New York - Martin Van Buren National Historic Site

Usually, when I travel, I look ahead of time to see what National Park Service properties I will be near, but with this trip, I was pretty focused on the 16-hour trip that I was taking and trying to get to Snow Farm by 3pm on Sunday, so I didn’t look. As I was driving the last few hours of that trip, scheduled to get to Snow Farm before noon, I wasn’t too worried about time anymore, and I saw a sign for the Martin Van Buren National Historic Site. I took the detour.

When I drove up, I noticed that the Visitor Center was really just a canopy tent next to the parking lot. They had a few people working there, and a sign that said they were having tours of the house throughout the day. The next tour was only 15 minutes from when I arrived, so I joined in.

The ranger took us through the house, Lindenwald, which was built in 1797. It was later remodeled and such, but it was a cool house! There were servants’ quarters, as well as living areas for the family, and the ranger was explaining it well so that it was easy to picture how daily life was in the time of Van Buren. Many of the furnishings were actually from Van Buren, even though the home was owned for 100 years by people outside of the Van Buren family before the NPS became owners.

It was a peaceful area, in a rural setting, and a very nice stop along the way.

A few of the key take away from this:

1. Van Buren was the 8th President of the US, and the only President so far that did not have English as his native language. He spoke Dutch growing up.

2. Van Buren bought the house from William Van Ness, who had money problems after he was the “second” to Aaron Burr in his duel with Alexander Hamilton