at the village center, was built in 1939. Designed by R. Stanley Brown, architect, the building reproduces the exterior of the oldest and main portion of the house of Hendrick Kip, which stood east of the Rhinecliff Road until it burned about 1912. Some of the old stone was utilized in the new building; the signature stone marked ‘A0 1700 HKAK’ and a window sash from the Kip house are exhibited in the lobby.

South of the village center is (L) the REFORMED DUTCH CHURCH, built in 1808, the west and south walls of brick and the east and north walls of stone. According to tradition, the parishioners could not agree on the material that should be used for the building. Those who contributed money for the construction insisted that the walls be of brick and those who contributed in kind insisted on stone.

Northeast of the village are the DUTCHESS COUNTY FAIRGROUNDS, where the county fair is held during the first week of September. Every farmer, gentleman and otherwise, enters his best pigs, cucumbers, cows, pumpkins, and other products. In the races, an Astor is seen driving his own mules in competition with his neighbors.

Right from the center of Rhinebeck on State 308, which runs down to the river, 1.2 m. to the entrance to the VINCENT ASTOR ESTATE (R). The descendants of the first John Jacob Astor, who laid the foundation for his fortune by monopolizing the western fur trade and then investing in real estate, still keep a foothold here.

The ABRAHAM KIP HOUSE (R), 1.6 m., was built about the middle of the eighteenth century. The earlier western portion was a simple two-room structure; in the later eastern end, a hall and a pair of rooms were added. Abraham’s father and brother operated the profitable canoe ferry to Kingston, while he utilized his house as an inn. The ruins of the HENDRICK KIP HOUSE (L) are at 1.8 m.

RHINECLIFF, 2.3 m. (50 alt., 300 pop.), is the eastern terminus of the Kingston ferry; left here on a macadam road to (L) ELLERSLIE (private), 3.6 m., home of Levi P. Morton (1824–1920), elected Vice President of the United States in 1888 and governor of New York State in 1894. When he acquired the estate in 1886, Morton erected the present half-timber building, which was designed by Richard Morris Hunt.

At 61 m. is the junction with the Old Mill Road.

Right on this dirt road 0.2 m. to GRASSMERE (L), a red brick mansion in wooded grounds, now the Fox Hollow School for Girls. Construction of Grassmere was begun by General Richard Montgomery, who was killed on December 31, 1775, while leading the attack on Quebec, and was completed by his young bride, Janet, sister of Chancellor Livingston (see Tour 21B). The house was burned in 1828; in rebuilding, some of the old walls may have been used.

The small DUTCH STONE COTTAGE (R), 61.3 m., is typical of many that lined the eighteenth-century King’s Highway. One room deep and two long, with steep winding stairs leading to a garret under the gable roof unbroken by dormers, this humble dwelling still houses tenant farmers. At 62 m. (R) is another, slightly smaller cottage. The rough, split stonework and the mellow tones of shingle and wood gables have acquired a patina envied by even the luxurious manor house.

At 63.9 m. is the junction with a paved road.

Right on this, the old Post Road, 0.9 m. to the ornate gateway (R) of the OGDEN MILLS AND RUTH LIVINGSTON MILLS MEMORIAL STATE PARK. This land was acquired in 1792 by Morgan Lewis (1734–1844), son of Francis Lewis, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Morgan Lewis served in the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 and held numerous public offices in a political career that began in 1783 after his marriage to Gertrude, sister of Chancellor Livingston; he was governor of New York 1804–7. The first Lewis home, called the Staatsburgh House, was ruined by fire in 1832, but a large portion of the masonry walls was incorporated in the new house, which was augmented by short wings and a four-column Greek colonnade. Lewis’s great-granddaughter, Ruth, married Ogden Mills, Sr. In 1895 Mills had Stanford White remodel the house into the present mansion. The last private owner of the estate was Ogden L. Mills (1884–1937), Under Secretary of the U.S. Treasury during the Secretaryship of Andrew Mellon, whom he succeeded in 1932. As a public official Mr. Mills was notable for the scrupulous manner in which he observed the spirit of the law in paying taxes on his large holdings. The 200-acre estate was deeded to the public by his daughter as a memorial.

The MANSION, now a museum (open 11–5 daily, except Mon.; adults 25¢, children 10¢), standing on the crest of a hill, with a beautiful lawn sloping riverward, is a grand French Renaissance palace of 65 rooms. Stanford White achieved some of his finest interiors here; the Gold Parlor, the magnificently harmonious Green Marble Dining Room, and the oak-paneled Library attest his gift for opulent and luxurious color. All the interiors retain their priceless rugs, furniture, tapestries, and fittings.

STAATSBURG, 1.4 m. (50 alt., 500 pop.), was named for Dr. Samuel Staats and Dirck Van der Burgh, early landholders. Storage plants, built here in the 1850’s to hold ice for New York City, and the Staatsburg Ice Tool Works, established in 1858, carry on a large business despite modern methods of refrigeration.

ST. MARGARET’S EPISCOPAL CHURCH (L), in the center of the village, is a stone building erected in the Civil War period and modeled on English parish church architecture. In the south walls are two three-panel windows of fine thirteenth-century stained glass from Chartres Cathedral installed here by Ogden Mills, Sr., as a memorial to his wife, Ruth Livingston Mills.

The Post Road rejoins US 9 at 2.1 m.

On US 9, opposite the southern junction with the old Post Road, 66.1 m., is the entrance (R) to the MARGARET LEWIS NORRIE STATE PARK (picnicking, swimming, hiking), a 312-acre tract sloping down to the river.

The SITE OF PLACENTIA, last home of James Kirke Paulding (1778–1860), is at 68.3 m. Paulding, an author by desire but a public official from need, was born at Great Nine Partners, near Millbrook, where his family had taken refuge when Tories were rampant around Tarrytown, the family home. He collaborated with Washington Irving in the first Salmagundi Papers (1807), and their success confirmed them in their devotion to authorship. Paulding’s Diverting History of John Bull and Brother Jonathan (1812) gave him a small reputation as a political satirist, and he was appointed to a minor political office. Martin Van Buren, his upriver neighbor, made him his Secretary of the Navy in 1837; Paulding, true to the romantic tradition, stubbornly opposed the replacement of sails by steam in the Navy. While Secretary of the Navy he published a book of fairy tales. ‘Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers’ appeared in his Königsmarke.

Tree-shaded ST. JAMES EPISCOPAL CHURCH (L), 68.8 m., designed in the Gothic manner of the English parish church, has in the course of the century that has passed since its construction acquired a patina and a beauty well in keeping with this countryside of large, dignified estates. The church was founded in 1811 by Dr. Samuel Bard and General Morgan Lewis. The first church building was designed by the first minister, the Reverend John McVickar (1787–1868). In 1844, the old structure having been declared unsafe, the present edifice was built. Vestryman Augustus Thomas Cowman acted as amateur architect, making a trip to England to study ecclesiastical architecture. The stucco-covered exterior exhibits a long, low, gabled nave and a lower sanctuary, contrasting markedly with the slender western entrance tower. Within, the hammer-beam trusses, pews, and trim are of black walnut. The plastered walls carry many memorial tablets of the landed gentry. The two diamond-paned windows next to the door were preserved from the first church building; and two others utilized plain red, yellow, and purple glass from the Church of the Ascension, New York City. President Franklin D. Roosevelt has long been senior warden of this church, and here in 1939 King George VI and Queen Elizabeth attended services as his guests.

