Stone Houses Aren’t Just Boring Rocks

The internship I’ve been working on has been extremely interesting.  I’ve never done much work on, or even been interested in architecture. It’s always been a thing that I appreciated, but there was never a time where I said to myself “Wow, I want to study this”.  However, I have always been interested in history, especially an aspect of history that is rarely discussed: the early colonization of the USA. Working with Susan Stessin has let me blend the two.

The internship itself is fairly basic.  I’ve been combing through a facebook page, “Written in Stone: Ulster County Historic Houses”, and putting all of it on a Google Doc.  Seeing the different houses around, and learning about the vernacular architecture of the region, has been actually fairly eye opening.  

Living in Croton, and working at historic Van Cortlandt Manor, I have some experience with old houses.  My dad and I would drive around the area, just to see particularly old houses. The problem is, in Westchester, many old houses have been either extensively remodeled, or they have been torn down.  In Ulster County, however, it’s very different. There are hundreds of houses dating from the 18th century and before.

Seeing the different styles of houses, along with the background of how they came to be, has been a very interesting thing.  Seeing the local architects’ names appear on a few houses, it’s clear to me that the community here was small, but they had some wealth, especially the Hasbrouck and Deyo families.  When going through my recent work, Susan exclaimed that a few of the houses I had gotten down were known for having slaves buried on the property, and one specifically had an escaped slave notice linked to the property.  

This kind of in depth knowledge is something that I really appreciate.  Susan Stessin is extremely knowledgeable, and she tells me an incredible amount of background information whenever we review what I’ve transcribed.  I actually recognized a barn in High Falls that she had mentioned when I drove by. I’ve learned so much about Ulster County history, from the Kingston stockade to the houses in Hurley.  My dad and I are actually planning on going on a long driving tour, based off of my transcriptions.

Prior to the transcriptions of the houses, I was working on transcriptions of escaped slave notices.  These were absolutely fascinating, for a number of different reasons. Everything about them was interesting, from the strange phrasing each and every one of them used for their prices (all charges and expenses paid BY:) to the descriptions of their clothes.  Reading the notices made me feel like I could see these slaves who were running for their lives. It also was a stark reminder that the North had a thriving slave trade: the notices were all from the Hudson Valley.

Both of these projects are being used as sources.  The houses are going to be compiled into a database, where we can see the town, location, architect, etc.  This will be an incredible resource, and I’m very glad I got to work on it. The slave notices are likely going to be used as an addendum to Susan’s book, In Defiance: Runaways from Slavery in New York’s Hudson River Valley, 1735-1831.  Even though it is clearly a niche book, I am very happy to contribute to it, and to have learned much more about slavery in the north than I ever have before.

Home that Roelof lived in on Huguenot Street.