Abraham Hasbrouck House Furnishing Plan, Volume Ii
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
ABRAHAM HASBROUCK HOUSE FURNISHING PLAN, VOLUME II Kathleen Eagen Johnson HistoryConsulting.com 3549 State Route 203 Valatie, NY 12184 11.10.2016 1 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. 2 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 3 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. 4 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. 5 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. 6 Pau de Wandelaer (or Pau Gansevoort) attributed