At 69.3 m. are the elaborate cut-stone gate and gatehouse (R) of HYDE PARK (adm. 25¢), the 700-acre estate of Frederick W. Vanderbilt (1857–1939). In 1705 Peter Fauconier, private secretary to Edward Hyde, Viscount Cornbury, Royal Governor of New York, obtained a patent for land, including this estate, which he named for his patron. In 1772 the property was laid out as a residential estate by Dr. John Bard, whose wife had inherited part of the patent. Dr. Bard was the first health officer of New York City, and was the first to apply quarantine regulations there. His son, Dr. Samuel Bard (1742–1821), the most distinguished physician of his day, retired to Hyde Park in 1797, built a square brick house, and began a serious study of horticulture and agriculture. His plantings included fruit trees imported from France and England, melons from Italy, and vines from Madeira. After his death, the place was bought in 1827 by Dr. David Hosack, Bard’s former partner, professor of natural history at Columbia, and founder of the New York Botanical Garden. Hosack employed the Belgian André Parmentier, the first professional landscape gardener in the United States, to lay out roads and plantings. Walter Langdon, the next owner, extended the original house, which, however, was demolished in 1895 by Mr. Vanderbilt to make way for the present great Renaissance mansion designed by Stanford White. Thus this estate has in 170 years become a gentleman’s country seat combined with an arboretum containing specimens of species gathered from all over the world. In February 1940, President Roosevelt announced that 250 acres of the estate had been offered to the Government as an arboretum. Later in the same year it was taken over as a national park.

Since 1932, HYDE PARK, 69.5 m. (187 alt., 1,200 pop.), has ceased to be merely a quiet service center of the estate country. The name in the date line of a newspaper is as important as that of London, and the streets are clogged by the slow-moving cars of tourists eager to catch a glimpse of something connected with the President of the United States. The neat little village was once called Stoutenburgh, for Jacobus Stoutenburgh, the first settler, who arrived in 1741. There were enough houses here by 1777 to cause General Vaughn to cannonade the settlement as he retired down the river. In the early days the villagers did considerable sturgeon fishing; the meat was shipped to Albany and the roe was salted down and sent to New York City, where it was sometimes sold as ‘Russian caviar.’

Below the crossroads is (R) the JAMES ROOSEVELT MEMORIAL LIBRARY (1927), built of fieldstone, the gift of Mrs. Sara Delano Roosevelt in memory of her husband. Near by is the white frame DUTCH REFORMED CHURCH, whose congregation was organized in 1789.

CRUMWOLD (R), 70.1 m., is a Herman Rogers estate. After the Rogerses had entertained Mrs. Wallis Simpson as their guest at Cannes before her marriage to the Duke of Windsor, businessmen in the vicinity hopefully fathered the idea that this might become the home of the Windsors.

The FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT LIBRARY (R), 71.1 m., is a fieldstone structure to be opened in July 1941. The cornerstone was laid by President Roosevelt on November 19, 1939. The building will house about 6,000,000 documents covering the President’s career from the time he was elected State senator in 1910.

The entrance lane of CRUM ELBOW (R), 71.3 m., the estate of Mrs. Sara Delano Roosevelt, lies between rows of old trees and has frequently been guarded by sentries since 1932. This property was acquired in 1826 by Ephraim Holbrock, who built a two-story rectangular frame house, which forms the core of the present dwelling. In 1866 James Roosevelt, the President’s father, bought the place, then called Spring Wood. The house, augmented by north and south wings, was a typical ‘Hudson River-bracketed’ villa; since 1900 the exterior has been transformed into a late Georgian dwelling. The stuccoed central block has two stories and an attic, with a hip roof crowned by a balustraded deck. On each side are low corner towers and projecting stone wings enclosing a balustraded terrace. The whole has a dignified solidity and generous scale in the best tradition of Dutchess County squiredom. The interior is less formal. Through the semicircular Roman Doric portico, the entrance hall and passage lead to the spacious library, the chief living room of the house, which contains a large collection of books on naval history and many prints of old ships and of naval engagements.

This house was the birthplace (1882) of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, elected President of the United States in 1932 and again in 1936. He was graduated from Harvard in 1904 and from the Columbia University Law School in 1907, entered the New York State senate in 1910, and served until he resigned in 1913 to become Assistant Secretary of the Navy. In 1920 he contracted infantile paralysis, but in 1928 he returned to public life when he entered a successful campaign for the governorship of New York. He left Albany to enter the White House.

The JAMES R. ROOSEVELT ESTATE, 71.5 m., is owned by the widow of the half-brother of Franklin D. Roosevelt. The two-story clapboarded house, painted dark red, was built between 1833 and 1835 by Joseph Giraud, but has undergone numerous changes.

ST. ANDREW’S NOVITIATE (R), 72.9 m., is a training school for novices of the Jesuit order; the school was moved here from Maryland in 1903. The wooded grounds surrounding the five-story red brick building are dotted with shrines.

The HUDSON RIVER STATE HOSPITAL (L), 74 m., opened in 1871 on a 208-acre site purchased from James Roosevelt, is an institution for the insane. The Victorian Gothic main brick building was designed by Vaux and Withers, New York architects. The 1,730-acre grounds have 83 buildings in a number of groups, making possible beneficial segregation of the various types of patients. Most of the recent buildings are built of red brick with light-colored stone or wood trim.

The inn of the WOODCLIFF RECREATION PARK (R), 74.2 m., was the Victorian home of John F. Winslow, partner of Erastus Corning in the Troy iron foundry that manufactured the first Bessemer steel produced in this country. Winslow was a staunch patron of John Ericsson, inventor of the Monitor; and the plans for that famous ‘cheesebox on a raft’ were drawn in this house.

POUGHKEEPSIE, 75.9 m. (175 alt., 40,237 pop.) (see Poughkeepsie), is at the junction with US 44 (see Tour 5), State 9G (see Tour 21B), and State 55 (see Tour 40).

Section d.  POUGHKEEPSIE to NEW YORK; 71.8 m.  US 9

Between Poughkeepsie and Peekskill US 9 bends slightly farther inland but continues to pass entrances to large estates. South of Peekskill it runs closer to the river and through a series of villages some of which are inhabited largely by people who commute to New York City. In Putnam and Westchester Counties are villages of the modern well-to-do residential type with strict regulations governing the kind of houses and stores that may be built.

South of POUGHKEEPSIE, 0 m., at 2.1 m., is the entrance (R) to LOCUST GROVE (open by appointment), the 100-acre estate that was the home of Samuel F.B. Morse (1791–1872) for the last 25 years of his life. Morse was an artist of considerable talent; but like many artists of the early industrial era he diverted much of his energy to other fields. He is known chiefly in connection with the perfecting of the telegraph, the patent for which he took out.

The ABRAHAM FORT HOMESTEAD, (L), 4.6 m., an attractive Colonial residence one-and-one-half stories high, was built by Johannes A. Fort about 1759. Through many alterations and additions, portions of the original woodwork and hardware have been preserved.

At 5 m., at the foot of a steep hill, is the junction with paved New Hamburg Road.

