The Society for the Preservation of HudsonValleyVernacular ...hmvarch.org/news/2010-01-02-03-news.pdf · 02/01/2010 · Rural New England, and this arrange-ment lasted for a time

The Society for the Preservation of

Hudson Valley Vernacular Architecture

Newsletter

Nineteen years ago, Peter Sinclairpublished Living History, the ancestor ofthe HVVA Newsletter. The earliest issuesof Living History dealt primarily with agricul-tural matters, such as the cultivation of fruitand vegetables, and the breeding of ‘OldSpot’ pigs. As time went by, there beganto be references to barns and haybarracks. Hay barracks hada special place in Peter’s heart,and you can say that he becamea world expert on them. Peterwas also interested in timberframing. I attended several confer-ences of the Timber Framers Guildwith Peter – at Bethlehem Pennsylvania,Williams Lake in Ulster County, andPlymouth, Massachusetts.

Peter found Living History, as fine apublication as it was, too much for himto deal with on his own, and madearrangements with the New EnglandFarm and Home Association to incorpo-rate it as a section in their publicationRural New England, and this arrange-ment lasted for a time in the mid-1990s.

Peter and I had been members of theDutch Barn Preservation Society fromits earliest years, from the late 1980s.Most of the field trip organized by thisgroup were centered in the UpperHudson, around Albany, Rensselaer,Montgomery and Schoharie Counties.It bothered Peter that there seemed to belittle interest on the part of those planningD.B.P.S. field trips in studying and recordingthe Dutch barns of the lower Hudson Valley,and thus the ‘Mid Hudson Chapter of theD.B.P.S.’ was born in 1999. In spite of livingin far away Long Island, and with involve-ments with a period house in Connecticut,I attended as many of the field trips thatPeter organized as I could, and startedproducing drawings and text for use inPeter’s new publication.

In early 2000, the momentous decisionwas made to essentially break the connec-tion with the D.B.P.S. and the Society for thePreservation of Hudson Valley Vernacularwas established, and registered with theState of New York. At first its logotype hadthe initials SPHVV, but in August 2000

‘Architecture’ was added to the name andit became HVVA.

And so it was until the Fall of 2006 thatPeter Sinclair, almost singlehandedly pro-duced and distributed monthly issues ofthe HVVA Newsletter. Much of the content

Peter garnered on field trips hemade with Roger Scheff, Alvin

Sheffer and Bob Hedges.Important discoveries were

made, vastly expanding ourknowledge of the Dutch, the

Palatines, and the English in theHudson Valley. The publication provideda wealth of documentation in text, meas-ured drawings and photographs. I wasable to supply some of this material, but90% of the HVVA Newsletter was Peter’s.His was a phenomenal achievement.

Following Peter’s stroke in October 2006,the editorship of the HVVA Newsletterwas taken in hand by Rob Sweeney whohas done an excellent job of producing the

Newsletter and getting it to themembership. Rob has alsodone an exemplary job oforganizing field trips and otherevents for the benefit of theHVVA membership. But it is

a huge amount of work for oneperson, and we need more contributions

in the form of written articles, drawings,photographs from the membership. Onesolution might be to “broaden our horizons”and have articles on cultural aspects of ourvernacular heritage, but while still attempt-ing to keep our major focus on architecture?My own emphasis is going to continue (a)the study of gable-fronted houses and toexplore an idea that they were possibly themost common house form into the first halfof the 18th century, and (b) to try to findearly examples of timber-frame houseconstruction in Ulster County. There is stillplenty of work to be done on uncovering thehistory of our building heritage!

John StevensJanuary 2010

The Society for the Preservation ofHudson Valley

Vernacular Architectureis a not-for-profit corporation formed

to study and preserve vernaculararchitecture and material culture.

Peter Sinclair – Founder, Trustee EmeritusWest Hurley, Ulster County, NY

John Stevens – PresidentSr. Architectural Historian

Greenlawn, Suffolk County, NY(631) 239-5044

[email protected]

Maggie MacDowell – Vice PresidentGardiner, Ulster County, NY

(845) [email protected]

Walter Wheeler – SecretaryTroy, Rensselaer County, NY


Robert Sweeney – TreasurerKingston, Ulster County, NY


Jim Decker – Past PresidentHurley, Ulster County, NY


Bob Hedges – TrusteePine Plains, Dutchess County, NY

(518) 398-7773

Dennis Tierney – TrusteeWappingers Falls, Dutchess County, NY

(914) 489-5262

Conrad Fingado – TrusteePleasant Valley, Dutchess County, NY


William McMillen – TrusteeGlenmont, Albany County, NY


Karen Markisenis – TrusteeLake Katrine, Ulster County, NY


Tom Colluci – TrusteeHigh Falls, Ulster County, NY


Sam Scoggins – TrusteeHurley, Ulster County, NY


Ken Walton – TrusteeGardiner, Ulster County, NY


January – March 2010 Vol. 13, No. 1-3

President’s Letter

2 January – March 2010

In 2010, we will be celebrating the 300th anniversary of thearrival of the Palatines to the Hudson Valley. While small numbersof Palatines did arrive earlier, such as the forty or so in the areaof Newburgh a couple years before, the mass emigration of nearly3,000 folks departed from England in 1710, making this voyage thelargest single migration during the colonial period. They arrivedOctober 4, 1710 at their “permanent” settlements of East & WestCamps along the Hudson River, although with 25% fewer peopledue to the high mortality rate. East Camp being the area we nowcall Germantown on the east shore of the Hudson and West Camp(the area is still named such), being on the west shore of the riverin the northeast corner of Ulster County, north of the village ofSaugerties, but then was part of Albany County. A program was setabout by Queen Anne of England to take this group of religiouslypersecuted (by Louis XIV of France) refugees of the Rhine regionto the new world in order to produce naval stores from the abun-dant pine forests in exchange for the debt accrued in their trans-portation and care upon arrival.

Discontentment of the Palatines settled in almost immediatelyupon arriving. They were of the belief they were to be sent to theSchoharie valley for lands promised to them there and settling atthe Camps along the Hudson was unacceptable to most of them.While there were several reasons for the failure of the program,this became the primary factor in the release from their obligationsto the Crown in 1712. However, Henry Beekman, the son of thepatentee of nearby Rhinebeck, convinced 35 Palatine families tocreate farmsteads on land leased to them where they would payan annual rent for generations to come.

In the NeighborhoodToday, unfortunately, virtually nothing exists of the East Camp

settlement. The closest testament we have of the Palatines ofthe area is the 1746 Parsonage House (Pfarrhaus) at 20 Maple Av-enue in Germantown. The stone section of this bank house (nowcovered with stucco) is considered the earlier section with thekitchen in the cellar. A side hall entrance on the level above leadsto the main room on the left. A framed addition was constructed to

the right of the entrance in 1767. The Germantown History Depart-ment is based out of the latest “kitchen wing” of the house. Theyhave published a pamphlet with an in depth history of the earlypastors and the later families that have occupied it over the years,including a detail description of the last major renovation started inthe late 1940’s which most likely saved the house from completedestruction.

Around the NeighborhoodBy Ken Walton(photos by author unless otherwise noted)

Johann Michael Pultz house, c.1740, (now the Old Rhinebeck Inn) inRhinebeck.

1746 Parsonage House (Pfarrhaus) in Germantown

One of the most notable examples of a Palatine farmsteadis fortunately one of the oldest and best documented to exist. Bestof all it is currently being restored with hopes of opening it upas a public museum. The farmstead I’m referring to is the Neher-Elseffer-Cotting-Losee site in Rhinebeck on Route 9, just northof the intersection with Route 9G and is commonly known as thePalatine Farmstead. Franz Neher, a cordwainer by trade, built thehouse in 1727. In 1762, he sold the property to Lodowick (Ludwig)Elseffer and has remained in the family for seven generation until2001. The house does display some Federal-style characteristicfrom a remodeling in 1830. It is to this era the preservation of thehouse will be restored to. Also on the property still stands a Dutchbarn built in 1770 and is being restored as well. Heading up thiseffort is the Palatine Farmstead Committee of the QuitmanResource Center for Preservation and tours can be arranged bycontacting them. For those also interested in old churches, theEvangelical Lutheran Church of St. Peter built of stone in 1784and was remodeled with the bell tower and a new entrance in 1824is just a little further north on Route 9. It is on the site of the firstPalatine church built of logs in 1730.

Adam Ackert, one of the original Palatines, built a stone houseat 66 Fox Hollow Road, off the west side of Route 9, south of the

village of Rhinebeck. It contains a stone lintel on the east sidemarked “A.E. 1719” (Ackert was often spelled with an “E” in earlyrecords.) A farmer, Adam, had a total of eighteen children afterbeing married twice. Many of his descendants remained inRhinebeck or crossed to the west shore of the Hudson. JohnBrown purchased the house and enlarged it in 1763. The houseis known for his son, Abraham, or as “Willowdale.” It remained inthe Brown family for more than two hundred years. This house iscurrently for sale, if anyone is interested in living in a historic homeof Palatine background. Along Fox Hollow Road, was the old routeused by the area’s farmers to bring their wheat to the mill on theLandsman Kill.

