Allegany County Land Agent from 1835 to 1850, and Albany Owner of

Rensselaerwyck Manor Tenant Land leases from 1853 to 1890

Background of New York's Land System

“The ‘Patriot’ aristocracy, led by the Van Rensselaer, Livingston, and Schuyler families, developed most of their holdings in the Hudson Valley on a leasehold basis. Leasehold tenure and the landed aristocracy were two colonial legacies that lasted well into the nineteenth century…Phillip Schuyler [Walter Church’s great-grandfather], leased lands in Saratoga County and near the site of Utica.” 14 Schuyler usually leased his farms for three lives; upon the death of the third person named as lessee, the farm reverted to the landlord.

To understand the requirements under which farmers of Albany, Rensselaer and Columbia Counties lived when Walter Church arrived in 1850, the following narrative explains their plight. Many were Europeans who were fleeing from landlord abuses only to fall into the land policy of New York.

“A brief description of the manor of Rensselaerwyck will illustrate some of the features of the land system. From the days of the first patroon, the Van Rensselaer family ordinarily did not sell their lands. At first, they offered short-term leases, but in the eighteenth century they adopted “durable” leases. These “durable” leases were in reality freehold estates in perpetuity to which were attached certain restraints on alienation and the payment of perpetual rent. In the lowlands townships of Albany County the leases usually called for an annual payment of ten bushels of winter wheat per hundred acres, four fat hens, and three days’ service with a team of horses or oxen. Other obligations were more burdensome. When a tenant sold his farm, he had to pay one fourth of the money to the patroon, or, in some leases, an extra year’s rent. In addition, the patroon reserved the right to seize property for nonpayment of rent, the right to cut timber, and all milling and mining rights. The tenants were also responsible for all taxes.” 15 Details of leases often varied from manor to manor.

His Purchase of the Van Rensselaer Land Leases

After 15 years of running his Angelica Land Agency, Walter Church left Angelica for Albany in 1850 to work first as a land agent for the Van Rensselaers, and then in 1853, with his partner Oscar Tyler, a one-time Albany County Sheriff, purchased the West Manor land leases from Patroon Stephen Van Rensselaer IV, who had put his lands up for sale to land speculators. ( Oscar Tyler lived in Berne next to William Reinhart’s Hotel in the 1840’s, according to Thomas Emmett Willard in a letter to the Altamont Enterprise printed September 30, 1898.) The Patroon had grown weary of trying to collect back rent from the farmers who had come to believe from recent court decisions they no longer owed rent on land they now owned. Church also became a land agent for William Van Rensselaer’s East Manor ( Rensselaer County and parts of Columbia County). William, brother of Stephen IV, also saw no future in the business, and after a few years moved from his Manor house at West Sand Lake to Rye, N.Y., where he lived out his life. Both Stephen and William had inherited their lands from the will of Stephen Van Rensselaer III (known as the “good Patroon” who often let rents go unpaid when tenants fell on hard times). His will, however, called for all unpaid rents to be collected, an unexpected blow to the farmers.

Stephen III had married the third eldest daughter of General Philip Schuyler, Margaret Schuyler. Family connections may have played a large part in the purchase of the West Manor leases by Walter Church for the unusually low price of two hundred and ten thousand dollars, although the estimated value was over nine hundred thousand dollars. He did even better when he later bought the East Manor. In 1861, Church bought out Tyler and took on two new partners, Cagger and Kidd, who were part of the Democratic power structure in Albany headed by chairman Dean Richmond. 16

An examination of Col. Church before a legislative committee in 1862 provides an insight into his into his method of conducting his business of rent collection from the tenant farmers of West Manor. In his testimony he stated: “My business has been collection of rents and selling out of the reservations on leases of the Van Rensselaers. I made purchase of Stephen Van Rensselaer of all his leases in the towns of Knox, Berne, Rensselaerville and Westerlo, and part of New Scotland, Guilderland and Bethlehem. They were what we termed leases in fee [“we” probably included his partner Oscar Tyler]. That was in 1853. I purchased at from 50 to 60 cents on the dollar.”

