There is always that one place that stands out from the rest – and on a breezy August morning, I stood in front of what has to be the most unnerving house I have ever explored, and it was the question of why that really bothered me the most…
Skulking off a quiet backroad underneath the canopy of dense forests, on a slope with at least a 9 percent grade – this fading weathered house sits in the forest like an infected sore – a strange world where nature slowly undoes the deeds of man, with skin so thick, it’s empty eyes were like knives, not worried about who was receiving them.
The awkwardness started from the moment I got out of the car, and got a good look at the place over a forest of thorns and vines that had been tangled in the wind – a solitary trail sleuthed its way through the growth towards the house. Something had been through here recently. Staring up at it’s faded and splintery facade that almost matched the wilderness around it, there was something unsettling about the place. You could actually feel it’s age, and you could smell the smells – that typical old house perfume and rot that hung around the property like musk. Through the broken windows, the interior was pitch black, with secrets smothered in dirt. Though my fears weren’t routed in anything empirical, my skin was trembling.
Deciding to get a better look at the place, I proceeded to stumble through the grass. I was already regretting it. The thorns immediately sliced my arms and legs to ribbons, and I began to stumble over things that were previously hidden. Rusted trailers, oil barrels, broken glass and a knotted web of disused sap lines lay along the weedy floor, all covered in condensation which coated my boots, and made me slip more than once. Just getting over towards the place was turning into an adventure. Bees swarmed from flower to flower, and unseen creatures slithered in the grass, making the stalks snap and rustle.
Standing at the foot of it’s darkness, I noticed some things that immediately made me stop my pursuit. There was a new looking satellite dish on the side of the building, and an even newer looking utility box. But, there was no electrical hookup to the house. Some of the wires sat exposed, pulled out of the walls, and chewed on. Could someone actually live here? There were giant holes in the wall, and half the windows had long been shattered, but from my experience, that isn’t always evidence…
Upon closer investigation, I noticed an odd sight. Someone had actually taken the time to pick up the large fragments of broken window glass, and set them back into the wooden window frames. Other windows were barricaded from the inside, with chairs pushed up against them holding curtains in place. Someone made vague attempts to keep people out it seemed, but just around the corner, there was a door that was wide open, and a broken window would easily allow access. What was going on here? Peering inside a window, the interior of the house was cast in shadow, further and further, until there was nothing but strange land. A cold dampness settled on my face, and I could taste the musk as it settled in the air on my tongue.
I couldn’t explain it, I was incredibly uncomfortable at this point. I felt like something was watching me, like something was lurking just beyond the lens of my camera, offering no explanation. Though the inside of the house was smoldering in an entombed silence, there were strange noises coming from the places out of reach, like something was moving, something unknown saying, if I stay here, trouble will find me. To add to my unnerved state, tree branches around the house started to snap, but no one was around.
Eventually, I trekked back towards the road and rejoined my friend, who had opted not to go any closer to the place. I guess I couldn’t really blame him at this point. “I heard weird noises coming inside – I decided to leave” I said when I saw his questionable face. “Oh, I thought I heard something as well” he said. “I thought it was the syrup folk or something coming by” I stopped. “syrup folk?” He then pointed to the labyrinth of active sky blue sap lines that criss-crossed around the property. Though I now understood what he meant, there was something cryptic, almost ominous (and probably uniquely Vermont) about the term “syrup folk” that really stuck with me, hence the name for this blog post.
Though my trip here was discomforting, it’s these sort of experiences that often can be regarded as some of our finest ones – allowing you to discover what’s deep between your own skin and bones. And at the very least, they make for the best stories.
As we were about to leave, just to confirm my suspicions that something was inside, a raccoon popped it’s head out of the third story window, through a broken section of shutter, stared at us for a few seconds, than dipped back in to the deep cold darkness inside.
This conjured up a few “Breaking Bad” jokes.
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To all of my amazing fans and supporters, I am truly grateful and humbled by all of the support and donations through out the years that have kept Obscure Vermont up and running.
As you all know I spend countless hours researching, writing, and traveling to produce and sustain this blog. Obscure Vermont is funded entirely on generous donations that you the wonderful viewers and supporters have made. Expenses range from internet fees to host the blog, to investing in research materials, to traveling expenses. Also, donations help keep me current with my photography gear, computer, and computer software so that I can deliver the best quality possible.
