Where Dutch and Black history meet

The house built by the Dutch colonist Jan Van Hoesen in the early 1700s later became the home of the Quaker abolitionist Charles Marriott and was a stop on the Underground Railroad. Now two local history groups have joined forces to preserve the structure, which has been vacant for decades. Scott Langley photo

 

By JOHN TOWNES
Contributing writer

CLAVERACK, N.Y.

Local preservationists are redoubling their efforts to save a derelict but historically significant house that has links to both the Dutch and African American heritage of Columbia County.
Last year, a pair of local history organizations joined forces to form a new nonprofit group, the Van Hoesen-Marriott House Preservation Project, to preserve the long-vacant structure along Route 66 just northeast of the city of Hudson.

“Our goal is to raise awareness of the importance of the house and its history and preserve it as an educational site,” explained Victoria Jimpson-Fludd, the chairwoman of the new group.
The project reflects the unique past of the house, which has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places for more than 45 years. Originally known as the Jan Van Hoesen House, it was built in the early 1700s and is one of a dwindling number of dwellings from the era when Dutch colonists first settled in the upper the Hudson Valley. It was built in a brick-clad timber framing style based on Dutch traditions that prevailed before the English takeover of the region.

The house and the Van Hoesen family had a significant role in the region’s history. In the mid-1780s, the Van Hoesens sold a portion of their land to a group of New England whaling families who established the city of Hudson there.

The house was abandoned after World War II and has been vacant ever since. It sits next to, and is on the property of, the Dutch Village mobile home park, which was developed in the late 1960s.

A local group known as the Van Hoesen House Historical Foundation was formed in 2005 to protect and maintain the structure. A prime mover in that effort was Edmund Klingler, a professional restoration carpenter.

Klinger first became interested in the house as a boy, and he frequently spends his spare time there working to shore up and maintain the building. He is now the site manager and executive director of the new Van Hoesen-Marriott House Preservation Project.

 

Links to slavery — and freedom
In addition to its ties to the region’s early Dutch settlers, the house also had links to local African American history — in the era of slavery and later in the push toward its abolition.

Jimpson-Fludd described how the African American Archive of Columbia County, an organization she founded and serves as executive director of, joined the preservation project.

“We had been trying to identify the home of Charles Marriott, a leading Quaker abolitionist,” she said. “Research showed that he had lived in the Van Hoesen house in the 1800s, and that it was a stop on the Underground Railroad.”

The house represented both sides of enslavement, she said, because the Van Hoesens had been slave owners.

Jimpson-Fludd’s group and the Van Hoesen House Historical Foundation agreed to combine their efforts last year. The new Van Hoesen-Marriott House Preservation Project includes a board of directors and an advisory board representing regional historical and preservation organizations.

The new coalition hopes to buy and stabilize the house and support historical and archaeological research of the site as an education center. Although the property will not be upgraded, modified or restored as a museum, it will be available for scholarly research. The group also hopes to open the site for the public to view on scheduled, in-person tours and through interactive video tours.

“We need to protect the structure,” Jimpson-Fludd explained. “But we are not doing anything to change it otherwise. It had been modified at different points in the past, and our goal is to keep as much of the original house intact as we can.”

In March, the group organized a public presentation at the Hudson Area Library given by Klingler and area historian and Underground Railroad expert Fergus Bordewich. The group also has produced a video documentary detailing the history of the property.

The preservation project’s leaders now are working to raise funds from individual donors and grants with an initial target of $300,000.

Jeff Cook, who owns the mobile home park, has offered to sell the house to the organization for the cost of subdividing and transferring the property, which is estimated to total $30,000 to $40,000.

In addition, the preservation project will conduct the detailed research required to prepare a historic structure report and master plan. The group will determine the scope of work needed to stabilize and maintain the structure and then carry out that work.

“We will also begin excavation of the basement and site to locate any artifacts that may be there,” Jimpson-Fludd said.

 

Preserving local Black history
Jimpson-Fludd grew up in Albany, but her family is from the Kinderhook area. She is descended from former slaves who took the Dutch names of their owners. After earning degrees at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and at Harvard Business School, she lived and worked in Europe as a management consultant and operated a translating company. She is now retired and lives in Croton-on-Hudson.

She began researching her family history as an avocation.
“I got very involved in that, and it led me to form the African American Archive of Columbia County,” Jimpson-Fludd recalled.

The archive, formed in 2021, aims to “forge a deeper understanding of the lived experience of Black people in the Hudson Valley,” according to its website. Toward that goal, the archive collaborates with other local and regional historical groups and organizes lectures, seminars, extended family gatherings and other events.

In addition to its involvement with the Van Hoesen-Marriott House, the archive organization serves as a steward in promoting several other sites related to pre-20th century Black history in Columbia County, including the Persons of Color Cemetery established in 1816 in Kinderhook, and the Bethel AME church, which was built by former slaves in Kinderhook.

Jimpson-Fludd noted that the history of enslavement in Columbia County is unique, especially in the area near the Hudson River.

“It was very different than slavery in the South, which were large plantations,” she said.
Jimpson-Fludd explained that the area’s Dutch settlers originally were wheat farmers.
“The farms were small, and the number of slaves on any one of them were very few,” she said. “As a result, the owners and the enslaved people developed close relationships. They often lived in the same house and the owners and slaves worked side by side in the wheat fields. They also had more freedom of movement.”

As a result, she said, after slavery was abolished in New York in 1827, many of these relationships continued.

“The enslaved people took the Dutch names of their former owners when they were freed, and many continued to work with them,” Jimpson-Fludd said. “These personal and family relationships were maintained as the economy and society changed.”

The Van Hoesen-Marriott House project is also related to initiatives to identify and connect sites in New York, Vermont and Massachusetts that were part of the Underground Railroad, the secretive network of routes and sites that provided safe shelter and other assistance to escaped slaves traveling to freedom in eastern Canada or in free states in the North.

The Marriott family’s shipping business, and the proximity of the house to Claverack Creek and the Hudson River, would have made it relatively simple to ferry people to or from New York City. The house also contains architectural features, including basement entries, that are indicative of spaces where fugitive slaves could be hidden.

Jimpson-Fludd said the African American Archive of Columbia County hopes ultimately to establish a museum and archive at another location in the county.
“Columbia County is rich in African American history,” she said. “It’s also one of the few regions where records were kept that extensively documented the early history of Black families.”

Visit the preservation project’s website — www.vanhoesenmarriotthouse.org — and the archive’s site — www.afamarchivecc.org – for more information about their efforts.