Right on this road 1 m. to the entrance lane (R) of the 100-acre GALLAUDET HOME for aged and infirm deaf mutes. The institution was established in 1872 by Dr. Thomas Gallaudet, son of Thomas H. Gallaudet, who initiated systematic education of the deaf in America.

At 1.3 m. is the junction with a dirt road; right here 1 m. to the NEW YORK TRAP ROCK QUARRY, the largest dolomite producer in the world, with an average daily output of about 5,000 tons. Gray-white dust fills the air and covers the plant and the company-owned workers’ dwellings. The stupendous bunkers are one of the most awesome sights in the valley. On the property is the site of De Witt Clinton’s country home.

At 6.4 m. is the junction with State 9D.

Right on State 9D, a scenic route through the heart of the Hudson Highlands, to WAPPINGERS FALLS, 1.3 m. (116 alt., 3,336 pop.), named for the 75-foot cascade in Wappinger Creek that has provided water power since the place was settled. The chief industries are a bleachery and an overall factory. The MESIER HOUSE (L), Main St., now owned by the village, is a white frame structure with green roof and trim; the rear wing was built in 1741, the front in 1750. The house was acquired in 1777 by Matthew Mesier, tea merchant, who tried to profiteer when tea imports were curtailed, but local housewives combined to force a reduction in price.

Gateposts (R) at 8 m. indicate the entrance to MOUNT GULIAN, the Verplanck estate; the old house was destroyed by fire in 1931. This was the headquarters of Baron von Steuben toward the end of the Revolution; and here on May 13, 1783, a number of high-ranking officers organized the Society of the Cincinnati. There is nothing to indicate that these men had other than sentimental reasons for banding together, but the cry was instantly raised that the officers were attempting to establish a hereditary aristocracy by limiting membership in the future to descendants of the founders. In May 1789, the Tammany Society was founded, in part as the common soldier’s opposition to the Society of the Cincinnati.

BEACON, 9.1 m. (150 alt., 12,181 pop.), was established in 1913 by the union of the seventeenth-century villagers of Fishkill Landing and Matteawan. The city is a helter-skelter grouping of factories along Fishkill Creek, brick and paper-carton plants along the Hudson, modest homes of the many Italian workers, and the larger residences of the well-to-do. Hats and brick have for many years vied for first place among some 40 factory products.

When, in 1663, the Indians agreed to sell Francis Rombout, acting for himself and his partner Gulian Verplanck, ‘all the land that he could see,’ they did not flinch from their bargain when he climbed South Beacon Mountain and encompassed 85,000 acres with his eyes. Rombout’s share of 28,000 acres was inherited by Catharyna Brett, who came here in 1708 with her husband, Roger Brett. Brett was drowned in 1726, and Catharyna administered the estate with a masterly efficiency until her death in 1764.

Rombout tenants were active in the revolt against the Crown. After the War of 1812, John Jacob Astor, Peter Schenck, Philip Hone, and others, attracted by the waterfall in the Fishkill, built a cotton mill and a foundry here. For the rest of the century Matteawan set the pace in the manufacture of bricks, cotton goods, machinery, silk, wagons, and hats.

The BEACON-NEWBURGH FERRY (car and driver 50¢; passengers 10¢ each), foot of Beekman St., was established in 1743. Four modern boats constructed for ice-breaking maintain a year-round service. The crossing provides an excellent view of the north portal of the Hudson Highlands down to well below Bannerman’s Island and Storm King (see Tour 21C). Historic LONG WHARF, below the ferry slip, was built between 1812 and 1816. Part of the yellow wooden building at the end of the wharf was an important inn when river traffic was heavy.

The entrance to the 900-acre grounds of the MATTEAWAN STATE HOSPITAL (visiting hours 1–4 weekdays) is at Verplanck Ave. and Cannon St.; the institution is for the treatment and confinement of the criminal insane. The reservation was formerly the estate of John J. Scanlon, whose trotters made records in the Hambletonian stakes. The Abbot (2:03¼) and Kentucky Union (2:07¼) were buried here.

The BRETT-TELLER HOUSE, Van Nydeck and Teller Aves., is the story-and-a-half structure Catharyna and Roger Brett built in 1709; the wing is of later date. The older house has long low lines and a gambrel roof that curves gently outward to form the roof of a porch. Scalloped cedar shakes cover the walls of the older unit. The kitchen end was probably built after the house came into the possession of Isaac de Peyster Teller, who married Alice Schenck in 1790. The present occupants (1940) are the seventh generation in direct line to own and occupy the homestead.

The HOWLAND LIBRARY, 477 Main St., a brick building of the Norwegian chalet type, was built in 1872. The architect was Richard M. Hunt.

ST. LUKE’S EPISCOPAL CHURCH, Wolcott Ave. between S. Liberty and Rector Sts., erected in 1868, Frederick C. Withers architect, is a stone structure in the English Gothic style. The cemetery north of the church contains the graves of Chancellor James Kent, author of Kent’s Commentaries; Smith T. Van Buren, son of the President, and many early settlers.

CRAIG HOUSE SANITARIUM, Howland Ave., a private institution, occupies the home of General Joseph Howland, Civil War officer and philanthropist. The east wing was added in 1859 by the architect Richard M. Hunt.

The DE PEYSTER HOUSE, South Ave. across the railroad tracks, erected about 1743, was occupied by Abraham De Peyster, Madam Brett’s nephew. It is a gambrel-roofed brick house on a foundation of Hudson River bluestone.

On Sargent Ave. south of Tompkins Place is (R) WODENETHE (grounds open), owned by the Craig House Sanitarium. This was formerly the estate of Henry Winthrop Sargent, to whom Andrew Jackson Downing (see Tour 21C) dedicated his Architecture of Country Houses (1850). The grounds here are still notable, the Roman garden attracting particular attention. The house, built about 1825 and remodeled by Calvert Vaux, Downing’s partner, in 1853, is a large structure painted yellow with white trim; a three-story section is topped by a four-hipped, curved pyramidal roof. When Sargent and Andrew Downing’s brother Charles brought out the revised fifth edition of Andrew Downing’s Cottage Residences in 1873, Sargent appended a description of terraced Italian gardens and illustrated it with engravings of his grounds here.

Wolcott Ave. leads to the MOUNT BEACON INCLINED RAILWAY (30¢ a round trip), whose 2,200 feet of track carry its tilted cars 1,200 feet up the western spur of the mountain. From the casino near the head of the railway a trail leads 1 m. to the summit of MOUNT BEACON (1,500 alt.), one of the best observation points on the Hudson, used as a signal station during the Revolution. The trail continues to SOUTH BEACON PEAK (1,635 alt.), 2 m., from which the Empire State Building, New York City, is visible on clear days.

COLD SPRING, 16.9 m. (200 alt., 1,784 pop.), was named for a large spring at which, it is said, boats plying the Hudson filled their water butts. The Cold Spring Foundry, established here in 1814, turned out the famous Parrott rifled field pieces during the Civil War.

ST. MARGARET’S-IN-THE-HIGHLANDS, built in 1868, George E. Harney, architect, was modeled on an English parish church. It has bluestone walls, a simple gable roof, and a stone spire. The rectory was designed by Hobart B. Upjohn about 1930.

GARRISON, 20.7 m. (100 alt., 500 pop.), is a service center for the many estates covering the countryside between the old Albany Post Road and the river. The ferry here was important as a connection with West Point until the Bear Mountain Bridge was built.

