CHAPTER XVII.
HOMES OF THE LOWER VAN RENSSELAER
MANOR AT CLAVERACK
Pages 147-158
[Page 147]
The sons and grandsons of the Patroon of the Lower Van Rensselaer Manor had intermarried with the colonial families of Rutsens, Douws, Van Cortlandts, Schuylers, Livingstons, De Peysters, Wendells, Bayards, and Watts, bringing much intercourse with the active men of affairs of the outer world, into this rural community. [General Jacob Rutsen Van Rensselaer House]
Into some of the Manor Houses families of relatives and friends were received during the war, affording as they did, a safe retreat from the dangers that threatened places more directly in line with the advance of the contending armies. The old church books record the names of more than one infant, born while sheltered at the Manor, and baptized by Dominie Gebhard, faring forth again to homes at varying distances when the war was over. General Burgoyne's advance toward [page 184] Albany sent Leonard Gansevoort and Hester Cuyler, his wife, to Claverack, where their daughter Margaretta was born in one of the Manor Houses, and baptized the day of her birth by Dominie Gebhard.
It was against this same advance of Burgoyne that "Poor's Brigade" marched, enlivening the way by singing psalms, and in their service in the campaign covered themselves with glory.
On the death of Johannes Van Rensselaer, the Patroon, his many possessions were divided between his children and heirs, and some of the most interesting stories of those days grow out of old chests and barrels stored away in attics for thirty, forty, or fifty years. A large part of the valuable china and silver owned by the family of the Lower Manor was buried at Greenbush during the Revolution. It is possible that this early need of caution was partially responsible for many relics being kept under lock and key in strong chests for years. We have one picture of a chest broken open by later descendants, to discover within a Lafayette platter picturing the landing at Castle Garden, with the Bay full of ships and small craft, and soldiers standing at attention on the wharf, [page 149] the deep blue color and glaze still uninjured. Side by side with the Lafayette platter were rolls of home-woven blankets, and delicate china cups with a thread-like border and a spray of flowers at the side, dating back to Holland and a century earlier than the Lafayette platter.
Another scene gives a family gathering at a cleaning-house time, that opportunity for the family historian, when the spectators sat about, as paper after paper was drawn from an old barrel, read and preserved, or thrown aside for a bon-fire as the subject interested or palled upon the listeners. From the same attic which discovered the Lafayette platter, and Holland cups, there traveled down stairs after many years, a half dozen old Van Rensselaer chairs with the date beneath the seats, giving them a place in Colonel Johannes' home, probably inherited from his father Hendrick Van Rensselaer, since they date back two centuries. The tall carved backs, and high carved legs, and small leather-covered seats, give an idea of the interior of the first Van Rensselaer home at Claverack, as do also the tapestries and the old mahogany desk at which the Patroon sat on many a rent day.
[page 150] Among the many heirlooms of value which have passed down the generations of the Van Rensselaer family of the Lower Manor, only one seems to be lacking. No portraits of Hendrick, or Colonel Johannes Van Rensselaer, the Patroons of the Claverack Manor have been discovered, or are at present known to have existed. At a later period in Henry I. Van Rensselaer's time, a prejudice existed among the Van Rensselaers with regard to family portraits, founded on a visit made to a manorial home, where an ancestral portrait was being used as a fire-board before a fire-place.
Though we have not the pictured faces of either of the Patroons who shaped the life of the Claverack of the past, we have a record of them both as promoters of the religious life of the community, as church builders supporters. Their proprietorship also of the Lower Van Rensselaer Manor is a history full of honor, in which their care for the best interests of the town and the well-being of their tenants was a prominent feature. A beautiful bit of hair-work,--a mourning ring marked "John Van Rensselaer,"--is still owned by one of his descendants, an old-time [page 151] memorial of a man who served well, and was an honor to his day and generation.
The numerous brass and silver candlesticks, and the many brass andirons, all suggest that light and heat were considered carefully and artistically, even though it was not after modern fashion. There were always footstools in these homes, dainty mahogany affairs with curved sides and bars at the ends, and often carved, telling of consideration for the comfort of the old, and as age and childhood often met, the pleasure of the toddler as well, who could not reach up to a chair.
The pipe of the Patroon or his sons, corresponded in size with the broad acres, suggesting that the founders of early clay kilns might have had the Dutchman's taste in mind. Surely an evening's smoke in those days would remind one of a modern chimney in active use. The muff and ample bonnet of the Patroon's wife were quite as pretentious. Since the skins of animals were plentiful, the fur used in a muff was not skimped. It is said that these winter comforts were large enough at times to hold a baby inside.
The old Dutch Van Rensselaer Bible owned by the descendants of the Alexander Hamilton Van Rensselaer [page 152] branch of the family, and published in 1744, is a heavy and ponderous volume, strengthened and ornamented by corners and clasps of openwork brass. In the front is an atlas of the world as it was known at that period. From time immemorial children have enjoyed the pictures in old Bibles, and this profusely illustrated copy must have made the lagging hours of Sunday afternoon pass quickly for many little Van Rensselaers, with its multitude of small square pictures of Bible scenes, portraying the elephant and goat, lambs and horses, oxen and giraffe standing about in friendly fashion with Adam and Even, or Adam and Eve dressed in skins of animals, driven out of Eden by an angel with a fluted sword, while the snake, with head raised, looked saucily on.
The family Bible and the fire-place tiles in the Claverack houses, afforded the children much entertainment, and impressed Bible history on their youthful minds.
