Abandoned in the 1930s, this Mansion has fallen into ruins

Colden Mansion Ruins, Montgomery New York

Date added: November 08, 2023 Categories:

View of east wall, front (left) and rear sections, view looking southwest (2007)

The Colden Mansion Ruins consist of a grouping of related archaeological features associated with the former Coldenham estate, established in this region of the Hudson Valley by former New York State Lieutenant Governor Cadwallader Colden in the first quarter of the 18^th Century, and brought to its fullest development by his son and namesake Cadwallader Colden Jr. The architectural centerpiece of the Colden holdings was the Colden Mansion, erected for Colden Jr., the main block representing two phases of construction, c. 1767 and c. 1775-85. The Colden Mansion was a substantial Georgian pile of stone masonry construction, covered by a double-hipped roof, with a characteristic center hall plan and high-style interior woodwork; today it remains but a shell, with only partial standing remnants of the main block's envelope. Additionally, the site contains a number of other readable features, among them foundations of a stone cookhouse and, attached to it, a second house that may well have been the original c. 1744 dwelling and later a slave house; foundation remnants of two barns; other outbuildings and structures; and what is believed to be a slave cemetery. The site, with its various extant physical features representing the tenure of Colden Jr. beginning c.1744, is significant for its association with the younger Cadwallader Colden's development of the original estate established by his father.

The Colden Family and Coldengham

Cadwallader Colden, Sr., son of Reverend Alexander Colden, was born in Dunce, Scotland in February 1688. Educated at the University of Edinburgh, Colden graduated in 1705; in 1708, after studying medicine and mathematics for three years in his native Scotland, he immigrated to America. Between his arrival in America in 1708 and 1715, Colden Sr. practiced medicine in Philadelphia, before relocating to Manhattan in 1718. The following year, 1719, Colden Sr. assumed the position of Lieutenant Governor of the Colony of New York. In 1720 a friend of Colden Sr., John Johnson, procured a land patent of 1,000 acres in the western Hudson Valley in present-day Orange County, which he transferred to Colden that same day. Shortly thereafter Colden procured a second tract comprised of 2,000 acres, this land situated directly south of the lands acquired from Johnson. This second patent carried with it the name "Coldengham," subsequently changed to Coldenham, and in 1728 a stone dwelling was erected for Colden Sr. and his family. Colden had previously wed Alice Chrystie, around 1714, and the couple had nine children together, the first of which was born in Philadelphia. When they removed to the Hudson Valley they brought with them Alexander, Elizabeth, Cadwallader Jr., Jane, Alice and Sarah. At Coldengham the couple had three additional children, John (b. 1729), Catherine (b. 1731), and David (b. 1733).

The elder Colden enjoyed a number of intellectual pursuits and authored works on the Native Americans, his History of the Five Indian Nations Depending on the Province of New York in America was the first comprehensive account of the Iroquois nation by an Englishman. Other interests included botany, physics, medical subjects, and mathematics. Among his more unusual achievements was the construction of perhaps the earliest fresh-water canal in New York State, which linked his farm with the nearby Wallkill River, probably somewhere near present-day Walden. He was likewise an important figure in the development of what would grow to become the City of Newburgh, having realized the commercial potential of this Hudson River landing, and was instrumental in wresting control of this settlement from its original Palatine settlers with the blessing of Governor George Clinton. Later his eldest son Alexander Colden operated a ferry that linked Newburgh with Dutchess County across the Hudson.

Cadwallader Colden, Sr. enjoyed an active career in the political arena and served on the Kings Council for New York Province beginning around 1751, and starting in 1761 acted as the Governor of New York in the Governor's absence and during periods of transition. He proved an earnest and vocal Loyalist and an advocate of the taxation of the American Colonies by the British Crown. Colden offered his unwavering support for the British Crown when, as acting Governor, he refused to sign a request to repeal the highly unpopular Stamp Act of 1765. In November 1765 Colden was targeted during a heated protest at Fort George on Battery Point in Manhattan, where paper intended for distribution under the Stamp Act was being stored under Governor Colden's supervision. The unruly crowd broke open Colden's coach house and seized his carriage, after which they paraded two images; one of Colden and the other of the devil; through the city in the Governor's carriage before returning to Bowling Green, where the images were burned in front of Colden. The following day Colden yielded to pressure and gave the stamps to the New York Common Council. Following the return of Governor Tryon, Colden retired to Long Island, where he died in 1776. Though he is buried on Long Island, a memorial stone pays tribute to the family patriarch in the Colden family cemetery, located near the mansion ruins.

