Posts Tagged ‘Shelburne Farms’
reel irresponsibly
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As described in yesterday’s post, Our Lady of the Pentacle and myself found ourselves at Burlington’s Shelburne Farms, whereupon we discovered that we had accidentally wandered onto a Vanderbilt estate whose landscape had been designed by Frederick Law Olmstead. Wow.
We followed the paths down towards the shoreline of Lake Champlain. I’m afraid I didn’t get shots of the massive carriage house or the Webb mansion, as the light wasn’t on my side. Don’t worry, I’ll be back here at some point in the future.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As we moved along the grounds, it was discovered that they no longer do the “tap and bucket” thing when collecting maple sap for syrup production. There were pvc lines running all over the place that all led back to a pumping house hidden away behind a tree line. What was neat about this were the spider webs which had been erected in between the pvc lines. Clever little Ottos. As a note – all spiders, whether male or female, are named Otto. It’s a default name, sort of like “Macintosh HD.” All male dogs are born as “Fred” until they are renamed, which is the sort of hidden theosophical knowledge that Newtown Pentacle has been bringing you since 2009.
We followed the light along the wooded paths, and eventually found our way to the shorelines. I don’t know, Lake Champlain seems pretty great to me, but it’s not considered to be one of the Great Lakes for some reason or another.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Theoretically the sixth largest lake in these United States, Lake Champlain is about 490 square miles in area, and exists at an elevation of around 95-100 feet above sea level. 107 miles long and 14 miles across at its widest point, Lake Champlain’s maximum depth is about 400 feet deep. The flooded valley it exists in – Champlain Valley – is the northernmost section of the Great Appalachian Valley, a landform defined by Quebec to the north and by the State of Alabama to the south. That’s some landform, huh?
There are too many rivers and streams, as well as other lakes, that feed into Lake Champlain for me to efficiently mention.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
For the photographer types amongst you, I basically didn’t leave anything at home on any of my travels in September. I had the tripod, the Canon R6, a 24-105, a 70-300, and the 35mm and 85mm primes. I used a 10 step ND filter for shots like the one above, to slow the picture down and smooth out the distraction of light glinting off of the waves in the lake. I was armed with two extra batteries, several more memory cards than were necessary, and all the bits and bobs you need to keep everything running. I was using a two bag configuration to carry it all – a knap sack for most of the stuff and a sling bag worn pistol holster style for the stuff I was going to need every 5 minutes like lens cloths and a blower.
Lessons learned from the Burlington excursion saw me carrying a laptop, additionally, on the latter legs of my travels. The laptop helped me containerize the photos from the various segments of travel, which was a real issue with the Vermont ones in terms of the prolific manner in which I gather images. This caused me some organizational angst, which was solved by just carrying the damn laptop with me and off loading shots to it from the camera at the end of each day.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I wish I had a week to explore the entirety of Shelburne Farms, truth be told, and to catalog the monumental architecture erected by the Vanderbilt Webb family on the property. Heck, I could probably spend a month here and not get it all. What a spot.
Thing is, we had to get back to the central district of Burlington for our next assignation, a boat tour of Lake Champlain onboard an excursion/tourist boat called “The Spirit of Ethan Allen.” Just walking back to the entrance of Shelburne Farms was going to require a solid hour, and we had to figure in the half hour drive/transport back to Burlington.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I squeezed in one last shot, looking at the grand terrace overlooking the Lake which I’m sure that many a garden party had been held at.
If you’re heading up towards Burlington, Vermont – Shelburne Farms should definitely be on your “must visit” list.
More tomorrow.
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Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
apalling seething
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Day two in Burlington, Vermont. Our Lady of the Pentacle and myself found a great little diner in the downtown historic district – Henry’s – where we had a hearty Vermont breakfast (I had the “Lump” – two pancakes with bacon and eggs sandwiched between them) and a gallon or so of hot coffee. We had two destinations picked out, neither of which we knew too much about. Our overriding goal for this vacation – the first we’ve had since Covid began – was to spend as much time outside and exposed to nature as we could possibly manage. Last week, I described the northern peninsular area that defines Burlington’s interface with Lake Champlain – the Intervale – where the Ethan Allen Homestead and the Winooski River can be found.