ST. PHILIP’S-IN-THE-HIGHLANDS, just north of the junction with State 403, a small stone parish church, was built in 1861 by Richard Upjohn. Lacking the straightforward, simple mass of his earlier work, it illustrates his trend to the Victorian phase of the Gothic Revival. Upjohn was a vestryman here, 1852–78, and his grave is in the church cemetery.

From Garrison State 403 leads (R) to US 9, 2 m. South of Garrison State 9D joins US 6 (see Tour 4), 25.7 m., which is a Bear Mountain Bridge approach on which tolls are collected.

FISHKLLL VILLAGE, 12.4 m. (200 alt., 553 pop.), is one of the most attractive towns along the Hudson. Though some Dutch settlers were living on the lowlands soon after 1700, at the time of the Revolution the village had only a dozen or so houses, two churches, a tavern, and a schoolhouse. Early in the Revolutionary War the Colonials fortified Wiccopee Pass, to the south, to block a land advance by the British. Barracks and storehouses were built here and the few houses were crowded with refugees from New York City. A few of the houses on the tree-lined streets were built shortly after 1800, but the majority belong to the post-Civil War period.

The FIRST REFORMED DUTCH CHURCH, Main St., was built about 1784. The exterior preserves much of its early character; the stuccoed stone walls are enlivened by brick quoins at the corners and around the openings. The weathercock has topped the steeple since 1795. The interior was entirely remodeled in 1854.

The congregation, organized in 1716, erected its first church in 1736. In this building the New York Provincial Convention met from September 5, 1776, to February 11, 1777, and then moved to Kingston. During the later war years the building was used as a jail for spies, deserters, and outspoken Tories. In Cooper’s novel, The Spy, Harvey Birch was confined here with the Tories he had tricked into captivity, and was permitted to escape by secret arrangement

TRINITY CHURCH, Main St., a small clapboarded frame building, was erected about 1769. The exterior, with its curious cavetto cornice, remains unaltered but for the tower; the tall steeple became unsafe in 1803 and the upper stages were removed. The interior was entirely rearranged in 1860–70. During the Revolution the building was used as a hospital and in 1788 received 350 pounds as compensation, which the vestry used to repair and complete the structure. The parish was founded in 1756 by the Reverend Samuel Seabury, whose son became the first Episcopal bishop in the United States.

Trinity and the Dutch Reformed Church possess identical tankards which are inscribed in memory of Engelbert Huff, once attached to the Life Guards of the Prince of Orange; he died in Fishkill at the age of 128 years. It is told that when Huff was 121, he and a young man 100 years his junior courted the same lady.

On a steep bank beside the railroad crossing stands the OBADIAH BOWNE HOUSE, built in 1818. In an earlier house on this site the first State constitutional convention met. Here also Samuel Loudon printed the first number of the New York Packet and American Advertiser, the first copies of the Constitution of the State of New York, the first issues of the Journal of the Legislature, and some of Washington’s military orders.

Left from Fishkill on State 52 to the WILLIAM DUDLEY HOUSE (L), 0.9 m., an architectural curiosity of the first water. Dudley was a wrecker of buildings in New York City, and this house was fabricated in 1854 from pieces assembled from numerous Greek Revival structures: the porch columns once graced a lower Broadway church; the mantels, cornice, and solid mahogany doors are from various sources. The sill of the front door was once part of the cage of the giant bear Samson.

The DERICK BRINKERHOFF HOUSE (L), 2.4 m., built about 1719, is now disfigured by an 1875 mansard roof. In the upper southeast room Colonel Derick Brinkerhoff sheltered the sick Lafayette during the Revolution. Across the road (R) is the site of Abraham Brinckerhoff’s Mill, built in 1735, burned in 1777, and rebuilt at General Washington’s command to grind grist for the American Army. Several cannon balls were found beneath the floor when it was demolished.

At 2.5 m. is the junction with State 82; left here 1.3 m. to the entrance (R) to a locust-bordered lane leading to the COLONEL JOHN BRINCKERHOFF HOUSE, an early one-and-a-half-story dwelling with stone walls; the southwest brick gable has the date ‘1738’ set off in black brick. Washington was a guest here several times in the fall of 1788, occupying the rear west parlor-bedroom; his hostess is said to have tucked him in every night. Once when John Brinckerhoff was trying to pry some military information from his guest, Washington asked him whether he could keep a secret; when Brinkerhoff said yes, Washington assured him, ‘So can I.’ In 1926 the property was acquired by Teodar Wiitala, former champion marathon runner, and is now operated as a co-operative Finnish vacation resort featuring Finnish steam baths.

South of Fishkill on US 9 is the CORNELIUS C. VAN WYCK HOUSE (L), 13.5 m., built in 1786 from lumber salvaged from Revolutionary barracks. The story-and-a-half dwelling has a central-hall plan. In the rear is a gray-painted DUTCH BARN, built in the mid-eighteenth century, one of the best examples remaining in the State. The square plan is covered with an unbroken gable roof, which descends to low eaves on each side. The large wagon doors in the end gable walls lead to a spacious interior framed with great timbers whose long tenons are held doubly tight by wedges and pegs.

At 13.6 m. (L) is the one-and-a-half-story clapboarded CAPTAIN CORNELIUS R. VAN WYCK HOUSE (adm. on application), built about 1785, although the architectural lines are pre-Revolutionary. The house was at one time the headquarters of General Putnam, and in it the Committee of Safety conducted the mock trial of Enoch Crosby. As a result of the allusions to the house in Cooper’s The Spy, it is often called the Wharton Home.

An old red sandstone POST ROAD MILESTONE (R), 13.7 m., reads: ‘66 Miles to N. York.’ Directly opposite is the junction with a dirt road.

Left on this road, along the northern slope of the hills, to WILLOWLAKE (R), 6 m., the home of Margaret Sanger (Mrs. J. Noah H. Slee), leader of the birth control movement.

In Indian legend this region was the home of a giant race, hunters of huge water rats that dwelt in a lake covering all the country north of the Highlands. To exterminate these enemies, the giants drained the valley; and then, their bathing place gone, the giants gradually solidified and became the high Fishkill Range.

The road passes through the southern defile of WICCOPEE PASS, the strategic point vigilantly guarded by three Colonial batteries from 1776 to 1783 to prevent the British from seizing the near-by military stores. The lines of the earthworks, several hundred feet apart in the form of a triangle, are still traceable on the hilltops. To the southwest is a lookout point used in relaying messages from Washington’s headquarters in Newburgh. On the heights overlooking the pass Harvey Birch had his mysterious interview with Washington after his ‘escape’ from Fishkill, as narrated in Cooper’s The Spy.

At 20.2 m. is the junction with State 301.

Left on State 301 into the CLARENCE FAHNESTOCK MEMORIAL PARK (camping, picnicking, hiking, boating, fishing), 4 m., a mountainous wooded area of 3,400 acres, with two small lakes stocked with game fish. It is bisected by the Eastern State Parkway (see Tour 40).

For 10 miles US 9 follows creek valleys between high hills. Here the ragged troops of Washington and Putnam dug in after their Long Island defeat. Almost every other mountain has a line of trenches, now overgrown with brush.

