ABRAHAM HASBROUCK HOUSE FURNISHING PLAN, VOLUME II
Kathleen Eagen Johnson
HistoryConsulting.com
3549 State Route 203
Valatie, NY 12184
11.10.2016
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Acknowledgements
I am very grateful to President Robert W. Hasbrouck, Jr. and the Hasbrouck Family Association, Inc. for supporting the project and to Neil Larson for serving as the HFA liaison and overseer of the project. Board members and staff at the Huguenot Historical Society have been very helpful and I would like to thank President Mary Etta Schneider, Vice-President Sanford A. Levy, Executive Director and Curator Josephine Bloodgood, Archivist and Librarian Carrie Allmendinger, Registrar Ashley Trainor, and Director of Education Kara Gaffken. The following scholars, curators, librarians, and museum personnel also kindly shared information with me: Deborah Emmons-Andarawis, Suzanne Hauspurg, Ashley Hopkins-Benton, Carol A. Johnston, Neil Kamil, Patricia E. Kane, Jane Kellar, Sanford Levy, Ruth Piwonka, Karen Quinn, John Scherer, Robyn Sedgwick, Diane Shewchuk, Kenneth Shefsiek, Margaret Staudter, Margaret Vetare, Walter Wheeler, and others who wish to remain anonymous.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction and Historical Resources Review
The Material World of the Hasbroucks and Their Neighbors in the Mid-Eighteenth Century
Abraham Hasbrouck House: Room-by-Room Historical Description and List of Candidate Objects Plus Recommendations for Interpretation
Room 102A Entrance
Room 103 The Parlor
Room 102 Upper Kitchen
Room 101 Opkamer/Bedroom (Including the Larger and the Partitioned Rooms)
Room B1 Kitchen
Rooms 201-203 Second Floor
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Introduction
The “Furnishing Plan, Volume II” for the Abraham Hasbrouck House, a property of the Huguenot Historical Society in New Paltz, New York, contains historical information and recommendations in support of a “historic interiors” installation illustrating the structure’s occupancy and use by members of the Wyntje Hasbrouck household in the 1760s. The Furnishing Plan, Volume II builds specifically upon Jacquetta M. Haley’s “Furnishings Plan, Abraham Hasbrouck House, Huguenot Historical Society” (June 2010) and also draws upon the 2003 “Historic Structure Report: The Abraham Hasbrouck House at The Huguenot Historical Society, New Paltz, NY” by Kenneth Hewes Barricklo and Neil Larson. I have referenced information and findings contained in both reports but have not reiterated them here.
The Abraham Hasbrouck House interpretation and installation represents the lives and circumstances of the free and enslaved members of the Wyntje Hasbrouck household during the 1760s which is the recommended era of interpretive focus within its 1760 to 1775 period of significance. This document has been crafted with that framework in mind.
This Furnishing Plan, Volume II is designed to aid the creation of a historically accurate and engaging installation through analysis of artifacts and consumables appropriate for this household, place, and era. Carefully chosen and placed items can help promote optimal visitor learning about the members of the Wyntje Hasbrouck household and, by extension, life in early New Paltz and in the American colonies.
A “Mission Statement Concerning the Furnishing of the Abraham Hasbrouck House, Including Selection Criteria” appears in this binder as separate document.
Overview Daniel Hasbrouck built the structure known today as the Abraham Hasbrouck House in three stages, with the center room constructed about 1721, the north room about 1728, and the south room about 1734 to 1741. Museum visitors experience the ground-floor rooms, the opkamer, and partially below-grade kitchen during their tours. The curatorial installations in these rooms support both the standard site visit for the general public as well as the program of school visitation. There is also a sizable second-floor garret which is only accessible via a narrow set of stairs. Visitors do not typically see the second floor on tour, but in the colonial era it was a well utilized and active area. During the mid-1760s, the occupants of the house were as follows: the widowed Wyntje Deyo Hasbrouck (b. 1708) and her children (b. 1735), Josaphat (b. 1739), David (b. 1740), Elsie (b. 1742), Jesaias (b. 1746, also known as Isais and eventually Isaiah), Benjamin (b. 1747), and Zacharias (b. 1749). There were also likely four enslaved Africans, two men and two women.
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It is essential that we imagine individual members of the Wyntje Hasbrouck house occupying these spaces and involved in the specific undertakings we known they pursued or were likely to have pursued. The furnishings, tools, and clothing chosen and placed in these room settings should help evoke the people who actually lived and worked here while also representing daily life in colonial New Paltz and in colonial New York. The installation can suggest the activities of this specific family—for example, dairying, reading religious texts, and laboring over ciphering books—as well as the more universal activities of cooking, eating, and sleeping. Any “activity vignettes” should conform to typical room use for the era. Being able to express what is special about this particular home while also using it to explain broader currents in Hudson Valley and American history is the goal here. The symbol of an archery target is a useful analogy when evaluating available historical resources for the creation of a furnishing plan. Located in the bull’s eye, and thus given the highest value, are family- and site-specific manuscripts, records, architecture, images, material culture, and related resources for the period of historical interpretation. In the case of the Abraham Hasbrouck House, this would be information about members of the Wyntje Hasbrouck household and how they lived in this structure during the 1760s. It would also include the structure itself and any possessions dating from that time. As is often the case in house museums representing an early era, there are limited site- and era- specific resources populating the bull’s- eye. So we work our way outward in the target. We look at the next ring (Hasbrouck family information from other eras, especially earlier eras), and the next ring (New Paltz and Ulster County information from the era), and the next ring (colonial Hudson Valley), and the next ring (American colonies) to form the fullest possible picture of the past. In this way, we can explain that while we don’t know exactly how Wyntje Hasbrouck outfitted and arranged her home in the 1760s, we can make informed assumptions based on what her neighbors and contemporaries owned and what furnishings, tools, and consumables she could have accessed. Specifics in regard to the Hasbroucks’ working and living circumstances are supplemented by an appreciation of regional practices and common custom.
Historical Resources Survey The following is a survey of the historical resources which have proven to be the most pertinent to this furnishing plan.
Manuscripts and Related Written Primary Sources This category is of central importance to the Abraham Hasbrouck House Furnishing Plan, Volume II. In summary, I surveyed HHS’s excellent finding aids and research reports; consulted with Neil Larson, Huguenot scholar and former HHS employee Kenneth Shefsiek, and HHS Archivist and Librarian Carrie Allmendinger; and conducted my own research. I found pertinent documents at HHS and in online repositories. I also contacted Carol A. Johnson, Coordinator of the Haviland-Heidgerd Historical Collection, Elting Memorial Library in in New Paltz who reported that her collection did not contain relevant information.
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The will Daniel Hasbrouck made on January 26, 1759 and Wyntje Hasbrouck’s will drawn up in 1781 and probated in February 1790, as well as wills of close relatives, are key documents which Jacquetta M. Haley had incorporated into her furnishing plan.1 They remain cornerstones. The account book of Isaac Hasbrouck, contained in the Abraham Hasbrouck Ciphering Book, reflects the 1730s era in New Paltz. Written in poorly spelled French, it is described in the HHS finding aid as containing accounts “concerning the purchase and sale of books, shirts, pipes, tobacco and other domestic supplies.” Particularly relevant to this report, it contains a list of items bought by Wyntje’s husband Daniel. They include a book, a glass bottle, and a pipe, the last likely of white earthenware. (Many fragments of clay pipes were recovered in archaeological digs conducted on-site.) It is safe to assume that the entry for “un pot de terre” refers to an earthenware or stoneware crock or jar. Perhaps what is the most surprising are clothing and accessories. These include a shirt, neckerchief, handkerchief and a justaucorps. The last is a knee-length coat with many buttons and deep cuffs generally worn over an equally long vest. See the portrait below of Pau de Wandelaer (Pau Gansevoort) wearing such a garment.
(At the end of this document, please find a transcription and translation of Daniel Hasbrouck’s purchases contained in the Isaac Hasbrouck Account Book.)
1Will of Daniel Hasbrouck, January 26, 1759 in Gustave Anjou, Ulster County, N.Y. Probate Records in the Office of the Surrogate, and in the County Clerk's Office at Kingston, N.Y.: A Careful Abstract and Translation of the Dutch and English Wills, Letters of Administration After Intestates, and Inventories from l665, with Genealogical and Historical Notes. 2 vols. (New York: Gustave Anjou, 1906) 2: 63-64. Will of Wyntje Hasbrouck, June 23, 1781 in Anjou, 2: 52-53.
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Pau de Wandelaer (or Pau Gansevoort) attributed to Pieter Vanderlyn, 1730–1740. Probably Albany, oil on canvas. Albany Institute of History and Art.
The 1774 list of items from Abraham Bevier’s estate which were sold at a vendue (auction) is also pertinent. The document offers useful information about the daily lives of Wyntje’s sons Josaphat, David, and Jesaias who bought items at the sale. The items they acquired were a scrubbing hoe (for digging out roots when clearing fields), a screen (probably for sifting out rocks and pebbles in dirt when preparing garden soil), a loom for weaving collars, a reed and gears for a loom, a wine glass, and a “sugar cup” or sugar bowl.2 (See the end of this document for a transcription of purchase entries.) The 1755 New Paltz slave census, which Haley has previously cited, is also of interest. It lists two unnamed enslaved men and two enslaved women living in the Daniel Hasbrouck household. Only individuals over the age of fourteen were recorded, and so it is not known if there were any enslaved children in the household or not. Interestingly, no mention of slaves appears in the will of Daniel Hasbrouck made four years later. Perhaps it was assumed that the enslaved Africans would remain with the household or they may no longer have been part of the household,
2“Articles of Vendue” list of Abraham Bevier’s estate conducted April 27, 1774. Huguenot Historical Society. Accessed: http://www.hrvh.org/cdm/ref/collection/hhs/id/475.
7 although the last seems unlikely. The will Wyntje Hasbrouck drew up in 1781 does not mention any slaves either. She continued to live in the Abraham Hasbrouck House with her son Jesaias and his family until her death which probably took place shortly before February 16, 1790 when her will was proved. The federal census taken of the household’s residents later that year listed two slaves. Although the historical glimpses we can glean are contradictory, it is extremely likely that there were enslaved Africans living and working in the house during the 1760s.3
Other Highly Relevant New Paltz and Ulster County Manuscripts There are manuscripts with no specific connection to the Wyntje Hasbrouck household which reveal useful information about daily life in New Paltz and environs in the 1760s. Unless noted otherwise, these are in the archival collection of the Huguenot Historical Society. Manuscripts associated with Wyntje Hasbrouck’s next-door neighbor Roelof Eltinge are helpful. Key among these is an inventory of merchandise in his store taken in 1768. It offers a picture of the goods, tools, foodstuffs, and beverages the people of New Paltz could obtain in their town during the 1760s. This multi-page listing of his store stock also suggests the wide-range of trade connections early residents of New Paltz enjoyed with New York, the Caribbean, and beyond. The account book of John Jacob (also known as Jacques) Roggen of New Paltz, which runs approximately from 1740 to 1787, documents the sale of garments and accessories. The account book not only shows the kinds of goods and consumables available, but also how people traded services and goods in exchange. As Sally Schultz and Joan Hollister explained in their conference presentation “Doing Business on Huguenot Street and Beyond,” Roggen was closely involved financially with members of the Jean Hasbrouck family. The eighteenth-century manuscript ciphering books created by New Paltz children are fascinating and remarkable survivals. Haley mentions them in her Abraham Hasbrouck House Furnishing Plan and I heartily underscore their specialness and value. These are manuscript “work books” students made in class to learn their lessons. They illustrate the Huguenots’ burning interest in educating both girls and boys in the ways of commerce. The topics covered included penmanship, mathematics, accounting, and weights and measures—important skills and information for running a business. The word problems, charts, and other exercises reflect the world for which the youth of New Paltz were being prepared. Gustave Anjou’s two-volume Ulster County, N.Y. Probate Records in the Office of the Surrogate, and in the County Clerk's Office at Kingston, N.Y. (1906) contains transcriptions and translations of early Ulster County wills, probate inventories, and related estate records. This essential text greatly informed this Furnishing Plan, Volume II, as was the case with Haley’s Furnishing Plan, Volume I.
