The Manor Household in the New Nation

"The Whole World is full of Trouble and this Country has assisted for her part, Where it will End and when the Lord only Knows, Wo t hat Country Whose Rulers are Avaritious ambitious Ignorant Men and dare Not be honest to their trust."

— Pierre to Pierre, Jr., January 1, 1813

Van Cortlandt Manor is restored to the early National or New Nation period, an era running from 1783 to 1815. During this time, the United States forged its political and cultural identity as an independent nation. In the pre-Revolutionary War years, Pierre and his Westchester contemporaries had focused on the development of their agriculture and related enterprises, but now the uncertain nature of the political and social experiment called the United States dictated that they embrace the world more fully. No one was certain if the United States government would survive its rocky start. Anti-Federalists like Pierre expressed reservations about ratifying the Constitution as proposed an issue hotly debated for years. He and his sons also wondered how the infant nation would interact with the international community.

The long-standing animosity between England and France continued to rage and was then compounded by the French Revolution and subsequent Reign of Terror. The highly controversial "Citizen" Edmund Genet, the first minister to the United States from the French Republic, was related through marriage to Pierre Van Cortlandt, Jr. Genet's shenanigans included raising money to outfit armed ships that sailed from American ports to loot cargo for France and establishing French courts on American soil.

He so thoroughly antagonized United States officials that they forced France to dismiss him. The Napoleonic Wars and resulting Embargo Act that halted shipment of all products from American ports to Europe challenged Westchester County's agricultural economy, dependent as it was on an international market. Initially casting a vote in the House of Representatives in support of the embargo, Philip was soon convinced by his constituents that the act was endangering their livelihood as farmers, and he led the floor fight for its repeal. At the conclusion of the New Nation era, the United States would eventually be drawn into another conflict with Britain: the War of 1812.

If political upheaval were not enough, the United States experienced profound change in other arenas as well. Geographically, the country exploded with the acquisition of the Louisiana Purchase. This new territory offered opportunities as well as threats. Avid speculators, the Van Cortlandts numbered among those feverishly investing in canals, turnpikes, and land leading to the frontier. Conversely, this huge tract of fertile land challenged the tired soil of Hudson Valley farms.

Society proved equally volatile. In the spiritual realm, the enthusiastic religious revivals that had swept New England during the mid-eighteenth century were gaining momentum in New York after the Revolution. The Van Cortlandts and some of their Livingston cousins earnestly supported Methodism, at that time a controversial splinter faith whose converts tended to come from the poorer classes. On occasion, camp meetings served as instruments of personal renewal, social control on the part of the haves, social agitation on the part of the have-nots, or a combination of all three.

Thoughts of emancipation must have been uppermost in the minds of the enslaved Africans in the Van Cortlandt household. While New York would not enact statewide manumission until 1827, more and more Africans in America were gaining their freedom. What social and economic impact would freedom wield?

Although political victors at the end of the war, the Van Cortlandts returned to Croton in 1783 to find their property in shambles. Only the shell of the manor house remained and the surrounding fields, orchards, and fences demanded attention. Reestablishing their home, farm, and businesses required energy and money, both scarce commodities at the end of the war.

The estate in general and the manor house in particular filled the varied needs of the members of the household: home, center of working farm, business office, political headquarters, site of religious revivals, "hotel" for the Hudson Valley elite, showplace, and symbol of legacy. Four generations of Van Cortlandts, extended family, guests, and enslaved Africans crammed into a structure that must have functioned like an apartment house. These complex multigenerational and multiracial domestic arrangements buck the stereotype of the early American family as nuclear. The nature of its busy and cantankerous household, coupled with the radical shifts in politics and lifestyle during this time, made an intriguing and sometimes explosive combination.

During the first decade of the nineteenth century, the Van Cortlandts residing in the house included: the elderly Pierre and Joanna; their daughter Catherine, a widow, and her three sons; and Philip, a bachelor who lived elsewhere most of the time in order to pursue his political career. These housemates possessed strong and distinctive personalities.