PEEKSKILL, 31.6 m. (120 alt., 17,289 pop.) (see Tour 4), is at the junction with US 6 (see Tour 4) and with an entrance to the Bronx River Parkway Extension (see Tour 40).

South of Peekskill US 9 skirts the western edge of BLUE MOUNTAIN RESERVATION, two miles wide, the head of the Peekskill-Briarcliff Parkway of the Westchester County park system, which contains a network of trails leading up Blue Mountain and Spitzenberg.

CRUGERS PARK (R), 35.1 m. (camping, bathing: parking, weekdays 25¢; Sunday, Westchester cars 25¢, others 50¢), a tract of 251 acres, was the estate of Staats Morris Dyckman; the present name stems from his granddaughter Elizabeth, who married John Peach Cruger. In the park is BOSCOBEL HOUSE, built by Dyckman in 1792, one of the finest Federal mansions still standing in New York State, now housing a tenant family and park equipment. The plan was clearly derived from the Georgian central-hall type, but the hall is here widened to accommodate a magnificent center stair and the flanking rooms are projected forward to break up the usual rectangular mass. Between these flush-boarded wings are two one-story porches, the lower with an elliptically arched doorway, the upper exhibiting a raised pediment with draperies and tassels carved in wood below the cornice. The trim and ornaments are extremely delicate in scale and crisp in detail. Inside, the stately mantels, trim, and doors, while in bad repair, reflect the taste and skill of the trained craftsman.

CROTON-ON-HUDSON, 38.7 m. (20 alt., 3,890 pop.), came into existence as the home of Irish and Italian laborers who were building the dam that created Croton Reservoir. About the time of the World War, Max Eastman and several others who had to live economically and wanted to escape from Greenwich Village tenements, acquired land on the wooded hills above Croton and built small houses; in time they were joined by Edna St. Vincent Millay, poet; Dudley Field Malone, lawyer; Doris Stevens, militant feminist; Mabel Dodge and her husband Maurice Stern, the artist; Floyd Dell, novelist; John Reed, radical journalist; Boardman Robinson, cartoonist and painter; Stuart Chase, economist; and others. The colony caused considerable excitement among the natives; it was reported that the women wore shorts, smoked cigarettes, and took sun baths, and that the men indulged in similarly shocking activities. After the war Harry Kelly, real estate promotor, conceived the idea of developing a suburban village here. He organized a company, bought up land, and advertised the place as a retreat for intellectuals and professional workers. One or two fairly large houses were built, but the majority were cottages. By 1926 enough children were on the scene whose parents wanted a more progressive school than could be developed in the village below, to make possible the establishment of Hessian Hills School, a co-operative enterprise. This school has become the center of community life and has, to a large extent, governed its development. The wilder fringe of the post-war years has disappeared, and most of the hill dwellers, some of them early settlers, are now sedate citizens with family interests.

Construction of HESSIAN HILLS SCHOOL, on a side road branching (L) from Mt. Airy Road, was begun a few months after the burning of an old farmhouse in which the classes were being held. A functional structure of concrete and glass designed by Howe and Lescaze, it has not yet been completed (1940) though some sections have been in use since 1932. The school was organized by Elizabeth Moos and Margaret Hatfield, and has approximately 90 pupils.

HARMON, 39.7 m. (20 alt., 1,500 pop.), is the northern terminal of the electrified section of the New York Central Railroad.

West of the village, by the river shore, is CROTON POINT PARK (bathing, picnicking), of 504 acres, a delightful peninsula with a sandy beach.

The VAN CORTLANDT MANOR HOUSE (L), 40.1 m., is one of the most historic dwellings in the Hudson Valley. Stephanus Van Cortlandt (1643–1700), son of the prosperous Dutch emigrant Oloff Stevense Van Cortlandt, was at 34 the first native-born mayor of New York City. In 1697 the 87,000-acre tract he had assembled along the Hudson, extending from the Croton River to Anthony’s Nose and east to the Connecticut line, was erected into a manor, confirmed by a Royal charter that still hangs in one of the rooms of the house.

According to tradition, when Stephanus acquired from Governor Thomas Dongan the property on the north bank of Croton Bay, there was included the Governor’s small hunting lodge, one story high and loop-holed, built half in a hillside, with thick stone walls and a low-pitched roof. This structure was soon enlarged by a second story and garret, and eventually both stories were extended by end rooms and long low porches. Today wooden steps at the eastern end mount to the main extrance on the second floor level.

Stephanus, the first lord of the manor, came to Croton Bay only in summer, but here he and his wife, Gertrude Schuyler, entertained all folk of quality that sailed up and down the Hudson. From 1700 to 1747 Philip Van Cortlandt and his wife Catherine De Peyster continued to use this as a summer residence. It was Pierre Van Cortlandt (1721–1814) who in 1749 established his permanent home in this house. Although offered rewards and honors by the English, Pierre Van Cortlandt cast his lot with the Revolutionists. From 1775 to 1795 he was lieutenant governor of New York State. In 1777, on the approach of British forces up the Hudson, his wife, Joanna Livingston, and the children fled the place. Barely escaping destruction by fire, the house was repaired upon the family’s return in 1780. In subsequent years Washington, Rochambeau, Lafayette, and Von Steuben stopped here. The Reverend George Whitefield preached from the veranda and, so the records say, was heard distinctly across the bay.

OSSINING (Ind., stone upon stone), 42.4 m. (100 alt., 15,976 pop.), occupies part of what was Philipsburgh, the Philipse Manor, confiscated in 1779. The earliest settlement grew up before the Revolution around the natural dock at Sparta, just south of the present-day village. After the Revolution Hunter’s Landing was settled and by 1813 was the incorporated village of Sing Sing, which outdistanced its older rival and became the shipping point for the hinterland as far as the Connecticut line. Farm wagons often jammed High Street to the top of the hill waiting to unload their produce. Early stores and residences clustered along Water Street, but long before they succumbed in the great fire of 1865 upper-class residences overlooked the gorgeous panorama of Tappan Zee from the eastern heights. Inhabitants grew tired of the jokes suggested by the association of their village name with the State prison and in 1901 had the name changed. Though porous plasters and maps are produced here, the town is primarily one of the chain of well-to-do commuters’ centers that extends along the Hudson through Westchester County.

SING SING PRISON, along the river front, was established here in 1824 with the idea of working the Mount Pleasant marble quarries with convict labor. The following year Captain Elam Lynds, just dismissed from Auburn State Prison because of his excessively severe discipline, was put in charge and by May 1828 had completed by the labor of 100 prisoners a stone cell block of 800 cells. The new institution was operated from the first according to the Auburn system of silent group labor by day and solitary confinement by night. The lock step, rock pile, and lash were ordinary routine; mail and visitors were forbidden. Sing Sing marble was not only used in prison buildings but for a time enjoyed considerable vogue, especially for Greek Revival structures, witness the New York Court of Appeals Building in Albany. In contrast to the harsh and repressive practices of the past, the latest cell blocks at Sing Sing have beds, desks, running water, and radio earphones for most of the 2,500 inmates. Educational and recreational programs are carried on and ‘varsity’ teams compete with outside groups on Sunday afternoons (open, 50¢).

