CHAPTER VIII.
THE MANORS ON EITHER SIDE
Pages 67-76
A few miles from the parsonage in either direction stood Van Rensselaer and Livingston Manor Houses. Those of the Lower Van Rensselaer Manor were the nearest, being a little more than a mile from the church. The Patroon Johannes Van Rensselaer, who resided at Crailo in Greenbush, but who had a summer home at Claverack, was living during the Revolutionary War, and was still directing affairs to some extent in the lower part of the Manor, though he had several sons who had married, and lived permanently at Claverack, who took charge of the estate in his absence.
It had been the custom of the old Patroon to make periodical visits to these Manor Houses of his sons for many years past, at which time rents were collected and much business was transacted. The house now occupied by Mr. Charles Barnard, a lineal descendant of the old Patroon, was occupied during the [page 68] Revolutionary war by Colonel Henry I. Van Rensselaer, a son of Colonel Johannes Van Rensselaer. This house, the oldest building in Claverack, was erected by Hendrick Van Rensselaer, the first proprietor of the Lower Manor, in 1685. The first couple to live in it were Samuel Ten Broeck and his wife, Maria Van Rensselaer, the eldest daughter of Hendrick, and each of Colonel Johannes' sons seems to have taken his turn in living in the old house, James, who married Catherine Van Cortlandt, among the rest, though he eventually moved to Belleville, New Jersey. Killian Van Rensselaer and Peter, younger brothers of Johannes the Patroon also took up their residence in Claverack, and Killian built at an early date the house which was later called the "Brick Tavern."
On what is now known as the Allen Miller place, Colonel Robert R. Van Rensselaer, afterwards Brigadier-General, another son of the Patroon Johannes, built a Manor House. The foundations of this house were standing up to a recent date. The present Manor House on this farm, to the left, going east, was built by Jacob Rutsen Van Rensselaer, the first Robert Rutsen's son, as were also the "Red Mills" on the same [page 69] place. On a section of land given to Henry I. Van Rensselaer by his father, the "Stone Mills" were erected, and after the Revolution a Manor House also. "Buttermilk Falls" was once a busy manufacturing center, the Van Rensselaer mills consisting of woolen mills, saw mills, satinet factory, and flouring mills, all being run on the same stream. Every farmer was said to have kept one black sheep among his flock, to make the proper pepper and salt mixture in cloth, the fleeces being sent to the carding mills at Smoky Hollow or Buttermilk Falls.
The Manors and the mills were contemporaneous, their necessity being apparent to Patroon and farmer alike, and so important a feature of the Manor life were these mills and the water-power which ran them, that in the indenture concerning the old Conyn farm near the "Stone Mills," sold by John Van Rensselaer of Greenbush" to Casperus Conyn in 1765, "to him and his heirs forever" all rights to pools, streams, rivulets, ponds, and creeks were reserved to the Patroon, though if a mill was built upon Conyn's land, "John Van Rensselaer of Greenbush" agreed to pay for the land so occupied.
[page 70] "The Patroons had a monopoly of fishing and hunting, and possessed the absolute title to the soil." Their authority extended in judicial cases even to the penalty of death, each tenant in the Manor of Rensselaerwick agreeing not to appeal from the sentence of the Patroon's court. It was believed by these first great land-owners, that the country could best be developed by dividing the soil into large Manors, settled by tenants who paid for their holdings a yearly rent in skins or the produce of the ground, and who were often brought to this country at the Patroon's expense, while the Patroon himself paid a certain sum each year for the privilege of holding and controlling his own conceded territory, though it is surprising to read that the "quit-rent" on the Patroon's part was "fifty bushels of good winter wheat" for the whole Manor of Rensselaerwick. The rents required from the tenants were also ludicrously small in proportion to the size of their farms, and the Patroons took many obligations on their own shoulders which made life possible in this unsettled country. The early churches, schools, mills, sloops, imported machinery, tools and conveniences of many kinds, had their founder and originator in the [page 71] mighty hand of the Patroon.
It is said that Killian Van Rensselaer, the First Patroon of Rensselaerwick, "was a nobleman not only by chance but by nature. He exercised genuine provincial sovereignty. By his direction civil officers were appointed to oversee the business departments of the colony and military agents were named to fortify outposts, and make needful preparation against Indian outbreaks."
It was Hendrick Van Rensselaer to whom Claverack was given, and most of the leases of land in the Lower Manor was acquired through him. The terms of the rental were nearly alike in all the leases, and stipulated for an annual rent of a certain number of "scheppels" (bushels) of wheat, and in many cases "two or four fat hens," the month of January being occasionally mentioned as the time of payment in hens. With the depreciation in the value of farm lands in recent times, there have been instances where legal rents have long remained unpaid, but, with a possible reversal to the ancient customs of forefathers, two fat geese have been presented at Christmas to the landlord as a kind of quit rent.
