Ten Broeck open to the public, with more stories
Christmastime history of mansion includes the tales of enslaved people
Back in the 18th century, when the Ten Broeck family was residing in the Arbor Hill mansion that still bears their name, Christmas was no big deal.
“Among Dutch Reformed churchgoers like the Ten Broecks, there was not a major emphasis on Christmas,” said Kathryn Kosto, executive director of the Albany County Historical Association (ACHA), which is based at the mansion. “That said, there was a persistence of the medieval celebration of saints’ feast days, so the Dutch retained customs of a family feast, children’s treats and celebration for St. Nicholas Day on December 6.”
In keeping with both old and new traditions, the Ten Broeck Mansion is dressed up for the season indoors and out, and hosts a series of Holiday House offerings through Dec. 20. A Pop-up Porch Sale features artisanal gifts, ornaments, historic embroidery kits and wreaths made by local garden clubs. Visitors can take docentled tours of the festively decorated mansion, by reservation only, and free take-home ornament kits for kids are available at the educational kiosk in the garden. Those who stop by are encouraged to bring canned or boxed goods to be donated to a local food pantry.
Under Kosto’s guidance, ACHA, which has been the caretaker of the Federal-style mansion and its four acres of gardens since 1948, is also focusing attention on the daily lives and seasonal activities of the servants and enslaved people who lived and worked there.
“Servants, many of whom were Catholic, attended midnight Mass, and would celebrate on the days after Christmas, juggling the additional work of creating feasts for those they worked for,” Kosto explained. “In some households, servants were given some time off. For enslaved persons, the Christmas holidays were a time of more work, although there may have been some time off.” In Albany, she said, enslaved people were more likely to be given time off
in the spring, during Pinkster, a Dutch holiday that was adopted by African Americans in the Northeast, who enriched it with their own cultural traditions.
“We realized if we’re telling the stories of Abraham Ten Broeck and his wife, Elizabeth
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Van Rensselaer — the wealthy bankers and movers and shakers — we also need to look at the people who really made this happen, and those are the servants and enslaved persons,” Kosto said.
ACHA is piecing together those stories through documents (including one from 1810 in which Elizabeth frees her enslaved servant, Susanah, on the condition that she continues to work without pay one day a week) as well as clues excavated from the grounds of the mansion, which has been recognized as one of the most significant archeological sites in the Capital Region. Ashes and seeds found in the soil reveal the existence of a kitchen outbuilding; buttons and buckles that are simpler than what the Ten Broecks would have worn show where domestic habitations once stood. Inside the 1798 mansion, designed by Albany architect Philip Hooker, servants and enslaved people most likely lived in windowless attic rooms that were the coldest places in the house during the winter and the hottest in summer.
“It tells us a lot about the experience of enslavement in the North,” said Kosto, who has been with ACHA since September 2019. She brings to her role a background in both history and art: A visual artist with degrees from Cornell and Yale, she was the curator of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s house in Cambridge, Mass., and ran the Art School of Columbia County for four years. “Sometimes people say it wasn’t so serious here or it was a better situation than in the South, but when people see the slant of the roof and feel how cold or how hot it is up there, it really hits them and answers that question: No, this was not a better experience. It can help students and visitors look at this issue in a very personal and thoughtful way.”
ACHA also researched and restored the butler’s pantry built by the family of Thomas Worth Olcott, who purchased the mansion in 1848. It’s now one of the spaces that is “most commented on and where people linger the longest,” Kosto said. Unlike the Ten Broecks, the Olcott family did not have enslaved people in the household; the more progressive Olcott supported businesses owned by people of color and sat on the board of the Albany Academy for Girls.
Along with preserving the past, ACHA is recording history as it happens, inviting people from the Capital Region and beyond to create a postcard sharing their experience during the pandemic through words, drawings and photos.
“In the future, historians will ask, ‘What was it like to live through this?’” Kosto said. “Our mission is to document Albany’s culture and history, and everyone’s experience is relevant.”
We realized if we’re telling the stories of Abraham Ten Broeck and his wife, Elizabeth Van Rensselaer — the wealthy bankers and movers and shakers — we also need to look at the people who really made this happen, and those are the servants and enslaved persons.” — Kathryn Kosto