Pleasure Grounds

The grandest, most beautiful improvement was Roseland Park, shown in this early photo. Dedicated in 1876, the nation’s centennial year, it is just a few miles from the cottage. Bowen purchased fifty-three acres and brought in 90,000 wagon loads of sand to transform swampy land into a Pleasure Ground for the town, and to have more spacious grounds for his grand Fourth of July celebrations.

Image courtesy of the Woodstock Historical Society