Arden, New York

Arden, is a hamlet near the northern town line of Tuxedo, New York.

Related Topics:
Hamlet - Tuxedo, New York

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The area was originally known as Greenwood, and was noted for the iron works belonging to Robert and Peter P. Parrott, of Parrott gun fame. The Greenwood Furnace was established in 1810; during the American Civil War, the furnace produced the iron for the famous Parrott Gun, built in Cold Spring, New York by the Parrott brothers. The Parrotts built St. John's Episcopal Church in Arden in 1863. By the 1890s, the iron industry in New York was in decline due to the discovery of surface beds of iron in Minnesota.

Related Topics:
Iron works - Parrott gun - 1810 - American Civil War - Cold Spring, New York - 1863 - 1890s - New York - Minnesota

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Arden was the name of the 30,000-acre (120 km² ) estate owned by railroad magnate Edward Harriman and Mary Averell Harriman. In 1885 Harriman learned that the 7863-acre Parrott family estate was for sale. He bought it for $52,500 and named it in honor of Mrs. Parrot— it was her maiden name. Over the next several years he purchased an additional twenty thousand acres, almost forty different parcels of land, and built forty miles of bridle paths to connect them all. It was from this estate that his widow would donate ten thousand acres (and one million dollars) to New York state to start Harriman State Park in 1910.

Related Topics:
Railroad - Edward Harriman - Mary Averell Harriman - 1885 - New York state - Harriman State Park - 1910

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The house is presently used as a conference center by Columbia University; it is a National Historic Landmark. Harriman had planned it for many years, but lived in it for only a few months before his death.

Related Topics:
Columbia University - National Historic Landmark

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