Open: The Second and Forth Saturday of the month when in season. Please visit the website for the days open. The cabin is open from 12:00pm-4:00pm when in season.
My review on TripAdvisor:
The entrance to John Burroughs ‘Slabsides’
The entrance to Slabsides is located on a local country road off another local country road off Route 9. Use your Google Map carefully when visiting or you will miss the turn off. The parking lot is really small and holds only about eight cars so please make the turn around on the road above and park facing down from the parking lot (word of advice on parking).
The pathway from parking lot to the house is really beautiful and lush in the summer. It seemed more desolate in the cooler months and just empty. Still it is only about a five minute walk from the parking lot to the cabin.
The original cabin “Slabsides” from the pathway. This one room cabin was used by Naturalist John Burroughs as a home away from home to write and to think.
The lawn outside the cabin
The historic sign outside the cabin
The porch of Slabsides in the summer
John Burroughs work area inside the cabin and his kitchen
John Burroughs work station overlooked the woods and rock formations
The fireplace and resting area
The kitchen area in the back of the cabin
The bedroom and sleeping area of the cabin
The bedroom of the cabin
The pictures of Walt Whitman and John Burroughs in the bedroom
John Burroughs was one of the most popular authors of his day and is credited with creating the modern nature essay. Using easily understood prose, he described nature that was familiar and local, bringing the natural world to his readers. He encouraged them in the art of observation by sharing a sense of place and purpose in the land. Burroughs wrote more than three hundred articles published in leading magazines and in twenty-seven books over sixty years. Through his writings and friendships with influential leaders he had a profound impact on the emerging conservation movements.
Born in the Catskill Mountains in 1837 he settled on a nine-acre fruit farm on the west bank of the Hudson River north of Poughkeepsie that he named “Riverby.” Poet Walt Whitman and Burroughs tramped through its surrounding woods during Whitman’s several visits, moving Burroughs to call these woods “Whitman Land.” In 1895 he purchased a nearby tract of land and built a two-story cabin as a place to write and entertain, calling it “Slabsides.”
Though Burroughs was a writer particular to the Hudson Valley region, his travels were widely known and celebrated. In 1899 he joined the Harriman Expedition to Alaska and wrote the “Narrative” of the expedition. He accompanied Roosevelt into the wilderness of Yellowstone, telling the story in Camping & Tramping with Roosevelt, which provided the narrative for a segment of Ken Burns’s The National Parks. Burroughs also traveled to the Grand Canyon and Yosemite with John Muir and went on elaborate camping trips with his industrialist friends Henry Ford, Thomas Edison and Harvey Firestone. Accounts of these events are in Burroughs’ journal archived at Vassar College.
Burroughs received honorary doctorates from Yale, Colgate, and the University of Georgia, and the Gold Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
The ceiling of the cabin
The stairs to the upstairs loft
The cabin was small and is pretty much one full room with one or two walls partitioning the rooms. This seems more like a summer cabin. Still it had its charm.
We then finished the tour outside along the trails outside the cabin.
I admired the outside woods from the patio
(From the John Burroughs Association website)
The land around Slabsides informed many of his essays in which he described nature close at hand. Through works written here, John Burroughs inspired national leaders to preserve land and its wildlife and generations of readers to head out-of-doors. For nearly three decades Slabsides drew devoted readers and prominent friends. There are nearly seven thousand signatures in his Slabsides guest books. Among the early signers were ornithologists Frank Chapman and William Brewster, conservationist John Muir, leader of the Arts and Crafts movement Gustav Stickley, and his friends Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Ford, who gave him a series of three Ford cars. The young journalist Theodore Dreiser interviewed Burroughs at Slabsides.
The trail outside the cabin which Aldo served as the lawn when it is not full of vegetation from all the recent rain.
The trail signs
Looking down the trails outside the cabin
The rock formations outside the cabin on the trails
One last look back at the cabin before I left that morning
Walking along the trails outside back to the car
Walking along the trails bank to the car
Walking along the trails
Walking along the trails
The parking lot before I left that day
It was a wonderful private tour with Joan, who is the President of the organization. She explained who John Burroughs was, his significance in writing and his life. It was a very interesting tour.
The pathways were so beautiful and there is a full series of trails to follow throughout the property to explore.
The Welcome Center tells the story of both the Ellison family and their war visitors, the Knox family.
