Friedrich Wilhelm Von Steuben - Final Years

Final Years

Steuben became an American citizen by act of the Pennsylvania legislature in March 1784 (and later by the New York authorities in July 1786). With the war over, Steuben resigned from service and first settled on Manhattan Island, where he became a prominent figure and elder in the German Reformed Church. However, even with Congress giving him large sums of money, he still managed to become largely indebted. In 1790, Congress gave him a pension of $2500 a year which he had to keep until his death.

On December 23, 1783, the State of New Jersey presented him with the use of an estate now known as Zabriskie-Steuben House, which had been confiscated from Loyalist Jan Zabriskie in 1781. Located in New Bridge, New Jersey, the estate included a gristmill and about 40 acres of land. The Legislature made the grant on condition that he "hold, occupy and enjoy the said estate in person, and not by tenant." Gen, Philemon Dickinson of the New Jersey Militia informed the Baron of this gift and informed him that his recent inquiries showed that "there are on the premises an exceeding good House, an excellent barn, together with many useful outbuildings, all of which I am told, want some repairs...there is...a Grist-mill; a good Orchard, some meadow Ground, & plenty of Wood. The distance from N York by land 15 miles, but you may keep a boat & go from your own door to N York by water - Oysters, Fish & wild fowl in abundance - Possession will be given to you in the Spring, when you will take a view of the premises."

On September 5, 1788, the New Jersey Legislature repealed its previous acts and invested Baron von Steuben with full title to the former Zabriskie estate. Recognizing his predicament and hoping to save himself from further financial embarrassment, Steuben wrote to William North in October of 1788, saying: "The jersey Estate must and is to be sold. Walker is my administrator, all debts are to be paid out of it." On November 6, 1788, Steuben again wrote to North at his new home in Duanesburg, noting that "My jersey Estate is Advertised but not yet Sold, from this Walker Shall immediately pay to you the money, you so generously lend me and all my debts in New-York will be payed. I support my present poverty with more heroism than I Expected. All Clubs and parties are renounced, I seldom leave the House."

Steuben paid a considerable sum of money to repair the war damages to the Zabriskie-Steuben House and to restore its commercial operations, leaving a permanent mark on the building that bears his name. The Steuben House is the only extant eighteenth-century building that Steuben owned.

Steuben eventually settled on a small estate in the vicinity of Rome, New York, on land granted to him for his military service. He later assisted in the founding of the Society of the Cincinnati and was appointed a Regent for what evolved into the State University of New York. He never married and had no children. He left his estate to General Benjamin Walker and Captain William North, who had served as his aides-de-camp during the war, and with whom he had had an "extraordinarily intense emotional relationship ... treating them as surrogate sons". He is buried at what is now the Steuben Memorial State Historic Site.