Documents relating to the settlement of Hasbrouck neighbor Roelof Josiah Elting’s estate
3In her will, Maria Deyo Hasbrouck stated that she would leave a male and a female slave to her son Daniel. Fragment of Will of Maria Deyo Hasbrouck, dated July 30, 1729. Huguenot Historical Society. Accessed: http://www.hrvh.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/hhs/id/21/rec/14.
8 c. 1795 were helpful. Also informative was Marbletown resident Louis Bevier’s 1773 probate inventory, contained in the “Louis Bevier Family Papers: The Rutgers Collection (1687-1921).” The original version of this manuscript is held by Rutgers University.
Before moving on to other historical resources, it is appropriate to take a moment to share historians’ observations about early New Paltz wills, probate inventories, and inheritance customs here since they are central to the Wyntje Hasbrouck household’s story.
In her book Huguenot Refugees in the Hudson River Valley, Paula Wheeler Carlo intones the words of fellow New York historian David Narrett when she writes that “most colonial-era people did not prepare a last will and testament.” She goes on to explain that only thirty wills survive for the New Paltz patentees and their colonial-era descendants even though thousands of individuals fall into that category. She does not assume wholesale destruction of these manuscripts, but surmises that the early settlers probably made any such arrangements verbally. In her discussion, she also points out that the residents of New Paltz did not retain the French Walloon tradition of primogeniture. Carlo devotes a whole page to an explication of the instructions and provisions in Daniel Hasbrouck’s will and their impact upon the lives of Wyntje Hasbrouck and her children.4
Carlo and Shefsiek pointed out that the inheritance arrangements made the Huguenots in New Paltz differed from the more prevalent Dutch and English customs practiced in the colony of New York. Shefsiek explained that the patterns of inheritance were neither purely Dutch (with the wife receiving the whole estate and, after her death, all offspring receiving equal portions) nor purely English (in the form of primogeniture) but a third way where there was an emphasis on preserving assets for the next generation. For example, if widows remarried their claim to the estate was often reduced to one-third. In the case of Wyntje Hasbrouck, she would lose all assets inherited from her husband if she remarried. In addition, Daniel’s estate was not to be formally dispersed until the youngest child Zacharias reached the age of twenty-one in 1770.5
New Paltz and Ulster County First-Person Accounts I could not locate any first-person accounts describing life in New Paltz during the colonial era. Esopus (Kingston) and environs are mentioned briefly in the travel accounts of Dr. Alexander Hamilton (1744), Peter Kalm (1749), and Richard Smith (1769). To augment these slim resources, I have drawn upon first-person narratives concerning living conditions and customs in the greater Hudson Valley, including Albany. (See the separate Bibliography) For his History of New Paltz, New York, and Its Old Families (1909), Ralph Le Fevre drew upon the reminiscences of local individuals whose memories extended back to the 1820s.
4Paula Wheeler Carlo, Huguenot Refugees in in Colonial New York: Becoming Americans in the Hudson Valley (Chicago, IL: Sussex Academic Press, 2005) 135, 146, and 145. See also David E. Narrett, Inheritance and Family Life in Colonial New York City (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992) 10-11. 5Email correspondence from Kenneth P. Shefsiek to Kathleen Johnson, January 26, 2016; Carlo, 145; Jacquetta M. Haley, “Furnishings Plan, Abraham Hasbrouck House, Huguenot Historical Society” (June 2010) 181.
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Archaeological Findings Regarding archaeological analysis of the Abraham Hasbrouck House site, written reports and physical findings relating to two digs were examined. The reports reviewed were “Archeological Excavations of the Abraham Hasbrouck House, New Paltz, N.Y.” (1980) by Rockman & Bridges and “Phase 3 Archaeological Data Recovery, Abraham Hasbrouck House, Huguenot Street, New Paltz, Ulster Co., N.Y.” (2003) by Joseph E. Diamond. The latter related to trenching at the site and investigations Diamond conducted in 2000 and 2001.
Most pertinent to the Furnishing Plan, Volume II were the ceramics recovered. The most prevalent type dating from the mid-eighteenth-century era is English slipware. Some of these buff-colored earthenware tableware fragments have brown slip (liquid clay) decoration over white and while others show white slip over brown. (The white slip looks yellow under a lead glaze.) Some fragments displayed combed decoration. Most fragments are very small. Concerning other colonial-era ceramics found, there were also a few shards of blue and white delftware (tin-glazed earthenware) with cobalt blue decoration and at least one shard showing polychrome floral decoration in so-called “Fazakerley style.” (See photo.) A few fragments of “Jackfield-type” earthenware (dark manganese glaze over a red body) were found as were a few fragments of Westerwald- and Frechen-type stoneware, likely made on the Continent. Utilitarian red earthenware and buff-colored stoneware remnants were also unearthed. Glassware finds took the form of a “folded foot wine glass, an onion bottle (cx 357), wine and case bottle fragments from the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.”6 The SUNY Archaeology Field School under the direction of Joe Diamond also conducted an archaeological investigation of the basement area under the stone floor in the Kitchen of the Abraham Hasbrouck House. As reported in the September 2011 issue of the Hasbrouck Family Association Journal in September 2011:
As a prelude to replacing the stone floor in the kitchen with a more period-authentic wooden one, the stone floor was removed, and Prof. Joseph Diamond’s SUNY Archaeology Field School students excavated 65% of the newly exposed ground beneath it. They came up with many interesting artifacts, the most notable being some beads which appear to be of African origin, presumably brought with them by African slaves who worked in the house. Pieces of raw coral and marginella shells are also probably slave-related. In addition, the group found parts of smoking pipes, thimbles, pins, handmade bone buttons, gun flints, a musket ball and birdshot of several sizes – all clues to how the former inhabitants lived.”7
6Joseph E. Diamond, “Phase 3 Archaeological Data Recovery, Abraham Hasbrouck House, Huguenot Street, New Paltz, Ulster Co., N.Y.” (Report funded by Hasbrouck Family Association, 2003) 41-42. 7“Our Houses, Abraham Hasbrouck House,” Hasbrouck Family Association Journal, September 2011, 2. Accessed: http://hasbrouckfamily.org/newsletters/HFA_Newsletter_Sept2011.pdf.
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No report or physical findings from the most recent archaeological investigation conducted by Jay Cohen at the Abraham Hasbrouck House c. 2000 were available when this furnishing plan was written.
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Three photographs of earthenware and stoneware shards recovered from the Abraham Hasbrouck site. The top photo shows fragments of an English earthenware plate. The second shows delftware shards, from the colonial era, include one with green decoration which resembles a type of polychrome floral decoration referred to as “Fazakerley.” The bottom photo shows remnants of stoneware and of buff- and red-colored earthenwares.
Above Ground Survivals The most important “artifact” associated with the Furnishing Plan, Volume Two is the Abraham Hasbrouck House itself. The structure has been thoroughly studied and documented via “Historic Structure Report: The Abraham Hasbrouck House at The Huguenot Historical Society, New Paltz, N.Y.” by Kenneth Hewes Barricklo and Neil Larson. Presently, the only item thought to be a Daniel and Wyntje Hasbrouck family possession is a bible in Dutch (Huguenot Historical Society numbers BIB 353 and 6050) inscribed in ink “D HB.” Per cataloging information, ownership of the volume has been attributed to Daniel Hasbrouck (1691–1759). (See illustrations.) Aside from it, there are no furnishings, tools, clothing, personal accessories, other books, or related objects that survive from the 1760s or earlier with a known history of ownership in the Daniel and Wyntje Hasbrouck family. Therefore, it is essential to turn to colonial-era objects which have an association with New Paltz, with Ulster County, or with the region through a history of manufacture, history of ownership, and/or style and construction characteristics. As part of this research process, I contacted subject specialists and curators, conducted onsite and online searches, and surveyed fine and decorative arts’ literature to locate pertinent objects and information. I contacted curators and other collections personnel at the following museums: Friends of Historic Kingston, Senate House, New York State Museum, Albany Institute of History and Art, the Yale University Art Gallery, Historic Cherry Hill in Albany, NY. Institutional and related databases investigated included the New-York Historical Society, New York State Historical Association, the Winterthur Museum, Milwaukee Art Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Historic New England, Sotheby’s, and Christie’s among others. I
12 reviewed HHS’s catalog records with HHS Collections Manager Ashley Trainor to see which objects in the collection have a history of ownership listed. I also reviewed collections’ and exhibition catalogs and other scholarly books and articles for information on colonial-era objects with known Ulster County histories or with attributions to Ulster County makers. An illustrated list of colonial-era objects associated with Ulster County appears as a separate word document Addendum.
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This Dutch-text, leather-bound bible is thought to have once belonged to Daniel Hasbrouck (1691–1759). The title page, which likely listed the place and date of publication among other important information, is missing. The heading of the page illustrated reads “Nieuw Register der Ouden Testaments.” “D” and a conjoined “HB” were written in ink on the page edges when the book was closed. Collection of Huguenot Historical Society.
Images Discussions with colonial New York painting specialists and my own research have not revealed any colonial-era paintings, drawings, or prints which depict people or scenes in early New Paltz. In fact, there are few references to wall art of any sort in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Ulster County probate records. This is a bit surprising, because the historical record indicates that portraits and religious, history, and still life paintings were prevalent in the homes of the middling and upper classes elsewhere in the colony. Interestingly, two of the best known colonial New York painters had connections to Ulster County. Pieter Vanderlyn, who was born in the Netherlands c. 1687, worked in Kingston and Albany among other places and died in Shawangunk at his son’s home in 1778. Born in the year 1695 or earlier, the artist Gerardus
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Duyckinck died in Kingston on July 26, 1746. (See the few portraits in the “Addendum of Objects in Public and Private Collections with Colonial Ulster County Provenance or Association.”) These and other paintings made in the mid- and upper Hudson River Valley during the colonial era offer useful information about dress, personal adornment, accessories, furnishings, tools, buildings, vehicles, and other aspects of material culture and cultural expression in the region. A 1733 painting of a house and farmstead in nearby Greene County is germane to the interpretation of the Abraham Hasbrouck House. Created about the time Daniel and Wyntje Hasbrouck wed, the so-called Van Bergen Overmantel was originally installed over a fireplace in the house depicted. The Marten Van Bergen house—very similar to the Abraham Hasbrouck House in date, overall design, and stone construction—once stood in present-day Leeds, New York. It has been claimed, and rightly so, that it contains more information about life in colonial New York than any other single artifact. (It should be noted that the layout of the Van Bergen farmstead reflects a rural, rather than a town, setting. It is not directly applicable to the Abraham Hasbrouck House’s situation on a village plot.)
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Overall and details of the Van Bergen Overmantel attributed to John Heaton (active 1735–1750), 1733. Oil on wood. H:16-1/4 x W: 88-3/4 inches. New York State Historical Association. (For additional detail photographs, see: http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/becomingamer/peoples/text6/vanbergenovermantel.pdf.)
The Van Bergen Overmantel is full of telling details. Native Americans, African Americans, and Euro-Americans populate the scene. A Native American woman, dressed in leggings and a blanket, has a pack on her back. She is one of two Indians moving through this landscape. The Van Bergens, dressed in their Euro-American finery, strike polite poses. The African blacksmith heads toward his forge while an African woman stands with a milk bucket. A Northern-European style farm cart carries milk jugs while cows with extended udders graze nearby. (They are obviously good milk producers.) The Dutch-style New World Dutch barn for storing and processing wheat and the barracks for holding hay were commonly found in colonial New York and New Jersey. There were likely similar farm structures on the lands belonging to Wyntje Hasbrouck and worked by her sons. Portraits made in the upper Hudson Valley during the mid-eighteenth century are a fruitful resource as well. The following portraits dating from the 1730s are two of many examples. Like Daniel Hasbrouck and his sons, Abraham E. Wendell of Albany was a farmer and an owner of a grist mill. The artist John Heaton depicted the Wendell with his gristmill on the Norman Kill, a “boat wagon,” and a piece of farm equipment called a “drag” in the background. In a somewhat similar manner, Susanna Truax of Schenectady is shown next to a tea table, teapot, other tea equipage, and little chunks of sugar.8
8For more on the portrait of Abraham E. Wendell, see: Tammis K. Groft and Mary Alice Mackay, Albany Institute of History & Art, 200 Years of Collecting (Albany, NY and New York: Albany Institute of History and Art / Hudson
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Overall and detail of portrait of Abraham E. Wendell attributed to John Heaton (active 1735– 1750), c. 1737. Albany Institute of History and Art.