One of the first and finest residences to be constructed of Sing Sing marble is the GENERAL AARON WARD HOUSE, S. Highland Ave. near the high school, built in 1835. Of generous proportions and refined in detail, its handsome portico with four Greek Ionic columns is flanked by two-story wings. All the original interior decorations have been lost or mutilated by alteration.

The ROBERT HAVELL HOUSE, N. side of Havell St., is a square clapboarded dwelling with a porch and cupola. Robert Havell, Jr., born in 1793 in Reading, England,’ one of the greatest engravers in aquatint the world has ever seen,’ was the engraver of all but 10 of the 435 plates of John James Audubon’s Birds of America. Persuaded by Audubon’s enthusiasm for American scenery, Havell came to America in 1839, bringing his family and his precious copper plates, and soon thereafter erected this house. In 1857 he moved to Tarrytown, where he died in 1878. Only 41 of Havell’s plates are extant; the others were either damaged in a warehouse fire in New York City in 1845 or sold for scrap metal.

The famous DOUBLE ARCH, a bridge within a bridge, is on Broadway west from Main St. The upper bridge was erected in 1838–40 to carry the Croton Aqueduct across Kil Brook. In 1861 the timber bridge that carried Broadway through the aqueduct arch was rebuilt in masonry and the unique combination of arches was achieved.

South of here US 9 is crossed several times by the CROTON AQUEDUCT, constructed in 1837–42 at the cost of $12,000,000 to convey the impounded waters of the Croton River to New York City. The reservoir above Croton was enlarged between 1892 and 1906, but the original conduit is still functioning.

SCARBOROUGH, 44.6 m. (100 alt., 500 pop.), is a commuters’ village in a region of large estates. Near the junction with Scarboro Road is the marble WORDEN MANSION (R), at one time occupied by John Lorimer Worden (1818–97), who commanded the ironclad Monitor in its battle with the Merrimac in Hampton Roads on March 9, 1862.

In the 1890’s and later, the 15-mile stretch along the Hudson between Scarborough and Yonkers was called the Gold Coast because of the procession of elegant estates costing in the millions and representing in their owners a total wealth easily reaching into the billions. Among the owners were the Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, Wendels, and Morgans, Jay Gould, Amzi L. Barber (asphalt), Henry Villard (railroads), Charles L. Tiffany (jewelry), Louis and Isaac Stern (drygoods), William F. Cochran and John E. Andrus (carpets), J. Jennings McComb (cotton), and Daniel Reed (copper). In recent years several of these estates have been sold or rented to country clubs and others have been cut up into high class subdivisions and apartment house sites in an effort to retrieve some part of the huge investment.

ST. MARY’S PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH (L), 45 m., a cruciform structure erected in 1851 of local granite, was designed by the Reverend Edward Nathaniel Mead, who took as his model the fourteenth-century Gothic parish church of St. Mary’s, Scarborough, England. The western façade, with its window of five lancets recalling the Five Sisters of York Cathedral, is surmounted by a pert bell gable. The ivy on the church wall was brought from Sir Walter Scott’s home, Abbotsford, by Washington Irving, frequent worshipper at St. Mary’s. The interior is chiefly noteworthy for its pleasant proportions and the stained glass windows made by John Bolton of Bolton Priory, Pelham Manor, who, with his brother William, was among the first to make stained glass in the United States. Within the church hangs the Perry Memorial Bell, ‘captured at Tobasco, Mexico 1847’ (really October 23, 1846) by Commodore Matthew C. Perry (1795–1858), negotiator in 1855 of the treaty which opened Japan to American trade.

ROCKWOOD HALL is visible (R) at 45.7 m. Now a country club, it was erected in the late forties by Edwin Bartlett, wealthy New York merchant. The mansion was described by a contemporary as having an ‘extremely castellated appearance . . . in the latest style of English Gothic architecture.’ The cold gray walls in two shades of local gneiss are dominated by an 80-foot corner tower and an ivy-covered carriage porch.

Rockwood Hall was long the home of William Rockefeller (1841–1922), brother of John D. of near-by Pocantico Hills, who played an active part in organizing the Standard Oil Trust. After the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the dissolution of the holding company in 1910, he, like his brother, retired from active business to the peaceful opulence of Tarrytown suburbia.

The WEBB-FRÉMONT HOUSE (R), 46.5 m., a black stone mansion built in the 1840’s, was for several years the home of John Charles Frémont (1813–90), explorer, soldier of fortune, and first presidential candidate of the present Republican party.

The SLEEPY HOLLOW DUTCH REFORMED CHURCH (L), 47.6 m., is a small stone building ‘erected and built by Frederick Philipse and Catherine Van Cortlandt, his wife, in 1699.’ Little except the 30-inch-thick walls is original, for the structure has undergone many repairs, alterations, and restorations. In the early church only the Philipse family enjoyed pews; above was a gallery for slaves and indentured servants.

SLEEPY HOLLOW CEMETERY, in the rear, still suggests the picturesqueness called up by Irving in his famous legend. Here are the graves of Washington Irving, Carl Schurz, Robert G. Ingersoll, Andrew Carnegie, and Whitelaw Reid. Slaves were buried across the road.

NORTH TARRYTOWN, 48 m. (70 alt., 8,791 pop.), another commuters’ village, has an assembly plant of the General Motors Corporation. At the foot of a hill US 9 crosses Gory Creek, or Pocantico River, on the WASHINGTON IRVING MEMORIAL BRIDGE. A short way upstream stood the narrow wooden bridge where Brom Bones threw the pumpkin head at Ichabod Crane.

Just south of the bridge, one-half block right on Bellewood Ave., is CASTLE PHILIPSE (L). Frederick Philipse, who came to New Amsterdam in 1653 as master-carpenter (architect) to the Dutch West India Company and rose to be the wealthiest citizen of the colony, began to assemble the Lower Plantation at Yonkers in 1672. He bought land on the Pocantico in 1680, and soon after built the Upper Mills. About 1683 he constructed this stone castle, now almost unrecognizable after many alterations. The main entrance now faces east on Bellewood Avenue and a shallow north wing creates the illusion of a Georgian Colonial façade, but inspection from the southwest shows that the original house was gambrel-roofed and three bays deep and the entrance door was on the south. The Castle was only occasionally occupied by Frederick, but on his death in 1702 the Upper Mills passed to his second son, Adolphus (1665–1750), who established his permanent residence here. After he died the Upper Mills were reunited to the manor under the second and third lords of Philipsburgh, and the Castle fell into disuse. In February 1940, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., provided funds for the purchase and preservation of this property by the Tarrytown Historical Society.

Left from North Tarrytown on State 117 (Bedford Rd.), which passes the carefully guarded gate, 2.3 m., leading into POCANTICO HILLS, the 3,500-acre tract established as a family estate by John D. Rockefeller (1839–1937), known as the ‘richest man in the world.’

During the first trust-busting era Rockefeller was the cartooned and execrated symbol of the ‘malefactor of great wealth’; in his later years he was the shy but popular man who had poured half a billion dollars into educational, medical, and religious institutions and activities. But the later John D. Rockefeller differed little from the young man who entered the oil business in 1859 and revolutionized the industry. At one time, when he had been stung to self-defense, he wrote: ‘I believe it is every man’s religious duty to get all he honestly can, and to give all he can.’