For an opportunity to stay overnight in an old Palatinefarmhouse nearby, seek out the Johann Michael Pultz house at340 Wurtemburg Road in Rhinebeck. It is listed on the NationalRegister of Historic Places (NRHP). The house as it stands nowevolved one room at a time. The current proprietor of the Bed &Breakfast (Old Rhinebeck Inn) states on their website the diningroom was built as a single room house in 1740. The house wasexpanded into a five bay, center hall house with a chimney ateach end by 1750. The theory put forth in Nancy V. Kelly’s book,Rhinebeck’s Historic Architecture, is the two bay section to thenorth was built around the same time as a separate structure andwas repositioned to become a wing around 1800. There is no men-tion when the south wing was built, but the fieldstone foundationis exposed at the rear with an entrance to the kitchen cellar. Onecan visit the B&B’s website to see photographs of the rooms.

Wurtemburg evolved as a grouping of farms to the southeastof Rhinebeck as Henry Beekman brought a second wave ofPalatines directly from the Wurtemberg area of Germany in 1730’s.Soon after, in 1760, Pultz donated some of his land to the southof his farm for the building of a church. Now standing on site isthe 1832 / 1861 version of the Federal styled church built in 1802to replace the original structure. There are other old homes strungalong this road that were built after the Pultz house and is certainlyworth a ride along the length of the old road.

Also sitting on part of the Wurtemburg tract at 12 Old PrimroseHill Road is the Captain Matthias Progue house with a 1763 date-stone and is on the NRHP. Its likely Matthias came over in this sec-ond wave and became a captain of a sloop for Henry Beekman.The roadside elevation creates the appearance of a two-storyhouse, but in fact, is built into the hillside with only its upper storyexposed at the rear. Further west on the road on just the other sideof the hill is a very vernacular wood frame house

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This house is next door to the Progue house on Old Primrose Hill Road.Does anyone know whose house this was and how old?

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encompassing a later style center gable. While I suspect a Proguedescendant erected it, this is just a guess and I would like to hearfrom one who knows more about the place.

On a circa 1749 map, it shows a plain Henry Beekman calledBocke Bush (Beech Woods), which laid south of the village andwest of the current Route 9. He divided this land into four farmsto be leased. Two surviving stone houses overlook this plain. Onecan be seen on the west side of Route 9 with a street number of6125. It is known as the Steenberg Tavern. The other is listed onthe NRHP as the Fredenburg House, a Dutch family who wasa later owner. It is likely the original owner was Nicholas Emigh(Eighmy), one of the 1710 Palatine emigrants. The house hasa cornerstone dated 1716. By 1728, he left Rhinebeck to settlein Beekman further south in Dutchess County, where larger farmswere available and the house became the property of Fredenburgfamily. In the mid-19th century, it was incorporated into the Liv-ingston’s Grasmere estate. The house still contains many of theGerman vernacular features. The one and a half story structurehas clapboard siding in the gable and it is considered the primaryentrance to the home is in the east gable end. The garret level re-tains a domed section of the chimney that served as a meat-smok-ing chamber. The current owner completed a large frame additionon the north side of the house in the past couple of years.

One of my favorite houses in the area is the Traver House at55 Wynkoop Lane just off Route 385, also known as the SepascotTrail. It is a structure with many external clues to the story of how ithas evolved over the years. Kelly describes the north end of thehouse as the oldest part; that of a 1730-50 period one room housewith massive beams with slight chamfers. The house is constructedinto the steep hillside so the east elevation has the cellar exposedwith a door and small windows. The primary entrance is stated tobe the one in the north gable end that leads to the upper level andhas a peak of clapboard with a steeply pitched roof. The section tothe south dates from about 1790 and the stone first floor has itsown door and a wood frame second story. In 1959, a kitchen addi-tion and part of the rear wall were removed and a frame wing wasadded. As late as 1929, the wooden grain storage bins were still inplace in the garret. Anna Maria Hoffman, the widow of NicolasTraver (Treber), was among the 1710 Palatine families. This houseis believed to be the home of her eldest son, Bastian Traver.

A few decided to settle to create homesteads really deep inthe wilderness. Even today, the Melius-Bently house can be con-

Traver House at 55 Wynkoop Lane in Rhinebeck.


sidered remotely situated at 270 Mt Ross Road (CR 50) near thecounty line for Columbia and Dutchess. Looking upon this house islike looking at an architectural timeline of the 18th century. At theleft end, stands the one and a half story, one room house with asingle slant roof line of the early 1700’s. To the right, the mid-18thcentury expansion follows the same lines as the original structurebut being a larger version that is two rooms deep and thereforehaving a higher roof line plus a dormer. On the far right end is thefull 2 story, 3-bay Federal expansion that was added near the closeof the century. This house appears it could be a true study of thedevelopment of living quarters throughout colonial times. Unfortu-nately, it is hard to get a clear look at the place for the road asthere is a high stockade fence across the entire front with evenhigher vegetation growing directly behind it.

There are some more Palatine houses that have been in vari-ous publications, such as the Hendrick Martin House on Route 9,on the north side of the village of Red Hook. Also, the PitcherHouse on Pitcher Lane in the town of Red Hook received fairlyextensive coverage in the October and November, 2005 issuesof the HVVA newsletter. These articles can be viewed from thewebsite. If one desires, one can even dine on Sushi in a Palatinehouse. Edo Sushi is right on Route 9 in the village of Hyde Parkand occupies the stone house once belonging to the Bergh andStoutenburgh families. More in line with its history, it used to housea German restaurant for many years.

Before heading to the west side of the Hudson for a “looksie”at what Palatine houses exist there, near the bridge that crossesthe river, on River Road north of Route 199 is one more houseI wish to mention. At the street address of 703 is a stone housethat belonged to the Feller family. Another bank house the centralcellar door faces away from the road frontage. The first floor fea-tures a “Dutch” door surmounted by a five-pane transom. It alsohas cut lintels and stone sills. The five bay front porch and gabledormers were a much later addition. Recently, c.1750 farmhousewas joined to a much larger building in the rear by means of an ell.

Over on the other shore of the Hudson, that being the settle-ment of West Camp, one family, the Dederick’s, decided to stayand prospered in the immediate vicinity for generations. WilliamDederick’s stone house of 1743 still stands today on a remnantof an old West Camp road. It even served as the local black smithshop and Post Office. The house was “modernized” in 1800 togive it a more Georgian style look, but the first floor still revealsits Palatine roots. A few hundred yards further north and righton Route 9W, is a stone house known to most as only the “WestCamp” house. This place has been for sale for many years and is

in need of a lot of TLC, but little is known about its history. It wouldbe easy to conclude it has a Palatine background being in theheart of West Camp, but what little I have manage to dig up aboutthe place associates it as either the Dutch house of Gemmerlingor TenEyck and that it may have been built as early as 1735.If anyone has any information that would clear up the line of own-ership, I would like to hear from you. Lets hope it will soon get theattention it so needs to keep it around for its tricentennial, for therehas already been a house (and Dutch barn) in the area that waslost in recent years. On Emerick Road, which leads to the riverfrom Route 9W, was a Dederick descendant who built a classiccenter hall, one and a half story stone house in 1762. Knownas the Friendship Farm and Jack Donahue’s sport camp, it suc-cumbed to fire by arson.

Another prominently known Palatine house in Saugerties isthe Trumpbour Farm on the east side of Old Kings Highway, northof the Katsbaan Church. Nickolas, as tradition goes, built this stonehouse for one of his daughters around 1732. The property is stillowned by his descendants and there was a recent effort by thefamily to convert the house into a museum of Palatine history.The attempt appears to have fizzled and I do not know why.

There are far too many Palatine houses in the town ofSaugerties to mention them all here and it can become quitea task to keep them all straight. For instance, on Kings Highwayheading south of the village, there is a string of Myer family homes.There’s the obvious one with a historic marker stating the stonehouse is on land deeded to Christian Myer in 1724, of whom,eighteen descendants served in the Revolutionary War. Many oftheir homes still exist, but I have not been able to figure out whoseis who, including the one mentioned above with the marker. Thereare two more that are so similar, I would draw the conclusion theywere built right around the same time. This would be the one at1032 Kings Highway and one at 22 Warren Myers Road (yes, thestreet name could be a clue, but many times streets are named fora later generation). Is there someone who can help clear up theambiguity around this cluster of family homes? For those wishingto learn more about the Palatine houses in the Town of Saugertiesand visit some in person, the town’s Historic PreservationCommission will be holding a tour in May. Watch the HVVAwebsite for upcoming details.

One region that does not seem to get as much recognition,but had a strong concentration of Palatines is the Town of Mont-gomery in Orange County. I have not yet determined if this groupbranched off from the Camps or were some that migrated fromNewburgh, but are worthy of mention.

The Jacob Bookstaver house, c.1750, in Montgomery, Orange County. Muller house in Montgomery, Orange County. There is a vertical seambetween the right & center eyebrow window. To the right of the seamis claimed to be built in 1724.

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Above: Unidentified house at 246 Spring Lake Road in Red Hook. Couldthis be an old Palatine homestead?

Below: Unidentified house at 64 Stone House Road in the Town of Clinton.Looking for info on this great stone house.

The easiest to find is the Smith-Miller house, known as theMontgomery House on the historic marker. Built by Hans Smithin 1771, it was upgraded by Johannes Miller twenty years later toa 2 story, 5-bay wide house. But not a typical 5-bay house of theperiod, it consists of a side hall main entrance at the south end.Miller was an important participant in the creation of theNewburgh–Cochecton Turnpike in the early years of the ninetiethcentury, which runs right in front of his house, known today asRoute 211. The house sits on the south edge of the village, justbefore reaching the Orange County airport.

