74-Constable Hall74-Constable HallConstable Hall on the banks of the Sugar River, Route 26, in the Lewis County town of Constableville, offers visitors a voyage through history from Revolutionary times to the present.
The manor is an architectural showplace where five generations of the once prominent Constable family lived and played.
After America won its war for independence, William Constable, an aide to Major General the Marquis de LaFayette during the conflict, used part of the fortune he acquired in the import/export business to become a partner in the purchase of 4 million acres of land in New York. After Constable's death, his son, William Jr. inherited the land.
Construction for the house was started in 1810 and designed after the Constables' ancestral home in Ireland. The structure, featuring limestone walls and spruce floorboards, took nine years to build. The Constable family lived there in the 1800s and 1900s until the house was sold to the nonprofit Constable Hall Association in 1949. It is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. About 2,000 visitors tour the home annually.
Thomas J. Kelly, Constable Hall's director, refers to the home as "The Jewel of the North Country," because 70 percent of its original furnishings exist. Prized antiques are a satinwood sewing table once owned by France's Marie Antoinette, a 1710 grandfather clock, an engraving of George Washington taken from a Gilbert Stuart portrait and a buckskin coat given to William Constable Sr. by Iroquois chiefs in 1792. Tools used to construct the home also are exhibited.
The grounds include formal gardens in the pattern of the Cross of St. Andrew and plants believed to be seedlings from original 1810 plantings.
A historical tidbit is the legend that Clement Moore, cousin of Mary Eliza McVickar Constable, wrote his class "A Visit From St. Nicholas" at Constable Hall as a present for her children.
This year - an event that occurs every five years - various rooms of the house are decorated as they would have appeared at Christmas. A copy of Moore's writing is included in the display.
The hall hosts a number of special events during its season through Oct. 15. The house will be illuminated by candles - the traditional way the Constables lit their home - on Sept. 19 and Oct. 10. A candlelight concert, "Music of the Films," by dual pianists Paul and Carol Ann Keuter is planned for 8 p.m., Aug. 8.
Hours are from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Tuesdays through Saturdays, and 1 to 4 p.m. Sundays. Admission is $3 for adults and $1.50 for
children.