If you value, appreciate, and enjoy reading about my adventures please consider making a donation to my new Gofundme account or Paypal. Any donation would not only be greatly appreciated and help keep this blog going, it would also keep me doing what I love. Thank you!
This abandoned house is lost in between the lines of the blur of traffic and the pensive solitude of the woods it sits in. Only a stones throw away from the nightmare that is 5 corners, this house sits alone on the threshold of suburbia, licking its wounds in dense woods that serves as its sanctuary. Time seems to have been forgotten by the modern world here, whose motorists pass it frequently 10 feet beyond its rotting doorstep.
The modest 6 room wooden structure has succumbed to its slow death, refusing to make a sound, allowing mother nature to reclaim it at her own rate.
This house tells an ambiguous story. Its age is evident, most likely preceding most of the development around it, and now a symbol of how good times come and go, and how anything can be broken. Inside are various keepsakes littering the dirty floors in knee-high mounds, most indistinguishable as the years and the weather mold everything together in soiled masses of soggy decay. Vines and trees snake their way into the kitchen and furniture sinks its way into the rotting wooden floors.
Local lore tells that a local boy made good, who today owns an area sports team and a huge local transportation company, grew up here, and the reason of the house’s disintegration is because he couldn’t bear the thought of his childhood home being torn down, and would rather have it in a state of decay than the alternative of it not standing on the increasingly busy route it’s fading on.
To some, a small farmhouse might be a boring place to explore, opting for the dreamier abandoned asylums or hotels of neighboring states. But it seems every town has a forsaken property of some caliber. And it’s here in these forgotten and neglected spaces that incubate some of life’s most poignant stories, falling on those with open ears and minds.
Only time will tell what will become of this place, as years go by and the woods grow thicker.
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To all of my amazing fans and supporters, I am truly grateful and humbled by all of the support and donations through out the years that have kept Obscure Vermont up and running.
As you all know I spend countless hours researching, writing, and traveling to produce and sustain this blog. Obscure Vermont is funded entirely on generous donations that you the wonderful viewers and supporters have made. Expenses range from internet fees to host the blog, to investing in research materials, to traveling expenses. Also, donations help keep me current with my photography gear, computer, and computer software so that I can deliver the best quality possible.
If you value, appreciate, and enjoy reading about my adventures please consider making a donation to my new Gofundme account or Paypal. Any donation would not only be greatly appreciated and help keep this blog going, it would also keep me doing what I love. Thank you!
It seems this year it rains every time the summer sends her best. The weather hasn’t been ideal for adventuring, with a string of floods and road washouts. So when a rare overcast afternoon came my way, I took advantage of it.
Getting together with a good friend, we set off for West Bolton, a remote area located high in the slopes of the Green Mountains, only accessible by a labyrinth of back roads that twist their way up steep hills. But as soon as we left Route 117, we were greeted with washed out dirt roads and attention grabbing orange cones as our car bumped and jarred its way into the mountains.
With Motown soul coming through the radio, I gazed up at the mountains in my reverie, the fogs soluble on the summer canopy. It was wild country up here, and the change of scenery was lifting my spirits, as I felt like I was coming back from what seemed like a ruin.
There was one particular house I wanted to see, and as we ascended up a slight turn, it’s ramshackle facade came into view with tall grass and vines and a rusting tin roof under the promise of rain.
I loved this old house. The front lawn had grown wild and covered the piles of discarded junk that surrounded the house, their forms almost indistinguishable. All of the old farmhouse windows were broken, and from its vulnerable wounds, the inside could be seen. The inside appeared to be chaotic and filthy. Most of the windows had mysterious mounds of debris in front of them, some of it threatening to spill out onto the lawn. Other windows had quilts and bed sheets nailed over them from the inside, and were long moth ridden and disintegrating. But my line of sight faded into the contrasts as the heavy shadows soon swallowed my visibility, keeping the house’s secrets lost in the dark. The battered metal screen door hung open near the front lawn, stopped by the tall grasses. The remnants of a rotting wooden fence occasionally protruded from the growth.
Looking at this old house now, and its depleting condition and fading paint, it’s almost as if this property is wistfully saying “this past century went like a life out of me”
With a surprising steady flow of traffic for a rut chocked back road, and tall grass that obscured our vision, we decided it was best (to my disappointment) not to venture too close to the sagging property. That decision may have proved to be very smart, as we heard scurrying through the grass and the sounds of claws on wooden siding. Some kind of animal had just crawled into one of the broken windows.