The Ellison family history sign
The Knox family history sign
The family history in the Visitor’s Center
The tour of the house was very interesting. The house was built in three stages as the family grew and prospered over the generations. There was the original Dutch house which is the side of the house that faces the current road, the Georgian addition which faces the back of the house, where the original Kings Highway was located and the addition, where the Visitors Center was located.
My tour guide, Tiffany, explained there had been other additions to the home over the years but they had been removed for the historical integrity of the house.
The Georgian addition of the home featured more rooms for socializing
The Georgian addition to the back of the home was built with the family fortunes. This included a spacious formal Parlor, Dining Room both with large window to let in natural light and high ceilings for circulation and to show the families affluence.
The large windows let in the natural light in the warmer months
Much of the furniture in the house was not original to it but was of the period. Here and there though there were pieces donated back to the house and gave it its historical dignity.
The formal dining room was used to impressi visitors with the large fireplace
The Dining Room used for meals and formal entertaining was spacious yet cozy. There was room to move around but it was still intimate for conversation.
The room had built in China cabinets
The wood work contained china cabinets, storage for silver and family serving pieces. The large metal tombstone looking item in the fireplace was a metal slab meant for retaining heat for the room once the fire went down. This is how the room was kept warm in the colder months.
The natural light was perfect for late afternoon supper
Once you left these rooms for the front hallway, this led to the Dutch front portion of the house, once the living quarters and now was were the business office and storage for the family business was attended to during working hours.
The office of Mr. Ellison was in the front part of the original Dutch portion of the house
The rooms in the front section of the original house were separated from the formal part of the current back of the house. This is where Mr. Ellison and his son attended to business calls and stored their goods for shipping.
The storage room was probably a family bedroom for the original house
The trip upstairs was part of the addition of the house and contained two spacious bedrooms with high ceilings and large windows. When the Knox family joined the Ellison family during the encampment, each family had one bedroom for use. The Ellison’s did not have any children and the Knox’s had two small children, a small girl and an infant boy. From what the tour guide explained the Ellison’s welcomed them in the home and relations were very good with both couples, who welcomed the children into their home. It brought extra life to the house.
The formal bedroom of the Ellison’s would be the bigger room and more formal
The Knox family bedroom would have been not less elaborate with a small bed and crib for the children
The Knox’s bedroom for the family during the war years
Mrs. Ellison kept her own office at the top of the stairs and this was reflective in the desk and table in the nook at the top of the stairs. The tour guide explained there had been a wall to provide privacy to Mrs. Ellison which had been removed over the years.
The office of Mrs. Ellison to run the household
The office contained the family heirloom desk and a portrait of Mr. Ellison’s brother who was a General in the war.
The portrait of General Ellison, Mr. Ellison’s brother
Part of the cannon
When I finished the tour of the house, my tour guide and walked around the Visitor Center room and she showed me some of the artifacts in the room including a small cannon the had been found. My tour guide suggested after we were done in the house a tour of the grounds. The King’s Highway had originally run in a different location that passed the front door of the Georgian side of the house. Also down by the stream were the ruins of the old grist mill.
The map of the original King’s Highway when it passed in front of the home
The original front door of the Ellison home where the street was once located
The stone wall is the marker of the original part of the road that passed by the home
The highway path as it passed over the stone bridge
There was not much left of the family mill by the stream but the site did a nice job preserving the path of the highway and up keeping the stone bridge and grounds.
The woods area by the stream where the ruins of the old mill were located
The stream area
The stream area by the old mill
A better view of the old stone bridge
When I returned from the stream area (unfortunately leads to someone’s property on the other side of the stream), I walked the grounds of the home. There was a small smokehouse on the property to the side of the house.
The old smokehouse on the property
What was originally the back side of the house is now the front side of the house on the Dutch side of the home with the addition to the left
The view of the homestead from what is now the front of the street
The view of the house from the entrance when I was leaving
The front of the homestead as you enter an exit from the new direction of the home
I found the tour to be very informative and an interesting look on how two families shaped our history during the Revolutionary War.
*A special note that the house is seasonal and is closed from Labor Day until Memorial Day the next year and is only open for special events at Halloween and Christmas.
The Halloween Event:
I attended the Halloween events at the Knox Headquarters when in the spirit of the 18th Century Gothic Literature, an author took us on a tour of treason and tides turning during New Windsor Cantonment and inside the Knox Headquarters. The ghosts of the past tried to find a traitor in the midst of the war.
