Locust Grove Estate

While no furnishings survive from the Morse family's years at Locust Grove, the Museum Pavilion is the home of a permanent exhibit that explores Samuel Morse's two careers, first as an artist and later as the inventor of the telegraph and Morse Code. Original works of art, including portraits, landscapes, drawings and sculpture from all phases of his career illustrate the range of his talent. In the Telegraph Gallery, reproductions of Morse's early telegraph models introduce visitors to the electromagnetic telegraph. The exhibition continues to chronicle the development of telegraph equipment through the early 20th century and is an important part of Locust Grove's school field trip programs.

The historic Locust Lawn Farm in Gardiner New York is a rare treasure filled with the furnishings, clothing and possessions of five generations of the prosperous Hasbrouck family.

Annette Young (a Hasbrouck descendent and the last private owner of the Farm) ensured that the buildings and collections would be open to the public with her 1958 donation of the property and art collections. Today, Locust Lawn is owned and operated by the Locust Grove Estate as a museum and nature preserve.

The Federal-style mansion, built in 1814 for Colonel Josiah Hasbrouck, was once the heart of a 1,000 acre gentleman's farm. Colonel Hasbrouck served in the Revolutionary War as part of the Ulster County Militia, and later as a United States Representative during the Jefferson and Monroe administrations, a time of great optimism and change in the new republic. The home and farm he developed on his return to the Hudson Valley represent both the height of fashion and the Jeffersonian ideal of pride in the rural, agricultural tradition.

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