Touring the Martin Van Buren Home

[TrueTomHarley]

 

“I Martin Van Buren, of the town of Kinderhook, county of Columbia, state of New York, once governor of the state, more recently president of the United States, but for the last and happiest years, farmer of my native town…” Thus begins the will of Martin Van Buren and I thought well of the man for having his priorities straight.

I confess I didn’t know much about Martin Van Buren till a recent tour of his home in upstate New York, near the Hudson. More or less, I had assigned him to the list of ‘duds’ who were presidents from Andrew Jackson up to Abraham Lincoln. Upon my excepting Van Buren, the guide let my observation about duds stand, with the observation that no president served more than one term during those years, since “the challenges leading up to Civil War were thought to be unaddressed by those presidents.” It is not for a National Historical Society tour guide to suggests that former chiefs-in-state were turkeys, and I was content to not be dismissed altogether. As it was, Van Buren lost his run for a second term to a turkey, because a depression allowed his enemies to characterize him, a tavern owner’s son educated in a one-room schoolhouse, as the aristocratic high-rolling “Martin Van Ruin,” but the turkey lived only 30 days before succumbing to pneumonia, which is, in fairness, a little too soon to definitively label him a turkey,  but his Vice President successor (whose identity escapes me—someone else will have to get on it) was a fellow who was never imagined for the Presidency and is more aptly considered a genuine turkey. Even @James Thomas Rook Jr., who never tires of heralding the MEN who made the country GREAT, restrains his enthusiam of these ones.

The opening film they show you at the visitor center of the Van Buren home is among the most compact language-wise that I have seen, with every line conveying a solid and interesting fact. He was the eighth president of the United States, and the first to be actually born in the country. He was the founder of the first political party, which in time became the Democratic Party. Until then, it was until then expected that men would come and go as independent gentlemen and would settle their differences unbuttressed by political ‘party.’ In fact, some of them settled their differences through duel, a favorite technique of Andrew Jackson, whom Van Buren served as Vice President before running for the chief office himself. Aaron Burr famously plugged Alexander Hamilton in a duel, and the guide confirmed as probably true what I had heard—that Hamilton loathed the idea of taking a man’s life and so fired into the air, a strategy not employed by his rival.

The house has a curiously cobbled feel to it, notwithstanding what my cousin (the one who restores original Mustangs) matter-of-factly observed, that there are only so many ways in which you can add rooms to a house. The house did indeed undergo major expansion under the direction of a Van Buren son, and the by-that-time former president writes that he is amused to see what his heir will do with it. Perhaps the feature most ‘clunky’ is the major dining room, which accommodates 18 chairs, and more closely resembles a widened hallway, with no windows, with exterior lighting only on one end and sometimes on the other if the door is opened. There is a chandelier overhead and the guide explained that she would normally have activated it, but an employee had accidentally taken the remote home recently and it had not yet come returned. This led me to do my bit for history and suggest that Van Buren likely never used the remote to prevent just that catastrophe. The cobbled look dissipates once you go to the top floor, where massive bedrooms surround a spacious common area. One room had strewn on the floor toys of the era, which added to the impression that Van Buren did indeed most enjoy his latter days in his large home, surrounded with children and grandchildren.

There was some sort of a survey form one could fill out at tours’ end, supposedly for some special occasion, but possibly routine. I don’t bother with that sort of nonsense when it is business, since most often they are trying to ascertain just how little service they can get away with until customers scream or, worse, bolt. This one I filled out gladly, however, and dropped it in the mail.

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

If you want a profound experience, may I suggest touring the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC which will take several days, or the Muppet Museum in Leland. Mississippi, which will take several days driving.

[TrueTomHarley]

I shouldn't like this, James. I have gotten into trouble with people I respect when I have liked your stuff.

But as Patton said: "I love it. God help me, I do love it."

I just had to quote Patton. Change the 'love' to 'like' and it is spot on.

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

I suspect George C. Scott did Patton ...... better than Patton, did Patton.