Hills Press, 1998) 51-53 and 48-50. For more on the portrait of Susanna Truax, see: Roderic H. Blackburn and Ruth Piwonka. Remembrance of Patria: Dutch Arts and Culture in Colonial America 1609-1776 (Albany, NY: Publishing Center for Cultural Resources and Albany Institute of History and Art, 1988) 201 and 225.
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Susanna Truax attributed to the Gansevoort Limner (Possibly Pieter Vanderlyn), c. 1730. National Gallery of Art. (For more information, see: http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/Collection/art-object-page.59924.html.)
If used judiciously, Dutch genre paintings, scenes of everyday life from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, can provide background information about aspects about Northern European village and rural life. The circumstances of living in the vernacular Abraham Hasbrouck house during the 1760s with its centuries’-old characteristics including jambless fireplaces and a cupboard bed would have shared some similarities with the lifestyles depicted in Dutch genre paintings. They are sometimes referenced because similar depictions of domestic life in colonial America do not exist.
Primary Resources Relating to the Hudson River Valley and Beyond I have rightfully given colonial-period New Paltz and Ulster County historical resources primacy in this Furnishing Plan, Volume II. While they are informative, they do not provide a complete picture. This is no surprise, and certainly would be the case when examining nearly any colonial American locale. In order to offer a fuller view of life in the Abraham Hasbrouck House during the 1760s, we have to cast our collective net more broadly and then sift through the findings. The experiences and possessions of people living in other areas of the colony need to be considered.
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In this way we can flesh out the surroundings and circumstances of Hasbrouck household members. Secondary Sources Scholars have been actively exploring the research areas of colonial New York material culture and cultural expression during the last decades. The have addressed such topics as architecture, fine and decorative arts, tools, clothing and personal adornment, land use, foodways, religion, language, the nature of enslavement, the impact of trade, and the cultural diversity evidenced among the Hudson River Valley’s European, African, and Native American populations. They have disseminated the resulting information through print and online publications, museum exhibitions, scholarly conferences, and public history programming including museum tours. Relevant articles, books, exhibition catalogs, and online offerings are cited in the separate Bibliography for the project contained in this binder. While the Bibliography contains a listing of secondary resources with annotations, some secondary sources are worthy highlighting here. The Albany Institute of History and Art’s exhibition catalog Remembrance of Patria: Dutch Arts and Culture in Colonial America 1609– 1776 (1988)—authored by Roderic H. Blackburn, Ruth Piwonka, and others—remains the classic text for colonial Hudson Valley arts and design. Through its annual journal American Furniture, the Milwaukee-based Chipstone Foundation has published several articles on early Hudson Valley and New York furniture penned by various furniture scholars including Peter Kenny. Indeed, Kenny and others have referenced Ulster County furniture in the HHS and in other collections. The re-interpretation and re-installation of Historic Hudson Valley’s Philipsburg Manor, a colonial provisioning plantation in present-day Sleepy Hollow, as well as the Metropolitan Museum American Wing’s installation of “the Dutch New York Room” from the 1751 Peter Winne House which once stood in Bethlehem, NY number among recent museum initiatives which have resulted in new or underappreciated information being brought to the fore.
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Two views of the New York Dutch Room, Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Recommend Referencing When Available in the Future: Report and findings relating to Jay Cohen’s archaeological investigations of the Abraham Hasbrouck House site, c. 2000. Kenneth Shefsiek’s upcoming book Set in Stone: Creating and Commemorating a Hudson Valley Culture (SUNY Press) which is based on his University of Georgia doctoral dissertation.
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Abraham Hasbrouck House Presentation and Interpretation The Abraham Hasbrouck House with its 1760–1775 time period is currently the earliest furnished historic house museum on The Street and thus is a flagship within the Huguenot Historical Society’s constellation of historic structures. The display concept of “furnished interiors” is one visitors have come to expect at house museums since it is frequently found and is also easy for adults, families, and K-12 educators and their students to grasp. Visitors can compare the Abraham Hasbrouck House’s furnished rooms to their own homes, a useful way to learn about the circumstances and experiences of the people of the past. While the Jean Hasbrouck House is of a comparable construction date, it is my understanding that its interiors are designed, in part or in full, to address America’s early national period. Thus the Abraham Hasbrouck House is not only important in its own right, but it also serves as a key element in the interpretation of The Street overall. The Abraham Hasbrouck House is noteworthy on many other counts, two of which are mentioned here. First, it is one of a very few historic houses in the Hudson River Valley devoted solely to representing a pre-Revolutionary War story. Second, within the realm of historic architecture, the structure is considered a classic, textbook example of its type. Its value and reputation has been further enhanced by the meticulous restoration of its exterior and interior architecture. The same rigor and attention to historical detail could be applied to the outfitting and the interpretation of the structure, making it even more special.
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The Material World of the Hasbroucks and Their Neighbors During the Mid-Eighteenth Century As an aid to understanding the proposed historic house installation, the following is a concise summary of the trade connections and material world of Wyntje Hasbrouck household members during the 1760s. Like others living in the Hudson Valley during the 1760s, the Hasbroucks were part of a network of commerce which was not only local and regional in scope but extended to the Caribbean, to Europe and Africa, and even to Asia. (In fact, Manhattan-based merchants were sending their own trading ships to Madagascar in the East Indian Ocean as early as the 1690s.) When the Huguenot families moved from Kingston to the place they called New Paltz, they did so to exploit fertile farmland. They sent some of what they grew to markets beyond New Paltz and, in turn, imported some furnishings, tools, and consumables. The main crop in New Paltz and elsewhere in the Hudson Valley was wheat. In 1679, Laurentius Van Gaasbeck acclaimed the area around Kingston as “very beautiful and fertile wheatland” and the “granary of the whole New Netherlands, and the adjacent places.”9 Daniel Hasbrouck, and one or more of his sons, sagely engaged in both milling and farming and so controlled the processing of their grains and those of their neighbors. While the Hasbroucks’ milling records don’t survive, typically Hudson Valley millers ground wheat into flour which they packed in barrels. Any flour not destined for local consumption was sent to Hudson River landings such as the one in Kingston and shipped down river to Manhattan. There wheat products, along with other food stuffs, were transported to the West Indies where plantation owners focused on growing the extremely lucrative sugar cane to the exclusion of all else. Some wheat was headed to breweries rather than gristmills. As Dr. Alexander Hamilton recorded on his trip up the Hudson during the 1740s, “We weighed anchor at seven o'clock, with the wind southwest and fresh, and half an hour after passed by Sopus [Kingston], a pleasant village situated upon the west side of the river, famous for beer and ale.”10
Peas were also commonly grown. Because they could be dried and packed into barrels, these legumes were a favorite provisioning staple for soldiers and sailors. For example, when Robert Livingston was working for colonial governor Henry Sloughter he was responsible for providing British troops stationed in New York and in Albany with victuals. During the 1690s, he ordered Ulster County leaders to send him 1,000 bushels of wheat and 300 bushels of peas in lieu of the County’s delinquent taxes.11
9Olde Ulster, 3:53 cited in Thomas S. Wermuth, Rip Van Winkle’s Neighbors: The Transformation of Rural Society in the Hudson River Valley, 1720-1850 (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2001) 12. 10Hamilton's Itinerarium; being a narrative of a journey from Annapolis, Maryland, through Delaware, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, from May to September, 1744, by Doctor Alexander Hamilton. Edited by Albert Bushnell Hart. (Saint Louis, Mo: Printed only for private distribution by W. K. Bixby, 1907) 195. 11Robert Livingston petition, c. 1691 cited in Lawrence H. Leder, Robert Livingston (1654–1728) and the Politics of Colonial New York, (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press for the Institute of Early American History and Culture at Williamsburg, Virginia; 1961), 80.
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Wheat and peas were not the only notable agricultural products. Both Peter Kalm and Richard Smith, who passed through the Hudson River Valley in 1749 and 1769 respectively, praised dairy products as well as the wheat from the Kingston area. Historical references to local dairying abound. Johan Jacob Roggen accepted butter as payment in his New Paltz store. The Roelof Eltinge store inventory listed butter and cheese which local women most likely made and gave in trade. Indeed, women in New York and nearby colonies contributed to their families’ livelihoods through the production of dairy products and eggs.12
Ulster County uplands were favored for pasture. Ulster County historian A.T. Clearwater pointed out that there was an area near Marbletown called “Butterfields” early on due to the superb pasturage and “that settlers there were largely engaged in dairying . . . the Mormel, butter and cheese were exported.” Mormel is a Dutch word meaning beast and likely refers to cattle.13 While Clearwater does not indicate where these products were destined, it is interesting to note that some butter was produced on a commercial scale in the colony of New York. Heavily salted, it was loaded on boats headed to the West Indies. In regard accessing imported goods, various New Paltzians—including members of the Jean Hasbrouck family, Roelof Eltinge, and Johan Jacob Roggen—ran stores during the colonial era. A former schoolmaster in town named Jean Cottin, who had married New Paltz resident Catherine Dubois, set himself up as a merchant in Kingston during the early eighteenth century. He forged business relationships with merchants in New York and thus provided one avenue by which New Paltz residents interacted with the Atlantic World.14 Kingston, like other Hudson River cities and towns, was integrally connected to other places of trade through the mercantile activities which took place in and around River landings. Investment in trade infrastructure at Kingston included constructing new wharves in 1736 and a new public market in 1753.15 These commercial enhancements supported the enterprises of farmers, brewers, coopers, and others involved in export as well as of merchants and shopkeepers who retailed imported household items, textiles, books, tools, and luxury foodstuffs and beverages. Local artisans such as furniture makers, blacksmiths, and weavers acquired certain tools and raw materials through this channel as well. A small sampling of Roelof Eltinge’s store contents in 1768 illustrates the town of New Paltz’s connection with the wider world through trade. In the category of consumables, Eltinge’s sugar and coffee likely originated in the Caribbean, tea in Asia, mace in the Banda Islands of
12Wermuth, 11-12, 49; Sally M. Schulz and Joan Hollister, “Doing Business on Huguenot Street and Beyond: The Descendants of Jean Hasbrouck” (Paper Presented at the Academy of Accounting Historians conference “Accounting History: Gateway to the Future,” Atlanta, Georgia, August 2001) 9. See Joan M. Jensen, Loosening the Bonds, Mid-Atlantic Farm Women 1750-1850 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1986). 13Abraham Trumpour Clearwater, ed. The History of Ulster County, New York. (Kingston, NY: W. J. Van Deusen, 1907) 278. 14See Sally M. Schultz and Joan Hollister, “Jean Cottin, Eighteenth–Century Huguenot Merchant,” New York History 86:2 (Spring 2005) 133-167. Kingston shopkeeper Petrus Elting may have been in a similar position. His account book, reflecting the years 1762 to 1774 and in the collection of the Museum of the City of New York, indicates that he made trips to Manhattan to acquire goods from city merchants for his Ulster County store. This Account Book is scheduled for display as part of the permanent exhibition “New York at Its Core” opening at Museum of the City of New York on November 16, 2016. 15Wermuth, 32.
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Indonesia, and allspice from Jamaica. The “Irish” in “Irish Camblet” probably refers to the place of manufacture of this plain-weave woolen textile which was also produced in England, France, and the Netherlands. “Philadelphia buttons,” a type of cast brass button which originated in the City of Brotherly Love, were also counterfeited by makers in New York City.16
As a coda to commerce, there is an intriguing reference to the West Indian trade in Philip Deyo’s 1768 ciphering book in the Huguenot Historical Society archives. It contains a mathematics problem involving a merchant who has received twenty bales of ginger from Jamaica, a small but telling illustration of local awareness of the wide world of commerce in the mid-eighteenth century.
