It Happened Here -- The "Rust Belt" of Colonial New York

From the 3d quarter of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th century a broad swath of land from America's upper mid-West to the middle of New York State was America's industrial heartland. Coal was mined and baked into coke; iron ore was mined and smelted into iron and steel; and all manner of products based on iron and steel were produced here. It was only after this area fell into decline and factories were closed and abandoned that this area received the pejorative label "rust belt."

One might argue that Colonial New York had its "rust belt" too, though it certainly differed in some significant ways.

Early in the 18th century the Livingston family was looking for ways to make their vast holdings east of the Hudson river profitable.  Their enterprise to make pine tar and pitch for the British Navy had been an unmitigated failure as the white pine stands on their property were unsuited for making "ship stores".  The German Palatines they brought over were equally unwilling to sell themselves into feudal bondage and become Livingston tenants. So Livingston manor lands remained for decades undeveloped and underpopulated. Then in the swamps and lowlands that bordered the Taconic hills, part of the Berkshires, bog iron was discovered. Bog iron came from iron oxides that washed from the hills and precipitated out, over time, into these low areas. Biochemical reactions with the bog flora caused the iron oxide to accumulate in lumps and nodules of "rust".  Judge Robert R. Livingston, the grandson of Robert Livingston, the founder of the Livingston dynasty in America, built the first smelter and forge.

The first smelters at the Livingston works may have been "bloomery" forges--essentially kilns filled with charcoal and iron ore in which the burning charcoal melted the ore into a plastic mass. The carbon monoxide produced by the burning charcoal combined with the oxygen locked in ore to produce carbon dioxide, and iron. Other impurities, including carbon and silicates, tended to concentrate in pockets throughout the iron. Once the ore had been heated and reduced, it was shoveled out. Then it was hammered at a forge, reheated, folded and re-hammered repeatedly until most of the impurities were broken out of it--a process dating back to the beginning of the iron age.

NYS 82, Ancram

Probably, very soon after the discovery of iron in the Taconic region the Livingstons invested in blast furnace technology. Blast furnaces used a larger kiln with air pumped into the base of the furnace to produce a hotter fire which melted the iron ore, facilitating the reduction process. Blast furnaces could be run continuously as the heavier molten iron and impurities called slag, could be drained out of the bottom of the furnace twice a day, and additional charcoal and iron ore shoveled into the top. Powdered limestone was added to the mix causing the impurities to form a glass-like slag. The lighter slag could be raked off the iron when it emerged from the furnace into cooling troughs, and broken up and discarded when it was cool. From a central trough formed in sand at the base of the furnace, the iron was channeled into other rectangular troughs on either side of the main trough, where it cooled into ingots. The arrangement of troughs was said to resemble a mother sow with piglets nursing on either side of her, so the iron produced became known as "pig iron."

A Cannon form at the Copake Iron Works

This iron could be remelted and cast into objects such as fire backs, kettles and cannon balls. Fine grain sand was used to make a mold by pressing a wooden form into it, then pouring the molten iron into the mold.  In 1755 Robert Livingston wrote a letter to the army apologizing for his failure to deliver on an order for wagon wheels and cannon shot for the expeditions against Crown Point and Fort Niagara due to labor unrest and a border dispute with Massachusetts that caused significant vandalism at his Ancram works.  The following year he made up for it by producing 36 tons of cannon balls for the British army.

Water wheels operating on 
the nearby Roelff Jansen Kill 
and Claverack Creek provided
mechanical power to
operate mechanical bellows
for the blast furnaces, turn 
lathes in the wood pattern 
shops, and operate heavy
trip hammers used in processing pig iron into malleable, weldable wrought iron.

The blast furnace at Copake
Ironworks Historical District.  
Built in 1825, the furnace was 
last updated in 1872. In recent 
years the site was stabilized and 
the wood structure built over it
to protect  it from the elements. 
 





The original bog iron was supplemented and eventually replaced by ore mined in Salisbury Connecticut and brought to the Ancram works by ox cart.  Later, hematite iron ore was discovered south of Copake by a Captain Weed. An open pit mine that would reach a depth of 50 feet was dug at the Weed Ore-bed in 1775. The following year, the Morgan Mine was opened by the Livingstons, two miles south of Ancramdale.

