Kinderhook: Children's Corner of the Hudson
Near Albany, New York
The village of Kinderhook takes its name from an old Dutch word meaning children's corner. Henry Hudson gave it that name in sixteen oh nine after he sailed past and observed Native American children playing along the bank. The Dutch settlers who followed him built farms here, and the village that grew up became one of the most historically layered small communities in the entire Hudson Valley.
Kinderhook was settled by the Dutch around sixteen forty and passed to English control in sixteen sixty-four when the English seized New Netherland. The village was chartered in eighteen thirty-eight, and throughout that period it developed the dense, handsome streetscape of Federal and Greek Revival buildings that still defines its center. The Columbia County Historical Society, one of the oldest county historical organizations in New York, is headquartered here and operates multiple historic properties within walking distance of one another.
The most famous person born in Kinderhook is Martin Van Buren, who came into the world on December fifth, seventeen eighty-two, in a house that also served as a tavern on the main road. The house itself was demolished in the nineteen forties, but the site is marked. Van Buren grew up speaking Dutch as his first language, making him the only president whose native tongue was not English. He became a lawyer, rose through New York Democratic politics as a founder of the Albany Regency political machine, served as secretary of state, vice president, and finally as the eighth president of the United States from eighteen thirty-seven to eighteen forty-one. He is buried in the village cemetery, a simple grave in the place where he was born.
The village is also close to the Luykas Van Alen House, one of the finest Dutch colonial farmhouses in the state, and the Lindenwald estate where Van Buren spent his retirement. Driving through Kinderhook is a rare chance to see three centuries of American history within a few square miles without a single traffic light.
