Over the course of this spring and summer, we have been getting to know our new hometown of Hyde Park. If Hyde Park rings a bell, perhaps its because it is the home of Franklin Roosevelt and his Presidential Library. Or to the Culinary Institute of America, whose graduates go on to work at and eventually run kitchens all over the country. There is an abundance of old mansions that line the nearby Hudson River, as well as a bevy of charming small towns and cities in the area to keep one occupied. And there is a vibrant cultural scene, extending the traditions born in movements such as the painters of the Hudson River School. Finally if you find you miss the city life, and occasionally we do, you can hop a train and be in Manhattan in less than 2 hours.
The Hudson Valley is of course defined by the namesake river. Hills and ridges rise up from the water on each side, and we live on one of these upslopes, on the east side of the river. To our south and north, these ridges are lined with old Gilded Age mansions, nearly all now historical parks. The grounds are uniformly magnificent, and always open for wandering, free of charge, which is wonderful. In between the mansions, the hills are dense Eastern hardwood forests, interspersed with , let’s say- much less gilded dwellings. Such as ours.
The Hudson Valley’s growth has been facilitated by transportation. The river itself, a short distance from our home, provided for passage and trade for as long as people have dwelled along it. A bit inland, running parallel with the river, are train tracks. On this side of the river, these are now Amtrak trains. Sitting not far from the house, we enjoy hearing the sound of the train; they are close, but not too close. 10 or so trains pass in each direction. They all have names. There is the Maple Leaf to Toronto, and the Adirondack, which will lumber through those namesake mountains and eventually connect to Montreal. Then you have the Ethan Allan to Vermont and the Lakeshore Limited to Chicago. The most frequent is the Empire to Albany, about an hour north. The trains are mostly full, be they excited travelers heading north, or passengers heading south, waking from their slumber at the prospect of New York City now being just 90 minutes a way.
And finally, there is the road above us. Highway 9 largely follows the route of the historic Albany Post Road. The old Post Road dates from 17th century, and followed the trail of the original inhabitants- the Munsee, who resided along the East bank of the Hudson. The Post Road connected New York to Albany, and if you like history, this road is for you, for there are hundreds of those little blue historical plaques along the way. I am not sure who the plaques are meant for. Pedestrians are rare on the road, and a motorist otherwise risks life and limb stopping on a dime to read them. (And if General Washington was involved, no event is too small to be memorialized).
But the point of this post is that there are other markers along Route 9. I became fascinated by tiny stone temples a few feet wide and maybe 4 feet high that were scattered up and down what was the Old Post Road.
It turns out they date from the late 18th century and served to mark one mile intervals on the road. As the name implies, the “Post Road” was the main conduit for communication and mail in post Revolutionary New York. The Albany Post Road ran 149 miles from New York to near Albany. None other that Ben Franklin, the first postmaster general, devised a system for measuring out miles on the road as a means of establishing postage rates. The measurement was tied to the circumference of a wagon wheel. The markers measure off the distance from New York. Commencing at roughly Wall Street in Manhattan, each sandstone marker was engraved with the appropriate distance- “43 Miles to New York, “71 Miles to New York”, and so on. I had imagined a bespectacled Franklin on the back of a wagon, perhaps directing this operation himself, maybe with a kite in tow, though have since found out he may not have actually been doing the measuring himself. Too bad.
And so, with the ghost of two such prominent Franklins in our midst, we have nicknamed these little mini-temples “Franklins”. As you might imagine, many have disappeared over the years. Fortunately, the other Franklin : Roosevelt, championed their preservation. So in these parts, near his old home, there is the longest in-tact run of them. Some are nearly forgotten, lost in weeds by the side of the road. A few are embedded in stone walls. Occasionally they are given a more prominent setting- cut grass and standing sentinel road side. Sadly, many of those distance engravings have long since disappeared. But not all.
About a mile south of our home, there sits a Franklin. It is one of those buried in weeds. I braved the short but treacherous walk along the adjacent Route 9 shoulder, buffeted by 55 mph traffic, to investigate. And there, gloriously , were the words “89 Miles to New York”.
It was not long after this that I discovered we had our own Franklin. 1 mile to the north, near an abandoned house, sat another Franklin. Our neighborhood Franklin, with regrettably no letters visible, nonetheless establishing that we were were indeed….. “90 Miles to New York”. I can walk to this Franklin from the house, up an old carriage road, through a dense forest, shrouded with numerous crumbling walls of an old boys camp, now covered in vines. I hear animals crunching around out of site- deer, foxes, squirrels and raccoons. A neighbor spotted a black bear nearby. But once through the forest, past the bear that I am sure is lurking nearby, and past the abandoned house, you come to the Franklin, standing not far from the side of the road. Our Franklin.
Moving to a new place can be disorienting- physically and mentally. So I draw comfort that, in a place with with such rich history in every village and hamlet, at seemingly at every crossroads, that the most vivid markers of where I am comes not from the GPS of my phone, but from 250 year-old stone markers by the side of the road. All located per the turns of Ben Franklin’s carriage wheel. Our Franklin, just up the old carriage road, reminding us we are indeed 90 Miles to New York.
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