SITE OF WEED MINES
MINING BEGUN 1775   MINE                        NYSHM featured in a 1950's newspaper
ABANDONED 1890    ORE                             article (I was unable to find this marker)
WAS USED BY IRON WORKS
 AT ANCRAM
Location: Weed Mine Rd. (?)

 By 1750 Pig and Bar Iron (malleable wrought iron) accounted for most of the exports from the New York colony. On June 11, 1755 Governor William Tryon reported to the Lords of the Board of Trade in London:
             There are few mines discovered in the province [of New York].  One of Iron Ore, in the
                 Manor of Livingston, belongs to Robert Livingston,Esq; another in Orange county, the
                 property of Vincent Matthews, Esq; and one in the manor of Phillipsburg. The works 
                 belonging to the First [Livingston] are carried out to great advantage.*

Livingston records show from 1750 through 1756, 2016 tons of iron (presumably pig iron), 1302 tons of Bar Iron (presumably wrought iron) and 66 tons of Castings were produced.

The success of the Ancram forge encouraged the Livingston family to build the Marysburgh forges and the New Forge works.

New Forge Rd. II, Suydan (Taghkanic)

SITE OF
NEW FORGE
IRON WORKS 1770-1790
GRIST, FEED AND PLASTER                                            NYSHM near the Marysburgh forge site
MILLS, BLACKSMITH SHOP,                                            (I was unable to find this.)
STORE, DWELLINGS, 1800-1876
 Location: TN. RD., NORTH OF SUYDAN

The British encouraged the production of pig iron and wrought iron in the colonies because, although iron ore was mined in the United Kingdom,  refining iron used vast amounts of charcoal.  A single blast furnace could consume an acre of mature hardwood forest, converted into charcoal, in a day.
Britain did not have the forests that could sustain a sizable iron manufactory and until techniques for using coal began to replace charcoal use at the end of the 18th century, iron manufacturing lagged in Britain.  In line with mercantile theory,  Britain encouraged the production of commodities in her colonies she could not produce at home, and prohibited to the extent possible/practicable industries that would compete against her home industries. Thus pig iron could be produced and individual artisans like blacksmiths were allowed to practice their trades in America, but in 1750 rolling mills, slitting mills and steel refineries were forbidden in the colonies.  It would not be until the first part of the 19th century that small factories producing goods (mostly agricultural implements) of iron and steel sprung up in and near the Taconic region.

NYS 199, west of Pine Plains

SITE OF
PLOW FURNACE
ESTABLISHED 1830 BY JOHN
C. WHEELER ON CHRYSLER
POND OUTLET. 6 STYLES OF
PLOWS MADE. ABANDONED 1905
Location: CO. RD. W. OF CHRYSLER POND

                  Co.Rte 83, 3 mi. SE of Pine Plains

Gallatinville Rd., Silvernails

Taconic State Park Rd., Copake Falls

 

The Ancram Iron Works continued until 1864 and were joined by the Copake Iron Works in 1845. Lead ore was discovered in 1818 south of Ancramdale when a farmer, Henry Keefer, holding a "stoning bee" with his neighbors to help him clear a new field, began turning up rocks with a metallic lustre.  Robert Livingston leased the property and ran a small smelting operation there for ten years. Then the property went through a succession of leasers and owners until 1863 when the demand for lead for bullets encouraged a group of investors to invest in equipment to profitably process the ore there. The end of the Civil War, and the collapse of lead prices brought an end to the Ancram Lead Mine.

The use of coal in smelting operations and the development of rail transportation led to the eclipsing of iron production in the Taconics.  Henry Burden developed iron works in Albany and Troy, bringing iron from Linlithco mines in western Columbia County and the Port Henry/Ironville region on Lake Champlain, and coal from the Pennsylvania coal fields**.  He, in turn, was eclipsed the iron and steel giants that developed around Pittsburgh.

NYS 4, left side,  N end of the village

Marker of the Week --The First NYSHM?
The village of Schuylerville has many historic markers
reflecting the community's colonial and revolutionary past.
The marker on the right is arguably a New York State Historic Marker--a free standing sign, made of cast iron, painted blue with raised yellow letters, but look at the date on the post! It was made a full fifty years before the first New York State issued historic markers were produced in 1927, apparently at the centennial of the battle of Saratoga, 1877.

Next week we will look at other Schuylerville markers that seem to predate State issued markers.