Meeting the ghosts of the author and her characters on the site of the Knox family estate
The Knox House lit for the Halloween holidays had a eerie look to it that night
The Ghosts trying to find a traitor in the ranks
The Ghosts of the past trying to find a traitor during the war
Leaving the Continental Army camp after the performance was over that evening
We walked the estate and followed the storyline with the actors. There were people on both sides of the war who thought they were right. It was an interesting Halloween event.
The History of the Ellison/Knox Site:
(from the New York State Parks, Recreation and Historical site)
On several occasions during the Revolutionary War, Major General Henry Knox, Commander of the America artillery, established his military headquarters at John Ellison’s 1754 Georgian-style house in Vails Gate. From October 1782 until the spring of 1783, as 7,000 soldiers and 500 “camp followers” were establishing winter quarters at the New Windsor Cantonment, and General Washington was lodged at Jonathan Hasbrouck’s house in Newburgh, New York, Major General Horatio Gates occupied the elegant home from which he commanded the cantonment. Here the army awaited the end of the Revolutionary War that became effective when Washington issued the cease fire orders on April 19, 1783.
For most of the 18th and into the 19th century, the Ellison family had important commercial dealings in milling and trade. From their mill, flour was shipped down the Hudson River to New York City and the West Indies. At present, remains of the mill, with traces of the underground raceway may be visited. Explore how the Ellison’s and other families of the mid-Hudson Valley lived 200 years ago.
The Christmas Open House event:
I returned to the Knox Headquarters again for their Colonial Christmas Open House in early December and that was a festive event. The snow had just fallen giving the house a very picturesque look to it.
The Knox/Ellison Home the day of the event
The estate looked so picturesque with the snow
When I first arrived to the estate, it was still light out and they had just lit all the torches in front of the house. It really lit the pathways to the house. By the outside fire, a lone soldier stood guard, and he looked like he was freezing.
The torches that lit the paths
The snow gave the woods a festive early Christmas look
The house was decorated for a Colonial Christmas during the war years
The Officers used the Living Room as an office and for entertainment
The hearth was beautifully decorated with garland and dried fruits
The mistress of the house talked and entertained me on my visit
The house had an eerie but festive feel about it that evening
The festive garland decorations in the Living Room
The decorations in both windows
I passed the foyer where garland and misotle decorated the stairs
We were then entertained by visiting officers of the home in Mr. Ellison’s office who told us their stories of General Washington’s visit.
The Officers visit to visit the Generals
The office lit for a late night visit
The holiday decorations in the Office space
Then I took a trip upstairs where we were met by another officer who described the sleeping arrangements of both the Knox and Ellison families of this time of occupation.
The officers conversation with us
The decorations as we walked up the stairs
The bedroom decorated for the visit
The opposite bedroom used by the family
The staircase decorated for the holidays
My last stop on the visit was to the Dining Room, where the last officer on the visit talked of Christmas dinner in the house during the war.
The officer explaining entertainment during the war
The Dining Room decorated for the Christmas holidays
The elaborate decorations in the room in the war years
The creativity of the Dining Room table with the creative table decor
The elaborate holiday desserts
The officer explained entertainments during the war, the use of the elaborate decorations on the table and the foods that would have been eaten at the holidays. Plus, entertainment of a major officer would have been during the war years.
The garland and fruit decorations in the Fining room
The officer finished his talk on the holidays and then I left for the evening
The outside of the house with the torches lit to full extent
The fire outside to warm up
The officer outside looked so cold. Thank God he kept going inside to warm up
The house as I left for the evening
The torches as I left the property
The house from a distance
The glow of the house at the end of the evening
The event was wonderful and the enactment was fun but it got really cold outside at the end of the evening and by 6:00pm it got to be freezing. I left the estate and headed home . The Knox/ Ellison House closed for the season after this night.
The Montgomery Village Museum at 142 Clinton Street
The Museum in the front of the museum
The museum sign welcomes you
Village memorabilia on display
The display on the local church’s
The Montgomery Village Museum in Montgomery, NY is a village run museum that tells of story of the town and its development. The museum of filled with wonderful displays of all aspects of the town. The history of the town is displayed in an organized way display by display with plenty of signage and docents to explain things to you if you want more information. You can tour the museum at your own pace.