In looking for the Jacob Bookstaver Palatine house onthe NRHP, I accidentally stumble onto the Muller house at 198Schmidt Lane off of Albany Post Road in Montgomery. The ownerhas done some research in an attempt to place this house on theNRHP. He states, the right side of this timber frame house is theoriginal one room house plus garret built in 1724. There is stillevidence of the ladder and trap door that led to the garret. Theremainder of the house was added in 1750. In order to reach theBookstaver house, one has to drive up the driveway of the Mullerplace, which used to be the old road from the village. Continuingup the dirt path, a historic marker will announce your approachto the wood framed, center hall, one and a half story house. Whilethe date it was built is not known, it is believed to be a mid-18thcentury home that was remodeled in 1779 as a rafter bears thatyear. His descendants made more modifications around 1845.

The Nosy NeighborWhile following the Dutchess County Tourism driving tour

for the northern part of the county, I happened onto a house thatjust screams “EARLY PALATINE” to me. At 246 Spring Lake Roadin the northeast corner of the town of Red Hook, sits on the southside of the road a one and a half story, three bays with a right-sided entrance and four over four sidelights. Two obvious latereplacement four-over-four windows are to the left of the door.A later bay was added to the right of the door with an additionalsix-over-six window. The metal roof is steeply pitched with nodormers. I would like to hear from anyone who has any back-ground on this place.

Of course, this does not even scratch the tip of the mountainof Palatine houses in the region of the Hudson Valley, not to men-tion those just a little further west in Schoharie Valley. There will beno better year to get out and hunt down some of these gems. Takeadvantage of the celebrations planned throughout the year asmany of the locales honor their heritage.

When hunting for old houses, sometimes just looking at themap will give you enough of a clue as to where to find one. Theycan even be down right specific as to what kind of house to find.Such is the case when looking around Rhinebeck and close by inthe Town of Clinton, I saw on the map; Stone House Road. I justhad to drive along that road and sure enough… there it was!… theclassic Dutch one-and-a-half story stone bank house with a centerhall with clapboard gables, three shed dormers and a rustic fullwidth portico. Please, someone tell me it is a genuine 18th centuryDutch house? !

For more information about most of these houses and more,go to www.HVVA.org and click on the “Mapping History” tab. Any-one that can add more information to any of the mentionedhouses or has any other comments they wish to send, pleasedrop me a line by email at [email protected] or by snailmail: Ken Walton, 12 Orchard Drive, 2nd Fl., Gardiner, NY 12525.On the subject line of the email, please include ‘HVVA’ – so I canexpedite a response. Until next time… happy hunting!

Some of the Orange County Palatines also used stone,as late as the 1770s, to build their houses. The Gideon Peltonfarmstead on Rockafellow Lane is one such example. The stonesection built in the 1770’s is sandwiched between a large framed“addition” of 1830s vintage and a diminutive yet even newer woodframe addition to the other side.


A Half-timber house at Gottefroy, Orange CountyBy John Stevens

In the HVVA Newsletter of January, 2007 (Vol. 9, No.1)there is an article of mine on an unusual half-timberedhouse located on Rt. 209 in the Village of Westbrookville,

Sullivan County. Another half-timber house found on thesame expedition in November, 1967 was located in theVillage of Gottefroy in Orange County. This ruined andabandoned building was located close to the road. It facedeast. Not far behind it were the remains of a lock on theDelaware and Hudson Canal. I have subsequently learnedthat this was lock 55, one of a flight of locks south of theNeversink Aqueduct. The house had served as a lock-keeper’s house when the canal was in operation.

It interested me that the house had the paired door andwindow arrangement that I had become familiar with in mywork on the Minne Schenck house at Old Bethpage VillageRestoration, and represented a Dutch-American house type(twin-door house) found in the lower Hudson Valley andLong Island in New York, and in northern New Jersey. Thegeneral aspect of the house was of the early 19th century.The walls seen from the road were weatherboarded andit had a moderately pitched roof.

What was seen on its back (west) side presented quite adifferent picture. On this side the framing was fully exposedand there was no evidence of cladding, like the weather-boards on the other walls. Here was H-bent framing fromthree building campaigns. The northern part was the oldest-initially 16 feet long, and with 1½ feet added to its north wall

for reasons difficult to understand! The southern part was20 feet long, making the total length of the house 37½ feet.The house was 21 feet in width. The height between thefirst and second floors was 7 feet, 6 inches. The front andback walls measured 12 feet from the underside of the sillsto the tops of the plates.

Like the Minne Schenck house, the inside faces of thewall posts were exposed- about an inch was left showing.This seems to have been commonly done up to the middleof the 18th century when it became customary to plasterover the interior faces of the posts. The wall panels wereinfilled with clay and straw packed around riven sticks.These sticks had sharpened ends that fitted in ‘V’ groovescut in the sides of the posts all the way from the sillsto the plates. The Minne Schenck house had similar infill,but in its case the infill was applied after the cladding(shingles on riven wood lath) was in place. In its case,the riven sticks fitted snuggly between the posts, and wereheld in position by ¾ inch square pieces nailed to the sidesof the posts.

But the Gottefroy house was something different – itoriginally did not have wooden cladding, as noted above,there was no evidence that the west wall ever did have it.Both the exterior and interior surfaces of the infill had beenworked smooth and whitewashed. For many years I hada chunk of this exterior wall material, with its whitewashed

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surface in my office, along with one of the wall sticksbut they seem to have been left behind when I left OldBethpage Village!

The ‘V’ groove method of supporting infill seems to havea Palatine connection. I also saw this method used in thewall construction of the Lutheran Parsonage at Schoharie(see Plate 20 in Dutch Vernacular Architecture in NorthAmerica, 1640-1830) and it has also been seen in theHudson Valley in the area where the Palatines were settledin the early 18th century, to produce ‘naval stores’ such aspine tar (see D.V.A. in N.A., page 42, figure 31).

Incidentally, a photograph of the north wall of the LutheranParsonage at Schoharie, taken when the house was beingrestored, and seen by the writer on a visit to it in 1999showed that under the weatherboarding, the original white-washed infill panels had survived. Related to this is the‘Secondary house’ at the Ariaantje Coeymans house.Within the ‘connector’ between it and the north wall ofthe stone house its infilled and whitewashed south wallsurvives. Two differences, however: the sticks that hold theinfill in place are smaller than those at the Parsonage, arerounder in section and the ends fit in bored holes in thefaces of the posts on 6 inch centers. This same techniquewas used in the John Bowne house (1661) at Flushing,Queens County, and in the hall walls of the Jean Hasbrouckhouse at New Paltz in Ulster County. The other difference isthat instead of the exterior surfaces of the wall posts beingexposed, they were hacked and plastered over.

I have not been back to Gottefroy since I measured thehouse under discussion so many years ago, and I wouldsuppose it was demolished. But maybe not? Perhaps it isworth another look? !

Book Review

Dutch New YorkBetween East and WestThe World of Margrieta van Varick

Presented in conjunction with the 400th anniversaryof Henry Hudson's voyage of discovery and celebrating thelasting legacy of Dutch culture in New York, this book exploresthe world of a fascinating woman, her family, and the posses-sions she accumulated over an eventful lifetime. Margrietavan Varick was born in 1649 in the Netherlands, but she spentmany years at the extremes of the Dutch world – in Malaccaon the Malay Peninsula and in Flatbush, now part of Brooklyn.She arrived in New York in 1686 with her husband, a DutchReformed minister, and set up a textile shop, bringing with heran astonishing array of objects from the Far East and Europe.Her shop goods, along with her household furnishings, weremeticulously recorded in an estate inventory made after herdeath in 1695.

The inventory lay forgotten for more than two hundredyears but was rediscovered in the twentieth century, pointingthe way to new research into the histories of New York City, theDutch overseas trading empire, women, and material culture.An intriguing selection of this ground-breaking research ispresented in this volume. It has been edited by Peter Miller,Dean and Chair of Academic Programs at the Bard GraduateCenter, and Deborah Krohn, Associate Professor at the BGC.Essays by leading scholars in the field illuminate aspectsof Margrieta's world. An interview with renowned historianNatalie Zemon Davis conducted by Peter Miller considersthe role of inventories in historical inquiry. Although to dateit has been impossible to link specific objects to the itemsin Margrieta's inventory, representative objects have beenchosen for the exhibition. They serve as springboards todiscussions by a group of more than thirty leading curatorsand scholars, covering different areas of expertise, who havecontributed catalogue entries. The intense investigation ofthe past by this wide group of scholars holds up a mirrorto present-day New York and serves as a reminderof a vanished world.

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A dozen or so members of HVVA convened in Ghent,Columbia County, on 21 November 2009. Three houses on LeggettRoad and County Route 22 were on the agenda; an invitationto look at a fourth house was extended to diehards at the endof the day.

Our first stop was the Nicholas Kittle house at 1346 CountyRoute 22 (42˚19’41.88”N, 73˚40’34.37”W, 302’ elev.). The presentowners’ received knowledge is that the house was constructed in1754 or thereabouts, and that the east end (the house faces NNW)constitutes an earlier dwelling brought to the site at a later date.