In 1744 Cadwallader Colden's second son and namesake, Cadwallader Colden, Jr., received 500 acres from his father's land holdings, on which he built a modest dwelling and barn and established a successful farming operation. Two decades later, in 1767, Colden Jr. initiated the construction of a larger, more architecturally ambitious house for his wife Elizabeth Ellison and their seven children; shortly thereafter this new house was expanded and doubled in size. The Colden house was built of native stone by the local builders James, Wines and Gabriel Many, and must have proved among the more fully developed expressions of the Georgian style in the region. The three were brothers, and three of the four known sons born in New York City to Jean Many and Anne Wines: Gabriel, born 1749; Wines, born 1730; and James, born 1738. The fourth brother, Barnabas Many, was born in 1735 and died in Craigsville, near Goshen, in 1815. The exact nature of their work in the building trades is not known, for instance, whether they were all masons, or if at least one was a carpenter or house finisher responsible for the execution of the house's paneling, mantels and other wood finishes. By the time of the 1760s building campaign, Colden's estate had grown to encompass the remaining acreage of his father's 3,000-acre tract, and he had likewise emerged as the largest slaveholder in the area, illuminating his social and economic stature at that time. E.M. Ruttenber's 1881 History of Orange County provided the following overview of those buildings related to the Colden's in this locale:

The buildings erected by the Coldens may be summarily stated as follows: the old stone academy house; the Coldenham stone house on the turnpike; the long, long house east of the stone house at the foot of the hill; the house known as the Thomas Colden mansion north of the turnpike; the two dwellings east of the last one named, owned in later years by David Colden; and the dwelling on the hill south of the turnpike, occupied in later years by Mr. John Scott.

The younger Colden followed his father's path into public service as well, albeit in a far more modest capacity, serving as the town supervisor and, beginning in 1774, as a member of the Court of Common Pleas. Both Cadwallader Colden Jr. and his wife Elizabeth Ellison Colden are interred in the nearby family cemetery.

Also prominent in the second generation of the Colden family in America was the younger Cadwallader Colden's sister, Jane Colden (b.1724), later Jane Colden Farquahar. Cadwallader Colden, Sr. was an ardent supporter of the education of women in this era and he shared with his daughter his own interest in botany, which she developed significantly during her lifetime. The elder Colden's interest in science and botany provided for an intellectually stimulating environment at Coldengham, one which further supported his daughter's growing interest in this subject matter. While collecting and describing many of the Montgomery area's native plants, Jane Colden and her father became acquaintances of Benjamin Franklin, John and William Bartram, and Peter Kalm, among others, all noted scientists or naturalists of the period. She likewise corresponded with Carolus Linnaeus in Sweden and described and sketched 300 local plants, being the first to identify the gardenia. Peter Collinson, in a letter to Linnaeus in 1756, noted that "Jane Colden was the first lady is scientifically skilled in the Linnaean system," and she is generally recognized as America's first female botanist. Jane Colden Farquahar contributed significantly to the field of botany in America, and published the first illustrated book of New York State flora in 1749; the original manuscript, containing descriptions and drawings made from about 1753 to 1758, is housed in The British Museum in London. Her detailed and careful descriptions in the new Linnaean system were evidently taken from living specimens growing on or near the Colden estate. She exchanged many seeds and plant materials with both European and American gardeners and horticulturists, and gained a considerable reputation in this field. She died in 1766 at the age of 42 during childbirth.

The family's Tory leanings proved costly to the Colden's influence with the onset of the American Revolution, and greatly eroded their prominence and influence afterward. During the conflict Cadwallader Colden Jr. was held under house arrest in the Van Dusen House in Hurley, Ulster County, which served as the state capital following the burning of nearby Kingston by British forces under General Vaughn in 1777. Thomas Colden, son of Cadwallader Colden Jr., served in the British Army during the conflict and subsequently returned to the stone house his father had built for him in Coldengham, where he died in 1826. This house, built around 1770, remains today substantially intact. It was built in the more typical vernacular manner common to this region, as opposed to the Georgian taste of his father's house, being one and one-half stories in height, in this instance rendered in frame, with a sweeping gambrel roof that formed a porch on the primary elevation. The Colden family faded from prominence in the post-Revolutionary period, as was the case with many families who cast their lot with the Loyalist cause, their political influence having been destroyed.