With some quick research, I was able to find some old photos of the house, which offered an interesting glimpse into what once was. The first thing I found out was it had an official name; The Pease House, named after its founding family. The wide open spaces and cleared hill meadows that surrounded the house have long returned to woods – this house a last enclave of Bolton’s former life as the area continues to meld with the untamed mountains above.
The determined people who once cleared the land and built this house, the ones who once knew the front porch and the doorways and cherished the moonlight on hot summer nights, now nothing more than dust – a deadpanning reality at how fragile urban infrastructure is, and how easily things can become lost.
The reasoning for its current abandonment is unknown to me, but as someone informed me, it is owned by someone. Perhaps sometimes, we are the ghosts we don’t believe in.
The Pease House circa 1860s
The Pease House Today
West Bolton is a name lost to history. What used to be a small village in the mountains, complete with 2 churches, a sawmill and general store, is now nothing more then a name on the map, with a scattering of private residences and a more well-known golf course that wears the same name.
The town of Bolton is mountainous, rocky and gave the early settlers more work than they bargained for. It’s no surprise that Bolton is referred to as “the land of boulders and bears.” The town has more than twenty mountains of over 2,000 feet, and nearly as many more just under that height – creating natural barriers to trade and travel in the town, along with isolation that would meet the pioneering families under the stars. Today, it’s rugged slopes create outdoor recreation opportunities in the form of skiing and snowboarding at Bolton Mountain, tons of rock climbing opportunities and the infamous Bolton potholes, a beloved swimming hole that the locals despise because of the hoards of disrespectful visitors who flock there.
Even driving along Interstate 89, which seems to be the most traveled route in town which also doesn’t technically let you off in Bolton, the awesome vertical cliffs that the highway cuts through are testaments to Bolton’s nickname. Though many of Bolton’s bumps remain unnamed, one vertical drop earned its namesake from a man who committed suicide from it years ago. Alan’s leap is seemingly well solidified amongst the locals for its views and it’s perception of a moment of morbidity. Vermont is known for its grueling winters, and Bolton’s position literally on the spine of the Green Mountains means it gets dumped on rather spitefully once the temperatures drop below freezing. A blog commenter recalled that two women who lived down the road from one another both committed suicide because of the internal darkness they faced brought on by the perennial death of the year.
Historical records tell stories of bears coming down from the mountains and mass slaughtering sheep flocks around the village of West Bolton. The bear problem was once so bad that Bolton once had the honor of being the town with more bears slain in its borders than any other town in Vermont.
In the 1930s, The Government bought around 6,000 acres of land around West Bolton and Jericho for the Ethan Allen Training Site, and much of the village of West Bolton was destroyed in the name of progress. Today, all that remains are a few foundations sitting in the quiet woodlands above boulder logged streams and old Apple Trees hinting at the site of a former farm. I was told that UVM mapped the area and had a walking tour for a while in the 1990s.
The surrounding woods along the back roads that travel along the ridge lines and swamps are congested with “US Property, NO Trespassing” warnings on almost every tree.
One of the few remaining foundations we were able to find is the site of a former church, now nothing more than its front stairs.
Nearby was the old West Bolton Cemetery, which is still maintained. It was oddly quiet here, with a solemn weight that seemed to hang over the Maples and hollows. There was also an amusing sign attached to the front gate, humorously prohibiting ATVs from riding in the local cemetery. Within 10 seconds of us seeing this sign, a group of ATVs came up the dirt road towards the cemetery, 4 of them packed with 2-3 riders on each one. They slowed down as they approached the fence, revved their engines obnoxiously for several minutes, then took off down the road sending gravel and dust in their wake. Maybe they didn’t like the new sign?
I sometimes enjoy walking through older cemeteries to admire and become intrigued with unique epitaphs, symbols alluding to secret societies, and other oddities that have been chiseled onto the aging headstones. There is always a story to be told. One of my favorite finds in West Bolton was this etching of a hand, with a finger dramatically pointing up to the skies above. In the 1800s, it was sometimes common for this to appear on headstones, with the intention of saying that without a doubt, this deceased soul did in fact go to heaven. But no one knows for sure if this gesture was telling any profound truth or not. And I suppose you don’t have to go ghost hunting in your afterlife to find out.
As seen in “Downtown” Jonesville.
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To all of my amazing fans and supporters, I am truly grateful and humbled by all of the support and donations through out the years that have kept Obscure Vermont up and running.
