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A Home for All Reasons:The Blackledge-Kearney House - 26 September, 2003
By EVONNE COUTROS
STAFF WRITER
THE RECORD
It was once the home of a Revolutionary War veteran, then became a tavern, and in the early 1900s was used as a police station.
The Kearney House at the Alpine Boat Basin has had many owners and tenants in its 200-plus-year history, and now it has undergone another change.
A recent renovation has restored the four-room house in the Palisades Interstate Park to what historians believe to be its 19th century form.
"It's part of a group of early stone houses of Bergen County. It's one of the last of its kind - a Hudson riverfront homestead," said Eric Nelsen, director of the home for five of his 11 years as historical interpreter with the New Jersey section of the PIP. "The house is officially listed as the Blackledge-Kearney House of the state and national historic registers."
What makes the home special is who didn't own it, Nelsen said.
"Unlike most historic houses, this house was not the home of someone famous or a mansion," Nelsen said. "It was the home of ordinary Americans."
The home's original builder is not documented, but the home was likely built as a two-room house with an attic in the 1760s, Nelsen said. A wood-frame addition of two more rooms was built on its north side in the 1840s.
Revolutionary War veteran Daniel Vansciver and his wife, Maria Blackledge, were among the first documented occupants of the home in the early 1800s, Nelsen said. By 1823 the Kearney family had ownership and the building served as a tavern until 1870, when owner Rachel Kearney died at age 90. Shares of its ownership resulted in some legal wrangling after Kearney's death and by the late 1800s the home was purchased by the Yonkers and Alpine Ferry Co.
Rumors that the home was once the headquarters of Gen. Lord Charles Cornwallis during the Revolution persist and there are plaques on and near the house to that effect, but Nelsen said Cornwallis and his army likely landed 1.3 miles south of the house at Huyler's Landing.
The Palisades Interstate Park bought the land in 1907 and it eventually became a police station. A porch was added in 1909 by the park. The New Jersey State Federation of Women's Clubs turned the house into a museum in the late 1920s and it took on a caretaker. The house hasn't had a live-in tenant since the 1940s, Nelsen said.
Nelsen said its pre-upgrade condition was less than perfect.
"There were layers of paint over the original 1700s-era stone," Nelsen said. "That has been removed but took several weeks with several treatments. The stone is Palisades rock and was used to build the house in more or less the shapes the builders found them in. It's also built using Hudson River mud."
With its hand-hewn tulip poplar beams and 6-foot ceilings, the Blackledge-Kearney House speaks volumes about 18th century building materials, Nelsen said.
"The ceilings were low for heat conservation," Nelsen said. "There was a pot-belly stove at one time and the house was closer to the Hudson River banks than it is now. You can even see the ax marks made by someone two centuries ago to turn these trees into ceiling beams."
Neglect and vandalism took its toll for several decades until a 1989 renovation that cleaned up some of the house. But the renovation that began in April really did the trick, Nelsen said. Experts replaced mortar and removed dozens of layers of green and white paint smoothed over the clapboard over the years.
"We needed to get the clapboards down to the bare wood to see what needed to be repaired or replaced," Nelsen said. "Some of those clapboards may not have been down to bare wood from the day they left the mill."
Palisades Interstate Park photographer Anthony Taranto Jr. has documented stages of the work and a small section of the clapboard has been left untouched so future researchers can analyze the multiple layers of paint.
"Because the house is on the river it takes a beating," Nelsen said. "Part of what we love about the house is that it is a survivor. Mansions, pavilions, grist mills, and quarries have come and gone from this area and here it is - this one little four-room house with an attic that's still standing after more than 200 years."
The house is open to the public on weekends and holidays from noon to 5 p.m. or by appointment. For information call (201) 768-1360.
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