Clinton County: Culture, History, and Nature

Clinton County offers travelers several distinct themes for a stay: culture and regional history, art, outdoor activities, and agricultural traditions. Museums, historical connections, and activities each have their own focus and can be organized according to your personal travel interests.

Culture and Regional History

The Babbie Rural & Farm Learning Museum is dedicated to rural life and agriculture in the Champlain Valley and the Adirondacks before the 1950s. A fully operational blacksmith shop adds a tangible craft connection to the subject. This puts both historical ways of life and a traditional craft and its workshop in the spotlight.

The North Star Underground Railroad Museum presents the hidden history of the Champlain Line of the Underground Railroad. The exhibits cover enslaved people who traveled through northeastern New York State and the Champlain Valley on their way to Québec and Ontario. This gives the museum its own regional history focus, distinct from the agricultural history at the Babbie Rural & Farm Learning Museum.

The Clinton County Historical Association also offers a variety of formats throughout the year: its program includes lectures, workshops, special exhibitions, and guided tours of the surrounding area. If you want to explore history in different ways, you’ll find exhibitions as well as events and tours that offer different thematic approaches.

Historic Sites and Art

The Allan S. Everest Interpretive Center is a permanent exhibit at the War of 1812 Museum. Valcour Island offers another historical connection: the battle there was the first naval battle of the American Revolutionary War. These subjects lead from the history of the War of 1812 to an earlier period in American history.

Valcour Island connects this historical significance with opportunities for hikers. The island is accessible only by boat. More than seven miles of trails run around it, passing quiet beaches, several campgrounds accessible only by paddleboat, and the Bluff Point Lighthouse. If you plan to hike the trails, include boat access in your planning. The island route is therefore quite different from a museum visit or a tour of the surrounding area.

Art adds another dimension: the Rockwell Kent Gallery in SUNY Plattsburgh’s Feinberg Library displays paintings, prints, drawings, ceramics, and textiles, among other works. SUNY Plattsburgh’s Rockwell Kent Collection includes more than 5,000 cataloged works of art, objects, and ephemera. The Gallery and the Collection offer different starting points for an interest in art: one through the media on display, the other through the size of the collection.

Lake Champlain and Agricultural Themes

Clinton County borders Lake Champlain. Fishing is one of the county’s outdoor activities. These two aspects complement the cultural and historical themes with connections to the landscape and recreation, without requiring a particular fishing spot.

Agriculture also offers different perspectives. Parker Family Maple Farm has been in operation for more than 130 years, representing a long agricultural tradition. At Banker Orchards, visitors can pick apples themselves. The Acres of Apples loop passes through five different apple orchards and by the largest dairy farm in Clinton County. While the farms and orchards showcase different aspects of agriculture, the loop connects several orchards with a link to dairy farming.

When choosing a hotel in Clinton County, you can first decide which of these aspects you want to shape your trip: museums and exhibitions, regional history, art, outdoor activities, or agriculture. If Valcour Island is part of your plans, remember that it is accessible only by boat.

Discover more destinations: Plattsburgh, Champlain, Madison, Ulster, Columbia, Albany, Montgomery County, Jefferson County.

For the main travel overview: New York.