Travels in the 2nd half

Lenoir Mansion   A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the Philipse Manor Hall, in Downtown Yonkers. But there are other historic sights to see in that city, and today’s visit to the Lenoir Preserve includes a wonderful place to walk. Three miles north of the Philipse Manor Hall is a wonderful city park, the Lenoir Preserve. In 1976, the city of Yonkers bought the land of two estates that were up for sale. One was the Tilden/Wrightman estate alone with the neighboring Ardenwold, also known as the Stillwell estate. Together they created a 40 acre nature preserve, right in the middle of town. Nature Center Remembrance Ribbons for those lost to COVID-19 The Tilden/Wightman estate was built between 1850 and 1870 for New York Governor and future presidential candidate Samuel Tilden. He lived there until his death in 1886. It was then sold to C.C. Dula, who was president of Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company. He expanded the mansion on site and renamed it Lenoir, after his home town in N...

Ontario Beach park is in the Charlotte neighborhood of Rochester new York. Charlotte was an independent town that served as Rochester’s port on Lake Ontario as far back as The War of 1812. After the Civil War, Charlotte started to grow as a summer resort for Rochester’s upper class. Hotels and restaurants were built along the lake front. In 1884 the Ontario Beach Improvement Company was formed to develop the area. In 1889 an electric trolley started serving Charlotte from the city of Rochester, and that changed the size and makeup of the visiting crowds. Instead of a few hundred of Rochester’s richest residents, the area became a destination of thousands of residents of all classes.   Virginia Reel By Unknown author - from a c. 1910 postcard., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16951920 By 1890 an amusement park had been built along the lake. It included a carousel, a fun house, and many other rides. It became known as the Coney Island of Western New Y...

Philipse Manor Hall   Yonkers is the fourth largest city in New York State, but most people think of it as “just a suburb” of New York City. Yet Yonkers has a long history, and has been home to people who played important roles in the county’s and state’s story. Some of that history can still be seen today. Sitting in the heart of downtown Yonkers, just a couple of blocks from Getty Square and from the Yonkers Metro-North station, is the Philipse Manor Hall State Historic Site. Built by Frederick Philipse in 1682, the main section of the hall is the oldest building in Westchester County. While it was never a his primary residence, the hall served asa stopover for his trips from New Amsterdam to the northern end of the extensive Philipsburg Manor Estate. The estate occupied 52,000 acres (81.25 sq. mi.) and stretched from the Spyten Duyvil Creek north to the Croton River. The Philipse family made their money through the slave trade, both in bringing enslaved Africans to the United St...

The Hudson River Valley is filled with the former estates of the very rich. These were “summer cottages” that their families used when they wanted to escape the city. Many of them are open to the public to tour the grounds, even if the buildings are closed due to COVID-19. One of the oldest is the Boscobel House and Gardens in Garrison NY.   The Apple Grove Hudson School Statue Garden   Boscobel was built by States Dyckman , a loyalist New Yorker who somehow was able to maintain his fortune and his land after the Revolutionary War. He spent the war working for the British Quatermaster Corps, and for ten years afterward he was in England, supposedly investigating corruption among that Corps. By the time he returned to New York, in 1789, he had “earned” a lifetime pension while exonerating everyone he investigated. Herb Garden Over the next fifteen years, Dyckman traveled back and forth between New York and London, looking to guarantee his income. In 1803, he began construction...