Gettysburg, PA
Gettysburg, Pa
Lyndhurst Mansion
As we started toward home from our New England trip, we decided to break the 1500-mile journey up into more manageable pieces. We have found that any drive over about 6 hours is very tiring. We also wanted to take the opportunity while being in this part of the country to see some more points of interest.
Upon leaving the Cape, we made a stop in Tarrytown, NY to visit the Lyndhurst Mansion. This 14,000 square foot home was built in 1842 and owned by a succession of wealthy 19-century families, the best known of which was the infamous Wall Street tycoon and Robber Baron (really wanted to work that term into the blog…) Jay Gould and his family. The home is in the Gothic Revival style and was quite the break from architectural norms at the time it was built. One of the quirkiest aspects of the house is the use of faux techniques in place of natural solutions. Allow us to explain. There is a massive stone entrance to the home that is not stone at all. While there were a number of quarries just down the Hudson River, the owner chose to use wood that was, through the use of plaster and faux painting, made to look like stone. While today, we might see this as taking the cheap way out, at the time, it was a drastically more expensive approach. The paints had to be hand mixed. The artists had to be brought in from France. The obvious question was why would someone do that. The answer was because they could. It was an overt display of their wealth. In another overt display of wealth, Jay Gould use to “commute” into New York City every day for work in his 282-foot yacht. He did this, in part, because the local rail lines were owned by his archnemesis, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and Gould refused to patronize his railroad!
FUN FACT: The yacht was eventually sold to the Venezualan navy (or it might have been Columbian, sources disagree), converted to a gunboat, and ultimately captured by a German cruiser in 1902.
Gettysburg, PA
The State of Mississippi monument
After Lyndhurst, we continued on to Gettysburg, PA. When we arrived, we were met with utter chaos. Our 180-site campground had about 179 campers, 250 cars, and 500 children! (That last one may be a slightly high estimate!). We managed to squeeze in to the last available campsite and set up camp. We quickly learned that the campground was hosting their annual Halloween festival complete with trick or treating, a pumpkin carving contest, hay rides, and a dance! It was sheer madness. Seeing as we had no candy for the hordes of trick or treaters, we hightailed it out of there and went to the Gettysburg battlefield!
We stopped at the visitors center to map out our plan. While there, we watched a film that provided an overview of the 3-day battle and we toured the on-site museum. We successfully killed enough time that when we returned to the campground, trick or treating was over. There were, however, still masses of kids, and adults, running around in costumes. This included one ~4 year old boy who was dressed as Chucky, and who, when he saw us, threatened us menacingly with his knife!!!! It was hilarious and horrifying at the same time.
The following day we did an auto tour of the “battlefield”. It is tough to use “battlefield” in the singular as the fighting stretched over miles on three sides of the town of Gettysburg. As with other battlefields we have visited, being on the actual location is eye opening. It gives you a much better understanding of what was happening and what the two armies were up against. The battlefield is incredibly well marked and provides a detailed look into where various brigades, divisions, etc. were on the field and what role they played. It was a great way to wrap up our year of learning about the civil war.
