Rushmore Farm facts for kids
Quick facts for kids |
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Rushmore Farm
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 Location in New York
Location in the United States
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| Location | 8748 US 9W, Athens, New York |
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| Area | 95.0 acres (38.4 ha) |
| Architectural style | Greek Revival |
| NRHP reference No. | 10000364 |
| Added to NRHP | June 18, 2010 |
Rushmore Farm is a really old house located in Athens, New York, in Greene County, New York. It's a stone house with a steep roof, built in two parts during the late 1700s and early 1800s. It has cool Greek Revival style details. There's also an old stone smokehouse on the property.
This historic farm was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2010, which means it's an important place to protect!
Contents
Discovering Rushmore Farm
Rushmore Farm is found in the town of Athens, close to the eastern edge of Greene County. This large 95-acre farm is long and narrow. It sits between a main road called US 9W on the west and train tracks on the east. Both of these paths run next to the Hudson River, which is just east of the tracks.
The farm has lots of trees, a pond, and a nice yard. The land is highest on the west side and slopes down sharply towards the river. North of the farm are the Athens Flats, an area once used by Native Americans for animals traveling to the Hudson River. A small part of these flats is on the farm.
The Rushmore property used to be much bigger. Its current 95-acre size was set in the 1970s after many land changes over the years. Some of the original farm land is still used for farming today.
Buildings at the Farm
To get to the main buildings, you drive down a long gravel driveway from US 9W. The farm has a stone farmhouse, an old stone smokehouse, a wooden garage, and a small shed. In the fields, you can still see the old foundations of a silo and a barn that are no longer there.
The Rushmore Farmhouse
The Rushmore farmhouse is a stone house with a steep, pointy roof. It faces south and was built in two main parts. The first part was built in the late 1700s, and the second part was added in the early 1800s. The house has a Greek Revival style, which was popular for buildings back then.
The house was built into the side of a hill. This means that part of the basement on the southeast side is open to the outside. The walls are made of rough stones put together with a special V-shaped mortar. The roof is made of metal, and the house has wide eaves and a wooden trim. Two small dormer windows were added to the south side later on.
The western part of the house was built first, probably around the late 1700s. It had three sections with a main door in the middle. You can see a line in the stone walls where the first house ended. The eastern part was added later, in the early 1800s. This section also has three parts and a door. It even has a kitchen in the basement, which you can get to from under the front porch.
A wide porch was added in the mid-1800s. It has flat posts and a wooden railing. A wooden staircase leads up to the door of the older western part.
Inside the house, the western part has changed over time. The first floor now has a living room and a kitchen, laundry, and a small bathroom. There's a hidden staircase and a fireplace with a wooden mantel. The window frames and glass in this part are very old, possibly original! The ceiling beams are exposed, showing how the house was built.
The eastern part of the first floor has a hall and a "best room," which is now the dining room. This might be how it was originally set up. The hall has a hidden staircase to the upstairs and another one to the basement kitchen. This dining room also has a fireplace. The beams in this section are bigger than in the western part, and the ceiling is higher. The floors throughout the first floor are made of wide wooden planks.
Upstairs, the western side has two bedrooms and a bathroom. The eastern side has an office with a bathroom and a large bedroom with a fireplace. The ceilings in the eastern part have been removed, so you can see the wooden rafters. The rafters in the older western part are held together with wooden pegs, showing how old they are.
The basement kitchen can be reached from the hall in the eastern part of the house or from an outside door. It still has an old beehive oven, which was used for baking!
The Rushmore farmhouse is a great example of stone houses built in Greene County during the late 1700s and early 1800s. Many of its original parts are still there, and you can see how the house changed over time to fit the needs of the families who lived there.
The Smokehouse
The smokehouse is a tall stone building located northeast of the main house. It has a wooden shingle roof. There's a wooden door with iron hinges on the south side and small openings in the gables. This smokehouse is thought to be from the late 1700s or early 1800s, just like the house.
The Garage
The garage was built in 1980. It's a wooden building that can hold three cars. It has a metal roof and a small cupola (a tiny tower) with a weathervane on top.
The Shed
The shed is a small, square wooden building with a gable roof. It has a wooden door on the north side. This shed sits where an older "milk house" used to be.
A Look Back in Time: Rushmore Farm's Story
The Rushmore farmhouse is special because it's a unique example of a stone farmhouse from its time. It was built in two stages by Jeremiah Rushmore, whose family came from Long Island. The Rushmore family owned the farm for over 100 years!
We don't know the exact date the house was built. But old tax records and how it was constructed suggest the older, western part was built in the late 1700s. Jeremiah Rushmore's will (a legal document about his wishes after he died) confirms that the newer, eastern part was built before he passed away in 1828.
The house was updated in the late 1830s or early 1840s. This is probably when the Greek Revival style trim and porch were added. The small dormer windows were put in even later. The house is made of rough stones and has a very steep roof with chimneys inside.
