History for Fun, Profit, and Insight: Martin Van Buren House

In upstate New York, not too far south from Albany but on the opposite, eastern, side of the Hudson River, lies the former home of Martin Van Buren, the eight president of the USA. Today his home has been restored and is a National Historic Site. Tours are given by Park Rangers, and there is a also a film show and a bookstore. In my opinion, the site is well worth an hour and a half visit.

What follows are pictures of my visit, but you can see the official National Park Service site here:
https://www.nps.gov/mava/index.htm

Martin Van Buren was a single term president. He served from 1837-1841 and was the first US President to serve who was born after independence from Great Britain. Curiously, and as an ESL teacher writing in the midst of an anti-immigrant time, I find it fascinating that while native born, his first language was not English, but Dutch. Many readers will remember that New York was originally settled by the Dutch, only later becoming a British possession, and at this time there were still large Dutch speaking communities in New York State including much of the upstate New York, upper Hudson River, Albany and Rensselaer County areas. For most of his life and time in office, said the Ranger who gave the tour, Van Buren was embarrassed by the fact that when he became excited or agitated, his Dutch accent tended to emerge and become thicker.

Van Buren was born and raised in upstate New York. His father was a tavern owner and he was third of five children, although his mother had three other children, his two half-brothers and his half sister, from a previous marriage. The tavern was an important local meeting place and it was often used for political meetings. As one of the key issues in the USA during Van Buren's political career was slavery, and Van Buren's relationship and attitude to that institution has come under intense scrutiny, it is worth mentioning that his father did own a small number of slaves who worked and assisted in the tavern and Van Buren did grow up in a slave owning family at a time when slavery was legal in New York State.

In 1796 he was apprenticed to a lawyer, learned this trade, and in 1803 opened his own practice with his half-brother James Van Alen. In 1897, he married a cousin named Hannah and the couple had four children before she passed away 12 years later from tuberculosis. He did not remarry and raised four sons as a widower.

Van Buren became active in state politics, and played the political game well in order to get ahead and meet his objectives. In fact, his critics called him shiftless and devious for hiding his beliefs and shifting alliances with the factions that dominated the state's political scene. In 1812 he was elected to the New York State Senate and ultimately became New York State Secretary of State. Van Buren was instrumental in creating the Albany Regency, seen by many as a prototype for the political machines that came to dominate not just Albany but much of the country for years, and, in some locations, even to the present time.

In 1828, he ran for governor and won but resigned only 12 weeks later in order to take a post as Andrew Jefferson's Secretary of State. He had worked for years to support Jackson in this, Jackson's second bid for the presidency. He became an important part of Jackson's cabinet during a particularly tumultuous time in American politics.

In 1832, Van Buren became Jackson's vice-president.In 1836 he became president himself and served for a single term. Van Buren's party passed him over for re-election and James Polk ran for president in his stead in 1836, winning the next election. Van Buren retired, spent the next few years in Europe, and then returned to live much of the rest of his life at this mansion in upstate New York.

The key events during his four years in office including avoiding war with Canada during a dispute over the Maine-New Brunswick border, controversy on whether or not to admit Texas into the Union (he was opposed as they were a slave state), and an economic crisis. Despite being largely against slavery (although his own life showed an ambivalent attitude towards the institution at times. He had owned slaves at one point until slavery became illegal in New York in 1827.

While President, Martin Van Buren was against slavery but was more interested in preserving the union. Some of his actions in this area are troubling, including supporting the sending the slaves who rose up and took over the Amistad to Cuba, where they had been heading as slaves, instead of working for a resolution where they would be free. He also was the President who oversaw the removal of the Cherokee and Seminole Indians from their homelands (the long, draining cost of the Seminole War was one problem in his Presidency.)