The main house, or Colden Mansion, remained within the family's ownership into the 19^th Century, and a complete ownership chronology of the property is still being developed. By 1859, the mansion was owned and resided in by Lindley M. Ferris, who is indicated as owner on the engraving dating to that year. Later owners, the McGowan family, are believed to have replaced the Georgian-style double-hipped roof in the Late Victorian era with the mansard-style roof that appears in later images. The McGowan's by that time had dubbed the dwelling "Stony Castle," for which the adjacent road was named. Sometime in the 1930s the house was abandoned, its dereliction brought upon by protracted estate litigation; around 1940 the Metropolitan Museum of Art dismantled the west parlor finishes, and later installed them as the Verplanck Room at the museum.

When brought to its completion following the addition of the second phase of construction, the Colden Mansion ranked among the more impressive examples of domestic architecture in the region, reflecting in its rigidly symmetrical disposition and interior and exterior detailing the English Georgian aesthetic, in this instance as interpreted by building tradesman. Few dwellings erected in the second half of the 18^th century in the immediate region-characterized by a mixed ethnic composition of Germans, Dutch, English, and Scots-Irish were built in such a grand manner and in keeping with the architectural principles of the Georgian style. Many houses instead reflected the regional preference for the one-and-one-half-story form that reflects typically Dutch building practices, of either locally quarried stone or with heavy timber frames. A notable exception in this area, however, was the nearby Nathaniel Hill house, built c. 1768 and of brick masonry, and not stone. Like the Colden Mansion it conveyed Georgian architectural principles in its formal five-bay facade and two-story form, and featured interior woodwork in the form of paneled wall treatments and classical detailing inspired by Renaissance models, as disseminated in period builder's guides. Nathaniel Hill, like the younger Cadwallader Colden, presumably chose to build in the Georgian manner as a means of identifying himself with English taste and culture, in contrast to the established but waning traditions of the region's earlier German and Dutch settlers.

During the pre-Revolutionary War period, the senior Cadwallader Colden maintained a friendship and correspondence with Sir William Johnson, who in 1763 contracted with the Massachusetts builder Samuel Fuller to build for him the large Georgian pile known as Johnson Hall, located in the Mohawk Valley where he held title to substantial lands. This two-story dwelling featured elements utilized soon thereafter for Colden Mansion, among them a double-hipped roof and central Palladian window on one of its elevations. It would seem likely that at some point the two men discussed matters of architecture, as educated gentleman of this era often did, perhaps providing a point of departure for the dwelling Colden's son and namesake would soon endeavor to have erected for himself and his family. Similar Georgian style houses were being built in the upper Hudson Valley by the prominent Schuyler and Van Rensselaer families, indicative of the assimilation of prominent Dutch families to English culture, while to the south houses such as the Van Cortlandt Manor house, built for Frederick Van Cortlandt c. 1748-49, likewise spoke to the desire of the prominent landowning class to build in this manner and identify themselves with English cultural traditions. These houses introduced the 5-story Georgian model in New York State, a form which gained widespread application in the first quarter of the 19^th Century during the Federal period, and which continued to be utilized for vernacular construction well into that century.

The Colden Mansion featured many of the trademarks of the Georgian style, among them a five-ranked two-story facade, the second-story central bay highlighted by a Palladian motif; a hipped roof with cornice enlivened by modillions; a central axis plan with flanking parlors and bed chambers; and interior finishes highlighted by expanses of paneled walls. The undated image below, which shows the Colden dwelling prior to the replacement of the hipped roof, provides some insights into the building's early appearance. It is interesting to note the conspicuous presence of coursed but largely undressed ashlar, bedded in mortar, which lends the exterior an informal appearance not in keeping with most of its architectural program. While the 1859 engraving of the Colden house suggests the exterior may have originally been parged with lime-based mastic-which would then have been scored to imitate cut stone-other evidence fails to support this notion, notably the use of coursed ashlar for the addition and the use of mastic to form splayed window lintels. Other notable features are the original front door, which is currently installed at the Montgomery Town Hall, with its lower paneled sections forming an "X" shape; and the handsome segmental-arched porch, which would seem to be an original or early detail, with a delicately scaled denticulated cornice. Also conspicuous is the use of a central gable, though not fully pedimented or used as the crowning feature of a distinct central pavilion; nevertheless it would seem a naive attempt to convey a similar effect. A glazed roundel provided the crowning feature of this gable, centered in its apex above the second-story Palladian motif.