The stone walls and long, low shape of the house are typical of homes built by Dutch, German, and English settlers in the late 1700s. However, the way the house is framed and divided inside shows English building styles. This might be because the Rushmore family came from Long Island, where English traditions were common. For example, the older part of the house had a special fireplace and smaller rooms, which was typical for English-built homes.
When the house was made twice as big in the early 1800s, the new eastern section included a basement kitchen and a "best room" on the first floor. This probably happened because Jeremiah Rushmore became wealthier and his family grew larger. It's interesting that Jeremiah's will even said how the rooms in the bigger house should be used after he died! He made sure his wife and unmarried daughter could live in the "new house" part. But his daughter wasn't allowed to go into the "old house" part, which was for her brother Richard and his family. The basement kitchen, though, was open to everyone.
Even with all the changes, the house shows us how buildings were made in the early days of America. It also shows how a small farmhouse could change over time to fit a family's needs. Rushmore Farm was a working farm with many fruit orchards for over a century. Even though parts of it were sold off, the 95-acre property still feels like an open farm. It still has the old stone smokehouse and the remains of a barn and silo that burned down in the 1960s.
The Rushmore Family Story
The Rushmore family's journey to this farm started a long time ago. The first Thomas Rushmore, who was from Wales, arrived in Long Island in 1648. His grandson, also named Thomas, had a son named Silas. This Silas Rushmore is believed to be the one who came to Greene County.
Silas Rushmore and his wife, Phebe, had six children, all born on Long Island. It's not clear exactly when the Rushmores moved to what was then Albany County (which later became Greene County). But Silas and other relatives like Thomas, Jeremiah, and Jacob started appearing in tax records for the area in 1787. Silas bought and sold a lot of land in the late 1700s and early 1800s.
The Rushmores also owned a grist mill (a mill for grinding grain) in the town of Catskill. A Quaker marriage record from 1797 suggests that the Rushmore family was living in the Hudson Valley by then.
Jeremiah Rushmore, Silas's son, was born in Long Island in 1765. He married Martha Roby and they had three children. Census records from 1790 to 1799 show both Silas and Jeremiah Rushmore owning land in Athens. Jeremiah Rushmore is likely the person who built the farmhouse we see today and was its first known resident.
Tax records from 1799 show Jeremiah Rushmore owned a house and land in Catskill (Athens wasn't a separate town until 1805). An old newspaper article from 1806 confirmed he owned the house by that date. Even though the house was for sale in 1811, Jeremiah bought more land in 1812 and kept the property until he died in 1828. Another article from 1813 said the Rushmore property had three orchards with over 300 trees!
Jeremiah Rushmore was a wealthy man. When he died, his will said that his son Morris would get the farm he lived on in Coxsackie, and his son Richard would inherit the Athens farm. His will also confirmed that the second half of the house had been built before he died. He made sure his wife, Martha, and unmarried daughter, Anna, could live in his "new house" and use certain rooms. But Anna was not allowed to go into the "old house" section. Jeremiah's wife, Martha, died in 1830.
Richard Rushmore married Deborah Wilson and they had nine children. After Richard died in 1837, Deborah and her younger children continued to run the farm. In 1855, a farming census reported that the farm was 200 acres, produced a lot of butter, and had apple orchards. Rushmore Farm even appeared on local maps in 1856 and 1867. There was also a cider mill on the property at this time.
Between 1837 and 1843, many improvements were made to the farm. Records show costs for carpenters and masons working on the house, especially the kitchen and east room. They also built a wood house and root cellar, and repaired the corn house, cider mill, milk room, and barns. Stone walls and fences were also fixed.
Richard and Deborah's oldest son, Erasmus, worked on the farm his whole life but never owned it. The farm stayed with his mother until it passed to his brother Laban. Laban Coleman Rushmore lived in Catskill and ran the family's mill. Later, he lived on the farm with his mother, wife, and daughter.
Laban married twice. His first wife, Elvira Dean, was from one of the area's founding families. After Elvira died in 1877, Laban married Sallie Ann Stone. Sallie Ann continued to live on the farm after Laban's death until 1912, when she sold it to Stephen Harrison. She then moved to the village of Athens.
New Owners Over Time
Since the Rushmore family sold the farm in 1912, it has had nine different owners. The Stewarts bought the farm in 1914. In 1930, the property was 197 acres. The Stewarts sold it to the Deans in 1941, who owned it until 1950.
The farm then went to the Sterritts, who sold a large part of it to Frank E. Low in 1969. The Lows sold off some land, bringing the farm to its current size of 95 acres. Since then, the property has changed hands several times. Pamela Hobbs bought the house in 1971 and made repairs, including fixing the porch and rebuilding the old beehive oven. Michele Saunders-Laine bought it in 2004. The current owners, Evren Ay and Asli Ay, purchased the property in September 2010.