[page 72] Colonel Johannes Van Rensselaer who erected Claverack into a Manor was born in 1708, and was the Van Rensselaer best known to the people of his own Manor, of whom it has been said, "He was a most commanding figure in the military, social, civic, and religious life of Claverack." Mrs. Ellet adds a word as to his other characteristics, "He was noted for his hospitality, and for his kindness and forebearance toward the tenants of his vast estate during the war."
In one room of the Manor House at Claverack, Colonel Johannes held court and received rent, and here many difficulties were adjusted, and much barter and some money changed hands on days when rents were due. Stored through the years with deeds of property and other valuable papers, are some of these old rent books. During Colonel Johannes' lordship, dating back as far as 1744, these rent books were written in Dutch, but the fact that "15 scheppel of wheat" constituted a year's rent for a farm in some cases, and that it was paid regularly, is still apparent in these deeply yellowing pages. Upon the payment of the year's rent, the Patroon signed his name with his own hand, or on occasion of it being signed by an agent, it was expressly [page 73] stated "For the Patroon."
Later, in his successor, John I. Van Rensselaer's time, the records in these old account books are in English, pounds and shillings having taken the place of "scheppels of wheat," and by 1795 Jacob Rutsen Van Rensselaer occasionally signs his name to the receipt. Nor is it only the sons of the family who when needed stand in their father's place. The wife of the Patroon, or sometimes the daughter, or the daughter-in-law, affixes her name in acknowledgement of rent paid. In 1776 Catherine Van Alen acknowledges the reception of "eight scheppels of wheat," Collec. for John Van Rensselaer Patroon." Though the Patroon may have been the highest court of appeal, with tenants spread over one hundred and seventy thousand acres, even though far separated, one might easily suppose that pay-day would occur on many days in the year, and that any responsible member of the household would often be called upon to stand in the Patroon's place.
Colonel Johannes courted his first wife, and the mother of his children at the home of Robert Livingston, Jr., nephew of the first Robert Livingston. Angelica Livingston was a woman of pleasing and dignified [page 74] presence, and of great executive ability, as behooved the wife of the Patroon of those days, and the Lady of the Manor. She had lived her early life in a home similar to that to which Colonel Johannes had brought his bride, and the training of the manorial homes was fitted to endow a woman with capacity for the management of social and business affairs, together with the rearing of a house full of children, and the direction of a corps of servants, which makes the strenuous life of to-day seem pale and languid in comparison.
The family of Clermont, or the Lower Livingston Manor was closely related to the original Livingston Manor at Linlithgo, and this again with the Van Rensselaers of the Lower Van Rensselaer Manor at Claverack, tying the great houses along the river in a chain of family connection, community of interests, and much social intercourse.
The home of Chancellor Livingston, grandson of the first Lord's youngest son Robert was at Clermont, and all along the Hudson from Clermont to Staatsburg were scattered the homes of his brothers an sisters, men deeply and keenly patriotic, and prominent in public affairs, through all the early days of the new [page 75] Republic, and women whose patriotism and interest in the affairs of the nation ever equaled that of their husbands and brothers. Chancellor Livingston was already a prominent patriot, and a man whose splendid intellectual equipment was devoted to the upbuilding of the country. He had been one of the committee who had drawn up the Declaration of Independence. Fearless of the consequences, he had identified himself with a movement destined to revolutionize America, but at that early date the results of the responsibility assumed, did not always point toward victory, even to the hopeful. He was also chairman of the committee who drew up the Constitution of the State of New York, which had been read in front of the old Court House at Esopus to a large number of people.
At the old Livingston Manor at Linlithgo, the third and last Lord was reigning. Robert Livingston had come into his baronial rights in 1749 on the death of his father Philip, the second Lord. That the families of both the Van Rensselaer and Livingston Manors should have been, with few exceptions, noted for their intense patriotism through this critical period, is one of the noteworthy facts of history, for with the dawn [page 76] of the infant Republic, would perish all dreams of New World baronies.
As with the Van Rensselaers and the Livingstons of Clermont, the children of the last Lord of the original Livingston Manor began building homes for themselves. Walter Livingston, son of the last Lord, erected a noteworthy mansion called "Teviotdale" prior to the Revolution. General Henry Livingston, another son, who had given valuable service to his country during the Revolution, built a house in that section of the Manor which was afterward called Johnstown. Here he kept bachelor's hall for many years, dying in 1823. It was John Livingston the fourth son who built Oak Hill, and who also gave the site upon which the Reformed Church of Linlithgo was built, adding a further gift of land, In recognition of this donation the village was called Johnstown, and the name clung to the growing settlement, to which in 1814 the Manor church was moved, a Memorial Chapel at a much later period, being built over the old Livingston vault, where the first Manor church had stood for almost a century, having been rebuilt in 1780.
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