On Catskill Creek
On certain days, Catskill Creek—when seen from Jefferson Heights above the village—seems to be flowing directly from the Delectable Mountains themselves. Or so it appeared to the artist Thomas Cole (1801-1848) when he first...
Author: John P. O'Grady
Boot Jack Rock
A rock is just a rock until its secret is known—or as they used to say in olden times, until its guardian spirit is teased out. The ancient Romans had a term for it—genius...
An Artist’s Privy
Cedar Grove was the home of Thomas Cole from 1836, when he married the proprietor’s niece, until 1848, when the artist unexpectedly died of a lung ailment. Of the original structures that adorned the...
Toxic Waste Day
It’s Toxic Waste Day. A blessing! The one day in the year when the residents of our county are invited to dispose of their accumulated “household hazardous materials”–for free! No questions asked. That’s good,...
Shadows of Windham
Windham in the Catskill Mountains of New York is said to be named after the town of Windham located in the “Quiet Corner” of northeastern Connecticut, which in turn is named after the...
Frederic Church’s Olana; or, Home Is Where the Art Is
Frederic Edwin Church was born in Hartford, Connecticut in 1826. At a young age, he expressed passionate interest in becoming a landscape artist. His father, Joseph—a silversmith by training and later a founder and...
The Unhappy Case of the Catskill Mountain Violinist
Frederick F. Hapeman is but one of the many forgotten artists of the Catskill Mountains. We know he was an artist because that’s what he told the army captain who came through Windham, New...
The Schoharie Kill
Well begun is half done, they used to say. As in the course of human events, so too with rivers. Make a good start and it’s downhill the rest of the way. Consider, for...
The Catskill Mountain House
In the summer of 1958, thirty-nine-year-old Roland Van Zandt—former U.S. Air Force bombardier, husband, father of four, and doctoral student of American history—was hiking in the vicinity of North Lake when he stumbled upon...
The Farm
On Saturday, May 27th, 1961, an estate auction took place on the Tryon farm just outside the hamlet of Norton Hill in the Town of Greenville. The weather that morning was unseasonably cold, gray,...