Let me start by saying that it has been many years since I was taken on a Field Trip! As a Docent at the Katonah Museum of Art, no sooner that you are fluent in the subject matter of the current show that you are given a schedule of events and lectures in order to immerse yourself in the upcoming show.

The new Show will be “Bold, Cautious & True - Walt Whitman & The Art of The Civil War Era” - October 18, 2009 - January 24, 2010

The Katonah Museum offered a Field Trip day. We started at the Horace Greeley Home in Chappaqua. Grey Williams, the Town Historian, led us through the home with a lively recounting of the life of Horace Greeley and his family. It was primarily their summer home, but then as years went by he may have become the first commuter to New York on a regular basis. We learned that Horace Greeley came from New Hampshire and apprenticed at a print shop when he was 14. He then worked his way to Vermont and then onto New York City where he was known for his typesetting skills. It was there that he started the “New York Tribune” which became the first national newspaper. He was against the expansion of slavery and was very vocal in his papers; some to which we were privy to in the archives held there. I noted that the font used was excruciatingly small. The answer was they used to read with a magnifying glass! Well, that is one way to save paper and trees - perhaps we should learn from that today.

After an enjoyable lunch at Jardin Du Roi Restaurant in Chappaqua, we hurried onto The John Jay Homestead in Katonah, NY where we were met by Bethany White, Educator for the Homestead.