Down Bog Hollow Road

That’s heading toward Connecticut, and old maps of the 1800s show it, but not always, with a name.  It’s long and winding and ends up in Kent, Conn., at the Route 7 four-way crossroads. I rode it with my parents in the 1930s and ‘40s, when we followed the Amenia baseball team to a game in Kent. 

On the way back home, some of the team, and us, would usually stop at the Bog Hollow Inn. It’s no longer in operation, but in “the old days” was a favorite spot to rehash the game. In talking to Pat Kelsey the other day, who has lived on the road since the 1950s, she said that the inn burned in the mid-20th century and today is empty, although a residence sits at its side.                                     

The inn was popular, said Ann Linden in her 2008  Amenia Historical Society Newsletter that she devoted to Bog Hollow. It’s a great publication. It had information about the area, about Rex Brasher, an artist born in the later 1800s and his paintings of birds, and about the people who lived along Bog Hollow in the mid-to-late 1900s, including Pat. By the way, there is a Rex Brasher Association. It is located in Kent, and its purpose is to educate the public about Brasher’s life and work. The website is www.rexbrasher.org. His bird paintings are beautiful.                                                                                         

The road was dirt, Pat said, when she moved there in the 1950s. In the beginning, it was an Indian trail and never had the amenities of hamlet living, wrote Ann.  By the late 1980s, however, Bog Hollow Road had become County Road 3, and also had re-assumed its name of Bog Hollow Road. 

What had happened? Had it lost its name? Apparently it had, at least legally, when the county began installing more of its road signage numbers in the later half of the 20th century. That did not last too long, as an editorial in the 1987 Pine Plains Register Herald at www.fultonhistory.com stated, under a heading of “Bog Hollow is Back.”

It stated: “It’s going to be good to travel roads like Bog Hollow Road in Amenia, again. Right now, Bog Hollow [what a colorful name] is called County Route 3, but soon it will carry its original moniker.” 

Even then-County Executive Lucille Pattison was glad, like so many others, who were “lamenting the fact that the good old names are gone.” The editorial also wrote a thanks to Dutchess County because the county had made similar changes throughout, and the people were glad to have the names returned.                               

There was also a bad accident two or three decades ago that killed two young girls. The car hit a large stone along the side of the road. It is still there and still has wording on it, and paint.  It reads, “The Stone,” and the paint is a faded green.  It’s about a mile from the New York west entrance, heading to Connecticut. It was a very sad event.                  

But the large Bog still has water and the area still has people. Despite the sorrow some associate with it due to the accident, it still has beauty. And it’s a lovely ride.

Arlene Iuliano is the Amenia town historian.