By Mary Lou Nahas
For Capital Region Independent Media
It is sad to say goodbye to someone you have appreciated for years. That feeling can apply to houses as well as people. This fall we have to say goodbye to what is often referred to as the Burhan House in Cooksburg.
There are many different types of eulogies. Some of them are strictly meant to be a biography of the person’s life—simply a retelling of what the individual went through in life. Memories, impressions and experiences are all things that can be included—the major events of their lives, such as work or career, education.
I think this is a house that deserves a eulogy.
A 1996 Christmas card sent out by Barbara and George Dudley of Rensselaerville featured it. As Barbara wrote, “Last Spring, George singled out the Burhans house for sketching as an unusual example of Greek Revival architecture with its façade divided by three pilasters, rather than the usual, a more symmetrical four, with the front door to the left instead of centered.”
She calls it an “1840’s structure with a wing, which may be earlier.” The façade is on the left unit in the rough sketch pictured, which shows at least four states of later growth. We understand that the turn of the century owner, George Burhans, was a furniture maker with a shop near Cooksburg who added mills for cider and grain beside the creek across the road from the house. The mill dam generated enough power to run the mills and to supply electric to the house.
Joshua G. Borthwick, writing for the Catskill Examiner, between 1879 and 1884, stated, “As the Dutch were the first settlers of the state, and of the county, so we are convinced, after careful investigation, that they were the first settlers in town [Durham]. The precise time cannot be given, but it is clear that it was several years before the Revolution probably, about 1770 or 1772.”
The DeWitts and two other families came from Ulster County to establish Oak Hill; there were a number of other Dutch families who also came about that time. I think the Burhans, who lived in Oak Hill, Cooksburg and Potter Hollow, are part of that group.
The minutes of the local Reformed Dutch Church, pastored by Stephen Ostrander, Feb. 12, 1824, to March 1, 1831, document some of the connections. At first, Ostrander supplied the church as missionary from the Missionary Society of the Reformed Dutch Church. He was installed pastor on Sept. 9, 1824.
Mr. Ostrander’s entire pastorate at Oak Hill was attended with severe labor and great hardship, owing to the small congregation and correspondingly meager salary. The minutes appear to indicate that Mr. Ostrander had to work hard all the week (probably at farming) to support himself. Several times during this pastorate, an effort was made to establish another church in adjacent fields in order to obtain more financial support.
On Sept. 25, 1824, a committee was appointed to secure a lot of land and erect a house of worship in the southern part of the town of Durham. On June 25, 1825, the committee reported that they had agreed on the site, obtained the ground and raised nearly $400. It was recommended that the new church (when built) be united with Oak Hill and be under the care of the same Consistory.
On Feb. 9, 1828, it was decided to circulate two subscriptions lists as alternative proposals. The first for the continuation of the whole of the regular services at Oak Hill. The second to have half the services at Oak Hill and the other half at Potters Hollow, Preston Hollow, or in the town of Durham, depending upon which of these three subscribed the most. The largest of the two subscriptions was to be accepted. Apparently, this was not acted on and on April 7, 1830, the Consistory found they would be unable to support the whole of the Gospel service for the ensuing year.
Borthwick in his Sketch 29 writes about the “History of the Dutch Reformed Church of Oak Hill”: On June 30 , 1832, the Consistory met: The Rev. Peter Stryker, VDM, was present and acted as moderator of the meeting. They appointed Elder Henry Burhans, delegate to the meeting of the Classius of Schoharie, to be held at Middleburg July 3, 1832. They also chose John DeWitt and Henry Burhans elder for two years. They voted: “We will endeavor to support the Rev. Peter Stryker as our minister for three months from the second Sunday in June 1832. Mr. Stryker baptized two children and ordained the elders and deacons above mentioned and probably labored in the field through the summer, but no further record is made, and no further history of the church can be written, except that the building itself stood unoccupied for several years, and was finally torn down and used in the construction of a dwelling in the village of Oak Hill. The register contains the names of 178 members.”
I don’t know where the Burhans lived in Oak Hill. A number of Burhans were later buried in the Oak Hill Cemetery. By the side of Scott Patent Road in Potter Hollow there is also a Burhans family burying ground.
