Wagon Wheels Farm -- Tourists Accommodated, 1937-1942

The farmhouse on this site, dating from the late-18th century, was purchased by Irene and Robert Slater in 1934, along with a barn and 145 acres of land. During the Great Depression, like many Vermont farmers, the Slaters took in tourists to supplement their income from dairy farming and maple sugaring. In 1937 and '38 the famous New York artist Edward Hopper and his wife, Josephine, spent month-long sojourns at Wagon Wheels while Hopper painted watercolors of the farm property and the landscape along the White River. In 1941 First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt stayed overnight in the farmhouse, traveling from the White House to inspect Camp William James, an offshoot of the Civilian Conservation Corps in nearby Tunbridge.