Friendship Hill is a crazy, senselessly rambling old house on a high bluff above the Monongahela River in Fayette County, PA. The oldest parts of the house date back to 1789, though there have been many additions over the years.
It's actually a national park with free admission and miles of good hiking trails, some of which wend along the river. But even if hiking isn't your thing, the house itself is worth a visit.
Albert Gallatin was a Franco-Swiss immigrant from Geneva. He was brilliant and a true renaissance man: a linguist, ethnologist, US senator, ambassador to France, and founder of New York University. But at heart, Gallatin just wanted to live in the woods. He built his beautiful estate on the western frontier, and whether he was living in Philadelphia, New York, Paris, or--in later years--Washington, D.C., he escaped there as often as he could, which was not very...
Gallatin's first wife, Sophia, lived with him at Friendship Hill for one happy summer, but in the fall of their year together, she took ill and died. She's buried in the woods on the grounds.
Gallatin's second wife, Hannah, hated Friendship Hill and spent all her time there yearning for the cultivation and stimulation of Philadelphia. She hated the country house so much that Gallatin ended up selling it and moving back to the cities of the coast. (Hélas,
Monsieur Gallatin, vous n'êtes
pas seul. Ma femme m'a fait la même
chose!)
It's a beautiful place to visit, with broad pastures, tree-lined lanes, good views, and a general feeling of tranquility. How much would you have to love a woman to give up a place like this?
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