John D. Rockefeller was a shining product of the system of laissez faire, but he would have been an outstanding figure under any economic system because of his organizing genius and his passion for order. When he entered the oil business it was in a state of chaotic and ruinous competition; by 1882 he had organized the Standard Oil Trust, which practically controlled the production and distribution of petroleum in the United States. Though this trust was legally dissolved in 1892, the Standard Oil units and affiliates continued to function in close harmony. The history of the organization, especially its efforts to maintain its monopoly, is punctuated with bloody and bitter episodes—strikes, rate wars, political manipulation, and dynamiting.

When Rockefeller determined to extend his holdings here he went about it with characteristic energy. He had railroad tracks moved and public roads rerouted. The village of Eastview is now occupied chiefly by people who work on the estate, which holds 75 buildings, including houses occupied by members of the family, their servants, and other employees.

The beautiful estate has 70 miles of roads, as well as bridle trails, which are carried across the highway by under- and over-passes. High, near the center of the grounds, is the large family mansion, formal Georgian in design. As each Rockefeller son married, a house was provided for his use, either a new one or a remodeled old one. The house built for John D. Rockefeller, Jr., is a rambling structure of more comfort than elegance. The homes of his sons, along the southern road, exemplify their tastes: Nelson’s is a remodeled Dutch structure, Lawrence’s a prefabricated steel house, and John’s a modernized farmhouse. The children’s playhouse is more elaborate than most clubhouses.

Washington Irving said that TARRYTOWN, 48.7 m. (70 alt., 6,785 pop.), was named by irate Dutch farm women who complained that their husbands lingered too long at the village tavern after depositing produce at the Philipse wharf; but more serious historians say that ‘tarry’ is a corruption of the Dutch word ‘tarwe’ (wheat). The first commuter to attract attention to the Tarrytown neighborhood was Washington Irving, who in 1835 decided to rebuild an old farmhouse as his home; he felt he could live here very cheaply, find seclusion for work, and yet be close to New York City. The village is now primarily a service center for large and small estates.

The TARRYTOWN HISTORICAL SOCIETY, 19 Grove St., has an exhibit of memorabilia of John D. Rockefeller, Sr., including the mahogany desk from his Cleveland home; Ledger A, his boyhood account book; copies of addresses before the Young Men’s Bible Class of the old Fifth Avenue Baptist Church; and a collection of gift pennies and dimes.

At the northern end of the village is the ANDRÉ MONUMENT (R), a statue of a soldier on a granite pedestal. It is near the spot where John Paulding, David Williams, and Isaac Van Wart captured Major André on September 23, 1780. In the stockings of the British officer they found notes on the armament, gun emplacements, and defense posts of West Point. Arnold, who had connived with the spy, learned of the capture and made his escape; André was hanged a week and a half later at Tappan, across the river, in spite of British efforts to save him.

At the foot of W. Main St. is the NYACK FERRY (boats every 30 min. during daylight hours), which crosses the Tappan Zee (Ind. and Dutch, cold spring sea) to the western shore and affords beautiful views of the Palisades to the south and the Highlands, a hazy outline to the north.

Near the southern village line is (R) LYNDHURST (private), home of Jay Gould (1819–92) at the time he engineered the notorious financial deal that ruined his neighbor and former business associate, Cyrus W. Field. His name is also associated with watering the stock of the Erie Railroad and with the disastrous panic of Black Friday, September 24, 1869, resulting from his attempt to corner the gold market. The estate passed to his daughter, Mrs. Helen Gould Shepard, noted for her philanthropies; and in 1939, after her death, it became the residence of the Duchess de Talleyrand, another daughter, who after many years in France returned to this peaceful Hudson Valley home.

The mansion was built in 1840 for Philip R. Paulding by Alexander Jackson Davis (1803–92), one of the most fashionable and prolific architects of the mid-nineteenth century. The imposing mass of Sing Sing marble has an exceedingly picturesque silhouette dominated by the projecting carriage porch bay, now glazed in and augmented by another porte-cochere. The octagonal battlemented stair tower on the left balances the long range and lower tower to the north. Gables, chimneys, turrets, pinnacles, and tracery strive hard to justify a contemporary eulogy of the structure as ‘one of the finest and purest specimens of the Pointed Tudor style in the United States.’ Davis’s medievalism, like his Grecian manner, was chiefly a fashionable veneer, inspired by current English vogues and aimed to give adolescent American society a backdrop of false but comforting tradition. Beneath the veneer, however, ingenious planning and creditable craftsmanship evidence Davis’s architectural skill.

The WASHINGTON IRVING MEMORIAL (R), at the corner of Broadway and Sunnyside Lane, is a bronze and marble panel, with reliefs of Rip Van Winkle and Boabdil, the last King of Granada, facing a marble shaft topped with a bust of Irving. The memorial is the work of Daniel Chester French.

Down Sunnyside Lane, the Tarrytown-Irvington line, is SUNNYSIDE (adm. $1), a rambling conglomeration of buildings erected by Washington Irving around the ruins of the little Dutch house that had been built by Wolfert Ecker about 1690. The remodeled house was at first a modest structure, which Irving called the Roost, but in time he achieved a building in some ways resembling the home of his friend Sir Walter Scott. Today ivy and wisteria half cover the walls and the porte-cochere. Irving (1783–1859) was the youngest of eleven children; when he exhibited much more interest in literature than in business or the law, which he had begun to study, his devoted older brothers encouraged him. In 1807 he and James Kirke Paulding, with some help from Irving’s brother William, brought out the surprisingly successful Salmagundi Papers; in 1809 he published his Knickerbocker’s History of New York, which was greeted so warmly that his brothers determined to subsidize his writing by making him a lay partner in their business. In 1815 Irving went to England to help his ailing brother Peter. There he continued to write and was soon a warm friend of Sir Walter Scott, his idol; in England he wrote, among others, The Sketch Book. By the time he returned home in 1832 he had achieved a wide literary reputation abroad as well as at home. In America, subsidized by John Jacob Astor, he wrote Astoria (1836), an account of his patron’s fur-trading settlement at the mouth of the Columbia River. His other works, except for a life of Washington, dealt mainly with Spanish themes. After a term as Minister to Spain he returned home to be an object of admiration and imitation—America’s first man of letters.

IRVINGTON, 50.8 m. (175 alt., 2,759 pop.), named for Washington Irving, is another metropolitan suburb ringed by wooded estates. Near the northern end of the village is (R) the ANNA E. POTH HOME for convalescent and aged members of the Companions of the Forest of America. The ornate brick mansion, hidden by a wall, was built in 1918 by Mrs. C.J. Walker (1867–1919), a pioneer Negro businesswoman. About 1905, when Mrs. Walker was a laundress in St. Louis, Missouri, she concocted a preparation to straighten tightly curled hair that revolutionized the appearance of members of her race. In 1910 she settled in Indianapolis, Indiana, where she established the Mme. C.J. Walker factory and laboratories for the manufacture of various cosmetics, and opened a training school for her agents and beauty culturists. Her interests were wide; in time her sales agents were acting as organizers of social welfare clubs and were carrying on educational propaganda of all kinds among Negroes. She eventually moved to New York and as ‘Madame C.J. Walker of New York and Paris’ became a leader in Harlem activities. A year after this house had been completed she died, leaving an estate worth more than $1,000,000, two-thirds of which went to educational institutions and charities. The house still contains her ivory-and-gold pipe organ, her tapestries, and some of her imported gold and ivory furniture.