Rachel Stults, who owns the property in Potter Hollow, wrote “On the Beers map from 1866, it looks like my two houses belonged to Orry (Aaron) Burhans and his son William Winslow Burhans, respectively. The father of Orry Burhans was Cornelius Orry Burhans, who was buried in the Oak Hill (Cornelis) Burhans, a Sergeant in the Revolutionary Army.
“It looks like Cornelius Burhans moved here from Ulster County sometime around 1804 with his (second) wife Hannah (or Anna) Legg, built my house, and raised a family here. They were presumably of Dutch descent and members Dutch Reformed Church. l. Orry Burhans is buried in the Oak Hill cemetery. His wife was Rachel Conyes.
“My Greek Revival house on the corner must have been built sometime in the 1850s or early 1860s, but it’s not clear how long (if at all) the W.W. Burhans family lived there. W.W. Burhans married Isadora (Dora) Humphreys of Conesville in Potter Hollow in 1862. But census records have them in Coxsackie and in Durham (possibly Oak Hill) in the 1860s and ‘70s. Then they moved to Maryland in the 1890s.
Photos in the book “People Made It Happen Here” show the house in 1910, saying that “the turn of the century owner, George Burhans, was a furniture maker with a shop near Cooksburg who added mills for cider and grain beside the creek across the road from the house. The mill dam generated enough power to run the mills and to supply electric to the house.”
A picture of the Mill Dam “at George Burhans’ between Preston Hollow and Cooksburg on Route 145 shows George Burhans, Helen Burhans, George Palmer, Lou Palmer, Russell Palmer, Rose Palmer, Sylvester Palmer, Cora Burhans and Norwood Burhams.” Rosa M. Burhans was a teacher at the Cooksburg School.
Many people have been intrigued by this Burhans house.
Artist Daniel Pagdon of Windham said, “I painted this ruin in oils about a decade ago.”
Dale and Tina Utter photographed the house in 2013. By that time the house had deteriorated to the point that one could not go inside. Their photos of the trim above the door and on the top show how builders used the materials they had to create effects [sometimes called “make does”] that were popular in the period. The parts in the back may have been the older section and that the chimney had stuff like shells and antlers embedded in it.
Barbara Dudley wrote Jacob Burhans emigrated to America in 1660. Eliza Burhans, born in 1815 in “the little village surrounded by mountains,” was a six-generation descendant of Jacob. Her life in Rensselaerville was brief. When her mother died in 1820, five-year-old Eliza and her brother and sisters had to be dispersed among relatives. I don’t know that she lived in this house, but in the 1830s, she was pioneering in Illinois and ranching in California a decade later.
She spent four years as a matron of Sing Sing Prison, testing her theories that criminals could be improved by kindly treatment. She was influential in changing the types of reading materials available to women prisoners. She also advocated using music and kindness in the rehabilitation of female prisoners.
In 1848 when, amid controversy over her choices and beliefs, she moved to Boston and was for several months connected with the management of the Institution for the Blind. She became increasingly active in support of the Women’s Right movement, speaking at its 1858 Convention and voicing her theories of women’s superiority in a two-volume book, “Women and Her Era,” in 1864. Her treatise on women’s rights and gender equality was considered groundbreaking when it was first published in 1864. During the Civil War she was active in the Women’s Loyal National League, petitioned Congress to Abolish slavery, and volunteered as a nurse at Gettysburg. She wrote two novels, “The Ideal Attained” and “Eliza Woodson, or the Early Days of One of the World’s Workers.” She died from consumption in New York City at the age of 49.
I have never found mention of who designed or built the original structure, or even who specifically added to it over the years. I’ve heard from several folks who tried to buy the house over the years, both local folks and city folks.
I’ve been told that a bakery once operated out of the house, that a schoolteacher lived there and picked up a little boy who lived across the road and drove him to school daily. I’ve seen architectural features disappear from the house, seen the knot weed grow up around it, seen parts fall down and roofs cave in.
I’d love to hear more stories. It certainly is a house to be remembered.
