THE DYCKMAN HOUSE

INTRODUCTION

New York has little time to think of bygones. Its life hurries along its few long avenues and runs thickly in its many cross streets without stopping in front of houses which are old, even when historical. There is, perhaps, not a city in the world one-tenth of its size which has less average interest in its own past. It grows quickly, takes its population from everywhere, and tears down its buildings and rebuilds them at a furious rate. In its progress it spares few vestiges of olden times. For one thing, it cannot afford to preserve its land for "sentimental reasons;" it has already too little space for its daily need; its mainland is an island, and rather than spread out broadly it is quite content to grow up in the air. So quickly, indeed, does the memory of its old buildings pass away that little would remain to our knowledge of them, even of a few generations ago, had not a few exceptional people set themselves at that time to picture them in their surroundings and to leave these records to their descendants. How different, indeed, would be our idea of old New York had not a member of our City Common Council, at no little cost and ridicule, persuaded his fellow members to publish pictures of early landmarks in their annual report! And to-day, as we thumb the pages of Valentine's Manual, how few of the buildings there shown have been left behind!

For buildings in New York which visibly antedate the year 1800 one may long seek in vain. Even in the uppermost part of the island there exists hardly a trace of the simpler life of our people. The old and well-set farms which spread over Yorkville, Manhattanville, Bloomingdale, Carmansville and Harlem have passed quite out of our memory and their old buildings have fallen, one by one, to be replaced by rows of private dwellings of brick or brown-stone, or tall apartments of varied colors. To-day there remains on Manhattan Island but one real eighteenth century

farmhouse. Happily, however, for posterity, this is an excellent specimen of its kind (Plate 11). It was built about 1783 but appears of earlier date, having features which suggest construction of 1750-1760. It has the added interest of having been little changed since it was built. It had passed out of the hands of its original owners less than fifty years ago, and its various later tenants, feeling that the building would sooner or later be "pulled down," made no attempt to modernize it. But when at last the time came to demolish it,- for apartment houses were growing up nearby and its last owner could not be expected to preserve its valuable sits for reasons historical, the old house, neglected and forlorn, made its appeal to the sentiment of the community should it go or should it in some way be preserved, to remain as the last of its kind, to leave to succeeding generations at least a memory of their forebears and of early times? One of the first to make a serious effort to preserve the old house was the former Park Commissioner, Hon. Charles B. Stover, who drew up a report explaining its interest and suggesting ways and means for saving it. Prior to this, several patriotic societies discussed the project hopefully; and shortly afterwards the Society of the Daughters of the Revolution, headed by Mrs. Everett M. Raynor, went so far as to raise the funds necessary to move the building into the neighboring Isham Park. Thereupon the owners of the house, Mr. and Mrs. John H. Judge, came forward and offered to present the building to the City in case a suitable place for it could be found. Further examination showed, however, that the old house could not be placed in Isham Parkthere was no adequate site for it there. On the other hand, a site might have been had on another part o the Isham Estate, for Mrs. Henry Osborn Taylor (who was Miss Julia Isham, and who had presented the Park to the City), had intimated, very generously, that she was interested in the fate of the old house and would consider with her family ways and means of giving it a home. But there still remained the serious question whether the house could be moved without danger of destroying it. It seemed, too, a pity to tear the old house from the land where it had so long stood. At this point two of the descendants of the original builder, Mrs. Bashford Dean (formerly Mary Alice Dyckman) and Mrs. Alex

ander McMillan Welch (formerly Fanny Fredericka Dyckman), expressed the wish to purchase the property, and, having restored house and grounds to their original condition, to present them to the City. This they offered to do in memory of their father, Isaac Michael Dyckman, who as a boy had lived in the house, and their mother, Fannie Blackwell (Brown) Dyckman, whose grandmother, Jemima Dyckman was married there. This offer was formally accepted by the City (November 12, 1915), at the recommendation of the present Park Commissioner, Hon. Cabot Ward, and the property became known as "the Dyckman House Park and Museum," for it was part of the plan of the donors to return to the house the old furniture and heirlooms of their forefathers. The contents of the Museum they explained, however, are not given to the City, but are to remain for the present as a loan.

