The Altamont Enterprise - Thursday, July 1,2004
SATURDAY
JULY 10
11 a.m. - 10 p . m .
BERNE TOWN PARK
Historic Displays and Exhibits
Old Fashioned Games - Draft Horse Team
Demonstrations of Home and Farm Crafts
Country Marketplace
Family Fun - Hayrides
- Food
Vendors
Fireworks - Live Music
Information: berneny.org or 872-1448
Kushaqua was built in 1885 by Walter Church overlooking the village of Altamont. Church had
purchases land leases and collected back rent from many farms in the Hilltowns before the anti-rent
wars killed the last vestiges of the feudal patroon system. Church died bankrupt. The Kushaqua was
later owned by the Sisters of Mercy, then sold in 1928 to the La Salette Fathers for a seminary. The
Peter Young Center, on Route 156, was later built on the site.
DELMAR
CHIROPRACTIC
Hill town history
How Walter Church prolonged
the Helderberg anti-rent movement
By Allen F.Deitz
In the early 1850's, Albany
Patroon Stephen Van Rensselaer
IV grew tired of his oftenunsuccessful attempts to collect
rent from the tenants of Rensselaerwyck's West Manor that
included the towns of Berne,
Knox, Rensselaerville, Bethlehem, Guilderland, and parts of
New Scotland. He had inherited
the land leases of many farmers
in these towns from his father,
Patroon Stephen Van Rensselaer
III, who had died in 1839. The
ensuring'Anti-Rent Wars had
taken their toll, and in 1853 he
offered the leases for sale to land
speculators.
Following the Revolutionary
War, many wealthy men in our
new nation became obsessed
with land speculation to purchase and display their material
wealth. Walter Church of the
wealthy Allegany County
Church family was one of those
interested in land ownership.
He had come to Albany in
1850 to work as a land agent for
the Van Rensselaers. In 1853,
with p a r t n e r Oscar Tyler
(former Albany County sheriff
and 1840's Berne resident), he
purchased the West Manor land
leases.
Stephen III had married the
third eldest daughter of General
Philip Schuyler, Margaret.
Walter Church was a greatgrandson of General Schuyler,
since his grandmother was
Angelica Schuyler Church, the
eldest daughter of General
Schuyler.
These family connections may
help explain why Church paid
only $210,000, when the estimated value of the West Manor
land leases was over $900,000.
Walter Stewart Church was
born and raised in western New
York as a son of the popular and
wealthy Judge Philip Church.
Judge Church owned over 2,000
acres on the Geneseee River,
developed the town of Angelica
(named for his mother), and
built the mansion Belvidere,
where Walter and his siblings
were raised.
In 1831, Walter spent one
te'rm in the engineering department at West Point, but was
discharged after being found
deficient in mathematics. Growing up in the home of a lawyer
and judge with large land
holdings, Walter Church learned
enough to start his own land
agency with his brother John.
He worked as a land agent in been warned of their arrival
Angelica from 1835 to 1850. with tin horns, also used by the.
Business letters he wrote during farmers to call field workers in
this period are at the State for meals.
Library Archives in Albany.
Two days later, with more
After 15 years of running his troops from Albany, the Warner
land agency, Church left 'family was ejected as Peter Ball
Angelica for Albany with the had been. When the legislature
intent of purchasing land leases learned of) the treatment of Ball
and collecting back rent from by Church, the 1805 law was
Rensselaerwyck, tenants. In repealed. Back rent was no
1805, a major court decision had longer due on farms that had
specified that payment of rents been purchased.
as a condition in sale was reWith this action of the legisquired of tenants. Church saw lature, along with the fact that,
an opportunity to collect thou- by 1880, many farmers in Rens-
/ " ) P P T/"""" P
*<J r L I V J C
I Respected by physicians.
I Trusted by patients.
Lee Masterson, DC
Tim Talmage, DC • Ronald Benner Jr., DC
439-7644
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^
You COULD LIVE TO BE 102 . . .
Over his last 10. years he would ride up
over the Helderberg hills where once
he would not dare to travel alone.
$
$
ARE YOU PREPARED FINANCIALLY?
CALL F O R A FREE CONSULTATION
$
$
with
Edgar Tolmie or Eric Tolmie
sands of dollars from farmers
who still owned back rent.
In his years at Angelica, he
had learned he could also
influence court decisions and
legislation needed to maintain
favorable laws to ensure thatrent would remain a condition of
sale. Between 1855 and 1870, he
brought over 2,000 lawsuits to
Albany courts against farmers in
arrears of rent owed on their
land.
He wined and dined judges
and legislators ,at his Albany
mansion, and paid for votes to
influence elections to ensure he
would be able to collect back rent
from the farmers of Rensselaerwyck Manor.
But his methods became
violent when the anti-rent movement became stronger. Peter
Ball, a Berne farmer, became the
leader of a movement for the
West Manor farmers. Church
had a posse eject Ball and his
family from their house during a
snowstorm in 1860. In 1865,
Church's National Guard Unit
repeated the deed when Ball still
refused to pay back rent on the
farm he owned.
Other such incidents took
place throughout West Manor,
including an 1866 attempt to
eject Peter Warner of Knox.
Sheriff Fitch and six deputies
un,der Church's direction were
beaten and chased back to
Albany by neighbors who had
selaerwyck Manor had purchased their farms, leases were
outstanding on only 2,113 farms,
down from nearly 12,344 at the
height of the patroon system in
the Rensselaerwyck Manor of
Albany, Rensselaer, and parts of
Columbia Counties.
This system of feudalism as a
living institution was destroyed.
Walter Church lived another
10 years. In 1885, he built the
hotel-resort "Kushaqua" above
Altamont. He also invested in the
cheese factory built by Thomas
Wood on his property near
Berne.
He never married, and had
only a few siblings still living
when he died in Albany in 1890.
Unable to pay off all the mortgages he owned, he died bankrupt.
•
He had a few close friends in
the political aristocracy of
Albany, and many enemies
among the farmers of Rensselaerwyck Manor. However,
over his last 10 years he would
ride up over the Helderberg hills
where once he would not dare to
travel alone.
For more1 on Walter Church
and how he used the 19thcentury New York land policy
to attempt forcible rent collection
in the Hilltowns of West Manor,
visit the web site of the Berne
Historical Project at www.Bernehistory.org.
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