On the southern end of Burlington is Shelburne, and Shelburne Farms. It’s about a 20-30 minute drive from Downtown Burlington, and offers not just hiking trails but also a dairy farm and several other working fields.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Now – as mentioned – I had no idea what this place was going to offer, and when the view above popped up – my first statement was “Who the hell were these Shelburne people”? That castle pictured above is the barn. We came here for the odd chance that Our Lady of the Pentacle might be able to interact with farm animals, and whereas I knew in advance that this nearly 1,400 square acres property (that’s nine Sunnyside Yards, Queens peeps) was operated by a non profit, I wasn’t expecting to see a megalithic example of late 19th century Queen Anne Tudor Revival architecture.
Who built this place? Who were they? I had already begun to do the math on this as we walked along the curiously meandering and perfectly sited pathway cut into the grass. Had to be railroad, thought I. Maybe timber, but probably railroad. They also had somebody noteworthy lay this place out… Everything was “just so” and placed exactly where it should be, and the path placements seemed intuitive somehow. The logic indicating you should go one way or another seemed familiar to me. Hmmm…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Let’s start with the Bridegroom, who was an extremely impressive fellow but the less important member of the family who built this place. Actually, a less important family would be a more accurate way to describe the situation, but it’s hard to look down your nose at the Webbs. William Seward Webb studied undergraduate medicine in Europe and graduated from Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1875. A wealthy and distinguished family were the Webbs, and his siblings include railroad executives, Yale lawyers, and even Civil War General Alexander Stewart Webb. His grandfather was a member of George Washington’s staff. Another line of his family is connected to the Dutch era of NYC. They were highly placed and respected members of NYC society.
Saying that, Webb still married well.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It all started on Staten Island in 1794. The farm boy was born into dire poverty and started working as a child on shallow two mast cargo boats called Periaugers that would carry goods and passengers back and forth from Pike Slip in Manhattan to St. George on Staten Island. In 1810, the farm boy borrowed $100 from his mother to buy his own boat. By the 1850’s, the farm boy controlled every boat in NY Harbor in one way or another, and via the Erie Canal – a significant amount of the shipping activity on the Hudson River and Great Lakes. When the farm boy died, in 1877 – two years after William Seward Webb graduated medical school, he had amassed a fortune of more than $100 million. He had also started a rather successful rail road business. That’s about two billion dollars in modern money, incidentally.
That farm boy was Cornelius Vanderbilt, aka the Commodore. William Seward Webb married his granddaughter – Eliza Osgood Vanderbilt.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It seems that the Webb/Vanderbilt union was a happy and productive one, with four children. Eliza Osgood Vanderbilt Webb inherited ten million dollars from her grandfather’s estate, and used her financial largesse in pursuance of creating Shelburne Farms. The overall property is just under 1,400 acres, which involved the buying and incorporation of dozens of smaller farms into a single property. They closed public roads, turning them into internal lanes, and hired architect Robert Henderson Robertson to design and build the grandiose structures on the property. For the landscape and overall design of part of the property – covering about 3,800 square acres, they hired Frederick Law Olmstead – the designer of Central Park in Manhattan.
Shelburne Farms is on the National Register of Historic Places, and is a National Historic Landmark District.
Holy smokes, we just came here in the hope of petting some goats and possibly milking a cow. We somehow blundered our way into a Vanderbilt mansion.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Incorporated as a non profit educational organization in 1972 by the Webb’s descendants, Shelburne Farms is open to the public for recreational and educational pursuits and they have all sorts of programming going on here during normal times. I was told they do fairs here, and you can theoretically book sections of it for private events like weddings.
Seriously, last thing I expected to find myself doing in Burlington was considering… Staten Island…
More tomorrow.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
The Newtown Pentacle 