“How reached? By estimating the arrears accumulated by each lease and valuing the reservations by estimating wheat at $1.00, fowls at a shilling, each day’s service with carriage and horses at $2.00 each day, and then taking a capital sum the interest of which at 6 percent would produce a revenue equal to the annual rent at the prices I have named. There was not interest entered into the estimate.” 17

This formula transposed the usual non-cash rent of wheat, fowl, and days of servitude into an all cash annual rent amount due. The word estimate in that formula helps explain the increase in anger expressed by the farmers when they learned the details of his testimony. The Town of Berne Historical Society has possession of the 1856 ledger of Walter Church for the rents due and payments made by tenant farmers in the Town of Berne for the years 1854, 1855, and 1856. Most entries are made as of June 1 of each year. Occasionally, the words “paid in full” appear. One such entry was made for Moses Patten. Entries for nine Dietz tenants are included. They are: John Miner, Paul, Christian, William, John Jr., John B., Margaret, Jacob, and Issac. An entry for Peter Ball, who became West Manor’s anti-rent leader, is also there. The story of how his life was affected by Walter Church will be told on later pages.

His Albany Residences and Land Offices

According to Albany City Directories, addresses of Walter Church’s living quarters and business offices during his years in Albany were: 1854, Walter S. Church – bds. City Hotel, Church and Tyler land office, 75 State Street; 1857, Walter S. Church and Tyler (Oscar) land agency, 452 Broadway, house 11 N. Pearl; 1860, Walter S. Church land agency, 452 Broadway, house 11 N. Pearl; 1868, 110 State, house 112 do. [same building]. His obituary in the December 13, 1890 issue of the Altamont Enterprise said of his North Pearl Street home, “His hospitable residence was the counsel chamber of the leading men of his party in the state and nation. Some of the most important events connected with the democratic party in those days were conceived and adopted in the reception rooms of Mr. Church’s palatial mansion.”

A brief description of his last location at 110 State Street is given by Attorney J. D. White of Altamont. According to Arthur Gregg, “probably no man alive today knew Church better.” 18 Church referred many cases of disputed rent amounts to White when he was a young lawyer. According to White, on one visit to Colonel Church’s home, “I knocked on the door of Colonel Church’s mansion, 100 State Street, and was shown in. The servant took me to the gorgeous room where Church was still lying in bed. He said, ‘there are the books. Go down to the parlor and figure away.’” Although he died bankrupt with mortgages he could not meet, Church apparently lived very well in his mansion where he wined and dined influential men such as Commodore Vanderbuilt, Honorable Horatio Seymour, Roscoe Conkling and many political and judicial Albany officials to obtain laws and favorable court rulings allowing him to legally pursue the collection of back rent owed by tenant farmers. “Church began to move in the best political circles. As the new owner of a great estate, he was carefully devising means of turning his speculative investment to vast profits, on the assumption that legislators, judges, and even governors could be bought.” 19 The tactics he used to collect back rent from the tenant farmers made him a despised man in the hilltowns of Albany County. “We hated Church like pisin,” said the wife of an Anti-renter. “It finally got so he was scared to come up here ‘cause they shot through his plug hat, and another time his buggy seat.” 20

Copperhead Church Becomes Colonel Church

Another reason for the unpopularity of Walter Church was his strong support for the southern states during the Civil War. Col. Silas W. Burt, in his “Memoirs” published by the State Education Department in 1903 stated, “the prominent representative of this (Copperhead) element at Albany was Colonel Walter S. Church, whose audacity and skill in dialects and caustic invective were remarkably exasperating.” 21 Copperhead was the name of an organization of Democrats against the abolition of slavery in the south, and Albany had a strong faction made up of many of those bought by Church to ensure lawsuit and court decisions favorable to his quest to collect unpaid rents from tenant farmers.

Even more irritating to the farmers, many of who were off fighting the Civil War, was that in 1864, Walter Church got himself appointed a Colonel of the 25 th Regiment of the National Guard. He showed no interest in using his military force for the cause of the Union, but rather to frighten the tenant farmers into paying back rent. In 1865, he took his regiment into the hilltowns, without permission of the Governor, and directed raids against many tenants forcing them to sign and pay while a gun was held on them. Having bought much food and liquor with them, the troops spent many days carousing. It was on this raid that Peter Ball of Berne with his family and furniture was ejected out into the road. This was the second time this Anti-rent leader was treated in this manner. The first time had been five years earlier.

