The Hamlet of Roxbury Historic District

The Hamlet of Roxbury Historic District. . , The Roxbury Historic District is a concentration of buildings chronicling the evolution of a rural Catskills village and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The District includes Greek Revival and Italianate residential buildings and monumental religious and educational edifices. , The area was settled between 1788 and 1800 by families from Fairfield County Connecticut. In 1836 the hamlet of Roxbury had a post office, two churches, two taverns, two stores, a tannery, an iron foundry, a clothing works, and twenty-five dwellings. By 1869 there were approximately 100 buildings in Roxbury including five general stores, wagon shops, cooperages, harness shop, tannery, dress maker/millinery shop and several taverns., In 1872 the arrival of the Ulster and Delaware (U&D) Railroad fostered a new period of growth and the hamlet nearly doubled in size, The rail link to Kingston and New York City supported the local diary industry transporting first cheese and butter and later to the City., By the 1880s the U&D was providing regularly service between New York City and Catskill resorts. While Roxbury did not emerge as a tourist center, a few small hotels and boarding houses were built. Some families with roots in Roxbury returned to establish country and summer houses. Among them were the Jay Gould family. Jay Gould, the "Gilded Age” financier was born and raised on a farm near Roxbury. After leaving Roxbury in 1853, he maintained an interest in the community and when the Dutch Reform church burned in 1891 he offered to build a new stone church for the hamlet. The construction was overseen by his family (particularly his daughter Helen Gould) after his death. Helen later built the Kirkside Estate, a prominent feature of the historic district., Roxbury was the birthplace and summer home of naturalist John Burroughs who counted among his friends industrialists Henry Ford, Harvey Firestone and Thomas Edison who came to visit him at his cabin in Roxbury, Woodchuck Lodge., Signs funded by the Gould Family, Delaware County and private donations and sponsored by the Roxbury Historic Preservation Commission and the MARK Project.