Music camps, blacksmithing conferences, and retreat groups have called Ashokan home while schools are not in residence.

[citation needed] The location was the inspiration for Jay Ungar's song "Ashokan Farewell", which was used as the theme music for PBS's The Civil War.

[1] The first homesteaders on the land were a third generation Dutchman named Jacobus Bush and his wife, Eycke Vandermerke, born in Marbletown, Ulster County, New York in 1692 and 1687 respectively.

The property was divided with a portion sold to the New York City Department of Environmental Protection and the rest to the non-profit Ashokan Foundation.

The vastly swollen Esopus Creek struggled to find its present path through Ashokan which was well-blocked by glacial moraine.