Although the cultural allegiances and self-definitions of the people of the past are difficult to pin down, there are some general observations which can be made about the residents of New Paltz in the colonial era. As evidenced by surviving documents, by the 1760s the French language had been superseded, first by Dutch and then by English. In addition, historians are currently exploring the diversity of the Huguenot diaspora. Paula Wheeler Carlo identifies those who settled in New Paltz as Walloons who hailed from the southern areas of the Netherlands and Northern France. Their identity was further shaped by their decades’-long stay in Mannheim located in the Paltz region of present-day Germany. It is interesting that they named their New World settlement after their adopted home in Germany. Furthermore, after they left Mannheim, the Hasbroucks and two other families traveled to London from whence they sailed to Boston in 1675. Carlo also noted that the settling families arrived in New Paltz before the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. Thus they did not suffer the violence and financial hardship experienced by Huguenots living in Southwestern France. The latter were forced to flee for their lives on the spot and to leave much of their wealth behind. This was the situation of those who settled in New Rochelle in Westchester County, for example.17
Furnishings As an introduction to this section, it is important to highlight that Wyntje Hasbrouck was a person of means and that the Abraham Hasbrouck House was one of the finest in New Paltz during the colonial era. In regard to Wyntje Hasbrouck’s financial position, even in her long- widowed situation, she was listed as the eighth wealthiest person on the 1765 New Paltz tax list. In 1771, she was the third most generous contributor to the construction of the second French Church. Her home and its furnishings would have been “top of the line” in this town, something useful to remind museum visitors since the majority of domiciles constructed in colonial New Paltz were of a far more ephemeral nature and therefore are no longer available for comparison.18
16Florence M. Montgomery, Textiles in America. 1650-1870 (New York: W.W. Norton, A Winterthur/Barra Book, 1983) 188-189; Ivor Noel Hume, A Guide to Artifacts of Colonial America (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974) 92. 17Carlo, 19, 22, and 45. 18Tax List in Le Fevre, History of New Paltz, I: 94-96 in Carlo, 132; Records of the Reformed Dutch Church, New Paltz, 40-42 referenced in Haley, “Furnishings Plan,” 38.
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Because there is little known about the contents of the Abraham Hasbrouck House during the focus period, we have to talk in terms of a broader view based on the surroundings, possessions, and circumstances of the Hasbroucks’ neighbors and contemporaries even as we keep in mind the elite status of Wyntje Hasbrouck and her family in New Paltz. The structure was likely outfitted in a mixture of furnishings. Following the custom of the era—and fitting with their families’ economic means—Daniel and Wyntje Hasbrouck probably acquired some new pieces upon their marriage in 1734. As an example of what an eighteenth-century Ulster County bride might bring to her new home, William Elting of Kingston specified in his 1743 will that each of his daughters would be given twelve chairs, a spinning wheel, a bedstead, a chest, and a table if she married.19 During the 1740s, 1750s and 1760s, the Hasbrouck family could have patronized local shopkeepers and artisans, attended auctions where their neighbors’ household goods were up for sale, and purchased furniture and goods from Kingston merchants with ties to New York and beyond. In addition, since Daniel and his mother Maria Deyo Hasbrouck occupied the stone structure for more than a decade before Daniel and Wyntje wed, it is also likely that some furniture pre-dated this union. Maria Deyo Hasbrouck continued to live with the couple until her death in 1741. She left the bulk of her estate to Daniel, a circumstance which suggests some of her furnishings might have remained in the structure. As Neil Larson has observed about the earliest years of the house: One scenario is that upon the death of his father in 1717, Daniel—even though unmarried—built a substantial stone house to declare his coming of age and ascendancy to head of his family. His mother remained the woman of the house; it is likely that she controlled his father’s estate just like Wyntje did. The one-room stone house quite possibly was built as an addition to his parents’ wood house. (We have been noticing fragments of old wood frames incorporated in later sections of stone houses—such as in the attic of the south room of the Abraham Hasbrouck House—and now think the first houses continued to be used while the stone house took shape in stages and then dismantled when the stone house reached its full dimensions.) Without a wife, his mother would have been an important part of the household. His youngest brother, Benjamin, did not marry until 1737 and may have lived there, too. So, soon as the first stone section was completed, Daniel began to build the north section with an opkamer for his mother’s private space. The opkamer would have been the best room. And when he married Wyntje, it was all the more important to establish a separate domicile for his mother, with the newlyweds occupying the rest of the house (perhaps with the old wood section on the south end). Daniel and Wyntje were soon ready to plan for the construction of a new parlor.20
Furniture and Woodenware Concerning furniture in the Abraham Hasbrouck House, one would expect to see what are today
19Will made on December 7, 1743 by William Elting of Kingston, Anjou, 2:133. 20Email correspondence from Neil Larson to Kathleen Johnson, April 19, 2016.
25 called the William and Mary and the Queen Anne styles represented as well as vernacular (utilitarian) objects for which style is not a defining feature. It is probable that all their furniture was either stained or painted. Paint protected furniture surfaces and could also delight the eye. Paints and stains also helped visually unify pieces which had been fashioned from more than one species of wood. It was likely that much of the furniture used in the Abraham Hasbrouck house during the 1760s had been made in Ulster County. The best-known and documented producers of early furniture in the Ulster County region are the Elting-Beekman shops of Kingston. Jan Elting (1632–1729) is considered the founder who put all in motion in 1672. The long-lived business continued into the nineteenth century under the direction of Thomas Beekman (1761–1814). As Peter Kenny summarized, “the Elting-Beekman joiners made kasten of a consistent design for their principally Dutch and Huguenot customers from at least 1700 until after the Revolution, and evidence suggests they produced early baroque oval tables with falling leaves as well.” (A number of furniture pieces attributed to the Elting-Beekman shops are on view at HHS currently.) 21 Other part- or full-time woodworkers whose identities are little known or unknown made furniture, interior woodwork, coopered goods, and related products. As one example, Roelof Eltinge’s store contained hinges, handles, and locks for chests as well as broad axes, rasps, carpenters’ compasses, augers, gimlets, and drawing knives, thus indicating a local need for these supplies and tools. Boston and New York City were other possible sources for furniture. There are a number of “Boston leather chairs” which survive with Ulster County histories. (See “Addendum of Objects in Public and Private Collections with Colonial Ulster County Provenance or Association” also in this binder.) These upholstered chairs created during the early- to mid-eighteenth century were shipped throughout the American colonies. The Boston originals were so popular that New York City chairmakers copied them. While most of these chairs have turned stiles, and date from the first decades of the eighteenth century, examples made after 1730 have arched tops, “crooked” backs, and molded stiles—attributes considered stylistically Queen Anne today. The form of the fiddleback chair is thought to have developed in the New York City area about 1750 and appears in New York probate inventories beginning in the 1760s. This type of chair is a turner’s version of a Queen Anne style chair. Aside from selling them locally, urban turners sent these chairs to customers living in the Hudson Valley and along Long Island Sound. The form was imitated by chairmakers beyond New York City, and so these chairs were sometimes called “york” chairs in reference to the form’s origin. This type of chair was made well into the nineteenth century.22 There are a number of fiddleback chairs in the HHS collection.
21Peter M. Kenny, “Flat Gates, Draw Bars, Twists and Urns: New York’s Distinctive, Early Baroque Oval Tables with Falling Leaves.” American Furniture 1994 (Milwaukee, MI: Chipstone Foundation/University Press of New England, 1997) n. p. Accessed online: http://www.chipstone.org/article.php/41/American-Furniture-1994/Flat- Gates,-Draw-Bars,-Twists,-and-Urns:-New-York%E2%80%99s-Distinctive,-Early-Baroque-Oval-Tables-with- Falling-Leaves. 22Blackburn and Piwonka, 194; Kathleen Eagen Johnson, “The Fiddleback Chair,” Early America Furniture From Settlement to City, Art & Antiques Anthology (New York: Billboard Publications, 1983) 92-97, 92-95.
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Other turned chairs with rush seats in the form of banister backs were imported into New York from Boston and were copied here as well. (See Parlor section for more discussion.) One or more turners in Ulster County produced a distinctive type of flat-arm slat back armchair during the eighteenth century. (See the “Addendum of Objects with a Colonial Ulster County Provenance or Associations.”) Simple stools and benches of plank or board construction were ubiquitous and used inside and outside. One would expect to find a high-post bedstead with a set of hangings in the parlor of a house like the Hasbroucks’. Lesser rooms might contain low post bedsteads or trundle beds. Other interesting options in the Ulster County region included the cupboard bed, the settlebed, and the slawbunk.23 Tables used in mid-eighteenth-century Hudson Valley homes took various shapes. Among the simplest was the medial-stretcher table. This long-lived form which appears in seventeenth- century Dutch paintings could be constructed using the most basic of woodworking tools. Sometimes woodworkers employed X-bracing in various configurations to give such tables additional stability. There are also versions with only X-bracing and no stretchers. A form directly associated with Ulster County is a particular type of “hutch” chair-table with carved and pierced decoration. There are two in the collection of HHS and a third at the Winterthur Museum attributed to Cornelius Clark of Schuyler. On the other end of the spectrum are the more refined gateleg tables with draw-bar supports for the drop leaves and a distinguishing series of turning on the legs attributed to the Beekman-Elting shops of Kingston. Again, there is an example in the collection of HHS.24 Concerning specialized table forms, Jacquetta M. Haley’s analysis of seventy-one Ulster County probate inventories taken during the second half of the eighteenth century resulted in twelve “tea tables” and only four listed as “dining.”25 Small tables with rectangular, oval, and round tops were regularly found and moved about the house as needed. In regard to case pieces, the kas, or Dutch cupboard, was a significant item in colonial Hudson Valley homes. There is probably a no more emblematic form of furniture in the Hudson River Valley. With its antecedents in Baroque and even Renaissance design, the kas was made in New York from the seventeenth into the nineteenth centuries and exemplifies the preference among New Yorkers of Northern European descent for a cupboard with shelves, rather than a chest of drawers, for storage. (The chest of drawers, a form favored by the English, was not popular in the Hudson Valley during the colonial era.) A sliding glyph covered the keyhole on a kas and the top section typically possessed a locking mechanism. According to furniture scholar Peter
23For reference, the Ulster County Historical Society’s collection contains a settlebed and a slawbunk. 24For examples of x-braced and medial stretcher tables, see: Blackburn and Piwonka, 162-164 and Kathleen Eagen Johnson, Van Cortlandt Manor (Tarrytown, NY: Historic Hudson Valley, 1997) 38, 39. For information on the chair-tables with an Ulster County provenance, see Blackburn and Piwonka, 167. For more on the distinctive gateleg table form with draw bar supports, see: Kenny, “Flat Gates,” 107-135. 25Jacquetta M. Haley, "Transcripts of Ulster County Inventories from the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century" (November 2009) 27.
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Kenny, the presence of brass hardware is viewed as an “English attribute.”26 (See the “Addendum of Objects in Public and Private Collections with Colonial Ulster County Provenance or Association” for examples of kasten with connections to Ulster County.) Cupboards which resemble “mini-kasten” as well as kitchen cupboards called pottebanks survive with Ulster County histories. The classic Hudson Valley pottebank differs from New England and Pennsylvania board-constructed cupboards in that it typically has no cornice or backboard on the top section.27 A few of these kitchen cupboards have some “open storage” in the bottom section. A variant on the pottebank are sets of open shelves which stand on the floor. (An example is visible in the photograph of the Philipsburg Manor Upper Kitchen. See the “Addendum of Objects in Public and Private Collections with Colonial Ulster County Provenance or Association” for an example with an Ulster County history.) Chests were more often of board, rather than joined, construction in the Hudson Valley. As one would expect, boxes with hinged or sliding lids for holding books and papers, spices, and other goods were present as well. In the colonial Hudson Valley, as elsewhere, some containers hung on walls. These included so- called “salt boxes” as well as well as plain and chip-carved spoon racks for holding and displaying flatware. Woven-splint baskets created by Native Americans were used for storage in colonial Hudson Valley houses. Stories in Ralph Le Fevre’s History of New Paltz center around Native Americans’ traveling through the area making and selling baskets and scoops as late as 1820. During the mid-eighteenth century, River Indians also fashioned brooms from a single length of wood (often ash) which they sold alongside the baskets.28
26“The Cupboard at the Center of the World: American Kasten and their Style and Use in Colonial Dutch New York,” lecture delivered by Peter Kenny at the Albany Institute of History and Art, December 6, 2015. 27Blackburn and Piwonka, 166. 28Ralph Le Fevre, History of New Paltz, New York, and its old families (from 1678 to 1820) including the Huguenot pioneers and others who settled in New Paltz previous to the revolution; with an appendix bringing down the history of certain families and some other matter to 1850. Second Edition. 2 vols. (Albany, NY: Fort Orange Press, Branuow Printing Company, 1909), on I:76: “the few [Native people] remaining at that time went off with Sir John Johnson, the Tory leader in the Revolutionary war. Now and then one would come around with baskets to sell.” On I: 79, “probably the last visit of the Indians to this place was about 1820, when two of them came to the reservation at Ah Qua. It is related that at one time Indians came near Dashville and cut some timber for baskets. Some of the people started to drive them away, but Ezekiel Eltinge said “Let them alone; they have the right." His remark was no doubt on account of the reservation at Ah Qua.” Also on I:79, “There was a family of Indians that would come and live in a hut in the woods of Cornelius DuBois (now the AV. H. D. Blake place), and with his permission cut down any timber they desired, which they would manufacture into scoops and baskets.” On I: 80, Le Fevre relates a story told by “Aunt” Judy Jackson concerning an incident which took place in 1812 when she was a child. She opened the door of a wigwam and “there were about a dozen Indians sitting on the floor engaged in making baskets.” In regard to brooms, “in 1744, several Indian canoes, one after another came down the East and North rivers, landed their cargoes in the basins near the Long bridge, and too up their residence in the yard and store-house of Adolphus Phillips, where they generally made up their baskets and brooms, as they could better bring the rough materials with
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Other turned wooden items found in Hudson Valley homes included burl bowls and mortars and pestles. Coopered goods included buckets, piggins, tubs, firkins, and barrels of various sizes.
