 John Burroughs picnicking with friends at the Beechwoods near Woodchuck Lodge |
 John Burroughs (left) on a camping trip with Thomas Edison and Harvey Firestone |
 Woodchuck
Lodge |
 John
Burroughs with his brother Eden on the porch at Woodchuck Lodge |
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Woodchuck Lodge and Burrough's Memorial Field
Burroughs Memorial Road, off Hardscrabble Road, 3 miles north of the hamlet of Roxbury, Delaware County, NY
Woodchuck Lodge is a registered National Historic Landmark that was the summer home of John Burroughs, America's most prominent and adored naturalist-essayist in the late 19th- and early 20th-centuries.
John Burroughs was born on April 3, 1837 at the family homestead just west of Woodchuck Lodge. From 1911 to 1921 he spent summers at the 1860s-era farmhouse, built by his brother, Curtis, and named for the pesky rodents that abounded in the surrounding farm fields.
John Burroughs wrote several of his popular essays while at the Lodge, either on the front porch he loved so well, or in his “hay barn study” up the road. His writings were required reading in schools across the nation, and more than a million copies of his books were sold in his lifetime. Visitors came from far and near to see and hear the famous man who popularized nature study and counted among his friends luminaries such as President Theodore Roosevelt, and industrialists Henry Ford, Thomas Edison and Harvey Firestone who once camped with Burroughs in the orchard near Woodstock Lodge.
He died March 29, 1921 and was buried on his birthday at his favorite “Boyhood Rock” in the meadow to the northwest of the Lodge, now the NYS-owned and managed Burroughs Memorial Field. Woodchuck Lodge was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1963 and is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Woodchuck Lodge Inc. is a nonprofit organization dedicated to restoring
and preserving the historic Lodge and to promoting the ideas and legacy of
John Burroughs through events and activities that encourage people to live,
work and prosper in harmony with nature. Contributions towards the restoration
of the Lodge may be sent to:
Post Office Box 492,
Roxbury, NY 12474.
See photos from the Burrough's Community Day 2005 (will open in new window)