As a person who lives in, visits, or simply enjoys Essex, you will want to be included on the list of donors whose generosity created the Essex Quarry Nature Park.
Champlain Area Trails is asking you to make a donation to permanently protect this fabulous 35-acre property, located on Main Street, just ½ mile south of the ferry. You will invest in a great community project and support developing interpretive trails that explain the property’s unique natural, geological, and historical features; plus amazing fossils!
Your donation will create a lasting legacy at Essex Quarry for you and your family. Here’s how: Those individuals and families who donate $1,000 and above will be honored on a permanent plaque placed at the trailhead with a special highlight for those who give $5,000 and above. Donors at other levels will be noted at the registration kiosk. Thus, all donors will be forever engrained in Essex history.
You will ensure public access to Essex Quarry for families and friends to hike, ski, and learn about nature and Essex history. As a nature park, it will bring visitors to Essex and nearby communities where they will patronize local businesses and help the local economy. To learn more about the Essex Quarry project and see pretty pictures, click here.
To make your gift or for more information, please click here, send a check to CATS, PO Box 193, Westport, NY 12993, or call our office at 518-962-2287.
For those interested in naming opportunities, Essex Quarry provides a number of options including trails, benches, and even the name of park; please contact our office for details.
As a final note, picture this: As people get off the ferry from Vermont, they see a sign directing them to “Essex Quarry Nature Park.” They walk or drive for a half-mile up Main Street through the town’s business district and by historic homes to hike on the Essex Quarry trails where they have fun, meet a few local residents getting some exercise on their in-town trail, and learn about natural communities and geology, are amazed by fascinating fossils, and find out how people quarried stones, shaped them, and moved them to locations near and far. Leaving the quarry, they go back through town, stop in stores, get food and drinks in local eateries, maybe spend the night in nearby lodging, and explore more of the Valley the next day.
Your donation will make this picture real.
Can you give the history on this quarry? You realize that there were 2 and that the earliest one; which is not this one supplied the stone for many of the early Essex structures. Regardless of what some locals may think. History is about Facts!
OK, just read the history you have written for this place and you are wrong! It was the other quarry that is said to be on the Point.. once known as Hoffnagles point where stone was quarried in the late 1700s on. And I believe it was their quarry that supplied stone for the Brooklyn Bridge and State house. There is even a painting I believe posted to this Essex on Lake Champlain site titled “View Of Essex” which is actually a painting showing the Hoffnagle Farm and quarry operation on the point, Southern end of the Mouth of the Bouquet River. It was a much larger operation! I do have photos of them removing blocks that were sent to NYCity.
Thanks for your interest, Daniel. We are still learning more and more about the history of this amazing place and, as you are certainly correct about history being about facts, we turn to primary resource material to learn what we can. In this case, the September 3, 1871 edition of the Essex County Republican indicates that Mr. Solomon who had the Willsboro quarry on Ligonier Point fell behind on his contract for the Brooklyn Bridge and fulfilled it with stone from the Essex Quarry. In 1874, the Essex Quarry hired 200 men to fulfill their contracts, which must have been a tremendous economic boost to the area. We look forward to learning more about the history and welcome documented information on the history of the site; please feel free to contact us at (518) 962-2287 or at info@champlainareatrails.com.