July 16, 2010
by N. O’Neil
1870: The Chappaqua Mountain Institute opens. A Quaker boarding school, it drew students locally and from other nearby towns. The school closed in 1908 and the property was sold to The Children’s Aid Society, which operated it as a convalescent home for city children with tuberculosis.
The building burned down in the late 1960s, but the site continued to function as the Wagon Wheel Camp serving disabled children. The last surviving CMI wool beanie is carefully preserved at the New Castle Historical Society. They say on dark nights on Chappaqua Mountain you can still hear childish voices reciting the multiplication tables.
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