Mansion_rev8.qxd - National Park Service

Figure 2.6: Map of Woodstock showing the context of the Mansion
Grounds and eastern part of the Marsh Place, c.1869. SUNY ESF.
Viewshed ‘A’ refers to Figure 2.4; viewshed ‘B’ refers to Figure 2.7.
the Dennison and later the Thompson families. The farmhouse,
built in 1801, was located at the intersection of the
turnpike and the Road to
Taftsville. There was also a
millpond on Brook west of
the farmhouse. 27
To the east of the Mansion
grounds were the Marsh
fields on the Ottauquechee
River intervale, with a barn
known as the “Lower Barn”
located across the turnpike
from the Marsh farmhouse. 28
The northern part of the
intervale belonged to the
Windsor County Agricultural
Society, which purchased the
land from the junior Charles
Marsh in 1855 for the site of its
fairgrounds. By the 1860s, the
1789–1869
fairgrounds were enclosed by a
high wooden fence, and featured
a track and several small
buildings. 29 [Figure 2.7] In the
middle of the fairgrounds, on
the Road to Taftsville, was a
public schoolhouse, the land for
which Charles Marsh (Senior)
had donated. West of the
Mansion grounds, beyond the
Marshes’ woodlots and hill pastures,
was a hill farm belonging
to the Dana family on the west
side of Mount Tom.
Figure 2.7: View from the Marsh Place looking northeast toward the
Windsor County Fairgrounds, c.1865. Henry Swan Dana, The History
of Woodstock. (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1889),
annotated by SUNY ESF. Noted as “Viewshed B” in Figure 2.5. In the
1880s, this area would become the country place district known as
“Sunny Side.”
27