This interpretation was borne out after some examination.This part of the house appears to have always been used as akitchen. It is the only section of the dwelling which has a properbasement (the remainder having crawl spaces), suggesting that itmight have been added quite early on – since a cellar would havebeen important for food storage. The evidence for interpretingthe kitchen as an addition is chiefly documented by the presenceof clapboard siding on the east gable of the main portion of thehouse in an area that is presently covered by the gable roof ofthe kitchen wing. Some during our visit thought they saw evidenceof the frame of the kitchen wing fitting poorly onto the foundation,and suggested that it might not be the first structure on that site.If that is the case, a possible earlier kitchen would have hadto have had a leanto roof to accommodate the observed gableclapboarding.

The kitchen wing had a fireplace, likely jambless, in its eastwall. Evidence for this is found in a discontinuous end beam anda remaining trimmer. The beams in this portion of the house areall beaded, except for the side of the first interior beam which facesthe former jambless location. There is no shelf or other indicationsof a support for a hearth in the basement, further suggesting thatthe present structure might have been moved and that the jamb-less wasn’t rebuilt at the new site. This portion of the house maydate to c.1760. The floors have concealed splines. Portions of thebeam ends were exposed, and evidenced marriage marks onsome examples. Two early sash remain on the second floor inthe east gable end. A paneled door of a type also seen leadingto the west wing is preserved in a second floor chamber of thispart of the house.

As originally constructed the main portion of the Kittle housewas probably either one room, or a room and a half deep. Thesmall size of the structural components indicates that it may havebeen constructed c.1785. This portion of the house was originallyfive bents wide; high placement of the windows and smooth plan-ing indicate that the beams were left exposed. The walls were filledwith brick nogging, two panels of which are presently visible in thekitchen. An additional three bents (2 bays) were added to the west,probably c.1790. A final small addition with neoclassical detailingon the interior dates to c.1810 and was added to the west. So thehouse grew rather quickly to its present form. The floors of all ofthese portions of the dwelling appear to be tongue-and-groove.

Graffiti on the west side of the collar tie located at the juncturebetween the two portions of the main part of the house is signedby Andrew Kittle, and although it’s not entirely clear, it might makereference to either the construction of the addition, or of hisresidency on the site. It includes the word “housed” or “house.”The author may have been Andrew son of John (1785-1855)or Andrew son of Nicholas, the earlier Andrew’s grandson andalive in the 1870s (Thomas P. Hughes, American Ancestry Vol. II,

Columbia County. Albany, NY: Joel Munsell’s Sons, 1887, p. 67;Hamilton Child, Gazetteer and Business Directory of ColumbiaCo., N.Y. for 1871-2. Syracuse, NY: The Journal Office, 1871,p. 239). Much of the wood used in the house appears to be pine.

The remaining three houses on our tour were all located onLeggett Road. The first two of these – at 342 and 297 LeggettRoad – may be those identified in the 1873 Beers atlas as ownedby J. Finkle at that time (D. G. Beers & Co., Atlas of ColumbiaCounty, New York. Philadelphia: D. G. Beers & Co., 1873, p. 43).

The house at 342 Leggett Rd. (42˚20’49.57”N, 73˚41’25.81”W,362’ elevation) is located at the juncture with Curtis Road. We metRuth Piwonka at the site. The house has recently undergone ex-tensive renovations under the direction of Kate Johns, Kinderhookarchitect. Work included refurbishment in the main portion of thehouse, as well as the construction of a substantial wing to thenorth and one to the east, off the east end of the house, togetherwith landscaping.

HVVA Ghent TourBy W. R. Wheeler

Kittle House – 1346 County Route 22, Ghent

Above: Detail of the Kittle house framing and exposed nogging.Below: Graffiti of Andrew Kittle.


From the brief examination possible during the visit it wasclear that the older part of the house was constructed in twophases. It now presents as a center passage dwelling of one anda half stories in height. As originally constructed, it may have beena two room dwelling without center passage. If this interpretationis correct, at some intermediary period before the west bay wasadded, partitioning was added to divide the western half of thehouse into a hall and two small rooms. It is possible that this wasan original condition, and the house always had a transverse pas-sage; additional work would be required to put this question torest, however. Evidence for the two rooms (now subsumed into theparlor) is found in cuts in the wainscot and baseboard on the westwall of the hall, and the presence of gains on the west side of thebeam over the west hall wall. The gains do not extend over thecurrent single door, nor do they extend over a similar widthto the north of that door, which corresponds to the patch in thewainscot on the other side of the wall. Together this evidence

points to two doors, rather closely spaced on the west sideof the hall. It is possible that the present north door was originallythe door to the northwest chamber, and was simply relocatedto its present site when the house was remodeled in themid-19th century.

The entire early portion of the house has an excavated base-ment. Only the east room appears to have had a fireplace, sug-gesting the two small rooms (or, possible single large west room)went unheated. There is no basement under the west addition.

The west addition is indicated by differences in framing – thesecond floor joists are sawn, mid-19th century examples – andby the presence of gain cuts in the westernmost beam of what isunderstood as the original portion of the house. A Greek Revivalmantle is located on the west wall.

The roof rafters have Roman numeral marriage marks on theirwest faces, possibly made with a saw, and extending most of thewidth of the face of the rafters. The rafters are pegged at their apex.Eight pairs were observed, and they are numbered from eastto west. Two additional bents at the west end cover the mid-19thcentury addition. They are sawn and butt joined and nailedat their apex.

Most of the wood used in the house appears to be pine.Hemlock was possibly used in the mid-19th century addition.Extensive repairs have been made to the first floor structure.

After a late lunch we returned to Leggett Road, visiting thehouse at 297 (42˚20’38.60”N, 73˚41’22.37”W, 343’ elevation). Oneof the notable features of this dwelling was the transverse beam,similar to one recently observed at the Rushmore house in Athensvicinity, Greene County, which was placed at a later date to giveadditional support to a series of long, undersized beams. I thinkthis technique probably became necessary to repair houses con-structed toward the end of the 18th century and in the early 19thcentury, when smaller beam dimensions were being used, andlonger spans were being attempted. As at the Rushmore house,this beam, which is located in the east end of the dwelling support-ing the second floor, has been interpreted by some as a summerbeam. Close examination demonstrated that the small beams arecontinuous, and that they have simply been cut on their undersidesto receive the supporting transverse beam. As at the Rushmorehouse, this beam is pine, and bears extensive weathering.I suspect that both represent early 20th century alterations,accomplished after the ceilings were removed. The older beamsare oak or chestnut; the newer beam is pine or hemlock, and mayhave come from a barn. A groove cut along its entire length mayrepresent the location of a board partition, but whether this wasfor its current installation or in its original site is unknown. The latteris likely, however, since a partition along that line would have inter-sected with the east fireplace at its center.

297 Leggett Road, Ghent

Above: First floor hall at 342 Leggett Road, GentBelow: Attic rafter pair looking east at 342 Leggett Road, Gent

342 Leggett Road, Gent

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The house was constructed in (apparently) two phases.The beams at the west end of the house are pine, and are beaded.Those at the east end of the house are, as noted above, chestnutor oak, and are rough hewn. Although not visible because of recentwork, the owner indicated that the collar ties at the east end of thehouse were comprised of saplings. Those at the west end of thehouse are sawn, with parallel kerfs.

A join in the north top plate is seen at the back of a smallcounter located at the top of the stairs. This identifies the locationof the join between the two phases of construction. In the base-ment, the first floor joists of the east end are laid with their broaderfaces down, an older method. All signs point to the west portion –possibly as much as four bays wide – having been constructedlater. What is confusing however, is that the first floor rooms wereceiled in the older portion of the house, yet are beaded and werefinely planed in the west end of the house, before subsequentlybeing ceiled over. It is not clear why this would be the case.

The house was recently renovated under the direction ofKinderhook architect Kate Johns. Much of the original or earlywork was covered at that time. The door leading from the base-ment kitchen to the exterior was modified to accommodatea raised basement floor, which now features radiant heat.The original partitions were removed at that level, and beadedboards, not native to the house, were installed there.

Graffiti is located at the SW corner of the foundation, west ofthe kitchen door, and on the marble stepping stone at the first floorentry. No barn survives on the site, but a late 19th or early 20thcentury outbuilding incorporate a rectangular porch post with lambstongues into the studding of its east wall, possibly from the house.

The final stop of the day was 276 Leggett Rd. (42˚20’34.56”N,73˚41’18.92”W, 350’ elevation). We spent only a brief time in thishouse, which has recently been purchased by the owners ofnearby 297 Leggett Road, as their future permanent residence.They plan on extensive renovations, including a substantial wingto the east with a family room and kitchen, to take in the viewto the southeast. This house may be that identified on the 1873Beers atlas as that owned by J. Fradenburgh (D. G. Beers & Co.,Atlas of Columbia County, New York. Philadelphia: D. G. Beers &Co., 1873, p. 43).

The “upright” pavilion and “wing” portions of this house appearto have been constructed during one building campaign. The boxframe of the upright section, with intermediary posts on the longsides, is visible at the second floor level in a crawl space in thewing, where it is seen to have never been clapboarded where it iscovered by the wing. All technologies used point to a c. 1850-1860construction date, and the owner confirmed that the house appearsfirst on an 1857 map, but not on one from the beginning of thatdecade. As originally constructed the house was heated by stoves,with flues passing thru metal thimbles straight to the attic. No chim-neys survive in the upright portion of the dwelling; it is possible thatthe flues extended thru the roof. A bracket chimney supportedon a closet is located at the second floor level in the wing.

