The Daily Tannenbaum The stigmata of the single life.*

Back when I was doing this 30 activities in the Hudson Valley project for the first time, I went to a coffee shop called The Groundhog. (Back then I wasn’t so long-winded with my blog entries.)  The Groundhog is down in a part of The Valley I don’t frequent very often, so I made a mental note to check out the nearby park and historic home next time I was in the area. Exactly two years and one day later, I had to go the greater Wappingers Falls area on a mission to replace my cheese grater and get a new cell phone. Seriously, the fun never stops when you’re me.

Since finding a good cheese grater was a snap, and the cell phones are actually about $70 cheaper when you buy them online, I took my extra time to finally check out Mesier Park. It’s built on land that was formerly the Mesier homestead, owned by the Mesier family, of all people. The home looks like this:

Hula Monkey and history

I walked up to explore the house a little more closely, which is where I found this plaque:

In case you can’t zoom in on the text, this is how it reads:

ON MAY 1, 1777, THIS DWELLING WITH A FARM OF ABOUT FOUR HUNDRED AND TWENTY TWO ACRES OF LAND ON WHICH IT STOOD, WAS CONVEYED TO PETER MESIER OF NEW YORK CITY BY NICHOLAS BREWER, WHO HAD OWNED THE PROPERTY SINCE OCTOBER 9, 1741. IT BECAME THE RESIDENCE OF THE MESIER FAMILY AND WAS KNOWN AS THE MESIER HOMESTEAD UNTIL AUGUST 27, 1891, WHEN IT WAS CONVEYED, WITH A PLOT OF FIVE ACRES OF THE LAND, TO THE VILLAGE OF WAPPINGERS FALLS UNDER AN AGREEMENT THAT THE PROPERTY SHOULD BE FOREVER KNOWN AS MESIER PARK.

I love a good straight-forward plaque, even if it does have the run-oniest run-on sentences in the history of plaquedom. But basically, it gives you the gist of what’s going on in the park. Family owned a home, family sold the home and acreage for $2,500 and a promise that no one would ever forget the name “Mesier.”

As I was standing on the porch admiring the handiwork of the plaque, I noticed the front door was open and in a move totally out of my nature, I stuck my head in and said hello. That’s when I met two hard-working historical society women who are currently restoring the house. They gave me a little tour of the inside and I got a moment to take a picture of their hard work:

Only the special people get to go inside.

This room used to be part of a police station that was set up in the 1940′s, strategically placed within the homestead so they could better police the homestead (and the surrounding park.) The only problem with that move was that there’s some kind of federal law that stipulates all police stations have to have ugly linoleum floors, which is not so much consistent with keeping a circa 1770′s home historical. When the historical society took back ownership, they restored the original floor of this room.  The dining room is up next, which will not only further restore the beauty of the home, but will allow the historical society volunteers to finally be able to open the door that leads from the dining room to the nursery / birthing room.

Once that is done, and some other stuff is done, and then some other stuff is done after that, the house will be open to the public with less restricted hours. Upon hearing that, I mentioned to the historical society women that sounded like great news. Upon hearing that from me, the historical society women mentioned that they could use some help, and before I knew it, they had my name, number and URL. So, hello historical society women, it was great to meet you! It’s true that I’m actually very good at painting the walls of 150+ year old homes. Just let me know where and when. Or I guess just when. I was pretty good at finding the place on my own.

If you want to find it on your own, you can get some basic info and directions here.

And if you’re into the community thing, the bandstand across from the property has fun family events on Friday nights. Technically, the Hula Monkey is in this picture, but he’s mostly lost in the sun.

He's in one of the cut-outs on the railing...

Looks like somebody’s going to be spending more time in Wappingers Falls, because there is nothing I can resist more than a good bandstand!