As you all know I spend countless hours researching, writing, and traveling to produce and sustain this blog. Obscure Vermont is funded entirely on generous donations that you the wonderful viewers and supporters have made. Expenses range from internet fees to host the blog, to investing in research materials, to traveling expenses. Also, donations help keep me current with my photography gear, computer, and computer software so that I can deliver the best quality possible.
If you value, appreciate, and enjoy reading about my adventures please consider making a donation to my new Gofundme account or Paypal. Any donation would not only be greatly appreciated and help keep this blog going, it would also keep me doing what I love. Thank you!
In 1850, Hiram Allen would discover Elgin Spring on his property near Vergennes, and knew he had found a way to turn a profit during the spring hotel craze of the antebellum age, a popular therapeutic treatment at that time.
He built an elegant Greek Revival addition onto his cottage style farmhouse and turned his property into a boardinghouse, located on the crest of sloping pasture lands, with a beautiful view fading into the rugged Adirondacks in the distance. The waters from the spring were peddled to patrons for their supposed medicinal properties, and among many things, were said to “purify blood”.
An analysis of Elgin Springs written in 1889 describes the springs to be so perfect in character that they were encouraged to be comparable to other famous springs across the globe.
“The analysis of Elgin Waters” – May 1st, 1889
But as with most health crazes, it came and went. The business prospered for 20 years until 1870 when it closed for good. After that, it became a private residence and changed hands until the 1970s. By then, the house had been deteriorating due to neglect as the years passed.
The town of Panton eventually condemned it, which is the reason for its abandonment. The current family who owns the property used the house for salvageable materials – selling off pieces of the house to people that wanted period details for their own house renovations. They have apparently been approached a few times by curious people wishing to purchase the property, but the family doesn’t wish to sell it.
Today, the people who used to sing their praises here have long been dust and bones, and a walk around the property is waltzing through memories, playing those sad songs like they were alive.
It was a white hot Vermont afternoon when I came across this wild abandoned house. Everything was in bloom, the plants wearing a brilliant green that was under competing blissful cerulean skies. The house sat pretty close to the wide shoulder of 22A, a thunderous roar of cars coming at a constant pace, traveling the long distance between Vergennes and Fair Haven. But we might have otherwise been in another world, the thick amount of foliage that had began to grow over the house provided ample invisibility from passersby. It was a magnificent house, it’s elegance still golden. Though what had been left behind was sparse, there was just enough for the imagination to latch onto.
Though it was once a hotel, it was the bones of a private residence I was exploring. The ruins of the interior retained all its original character, and though what had been left behind was sparse, there was just enough for the imagination to latch onto.
The whole place was practically being ensnared by vines and trees, adding a surrealistic quality to its decayed beauty. It was almost like mother nature was trying to demolish this place herself, saying its future was gone, using her roots and plants to pull this house down towards the earth, reclaiming what was once hers.
The springs that brought folks out this way over a decade ago were nowhere to be found either. Though I wasn’t that familiar with the property boundaries and was more concerned about getting caught trespassing out in the open.
The Carriage Barn
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To all of my amazing fans and supporters, I am truly grateful and humbled by all of the support and donations through out the years that have kept Obscure Vermont up and running.
As you all know I spend countless hours researching, writing, and traveling to produce and sustain this blog. Obscure Vermont is funded entirely on generous donations that you the wonderful viewers and supporters have made. Expenses range from internet fees to host the blog, to investing in research materials, to traveling expenses. Also, donations help keep me current with my photography gear, computer, and computer software so that I can deliver the best quality possible.
If you value, appreciate, and enjoy reading about my adventures please consider making a donation to my new Gofundme account or Paypal. Any donation would not only be greatly appreciated and help keep this blog going, it would also keep me doing what I love. Thank you!
Hidden in plain sight in the center of town, this sad looking house has a story to be told that would make misery proud.
This once attractive house is steeped in hard luck and roams in the ether. Though it was once a symbol of grandeur, it now stays down with its demons, lost to the vines that ensnare it – trying to keep its skeletons in.
As the story goes, the house was the home of an elderly woman, who over the years she lived there, became an extravagant hoarder. Eventually, the garbage inside reached ceiling level, and the house was in absolute squalor. A once proud and independent person, she now sealed her house like a fort, fighting her secret wars.
