Schuyler Estate: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Saratoga National Historical Park

NPS Northeast Regional Office

The Schuyler Estate is one of five cultural landscapes that comprise Saratoga National Historical Park in Stillwater, New York. The park preserves the sites of two decisive American Revolutionary War battles between British and American forces in the autumn of 1777. It is widely documented that the American victory at Saratoga changed the momentum of the war, after which crucial support from the French was secured. Commemorative efforts by private citizens commenced shortly after the battles, culminating in the battlefield’s designation as a state-managed property in 1927, and later as a National Historical Park in 1938. The Schuyler Estate encompasses 62.15 acres of the once vast manor of Major General Philip Schuyler. The site is located on US Route 4 and sits at the confluence of the Hudson River and Fish Creek. Built in 1777, the Schuyler House is a two-story frame structure with a stone foundation. Philip Schuyler (1733-1804) built the house to replace one burned by the British in 1777 after the Battles of Saratoga. The 3,000-acre estate included mills, a fishery, barns, agricultural fields, formal gardens, and barracks that housed servants, workers, and enslaved people. The Schuyler House, restored to its c.1787-1804 appearance, is the dominant building on the property. There is an attached kitchen at the northeast corner of the house. A privy and a well house are the only other extant historic buildings, but archeological evidence remains from many other historic buildings that once dotted the landscape. A Ushaped driveway tracks from the trace of the old turnpike/main road to the front of the house and serves as the primary pedestrian circulation feature. It connects to another road that leads to the towpath and ruins of the Old Champlain Canal to the northeast. While the estate was once clear cut for agricultural and industrial operations, the house lot today is more enclosed with many trees growing in the lawn, including many nineteenth-century black locusts. Two old lilacs grow near the house to the south and east. Much of the rest of the land within the legislative boundary is covered with thick successional forest. The canal prism has been leveled with fill where it crosses the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) maintenance facility southeast of the house. The NYSDOT maintenance lot is concealed by this forest. A local farmer raises sweet corn on the federal plot east of the maintenance lot. A 1960s park residence, comfort station, and a modern shed are the only other buildings on the federal land. Smallscale features on the site include a pair of granite hitching posts. A concrete post and split rail fence, an NPS entry sign, an NPS audio/visual interpretive sign, and an NPS informational sign are located on the grounds.

Schuyler Estate: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Saratoga National Historical Park

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