Here
the mountains are comparatively graceful and gentle in contour.
Their loveliness is unsurpassed. No wonder Mr. Burroughs was
contented to dwell here, no matter how far he traveled. Even on
his last day he was found with his face turned toward his native
hills, which afforded him such a wealth of beauty and natural
scenery and such a free and glorious life. "Mr. and Mrs. Finley
J. Shepard (Helen Gould) spend two or three months each year at
'Kirkside,' their modest summer home on the west side of Main
street, near Gould Memorial church just north of village
center."
About three miles from Roxbury is a small village called Grand
Gorge. One and one-half miles from the village Irish and Bald
mountains tower three thousand feet, and crowd river, railroad
and highway into a narrow pass. The Gilboa reservoir is located
three miles northeast of the village, and the Shandaken tunnel
three miles east. The purpose of both the reservoir and tunnel
is to augment the great Ashokan supply. The view of the
Catskills through Grand Gorge is most beautiful. Here you
lookout over a vast mountainous landscape; the foliage of the
maples sheers regularly down, covering the mountain sides with
their leafy terraces. Far away stretches the landscape, checked
red with patches of grain or velvety meadows, marked faintly
with stone fences, giving it the appearance of a vast domain all
dreamy beneath its luminous veil.
One of the finest touring centers in the Catskills region is
Stamford, a town with a population of one thousand, situated at
the foot of Mount Utsayantha. On this mountain which is three
thousand three hundred feet above the sea, is an observation
tower, from which an unobstructed view of all the Catskills
opens up before you. Truly, Nature has been lavish in her
bestowal of rare gifts of scenic beauty at this place.
Standing there and looking out over the magnificent panorama
before us, we thought how often the eyes of that gentle lover of
Nature gazed in admiration out over the rolling hills or rested
lovingly upon some rare flower or strange bird until he gained
their secrets.
You will see many wonderful orchards in New York state and much
of the land is given over to the raising of fruit, for which it
seems admirably adapted. You will also notice other less
inviting regions, where the old homesteads have gone into decay.
In several places we saw many vacant homes around which crowded
whole armies of weeds, while scraggly, mossgrown apple trees
still managed to send forth a few green branches. It must have
been a scene like this which Shakespeare saw, when he wrote:
"The whole land is full of weeds; her fairest flowers
choked up,
Her fruit trees all unpruned, her hedges ruined."
The crumbling moss-grown stones of the fences over which poison
vines were clambering and the myriads of wild carrot, chicory,
and ox-eye daisies added to the desolateness of the scene.