From a point just south of the Anna E. Poth Home can be seen on the hilltop (L) THE CASTLE, another baronial estate designed by Alexander J. Davis in 1859 for John T. Herrick, wealthy flour merchant. The rough, rock-face stone, quarried on the site, is an interesting contrast to the smooth marble of Lyndhurst, built 19 years earlier. The 65-foot tower commands magnificent vistas up Tappan Zee.

ODELL INN (R), just south of the Main St. traffic booth, built about 1693, is now the superintendent’s cottage of the Murray estate. When the Albany Post Road was opened in 1723, the one-and-a-half-story stone dwelling became a favorite stage stop. On August 31, 1776, the Committee of Safety of the State Convention met in the inn, then occupied by Jonathan Odell. Two months later the British took vengeance on Odell by destroying 1,000 bushels of his wheat, killing his hogs, cutting down his orchard, and carrying him off to a New York prison. In 1785 Odell bought the house and 463 acres from the Commissioners of Forfeiture, keeping the inn until his death in 1818.

ARDSLEY (L), 51.7 m., was the home of Cyrus W. Field (1819–92) from 1868 to 1892. In 1866, after 12 years of work, Field brought to completion the first transatlantic telegraph cable. His later years were occupied chiefly with financial activities.

At the corner of Ardsley Ave., 52.1 m., is the entrance (R) to NEVIS, erected in 1835 as the home of James Alexander Hamilton (1788–1878), third son of Alexander Hamilton, intimate of Van Buren and Jackson. The name is that of the island in the British West Indies on which Alexander Hamilton was born. The original house has been enlarged and the interior was altered in 1889 by Stanford White. One of the outstanding features of Nevis is a superb Early Republican garden, which led Mrs. T. Coleman du Pont to give the estate to Columbia University in 1934 for the establishment of a horticultural and landscape architecture center. The grounds contain 2,640 trees in 56 varieties and 1,928 ornamental shrubs, thus forming one of the largest arbcretums in the United States.

Down Ardsley Ave. is the ARDSLEY CLUB, organized in 1895 by a group of millionaires and described by a society reporter of the 1890’s as ‘that pleasance of Midas.’ This club had the third golf course laid out in America; the players at first used gutta-percha balls, which the caddies carried around in buckets of ice, to keep them in shape. The club members were also leaders in the introduction of bicycle parties; sometimes as many as 40 whirled over the roads of Westchester County on carefully polished, silver-trimmed wheels. And the members were of course among the first to own automobiles, exciting toys that they also tested in races for possible commercial value.

Before 1700 Jeremiah Dobbs was carrying people across the river at what was to become known as DOBBS FERRY, 53.1 m. (150 alt., 5,858 pop.). When Arnold was planning the betrayal of West Point he made an appointment to meet Major André at ‘Dobbs Ferry,’ which may have been either at the landing here or at the one on the other side of the river. After André had been captured, Sir Henry Clinton made an appointment at this place to meet General Greene in a vain attempt to save the popular young British officer from execution. The village is one of the line of towns along the river that provide fashionable addresses. The business and part of the cultural interests of the inhabitants are in New York City, but there is considerable local civic pride.

The CHILDREN’S VILLAGE, Walgrove Ave. (open 8:30–11 a.m., 1:30–4:30 p.m.), a training school for problem children, occupies a 245–acre plot. The school, established in New York City in 1851 as the New York Juvenile Asylum, was moved here in 1901. The 40 buildings include schools, workshops, a printing shop, and residence cottages for 500 boys and girls.

ZION EPISCOPAL CHURCH, corner of Cedar and Main Sts., is a fine stone structure erected in 1834. Washington Irving served as vestryman from 1837 to 1843. In 1854 the tower was made higher, tracery mullions were introduced, and buttresses were added to the tower.

The PHILIP LIVINGSTON HOUSE (L), corner of Broadway and Livingston Ave., is an able restoration of the home of Philip Livingston. The oldest section to the rear is a three-story structure probably erected between 1690 and 1700 by Frederick Philipse, first lord of the manor of Philips-burgh. Since he was a trained master-builder, it is not improbable that this old dwelling was of his own design. Practically unaltered, the exterior has a long sweeping roof broken by five dormers. A two-story veranda faces south. Within, low ceilings, huge fireplaces, and wattle-and-daub partitions illustrate seventeenth-century techniques. When the confiscated Philipse lands were sold in 1785, Philip Livingston with two associates acquired the region that is now Dobbs Ferry. By 1796 Livingston had sole possession of the property. In 1806 he added on the west, towards the post road, a large, stately two-story block in the latest Federal style, making a striking contrast to the earlier Dutch building. High ceilings with plaster ornaments, spacious rooms, black and gold marble mantels, slender fluted columns, narrow clapboard, molded window frames, and hipped roof with balustraded deck are typical details of this fashionable era. In 1824 Livingston’s son, ‘rich, righteous, and rigid’ Peter Van Brugh Livingston, acquired the house, but he soon began to break up the large estate, selling the house itself in 1830 to Stephen Archer. In 1916 the present owner saved the place from becoming a tavern, restoring and repairing the neglected building.

HASTINGS-ON-HUDSON, 54.7 m. (140 alt., 6,970 pop.), named for the English birthplace of William Saunders, a local manufacturer, has chemical, copper, and paving-block factories along the river front employing about one tenth of the population. Mustard gas for the American Expeditionary Forces in the World War was manufactured here.

Hastings, like Yonkers, began to grow after construction of the Hudson River Railroad in 1849. Horace Greeley was one of the commuters of the Civil War period; in 1862 a drunken mob, blaming him for having incited the draft riots in New York City, started down from Sing Sing village (Ossining) to blow up his house, but it was dispersed before it accomplished its purpose. When the first New Yorkers invaded the village to build country seats they found Johannus Stalton, an eccentric pearl button maker, living here; someone started the story that he had been the model for Rip Van Winkle and he enjoyed considerable prestige.

In GRACE EPISCOPAL CHURCH, Broadway and Main St., is a Christ after the Temptation by Carl Brandt, a portrait painter of some note in his time. One day when Brandt was very ill in Baltimore he woke from a stupor and demanded his brushes and a canvas; he had seen Christ, he said, and must paint him. His enthusiasm gave him such energy that he was able to return to his studio here to paint this picture; but his strength gave out before his work could be completed and his attendant, a giant Negro, had to hold him up before the canvas while he worked. He died soon afterward.

DRAPER MEMORIAL PARK, Broadway and Washington St., contains the DRAPER OBSERVATORY of Dr. John W. Draper (1811–82), president of the medical school of New York University. Draper came to the village in 1840, and a year later, with the aid of a glass tank filled with a solution of ammonia and copper sulphate, obtained the first photograph of the human face ever made in direct sunlight.

On the same grounds is the FARRAGUT HOME, occupied during the Civil War by the family of David Glasgow Farragut (1801–70), commander of the Union fleet in the Battle of Mobile Bay.

YONKERS, 59.1 m. (30 alt., 142, 404 pop.) (see Yonkers).

US 9 follows Broadway through Yonkers. The apartment houses, shops, and garages form a solid line to Van Cortlandt Park.

NEW YORK CITY, 71.8 m. (17 alt., 7,380,259 pop.) (see New York City).