Kinderhook Village District

About this property

The Kinderhook Village District is located in the central areas of the village of Kinderhook, New York, United States. It is a 612-acre (248 ha) area covering both developed and undeveloped land centered on US 9. It contains many buildings from the 18th and 19th centuries, some of which were associated with Martin Van Buren, a native of the town who later became President. In 1974 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The district takes up most of the southeastern half of the village. Kinderhook Creek, the village's eastern line, is also the district's eastern boundary. It deviates from the village boundary in the north to cross to Chatham Street (Route 9) near the intersection with the old railroad right-of-way, which it follows down to Railroad Avenue and then turns west along the back property lines of homes on Albany Avenue. It follows those lot lines to the cemeteries and crosses Albany to follow Sunset Avenue, which divides residences from farmers' fields to the south. It turns to follow the right-of-way when it intersects it again, then turning east again at the rear property line of residences on Rothermel Lane. When that route reaches the rear line of houses on Broad Street (Route 9), it follows them south to Gaffney Lane, where it crosses the street to the rear lines of a subdivision on Presidential Drive. From the end of that it goes back to the creek. This boundary includes as well all of the properties along Church, Hudson, Sylvester and William streets, Jarvis and Maiden lanes and Kinderknoll Drive. With the exception of the village square at Albany, Broad, Chatham and Hudson streets, these areas are residential. The large eastern area of the district, taking in the flatlands along the creek, is undeveloped open space except for the Hudson Street corridor. As of the district's listing on the Register, there were 250 buildings within it, most of which predate the 20th century. Kinderhook's history began in the mid-17th century when Dutch farmers from the colonial capital at Fort Orange in present-day Albany moved south in search of fertile land. Some found it in the flatlands along the bend of the creek that bounds the village, and the nearby bluff proved a good place for building. The Cornelius Schermerhorn House at 33 Broad Street, built in four stages from 1713 to 1770, is the most prominent building in Kinderhook surviving from this time. The gambrel roofs at the John Pruyn House (26 William Street) and 15 Hudson Street, with a muizetanden pattern in the brick of its gable endm also survive. By 1763 there were 15 buildings and a Dutch Reformed Church. David van Schaack's two-story brick home at 24 Broad Street inaugurated a new era when it was built in 1774. Described as being "like a castle", it had neoclassical proportions and a Palladian window, features typical of a country gentleman's home of that era. The decorative touches would be widely emulated on other more modest homes in the village, like 29 Hudson Street.

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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