Knickerbocker Mansion | |
 Knickerbocker Mansion in 2016 | |
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| Location | Knickerbocker Rd., Schaghticoke, New York |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 42°54′18″N73°39′8″W / 42.90500°N 73.65222°W Coordinates: 42°54′18″N73°39′8″W / 42.90500°N 73.65222°W |
| Area | 2.5 acres (1.0 ha) |
| Built | 1770 |
| Architect | Knickerbocker, Johannes III |
| NRHP reference # | 72000906 [1] |
| Added to NRHP | December 11, 1972 |
Knickerbocker Mansion is a historic home located at Schaghticoke in Rensselaer County, New York.
Rensselaer County is a county in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2010 census, the population was 159,429. Its county seat is Troy. The county is named in honor of the family of Kiliaen van Rensselaer, the original Dutch owner of the land in the area.
The property was occupied by the Knickerbocker family for nearly 250 years, from about 1707 until 1946. [2] The mansion was built by Johannes Knickerbacker III around 1770. It was acquired in 1964 by the Knickerbocker Historical Society and is operated as a local history museum. The Knickerbocker Historical Society (KHS) have almost entirely restored the mansion.
The Knickerbocker Mansion grounds were the location of the “Witenagemot Oak,” planted in 1676 to commemorate the signing of a treaty between New York governor Edmund Andros and the local Mahican people and native refugees from King Philip's War. The oak stood until 1948. [3]
Sir Edmund Andros was an English colonial administrator in North America. He was the governor of the Dominion of New England during most of its three-year existence. At other times, Andros served as governor of the provinces of New York, East and West Jersey, Virginia, and Maryland.
King Philip's War was an armed conflict in 1675–1678 between Indian inhabitants of New England and New England colonists and their Indian allies. The war is named for Metacomet, the Wampanoag chief who adopted the name Philip because of the friendly relations between his father Massasoit and the Mayflower Pilgrims. The war continued in the most northern reaches of New England until the signing of the Treaty of Casco Bay in April 1678.
The house was built about 1770 and is a 2 1⁄2-story, rectangular brick building. It has a hipped roof, covered in slate, that curves slightly at the eaves. The front facade once featured a one-bay, pedimented entrance portico.
A hip roof, hip-roof or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downwards to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope. Thus a hipped roof house has no gables or other vertical sides to the roof.
Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. Foliation may not correspond to the original sedimentary layering, but instead is in planes perpendicular to the direction of metamorphic compression.
A pediment is an architectural element found particularly in classical, neoclassical and baroque architecture, and its derivatives, consisting of a gable, usually of a triangular shape, placed above the horizontal structure of the entablature, typically supported by columns. The tympanum, the triangular area within the pediment, is often decorated with relief sculpture.
It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972. [1]
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance. A property listed in the National Register, or located within a National Register Historic District, may qualify for tax incentives derived from the total value of expenses incurred in preserving the property.
