The Van Alen House was continuously occupied by members of the Van Alen family until the 1930s. In 2000, the Columbia County Historical Society commissioned historian Ruth Piwonka to prepare a furnishing plan and John G. Waite Associates to prepare a historic structure report on the Van Alen House. What follows is drawn from these reports, completed in 2001. At the start of her narrative, Piwonka explained why there is little known about the Van Alen family that lived in our small brick-faced house:
Relatively little pertaining to the Van Alen family and Kinderhook history survives in contemporary manuscripts. In public records—such as deeds, court minutes, tax rolls and church records—a moderate amount can be ascertained about their lives and lifestyles. The Town of Kinderhook—a township since 1687—lost all its town records in a late 19th-century fire… ironically, fuller information is available for the 17th century than for most of the 18th century; and so the era when the Van Alen House was built and first used is not well documented.
The history of the relatively large and prosperous Van Alen family at Kinderhook begins with Laurens (Lourens) Van Alen (1632–1714), who is first mentioned in Albany records in May 1660. He was born in Oldenzaal, Gelderland and baptized on March 14, 1632. By 1670, Laurens had married Elbertje Evertse (born c.1646). Elbertje was the only child of Albany baker Evert Luycasse Backer and his wife Jannetje. Beginning in 1669, Laurens, his brother Peter and his father-in-law acquired land at Kinderhook from Mohican proprietors. In the 17th century, it is believed that these men maintained residences at Kinderhook during the agricultural season and lived in Albany during the winter. Between 1670 and 1691, Laurens and Elbertje Van Alen had 10 children: Johannes, Catharina, Evert, Peter, Stephanus, Luyas, Jannetje, Christina, Laurens and Jacobus.
Luykas, the sixth son, was born in Albany c. 1682. His father’s will of 1712–1713 suggests that he had been living on his father’s Kinderhook farm, perhaps for some time. By bequest and through purchase, Luykas acquired substantial acres, including the land where the Van Alen House was built. According to the deed, a house already stood on the property. Records of the Dutch Reformed Church in Kinderhook indicate that on September 8, 1726, at about the age of 44, Luykas married Elizabeth Truyt (or Fruyt) in his house. The couple had three sons: Lourens L. (1727–by April 1812), Johannes L. (1730–1804) and Stephanus (born 1731) who died young, since he is not mentioned in his father’s will. By 1737 Luykas built a new two-room house facing the King’s Highway and within 15 years, built an addition. The 1744 tax roll shows that Luykas was assed £36, more than any of his siblings, and that he was the second wealthiest man in the community. Luykas died after 1754. His will bequeathed all of his “real Estate of lands houses, Barns, Barracks mills Tenements and Hereditaments with premises and appurtenances whatsoever” to his two sons.
About 1750, Luykas’ eldest son Lourens married Margarieta Van Schaack, who was the eldest child of Cornelis and Lydia Van Schaack. Lourens and Margarieta raised 11 children in the Van Alen House. The couple probably moved in after their marriage and stayed there until Lourens’ death in 1812. Over time, portions of the 500-acre tract were sold piecemeal, but the house and 32 acres remained in the Van Alen family.
After Lourens’ death it is believed that his youngest son David (1752–1846) and his wife Maria or Mary (1762–1852) acquired the property; by 1821, their ownership is documented. Maria and David Van Alen had eight children. The 1840 census suggests that their household included five unmarried daughters, Elizabeth (a divorced daughter) and John, Elizabeth’s 20-year-old son, who gave up his father’s name (Hollins) and took Van Alen as his surname. It is difficult to imagine all of these adults living in the small house.
The 1850 census lists John D. Van Alen as a farmer and head of household. His 88-year-old grandmother Mary and four aunts (Jane, Maria, Cecilia and Helena) were living with him and James Chambers, a farmer. When the New York State census was taken five years later, John was sharing his household with his mother, four aunts and James Van Alen, a cousin. Also included in the household were Peter Cesar, a black servant who had been born in Columbia County, and a German-born servant, Frederick Spilfer. According to this census, John owned 189 acres of improved land and 15 acres of unimproved farmland, valued at $12,240. In 1854, 74 acres of land were plowed and used as follows: 25 acres as pasture; 20 acres of meadow yielding 25 tons of hay; and the rest planted with winter wheat, rye, corn and potatoes.
The minimal information captured by census takers gives us a sense of what was happening on the Van Alen property during the Civil War. In February 1864, John Van Alen married 21-year-old Georgianna (Georgie) M. Lyons of Oneida County. The 1865 New York State census records 13 people in 45-year-old John Van Alen’s household: his wife, his mother, his sister Elizabeth, four aunts, Peter D. Van Alen and four servants: Peter Cesar, Frederick Spilfer, and two additional Black servants, Philip Collins and Thomas Van Hoesen. At this time, the farm totaled 111 acres. Some acres provided hay and some were used as pasture. Apples and oats were added to the crops. A barn housed three calves, four milk cows, six oxen, 12 pigs and poultry.
In May 1866, John and Georgia Van Alen welcomed their first child, Maria. Less than three years later, John died of Bright’s disease at the age of 48, leaving behind his pregnant wife who gave birth to his namesake, John D. Van Alen, in July 1869. Before his death, he drew up a will appointing his uncle Peter D. Van Alen guardian of his children and stipulating that at the age of 21, they would receive all their father’s property. Their mother Georgie received one-third of the annual revenues generated by her husband’s estate until she remarried in 1876.
Maria and John D. Van Alen lived elsewhere with their mother Georgie, stepfather Curtis F. Hoag and their three half-siblings, while their great aunts and uncles lived in their father’s house. The children became the beneficiaries of each aunt until 1884, when they finally inherited the house built by Luykas Van Alen. That same year, 18-year-old Maria Van Alen married William C. Herrick, who was 26 years her senior. Living in the Van Alen House, Maria and William Herrick had five children, four of whom survived to adulthood.
The Herrick family did not run the farm well and mortgaged parcels of land even when foreclosure proceedings against them began. This pattern of mortgages and foreclosures began in 1890 and continued to Maria Van Alen Herrick’s death in 1935. In the spring of 1938, at public auction, the house was purchased by William L. Van Alen, a descendant of Johannes Van Alen, brother of Luykas. William (Sammy) L. Van Alen (b. 1907) was a student of architecture and resident of Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Although he wanted to save the house he could not afford to restore it and had the windows removed and the house boarded up. The house stood this way until the Columbia County Historical Society acquired it in 1964.