Philipsburg Manor & Sunnyside

Showing us the plants they used for medicine

Today we are headed to New York City to stay there for a week. Even though I am not from New York, I was not really excited about the trip because I been to NYC many times before so I knew what I would expect there. I thought we would just drive to the city but we stopped at museums along the way, which was not really exciting for me either. I just wanted to get to our destination so I can sleep all day.
The first museum we stopped at was Philipsburg Manor in Sleepy Hollow, NY. Now, I have heard of the Sleepy Hollow story many times in my life because it is so popular, but I never read the story nor was I familiar with the author as much.

Philipses' Home

The Phhilipsburg Manor was a significant colonial-era miling and trading complex owned by Dutch merchants, the Philipse family. They owned over 52,000 acres of land and were among the wealthiest in the 17th and 18th centuries. They were also one of the largest slaver-owning families, something I did not like. We learned during the tour that they owned at least 23 slaves who worked on the farm. They were slave traders and slave owners and they were only concerned about making money. Although in the 1750 slavery
was legal in 13 of northern American colonies, slaveholder rarely owned 2 or three slaves. So for a family to own this many slaves  was rather strange to me, but I guess they needed that many to tend the 52,00 acres of land the Philipses owned. I never knew that there was legalized slavery in upstate New York, especially near the Hudson River. But I guess it would have been easy to transport slaves to new York along the Hudson River. During the tour, we explored the  home of the Philipse family. I really do not see the point as to why they owned this home and all this land here if they were always down in Manhattan and never  lived here. The slaves usually lived in the basement

Philip's bedroom

of the home, where they produced cheese products since Manhattan depended on Westchester for dairy. The diary was kept in the basement of the house to keep it cool. The lower kitchen was were slave women cooked meals and the slaves even lived there. The upper kitchen was rarely used, meals were always cooked in the lower kitchen then brought up to the upper kitchen to keep it warm. What took me aback was that 150 tenant farmers borrowed farmland from Philips, I wasn't expecting him to tend 52,000 acres of farmland. There was just something about this family that I really did not like and I can't quite put my finger on it. I get the feeling that these people were really greedy and only cared about making money, I mean they never left a will to anyone when they passed away and I found that really bizarre. And I am unsure as to how they treated their slaves. I remember when the tour guide said that a Hollywood actress wanted to buy the home in the 1950's and and turn the place into an apartment complex which I found to be really stupid. I don't know why people like to destroy things that have significant historical importance. We should help preserve our history, not destroy it. 

Washington Irving's cottage

Then we took a lunch break after visiting Philipsburg Manor, and we headed to Sunnyside to tour Washington Irving's home. I really liked the house, it was simple and not over-flamboyant even though Irving was a fairly wealthy man. I liked how he used the home (if that makes sense ha-ha). He purchased this cottage in 1835 and hired George Harvey to remodel the place by adding Dutch gables and other romantic architectural features. Irving believed that nature compromises a home, so he wanted to add, which was a form of romanticizing of the land. He was part of the Romantic movement in the mid 19th century America which appreciated the natural landscape and careful placement of architecture to reflect nature. I really liked this. You can almost feel this vibe of romanticism with the land when you step foot in his cottage. I thought the house was really beautiful and I think this one has been my favorite out of all the homes we visited. But at this point, I just really wanted to get to NYC so I can relax. And I was going to eat some of my leftover food I bought but Andor threw it away...I was upset.

Irving's Bedroom