The Colden house's sophistication was in large measure accounted for by the interior wood work most of which was removed by the middle of the 20^th Century. Notable, of course, is the former parlor paneling that was installed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art as the Verplanck Room c. 1941. It was deemed suitable as a backdrop for the Verplanck furnishings, which were originally housed in the house of Samuel Verplanck located at 3 Wall Street in Manhattan. Though aesthetically compatible, Orange County historian Mildred Parker Seese noted that the members of the Verplanck family were patriots, while the Colden family had cast its lot with the British Crown. In any event, the woodwork of the Colden Mansion reflected the prevailing Georgian aesthetic, with Renaissance-inspired classical detailing in the form of cornices and pilasters, combined with fielded panels. This treatment was contrasted with plaster ceilings, which in high-style examples featured intricate Rococo embellishment such as at Philipse Manor hall in Yonkers. For the classically inspired woodwork, including the exterior and interior cornice treatments, mantels, over-mantels, and pilasters, an English-published design source was likely referenced, such as those authored by Batty Langley and Abraham Swan. These books, imported to America or brought by immigrating building tradesman, were critical in the dissemination of the Georgian aesthetic in this country.

Cadwallader Colden Jr. was well-known as a successful farmer and agriculturist, and the remaining archaeological features north of the house ruins-among them the foundations of a barn complex-are all that remain to portray this interest in agriculture while also providing a fuller portrait of the complex as a gentleman's working farm. The foundations of the cookhouse and what is believed to be a slave house, perhaps converted from the earlier c. 1744 dwelling erected in advance of the larger house, and what are believed to be slave burials, are likewise vital in providing a fully-rounded portrait of life at the Cadwallader Colden Jr. estate in the second half of the 18^th Century.

Site Description

The Colden Mansion ruins occupy an 8.5-acre parcel of land on the northeast corner of New York State Route 17K and Stone Castle Road in the Town of Montgomery, east of the Village of Montgomery and west of the City of Newburgh and Stewart International Airport, in Orange County, New York. Route 17K borders the parcel to the south; Stone Castle Road forms the western boundary; while the eastern border is formed by thick deciduous woods and the Ashokan Aqueduct right-of-way. Route 17K was historically the Cochecton Turnpike, which had its eastern terminus at the Hudson River in Newburgh. The larger environs are characterized by a mix of open and forested fields with residential, commercial, and industrial properties situated in the general vicinity on both Route 17K and Stone Castle Road. The parcel is essentially flat, and thickly wooded, with second-generation growth in the form of deciduous trees that now grow within and around the confines of the dwelling's former footprint, as well as the remaining features. This growth likewise largely screens the ruins from both of the adjacent roads in the spring and summer.

The centerpiece of the site is the remnants of the stone masonry dwelling the first phase of which was erected in the Georgian taste c. 1767 by builders James, Gabriel and Wines Many, their initials captured on a date stone that has since been removed to the Montgomery Town Hall facility, for Cadwallader Colden, Jr. and his family. Colden's estate, known historically as "Coldengham" and later "Coldenham," originally consisted of 500 acres granted to him by his father Cadwallader Colden, Sr.; by the time of the construction campaign it had grown to encompass the remaining acreage of his father's 3,000-acre tract. This first phase of the house was expanded c. 1775-85, bringing it to its full extent, with a second rectangular-shaped section added to the original exterior north wall to complete a roughly square-shaped footprint. The Colden dwelling's exterior appearance was altered in the second half of the 19^th century by subsequent owners with the addition of a mansard-type roof punctuated by four dormers. The house then fell into disrepair in the 1930s following its abandonment during protracted legal proceedings, and subsequently into advanced decay and eventual collapse.

The Colden Mansion was erected of locally quarried limestone masonry pointed with lime-based putty, and possibly bedded in a clay mixture with binding, on the standard 5-ranked, two-story model, with high-style interior woodwork impressively conveying Georgian design motives. The house originally employed a single-pile, center passage plan, the main block subsequently expanded to a double-pile plan with the later addition. At the time of the completion of the first phase, the Colden house ranked as among the more sophisticated Georgian-style dwellings in this region, providing a strong contrast to the humbler masonry and frame vernacular dwellings of this region's ethnic English, Scotch-Irish, German and Dutch settlers. The earliest known image of the house is an engraving dating to c. 1859, entitled "The Colden Mansion, Res. of Lindley M. Ferris, Coldenham," which portrays the south-facing facade, it would seem, largely as it had appeared since the time of its construction in the 1760s. An early undated photograph shows the house following the addition of the mansard roof, with original details among them a Palladian window, modillioned cornice work, and a segmental-arched entrance porch; in addition to outbuildings, most notably what would appear to be a stone summer kitchen, and beyond it the gable end and chimney of a second building. The Colden house was built on a characteristic symmetrical Georgian plan, with rooms flanking a center passage on the first and second stories; fireplaces were centered against the north, or rear, walls of both the first and second phases. A double-hipped roof covered the house following the addition of the second phase.

