Our Story
Constable Hall is located on the edge of the Tug Hill Plateau. Perched on a hillside, it overlooks the Black River Valley with the Adirondack Mountains in the distance.
The Hall is the foundation of North Country history. The Federal style limestone building was built in the early 1800’s by William Constable, Jr.
His father, William Sr., was a wealthy New York City merchant who owned 3.8 million acres of Northern New York and was responsible for beginning the development of the entire region – encompassing all of Lewis, Jefferson, St. Lawrence and parts of Oswego, Herkimer and Franklin counties.
After nine years of construction, the Hall was completed in 1819. The nearby village, first settled in 1796 and originally known as Shalersville, eventually took on the name of Constableville. Several generations of the Constable family lived at the Hall until it was sold in 1947. By 1949 it was restored as a house museum and opened to the public for tours and event usage. It has become a favorite community and tourist attraction.
Twas The Night Before Christmas…
Constable family history has been passed down generation to generation that Constable cousin Clement Clarke Moore wrote his famous “A Visit from St. Nicholas” inspired by his visit to Constable Hall. The story, which dates to at least the mid 1800s, says that Clement visited his second cousin, Mary Eliza McVickar Constable and her five children shortly after she was widowed in 1821 or 1822.