In addition, a looking glass was a frequently found accessory in the colonial homes and would certainly be appropriate in the Abraham Hasbrouck house.
Upper Kitchen installation, Philipsburg Manor, Sleepy Hollow, NY. A set of open shelves appears on the left side of the image. A turned mortar and pestle and a stack of turned burl bowls rest on the shelves. The distinctive Hudson Valley cupboard holds an array of pewter as reflected in the 1750 probate inventory of the property’s late owner. A slant-top box hangs on the wall. Below it (partially visible) are a pine case of bottles and a stool of rough plank construction. A chip-carved spice box of European origin rests on the table.
them than the ready-made baskets and brooms.” “New York in Olden Times,” American Quarterly Register and Magazine 3:1 (September 1849) 188-196, 189.
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Warehouse Room installation, Philipburg Manor. The wooden reproductions seen here include the baskets and brooms of the sort made and sold by River Indians. There are also chests and a Hudson-Valley-style, x-braced medial table based on an artifact table at Van Cortlandt Manor.
Metals The Hasbroucks were a family of means and owned precious metals. Daniel’s mother Maria Deyo willed him all her “gold and silver” among other assets much as Wyntje was to inherit thirty pistoles (gold coins) upon the passing of her mother as specified in her father’s will.29
In their exhibition catalog Remembrance of Patria, Rod Blackburn and Ruth Piwonka noted, “during the years from 1675 to 1750 about 70 silversmiths are known to have worked in New York City and Albany. Of these, about 45 were of Dutch descent, about 14 Huguenot, about 10 English, and the rest undetermined continental origin."30 Silversmiths who worked as freemen or apprentices in Kingston during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries included Cornelius Wynkoop, James Roe, William Roe, Nathaniel Coleman, and John Van Streenberg, Jr. Gustave Anjou states that while pewter was the most common metal mentioned in colonial-era Ulster County probate records, silver spoons and forks were also seen with frequency. Aside from coinage, other silver forms specified in colonial Ulster County wills and inventories include tankards, a salt cellar, and a tumbler. In one anecdote from Revolutionary War, Cornelius Bevier told how during an Indian attack on Fantinekill in 1779, “Sam and I took the silver mugs, the
29Fragment of Will of Maria Deyo Hasbrouck, dated July 30, 1729. Huguenot Historical Society. Accessed: http://www.hrvh.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/hhs/id/21/rec/14. Will of Abraham Deyo made in September 20, 1724, Anjou, 1:110-112. 30Blackburn and Piwonka, 276; Beth Carver Wees with Medill Higgins Harvey, Early American Silver in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2013) 78.
30 spoons and some money, and started for the mountain. More than twenty people came with us because we knew the path over, and they all carried their best things with them.”31 Three silver objects with connections to Ulster County and in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art are illustrated and discussed in the “Addendum of Objects in Public and Private Collections with a Colonial Ulster County Provenance or Association.”32 While the two beakers were commissioned for communion services at the Kingston Reformed Church and the seal was made for governmental use, the same forms were also used in the domestic sphere. Regarding the latter, Wyntje Hasbrouck and some of her sons marked important documents with their own seal. Many base-metal wares were imported from England, the products of its Industrial Revolution, while some were produced in the colonies. At the Eltinge store in 1768, there was iron and steel in the form of knives and forks, coarse wire, pen knifes, and fox and rat traps as well as the wood-working tools previously mentioned. Knitting, darning, and sewing needles as well as thimbles, pins, and sheep shears also appeared, as did brass ink pots, bags of duck and goose shot (probably of lead), and pewter teapots. Similarly, early- and mid-eighteenth-century Ulster County wills and inventories recorded all manner of base-metal tools and equipment. Selections from the following three documents are given as examples. The 1723/1724 will of Dirk Shepmoes of Kingston includes (in translation): a small ax, two iron stamps (branding irons), a Hollandish copper kettle, two iron pots, a warming pan, coal scuttle and tongs, six pewter plates, a pewter dish, and a copper smoothing iron. In her 1757 will, Frances Little of Walkill left, among other items, a large copper kettle, a pair of andirons, a pair of “dogs” (simple andirons), and one fox trap. Aside from many objects of silver, Nicholas De Meyer of Kingston’s 1769 probate inventory contained these metal items to be kept by his widow (original spellings have not always been maintained): pewter dishes, basin, eighteen pewter plates, a colander, tea kettle, chafing dish, old tankard, tin cup, tin sugar box, pewter chamber pot, iron spit, pair of branding irons, two iron fire shovels, iron tongs, gridiron, three small iron pots, copper kettle, old tin kettle, lantern, funnels, skimmer, four screws for a spit, four knives and forks, and two iron kettles.33
Ceramics and Glass As was evidenced in the archaeological investigation of the Abraham Hasbrouck House site, documentary research for the region indicates the prevalence of English slip-decorated earthenware and delftware table forms, Frechen stoneware jugs imported from the Continent, stoneware and red earthenware crocks and jugs of the sort produced locally, and Jackfield-type English earthenware table wares.
31Anjou, 1:12; Diary of Cornelius Bevier quoted in Le Fevre, 228. 32Although not central to this furnishing plan, it is interesting to note that A.T. Clearwater, the author of The History of Ulster County, N.Y. (1907), was a major collector of early American silver. His donation of over five hundred items formed the core of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s holdings in that area. Wees and Harvey, 13. 33Anjou, 1:107-110; 2:158; and 2:167-168.
31
Interestingly, there is no evidence of colonial-era porcelain, the most refined and desirable ceramic material, in the archaeological findings associated with Abraham Hasbrouck House. Most of the porcelain imported into colonial New York came from China and took the form of teawares although some seventeenth-century pieces had originated in Japan. Concerning items of glass, one would expect to find wine and case bottles, a couple of wine glasses, and possibly a tumbler (beaker) in a house such as the Hasbroucks. Re: records pertaining to them, Daniel purchased a bottle from Isaac Hasbrouck in the 1730s while his son Josaphat purchased “a drinking glass” at the 1774 Abraham Bevier vendue. In Roelof Eltinge’s store, “3 dozen half-pint glass bottles” and “2 dozen 1/2 gill tumbors [tumblers]” were available for purchase in 1768. A number of beakers survive with colonial American histories and with worn interior bottoms where their owners used stirrers to mix drinks.
This eighteenth-century English slipware was recovered at the trading site Philipsburg Manor in present-day Sleepy Hollow. The fragments of slipware found in the Abraham Hasbrouck House archaeological digs are similar.
32
“Jackfield-type” coffee or chocolate pot, probably England, 1750-1760. Accessed: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/226517056233956899/. The black chocolate cups listed in the 1768 Eltinge store inventory would have been similar in material.
Textiles The story of textiles is a rich one for the Hasbrouck family, both as makers and consumers of textiles. Jacquetta Haley explored much of this history in her Furnishing Plan which will not be repeated here. Leslie LeFevre-Stratton worked in partnership with Rabbit Goody of Thistle Hill Weavers to create reproduction textiles for the re-installed Abraham Hasbrouck House. These include chimney clothes and bed coverings in the form of blankets and bed rugs. It very likely that Daniel and Wyntje Hasbrouck possessed a set of bed hangings, hung from a frame atop a high post bedstead and thus forming a highly symbolic “unit” linked to the most important of life’s events. Assuming the Hasbroucks followed common custom, they considered the hangings as a special acquisition and a long-term furnishing investment made around the time of marriage and kept in in place as long as possible. Several colonial-era Ulster County wills and probate inventories list a set of bed hangings. These include the April 3, 1750 will of New Paltz’s Samuel Bevier, the 1773 inventory of Louis Bevier of Marbletown, and others cited in the footnote below. Keeping in mind that Wyntje Hasbrouck made her will in 1781—and that her estate was probated in the year 1790—there are also many references in Gustav Anjou’s
33
Ulster County Probate Records to bed hangings in wills and inventories made dating from the 1780s and 1790s.34 According to textile expert Florence Montgomery, “imported British woolens were the most commonly used fabrics for bed hangings before the American Revolution.” One of the most basic of these was camlet or camblet and it was earmarked in period sources as favored for bed curtains. Indeed, numerous references to camlet bed curtains can be found in the documentary record relating to New York and rest of colonial America. As to the presence of camlet in New Paltz, Roelof Eltinge carried it in his store in the 1760s. But camlet was not the only wool worsted option for bed curtains. As Montgomery explained, after undergoing various finishing techniques, “worsted camlets became harateens and moreens, grograms and grogrinetts, chinas, or cheneys.”35 Understandably, only a tiny number of artifact bed hanging components and fragments with colonial American histories survive. Select illustrations have been included here. Various blankets and related woven bed coverings were available in the early to mid-eighteenth century. Solid colored blankets were common with white/cream as one popular color. Some of these light-colored blankets ornamented by geometric embroidery on the corners were known as rose blankets. Roelof Eltinge carried these British imports in his store. Stripes were also popular either at or near edges or as an overall motif on blankets. (Mr. Eltinge carried “Indian blankets” which might refer to striped blankets.) Simple plaids with a few dark horizontal and vertical stripes of a single color on a largely light background survive in artifact form and are also depicted in period images of beds. References to bird’s-eye patterned coverlets also appear during the mid-eighteenth-century in the America. Bed rugs were very common coverings in colonial New York and elsewhere. Mr. Eltinge offered flowered bed rugs at his store next door to the Hasbroucks. Most bed rugs were made from a coarse wool, double-weave cloth.36 For a discussion of bed and household linens, see the Parlor section. Concerning clothing and accessories, it is worth mentioning again that Daniel Hasbrouck bought garments as well as a handkerchief from his cousin Isaac’s store in the 1730s. In a similar vein, three decades later neighbor Roelof Eltinge was selling felt hats, linen and cotton handkerchiefs, black worsted mittens, stockings, shirt check, apron check, and cravating (the latter for making neckbands). The textiles and related products Eltinge carried in the 1760s demonstrate considerable diversity. Compared to the limited offerings available at a fabric chain-store today, the range of textiles sold in colonial New York is remarkable. Mr. Eltinge could entice Wyntje and Elsie Hasbrouck
34Anjou, 2:164; Original of Louis Bevier inventory in the collection of Rutgers University. See also Gysbert van Imbroch of Kingston, April 1, 1665, Anjou, 1:23; David Christopher of Marbletown, June 12, 1778, Anjou, 1:156; and David Delamatter of Kingston, September 23, 1769, Anjou: 149; Thomas Garton of Marbletown, not dated [ he was an adult c. 1703], Anjou, 2: 108-109; Nicholas de Meyer of Kingston, April 18, 1769, owned two sets, Anjou, 2:167. 35“American Bed and Window Hangings,” in Edward S. Cooke, Jr. ed. Upholstery in America and Europe from the Seventeenth Century to World War I (New York: W. W. Norton / A Barra Book, 1987) 177. Montgomery, Textiles, 188. 36 “Blankets,” 18th-Century Material Culture Resource Center. Accessed: http://materialculture18t.wixsite.com/18thcmcrc/bedding. Montgomery, Textiles, 336.
