In 1919, Congress passed the Eighteenth Amendment, ushering in the Prohibition era and forcing distilleries to move their business underground. Hidden up in the mountains—but close to large markets in Baltimore and Washington, DC—many so-called “moonshiners” turned to the Catoctin Mountain region of northern Maryland to reestablish their business. The most famous whiskey operation was …
Continue reading Blue Blazes Whiskey Trail (Catoctin Mountain Park, MD)
- Civil War Series - The Fort Circle Park Hiker-Biker Trail is part of a broader network of trails and bike routes surrounding Washington, DC that provide access to the Civil War Defenses of Washington, a ring of Civil War era fortifications. Situated east of the Anacostia River, the 6.2-mile stretch described below—unlike the rest …
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- Civil War Series - In the early stages of the Civil War in 1862, Union forces quickly seized the Outer Banks of North Carolina during the so-called Burnside Expedition, which led to the creation of a Freedmen’s Colony on Roanoke Island, a safe haven for hundreds of runaway slaves in the region. While the …
Continue reading Freedom Trail (Fort Raleigh National Historic Site, NC)
Now a bustling tourist site on North Carolina’s Outer Banks, Roanoke Island was the site of the first English settlement in the New World, established in 1585. For one of the expeditions to the island, English explorers brought along Thomas Hariot, a talented scientist and mathematician tasked with studying and cataloguing the natural resources of …
Continue reading Thomas Hariot Trail (Fort Raleigh National Historic Site, NC)
- Revolutionary War Series - In July 1799, the Revolutionary War came to the Upper Delaware River Valley as a British-aligned militia led by famous Mohawk chief Joseph Brant raided the area to strike a blow at the morale of the revolutionaries. Incensed by the raid, a rapidly-formed counterforce under the command of Colonel John …
Continue reading Minisink Battleground Loop (Minisink Battleground Park, NY)
Eleanor Roosevelt, First Lady of the United States and the first US delegate to the United Nations, lived part of her life at Val-Kill, a quiet, wooded estate in Hyde Park, New York, just east of her husband Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s home at Springwood. Val-Kill is today protected as part of Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic …
Continue reading Eleanor’s Walk Trail (Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site, NY)
Springwood, the Hudson River Valley home of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, is now preserved by the National Park Service in Hyde Park, New York. However, during his second term as president, Roosevelt also had built a separate cottage, intended as a retreat atop nearby Dutchess Hill, a mostly wooded ridge east of the Hudson. Today, …
Continue reading Top Cottage Trail (Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site, NY)
Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Site in Hyde Park, New York preserves the historic estate of Frederick Vanderbilt, grandson of Cornelius Vanderbilt, the famous 19th century railroad tycoon. Reaping the success of his ancestors, Frederick owned considerable real estate across New York and New England and completed constructed of this mansion in Hyde Park in 1899. …
Continue reading Vanderbilt Loop (Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Site, NY)
- Civil War Series - The 1862 Peninsula Campaign, intended by the Union to put a decisive end to the Civil War by capturing the Confederate capital of Richmond, began with a slow start. Gen. George McClellan, despite setting out in March 1862 with the largest army the continent had ever seen, inched up the …
- Civil War Series - Malvern Hill is one of the country’s best-preserved Civil War battlefields and marked the culmination of the Seven Days’ Battles, a series of engagements outside Richmond, Virginia in June-July 1862 that ended Union Gen. George McClellan’s Peninsula Campaign. McClellan’s Army of the Potomac, in the midst of a retreat to …
Continue reading Malvern Hill Trail (Richmond National Battlefield Park, VA)
Live and Let Hike 