What remains today of this important example of 18^th Century Georgian design in the Hudson Valley is a shell, consisting of sections of the exterior walls; portions of the east and west side elevations of the main block following its expansion, as well as the original north rear wall of the front section, which subsequently formed a partition between the two phases. The south-facing facade elevation having already all-but collapsed northward into the footprint. Nevertheless, important elements of the house, representing period construction techniques and materials, have survived, primarily those elements that were rendered in masonry. These include the walls themselves, two phases of the house being clearly distinguishable from one another by a distinct seam and the nature of the masonry work; the earlier phase having undressed stone for the end walls, the later phase more dressed ashlar units. Notable remnants include the original heating arrangements, in the form of 8 fireplaces corresponding with the first and second stories, including the chimney stack that rises from the northeast corner of the ruin; tied into the adjacent wall, it retains its first and second-floor hearth openings, remnants of brick arches, a wood nailer to receive the mantel for the second-floor bed chamber fireplace, and brick flues and chimney. The other fireplace stacks also survive in a similar state, though without their brick chimneys. Remnants of a bake oven remain beneath the east parlor of the earlier section, indicating the location of an early kitchen. The house also retains vestiges of the work of the carpenter and house joiner, including moulded and pegged wood window and door casings; and joists and timbers that formed part of the floor framing system. The large beam that remains within the footprint of the first phase, propped against the north wall, is somewhat anomalous, given that it is circular-sawn, more in keeping with a post c. 1850 date. Additional information that the mansion ruin can yield includes information on period lime-based putty and plaster mixtures, and the use of iron in period masonry construction. Thorough study and measuring of the ruins could likewise provide substantial and specific information on the house's original plan.

Though removed from the site and dispersed to a variety of locations, some of the Colden Mansion's period interior wood finishes do survive, and in some instances, the present location of these is known. The Metropolitan Museum of Art maintains the west parlor woodwork, which it acquired c. 1940 and which is installed there as the "Verplanck Room," providing an architecturally suitable context for the decorative arts contained therein. The Town of Montgomery owns the original frontispiece, minus the transom (which was removed in the 19^th Century), installed in a room at the Town Hall facility on Bracken Road, and likewise maintains other elements in storage, among them woodwork from the bed chamber above the east parlor. Edna Fletcher installed woodwork from what was believed to be one of the rear rooms in her house in the Town of Newburgh; part of the original cherry handrail, along with paneled wainscoting from the hall, are stored at the Hill Hold Museum in Goshen; and the wood finishes from yet another room were brought to Museum Village in Monore, however were stored outside, where they rotted and were lost. It has likewise been speculated that the finishes from yet another room were removed and installed in the house of a doctor who resided in Balmville.

Site Description with Additional Features

Immediately northeast of the location of the main house is the ruin of the one-story summer kitchen or cookhouse, roughly square-shaped, which has the foundation of a second, rectangular-shaped building attached to it on the north side, the latter displaying a two-room footprint and containing a rectangular-shaped cistern. These formed a single L-shaped unit. This second attached foundation once supported a frame superstructure that is conjectured to be the original Colden dwelling built c. 1744, possibly used later in the 18^th century as slave quarters; as such, it would be the earlier of the two. Northeast of these are three small ruins: a roughly square-shaped stone foundation, a larger rectangular-shaped stone foundation, and a concrete trough. The exact nature of the two stone foundations is not known but presumably, they served in an agriculture-related capacity. Northwest of these are the remnants of the barn complex, consisting of the foundations of two larger barns, the one to the south substantially smaller than that to the north. To the north of the main house and southwest of the barn complex is a small rectangular-shaped stone foundation the location of which suggests it was a privy. Behind the main barn ruin, to the north, is a site believed to be a small slave cemetery, though a second area west of the barn may likewise contain remains. Five stone-lined wells and one brick-lined cistern, in addition to that previously mentioned, have also been identified on the property. In addition, situated northwest of the ruins, are Osage Orange trees believed to be associated with 18^th Century plantings.