Reused structural members from an earlier dwelling,consisting of oak joists supporting the west end of the first floorof the upright section, and some other substantial, hewn members,were observed. These materials appear to date to the 18th century.The structural elements which were not reused appear to haveall been pine or hemlock. Larger members were hewn, smallerwere sawn. The top plates of the upright section of the housewere continuous along the length of the house, perhaps 30 feetin length.

Thanks go to our hosts, who graciously opened their homesto us! !

Above: View of the back of 276 Leggett Road, GhentBelow: The bracket chimney on 2nd floor wing

South-west corner of 276 Leggett Road, Ghent


William Bull and Sarah Wells three-bay three-aisle barn near Goshen in Orange County, New Yorkis purportedly the earliest classic barn that remains in the Dutch-American barn realm. It was den-dro-dated 1726. Its roof structure and side aisles are not original.

Wagon Doors in Dutch-American Barns (Part Two)By Gregory D. Huber

This is the second installment of thethree-part article on wagon doors inDutch-American barns. The first install-ment covered a number of general topicsseen that concerns wagon doors. They in-cluded basic wagon door construction,size of wagon door openings, wagon doorsin the Netherlands and sizes of hay wag-ons among other topics.

In this second installment topics cov-ered are the following:

" Seventeenth century wagon doors" Bull barn with earliest wagon doors (?)" Wooden hinged wagon doors

in New York State" Fifty barns with evidence of having

wooden hinged wagon doors" Wemple barn as classic example

of traditional wagon doors" Barns with wooden hinged

wagon doors" Pentices on end walls" North and south country pentice types" Mittelmanse" Original Lengths of barns" Off-center wagon doors

Seventeenth CenturyWagon Doors

To say that seventeenth centurybarns (or house barns) had wagon doorsis to state the obvious. But actual refer-ences to wagon doors in seventeenth cen-tury contracts are unusual. One specificcitation to a wagon door appears in asurviving contract dated February 8, 1674where Harmen Bastiaensz undertook tobuild for Jan Maertensz at Kinderhook

(Columbia County) a barn 50 feet long and26 feet wide with ten foot wide side aisles(Dutch – uytlaet or outlets). A double doorwas to appear at the front end of the barn.(This information is found in – EarlyRecords of Albany – Notarial Papers 1and 2, 1660-1696, Pages 424-425.)

Bull Barn – Earliest Barnwith Wagon Doors?

The earliest barn of Dutch type inAmerica thus far identified is the dendro-dated 1726 Bull family barn in OrangeCounty, New York. A wagon door thatmay be an original one stands detached(against an end wall) in the barn. It hasan ancient look. It is of frame constructionwhere four horizontal wood pieces or barsare tenoned into a vertical mortised woodpiece or stile on the attachment edge ofthe door. No front vertical boards remain.This door was actually a single full heightdoor that constituted one half of the fullwagon door – that is – both sides.

The wagon doors now in place at thebarn were patterned after the apparentoriginal wagon door just discussed. SamPhelps a local Orange County contractorbuilt both end wall wagon doors more thantwenty years ago. Each end wall has twosingle height wagon doors – one at theright and one at the left. At the house side

end wall each door measures 11 feet 9½inches in height and 5 feet 6½ incheswide. Thus the wagon door opening isa little shy of 12 feet high by 11 feet wide.These modern doors are attached at twopoints along the outer edge of the doorwhere a metal pintle is driven into the doorpost. Another metal piece is looped overthe pintle and is driven diagonally throughthe vertical door stile and extends one inchout beyond the wood piece. This extensionis slotted so that another metal piece isdriven vertically into the slot and acts as awedge. The door pivots on the pintle suchthat the door swings outwardly.

Possible original wagon door section at the Bullbarn resting against far end wall. Modernwagon doors were patterned after the frame ofthis door. No front vertical wood boards remainon very old door.

Close-up of pintle attachment of modern wagondoor at Bull barn. Pintle is inserted into doorpost and it joins to metal piece that is insertedinto stile of door frame.

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Each door half has six vertical frontface boards. The four horizontal reverseside bars (rails) are each 3½ inches by 2½inches. Each bar is separated by aboutthree feet two inches. There is also a sin-gle diagonal bar that stretches from onelower corner to the opposite upper corner.The horizontal bars are cut out half waythrough their thicknesses to engage thediagonal bar. The vertical member or stileis mortised at four different points toreceive the tenoned horizontal bars andall joints are pegged.

There is just one main difference be-tween the “near” end wall doors and the“far” end wall doors. At the near end doorsthe horizontal wood pieces join to only oneside stile. In contrast, at the far end wallthe horizontal wood bars join to two sidestiles – at each of their ends. Why thisdifference was brought about is unknown.

All the frame wood pieces in the fourmodern door sections are oak. The frontvertical boards are all pine. The one veryold un-attached door has two horizontaloak pieces while all other pieces are non-oak and have not been identified.

Wooden Hinged Wagon Doorsin New York State

As stated above about twenty-fivebarns have been found with at least oneend wall or side entrance wall with its origi-nal wagon doors largely intact. Only twothus far have been seen in New Jerseywhile all the rest have been located in NewYork. The majority of all three-aisle barnsof about pre-1810 vintage (probably rarelyafter this time) in New York State had

wooden hinged wagon doors. However,a number of barns in the southern areasof the state and sporadically elsewhereand in all of New Jersey never had originalwagon doors with wooden hinges. Thisstatement is based on barns seen in thelast 35 years.

There is one simple criterion in deter-mining if wagon doors in a particular barnhad wooden hinges. If prominent horizon-tal slots about three inches wide and threeinches deep are present on wagon doorposts that are original to the barn then it isknown that wooden hinges were a part ofthe fabric of the doors. In most barns theseslots extend across the full widths of theinner face of the door posts. But in certaincases as Bob Hedges reports particularbarns on the east side of the Hudson Riverhave door post slots that extend onlyabout half way across the posts. Thesepartial door post slots are a variation of thenorm or those slots that appear across thefull widths of the posts. These partial slotshelp to substantiate some of my own find-ings. All the slots received that part of thewooden hinge that went beyond the edgeof the door. If four slots are seen in onedoor post then that side of the door open-ing had an upper door section and a lowerdoor section – that is – two slots per doorsection – one slot for the upper hinge andone slot for the lower hinge. If there werethree slots of equal width per door postthen it is known that there was a single fullheight door at that side of the door open-ing. It appears that some full height doorshad just two wooden hinges and thereforeonly two slots would have been included inthese door posts.

Many or most barns in about thenorthern 80% of where Dutch three-aislebarns were built in New York State in thepre-1810 era had wagon doors with woodhinges. Probably certain post 1810 barnsalso had wood hinged doors. Other barnsof both pre and post 1810 time framesmost likely had batten wagon doors.

Fifty Barns with Evidenceof Having Wooden HingedWagon Doors

To date about fifty barns in New Yorkhave been located that have evidenceof having had wagon doors with woodenhinges. Likely another dozen or so barnsor even more had evidence of possessingwooden hinges that either went un-noticedor un-recorded. The surviving original fab-ric in these doors as far as all elementsare concerned seen in the various barnshas a considerable range. The most com-plete doors found thus far have been foundin the Wemple barn near Schenectadywhere both end walls retain almost all theoriginal elements of the doors. At the op-posite end there was a barn off Route 101in Albany County that had just three re-cycled wagon door posts and they wereincorporated into a post 1800 barn.All the posts had slots for the receptionof wooden hinges.

Barns with indications of havingwooden hinges have been located in tencounties in New York State. The following(see below) is a breakdown of barns with

Both sides of Bull barn’s near end wall door opening is seen with frame constructed wagon doors.

The John Snyder circa 1820 side entranceDutch-Anglo barn with slots in “interior” doorpost for wooden hinged wagon doors.


wooden hinged wagon doors in the coun-ties where they have been found. Thereare two important aspects related to theincidence of these barns in various coun-ties. One is that not all counties were in-vestigated equally for barns that hadwooden wagon door hinges. And not allcounties had an equal number of barnsbuilt there or that survived there. Thesetwo factors skew the numbers seen belowfrom what the actual relative occurrence ofbarns with wooden door hinges that origi-nally existed in the early to mid nineteenthcentury and the actual survival rate of thedoors into the late 20th century.

Clearly Ulster County has by far thegreatest number of surviving barns withwooden hinged doors or having someevidence that they had them – that iswagon door posts with slots for the hinges.Two important things should be said aboutthe high incidence of barns in UlsterCounty with wooden hinged doors. One –more Dutch related barns have beenfound in the county than any other county.Two – there are more pre-RevolutionaryWar era barns that remain in the countythan anywhere else. Wagon doors wouldseem to have been a well established traitincorporated in barns by at least the mid-eighteenth century and likely before. Muchmore can be said about the dynamics onthe differential numbers of barns that havebeen found in the various counties.

Of the numbers above, as many as17 pre-Revolutionary War era barns havebeen seen with evidence of having originaldoors with wooden hinges. Three of thebarns have been lost since their discovery.At least seven of these have been locatedin Ulster County. Seven of the 17 barnsactually had most of the original fabricof the doors intact including the actualwooden hinges. Other barns lacked thedoors but the tell-tale hinge door slotscould be seen. Thus all the barns had vari-ous levels of originality – from the Wemplebarn with virtually pristine condition doorsto the dislodged barn doors found as part

of the floor of side aisle lofts in two barnsto only one or two door posts with the slotsin other barns.

