In September we went to a town (Kingston, NY) burnt to the ground by the British in 1777. On the way we made and impromptu stop at the earliest known surviving Jewish dwelling in North America (The Gomez house. See pictures above and below).

In April 1716, Luis Moses Gomez, a Jewish community leader from New York City, purchased 1,200 acres with river access in what is now Marlborough, NY. The Gomez family amassed 3,000 acres by 1723 and built a fieldstone house on what was known as Jews Creek…. The house was subsequently purchased by Wolfert Acker, a Dutch-American who added a second story and attic with bricks made from clay found nearby. During the Revolutionary War, Acker served as a lieutenant in the New Marlborough Company of Minute Men and chairman of the Committee of Safety while General Washington’s army was camped close by in Newburgh. The house became a center for meetings of the new American patriots

Although the house is quite old, the mill isn’t. Dard Hunter, a paper maker associated with the Arts and Crafts movement bought the Mill House in 1912 and built a small paper mill in the shape of a Devonshire cottage, complete with thatched roof.

Taken with a Sony RX-100 M3.