Naturalist and essayist John Burroughs enjoyed beauty, solitude at his Catskills retreat, Woodchuck Lodge

The Schnectady Daily Gazette featured a story about John Burroughs and his home, Woodchuck Lodge, in Roxbury, which is a nonprofit history organization. As the article relates, John Burroughs enjoyed communing with nature as well as anyone, and he wrote about it better than most.

A naturalist and essayist whose writing helped spark the American conservation movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Burroughs enjoyed the popularity of a rock star for more than three decades up until his death in 1921 just a few days shy of his 84th birthday.
He died on a train returning home to Woodchuck Lodge in his beloved Catskills following a cross-country trip. While he loved the Rocky Mountains and toured the West with the likes of fellow naturalist John Muir and U.S. President Teddy Roosevelt, Burroughs was synonymous with the Catskills.


Woodchuck Lodge, his home for the last 10 years of his life, and his burial site, both about two miles off Route 30 in the town of Roxbury, are great places to visit for those interested in Burroughs and for anyone who loves to experience the Catskill Mountains.

“He was a self-taught scientist and a very accessible writer,” said Diane Galusha, president of the board of trustees of Woodchuck Lodge Inc., the nonprofit group that maintains Burroughs’ residence. “That made him a pretty popular guy, and to get away from people and find some solitude he moved to this beautiful spot in 1910.”

Woodchuck Lodge, which is a few miles inside Delaware County from Schoharie County, is open to the public only on the first Saturday and Sunday of every month, beginning in May and running through October. Docents are available to give visitors a tour of the wooden house on those days, but if you can’t make it that first weekend of the month, you’re welcome to drive about 100 yards farther up Burroughs Memorial Road and stop at Burroughs Memorial Field. A state-run historic site, Burroughs Memorial Field is where Burroughs is buried next to the big rock he used to play around when he was a child. Read more about Burroughs here.