As a special note of interest a three-aisle barn is located within about 3½ milesof the Adirondack State Park boundarythat had wooden wagon door hinges. Inaddition, in that barn both end wall anchor-beams have three widely spaced mortisesfor pentice arm attachments. The barn islocated in Fulton County in Ephratah onRoute 10.

Van Bergen Barn - EarliestKnown with Wooden HingedWagon Doors – Circa 1730

John Stevens visited the circa 1730Van Bergen barn a few times. The barnformerly stood near Leeds in GreeneCounty, New York. This was fortunate asit was revealed that the barn had wagondoor posts with wooden hinge slots. Hisexamination showed that the barn hadonly one main end wall wagon opening.The replacement wagon doors were threepieced – a full height door at one side anddouble half door sections at the other side.This can be seen in a 1928 photo (notshown here) of the barn.

Wemple Barn as ClassicExample of Traditional WagonDoors with Wooden Hinges

As a means of illustrating the basic orfull appearance of end wall wagon doorswith wooden hinges in a three-aisle Dutch-

American barn the peerless Wemple barnserves as an outstanding and best possi-ble example. This is very definitely the ear-liest surviving barn with nearly fully intactoriginal wagon doors at both its end wallsin Dutch-settlement areas in America.A two-part article was written exclusivelyon the wagon doors in the Wemple barn inthe Barn Field Journal for the New WorldDutch Barn Survey 2000 in the August2005 and October 2005 issues – “TheOriginal Threshing Floor Doors and EndWall Side-Aisle Animal Doors of the Wem-ple Dutch-American Barn.” A discussion ofthese doors is included here as the articleis very difficult for most readers to obtain.One photo of the doors is included inFitchen’s book and an excellent drawingof the southwest end wall doors is seenin John Stevens’ book – Dutch VernacularArchitecture in North America. In this arti-cle sketches are seen of two of the threewagon doors – a single full height doorand upper door half at the southwest endwall are provided to give a broad look atthe fabric of the doors. A full photo of thenortheast end wall wagon doors is alsoseen.

Before going on, it may interest somereaders to know that Eric Sloane – thewell known painter of early American farmscenes that often included barns – saidseveral decades ago that no barns wereknown to have survived (into the secondhalf of the 20th century) that had intactdoors with wooden hinges. We know nowthat several doors with wooden hingeshave been found in upstate New York.

Wemple four-bay three-aisle barn near Schenectady, New York has the most complete set of endwall wagons doors (with wooden hinges) anywhere in Dutch settled areas.

New York Number of Barns withCounties Wooden Door Hinges

Ulster 26Albany 9Greene 3Montgomery 3Columbia 2Schoharie 2Rensselaer 2Dutchess 1Schenectady 1Fulton 1

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The Wemple barn that stands in Rot-terdam near Schenectady in SchenectadyCounty, New York is a circa 1760 structure.This awe-inspiring barn was discussed inFitchen’s book and up-dated in the secondedition (2001). It is a classic three-aislebarn of four-bay construction in excellentcondition. It measures 56 feet long by 47feet wide. It retains in nearly 100% originalcondition both its end wall wagon doors.At each end wall is a single full height doorat one side and two half door sections –upper and lower halves at the other halfof the wagon door opening. Each singleheight door is just shy of 12 feet high and4 feet 8 inches wide. Each half door variesin its height – the upper doors are each 5feet 9 inches high and the lower doors are6 feet in height (at far end wall) and 6 feet1½ inches in height (at the near end wall).All wooden hinges all of oak as originallyincluded in the doors remain intact.

The inclusion of a full height door andtwo half doors per end wall was likely quitecommon in pre 1810 barns in much ofNew York State. This condition (only at oneend wall) is seen in the older of the twoFredericks barns near Altamont in AlbanyCounty among other barns one of whichis the excellent circa 1790 Ostrander barn(now ruinous) also near Altamont in AlbanyCounty. Certain post 1820 English styleside wall entry barns in the Hudson RiverValley also had a single full height doorand two half doors at the wagon dooropening. At least a few of these have beenseen in Ulster County.

Most of the elements of the onewagon door complex at one end wall inthe Wemple barn are nearly identical toall the other elements of the door complexat the other end wall. Thus the statementsthat follow about the “near” end wall doors(closer to the circa 1760 brick homesteadhouse) apply to the “far” or northeast endwall doors. Certain exceptions will benoted. The only major difference but notrelated to any original conditions is that thefull height door at the far end wall was cuthorizontally in half at one point so that twodoor halves – an upper and a lower – werecreated. Later the two door halves werere-united. All three wood hinges remain.

It is important to note that many traitsof the doors will not actually be includedin this description as there are far toomany aspects that would occupy too muchspace in this article. To render an idea ofthe number of details that could have beendiscussed almost two dozen pages ofnotes with a number of drawings weretaken on the six door sections at both endwalls in late September 2001 when theWemple barn was documented. Sufficeto say however that the most salient traitswill be discussed.

Wagon Doorswith Wooden Hinges

The wooden door hinges will now bedescribed. The size and disposition of thewooden hinges in the wagon doors seen inthe Wemple barn appear to be quite nor-mal for a three-aisle barn where theyoccur. They can be of smaller size as forexample the wooden hinges at theNieuwkirk barn dated 1766 on HurleyMountain Road west of Kingston.

In any given barn all wooden hingesin the wagon doors appear to be the samebasic size. The Wemple barn is no excep-tion in this regard. It seems that all woodenhinges in all examined barns thus far weremade of oak (Quercus spp.) for obviousreasons of the need for strength. This istrue even in barns that were constructedmostly or completely of pine (white orpitch variety) timbers. In the Wemple barnnearly all (or all) timbers were made ofpitch pine (Pinus rigida). Even the wagondoor posts of substantial size (11 by 9inches) are of pitch pine where in otherbarns of pine door posts are fairly oftenof oak.

The oak hinges in the Wemple barnas in most barns (there are two known ex-ceptions including the Collins barn west ofRavena in Albany County) extend acrossthe full width of all door sections at bothend walls. In addition there is about a

seven inch extension (beyond the dooredge) at each attachment end of eachhinge. The full lengths of the hinges varya bit from 5 feet 3 inches long to 5 feet 5inches long. The extensions fit into thehorizontal slots in the wagon door postswhere they join to wood pintles. Thehinges are of nearly uniform height alongits full length – at the pintle end it is 2¾inches and at the other end it is 3 inches.The thicknesses of the hinges vary bymore than a factor of two to one. At themeeting edge (where two opposite doorsections touch at each end wall) it is veryclose to two inches thick and at the pintleend it is just over four inches thick.

Interior of near end wall of Wemple barn isseen with its original half door height wagondoors with wooden hinges.

At near end wall of Wemple barn is wagon doorpost with slot for wooden hinged door. Doorthat swings on wood pintle is open and hasswung into the barn.

The hinges are all neatly chamfered alongtheir upper and lower edges. Unlike otherdoors in certain other barns there are no“knobby” or thickened ends (seen in thecirca 1760 Oliver barn) at the pintle ends.The pintles secure the various door sec-tions to the door posts. In the up country –north of Ulster County on the west of theHudson River and north of DutchessCounty on the east side of the river pintlesare often attached to the posts in a differ-ent manner than those to the south.In the north pintles in barns such as in theWemple barn are set into vertical groovesin the door posts. Often in mid-HudsonRiver area barns pintles sit on top of thedoor posts. All pintles are almost alwaysnailed via wrought nails to the posts. Pos-sibly the longest pintle appears in the JohnSnyder barn west of Saugerties where thepintle secures two wood door hinges oftwo separate door halves.

Wood pintles in the Wemple barn areabout 14 inches long and about 1¼ incheswide. Wood species of pintles was notrecorded but is quite probably oak.


Battens on Wagon DoorsAll door sections have at least one

rear side batten. All the sections havea single diagonal batten. All the sectionsbut one has a horizontal batten. Certainother barns with original wooden hingeddoors have no horizontal battens at allsuch as the doors found at the Oliver barnsite on the south side of Route 209 inMarbletown, Ulster County.

Each door section in the Wemple barnexcept the single height door at the north-east end wall has one diagonal batten.All the battens are pine. In very standardtradition in most vernacular barns in thenortheast and likely beyond diagonal bat-tens on every entry door (wagon, animalor human) stretch from the bottom cornerat the attachment side of the door to theupper corner of the opposite side of thedoor. This orientation is done apparentlyto minimize sagging due to gravity.Remarkably enough, exceptions to thisbatten orientation occur in some barns.

At the southwest end wall the diago-nal batten of the single height door is thelongest in the barn and is about 10½ feetlong and 13¼ inches wide. Wrought nailssecure the boards to the front verticalboards. The two diagonal battens of thesingle height door at the northwest endwall are about 5½ feet long and are12 inches wide.

Each half height door has a singlediagonal batten and those at the northeastend wall are 12 inches wide and thoseat the southwest end wall are each10 inches.

As far as horizontal battens are con-cerned all but two door sections have justone horizontal batten. The single heightdoor at the southwest wall has a batten atboth its top end and lower end. The upperdoor half at the northeast wall has no bat-tens at all. These battens vary from tento twelve inches wide. It is curious to notethat both door sections at the northeastwall – the single height door and the upperhalf door each do not have upper battens.This reason for this apparent aberrationis unclear.

