2015-04-26 - Old Croton Aqueduct Walk III - Part I
This was it, the final walk. On Sunday, I led about 30 people north from Tarrytown mostly following the Old Croton Aqueduct Trail to New Croton Dam and back down to the Croton-Harmon train station.
We met at Tarrytown.
We met at Tarrytown.
After walking up the now extremely familiar Franklin Street, we soon started on the actual trail. It was another beautiful day.
A couple of people helped me pick up trash along the way.
Views of the Hudson River and the Palisades on the other side were spectacular as usual.
We took a detour off the trail to see a few sites.
We saw the Christopher Columbus monument and Captors’ Monument. The Captors’ Monument celebrates when local militia John Paulding, David Williams, and Isaac Van Wart captured British Major John André, the head of British secret intelligence on September 23, 1780. The sculpture on top is of John Paulding, while the plaque depicts the capture with all three militiamen as well as John André.
We walked past many religious buildings along the way.
Philipsburg Manor was a center of milling, trade, and agricultural activity closely connected to the New York City ports in 1750. The estate comprised over 50,000 acres in Westchester Country and the Bronx and provided food and commodities to New York. Adolph Philipse owned the northern manor and leased land to European tenants numbering 800 by that time. The manor's current location represents a key time in the estate's history when Adolph Philipse died and the issue of slavery was brought to the forefront.
This is also where you would take the bus to go to Kykuit, the beautiful “hilltop paradise” that was home to the Rockefeller family for over four generations. John D. Rockefeller, founder of Standard Oil, and the richest man in the United States by far at one point, first lived here. He thwarted some of the greatest entrepreneurs of his day. When kerosene lamps lost to electrical lights, instead of floundering, he started selling gasoline for automobiles and prospered more than ever from it. This landmark of architecture, gardens, art, and history has been maintained for more than a hundred years and is now held by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
This is also where you would take the bus to go to Kykuit, the beautiful “hilltop paradise” that was home to the Rockefeller family for over four generations. John D. Rockefeller, founder of Standard Oil, and the richest man in the United States by far at one point, first lived here. He thwarted some of the greatest entrepreneurs of his day. When kerosene lamps lost to electrical lights, instead of floundering, he started selling gasoline for automobiles and prospered more than ever from it. This landmark of architecture, gardens, art, and history has been maintained for more than a hundred years and is now held by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
We walked past the Headless Horseman Bridge and entered Sleepy Hollow Cemetery.
This cemetery offers different walking tours you can register for online and contains important historical figures including Washington Irving, most well known for his short stories “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” and Andrew Carnegie, the owner of Carnegie Steel Company who believed that people should try to become as rich as possible, progressing the world forward, and die as poor as possible, having used it all for philanthropy to make the world better. Walter Chrysler, founder of Chrysler Corporation, and Elizabeth Arden, the founder of a cosmetics empire and at one point of the wealthiest women in the world, are also buried here.
