CATWALK Historical Legacy

The Catwalk property has a documented timeline back to 1684 when a Dutchman Gysbert ut den Bogert traded hides and beads with the Leni Lenape Indians in the purchase of the land. By the mid 19th century Thomas Cole had made his home in Catskill, the birthplace of the American art movement now known as the Hudson River School, which focused on the American landscape. In 1861 Charles Herbert Moore, a very successful second-generation Hudson River School painter, was drawn to the area along with other admiring painters including Frederick Church. Moore bought the land directly west of Church’s Olana property. In 1865 Moore built the first structure, a stone and timber cottage capturing both river and Catskill Mountain views. Ultimately Moore fell under the spell of John Ruskin’s treatise on the Truth in Art. He was a founder of the “New Path,” the American Pre-Raphaelite movement exploring the bond between man and nature and the way to moral vision, which he pursued as the first director of the Fogg Museum at Harvard influencing generations of landscape painters who studied under Harvard’s Ruskinian platform. The magic of landscape that inspired the Hudson River School movement continues to attract painters and grow the rich artistic legacy of the region today.