For your protection and the protection of others, please use gloves and/or hand sanitizer before and after handling each cache.
This cache is part of the 2021 Taconic Region Geocaching Challenge. The NYS Parks Saratoga-Capital Region and the Central Region will be hosting a similar challenge! Find 45 challenge caches in the Taconic Region and stamp your passport to earn a trackable geo-coin. Ten caches found in the Sara-Cap and/or Central Region Challenge can be used toward the Taconic Challenge. This cache contains a unique stamp which must stay with the cache. Use this stamp to mark your passport. This stamp is NOT a trade item.
Please visit http://parks.ny.gov/documents/regions/2021TaconicGeocacheChallenge.pdf to print your passport.
For park fees, directions, maps and park updates, download the New York State Explorer App to your mobile device from the Apple and Google Play stores or be sure to check the John Jay Homestead website for updated information and a trail map at https://parks.ny.gov/historic-sites/4/details.aspx
About this cache:
This cache will bring you to John Jay Homestead State Historic Site, the farm where the American Founding Father retired in 1801.
The original entrance lane to the farm came through the woods to the north of the cache location. One branch then entered the circular drive in front of the main house. Another continued west to service the farm. (Although Route 22 is a north-south road, it runs generally east-west here.) From the cache location, you can see a depressed path, created by many decades of use by ox-drawn farm wagons. To the left and right of the path are two half-buried stone walls. These are called “Ha-Has.” The walls kept sheep from wandering too close to the house, without disrupting the view from the piazza (porch.) The roads that pierce the ha-has now are a modern addition to the property.