The House That Is to Become a Hotel

The proposal to convert 620 Union Street into a hotel, with a new modern wing added on to the wing constructed in 1906 when the house was the Hudson Home for the Aged, has inspired Gossips to provide more information about the house and its occupants during the tenure of its original owners, Robert and Sally McKinstry.

According to his biography in Franklin Ellis's History of Columbia County, Robert McKinstry was born in Columbia County and "came to Hudson while a boy." He found work as a clerk for Abner Hammond and later married the boss's daughter Sally. The couple were married on September 30, 1818, by Rev. John Gabriel Gebhard at the Reformed Dutch Church in Claverack. Marriage records indicate that Robert McKinstry was "of the firm Hammond and McKinstry." When they married, Sally was 20, and Robert was 24.

When the house was built in 1835, Robert and Sally had been married for seventeen years, and they had no children. In his biography of Sally McKinstry, Ellis suggests "the fact that she had no children of her own to occupy her time and attention" was one of the factors, along with "the natural benevolence of her character," that prompted her to found the Hudson Orphan Asylum, which opened in 1845. The Ellis biography of Sally McKinstry recounts that it was her father, Abner Hammond, "who gave a suitable site for an asylum building." That building, which stood at the corner of State and North Seventh streets, was demolished last year.

Photo: Stephen McKay

Robert and Sally's house, when it was built, had a spacious ground level kitchen, which local historian Ruth Piwonka suggests is a clue that the McKinstrys designed the house with the idea of using it as a boarding house. On the topic, Piwonka writes:

Boarding houses emerged in the nineteenth century American cities. They offered a place to live and lodge, to make acquaintances and friends. Perhaps the communal Shaker lifestyle spurred their development in northeastern United States. Further, the McKinstry's Universalist church affiliation must have also contributed an intellectual character to the household.

Since its organization in 1817, Robert McKinstry had been an active member of the Board of Trustees of the Universalist Church in Hudson. He donated $20,000 to the church, which enabled the church building at 448 Warren Street to be constructed. The building was completed in 1869.

Photo courtesy Historic Hudson

Evidence that Robert and Sally McKinstry maintained their home as a boarding house is found in census records. The 1840 federal census indicates that the Robert McKinstry household was made of of "15 Free White Persons." The federal census in 1840 only indicated gender and age range (under 5, 5 to under 10, 10 to under 15, 15 to under 20, and then upward in ten year increments). In the McKinstry household, there were 5 persons under 20, 8 persons between 20 and 49, one between 60 and 69, and one between 70 and 79--the latter two both being women. 

Ruth Piwonka quotes a charming reminiscence of life in the McKinstry household, by Amanda Collins, who was a resident in 1847.

Fearing I might be lonely [Sally McKinstry] kindly offered me a seat in her own room and to sit in Aunt Sally's room ... [to] witness daily the living panorama of all sorts of people on all sorts of errands was an event in one's life not soon to be forgotten. While every other part of the house was attended to and kept in perfect order and neatness in this room only disorder and discomfort reigned supreme. …. To recall this room is to remember a comfortless bed folded away in the daytime into a pine wardrobe, an old settee covered with faded calico, a few chairs, a stove, a square table in the corner with an accumulation of books papers and writing materials ... devoted to a voluminous correspondence … for aid for her Orphan Asylum. 

In 1850, the federal census began listing the name, age, and occupation of everyone in the household. That year, the McKinstry household totaled 22. Some of the residents appear to be McKinstry relatives. There's Rebecca McKinstry, aged 63, who might be an unmarried sister or cousin, and Frederick McKinstry, aged 28, possibly a nephew, Susan McKinstry, also 28, assumed to be his wife, and James McKinstry, aged 6, probably their son. The household included a number of single or widowed women--Mrs. Weeks, aged 65; Jane Pollock, aged 21; Mary Welsh, aged 18; Catherine Dorsey, aged 28, and her daughter, Mary, aged 12; and Mary Prescott, aged 56. Charles Butler, aged 28, whose occupation is given as "Traveller," lived at the McKinstry house with his wife, Harriet, who was 26. Three clerks lived with the McKinstrys: Pierre Stickles, aged 16; Peter Brusie, aged 40; and Charles Morgan, aged 16. There were also two teachers: Daniel Materbrey, aged 24; and R. A. Stidiford, aged 25. 

The family living with the McKinstrys in 1850 of greatest interest (to Gossips, at least) is Allen Rossman, aged 35, whose occupation is given as "Merchant," his wife, Mary, aged 30, and their daughter, Anna, aged 14. Anna Rossman would grow up to become Anna R. Bradbury, the author of History of the City of Hudson, New York. 

In 1851, the year the very first Hudson city directory was published, Robert McKinstry is listed as having a hardware store at 229 Warren Street (now 617 Warren Street), just around the corner from his home at 11 South Seventh Street. That address is evidence that the main entrance to the house was originally from Seventh Street not Union Street.

The 1851 city directory lists a McKinstry living as a boarder at 11 South Seventh Street who wasn't there the year before when the census was taken: Justus McKinstry. The building where Robert McKinstry's hardware store was located no longer exists, having been replaced sometime in the 1930s by the Art Deco building that was originally Woolworth's and is now CVS.

Still from Odds Against Tomorrow, 1959

In 1860, two years before Sally McKinstry's death, twenty people made up the McKinstry household. Only a few were the same. Peter Brusie, the clerk, was still there, as were Allen and Mary Rossman, along with their granddaughter, Mary Bradbury, Anna Bradbury's first born child, then just three months old. In 1860, Sally and Robert were both in their 60s, and the household now included a cook, Matilda Mays, and two servants, Betsy Harlow and Catharine Hickey. 

Where Anna and her husband, Jabez Bradbury, were living in 1860 is not known. In 1865, three years after Sally McKinstry's death, the New York State census shows Allen Rossman, whose occupation is now given as "Druggist," as head of his own household made up of his wife, Mary, Anna and Jabez Bradbury, and their two children, Mary, aged 5, and Allen, aged 3. The city directory for 1866 indicates that Rossman was in partnership with Augustus McKinstry, nephew of Robert McKinstry. Their drugstore was located at 329 Warren Street (now 609 Warren Street), and Allen Rossman's home was located on Prospect Avenue. The recently restored 1871 map of Hudson in the History Room of the Hudson Area Library reveals that this was Allen Rossman's house, located across the street from what is now Columbia Memorial Hospital.

The 1870 federal census shows Anna and her two children, named after her parents, still living with Allen and Mary Rossman, but her husband, Jabez Bradbury, is no longer part of the household. 

In 1910, Anna Bradbury, then 72 years old, moved back to the house where she had lived as a child. By that time, the house was the Hudson Home for the Aged. She lived there until her death in 1918.

COPYRIGHT 2020 CAROLE OSTERINK