Hello! If you are a regular reader of this blog, these stories might be familiar to you, but they bear repeating. Also, be sure to skip down to the field trip ideas. I've got a history hike at Henry Hudson Park coming up as well as the story walk at Elm Ave. park. More on those later!
Bethlehem Stories Westward Expansion focus
Last month, I mentioned I was preparing for Slingerlands’ elementary students to visit the Slingerland Family Burial Vault. Since Covid-19 had other plans that did not include field trips, I will share with you what I would have shared with them – the stories of John I. Slingerland and the Niver Brothers. So, buckle up for some thoughts about Bethlehem connections to Westward Expansion.
John I. Slingerland
John I. Slingerland, who
was born in 1804, grew up on the West Manor of Rensselaerwyck in the Town of
Bethlehem at a farm centered at modern day 1575 New Scotland Road. His father,
John A. Slingerland, had rented the land here from the Patroon in the late
1790s. The Patroon was the head of the wealthy and influential Van Rensselaer
family who controlled the land of the manor. Their control goes back to the
1630s when the first Patroon, Killean Van Rensselaer, diamond merchant from
Amsterdam, began to assemble his 700,000+ acre estate.
Annual rent had to be
paid for the right to live and work on their land. John I. remembered, and
resented, having to go to the Patroon every year with his father’s rent,
usually in the form of the fattest chickens and the best of the wheat crop. The
Patroon looked down upon the country folk coming to his mansion with their
payments. Slingerland believed it was wrong for a single person or family to
control such large acres of land, land that the farmer through his own labor cultivated
and improved. He felt that the individual farmers were being severely taken
advantage of by the demands of the Patroon.
Slingerland’s experiences
with the Patroon here in Bethlehem influenced his work in Congress. He served
in Washington from 1847 to 1849. Slingerland believed that the western
territories recently acquired by the Federal government should not be
monopolized by large land holders. Instead, they should be allotted directly to
actual settlers, people who would live and work on the land. He also believed
small settlement would curtail the influence of slave holders, arguing that
large tracts could only be profitably worked by slave labor. The Homestead Act,
an early version of which he championed, passed in 1862. It allowed citizens
from all walks of life to claim 160 acres which they would own free and clear
after five years of living there.
John I. Slingerland was
born, raised and lived at 1575 New Scotland Road, and inherited it from his
father in 1850. He and his first wife Elizabeth Vanderzee had three children,
Maria, John and Harmon. He had two more, Elizabeth and William, with his second
wife Sally Hall. John I. and Sally are both buried in the Slingerland Family
Burial Vault. His third great granddaughter is an active member of the Friends
of the Slingerland Family Burial Vault.
John I Slingerland, again.
Is anyone getting sick of this picture or is it just me?
Wish we had another image of him
.
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| John I's house on New Scotland Road about 1900. |
The Niver Brothers
While people from
Bethlehem moved west in the 1800s for a variety of reasons, they were often young
men seeking opportunity and excitement. Two brothers of the Niver family of
Selkirk went west. One met a tragic end. One eventually returned to Bethlehem
and often told of his adventures in the Wild West.
Pheobe and David Niver
raised seven children on their farm on modern day Maple Avenue in Selkirk. In
1873, their son Garret decided to enlist in the army. He joined the U.S. Army’s
7th Cavalry on October 2,1873, at age twenty-seven in New York City under the
assumed name of Garrett H. Van Allen. Family tradition says he used a different
name in order to somehow protect his mother.
Garret traveled to Fort
Abraham Lincoln in Dakota Territory where the 7th Calvary was stationed. He served under
Lt. Col. George A. Custer, and was, perhaps, with him when the 7th discovered gold in the Black Hills.
Garret was with his unit two years later when the 7th met defeat at the hands of the Lakota
and Cheyenne during the Battle of the Little Big Horn. Garrett’s memorial at
Bethlehem’s Elmwood Cemetery reads “Killed in the Custer massacre on the Little
Big Horn Dakota June 26, 1876.”
Garret’s younger brother
Conrad started for Indian Territory around 1874. He wanted to make a new start
and changed his name to John Eddy.
Conrad, now John, had
many adventures. He landed in rough and tumble Dead Wood, South Dakota where he
panned for gold. He had a terrible encounter with desperados in Cheyenne,
Wyoming where he was shot in the arm and had to have his arm amputated without
any anesthetic. As fate would have it, in June 1876, John was passing through
the area where the Battle of Little Big Horn had recently happened. Years later
he learned in a letter from his father that his brother Garret had been killed
there.
By 1880, John Eddy lived
in Bloomington, Illinois where he met and married his wife Nellie Long. He
prospered there, owning a cigar store and part of a trolly line company. He was
active in politics, and was appointed postmaster of Bloomington by President
Grover Cleveland.
John seems to have always
felt the pull of home and his Niver family roots in Bethlehem. While well
established as John Eddy in Bloomington, he signed his letters home “Conrad”. John
and Nellie moved back to Bethlehem in 1906, first to Glenmont where he
purchased the old Hurlbut estate (more about Judge Hurlbut next month.) Later they
moved to 732 Madison Avenue in Albany. John Eddy, aka Conrad Niver, died June
15, 1935 and is, as one obituary stated, “sleeping very peacefully in his
mausoleum in the Elmwood Rural Cemetery, Selkirk, NY.”
Conrad (left) and Garret Niver about 1870.
You are also welcome to take a respectful stroll around Elmwood Cemetery, where the Niver Brothers are interred. It is located at 922 U. S. Route 9W, Selkirk, just south of the Jericho Drive-In. See if you can find Garrett’s memorial stone (it is just off the entrance road, on the left, opposite the water fountain) or the Niver-Eddy mausoleum (tucked in the woods at the back left of the property.)
Need more outdoor time in
February? Visit the Story Walk at Elm Avenue Park. The walk will be honoring
Black History month. Or how about a Winter History Hike guided by yours truly
at Henry Hudson Park? The date for that is Saturday, February 13 at 10 am. Pre-register
with the Parks Department, 518-439-4955, option 2 or at TownofBethlehem.org.
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| Garret Niver's memorial stone at Elmwood Cemetery. |
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