She was eventually evicted, and the house became condemned, and left to sit there. Gazing upon it from the sun bleached sidewalk out front, it’s amazing how overwhelming nature can be when melding with something artificial; something man made. These countless plants have securely attached and actually have became part the exterior walls. Who knows how long it would be before the force is too much, and the first pane of window glass breaks, allowing entry for the outside.
Summer Humidity
I had picked the worst day to investigate this house. It was an incredibly hot August afternoon, and the humidity was sliding off the streets. As me and a friend parked the car out front, I was beginning to rethink my decision, but decided to push forward. Making our way through the urban jungle to the back of the house, we needed a way inside that was unobstructed by garbage. Walking through long grass that were needles that drew blood, the sweat that was forming on my body began to sting the fresh wounds as it entered. I finally found our entrance, the only door that had been spared by a barricade of garbage. The door swung open effortlessly, and we stepped into the dark interior, our eyes painfully straining to adjust.
Upon stepping into the kitchen, I soon realized I had my work cut out for me. The garbage was so high that the floors were not visible. In order to walk around, we had to awkwardly stumble across the top of the garbage mounds, which were well over knee deep in height. I now had to hunch over to prevent my head from hitting the ceiling, as I attempted to walk from room to room as I fumbled and fell in the unknown below my feet. Ironically, there were “paths” leading from room to room – obviously someone had went through the trouble of getting around in here before.
And then, something strange happened. Subconsciously, both me and my friend found ourselves being intently silent, daring not to speak in anything more than a whisper. Even stranger, we both seemed to recall our actions at the same time.
Another thing I didn’t anticipate was the humidity inside the house. It was stifling. I had only been inside 5 minutes, and between attempting to successfully move from one place to another while seeing where I was going in the smoldering shadows, I was already drenched in sweat. The summer heat baked the house, and the smell of plaster rot, mold, water damage and the cooking garbage was pungent. I had made my way through the kitchen and the parlor, and found a staircase on my right. The door had so much garbage on both sides that I had to spend several minutes attempting to open it just wide enough for me to squeeze through. Not surprisingly, there was more garbage on the stairs, making it a dangerous trip up. I looked at my friend, and she looked at me as if to say “your call”. At this point, I was wondering what I had gotten myself into. Through the maze of littered hallways and staining shadows, it was almost like a silent challenge to the house, as if to say “come and find me”, as I felt smaller and smaller.
There were some other unusual things inside that I noted. The doors and windows were covered in strips of fly paper that had been there for years, hundreds of dead flies clinging to the stained yellow paper. Also, each door upstairs had a “No Trespassing” sign and a “No Smoking” sign nailed to both sides.
Old photographs, furniture, handwritten letters, priceless China and clothes lay scattered in heaps within each room. All that captured her heart was on the table, lost to the ether. Part of me wished the ghosts in the room would let me hear their voices when they ask what I see.
In terms of a psychological experience of discovery, this was quite powerful, allowing you to pick at the pieces of someone else’s puzzle, while allowing your wondering mind to read between the lines, telling yourself to come down, it’s alright. Underneath waning silhouettes, I felt strangely connected to this person I’ve never met before.
Today, the house has long been gutted, and is in the process of being renovated. It’s like this mysterious woman and her alien, lonesome world never existed. If there is one thing I’ve learned about life, inhabited throughout my urban explorations, is that no matter how grand something might seem, nothing is ever more than temporary.
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To all of my amazing fans and supporters, I am truly grateful and humbled by all of the support and donations through out the years that have kept Obscure Vermont up and running.
As you all know I spend countless hours researching, writing, and traveling to produce and sustain this blog. Obscure Vermont is funded entirely on generous donations that you the wonderful viewers and supporters have made. Expenses range from internet fees to host the blog, to investing in research materials, to traveling expenses. Also, donations help keep me current with my photography gear, computer, and computer software so that I can deliver the best quality possible.
If you value, appreciate, and enjoy reading about my adventures please consider making a donation to my new Gofundme account or Paypal. Any donation would not only be greatly appreciated and help keep this blog going, it would also keep me doing what I love. Thank you!
During the nineteenth century, the Adirondack Mountains began to be rummaged heavily for exploitable natural resources. The intrepid prospectors pushed farther north into a deep world of desolate woods, vast swamps and vertical slopes haunted by grueling winters. In 1826, industrialist Archibald McIintyre and his partner David Henderson, who were guided by an Indian of the Saint Francis Tribe, would discover iron ore where the headwaters of the iconic Hudson River spilled out of the mountains on their descent into New York Harbor, which lead to the creation of The Adirondack Iron Works to extract the precious commodity.
