Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Site, New YorkSnell, Charles W.
History
Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Site, New York
Snell, Charles W.
Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Site (Hyde Park, Dutchess County, N.Y.)
[Illustration: _Vanderbilt Mansion_
NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE
HYDE PARK, NEW YORK
MAY 1960 NH5-VM-7000]
Note: Estate Boundary extended about ¾ mile east at the time of Mr.
Vanderbilt’s death in 1938.
BARD ROCK
BOATHOUSE
BOAT LANDING
DOCK
BOATHOUSE
HUDSON RIVER
HYDE PARK RAILROAD STATION
GATEHOUSE
COACHMAN’S RESIDENCE
COACH HOUSE
GREENHOUSE
TOOLHOUSE
THE GARDENS
GARDENER’S COTTAGE
VANDERBILT MANSION
THE PAVILION
PARKING
TENNIS COURT
MARIANETTA CREEK
CRIM FLOW CREEK
POWERHOUSE
THE WALES HOUSE
ENTRANCE
RESIDENCE
SHERWOOD POND
ALBANY POST ROAD
ST. JAMES CHURCHYARD
EXIT
DAIRYMAN
BARN
GARAGE
CARPENTER
BLACKSMITH
HOWARD MANSION
She was interested in young people and saw to it that they had
facilities for learning the domestic and industrial arts in the local
school. For young men 13 and older, she organized and maintained a
completely equipped clubroom in the village. For the young women in whom
Mrs. Vanderbilt took a personal interest, she furnished funds for their
complete education.
Each summer Mrs. Vanderbilt gave the school children of Hyde Park either
a strawberry and ice cream festival or a cruise on the Hudson on a
chartered steamer. Sometimes she joined forces with other wealthy
residents and invited all the citizens of the town for a steamer cruise
on the river; on one occasion this involved more than 700 people.
Through the Sunday Schools of the village, she arranged for each child
to have needed clothes and toys at Christmas. And on Christmas day she
would drive through the village in a sleigh loaded with gifts that she
handed out to the children she met.
A reading room attached to St. James Chapel was established and
maintained by Mrs. Vanderbilt for the people of the village. She was
also responsible for bringing the Red Cross movement to Hyde Park in
1911; and in 1917, she was a prime mover in the establishment of the
District Health Nurse Service.
With the outbreak of World War I, the Vanderbilts, James Roosevelt (a
half brother of Franklin D. Roosevelt), and Thomas Newbold equipped,
clothed, and armed for a 2-year period a Hyde Park Home Defense Company
of 65 men. The Vanderbilts also arranged educational lectures, bringing
to the townhall eminent authorities on various subjects. In 1920,
Vanderbilt and Archibald Rogers jointly donated the money for a motion
picture projector, thus bringing the first movies to Hyde Park. Other
community projects drew Vanderbilt’s support, including an $18,000
donation for Hyde Park’s first stone bridge over Crum Elbow Creek on the
Albany Post Road, just north of the village.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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