The front gallery of the museum
The front display of the Veterans and the VFW of the Village of Montgomery, NY
Display of Armed Forces memorabilia
The gallery of Town Council, Downtown merchants and Veterans items
The Downtown Merchant’s display
Some of the local merchants have been in town for over a hundred years
The artifacts on the Town Council and the Chamber
The 100th Anniversary of the Town of Montgomery, NY shows a diagram of the town and its historical past
Some of the items of the rural home past
What I thought was interesting about the museum was the discovery of dinosaur bones in the area. The skull of a Mastodon and other bones were found in digs between here and Newburgh.
The Mastodon skull at the museum
The skull and bones and the site
The Importance of the Mastodon story
The write up on dinosaur bones
The display on the Montgomery Fire Department
The museum has an extensive collection of items from the County Fire department telling its own story of the fire service in this community. The Orange County Firefighters Museum is right across the street with all the larger equipment and gear but here we get to see the pictures of the department over the years and some of the small artifacts.
Display on the Montgomery Fire Department
The display on the Montgomery Coronet Band display
The Textiles industry in Montgomery
The display from Montgomery High School from sports to the marching band
The museum has an extensive collection of memorabilia from Montgomery High School over the past one hundred years that include marching band and sports to the way the school teaches. It is amazing that in many ways it does not change much.
More artifacts from the schools
Displays of the schools and libraries in the county
The Montgomery High School band and sports
A old school house display
The Girl Scout and Boy Scout display
The original fire department display that sits across the street
The Montgomery Grange display
The Picture Display of old photos of the past of the Village of Montgomery, NY
The Toy and Doll Display will delight any young child
The Art display in the back part of the museum
The afternoon I was at the museum, they had an outdoor concert in the garden of the museum. It was warm night so sitting outside enjoying the music was really nice.
The large paintings above the front door as I was leaving that evening.
One last look at all the galleries at the museum gave me a glimpse of the extensive collection of artifacts at the museum and the story they tell of the community of Montgomery, NY.
The back gallery
The front gallery
The side gallery
For such a small museum, the displays really give an interesting look at the county and how it has progressed over the years. What have been new to us in the 1950’s, 60’s, 70’s , 80’s and forward has now become the past to newer generations. The Montgomery Village Museum tells that story in detail.
A visit here is a nice way to spend the afternoon. Then take a tour of Historic Montgomery, NY. There is a lot to do and see.
The Ulster County Fair Agricultural Museum at the Ulster County Fairgrounds
The sign at the entrance of the museum
Display outside the entrance of the museum
The Ulster County Fair Agricultural Museum is one of the more interesting and detailed agricultural based museums I have seen. The museum houses an extensive collection of farm equipment that includes machinery for the fields, milking equipment including how to milk a cow properly and the progress on egg hatchery and production. The museum highlights these changes especially in the last hundred years.
The main gallery of the museum
The main part of the museum was dedicated to farm equipment from the early plows and hoes to the changes in the modern day tractor.
The early hoes both hand and horse drawn
The changes in tractors for farm use over the last century
All sorts of businesses were on the farms from egg hatcheries to dairy farming were shown in their early stages at the museum.
Early dairy farming and milking cows
Milk jugs for fresh milk
An early egg hatchery and sorters
The museum also displayed other business that farmers could make money from including ice cutting for ice boxes. All sorts of equipment was on display for this early money making industry.
The ice carving industry
Life on the farm was not so easy for women either as cooking, washing and cleaning were all chores left to women while the men worked in the fields. All foods were made from scratch from farm produce and water for cooking, washing and bathing came from wells and springs and sometimes needed to be boiled. Work in the household was never finished and took many hands to do.
The farmhouse kitchen
Life on the farm included travel to and from church, going to town and travel to the cities for visits to the markets. Carts and carriages were the mode of transportation back then before automobiles. Even today in some communities this is still a mode of transportation.
Carriages and wagons for transportation
Working in the fields and the yields produced kept changing as modern equipment became part of farm life. Gas powered and electric equipment changed the way the modern farmer produced crops.
Modern sorters and weights
The gas powered saw
The members who run the museum were working the gas run engines and were demonstrating equipment used over the years. Members were showing visitors how these machine work and there purpose on the farm.
The outdoor gas powered equipment
The gas powered equipment
The inside of the museum had all sorts of displays on working on the farm. There was the equipment to cut the law, sort the crops and maintenance on the farm.
Sickle mower
The gas powered machines for maintaining of the farm and fields
Visiting a Museum: The Unique, Unusual, Obscure and Historical 