*quoted in  Ellis, Franklin. History of Columbia County. 1878. p.136.
**The remarkable, inventive Henry Burden will be the subject of a future post.  Ironville was featured in  "It Happened Here--The Electric State--Part I",  posted on October  8, 2013 

It Happened Here -- "Dallas" On the Hudson?

A number of years ago (1978-1991) one of the most popular prime-time T.V.  series was the "soap opera" Dallas.  Dallas was about a large extended family of cattle and oil barons from Texas and their disasters, schemes, squabbles and infidelities.  Like any large family, over time,  the Livingston  family of Columbia and Dutchess Counties had their share of disasters, schemes, squabbles and infidelities, as they struggled to maintain their aristocratic life style in a country that was becoming increasingly democratic. At one particular period and among one branch of their family, however, their problems and peccadillo's seemed to reach soap-operatic proportions.

In Colonial America, and most of Western Europe during that period, inheritance laws required that the bulk of a family's fortune be passed down to the oldest male child, thus "preserving" the family fortune. Robert "the Elder"* Livingston,  having become one of the first Patroons of the Hudson River Valley to some extent defied this law by giving a substantial (but not equal) portion of his estate to a younger son, Robert "of Clermont".  Family legend holds that this younger son had once saved his father's life in an Indian attack, so his father was especially close to this son.

From then on, one or another of the Livingston Manor Livingstons seemed to be squabbling with their Clermont Manor kin, and vice versa. By the fourth generation there were a large number of Livingstons (at least five from Livingston Manor, plus spouses, parents and grandparents; ten from Clermont, and their relatives, and a scattering of Livingstons, descended from "Robt. the Nephew" based more or less around Poughkeepsie.)

Border Between Livingston Manor and Clermont on Rte 9G

A major rift between the two Manors occurred when (Chancellor) Robert of Clermont Manor informed his relative, Robert (the 3d proprietor of Livingston Manor,) of his plans to build a mill on the Roeliff Jansen Kill, the creek dividing the two Manors. Robert of Livingston Manor stonily reminded him that Clermont's boundary was specified in the inheritance as lying on the southern shore of the creek, and not extending out into the creek, and certainly not allowing for the construction of a mill dam onto the northern side of the creek. Though the Chancellor went ahead and built his mill, anyway, the dispute poisoned relationships between the two branches of the family for at least two generations.

 Chancellor Robert R. Livingston is a fascinating character,  suffused with Livingston pride--self seeking and public spirited; cunning and trusting; a faithful husband and ladies man; a democrat and a protector of ancient privilege; and a capitalist who sought public monopolies.  He was one of the central players in this "Dallas on the Hudson," but as the most famous of Livingston we will consider him in a future post, devoted to him.

The Revolutionary war brought on a host of problems with high inflation, currency devaluations, high taxes and tenant problems. The problem of disgruntled tenants who withheld rent (a perennial problem) was made worse by the blandishments of Tory recruiters.  Seventeen seventy seven saw disaster with a British raid up the Hudson which destroyed both the Chancellor's home--Belvedere, and the family home, Clermont. Only Clermont was rebuilt.

Sister, Janet Livingston Montgomery's world (see post of 4/21/14) came crashing down when her young husband General Richard Montgomery was killed at Quebec. Janet assumed the role of "The General's Widow," despite the attentions of several suitors, until the day she died. 

Brother Edward worked hard at being a reserved (some said dour) intellectual and droll wit whose
elegant and manly understated fashion sense earned him the nickname of "Beau Ned." In 1788 he married Mary McEvers whose attempts to complement her "Beau's" level of sartorial sophistication were tarnished by memories of a incident at an evening reception that year, hosted by Martha Washington.  The unfortunate Mlle. McEvers wore a towering ostrich feather headdress that caught fire in a chandelier!

And then there was Henry!  Henry Beekman Livingston joined the Continental Army to participate in the Quebec expedition. He loved battle and gloried in the role of warrior. He distinguished himself at the battles of Monmouth, Saratoga, Quaker Hill, and Newport and during the grueling encampment at Valley Forge, but he had a problem with discipline.  His own brother-in-law, Richard Montgomery was quoted saying, "He is brave--but so imprudent in his conduct that I have been made very uneasy by his disputes and often wished him at home--for my own part I by no means think him fit for a field officer...."** It was only a matter of time before Henry was
court-martialed for disrespectful language to a superior officer and barely escaped a conviction of "conduct unbecoming a gentleman and an officer." In 1779 he quit, in a huff, after being passed over for promotions by others he considered "my inferiors."

