Spencer and Katrina Trask spent the summer of 1906 on Clay Island, a small island just offshore of Bolton Landing in Lake George. The Trasks used Clay Island as an escape from the endless stream of extravagant house parties at their grand mansion in…

While the Adirondacks had once been considered “one unbroken wilderness” and an exceptionally harsh environment, the rise of the Massachusetts Transcendentalists in the two decades prior to the American Civil War changed the public perception of…

The Stone Tower was most likely constructed around 1893, the same time as the Yaddo Mansion. The Trasks intended to use the upper story of the structure as their family chapel, with the lower level being used to store ice. The Trasks later came to…

Upon the completion of the reconstructed Yaddo Mansion in 1893, Spencer and Katrina Trask sought to furnish their new home with all the trappings of an English Tudor country estate as well as all the comforts of a modern American home. The Great Hall…

Located on the first floor of the Yaddo Mansion, the spacious Music Room is one of the primary social spaces at Yaddo. Following the communal dinner and the end of quiet hours, artists in residence are free to explore the rooms of the estate. For…

Up until 1776, the Public Universal Friend has been known as Jemima Wilkinson, a spirited if not incredibly precocious young Quaker woman from Cumberland, Rhode Island. In the year 1776, at the age of 24, she succumbed to a terrible illness—likely…