Eldest son Philip reveled in his role as statesman and gentleman farmer, trading on his supreme status as one of Washington's officers, New York politician, and recipient of an established country seat. At the conclusion of the war, Philip controlled the Croton house, farm, and earnings even though it seems that Pierre directed the day-to-day operations of the state businesses. According to his brother, Pierre, Jr., who held definite opinions on the matter, Philip duped his parents out of the Croton estate. He begged them to let him repair the shell of the house while they stayed with Pierre, Jr., in Peekskill and then refused to let them move back to Croton until 1803.

Philip's sister Catherine served as the household supervisor. "Caty" exists as a shadowy presence in family letters, save for her fervent participation in the Methodist movement. Philip designated Catherine's son Philip Van Wyck as his heir to the Croton estate, a move that would eventually pull the family apart.

Late in life, Pierre and Joanna returned to the manor house where they resided until their deaths. A maverick in business and politics, Pierre was also a loving husband and father. He continued to supervise the Croton estate even after making Philip its master. When the elderly Joanna revealed a crotchety side, Pierre lovingly pampered her and amicably requested sons and grandsons to buy her cheeses and lottery tickets to keep her happy. A formidable team who ran the estate as partners, Pierre and Joanna could look back proudly. Theirs was a classic American success story. Their marriage, which lasted until Joanna's death in 1808, had begun after a week-long courtship in 1748.

The manor house also served as home for several enslaved Africans. Like others who helped from the nation's government based on the theory of individual rights and freedom, the Van Cortlandt owned slaves. As for many slaveholders, the irony of this circumstance was not easily reconciled. Because of the small labor force in the colony, slavery had been part of the New York social system since the earliest years of European settlement. Tom, Bridget, Elizabeth, Angus, Titus, Margery, Jin, Sair, Peg and Peg's baby had come to the Croton house during the years before the Revolutionary War. In the New Nation period, Titus, Tom, Ishmael, Sib, Abby, Sally, Phillis, and Jenny worked shoulder to shoulder with family members and European help. The 1790 Federal census confirms their presence with eight enslaved people in Pierre's household in Peekskill and four a Philip's home in Croton. Ten years later, nine slaves lived at Peekskill and one at Croton.

While the Van Cortlandts' exact feelings may never be known, they certainly displayed ambivalence about slave ownership. On one hand, enslaved Africans were highly trusted members of the household, active in nearly all domestic and commercial pursuits, and sent on trips to Manhattan and elsewhere to assist with family business. The Van Cortlandts expressed great concern over the health, and well being of enslaved members of the household, paid their medical bills, and even provided schooling for little Abby.

The Van Cortlandts left enough letters to fill volumes but their slaves left none. Their lives are much harder to document yet a close examination of family letters and other records provides glimpses of their work, family life, personalities, and ways of coping with slavery.

The work undertaken by the enslaved Africans was dictated in large part by convention. Abby and Sally served as personal servants; Phillis worked in the kitchen. Titus, who lived in the household for more than thirty-five years, assisted with one of the family's many moves during the Revolution and later accompanied Joanna on her travels. Ishmael also picked up and delivered people and goods. Titus, Ishmael, and the other men probably labored on the farm. In addition, Ishmael held a side job as a fiddler and may have kept the money he earned for himself in order to make his life and that of his wife Sib and daughter Abby, a bit easier.

Then as now, people were more likely to record strong feelings when something was amiss rather than when things ran smoothly. As the Van Cortlandts' correspondence attests, all was not peaceful between them and the enslaved people in their household. Normal family and employee/employer conflicts, exacerbated by the strains inherent in the institution of slavery resulted in periodic strife.

Trusted as they may have been, the Africans at Van Cortlandt Manor did not suffer their enslavement willingly. During the Revolution, the slaves remaining at Croton had conspired to join British troops who promised freedom to runaways. According to one account, Bridget, who had been left in charge at the manor house during the Van Cortlandts' absence and had been part of the household for more than twenty years, served as the leader. Cornelia Van Cortlandt Beekman discovered their plan before they could act on it. Ishmael's independent personality seems to have troubled Pierre over several decades. When Ishmael was a young man, Pierre vowed to sell him and other "unruly disobedient wicked servants" for unstated trespasses. A decade later, Ishmael's side job of fiddling at frolics landed him in trouble again. Pierre threatened those who employed the fiddler with prosecution, perhaps because he realized that he could exercise little control over Ishmael's comings and goings.