Precisely Placed Scribe Linesforming X’s on HorizontalBattens

One element of the high level crafts-manship seen in the Wemple barn is theplacement of the wrought nails that securethe horizontal battens to the front verticalboards in all the wagon doors. They alsoappear in all the side-aisle animal entrycorner doors. The nails were positioned

where diagonal scribe lines cross. Suchscribing on battens in Dutch related barnsis extremely rare. The placement of nails indoor battens in other barns while not ran-dom is not as precise as seen in the bat-tens of the Wemple barn wagon doors.The superbly crafted circa 1790 Fredericks

barn near Stone Arabia in MontgomeryCounty (now disassembled) had doorswith such X scribing.

All the placements of the nails thatvaried somewhat from door section to doorsection in the Wemple barn were done inan utterly precise manner. That is to sayfor every batten in a given door the dis-tances between nails in each row of nailsor nails relative to other nails in differentrows are absolutely consistent. For exam-ple, on the bottom batten of the singleheight door at the northeast wall there arethree horizontal rows of nails. The upperand lower rows each consist of seven nailsand the middle row consists of six nails.Horizontally each adjacent nail is placed atad less than nine inches from each other.Each nail in the middle row is placed pre-cisely half way (vertically) between thenails in the upper row and the lower rowthat are closest to it. In the process six Xswere formed.

Each of the horizontal battens in thesingle height door at the southwest wallhas three rows of wrought nails. In con-trast with the battens in the door men-tioned above each of the upper row andthe lower row has nine nails and the mid-dle row has eight nails. Horizontally eachadjacent nail is placed 6¾ inches fromeach other. Each nail in the middle row isplaced precisely half way (vertically) be-tween the nails in the upper row and thelower row that are closest to it. Thus eightXs were formed. (See sketch that showshow the nails were positioned in battens inthe southwest single height door.) MoreXs were formed on the southeast end walldoor because the nails were placed moreclosely to each other. These doors havelasted nearly a quarter of a millennium.

Wooden Door LatchesDoor latches are seen on the single

height door and the lower half door sectionon the southwest wall. They are both of thesliding bar type. The half door section isthe more complete of the two. It is a threepiece oak latch with 2 ten inch long uprightkeeps or retainers where the 18 inch longslide bar glides along. Slide bar is notcheda bit at either end to fit into the verticalwood pieces. The two pieces are sepa-rated by 11½ inches.

Just above the sliding bar latch is apossibly original or very old oak and metaldoor lock that is 10¼” by 5½”. This lock isset “into” the wood of the rear face of thefront vertical board of the door. Three boltswith nuts secure the lock to the frontboard. The keyhole is plainly seen.

Above: Sketch of half door section at nearend or southwest wall of Wemple barn.Note scribed Xs on batten on rear face of door.Below: Sketch of full single height door sectionat southwest wall of Wemple barn. Note scribedXs on two rear surfaces of battens of door.

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Full Height DoorA full or single height door appears

at the away from the farm lane side ofthe wagon door opening at the southwestend wall. The battens have already beendescribed. This door may be somewhat ex-ceptional related to doors in other barns inthat there are only two full door width (plusextension) wooden hinges. The oppositeend wall full height door has (original con-dition) three wood hinges which appear tobe more the norm. Some information seenjust below is a repeat of information above.

The height of the door is 11 feet 11inches and its width is 4 fee 8½ inches.Horizontal battens appear at the very top(eleven inches wide) and very bottom(twelve inches wide) of the door. Each bat-ten has three rows of wrought nails secur-ing them to the front vertical boards whereeight Xs (scribe lines) were formed oneach batten. The single diagonal batten is13¼ inches in width. Both wooden hingesare each 5 feet 3½ inches long and theytaper significantly not in their height but intheir widths – 4¼ inches at the pintle endto 1¾ inches to the other end.

There are four front vertical tongueand grooved boards each about 13 ½inches wide. (Other full height door hasfive front boards that vary considerably inwidths – 6” to almost 14”.) Apparently allthe doors in the barn were never painted.

Barn Door HookWhen the Wemple barn was first

visited in late February 1976 this singleheight door section had a wooden hook forthe hanging of harnesses or perhaps otheritems related to farming. It was about afoot and a half long. It had an angled stem(thin tree branch) that emanated from themain stem about four inches from the bot-tom of the hook. The hook appeared sev-eral inches below the upper wooden hingeand was nailed to the inner surface of oneof the front vertical boards. Such hooks onthe interiors of Dutch barns are quite rare.One such hook (actually a remnant)appeared on a post on the northwestend wall of the now non-extant circa 1815three-aisle four-bay barn on Route 30south of Middleburgh (Fitchen BarnNo. 51). Another three-aisle barn with ahook was seen on Butterville Road west ofNew Paltz in Ulster County. The LawrenceShultis three-aisle barn near Woodstockalso had a hook on its one end wall an-chor-beams. Others appear in other barns.

Upper Door HalfThe upper half door that appears at

the farm lane side of the southwest wagon

door opening will be described. It is alongwith the lower door half virtually 100%original. This door section is 5 feet 9inches high and 4 feet 9 inches in width.The lower door half is 3 inches taller. Ithas an 11 inch wide horizontal batten at itsvery top where there are again three rowsof wrought nails where seven Xs wereformed. A 10½ inch wide diagonal battenis also seen.

The wooden door hinges are 5 feet4½ inches long where the hinges extendalmost eight inches beyond the door edge.Each hinge is three inches in height andtapers in depth two to four inches with thegreater dimension at the door attachmentside. All corners are chamfered.

Front vertical boards of the upperdoor half vary just a little in their widths –from 10½ to 11½ inches. There is notongue and groove arrangement.

Where Door Halves Meet atPintle Area - Oak PlateWhat might be unique in the Wemple barnis the spot where the two door halves(upper and lower) meet at the northeastend wall at the pintle area. The two doorhinges of the two door sections are imme-diately adjacent to each other. But at thepintle area between the hinges is an oakplate that is 9½ inches by 4¼ inches and¾ inches thick that separate the hinges.The common door post slot that receivesthe two hinges is 7¼ inches wide. The pin-tle here is 19½ inches long. The wide slots

that appear at both end walls may beunique in the Dutch realm. In nearly allother barns where two doors sectionsmeet there is a separation of hinges byseven to eight inches or so. The interestingthing is that there is no oak plate at thesouthwest end wall where the two halfdoor sections meet. The reason for thisdisparity can not be explained. The platemight have acted as a shim as an accom-modation or adjustment when the threedoor sections were brought together by thebuilder. Inclusion of the plate was perhapsborne of a need to insure that heightsof both door sides were equal.

Pentices at End WallsPentices or short roof projections that

extend several feet (little direct evidenceavailable to discern exact lengths) beyondend walls were incorporated into many orperhaps most barns in New York Stateover the wagon doors. Anyone who hasever been in a barn in a strong rain stormcan attest to the fact that water can pourinto the end wall of a three-aisle classicbarn if there are no protective pentices toward off the rain. The inclusion of penticesin these barns was well warranted indeed.

The manner in which pentices wereconstructed varied to a certain extent de-pending on the geographic area in NewYork State. Direct evidence of the exis-tence of pentices is much lacking in NewJersey barns. However, the possible preRevolutionary War era Washington Well

At far end wall of Wemple barn is wagon door with overhead pentice.Note pentice arms that are not original to barn.


barn in southern Somerset County in NewJersey has some indication that penticesmight have been present.

Basic elements of pentices consist oftwo construction features. The first elementwas the presence of several (3 to 7)horizontal beams or arms that extendeddepending on the barn from the end wallanchor-beam and out beyond the endwalls by about 3½ feet to 5 feet. Thesearms basically form the base of the pen-tices. The arms stretch across the fulllengths of the pentices (side to side) andsometimes beyond. For example, in thecase of the Larger Wemp barn (FitchenBarn No. 31) there were four pentice armson at least one end wall; the one at theone end was apparently to protect thehuman door immediately adjacent to thewagon door. The second element was thepresence of rafters that were each in linewith the arms. The Wemple barn at eachend wall originally had three pentice arms.

North Country Pentice ArmsIn the north-country pentice arms nor-

mally emanate from three holes or mor-tises (less often four holes as in the caseof the Fredericks – Gremps barn in Mont-gomery County) in the vertical faces of theend wall anchor-beams in barns. Theseinner extensions and wedges as remnantssurvive in several barns. In a very unusualcase the three-aisle four-bay Buffo pinebarn in northern Schoharie County thatwas dismantled in August 1994 retainedthree of its original pentice arms that ex-tended exteriorly by 26 ½ inches. In thisbarn there were no inner extensions of thepentice arms. Other barns had this traitsuch as the Zeh barn in Schoharie County.In addition, the Buffo barn had wagondoors that did not have wooden hinges.There was evidence that the doors how-ever swung into the barn. In nearly allcases the exterior lengths of the armsin almost all barns simply rotted way forobvious reasons.

South Country Pentice ArmsIn the south-country or areas south of

both Albany County and Columbia County(at each side of the Hudson River) penticearms articulated to end wall anchor-beamsin a decidedly different manner in thosebarns to the north that had distinct mor-tises for the pentices as described above.In two cases in barns in Ulster Countynamely the Bogart barn and the Bruyn-Mahoney barn along Route 209 penticearms extend from the first inner anchor-beam over to the top of the end wall an-chor-beam and then on to the exterior of

Above: Pentice at end wall of Bogart barn inMarbletown, Ulster County with original armsand non-original rafters. Pentice stretchesacross full width of wagon doors.Below: Close-up of possible original mittel-manse at end wall wagon doors at Bogart barn.Note how top end of post enters into soffit ofend wall anchor-beam. The post in this barn isseen to the exterior of the door while in otherbarns they are seen inside the wagon doors.

the case of the original condition four-baycirca 1825 (or later) Crispell side wall entrybarn near Gardiner in southern UlsterCounty the pentices on each wall may beoriginal. At another original condition sideentry barn of very unusual (interior) con-struction a few miles north of New Paltzon the east side of Route 32 the side wallpentice may be original.