The work of putting the house in order was immediately begun. Mr. Welch undertook the restoration of the house and grounds, and Mr. Dean planned the arrangement of the Museum. Happily, the changes which had befallen the original house were known; early pictures of its exist, one of them as early as 1835 and Mr. Welch, as the architect, had no difficulty in determining what necessary alterations should be made to bring the house back to its condition prior to the year 1800. The most important steps were to remove from the main construction a small north wing which was added about 1830, and' to reconstruct the back porch, destroyed about 1880, the foundation stones for which still existed. Then, too, the smoke-house was to be replaced after a picture of the original one, a well-curb reproduced, and the roof reshingled. With these there were numerous small but troublesome repairs rotted beams were to be mended, requiring much time and labor in the process, especially since it was decided that only hand-hewn timbers of similar age should be used in repairs. Within the house the only serious changes were in the woodwork of the hall and dining-room, which had been "modernized" about 1850. Here, however, it was only necessary to copy the older woodwork found either under the newer pieces, or in some other part of the house, and to obtain the lacking hinges, locks, latches, hand-made nails, etc., from other houses of similar

date. The double, or "Dutch" doors, fortunately, were original, save in the summer kitchen. It was then found necessary to repaint all original exterior woodwork, which was in bad condition, both to preserve it and to make it appear in its original state. And around the place a stone wall was built, whose details were designed to correspond with the walls of the house.

In arranging the interior of the house the effort was made to restore the rooms to their primitive condition. With this in view each room was studied carefully; thus, the original colors of walls and woodwork were discovered after removing later coats of paint, and the old furniture was put back, in so far as possible, into its original position.

The garden was given its brick paths very much on the old lines and a number of the present trees and shrubs replace similar ones shown in early pictures. We note, by the way, that the lilac bushes at the south end of the house remain unchanged. The boxwood is approximately in its primitive position. And the oldfashioned flowers are not unlike those which flowered in similar beds over a century ago. Among the old-fashioned plants seen about the garden are hollyhocks, peonies, day lilies, roses of Sharon, rockets, clove pinks, and old-time roses. A few apple trees have been planted nearby to remind one of the great orchards which formerly surrounded the place, and, for reasons sentimental, a cherry tree has been grafted from the last known of Dyckman cherries, which still stands in the field opposite the ancient house. This cherry represented an especial strain widely known in the early nineteenth century. According to family tradition, States Morris Dyckman, when travelling abroad, sent to his cousin, Jacobus Dyckman, then the owner of the house, a -number of saplings of a German cherry then in vogue, the black Tartarean; one of these in the new environment produced a sport which soon became known as the Dyckman cherry, having fruit of delicate flavor and of great size. The race, unhappily, has long since run out. The most characteristic feature of the garden is easily the ancient boxwood which was generously given to the little park by Mr. Edmund D. Randolph, from his estate Brookside, at Mount St. Vincent, where it had flourished for nearly a century.

est.

II

THE INTEREST OF ITS LOCALITY

66

The region of the old house is of considerable antiquarian interNear its site was in earliest days a large Indian village. Even to-day Indian relics “ turn up " not infrequently. The Creek which formed a loop a few hundred yards north of the house, was a favorite fishing ground, famous, by the way, for striped bass, and in it were natural oyster-beds of great fertility. Shellheaps marking camp sites are abundant, and in them have been found arrow points, sinkers for fish-nets, and the various odds and ends of aboriginal life. Cold Spring, which a few rods farther on bubbled up in great volume under the lee of "Cock Hill," was famous in Indian and Colonial times. Around the old house. Indians camped, and from the shell beds and fire pits in the neighborhood many pieces of pottery have been obtained, some of which, of large size and extraordinary preservation, are exhibited in the American Museum of Natural History. The Indians remained in this neighborhood until well into the nineteenth century. The last of their race lived near the west end of the cutting" for the ship canal as late as 1835. Their stock, however, as on long Island and elsewhere, had changed, having intermarried with negro slaves; and it is to be noted that in the neighboring Indian graveyards, where burials were made in the characteristic primitive fashion the body bent and lying on its side on ashes and oyster shells, sometimes with a dog placed nearby there are also found negro skeletons with which appear coffin nails and buttons. Quite close to the old house there were two Indian cemeteries one east of the house and one almost south the latter still used in the memory of Mr. Isaac Michael Dyckman as the burial ground for negro servants. Of these there were many on the farm, some of them the descendants of slaves, most of them in part of Indian stock.

66

During the Revolution the region of Kingsbridge probably witnessed more of the actual doings of war than any other part of the revolted Colonies. For six years or more it sheltered armies whose goings and comings were every-day matters. Early in the war it