John Burrough’s Slabsides and Nature Sanctuary

500 Burroughs Drive

West Park, NY 12493

(845)384-6320

https://www.hudsonrivervalley.com/sites/John-Burroughs-Slabsides-/details

https://johnburroughsassociation.org/

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

https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Burroughs

https://exhibits.archives.marist.edu/s/marist-heritage-project/page/Esopus-Community-John-Burroughs

John Burroughs as a young man

https://johnburroughsassociation.org/about/about-john-burroughs

(From the John Burroughs website)

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.