Beside the old carved chairs and the Bible, we have a picture of Colonel Henry I. Van Rensselaer's home at the old Manor House during the war and the early years after it, through the wonderfully preserved [page 153] relics of the family of Henry I. Van Rensselaer 2d.
On the old Manor walls among other pictures, hung exquisite paintings on glass, wrought in brilliant colors. Four actresses, three of whom were Mrs. Brooks, Lady Johnson, and Kitty Fisher looked down upon the gazer, with arch glances of coquetry, even the transparent shawls of some filmy material about their shoulders, showing the delicate tracery of scattered flowers.
There were great center and side platters, plates, punch bowls, and other dishes ornamented in the thorn and rose pattern, rose-wreathed English china, and blue Cantonware in large numbers. Old Imari dishes, Delft, and Wedgwood also found a place in this large collection. Surely the Ladies in the Lower Manor lacked no china with which to set forth their [page 154] hospitable board, be their guests ever so numerous.
The silver service of these Van Rensselaer Manor Houses was also of the finest. Besides the more pretentious sets bearing the Van Rensselaer and Schuyler coats-of-arms, and even a piece or two dating back to Catherine Van Brugh, the wife of Hendrick, the first proprietor of the Lower Manor, there were dainty little pitchers and salt shakers with slender handles, and one tea-pot has a history familiar in the trials of housekeeping. After Colonel Johannes Van Rensselaer's death, his granddaughter Anna, who had taken her mother's place in her father, Colonel Henry I. Van Rensselaer's home, visited Crailo to look after affairs at the Manor House, and found the slaves down in the kitchen having a tea drinking, with a silver tea-pot on the coals. Left to themselves they were enjoying a social time, giving no thought to their master's possessions, since no master was near. The tea-pot was rescued and is still in existence. The teak-wood knife boxes and the gracefully shaped spoon urns also tell stories of the wealth of knives and spoons necessary for the large numbers who surrounded the Manor tables.
[page 155] Back to the home of Colonel Henry I. Van Rensselaer came the widowed children and the orphan grand-children, as to the other Manor Houses. There were few homes, Manor or farm houses in those days, which did not shelter three generations, and often aunts, nieces, and cousins as well.
The beautiful china and silver did not always remain in china closets, and cupboards over the mantels each side of the chimney, or even on the old mahogany sideboard, but graced the Manor table, with its large family and many guests, and there were special occasions when the candles lighted up not only silver and glass and china, but also the heirloom table linen beneath them.
Carefully treasured in one of the Claverack homes was the large Adam and Eve table cloth, which had come down from Myndert Schuyler, who was born in 1672. It was before the days of exquisitely woven damask, and the artist had exerted his skill in producing a remarkable design. Two soldierly looking persons representing Adam and Eve, stood on either side of a tree laden with apples, and one's imagination was required to do the rest in adjusting the scene to the [page 156] personalities of our first progenitors in the Garden of Eden.
It was to a home such as this that Catherine Schuyler and her husband came when she visited her brothers at Claverack, or when the brothers and sister visited together at their father's house at Greenbush, where open house was kept, and princely entertainments were given. Washington and Lafayette and many other noted men of the day were guests of honor in this hospitable home. We can see the fair women of the family in their brocades and laces moving about these candle-lighted rooms, and the men in the flowered waistcoats and short clothes, buckles at knees, and shoes, and many times in officer's uniform, for out of the eighteen males in the Van Rensselaer family of the Upper and Lower Manors, fourteen served in the army during the war, most of them holding commissions, the children and old men only being excepted.
Their talk was of war and statecraft, of tenant troubles, and the rising men of the day, of the prospects for their children, and their hopes for the nation, of the cultivation of rare varieties of fruits and of crops, while the ladies left to themselves found a hundred [page 157] topics of home, and family interest, the education and marriages of their children, and the fashions of the day,--over which to carry on an eager conversation. The Schuyler boys and girls often came down to Claverack, and the mothers rehearsed the doings of their respective children, Catherine Schuyler telling after the war was over, of the entertainment of General Burgoyne and his suite, who were so numerous that she had been obliged to order beds made upon the floor of the General's room, and how one of her younger boys, running about, opened the door in the morning, and called in, "You are all my prisoners," to the chagrin of his mother.
Nor was all the visiting one way. To be sure Catherine Schuyler's daughters did not afford the Van Rensselaer family many weddings to attend, since four of them took their marriages into their own hands but there were other festal occasions, and when Alexander Hamilton and Betsey Schuyler were married, there was a great wedding in the Schuyler mansion at Albany, and the Claverack relatives were a part of the joyous occasion.
Not since her mother's marriage at Crailo had there [page 158] been so grand and joyous a family gathering, for the families of the Patroons gathered mightily on less festal occasions. When the Lord of the Manor died, his relatives from far and near, and most of his tenants attended the funeral, and not only a religious service was the order of the day, but also the attempt to entertain the great concourse of people. Every slave on the estate, and every helper of any sort, was called out to meet the needs of the great number of guests gathered to do honor to the Lord of the Manor. In a way the Patroon was a sovereign over his wide domain, and always had a representative in the Assembly, and in this Republican country was more remarkable than in the older civilizations. Small wonder that, as Mrs. Lamb says, "Whenever it was announced in New York that the Patroon was coming to the city by land, the day he was expected crowds would turn out to see him drive through Broadway with his coach and four with postillions behind, as if he were a prince of the blood."
Buttons by www.grsites.com