Henry returned home and quickly "cut a wide swath through the female population of Dutchess County, resulting in a staggering number of bastard Livingston babies of a variety of hues, religious persuasions and social classes. Henry financed his profligacies by selling off land, an action which was deeply resented by his brothers and sisters...."**

Co.Rte 308 near Slate Dock Rd., Rhinecliff

Margaret Beekman Livingston, the matriarch of the Clermont Livingstons may have been relieved when  Henry began to seriously court a Philadelphia socialite, Nancy Shippen, even though Nancy was first cousin to Peggy Shippen, wife of Major General Benedict Arnold  who had recently turned traitor and fled to the British. Nancy was attractive, vivacious, and fun-loving and also spoiled, high-strung, and an inveterate flirt. She also had a morbid streak and she had been in love for the past year with a French Diplomat, Louis Otto.  Otto, however, wasn't ready to marry and though he had good prospects, he didn't have a fortune. And Henry was ready to marry and he...well, he was a Livingston!  Henry and Nancy married, moved into the old Beekman place in Rhinebeck and had a daughter, Peggy.  The marriage soon fell apart with Henry raging against his new wife, having bouts of licentious drunkenness, and when she retreated to her parents in Philadelphia, of Henry  publicly accusing her of infidelity. Nancy's parents fearful of alienating the Livingstons (and their money) sent her back. The squabble went on for years with poor little daughter Peggy bouncing from relative to relative (and at least once being kidnapped by her father).  Six years after the beginning of the disastrous marriage, Louis Otto reappeared, (believe it or not!) marrying Henry's second cousin, Eliza Livingston.  Eliza died in childbirth within a year but Louis remained on the scene to provide Nancy with a sympathetic ear in her ongoing struggles. Henry offered Nancy a divorce, so she could marry Louis, if she would give him sole custody of Peggy. Nancy refused, and Louis married someone else, moving forever out of her life. Gradually Henry descended into paranoid isolation, alienated from the rest of the Livingston clan.  Nancy fled to Philadelphia and Peggy divided her days wintering in Philadelphia and summering at Clermont with her grandmother, Margaret Beekman Livingston.

On Rte 9, near Mill Rd and Grasmere, Bhinebeck

Finally, there was sister Catherine Livingston. (There were a couple other sisters, but married off, their lives were comparatively normal.)  Catherine became caught up in a radical new religious movement that was sweeping the country at the end of the 18th and early 19th centuries--Methodism!  Early Methodism was not the Methodism that people tend to think of today-- a mainline denomination with orderly services, a comforting moderate theology and tuneful old-timey hymns. Instead, it was emotional, ecstatic, and placed a high value on individuals having a personal conversion experience with the Almighty.  It was a forerunner of a host of revivalist and pentecostal religions that were born and flourished in the nineteenth century; and conservative denominations and communities considered it dangerously radical. Margret Beekman Livingston, and the family were scandalized but tolerated Catherine's behavior until she became romantically involved with the Methodist circuit-riding minister Freeborn Garretson who they considered nothing more than a vagabond gold-digger.  But Catherine, who was thirty-five and plain, was deeply in love and a four year contest of wills ensued between mother and daughter.  (Though deeply in love, it appears elopement was out of the question. Catherine was not prepared to ride off into to the sunset and away from the Family, and its money on the back of a circuit-rider's horse.)  Eventually she wore her mother down and 1793 the couple was married, with the Family's (grudging) blessing.

As surely as the Ewings of Dallas, the Livingstons of Clermont would make a fine grist for some pulp fiction writer's mill and there is raw material there for at least a season or two of a miniseries.  But, of course we should never forget these were real people and their dramas, though a source of entertainment for us from the distance of a couple of centuries away, like battles in history, were often a source of real pain and suffering.

(Someone has suggested this post, coming on the heels of Mothers' Day should be dedicated to Margaret Beekman Livingston, the long suffering, often embattled matriarch of her Clermont-Livingston brood, in honor of all mothers who similarly labor.)

