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Fort Rensselaer, 1749
Canajoharie, New York
GENERAL VIEW
"Description: Stone, story and a half, modified gambrel roof, and chimneys. Original interiors gone except mantel in south room (left). This has a paneled overmantel with delicate doric pilasters."
"Additional information: My great-great-great-great-great (5) grandfather Martin J. Van Alstyne built the stone house in Canajoharie. Most books and the marker in front of the house state that it was erected in 1749. This is probably not true. My ancestor (with another man, Henry [Hendrick] Scrembling), purchased a large tract at Canajoharie of about 700 to 1000 acres in the winter of 1729-30. They bought this land from Cadwalader Colden, sometime Lieutenant Governor of colonial New York. Colden was the original patentee from the crown. Colden recorded the transaction in question in his diary, which, in turn, has been published by the New York Historical Society. My ancestor proceeded to the site of Canajoharie immediately and from family data we have strong reason to believe the house was completed no later than 1739 and possibly as early as 1735. Scrembling, incidentally, did not stay in the picture for long since he sold out to Van Alstyne a very short time after they had arrived at the site of modern Canajoharie."
-Letter (dated July 16, 1953) from W. Scott (?) Van Alstyne Jr.
29 Sherman Terrace
Madison, Wisconsin
Source:
Historic American Buildings Survey
U.S. Department of the Interior
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
N. E. Baldwin, Photographer 1936 |
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