Townsend Homestead and Burial Ground

Welcome to Stop Two. Check this out!. You're standing right on Dr. Platt Townsend's original homestead.

Now, he didn't start out in a fancy house. He actually started in a rough cabin right behind you across the street, and he spent ten grueling years in it while he painstakingly cleared his massive claim. We're talking way more than the 1,700 acres, given to him as payment for surveying this very land. Can you imagine? That claim stretched from right here all the way back to center of town and beyond. In fact, the trail he wore down just walking back and forth and to the other founders farms? Well, that carved out the old trail that became Delaware Street.

Much of the modern village sits on those original ancestral acres today. Generous to his core, his descendants gave pieces of it away over the years to build our local schools and churches. Meanwhile, the other founding families were setting up their own roots. The Pines headed up toward the mountain edge at Pine Brook, while the Norths established their early farm out in the eastern valley, near where the fairgrounds and Walton Cemetery are today.

Fast forward to 1796. After a decade in that cabin, Townsend finally built his permanent family residence—right here on this exact spot. It took roughly six to twelve months of active seasonal work, relying entirely on raw frontier resources. Picture this: heavy framing timbers hand-hewn with broadaxes from virgin pine and hemlock felled the previous winter. Boards and siding cut at the early water-powered mills. Builders joined the structure using interlocking mortise-and-tenon joints secured by hand-whittled wooden pegs—they called them treenails. And the hardware? Blacksmiths individually hand-forged every single iron nail. Local fieldstones gathered from the clearing formed the foundation and massive central chimney, completing a homestead built to endure the harsh Catskill elements.

Now, look over to the far left of this green field, just behind that iron fence. Within those gates lie Dr. Platt Townsend and five of his family members, anchored forever to the soil he loved.

For generations, his proud estate stood right here on Delaware Street, welcoming travelers and new settlers. Eventually, the old building fell into decay and was torn down for modern commercial use; its next resident arrived in 1957 as a service station, which still stands to this day. Think about that—remarkably, this very spot has been welcoming visitors and settlers for nearly two hundred and fifty years.

The trail from the city

Directions to Next Stop

Now turn to the left and continue down Delaware street in the same direction just a couple of blocks to West Street.