The donuts were worth the drive. Warm, right out of the fryer, sugary and delicious. I don’t think they survived the twelve-mile drive to Lindenwald, Martin Van Buren’s home in Kinderhook, New York. The apples were pretty good too.

Martin Van Buren was the first President born when the United States was actually the United States. He was also the first and only President who spoke English as a second language. His father ran a tavern. It was here that Martin was first exposed to political discussion, as politicians likely stopped for a pint on the way between New York City and Albany. Before our visit, I didn’t know much else about Martin Van Buren. When I was a kid, my Dad paid me 10 cents for each president I could list in order, and I often mixed up Van Buren and James Polk. After this visit, I will always remember that Martin Van Buren was president after Andrew Jackson.

Geographically, Kinderhook is about 20 miles South of Albany, and is in the area I think of as a dead zone between the Massachusetts border and the Hudson River. It is always longer between the two than I ever remember. I forget this stretch of I-90 exists until I am driving it, so it was interesting to finally get off the interstate and see some more of the countryside. Orchards dot the sides of the road. Tarrytown is over 100 miles away, but we passed many Rip Van Winkle and Ichabod Crane references as we drove through the area. We were a few miles beyond Kinderhook, and I was just beginning to think I needed to check the map, when we saw Lindenwald. Compared to the other homes we had seen along the way, there was no mistaking that this was the home of a President. The big sign helped too.

Lindenwald is an impressive house, but pretty odd and quirky. The building was built by one of Kinderhook’s most prominent citizens,

when Van Buren was a still a boy. He purchased it before he left the White House, and made many improvements and renovations. Later, when his son Smith moved in, he gave him the control and freedom to modify the house to accommodate his large family. Smith really modified it, adding running water, a bathroom, a furnace and a four-story brick tower. The house was painted yellow and looks fashionably Italian.

The President was something of a dandy, always well-dressed, and he decorated his home lavishly. A politician to the core, he was a part of the founding of the new Democratic Party. He conducted two (unsuccessful) presidential campaigns from here, and fashioned his home to be a center of politics in New York State. He imported extravagant wall paper from France depicting a mural-like hunting scene in the main hall. Taking up most of the hall is a large, gorgeous dining table with an intricate system for expansion. The table on display is a reproduction, and the tour focused a lot of time on it. This was one of the few old house tours were the discussion of the stuff in the house really illuminated the character of its owner.

Henry Clay, former Secretary of State, frequent presidential candidate, and US Senator visited Lindenwald and conferred around the table with Van Buren. The room he stayed in was as extravagant as all the other rooms, except under the window, the park service had what looked like a dog bed. The ranger giving our tour explained that this was where Clay’s slave slept, on this pallet on the floor – just a small cruelty of slavery magnified by its placement next to the grandly curtained canopy bed.

Van Buren’s father owned slaves. Early in his career, he opposed the abolition of slavery in order to preserve the union. After his campaign for a second term failed in 1840, and his bid for the Democratic nomination failed in 1844, Van Buren ran again as a member of the Free Soil party. Their motto implies an anti-slavery stance: “Free soil, free speech, free labor, and free men.” However, the party only sought to end the expansion of slavery into the territories.

Van Buren’s record on the First Nations was as poor as every other US President. He was hand-selected by Andrew Jackson to succeed him, and President Van Buren carried out his policies. One of these policies resulted in the Trail of Tears – the forced relocation of Cherokee and other tribes from the Southeast to West of the Mississippi. Thousands of people died on the forced march, but the cruel policy toward native peoples did not garner the same sense of outrage as slavery. While the tensions between slave states and non-slave states threatened to rip the country apart, it seems pretty much everyone was unified against the First Americans.

While Van Buren was a political operator, he held no grudges against his rivals. Henry Clay and Martin Van Buren were on opposite sides for most of their political careers, and yet Clay’s portrait graces the walls of Van Buren’s home. There were also portraits of men who influenced him throughout his life, including Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson.

Andrew Jackson’s portrait is everywhere in the house. It seemed like there was one in every room, except for the servant quarters. Clearly he admired the man and as his hand-picked successor, probably owed him a considerable political debt. In his bedroom, the Park Service displays the hickory walking stick Jackson gave to him after his election as President. The dark polished wood is studded with thirteen silver knobs. I immediately thought, “Oh! For the thirteen colonies.” Nope! The knobs are each engraved with a letter, and these letters spell out A-N-D-R-E-W-J-AC-K-S-O-N. The ranger told us that Van Buren cherished this gift. Over the mantle, hangs yet another portrait of Jackson. Van Buren died in this bed, and I imagined him laying there, looking over at his mentor as he passed away.

After a walk around the grounds and dinner in nearby Hudson, we made our way back to I-90. The drive was again full of Sleepy Hollow references. I wanted to stop at the cemetery when Van Buren was buried (we had missed it driving in), but it was getting really dark, very fast. Street lights were far and few between, and as we were driving under an old bridge, I thought it looked just like the sort of place the Headless Horseman would hang out. It was a little creepy, and creepier still when we pulled up next to the graveyard in the pitch dark. It was eight o’clock and not a soul was out. The town seemed vacant. Later I read that Washington Irving knew Martin Van Buren and had stayed at Lindenwald. Perhaps this is why I found the landscape so unnerving after dark.

The Park Service does a good job of using the house to talk about the President, his character, and his place in history. I don’t know enough about this phase of American History, and visiting his house was a great way to begin to learn more. The cider donuts were good too.