History
The Van Wycks were an aristocratic family originally from Holland who were a prominent part of Dutchess County history. Members of the Van Wyck family served in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, and also held both local and national political positions.
In 1732, Cornelius Van Wyck (1694–1761), a surveyor, built a house with three rooms on 959 acres (approximately 3.88 km²) of land he had purchased from Catheryna Rombout Brett, the daughter of Francis Rombouts, who was one of the grantees of the original patent to the land in the area issues by King James II of England. Later (before the year 1757) the house was extended and the original structure became the east wing of the enlarged house. Since then, the building has remained a Dutch colonial construction featuring a characteristic central hall with two identical doors.
During the American Revolutionary War, the property was the home of Isaac Van Wyck. However, because of its strategic location with regard to the Hudson River and major roads, the Old Albany Post Road (later US 9) running north-south and the road running east-west (later NY 52 and Interstate 84), it was requisitioned by the Continental Army. The building became the headquarters of the Fishkill Supply Depot, which was created on the orders of George Washington in 1775. The depot was a military camp and storage yard which became the main provider of artillery and food for about 4,000 troops stationed in the area to prevent the British forces from passing New York City and capturing the Hudson Valley (the latter a major strategic goal of the British at the beginning of the American Revolutionary War). 70 acres (28 ha) of land surrounding the house were used for a large encampment of over 2,000 soldiers and many facilities such as an artillery park for repairing cannons, a blacksmith shop, barracks, a storehouse, and stables were set up.
The Van Wyck Homestead is the last remaining structure of the supply depot. Itserved as headquarters to General Israel Putnam and was visited by revolutionary leaders such as George Washington, the Marquis de Lafayette, Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, Alexander McDougall, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay. Inside the house, courts-martial were held in the home's parlor.
A walnut tree, which stood in front of the house until 1898 when it was toppled by a storm, served as a whipping tree for punishing soldiers. An iron claw which was attached to the tree for this purpose was recovered from the tree and is now on display in the house. The mock trial of Enoch Crosby, who had infiltrated a loyalist group and is considered as the first secret agent of the United States, was held in the building. The house is therefore the likely setting for James Fenimore Cooper's novel, "The Spy" which is based on Enoch Crosby's story. The Van Wyck house also served as the Quartermaster Department in charge of clothing the troops. In addition to its military functions, it also housed the printing press for the newspaper "New York Packet", which was relocated to the Van Wyck homestead from British-occupied New York City. Besides the newspaper, orders for the Army were also printed and the newspaper's publisher, Samuel Loudon, was appointed Postmaster for the State of New York with Fishkill becoming the official New York State Post Office.
After the Revolutionary war, the house was given back to the Van Wyck family and remained the family's home until the suicide of Sidney Van Wyck in 1882. Following the death of Sidney Van Wyck, two more families, the Hustis and the Snook families, owned the property. For a time, a tea room was operated in the house and was frequented by Eleanor Roosevelt when she was on her way to her estate in Hyde Park, New York.
With the construction of interstate highway 84 and its exit ramps in the immediate vicinity of the homestead, the Snook family donated the house and a single acre (approximately 4046 square meters) of surrounding land to the Fishkill Historical Society, which was founded in 1962 to preserve the house from demolition and has since continued to restore and to operate it as a museum.
Read more about this topic: Van Wyck Homestead
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“History is more or less bunk. It’s tradition. We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker’s damn is the history we make today.”
—Henry Ford (1863–1947)
“We don’t know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don’t understand our name at all, we don’t know its history and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration.”
—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)