A settlement, which confusingly is either spelled as Adirondac or Adirondack, was formed around the mines and iron smelting operations. The village would grow to about sixteen dwellings, with a central multifarious building used as school, church and a meeting room.
The mines impacted the village to such an extent, that it became singularly lucrative, which meant that the first bank in the Adirondacks opened here, instead of surrounding towns that were easier to access and far more populated. But it’s previously mentioned remotely inauspicious location ensured life here was a constant struggle of endurance, and if it wasn’t for the seduction of fortune, no one would have decided to attempt to live here.
The iron ore here was at the time considered the best deposit in the country, but it’s far flung remoteness up numerous steep slopes all helped to run down the operations until they became prostrate ghosts.
In 1840, a road was finally hacked through the hills from the mines down to Port Henry, which was another emerging mining town and regional hub that boomed thanks to it’s location on Lake Champlain.
The Saratoga Railroad, which wanted to build a special spur line up to the blast furnaces, couldn’t construct up the vertical rises and was only able to extend the line to North Creek, a small hamlet “nearby” in the town of Newcomb. Because of this, the ore from Tahawus had to be hauled down to North Creek in tractors, or any other creative method they could devise.
The fact that Adirondac(k)’s existence was brief was owed to a continuous chaser of circumstances that kept running the town down – the most impacting being the impurities in the iron ore they were trying to withdraw – later discovered to be titanium dioxide – that killed the town. The equipment at the time simply wasn’t advanced enough to successfully process the stuff, despite spending a remarkable $43,000 on an impressive fort like stone blast furnace known as McIntyre, which they had hoped would improve efficiency and profits. The entire village was forsaken in 1857 when the Adirondac(k) Iron Works gave up.
A decade later, a hunting club had eyed the land and the deserted ruins and eventually bought up most of it. The club at the base of the highest peak in New York attracted such notable people as Vice President Theodore Roosevelt, who was on a hunting trip here when President McKinley was assassinated by gunshot in Buffalo. Staying in regional character, the hunting club changed names and identities quite a bit. The Preston Ponds Club came in 1876 for both hunters and fisherman. Just a year later, it became the Adirondack Club, and in 1989, renamed itself the Tahawus club, the titular name that most of the area wears today.
Times changed again and in 1940, a new mine opened, this time for the situationally ironic purpose of obtaining the titanium dioxide that had been responsible for previous failures in mining. World War 2 was in full swing, and because wars generally are hungry tempered affairs, anything that supported the war effort was in high demand, things like lead.
The National Lead Industries began mining along Sanford Lake which is southeast of the village, an area that would become known as The Lower Works. In 1943, the abandoned village was rebuilt for the new mine workers and was thematically renamed Tahawus. By 1945, Tahawus had 84 buildings, including some of the extant dwellings from the original town.
Before operations ceased in 1989, over 40 million tons of titanium oxide were extracted from the lower works, but the changing economy and bankruptcy would close the iron works. Once again, the wilderness was left to reclaim what was once its own, but this time no one tried to rebuild the town, leaving Tahawus to bury its faith in the rocky mountain soil.
From my experience, most ghost towns in the northeast are nothing more than overgrown cellar holes, but Tahawus still retains 10 of its original buildings from it’s 1940s reincarnation, one preserved home from 1845, and the imposing remnants of the McIntyre Blast Furnace with trees growing through the cracks in its stonework, all accessible by a stretch of nicely laid asphalt (until previously, it was a dirt road).
The Open Space Institute purchased Tahawus and surrounding forests in 2003 to preserve the unique area and formed the Tahawus Tract Project. Until 2006, the ghostly ruins of the Tahawus mines at Sanford Lake were also still existing, but have been since demolished, but the startling grey toned waste dunes still devour much of the lakeshore and Google satellite imagery of the place.
To find Tahawus’s rotting bones, they lay at the end of a long and desolate road which carves its way around swamps and streams, and follows the scars of an old railroad bed. Eventually, it comes to a rather abrupt dead end right in the center of town. And it is here where you can finally start picking at the pieces of this fascinating community.
Though Tahawus is a ghost town, because of it’s proximity on a roadway that leads to the junction of several popular hiking trails that take off towards cloud splitting Mount Marcy, it’s probably one of the least dead places in the Adirondacks. But on an interesting note; a passing hiker did tell me that he remembers bodies being found in Henderson Lake in the 70s that were the suspected victims of a local serial killer or madman. Or, so he told me.