*The Livingstons had such a penchant for naming children Robert or Robert R. (that's Robert Robert, believe it or not!) that genealogists and the Livingstons themselves  resorted to nicknames to keep them straight. The Patriarch of the family thus became Robert the Elder; his son to whom he gave the lower grant of lands became Robert of Clermont; and his brother's son who he invited from Scotland to help him with his business affairs became Robert, the Nephew. The Elder's grandson who inherited Livingston Manor was a Robert, as was the proprietor of Clermont, at that time. This Robert of Clermont's son, who sat on two high judicial tribunals became Robert the Judge. The Judge's oldest son. the 3d proprietor of Clermont, who became an important official in the state and early Federalist government, called himself "Chancellor Robert R"  for his position as Chancellor of the State of New York.  There was also a Robert Cambridge, Robert L., Robert Swift and Robert James in the third, forth and fifth generations of Livingstons.

**Quoted from Brandt, Clare. An American Aristocracy: The Livingstons.  pp. 119, 139.  Most of the information for this post was derived from this very readable and fascinating book.

It Happened Here -- Pioneers and Potash

 

 

In the 18^th and early 19^th centuries settlers of the Mohawk and Schoharie Valleys, and the Helderberg hinterlands of Rensselaerwyck faced the gargantuan task of converting dense hardwood forests into farmlands. Once they had harvested the timber they needed for homes and barns, fences and furnishings, they were left with the task of disposing of all the rest of their unwanted wood. Fortunately the first Dutch settlers brought with them the knowledge of how to convert their surplus wood into a useable, transportable commodity they called “potaschen”.

Grant & Eadies Store, Rte 143 Westerlo

Hardwood wood ashes contained potassium salts that were essential compounds in a variety of chemical processes. Soap making, glass production, fabric bleaching, and the removal of fatty oils from raw wool, all relied on a commodity colonial New Yorkers knew as potash, or in its processed form,“pearl ash”. As land was cleared, great quantities of wood were seasoned and gathered into piles and burned in the open air. The clearing of land was accompanied not only by the sound of axes but by the presence of great fires that burned day and night. Among the most abundant trees in these forests were elms which were one of the best plant sources of potassium salts. The ashes from these fires were collected in wooden barrels and water was added to leech the potassium salts out. The wood bottoms of the barrels were replaced with a flagstone bottom with a channel cut in it to direct the liquid off to a container. Then the water was boiled off in large pots, leaving a hard black crystalline residue known as “black salts”, a mixture of potassium salts and carbon particles. One large elm might yield as much as 200 pounds of black salts. Finally, the carbon particles were burned off in high temperature brick ovens, or kilns leaving a bluish white powder, “pearl ash”.
 

NEAR THIS SITE IN 1764
PETER HASENCLEVER BUILT AN
ASHERY WHICH WAS THE FIRST
FRAME BUILDING ERECTED IN
THE TOWN OF SCHUYLER.

COL. MARINUS WILLETT, CHAPTER D.A.R.

1976

                                                                          (Frankfort)

This refined potash became a valuable commodity domestically, and shipped to Britain where the wool industry was thriving.  Though never profitable enough to sustain itself as a business, the profits of  cottage potash production might be enough to pay the wages of an axeman/laborer to help clear the land, or enable a settler to buy extra acreage, or help sustain a family until the first crops could be planted and harvested. Of course, a large landowner or tenant farmer, clearing a large amount of land might realize a substantial income from potash. The account books of Frederick Crounse, for example, show his income from potash in 1794-1795. Crounse leased 600 acres in “Hellenbergh”, an area beneath the Helderberg Escarpment in an area known as Altamont, today.   

                                                                                                                                                                        During the American revolution Crounse and nine other tenant farmers had responded to an urgent call for food for the American army at Saratoga, providing barrels of salt pork, and herding their cattle and hogs to the army encamped at Bemis Heights. In return, the Patroon, Stephen Rensselaer forgave Crounse the annual quit-rent due on Crounse's farm for life. In the early 1790's Crounse must have undertaken a sizable conversion of his forested land to farmland. In 1794 his records show he produced 40 barrels of potash (ashes?), sold for a profit of 67£. Over the winter he bought two potash kettles, valued at 16£ each and apparently with them that year produced 27 barrels of potash (black ash or pearl ash?) valued at 87£.

One source described potash kettles as 1/2 an egg shaped with the bottom cast thick to withstand the heat of evaporating the potash down to "cake".