Nearly all of Pierre's slaves found themselves freed by the terms of his will after he died in 1814. The exception was Phillis, who, at forty-eight years, was older than the legal age for manumission. The law's age requirement guarded against an owner's abandonment of enslaved people as they grew older and could no longer work, thus forcing local governments to support them.

As it had before the war, the manor house still functioned as the hub of a commercial farm complex. Unfortunately, few out buildings on the estate survive. A barn, coach house, cowshed, and corn cribs, all essential support buildings, stood across present-day Riverside Avenue until 1940, when they were destroyed by fire. Documents indicate that a cow house, bee house, cistern, hen house, and cider mill also stood on the property at various times. Currently, a well, privy, smokehouse, icehouse and office represent the many structures that once surrounded the homestead.

Philip and Pierre, Jr., typical gentleman farmers of the early National period, put agricultural experimentation and improvements into practice. Philip even joined the Society for the Promotion of Agriculture, Art and Manufactures, a group that shared information among its members about new trends in farming. Experimental agriculture was not only fashionable, it was critical. The Van Cortlandts had farmed their land for decades; depletion of the nutrients in the soil deeply and rightfully concerned them. Pierre, Jr., sent detailed instructions to William Miller, the overseer of his farm in Peekskill, directing him to adopt the relatively new concept of fertilizing fields with manure and to plant grass and clover to enrich the soil. The two tons of plaster of Paris, or gypsum, order by Pierre for the Croton farm in 1801 may have been for a similar purpose. If fighting soil exhaustion were not enough of a battle, an insect called the Hessian fly devastated the wheat crop in the lower Hudson Valley at the turn of the nineteenth century. Many farmers planted rye until more resistant strains of wheat were identified. The Van Cortlandts, and other farmers along the seaboard were further challenged by the opening of vast, fertile grain fields in the Midwest.

The family's focus on agriculture shifted slightly after the Revolution. They continued to ship processed grain and meat to New York and to grow apples, a primary crop in the Hudson Valley to this day. The Van Cortlandts expanded their interests to include raising sheep. During the first decade of the nineteenth century, their cousin, Chancellor Robert Livingston, introduced the merino breed with its fluffy, thick fleece from Spain to the United Staes. Philip owned a copy of Livingston's Essay on Sheep (1809). Historical evidence suggest that both Philip at Croton and Pierre, Jr., at Peekskill participated in the mania for rearing merinos that coincided with the growth of the woolen mill industry in the Northeast. Pierre, Jr.'s, father-in-law wrote in disgust when his son traveled to the Peekskill farm to acquire a ram because: we shall hear learned discants on Merino's...Tupping & Tupping Time, Ec. Ec. I was sickened by it in Albany among my Friends, it was the principal Topic of Conversation with the Ladies as well as Gentlemen which struck me not as altogether delicately chaste.

Agriculture was not the only business run from the manor house. During the early National period, Philip looked west for business opportunities. He made considerable investments in companies that built and administered turnpikes and canals leading to the frontier. Philip also bought land in present day Onondaga County, New York that had been parceled out to Revolutionary soldiers as bonuses for enlistment. Closer to home, Pierre consulted with the family's business agents, his son Gilbert and, later, his grandson Theodorus Van Wyck, who sold such commodities as flour and meat and purchased manufactured goods and exotic foods. He also continued to watch over the family's mills.