34 and other New Paltz ladies with silks, satin, lace, ribbons, bindings, calico, shalloons, friezes, calamanco, fustian, and buckram among other goods. Eltinge also stocked mohair yarn. Considering home textile production by the Hasbroucks, at the 1774 Abraham Bevier auction Wyntje’s son David acquired components for a loom in the form of a reed and gears while another son Josias placed the winning bid for a collar loom, suggesting that they or other family members were still weaving in the 1770s.
Detail of bed hangings, 1720-1735. The materials of calendered (stamped) cheney with wool tape, lined with buckram probably from Britain; valance probably made in Salem or Boston, Massachusetts. Peabody Essex Museum.
35
Valance and fabric detail, 1740-1760. Worsted wool (harateen) probably from Britain; valance probably made in Boston. Historic New England. This valance was historically installed at Stephen Robbins House. It was originally green, but has now turned blue.
Bed Curtain, tiny fragment of harateen, c. 1760. Stamped wool. 1911.54 GUSN 27026. Historic New England.
36
Detail of rose blanket, c. 1750-1830. England for the American Market. Accessed: http://woodsrunnersdiary.blogspot.com/2014_11_01_archive.html. The stylized “roses” embroidered on the four corners of such blankets varied in form and execution.
37
Abraham Hasbrouck House: Room-by-Room Historical Description and List of Candidate Objects Plus Recommendations for Interpretation
Abraham [Daniel] Hasbrouck House, 1721–1741. Longitudinal section. Drawing by Kenneth Hewes Barricklo, “Abraham Hasbrouck House Historic Structure Report” (2002).
In this section, I paint a picture of the Hasbroucks’ life in this structure during the 1760s, how they might have used the rooms and the kinds of furnishings and tools they likely owned. I also address some of the historical topics which could be shared with museum visitors in each room. While reviewing this document, I ask readers to imagine what these interiors looked in the 1760s when occupied by the members of the Hasbrouck household and not to worry about the practicalities of moving a group of museum visitors through the structure for the time being. In other words, this is an exploration of historical circumstances. You will see mention of axes, fish hooks, sewing needles, and other dangerous items in rooms that are “chock-a-block” full. (Later on, this can be reoriented to take into account the very real requirements of accommodating a group of museum visitors and ensuring their safety and the safety of collections.)
102A ENTRANCE / STAIRWAY
Visitors entering the front door find themselves in a small space with narrow stairs leading to the second floor immediately before them. In the eighteenth century, the front door would have been the preferred entry for guests and this area, although small, represents the family’s sensitivity to
38 refinement. This tiny entry provides a useful comparison to the hallway in the Jean Hasbrouck House and changing ideas about privacy and space allocation during the eighteenth century. As Mark Wenger has observed, the creation of this space as part of the south addition c. 1734–1741 is “consistent with notions of refinement and gentility then overtaking the American colonies, [and] these alterations betray a growing concern with privacy and relationship of the house to the world outside.”37
Interpretive Considerations:
If there is not a standard tour route using the front door as the entrance for visitors, consider developing such a plan. Interpretively, the front door is the best way for visitors to enter, because the small entry makes their arrival “abrupt” and thus provides a wonderful teaching opportunity. In this form of house, builders were not giving up space to accommodate a commodious and impressive entryway. And to prove the point, visitors can look at ladder-like steps leading to the second floor. Space was at a premium, even in this house which was one of the most substantial in New Paltz during the 1760s.
Candidate Object
If space permits, a capstock (peg rack) might be installed here.
ROOM 103 PARLOR
Wyntje’s husband Daniel had added this room sometime between 1734, the year the couple wed, and 1741, the year Daniel’s mother died. As summarized by Neil Larson,
attached to the south end of the first stage of the house, it [the Parlor] resulted in a substantial modernization of the plan and the appearance of the house. The south wall of the existing house was demolished during the construction, which allowed for a passage and stair to be constructed inside the door on the south side of the old section. The passage served the old room and the new room. The new room was designated the best room, or the parlor, and was built with fashionable vertical sliding sash windows. In spite
37Mark Wenger, “The Jean Hasbrouck House: A Social and Architectural Study. Report for Huguenot Historical Society” (February 21, 2004) 15.
39
of its stylish aspect, the room was still built in the traditional Dutch manner with massive beams in the ceiling and a jambless fireplace.38
The Parlor, a three-dimensional representation of a family’s social status, was reserved for the most refined activities taking place in the household. Historian Ruth Piwonka characterized such a room as one “intended for hospitality [which] became a place where the prosperity of the householder was displayed.” Architectural historian Mark Wenger referenced the mannerly consumption of food and drink when he noted the customary use of parlors as places for dining (not to be confused with eating) in early New England homes. Wenger also underscored how the parlor “was associated with the mistress of the household, and there [probate] appraisers often found ‘the precious stores of table’ committed to her care.”39
Thus the Parlor was a place for polite activity: presenting handsome possessions, receiving guests and partaking in conversation, reading and praying, and reviewing household accounts. It was also the appropriate stage for the ceremonial serving of tea and hot chocolate or an exceptional meal.
In keeping with its genteel function, the parlor was outfitted in the finest furnishings. In a house the caliber of the Hasbroucks’, one would expect to see the best bedstead with its hangings, a kas, a set of chairs, two or more tables, and a looking glass among other special furniture, accessories, and possessions. All furniture was placed at the wall when the room was “at rest” and then drawn out for use.
This room would be Wyntje Hasbrouck’s domain.
As mentioned previously, we know that Wyntje’s prized possessions included the books she inherited from her father. Abraham Deyo stated in his 1724 will that Wyntje was to inherit four books from his estate: (as translated from the French) “the old French Bible, a French Testament, The Practice of Piety, and a Dutch Prayer-Book.” In a parallel bequest, her sister Marie received “the Dutch Bible, a French Testament, a Book of Sermons, and a Psalm-Book.” The Reformed religion, a belief system based on a covenant of words, emphasized the importance of keeping all in order concerning faith and family. Maintaining a clean and well-organized house was interconnected with faith, a point underscored in emblem books and related religious texts. The challenges of keeping all tidy, especially when there were twelve people living in this house in 1765, must have been considerable.40
38Larson, 8. 39Ruth Piwonka, “New York Colonial Inventories: Dutch Interiors as a Measure of Cultural Change,” in New World Dutch Studies: Dutch Arts and Culture in Colonial America, 1609-1776 (Albany, NY: Albany Institute of History and Art, 1987) 63-81, 67; Wenger, 16. 40Anjou, 1:111. “The Cupboard at the Center of the World: American Kasten and their Style and Use in Colonial Dutch New York,” lecture delivered by Peter Kenny at the Albany Institute of History and Art, December 6, 2015.
40
The theme of the orderly household has particular application to the kas, a highly emblematic form of furniture found in this room and previously discussed in the “Furniture and Woodenware” section of this document. If the interior of the kas is to be shown and interpreted, it would be enlightening for museum goers to see historically appropriate household bed sheets, pillowcases, towels, tablecloths, napkins, clothing, and other textiles arranged using the technique customarily employed by eighteenth-century housewives. Women first laid a protective cloth on the surface of the wooden shelf, placed the bed linens and other household textiles upon it, and then laid another protective cloth over the linens.
Wyntje Hasbrouck was described by a nephew as “a very hospitable woman and bore a very great respect for her husbands (sic) relations and kindred.”41 Enhancing the existing tea vignette, or suggesting that a meal is about to be laid out for guests, could reference this personal quality of Wyntje’s. It could also provide the opportunity to describe the tight family networks which marked New Paltz and similar communities in the Hudson Valley.
One of the topics of conversation with family and friends was likely the religious schism that was pitting neighbor-against-neighbor in New Paltz during the 1760s. The controversy boiled down to the question of Reformed congregations in America exercising great autonomy in decision-making versus conforming to dicta issued by the Church’s ruling body in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Wyntje and other Hasbroucks held with the first position, with neighbors who supported the latter approach breaking off and establishing their own church in 1765.42
Candidate Objects
Bedstead, bed hangings and matching coverlet with bolsters and pillows
As discussed in the earlier section on “Textiles,” I think it fair to surmise that the set of bed curtains hanging on Wyntje Hasbrouck’s bedstead during the 1760s might have been made about the time of her marriage in 1734. Even if created at a later date, the set probably reflected the style common during the first half of the eighteenth century.
As part of this report, I have been asked to comment on the reproduction textiles now in the house. Regarding the reproduction set currently installed in the Parlor, its design appears to be based on high-style European sources dating from the mid-to late eighteenth century. The scalloping and fringe seem quite fancy for the Hasbroucks’ colonial Ulster County home. Similarly, while the general type of worsted wool camlet/harateen is appropriate, its large pattern seems elaborate as well. The good news is that the curtains hang in folds so the pattern is “broken up” and therefore it is not highly noticeable. I would recommend removing the fringe
41Earliest Records of the Hasbrouck Family, 30 quoted in Haley, “Furnishing Plan,” 41 and 183. 42This was the so-called Coetus-Conferentie dispute. Carlo, 48-49. Email correspondence from Kenneth P. Shefsiek to Kathleen Johnson, January 26, 2016.
41 which is the most glaring aspect. (If there happened to be any extra fabric, perhaps a simpler valance could be fashioned as well.) With the removal of the fringe, the set could work well enough, with perhaps a future goal being the creation of a set which would reflect 1734 (or another specifically chosen date).
I would also add that a household such as the Wyntje Hasbrouck’s likely had only a single bedstead with hangings in the 1760s. One would expect the other bedsteads to be of the low post variety.
Kas
Set of chairs
It was likely that the Hasbroucks had one or two armchairs as well as a set of at least six side chairs in and around the Parlor.
Possibilities for the set of chairs are recapped here and are also discussed in the “Furniture and Woodenware” section.
One option is a set of upholstered leather chairs imported from Boston or New York. Several of such chairs possess a history of ownership in colonial Ulster County. The William and Mary style versions of these chairs were produced during the first three decades of the eighteenth century. A Queen Anne style version with arched top, molded stiles, and crooked back was made in the 1730s and later. When new, such leather chairs were expensive and most appropriately found in the homes of wealthy Kingston merchants. It is possible that the Hasbroucks could have inherited a set, or purchased one at an auction, but this makes interpretation of these chairs a bit more complicated.
The aforementioned fiddleback chair might be another choice. The form developed in the New York area about 1750. For the record, it is worth noting that the majority of surviving examples post-date the Hasbrouck House interpretive date.
Another possibility are banister back chairs, either the form with a highly carved crest rail and “split banisters” (vertical back slats) echoing the turnings on the stiles or the form with a yoke crest rail and straight “molded” vertical slats. Both were made for decades during the early and mid-eighteenth century. An example of the first, more elaborate type, in the Milwaukee Art Museum is identified either as from Boston or New York. A banister back armchair of the simpler type in the New York State Museum is thought to bear the brand of an eighteenth- century Albany owner. (See below.) When discussing sets of chairs appropriate for the Abraham Hasbrouck House project, Patricia E. Kane, the Friends of American Arts Curator of American Decorative Arts, Yale University Art Gallery, thought banister back chairs with carved crest and
42 front foot rails imported from Boston and New York to be appropriate for the Abraham Hasbrouck House and other Hudson Valley homes of this era.43
Gateleg table
Tea table
One or more small tables
Looking glass
Foot warmer
A footstove or foot warmer is a gendered object associated with the feminine sphere in the Hudson Valley during the colonial and early national eras. They were used in churches as well as homes.
I would recommend installing one at the back side of the hearth during cooler months (or a similar place where it would be out of harm’s way) and then put away in warmest months so it doesn’t look out of place.
If a tea scenario is installed (or a hot chocolate scenario might be appropriate as well since Eltinge had several pounds of chocolate in his shop in 1768 and it was a favorite drink in the Hudson Valley):
Pewter, “Jackfield-type,” or delftware teapot
In 1768, Eltinge carried pewter teapots in his store.
“Jackfield-type” or delftware creamer, sugar bowl, cups, and saucers
Whether a pewter teapot is installed or not, the ceramic tea wares should be of one type, either “Jackfield type” earthenware or delftware. Either would be appropriate. Archaeological fragments of delftware, including what looked to be a portion of a teacup, were recovered. So, too, was “Jackfield-type” pottery and the dozen black chocolate cups in the 1768 Eltinge store inventory which were probably of this material. This English earthenware, popular during the 1750s and 1760s, was favored for tea, coffee, and chocolate hot beverage sets.