Large Kettle (potash?) at the Jacob Crounse House, Altamont

Warner's Lake

In a frontier economy, where cash was in short supply, enterprising country store proprietors could barter their merchandise for farmer's raw ashes or black salts. In 1823 in Schoharie County good quality hearth ashes sold for 8¢ a bushel (store credit). By mid century 100 lbs. of black salts brought $3.00. Some store owners encouraged the trade in black salts by renting to farmers the large kettles used to boil down the ash slurry. Some, increased their profits by maintaining their own ovens at their stores to refine black salts into pearl ash. Similarly, they could take the raw hides of the livestock farmers butchered, for store credit, and tan them themselves, taking the leather to trade for store merchandise from their city suppliers. A few, like Major Willis, took local manufacturing even further, turning farmer's products (grain and hides) into consumer goods (“ardent spirits”, shoes) that he could sell directly back to farmers.

South Westerlo

By 1845 there were 738 "asheries" in New York State producing $909,194 of potash. The state's new canal system was a major boon to the potash industry with the Erie and Champlain canals connecting much of New York with Montreal, the major potash exporting port. During the early years of the canal system, potash, wheat and whiskey were the three biggest commodities shipped by barge.

In the 1850's mineral potash began to be mined in Germany.  Canada followed suit and the international market for organic potash collapsed. By 1865 there were only 54 asheries left in New York and many of these may have been inactive, by then.



 Marker  of the Week -- Oops!

Columbia Co. Rte. 19, Elizaville

Sometimes you think you have the makings of an interesting story but it just doesn't turn out the way you anticipate. Calendar houses are an architectural oddity that first appeared in England around the time of Queen Elizabeth I.  Architectural features would be built into a house/palace mimicking the numbers found in the calendar (365 days, 52 weeks, 12 months, 7 days, 4 seasons etc.) Large houses might be built with 365 panes of glass, 52 steps on all the staircases, 12 doorways, and 7 gables and 4 chimneys, for example. The form had a re- surgence in popularity during the Enlightenment and again during the Victorian period,  and there are approximately a dozen houses across Britain that can be called Calendar houses.  Other examples appeared in other parts of the British empire -- Ireland, Jamaica,  and Australia.  It seemed reasonable there should be some in  
the United States.  When I discovered the listing for the "Calendar House" in the State Museum NYSHM list I resolved I had to see it on my next trip into Columbia County.  Finding the marker I started up the long driveway, preparing myself for the task of count chimney bricks, window panes,  outhouses -- whatever. About halfway up the driveway I met the property manager coming out.  ( The 1773 Calendar House is rented out for weddings and for large family vacations, etc.)  He explained the original Callendar House, (two L's) in central Scotland was the ancestral home of the Livingstons and this home was named for that one. (and I didn't need to go to the trouble of counting window panes, chimneys, outhouses, etc., but I was welcome to go and take a picture of it anyway.) After some research at the Columbia County Historical Society I had more of the story.

Callendar House (also spelled Callender House) in central Scotland dates back to 1345.  The Scottish Livingstons had lost this house after they supported the Jacobin rebellion in 1715 and again in 1745,  when Lady Anne Livingston's husband, the Earl of Kilmarnoc, was beheaded for high treason.  In America, Robert Livingston (3d Lord of the Manor, grandson of the 1st Lord, Robert Livingston, the elder) had wanted to rename the Livingston Manor house on the Roeliff Jansen Kill "Callendar" after he made improvements to the house, but he was dissuaded by other members of the family.  Ostensibly this was because the American manor house, even with its improvements, was quite modest compared to the Scottish "Great House" but also, unstated, may have been the desire not to remind the British authorities so soon after the abortive rebellions of the connection between the American Livingstons and their traitorous Scottish cousins.

Generations and politics change over time.  One of the early acts of the legislature of the State of New York would be the outlawing of primogeniture and entail. When Robert, the 3d Lord died in 1790;  no 4th Lord of the manor would inherit the bulk of his estate. Instead his lands would be divided up more or less equally between his four sons. Each would inherit a paltry 28,000 acres and
(General) Harry Livingston, his third son, would move into a substantial (if not palatial) farmhouse built by Samuel TenBroek in 1773. He would name it Callendar House, and not care what His Majesties' Government thought about it. Sometime between Harry's purchase of the house, and the State's creation of the NYSHM,  "Callendar" became  "Calendar" and though I did not get to count bricks, window panes, doorways or outhouses, I did get a peek at an old and very handsome house.