Colonel Church Ejects Berne Anti-Rent Leader Peter Ball

In attempting to analyze the motives for the actions of Walter Church at Albany, author Helene Phelan wrote that he “began at the age of forty to discover, as had his grandfather [ John Barker Church], that money could buy a place in politics. He was confident he could make forced settlement of back rents and flooded both East and West Manors of Rensselaerwyck with hand bills which announced he was going to sue immediately and indiscriminately for all rents in arrears. He claimed he had waited until all questions of title had been settled. Many farmers discouraged gave into his challenge.” 22 His hand bills stated, “now decide whether you will settle your rents without costs, or purchase your releases at an honest rate, or be fooled by politicians, pay heavy bills of cost, and twenty-five percent additional for your soil.” 23

“At this point, many farmers compromised and purchased their farms or made payments again on their back rent. However, one farmer did not give in. In 1852, after Lawrence van Deusen died, Peter Ball of Berne became the leader of the Helderberg farmers, willing at any cost to see justice done. He refused to pay rent, and told Church he owned his land, not leased it. Church brought court action against Ball, and by using his agents to pay for the election of a certain judge, he won the 1858 Supreme Court case. By a process of double talk the court decided that the land was sold, but that in 1805 the courts had specified payment of rents as a condition in sale and therefore Ball owed Church money. The farmers then petitioned the legislature to overturn the 1805 law and waited for a decision. Knowing what the verdict was to be, Church had bought the East Manor lands of Rensselaer and Columbia counties from William Van Rensselaer. He now owned the leases of both the East and the West Manors.” 24

But since the court decision did not help bring in as much money as Church expected, he resorted to violence. On February 17, 1860, a cold, snowy winter day, he took an organized posse from Albany to Berne and forcibly dispossessed Peter Ball, his wife, their children, one sick daughter, and an old Black woman known as Sook, throwing household goods, fuel supply, and cattle feed into the highway. The neighbors, carefully avoiding a confrontation, waited until the posse left and helped move the family back into their house. 25 Euretha Stapleton, Berne Town Historian in 1977, wrote in Our Heritage, “In 1865, the Albany Board of Supervisors received a bill of over $6,000 for the services of the National Guard Unit Church used in this raid. The State refused to pay, and Church had to pay himself for such use of his Guard Unit.” Similar events also took place in the East Manor under Church’s direction.

It was reported in the legislature that Church had raised his demands of Ball from $150 to $900. This was enough to pass a repeal of the 1805 law. 26

Forcible Rent Collections Come To An End

Between 1855 and 1870, Walter Church had a great deal of success bringing numerous legal actions against farmers. 27 But with the action of the Legislature, and the fact that by 1880 many farmers in Rensselaerwyck had purchased their farms, leases were outstanding on around 2,113 farms, down from the nearly 12,344 at the height of the Van Rensselaer patroon system. 28 Near the time his life was near an end, the forcible collections dwindled. In 1885, Colonel Church spent $100,000 to build “Kushaqua,” a large resort hotel on the hill overlooking the village of Altamont that could accommodate 175 guests. It was an investment, but also a monument to himself. Several influential guests dined there, including a governor of New York. When Walter Church died in 1890, the hotel was sold for only $15,250. 29 Never a very profitable resort, it became a Country Club, and then was remodeled to become La Salette seminary in the 1920s.

In 1878, Col. Church was an investor in the cheese factory built by Thomas Wood on his property just outside of Berne. 30 Attorney John D. White said of his last years, “he was one of the finest men to deal with I ever knew, trusting anyone more than fair, if one were on the level with him. Toward the last years of his life, he traveled freely over those same hills where formerly his life was threatened and many a bitter anti-renter finally became his close friend.” 31 His legacy as a rent collector, however, was an extremely unpopular one.

Colonel Church Dies Bankrupt

Colonel Church died on December 8, 1890, in Albany after a year-long illness. St. Peter’s Church conducted the burial. “In his most active period, between 1855 and 1870, he had doggedly pursued the farmers, clogging the courts with as many as 2,000 suits without the loss of a major case. The bitter struggle which was longest and hardest in Rensselaerwyck where it started, cost Albany County an estimated million dollars in lost trade, and men like Ball, Witbeck, and Lansing were pauperized. Feudalism as a living institution was destroyed. Fewer and fewer names were called each year on rent day [January 1]. Most landlords had settled immediately after the adverse decision of 1852, when the Van Renssealers turned their estates over to hungry speculators. By 1880, the majority of the leases had passed into the hands of the farmers.” 32

Walter Church never married. However, Henrietta Church was executrix of his will. She was named in the will as his adopted daughter, and she continued the litigation he had started. “She brought or defended a hundred and twenty-five suits,” according to Judge Rosendale. She executed his will with the aid of attorney George L. Steadman of Altamont, who also received some of his leases, but never acted on them. Several people from Allegany County came to Albany to get what they could on loans the Colonel had obtained in western New York in earlier years. William Duke, Charles S. Whitney, and Miron Duke hired attorney John D. White to foreclose for them. Most of the unadjusted leases in the estate at the time were acquired by John Hungerford, who had been principal agent for Colonel Church. 33