Jesaias Hasbrouck purchased a “sugar cup” at the 1774 Abraham Bevier vendue and next-door- neighbor Mr. Eltinge sold various kinds of sugar in 1768.
Silver teaspoons
43Discussion with Patricia E. Kane, July 28, 2016.
43
Covered baskets of the sort made by River Indians
See photo of Philipsburg Manor Warehouse Room installation.
Books in French and English
Reproduction or period religious texts might rest on a table or be stored in the kas. The Dutch bible thought to have belonged to Wyntje Hasbrouck’s husband Daniel could be considered for display. However, if HHS decision makers choose not to exhibit it due to its delicate condition, environmental conditions, or other factors, a similar volume could be placed here to reference it.
Seal and wax
As mentioned previously, Wyntje and some of her sons used a seal for important documents. Although it is extremely difficult to make out, Gustave Anjou included an image of the seal Wyntje Hasbrouck placed on her will in Ulster County Probate Records, 2: facing page 17.
Spectacles
Roelof Eltinge carried spectacles in his store.
Bag of thirty pistols (gold coins)
Wyntje’s inheritance from her father after her mother’s death.
Set of andirons with wood, shovel and tongs
Each fireplace in the house should have such a set. Aside from these items appearing in Ulster County colonial wills and probate records, Eltinge’s 1768 store inventory listed a fireplace shovel earmarked for Jacob Hasbrouck, a cousin.
If a special occasion dining set-up is installed:
Linen tablecloth and napkins
Pewter plates
Steel knives and forks
Three dozen knives and forks are listed in the 1768 store inventory.
Silver spoons
Pewter tankards
Wine or brandy bottle and some glasses
44
To complete a tea or dining scenario, a historically accurate and seasonally appropriate recreation of a meal using faux food could be installed. A meal drawn from a contemporary colonial New York account might be represented. For example, Anne Grant described tea and other repasts served at Margareta Schuyler’s Albany house when Anne lived there as a child in the late 1750s and 1760s.44 Alternatively, dishes which would have been served together could be selected from the hand-written receipt books which survive from the colonial-era in the Hudson Valley.
Catherine Van Cortlandt Johnston attributed to John Heaten, 1734. Probably Albany County. Albany Institute of History and Art.
The sitter’s choice to be painted with a religious text in hand brings to mind Wyntje’s inheritance of four religious books from her father’s estate as well as her husband’s bible.
44Mrs. Anne Grant, Memoirs of an American Lady. James Grant Wilson, ed. (New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1909) 112-114.
45
Fiddleback Chair by Michael Smith, 1775–1800. New York or Kingston, maple and ash, 40 7/8 by 20 3/4 by 17 3/4 inches. Metropolitan Museum of Art.
This chair is branded on the back of the rail supporting the splat: TVV; stamped on top of left front leg: MICHAEL; stamped on top of right front leg: SMITH.
46
Banister back Side Chair, 1725–1770. Boston or New York; aspen poplar, ash and maple, with replaced rush seat; 46-3/4 by 18-1/4 by 14 inches. Layton Art Collection, Inc., Purchase L1982.48. Milwaukee Art Museum. Photo credit: John R. Glembin.
47
Banister back armchair, c. 1750. Possibly upper Hudson Valley, maple, 45-½ by 24-½ by 22- ½ inches. New York State Museum. Branded “BS” probably for owner Barent Sanders (1678–1757).
Accessed in: John L. Scherer, New York Furniture at the State Museum. Old Town Alexandria, VA: Highland House Publishers, 1984, 8.
48
Candlestand, 1650–1700. New York, maple and pine, 24-1/2 by 15-1/4 by 15-1/4 inches. Layton Art Collection, Inc. L1998.2. Milwaukee Art Museum. Photo credit: Gavin Ashworth.
ROOM 102 UPPER KITCHEN
This room, along with the cellar below and garret room above, was built in 1721. From its inception, it was a multi-purpose space for cooking, eating, sleeping, working, and relaxing. As stone extensions were added to the north and the south and interior doors were cut through, the room then took on the added function as a pass-through. With its one exterior door, three interior doors, and adjacency to the Entryway’s front door and door to the second floor, the Upper Kitchen must have been a highly trafficked area. Added to that, it was an ever-changing and adaptable living and working space for a household of twelve people. It may be nearly impossible to represent all the activities which took place here in the 1760s, but it is worth discussing a few of them.
49
One can imagine the Hasbrouck sons coming in the back door of the Upper Kitchen after laboring in the fields and shedding their muddy boots there. There might also be peg rack (cap stock) for coats and hats. In the cooler months, they could rest by the fire and possibly take a fortifying drink from the bottle and glasses nearby. At the fire, a kettle of hot water is ready for use on this floor and Elsie may be keeping food warm in anticipation of their arrival. Indeed, Elsie would have been deeply involved in the practicalities of household operation. She could have slept in the cupboard bed in this room ready to spring into action as needed.
Some light cooking undoubtedly occurred here as well. This room had certainly served as the structure’s first kitchen and it was customary for substantial houses in the colonial Hudson Valley to have two rooms designated as kitchens as evidenced in probate inventories. Such listings refer to “great” and “little” as well as “upper” and “lower” kitchens.45
As for taking a routine meal in this room, one could expect family members to eat in shifts and to locate themselves here and there. The Hasbrouck sons may have sometimes eaten on benches outside as was common in good weather. Family meals around one big table was not the norm, especially for a family of eight people. The set-up for eating in colonial households was much more fluid.
A pottebank (cupboard with open shelves) holding pewter and earthenware tablewares could be expected and brings to mind an observation Dr. Alexander Hamilton’s visit to a home in the Hudson Highlands which was much more modest than the Hasbroucks:
We went ashore to fill water near a small log cottage on the west side of the river . . . The cottage was clean and neat, but poorly furnished, yet . . . . [there was] a looking-glass with a painted frame, half dozen pewter spoons, and as many plates, old and worn out, but bright and clean, a set of stone [ware] tea dishes and a teapot.” Hamilton’s traveling companion noted, “As for the tea equipage it was quite unnecessary, but the man's musket, he observed, was as useful a piece of furniture as any in the cottage.46
Prior to electric lighting, locations near windows and open doors were prime spots for working and reading. The people of the past were in a constant quest for daylight and moved with their work from window to window following the sun through the course of the day.
While some aspects of textile production undoubtedly took place on the second floor as was customary in early America (large floor looms and wool “walking wheels” commanding much
45Piwonka, 67. The room-by-room probate inventory taken on January 24, 1749/50 at Adolph Philipse’s house in present-day Sleepy Hollow, NY listed both an Upper Kitchen and “the Kitchen below.” “Acc’t of the Estate of Mr. Adolph Philipse Deceas’d, August 1763,” Collection of the New York Public Library. 46Hamilton, 183.
50 space), production might be discussed in the Upper Kitchen since museum visitors cannot access the second floor. In the Upper Kitchen, one of the women in the household might be hard at work at a flax spinning wheel. Perhaps the boys had worked at the wheel when they were younger. New York Governor Henry Moore reported to the British Board of Trade in 1767 that in the colony “every house swarms with children who are set to work as soon as they are able to spin and card.”47 A tape loom, representing the “collar loom” Jesaias Hasbrouck bought as well as the family’s broader involvement in home textile production, could be located here as well. The point could be made that just as they were producing textiles at home, they were also buying clothing in the 1730s from a cousin’s store. Similarly, in the 1760’s their next-door neighbor offered diverse imported textiles of silk and satin and wonderful names little known to us today as well as a variety of ribbons and bindings.
Especially with six males in the home, Elsie and other women in the household must have been consumed in the never-ending task of mending, darning, and patching clothing, an activity which could be suggested here. A splint basket could contain shirts, trousers, and stockings along with sewing equipment in the form of packets of needles, thread wound around cards, and a stack of patches. Thimbles, knitting needles, sewing needles, darning needles, packets of pins, and buttons all appear in the Eltinge store inventory.
It worth mentioning that as men turned to tailors for some garments, women could draw upon the talents of professional dressmakers in early New Paltz. Take, for example, the 1699 contract in the collection of the Huguenot Historical Society which bound the orphaned Sara Frere (Freer) to David de Bonrepos and to his daughter-in-law and dressmaker Blanche du Bois as an apprentice to learn the dressmaking trade.48
Candidate Objects
Curtains and coverlet/blanket for cupboard bed
Pottebank displaying pewter, slip-decorated earthenware. and related ceramic tablewares
Pewter tankard
Earthenware mugs
Spoons, forks, and knives
Wine and case bottle(s) with glasses
47Quoted in Wermuth, 49. 48Image of the manuscript and its translation from the French online at: www.hrvh.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/hhs/id/2/rec/3.
51
Table (placed before the fireplace)
Slatback armchair with flat arms or similar armchair connoting high status
If the chair has a rush seat, it could have a seat pillow.
One or more side chairs
Spinning wheel
Tape loom
Basket containing clothing to be mended
One or more benches
Set of andirons, tongs and shovel
Tea kettle
Chafing dish
Stack of wood
Washing tub on stool with towel
Stubbing hoe and screen
These last tools might be placed by the back door. They illustrate labor which went into preparing the fields for farming in Ulster County and reference items purchased by Hasbroucks at the 1774 Abraham Bevier auction.
Long Gun
Early settlers typically kept a long gun fairly near an exterior door. A man would place it with the stock resting on the floor in a corner or similar location where it would not “roll around” and thus be ready if needed for hunting, protecting gardens from rabbits and woodchucks, sport, and the like. Alternatively, a long gun could be placed in the partitioned area of the Opkamer area.
ROOM 101 OPKAMER / BEDROOM (LARGER ROOM AND PARTITIONED ROOM TO THE EAST)
The Opkamer represents a shift in room hierarchy and use during the colonial years. Daniel Hasbrouck constructed the north addition consisting of the above-grade Opkamer, or up room, with Kitchen below and garret space overhead c. 1728. This form of room design and
52 arrangement, drawn from Dutch building tradition, was popular in New Paltz and is considered a distinguishing feature of the town’s early architecture. As described by Neil Larson, when it was built “the opkamer was a restricted and private room, isolated from the daily activity of the household and indicates that Daniel Hasbrouck desired (and could afford) a genteel domestic arrangement. It is surmised that Daniel’s mother occupied this room during her lifetime.”49
By the 1760s much had changed. The household Maria Deyo Hasbrouck had run for her unmarried son Daniel was altered by his marriage to Wyntje Deyo in 1734. Daniel constructed the Parlor as part of the south addition about the same time or soon after. The family grew as children came along over the years. In 1741, Daniel’s mother Maria Hasbrouck passed on and Daniel himself died in 1759. Reflecting the 1760s focus, the Opkamer is presented as a bed chamber occupied by Wyntje and Daniel’s sons. It was no longer the room reflecting the latest fashion as it had been c. 1730.
Imagine the dormitory-like living and sleeping arrangements of the six Hasbrouck men and boys in the Opkamer’s two rooms and the impact such close living quarters must have made upon them. In 1764, the eldest Jonas was twenty-nine while the youngest son Zacharias was fifteen.50 One can imagine the four youngest accommodated by two bedsteads, a couple of chests, a table, one or two chairs, and possibly a cupboard in the main room with the two eldest men afforded some privacy in the small partitioned room containing a bedstead, a chest, and possibly a small table and chair. The Hasbrouck sons’ paraphernalia might include a ciphering book and writing equipment; books, a newspaper and an almanac; clay pipes (many fragments were uncovered in archaeological investigation of the site), tobacco and pouch; knives and fishing poles; pouches of shot, guns, and a sword. (Daniel had bequeathed to son Jonas in recognition of his being the eldest son a pistol, holsters, and hangar—the last a hunting sword.) Perhaps a milling billet is here on its way to being repaired by a local artisan. Clothing could include six pair of shoes, some coats, and shirts, breeches, and stockings. Some of this might hang on pegs, much folded up in the chests, and the shoes on the floor.