Mittelmanse – Middle PostThe last remaining element related to

original wagon doors and their openings isthe topic of the vertical post that holds thetwo door sections together when the doorsare left either half open (one side is openand the other is closed) or fully closed.The post is also called a mittelmanse –or ‘little man in the middle.’ Such originalposts are very rare. One possible survivingoriginal one is the post at the Bogart barnsite. It appears at the exterior of the wagondoors. Posts in certain other barns werepositioned at the inside of the doors. Suchposts at most barns likely just simply woreout or were lost and later were replacedand rather simply so.

The John Snyder side wall entry open-bay circa 1820 barn along Route 212(north side) a few miles west of Saugertiesretains a possible original mittelmanse.At the bottom of the post a few feet wereripped out. At the top of the post a seveninch long and 1¾ inch thick tongue ofwood (integral to the wood piece) is seenwhich was engaged into the oblong hole inthe soffit of the end wall anchor-beam.The hole is four to five inches long andabout three inches wide. The Snyder postis 2¾ by 3¾ inches in cross section at

the barn. The Bogart barn has four originalhewn arms but the rafters are replace-ments of the originals. In the case of theMahoney barn perhaps uniquely the pen-tice extends across the full width of thenave. Seven original pentice arms are seenexcept the one arm that is not original inthe interior of the barn. The rafters appearto be, quite remarkably, original. As such itis very likely the Mahoney barn that retainsthe most original pentice anywhere in theentire Dutch settlement area.

Pentices in certain barns can appearon both an end wall and an eave wall. In

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While some may debate whether HenryHudson stopped in Saugerties at theSawyerkill in 1609 on his voyage up theHudson, there is substantial evidencethat the Palatines came to Saugerties in1710. This is the 300th anniversary oftheir arrival in West Camp. To commem-orate the event, the Town of SaugertiesHistoric Preservation Commission willfocus on the stone structures associatedwith the Palatines during its second an-nual Historic House Tour to be held Sat-urday, May 22.

Of the 68 stone houses and churches inthe Village and Town of Saugerties, thereare many associated with the Palatinesand some of those will be included on thetour; however, the identities of these his-toric structures will be kept under wrapsuntil May 22, the day of the tour. At thattime, the lucky persons, having pur-chased the limited number of tickets avail-able, will be surprised by the diversityof the historic stone buildings that havebeen selected. Several of the houses willalso have interiors available for viewing.

Stone Houses Reflect HistoryThe tour begins at the Information Boothat McDonald’s on Rt. 212 in Saugerties

and follows two routes. Some of the stonehouses on this year’s tour are unoccu-pied. Viewing the interior space of thesehomes, unobstructed by furniture place-ment, can give a sense of the proportionsof the interior. Interestingly, but not un-usual for the time, the land around one ofthe houses on the tour contains the rem-nants of an 18th century cemetery.

Cooperation into the FutureThe stone house tour is another fineexample of cooperation between a townand its residents. The tour’s sponsor, theTown of Saugerties Historic PreservationCommission, has as its purpose the pro-tection, enhancement and promotion oflandmark structures. It’s because theseproperties have distinctive architectural,archaeological and cultural heritage, thatthey foster civic pride for the citizens ofSaugerties. The preservation and protec-tion of these properties enhances the at-tractiveness of the Town to residents andvisitors, thus supporting and providingstimulus to the local economy. For thestone house owners who have graciouslyconsented to allow visitors on their prop-erties, the benefit is that more peoplewill see and appreciate the beauty andhistorical value of these local treasures.

The Palatines in Saugerties:A History Written in StoneBy Susan Puretz

TOUR INFORMATION

Date:Saturday, May 22, 2010 11 AM - 5 PM

(torrential rain date: May 23)

Tickets:$20.00 advance sale April 22 to May 19at Smith’s Hardware and Inquiring Mind

(both in the Village of Saugerties)

Tickets by mail:Stone House Tour, Saugerties Town Hall,

4 High Street, Saugerties, NY 12477(make check payable to Town of Saugerties HPC)

Tickets on day of tour:$25.00 tickets are sold from 11 AM to 2 PM at

the Visitor Information Booth (Rte. 212 McDonalds)For further information call (845) 246-2800 ext. 470

Sponsored by Historic Preservation Commission – Town of Saugerties

about its mid-point. The Bogart post isclearly tapered and at its mid-point is 3 by3¾ inches in cross section. The post ismade of a strong wood but is not oak andis certainly not pine.

Original Lengths of BarnsWhile on the topic of soffit holes in

anchor-beams it would be beneficial topoint out that the presence of such holesis an excellent indicator in general of theoriginal lengths and/or numbers of baysof various barns. So many barns were al-tered in the nineteenth century it is some-times rather difficult to discern the originallength of certain barns. If an oblong holeappears in the very middle (not always)of a soffit in an anchor-beam, and thereseems to be a good to a considerableamount of wear around the edges of thehole and the anchor-beam has a shorterdepth than the other anchor-beams thatare present then there is very good to ex-cellent chance that the original end wallhas been identified. It is advantageousto know that this procedure is not alwaysa fool-proof way of ascertaining if an endwall of a three-aisle barn was original.Barns possess other features and socan afford other means of knowing if anH-frame was an original end wall.

As a simple extension of the idea ofidentifying an original end wall the methodjust out-lined can also be a definite aid inthe determination if a barn had either oneor two end walls with wagon door entries.Certainly all U-barns (true or variant) haveonly one anchor-beam with a mittlemansehole. Further, it is known that almost all thebarns in Schoharie County as mentionedabove have only one end wall wagon entryas these barns each have just one mittle-manse hole in their anchor-beams. Sucha simple observation can lend a great dealof information about the basic structureand general utility of a given barn.

Off-Center Wagon DoorsIn the great or even vast majority of

cases in three-aisle barns, wagon doorsare centered on end walls where theyoccur. In several barns off centered doorshave been seen. This is the case in thedoors in the van Alstyne barn (FitchenBarn No. 11) and the pre-RevolutionaryWar era barn south of Catskill in GreeneCounty. Another was the Studdiford barn inSomerset County, New Jersey. There areothers. The reasons for such off-centeredpositions are not precisely known but itwould seem to be as accommodations forother existing conditions at the barns orbarn sites. !

Calendar

Flatbush – Take Off!Saturday, February 20, 2010 – 10:00 AM

Explore some new discoveries in Flatbushand Rhinebeck. Meet at the Ten BroeckHouse, 1019 Flatbush Road, Kingston, NY.For more information call Rob Sweeney at(845) 336-0232

March on PalatinesSaturday, March 20, 2010 – 10:00 AM

Visit early structures with an actual Palatinedescendant! Meeting at the GermantownParsonage, 52 Maple Ave., Germantown,NY. For directions call Alvin Shefferat (518) 828-5482.

Southern SojournsSaturday, April 17, 2010 – 11:00 AM

Join us for our yearly trip to the southernmost region of the Hudson Valley. As weexplore the vernacular architecture ofNorthern New Jersey. More informationto follow on-line at www.hvva.org

There will be an official business meetingover lunch. Trustees please try to attend orsend committee reports in advance.

Celebration in StoneSaturday, May 22, 2010 – 10:00 AM

HVVA members will support the HistoricPreservation Committee of the Town ofSaugerties by combining our monthly studytour with this special stone house tourof Saugerties. See inside story for moredetails.

Please note there is no regular 3rd Satur-day scheduled event in May, due to the ex-citement and popularity of this event amongour members. See you on tour!

# Yes, I would like to renew mymembership in the amount of $.............

# Yes, I would like to make a taxdeductible contribution to help theeffort of preserving the HudsonValley’s Architectural Heritage.Enclosed please find my donationin the amount of $.............

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Please mail checks to:

HVVAP.O. Box 202, West Hurley, NY 12491

Designed by Jon Dogar-Marinesco www.pointblanq.com

Membership info

If you have been receiving thisnewsletter, but your membership isnot current and you wish to continueto receive the HVVA newsletter andparticipate in the many house-studytours offered each year, please sendin your dues.

Membership currently pays all theHVVA bills and to keep us operatingin the black. Each of us mustcontribute a little.

Membership dues remains at a low$20 per year ($15 for Students).So if you haven’t sent in your duesor given a tax deductible donation tothe HVVA mission, please considerdoing so now.


A look back

For more information, please check HVVA.org

The Dr. Matthew Jansen House – located at 43 Crown Street, Kingston, NY – recentlyvisited by HVVA members during our much enjoyed Holiday Tour this past December.Look for more research to come as we piece together the clues to this house’s develop-ment. Photograph circa 1880, used by the courtesy of the Friends of Historic Kingston.

Documents

The Society for the Preservation of HudsonValleyVernacular ...hmvarch.org/news/2010-01-02-03-news.pdf · 02/01/2010 · Rural New England, and this arrange-ment lasted for a time