Lock Tender's House and Canal Store Ruin
Lock Tender's House and Canal Store Ruin | |
Location | High Falls, NY |
---|---|
Nearest city | Kingston |
Coordinates | 41°49′25″N 74°7′51″W / 41.82361°N 74.13083°W |
Area | less than one acre |
Built | 1848 |
NRHP reference No. | 98001010[1] |
Added to NRHP | August 06, 1998 |
The Lock Tender's House and Canal Store Ruin is located on Canal Road in High Falls, New York, United States. It is a complex along the former route of the Delaware and Hudson Canal built in the middle of the 19th century.
The Lock Tender's House is one of the few surviving such structures along the length of the canal in New York or Pennsylvania. The store ruins are also one of the few remnants of the canal's ancillary buildings. Both can be seen from a nearby public trail along the canal bed. In 1998 the property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Property
The house and ruin are located on a wooded half-acre
Some canal facilities remain, including two snubbing posts used to tie up barges in the lock that are considered contributing resources to the National Register listing. The publicly owned Five Locks Walk runs along the other side of the canal, allowing a view of the property. West of the canal bed and walk the area remains wooded and undeveloped. There is another house, and the High Falls firehouse, a short distance down Canal on the same side; across it are woodlots buffering a field.[2]
House
The house itself is set 15 feet (4.6 m) back from the road. It is a small two-story two-by-two-
Inside the main entrance, a paired
An original wooden stair along the east leads to the upstairs. It has a similar plan, with a large
From the first floor, the same stairs lead down to the basement. It has a concrete floor and single pane windows on the north and south. A mortise and tenon frame surrounds a board-and-batten door to the stone steps that lead to the outside bulkhead entrance.[2]
Store ruin
The stone
The site has a partial brick floor. It is currently used by the owners as a freestanding patio, with a small set of furnishings.
History
In 1828, the year of the canal's opening, local landowner Simeon DePuy (owner of the nearby stone house now used as a restaurant), granted the 93 acres (38 ha) including the grounds of the future house to his daughter Maria Dewitt. Twenty years later, she sold 21.5 of those acres (8.6 ha) to her sister, Sarah Robinson, and her husband Abraham, for $2,250 ($79,000 in contemporary dollars
This expansion of capacity required an extensive rerouting at High Falls, taking the canal directly up the slope south of the hamlet. Six new
Once the expansion was finished, the land was deeded back to the Robinsons with the exception of the new canal alignment, its towpath (part of which is today the Five Locks Walk) and a half-acre meant to be used as housing for the lock tender. It first appears on the local tax rolls as a "lock house" in 1849, suggesting it was complete and occupied by then.[2]
The lock tender's job was to take barges through the locks and maintain their water level. His salary, based on an
Sarah Robinson sold her property, which included the warehouse and store, to her sons in 1853. They in turn sold it to Jacob Hasbrouck two years later, and then in 1860 he sold it to Charles Hardenbergh, a farmer and merchant who lived in another nearby Canal Road house. He remained the owner and operator of the store until 1892.
At the end of the 19th century, the canal, by then a relic of an earlier, pre-industrial age, ceased operations. At that time Esther van Wagenen, an heiress of the Robinsons, bought the half-acre with the lock tender's cottage. Ten years later, her sister Mary inherited the house. She added the bay window to the dining room during the 1920s, and bequeathed the property upon her death in 1936 to another family member, Cynthia van Wagenen. She bought the store property in 1943, bringing the lot to its present size.[2]
Cynthia van Wagenen installed modern forced-air heating in the house in the 1950s, but did not add modern plumbing. After her death in 1961, the house was used as a rental property by her estate for several years and then sold. Subsequent owners drilled a well and added indoor plumbing.[2] One, an avid lock collector, added several period locks to the doors upstairs.[2]
The house and ruin, still privately owned, have remained part of the historical attraction of the nearby Five Locks Walk, which follows the towpath. An estimated 4,000 people see it annually. It features on the walking tour of High Falls sponsored by the nearby Delaware and Hudson Canal Museum.[2]
See also
References
- ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. March 13, 2009.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Hansen, Harry (April 1998). "National Register of Historic Places nomination, Lock Tender's House and Canal Store Ruin". New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. Retrieved February 16, 2010. See also: "Accompanying seven photos".
- ^ a b 1634–1699: McCusker, J. J. (1997). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States: Addenda et Corrigenda (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1700–1799: McCusker, J. J. (1992). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1800–present: Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. "Consumer Price Index (estimate) 1800–". Retrieved February 29, 2024.