New York State
Crailo
Crailo State Historic Site (Fort Crailo), 9 ½ Riverside Ave., Rensselaer, NY. (Across the Hudson River from Albany). This is a fortified house which was built in 1707 by Hendrick Van Rensselaer. He and his wife Catharina Van Brugh were ancestors of Dowie. Today the house is a museum.
Historic Cherry Hill
Historic Cherry Hill is a mansion in Albany, NY. It was built in 1787 for Philip Van Rensselaer. He wasn’t our direct ancestor, but he was fairly closely related to us. He was the nephew of our ancestors Catryna Van Rensselaer and her husband Johannes Ten Broeck. The mansion is at 523 1/2 South Pearl Street. It is open in the late spring, summer, and fall.
Ten Broeck Mansion
The Ten Broeck Mansion in Albany was built in 1797 by Abraham and Elizabeth (Van Rensselaer) Ten Broeck. They weren’t our direct ancestors, but both were related to us. Abraham was a second cousin of Peter Ten Broeck, who was Dowie’s great-great-grandfather. The Mansion is at 9 Ten Broeck Place, Albany.
Billiou-Stillwell-Perine House
The Billiou-Stillwell-Perine House is the oldest building on Staten Island, and one of the oldest surviving buildings in New York State. It was built about 1663 by Pierre Billiou, an immigrant from the French part of Flanders. He is an ancestor of Edgar B. Grier. (One of the Billiou descendants changed their surname to Boileau, which was Edgar’s mother’s maiden name.) The house is at 1476 Richmond Road on Staten Island.
Massachusetts
Historic Deerfield
During the late seventeenth and all of the eighteenth century there were a series of wars between the British and the French. The War of the Spanish Succession, known as Queen Anne’s War in North America, was one of those wars. In February 1704, during that war, a group of French soldiers and Native Americans traveled south from Montreal and attacked the town of Deerfield, in the English colony of Massachusetts Bay. Forty-seven English colonists were killed and 112 were taken captive. Dowie’s 6th great-grandfather, Samuel Carter and his family were living in Deerfield at that time. Samuel was away from home when the attack occurred. His son Thomas was killed in the attack. The rest of the family was taken captive. Samuel’s wife Hannah and his daughters Mary and Hannah were killed on the journey to Montreal. The 4 oldest sons arrived in Canada. Three of them eventually married and remained there. Ebenezer was stolen away by merchants, and returned to his father. Samuel left Deerfield and settled in Norwalk in 1705.
Deerfield is in central Massachusetts, about 35 miles north of Springfield. Some of the houses in the village are part of a living history museum called Historic Deerfield. A visitor can walk around the village for free, but there is an admission fee to tour the houses that are part of Historic Deerfield.
New Jersey
The Hermitage
The Hermitage is in Ho-Ho-Kus, a village in northeastern New Jersey, near Paramus. In 1767 Ann Bartow DeVisme purchased the property and lived there with her five children. Ann was Dowie’s third great-grandmother, and Ann’s daughter Catherine DeVisme was Dowie’s great-great grandmother. Ann’s oldest daughter, Theodosia Bartow and her husband James Prevost lived in another house on the property. James Prevost was an officer in the British army. During the American Revolution Major Prevost left to fight on the British side in Georgia and South Carolina. Theodosia invited George Washington to stay in the house, which he did for four days. Another frequent visitor was Aaron Burr, who was an officer in the American army. In 1779 James Prevost died of yellow fever while stationed in Jamaica. After that, Aaron Burr courted Theodosia. They were married in the house on July 4, 1782, in a double ceremony that also included the marriage of Catherine DeVisme and Dr. Joseph Browne, a surgeon in the American army.
Today the property is owned by the New Jersey Parks department. The house is a museum, and is open for tours on weekends. Their website has the details. The “About” section of the website also has more historical information about the house.
The Old Baptist Parsonage, Scotch Plains, NJ
Dowie’s great-grandfather Rev. Thomas Brown was the minister of the Baptist Church in Scotch Plains, New Jersey for twenty years. During that time he and his wife had ten children. The church had to expand the parsonage to accommodate his growing family. The parsonage is at 547 Park Avenue. Scotch Plains is about ten miles west of Elizabeth, NJ., and 35 miles from Ho-Ho-Kus. (See The Hermitage, above.) As far as I know, the parsonage is still in use so it is not open to the public, but it can be seen from the street. The church was built many years after Rev. Thomas Brown’s death, so he wouldn’t have preached in that building. However, several of our ancestors are buried in the churchyard, including Isaac Halsey (1741-1788) and his wife Rebecca (Garthwaite) Halsey (1744-1788).
Pennsylvania
Deep Run Presbyterian Church
The first two or three generations of the Grier family in America worshipped at the Deep Run Presbyterian Church, and they are buried in the churchyard. The church is in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, north of Philadelphia. The address is 16 Irish Meetinghouse Road, Perkasie, PA.
The Grier School
The Grier School is in Birmingham, Pennsylvania.