I concur with Jackie Haley that the importance of education to the Huguenots is a key interpretive message for this room. In his will, Daniel Hasbrouck stated that he wanted the three younger sons to "be taught and instructed in necessary learning out of my estate as long as my executors shall judge necessary." Aside from the evidence given in Jackie’s report, Carlo points
49Neil Larson, “Stone Houses in New Paltz, A Context for Evaluating the Significance of Stone Houses in the Town of New Paltz (2014) 7-8. Accessed: http://www.townofnewpaltz.org/sites/newpaltzny/files/file/file/context_of_stone_house_designations.pdf The opkamer with kitchen below is also discussed in Jeroen van den Hurk, “The Architecture of New Netherland Revisited,” Building Environments, Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture X. Kenneth A. Breisch and Alison K. Hoagland, eds. (Knoxville, TN: University of Knoxville, 2005) 133-152, 142. 50Jonas Hasbrouck married Catherine DuBois in 1765 and “eventually settled outside of New Paltz in Accord.” His brother Josaphat married Cornelia DuBois the following year and they lived in New Paltz. Haley, “Furnishings Plan,” 98.
53 out that in New Paltz a schoolmaster was more consistently employed than a minister during the mid-eighteenth century.51
This would also be a suitable place to talk about “the male sphere” during the 1760s, much of which lay beyond the walls of the house. The sons pursued farming, milling, and probably weaving. They also participated in militia days, attended church, and likely patronized local taverns. Perhaps they traveled to Kingston on February 12, 1761 to participate in the parade and related celebrations marking King George III’s accession to the British throne.52
An open chest containing emblematic possessions can serve as a “portrait” of an individual.
Candidate Objects for Opkamer, Larger Room
Low post bedsteads
(As an alternative to one of bedsteads, a settlebed or a slawbunk might be placed here. These bedstead forms possess a particular association with Ulster County and therefore it would be great to feature one).
Blankets, bed rugs and/or coverlet
Chests
Table
One or two side chairs
On the table top or nearby:
Box
Ink pot, quill, penknife, writing paper, folded papers (as if powdered ink is inside)
Reproduction documents such as a portion of a ciphering book created by a youth in New Paltz during the colonial period
Ideally, any replica document reproduced should resemble the original manuscript as closely as possible, keeping in mind the color and size of the original. Photocopies or scans can be printed on sheets of good-quality paper which give the illusion of hand-made paper. The goal is not to
51Carlo, 104. 52Wermuth, 19. I am grateful to Carrie Allmendinger for obtaining a copy of the original article as published in the New York Gazette, February 16, 1761.
54 deceive but to promote document legibility and to make it more in keeping with the historic interior.
New York City newspaper and an almanac
Pipes, tobacco, and pouch
Snuff box
Pocketbooks containing important papers
The 1768 Eltinge store inventory contained brass ink pots, writing paper, packets of ink powder, pen knives, almanacs, and pocketbooks. A receipt in the Roelof Eltinge papers also indicates he was buying books from a bookseller and the list included an almanac.
Fishing poles or simply fishing hooks on strings
Gun(s)
Powder flask
Box with starter-fire flint and tow (here or in the kitchen)
Clothing
Justaucorps style-coat
This style of coat was popular during much of the eighteenth century. Daniel Hasbrouck bought such a coat from Isaac Hasbrouck in the 1730s.
Shirts
Trousers
Stockings
Shoes
Candidate Objects for the Opkamer, Partitioned Room
Low post bedstead
Blanket or other bed covering
Small table, book and chair (space permitting)
Capstock (peg rack)
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Chest
The chest could contain some of the small personal items and types of clothing mentioned above as well as the:
Pair of pistols, holster, and hangar (hunting sword)
Daniel Hasbrouck stipulated in his will: “Unto my son Jonas, my pistols, Holsters, and hangar [will be given] over and above any of the rest of my children in consideration that he is my first born son and this being for his birth right and no more." There are many instances of an honorary bequest in the form of a special item given to the eldest son in eighteenth-century Ulster County wills. In other cases, the item was an engraved gun, a silver tankard, a bible, or a cow. See below for a set of pistols dating from the era with a Hudson Valley history.
Hanging on the capstock:
Coat
Hat
On floor:
Two Pair of Shoes
Pair of Pistols, c. 1720–1730. France, gold inlays and hardwood stock, length: 15-1/2 inches. Cat. no. 795 a, b. Historic Cherry Hill, Albany, New York.
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“These flintlock pistols with miquelet lock were converted to percussion cap ignition probably c. 1825. They may have been owned at the time of conversion by Solomon Van Rensselaer.”
ROOM BI KITCHEN
The Kitchen constructed below the Opkamer as part of the c. 1728 north addition was called upon to fill various functions. Preparation of meals for both the Hasbrouck family and the enslaved members of the household took place here as well as the baking of bread. So did the labor-intensive process of preserving foodstuffs which allowed for field, garden, and orchard produce to be eaten long after it was “in season.” The kitchen was also likely the working, living, and sleeping quarters for some or all enslaved individuals in the household. Part of the kitchen area may have served as a dairy space for Elsie. The dirt-floor cellar off the kitchen was undoubtedly used for the storage of staples which needed to be kept cool.
Cooking daily meals to feed twelve must have been a considerable challenge, but there was more for the women of the household to do. The large-scale “provisioning” activities consumed much time and energy. Such seasonal initiatives, which would help insure that there would be enough food until the next harvest, could entail pickling vegetables; putting up fruit preserves; drying legumes such as peas, vegetables, and fruits; and corning beef since cattle are mentioned in Daniel Hasbrouck’s will.
“The Kitchen Family” was a period euphemism for household slaves, and the term obviously refers to the kitchen as a place where the enslaved both lived and worked. One could expect to find simple furniture, pallets, bedding, clothing, and personal belongings here. Although the names of the enslaved individuals who lived in this household are not known, the names of other enslaved Africans in the Hudson River Valley indicate a range of cultural origins. The Africans in the town likely formed an extended network of support with elders teaching children cultural values and survival skills.
In his will, Daniel left his only daughter Elsie “three milk cows out of my stock of Cattle.” As mentioned previously, dairying was one way women could contribute to household income in the colonial era. (See the section “The Material World of the Hasbroucks and Their Neighbors in the Mid-Eighteenth Century” for more information.) Part of the Kitchen may have served as the dairy area, although there may have been an outbuilding devoted to this activity since it is necessary to keep butter and cheese cool. It is also possible that part of the Cellar off the kitchen may have been devoted to this activity, particularly if it at one time had a wooden floor.53 Although the germ theory was as yet unformulated, colonial-era dairy workers like Elsie Hasbrouck realized that it was important to keep the dairy area scrupulously clean in order to insure the quality of the product. She would have outfitted the space with butter-and cheese- making equipment: milk pails, a keeler, milk pans, skimmers, cream pots, butter paddles, churns,
53Neil Larson pointed out that there are traces of whitewash in the cellar. The room may have had other uses at one time.
57 a cheese press, and shelving. Firkins, quarter-size barrels used for storing butter, might be found as well. Scouring equipment would stand at the ready, too.
The Cellar area off the Kitchen was likely used to keep staples cool. Beer, cider, soap, pickled vegetables and fruits, and other consumables could be stored in containers including casks, barrels, bottles, and stoneware jars and crocks. This area could be suggestive of the huge amount of preserved food Wyntje needed to feed her large family over the winter, foodstuffs which would have been stored here and on the second floor. Concerning interpretation, it could be very effective to represent a specific activity on the table before the fireplace through the placement of appropriate tools and faux food. The creation of a certain dish or the preservation of certain fruits or vegetables associated with the Hudson Valley could be suggested. This display could change with the seasons or in response to school program curriculum or special-event themes.
Candidate Objects
Two or more work tables, including a fairly large one in front of the fireplace
One or more simple chairs
It is possible that a version of the diminutive, highly turned chair which was favored by women for use in Dutch and Dutch-American kitchens in the seventeenth and first half of the eighteenth centuries could be found here.54
Benches (for resting buckets and for seating)
Cupboard
Set(s) of open shelves
Stoneware crocks and jars
Redware jars
Wooden scoop and bucket
The scoop could be the sort made by Native Americans in the region.
Wash basin on stool
Redware bowls
54For more information on these chairs, see: Erik Gronning, “Early New York Turned Chairs: A Stoelendraaier’s Conceit,” American Furniture 2001 (Milwaukee, WI: Chipstone Foundation, 2001) 88-119.
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Pewter Spoons
Andirons, shovel and tongs
Axe and wood
Bake oven peel
Iron tea kettle
Copper Pot
Iron Frying Pan
Cast iron pots
Trivets
Possibly a wafer iron
To represent the lives of enslaved Africans:
Rolled up pallets and bedding, possibly including a bed rug
Clothing and personal possessions
Some garments and objects could relate to details contained in runaway slave advertisements published in colonial New York newspapers.
Dairy area
Shelves containing creampots and milk pans
Cheesecloth
Butter scoops
Wooden butter bowl
Crock
Tea kettle nearby for scalding
Indian broom
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Yoke and buckets (if useful for the school program or hands-on interpretation)
ROOMS 201-203 SECOND FLOOR
As mentioned previously, the huge amount of space here would have been well utilized. It would provide dry storage for foodstuffs and wool and flax fibers. One could expect to find a large loom located near a window. Some of the enslaved people may have slept here as well. Like others in the household, they moved their sleeping locations depending on the temperature.
Curatorial Observations
I would encourage that the Abraham Hasbrouck House installation be reviewed concerning its historical accuracy and teaching potential. I would recommend that each object installed be selected and placed with intent. The structure’s rooms are small and leave no room for any items extraneous to the story of Wyntje and her household.
Sample questions which might be asked of an object when considering curatorial placement:
Does it look as it did in the eighteenth century? If not, what are the issues? Why would the Hasbroucks have placed such an item here in the 1760s? If a tool or a piece of furniture, who used it? If it is a container, what did it hold?
Re: museum installation and interpretation, does the object contribute to the accuracy of the interior? Do the size of bowls, crocks, and other vessels conform to domestic levels of production? How does it support the story of the Wyntje Hasbrouck household and the teaching goals for each space and the house museum overall?
In addition, when setting up activity vignettes or faux food displays, it is good to think about the actual work occurring or the dish or meal “being prepared and/or served.” By highlighting particular foods Hudson Valley colonists were known to have eaten, the teaching potential of foodways as a form of cultural expression can be exploited. Having installations which reflect colonial responses to the seasons provides wonderful teaching opportunities and can help keep interpretation fresh during the year.
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Appendices
Account book kept by Isaac Hasbrouck c. 1733 inside Ciphering Book #23: Abraham Hasbrouck Ciphering Book (c. 1730-1739). Loaned by Kenneth E. Hasbrouck. Date unknown, probably originally donated by Annette Innis Young, 1963. “Also included in the book are accounts dating from the 1730s probably kept by Isaac Hasbrouck concerning the purchase and sale of books, shirts, pipes, tobacco and other domestic supplies.”
N. B. This separate account book tucked in the back of the ciphering book contains entries for:
“Daniel hasboucq a achete . . .”
Un pot de terre 0 1 0 Earthenware pot
Un jeustecor 0 3 0 Long coat [justaucorps]
Un livre 0 0 4 Book
De mouchoi un cravat 0 0 9? Handkerchief [mouchoir]
Un cravat 0 0 8 Neckerchief
Un boutiel 0 0 6 Bottle [bouteille]
De pipe 0 0 8 Pipe 1 6 11
“Articles of Vendue” list of Abraham Bevier’s estate, auction conducted on April 27, 1774. Huguenot Historical Society. Accessed: http://www.hrvh.org/cdm/ref/collection/hhs/id/475.
(Purchases by Wyntje Hasbrouck’s sons at the Vendue)
“One Stubbing How” [hoe], Josaphat Hasbrouck, 0 5 0 [For digging out roots of stumps]
“1 Drinking glass Josaphat Hasbrouck, 0 1 6
“1 Reed & Geers” [Gears], David Hasbrouck, 0 8 6 [weaving components for loom]
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“1 Collar Loom” Josias [sic] Hasbrouck 0 0 6
“1 Screen” David Hasbrouck 3 0 0 [Probably a section of framed wire for sifting rocks out of dirt. Screening was available at the time but was expensive hence the high price.] “1 Sugar Cup” Josias [sic] Hasbrouck 0 0 6 [sugar bowl]
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