There was a time when Mohonk's most loyal guests developed almost proprietary feelings toward the place, and a sense of kinship with its proprietors, the Smiley family. The occasion of Albert and Eliza Smiley's fiftieth wedding anniversary produced an outpouring of affection rarely witnessed in guests for their hosts. Twelve hundred of their friends contributed about $20,000 toward the erection of a testimonial gateway in the Smileys' honor.

Early gift suggestions included books with notes, a compilation of photographs of Smiley friends and admirers, a pair of oil portraits. A few went to the length of suggesting a statue of Mr. Smiley for the garden. A close friend recounted later that personal statues add to the terror of approaching death, "yet some of us wanted to doom this kindly man to the daily embarrassment of meeting himself, face to face, in solemn bronze or marble as he went among his flowers." He concludes by writing that when someone suggested a gateway "everyone seemed to be pleased."

On October 14, 1908, a year after the groundbreaking ceremonies, a formal dedication of the completed Testimonial Gateway took place. Messages poured in from all over the nation; many were read to the assembled crowd of well-wishers. The gateway is located on a rise of ground about one and a quarter miles from New Paltz on the eastern edge of the Mohonk estate.

Click here for more about Mohonk Mountain House.

Photo ©Roger Shepherd