The manor house also served as a point of political power and activity. Once his commercial enterprises were well-established, Pierre had turned to politics and, as his sons matured, they followed suit. Pierre served as the first lieutenant governor of New York from 1777 to 1795, when, at the age of seventy-four, he retired from public life. As Anti-Federalist, the elder Van Cortlandt and his longtime political ally Governor George Clinton supported the Constitution conditionally rather than wholeheartedly. Philip began his political career as a Federalist, but later switched to Jeffersonian Republicanism, which claimed to represent farmers' interests over those of merchants and manufacturers. Philip embraced Revolutionary War veterans' rights as his most consuming cause. Like his father, Pierre, Jr., allied himself closely to George Clinton, who was also his father-in-law. The political activity of the Van Cortlandts was not restricted to office holding but included entertaining and corresponding with associates as well. In the case of Pierre, Jr., it even included marrying the daughter of a political ally! Public service ranked as a prestigious pursuit for America's landed gentry and, through political maneuvering, the Van Cortlandts and other patrician families sought to protect their interests

Because the Van Cortlandts concerned themselves not only with matters of this world, but also of the next, the manor house served as a center of religious life. While generations of the family had belonged to the Dutch Reformed Church, some of the Van Cortlandt women were drawn to Methodism during the early National period. Joanna and her daughters Cornelia and, in particular, Catherine, attended church services, quarterly business meetings, and even camp meetings.

Methodism, a religious reform movement born out of the Anglican Church in England, swept the American colonies during the mid-eighteenth century. The message of reform and the enthusiastic nature of worship attracted the poorer classes. Evangelists also courted wealthy families in hopes not only of saving souls but also of garnering community and monetary support. Firsthand accounts and contracts signed by the Van Cortlandts suggest that the camp meeting revivals, sometimes held on their property, were loud and emotional affairs where people were demonstratively moved by the spirit:

The Reverend Mr. Haight, a Presbyterian minister from Somers, heard that two Methodist ministers had fallen to the ground [at an early camp meeting on Van Cortlandt Manor]; he went to see, and when he beheld the scene he began to feel the power and was reeling, when two of his Presbyterian friends took hold of him and hurried him from the camp ground.

Catherine Van Wyck proved a particularly ardent follower. When she was pregnant with her third child in 1786, her husband died. She was "saved from dispair" by a Methodist sermon. Catherine converted and eagerly proclaimed her faith for the rest of her life. One minister remarked that Catherine was "a gifted woman, a shouting Methodist, who would exhort with great effect." Another recalled how she would sit in a carriage at camp meetings and yell responses to the preaching.

Pierre seems to have been touched by Methodism, too, but in a more indirect manner. While he had previously donated land to the Dutch Reformed Church, in 1795 Van Cortlandt financed the construction of Bethel Chapel, a Methodist meeting house in Croton.

In an era before easy travel and rapid communication, Americans looked forward to visits and visiting and praised hospitality to the highest. The manor house served as a resting place for New York's upper crust; the Van Cortlandts considered it an insult if a friend or family member did not stop when traveling up or down the Hudson Valley. The Clintons, in-laws of Pierre, Jr., stayed at his house even after his first wife had died and when he was out of town. In turn, when the Van Cortlandts traveled, they could rely on friends and family to put them up rather than make do with public accommodations. Travel and entertaining reinforced social, economic, political, and family ties and helped to maintain the Van Cortlandts' position as one of New York's most prominent families.

The manor house in Croton served as the primary link in a chain of properties that belonged to Pierre and Joanna's children and reached from present-day Sleepy Hollow to Albany. Immediately after the Revolution, Pierre and Joanna resided mainly at the Peekskill house with Pierre, Jr. Like many semi-retired people, however, they circulated among the homes of their other children, from Cornelia's complex in Sleepy Hollow, formerly the Upper Mills of Philipsburg Manor, to daughter Ann's home in Albany, and, of course, to Philip and Catherine's residence in Croton, where they settled near the end of their lives.

Ownership of the Croton house and estate would eventually tear the family apart. After Philip's death, Pierre, Jr., entered into a bitter court struggle with his brother's designated heir, a Van Wyck nephew, to reclaim the use of the land surrounding the Croton house and to ensure the estate would pass directly through the male line to his son.

-by Kathleen Eagen Johnson

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