Tahawus Today
The road to Tahawus was a long and lonely drive, passing through incredibly vast wilderness areas that a person could walk into and never reemerge from. I was actually a little surprised to find out that there was an actual road that lead right into town.
The road, aptly named “Tahawus Road” plunges deep into the wild, forwarded by what me and my friends refer to as the world’s most misleading “dead end” sign – as the road continues to cover ground for an unsuspected 7 miles before finally ending. As the forlorn stretch of asphalt climbed further into the woods, you could see the remnants of railroad lines that used to pass through, evidence of the areas industrial past. The rail beds had long been removed, leaving leveled banks that slice through an otherwise organic landscape. So, what did I expect to see as I entered Tahawus? I wasn’t sure what I expected, but it certainly wasn’t what greeted my hungry eyes.
Though the environs were squalid and eerie, admittedly, my first impression of this community was a bit underwhelming. The misleading photographs I found on the internet had set my expectations pretty high, but the unanticipated reality was humble and wrecked. What I had expected to be a large forgotten town reachable by trekking through thick forest and undergrowth, with somewhat of a sense of pre-coordinated directions, wasn’t. Instead, I could easily explore the place by hopping out of the car in a dirt parking lot cramped with other cars, hikers with backpacks, and one of my favorite jazz tunes wafting from the stereo.
Some of the surviving/deteriorating buildings have wasted away to the point beyond recognition, and others weren’t far behind. The roofs collapsed where they’re not entirely missing, forming mangled and wild shapes, and the dead weight slowly dragging many of the structures down the banks into the Hudson River.
Another interesting feature was that all of the buildings looked almost identical, with brown cedar shingles and a dark green forest trim.
A few buildings proved safe enough to enter. But the interiors were claustrophobic and vertigo, as each building became warped as they deteriorated at their own rate. There were no relics left behind amid the rubble, each room was an empty wooden shell. The ramshackle atmosphere was an enigma, masquerading the dangers by putting them in plain sight – your eyes straining continuously for a safe passage.
But it was also this carnival of chaos that’s been a few decades in the making that give me a strong feeling of awe that a great adventure always does. Every room was done in old fashioned wainscoting, each it’s own vibrant lead painted color which had been peeling and weathering for years. The sun poured through the cracks in the walls and kissed my fingertips as you begin to think about who might have lived here beforehand and how this new atmosphere has filled the places where they once used to stand.
Later during the dying days of Fall, I would make a return trip.
In the shadowy dales of the upland marshes, there were already pockets of snow, the fir trees bent over with a rather thick dusting. This was the first snow I’ve seen of the season. Though it was only around 1 in the afternoon, the harsh glow of the late Autumn sun made it feel otherwise, as the scraggly woodlands basked in sort of an offsetting golden glow.
I was surprised at just how bad Tahawus had become since my last journey here in the spring. Most of the remaining houses had either fallen over almost entirely, or were significantly worse off than before. The majority of the buildings I had wondered in months ago had become far worse for wear. Now, I had to take very careful precautions to set foot inside. As it was, my friend had already stepped on a nail which went through his boot. Not the best way to begin an adventure.
I can’t very well describe the feeling of exploring these modest dwellings, the interiors adorned with peeling walls shedding their lurid lead paint onto the dusty wooden floors as the late afternoon sunlight filtered inside as if keeping an eye on a sacred Adirondack shrine, the former world of man now home to nature and dust, finding peace with each other in subtle nuances. Any feelings of human habitation is a queer thought now, as time incinerates what that was to Tahawus.
At the alarming rate of Tahawus’s decay, it’s strange to think about the reality of the village becoming nothing more then a name on a map 3-5 years down the road, its buildings returning to dust that is scattered to the Adirondack winds.
But despite its shocking rate of deterioration from when I first visited only 3 years ago, and it’s crowds, it still remains one of my favorite places in upstate New York, which may or may not entirely be due to nostalgia.
The Old McIntyre Blast Furnace site
Tahawus Town
MacNaughton Cottage (1845). This was the house that Vice President Theodore Roosevelt stayed in during his hike to Mount Marcy when he received news of President William McKinley being close to death after being shot in Buffalo, and is the only “restored” building in Tawahus, as well as the first building you see in town.
Links:
If you’re interested in Tahawus, The Adirondack Park Agency published a great article on it.
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