Hudson Valley

Hudson Valley of New York State

Click here to advertise on this site for as little as $10

BS top site map

BS - right Side

Web	BearSystems

Summer Home By Lucy Muller

BS Google

A short piece on the history of Cragsmoor

Cragsmoor is now on the list of The National Register of Historic Places. As one who lived there from 1944 until the present, I think I can set some information down that is correct.

Cragsmoor was a farming community in its early days from the 1700s until the late 1880s. Then, as transportation became easier, people from New York City seeking cool air in the summer, discovered the beauty of this lovely place.

Cragsmoor was first named Manceville, then Evansville and finally Cragsmoor. By the late 1800s, the mountain community was the summer home to many artists. There was a theater, restaurant, library, three churches, art studios, Bear Hill and of course, Sam's Point.

My grandparents, who lived in New York in 1895, learned of the Cragsmoor Inn and spent several summers there before buying a small, farmhouse at the corner of Henry and Schuyler Roads. The house had been used as a guest house and was moved approximately 500 feet to the edge of the mountain that overlooks Ellenville. They named the house, Treetops and added a wrap around porch, an extra room and sleeping porch and a little out building. There was a cistern for water, which was drawn up through a hand pump. An outhouse was put up below the level of the drinking water of course and was used until 1955. We did have two indoor bathrooms, but due to the shallow wells and lack of water, the outhouse was a backup.

The house grew too small when my uncle married and had three children. So he built a smaller cabin about 250 feet to the west in 1946. Our house remained in the family until 1994 and protected five generations of our family. The cabin is still owned by my cousins.

Something that cannot be found in an historic register or cannot be known by those who come here as adults, is the child's memory of a summer day. You woke up to see the white mists in the valley slowly rise to reveal the village 1700 feet below. You eat a breakfast of peaches and pancakes on the porch that sits on the edge of the world. Then one would either go swimming, walk barefoot up the hill to the post office or library and pop tar bubbles with your feet all the way. Later swing in a hammock, swim in an ice cold brook, pick blueberries and eat them the way Sally did in the book, Blueberry Hill. Finally, watch a beautiful sunset, cook hotdogs over a campfire, listen to ghost stories, try to catch fireflies and fall asleep as you look out at the stars and the twinkling lights in Ellenville so far away.

Summer Home
By Lucy Muller

Submitted by Lucy Muller on June 18, 2006

BS end of content

Watch the latest videos on YouTube.com