Stanton House: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Women's Rights National Historical Park

Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation

The Stanton House is part of Women’s Rights National Historical Park (NHP), located in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York. The 7.44-acre park comprises four noncontiguous units that are thematically linked to the early nineteenth century Women’s Rights Movement in the United States and to the first Women’s Rights Convention, held in Seneca Falls in 1848. The four units are the Wesleyan Chapel/Visitor Center and the Elizabeth Cady Stanton House in the incorporated village of Seneca Falls and the M’Clintock House and the Hunt House in the county seat of Waterloo. The Stanton House unit is located approximately one-half mile east of the Wesleyan Chapel/Visitor Center unit. It includes the house where Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a primary organizer of the First Women’s Rights Convention and a national leader in the Women’s Rights Movement, lived from 1847 to 1862. The Elizabeth Cady Stanton House was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1965. The focal point of the 2.91-acre unit is the Stanton House, built by William Bayard in c.1837. The site includes the original 1.83-acre lot purchased by Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s father in 1845 and acquired by the park in 1982, 1986, and 1996. The site also includes an adjacent 0.34-acre lot to the south donated in 1982 as a parking area and the 0.74-acre Baldwin/Chamberlain lot to the northwest obtained in 1996 for parking and future waterfront visitor access. In the mid-nineteenth century the Stanton property was surrounded by a mix of industrial, residential, and agricultural development. After the Stantons left town, subsequent owners subdivided the property into six lots on which new houses were constructed. Today the unit lies in a medium-density residential area approximately one-quarter mile east of the downtown commercial district, on the south edge of the Van Cleef Lake, part of the Cayuga-Seneca Barge Canal. The immediate surroundings are characterized primarily by mid-to-late-nineteenth-century houses, the exception being a row of mid-twentieth-century houses to the east, fronting on Adam Street. The Stanton parcel is bounded on the north by Seneca Street, on the west by Washington Street, and on the south and east by residential lots. The property is situated on a hill that formed part of a larger ravine created by the erosive action of the Seneca River, which was flooded in 1915 to form the lake. The land is generally level but drops off precipitously (about 12 feet) at the edge of an embankment along the north side of the property. The Stanton House, a contributing resource, stands near the center of the property, while the non-contributing ranger station is located to the south of the house. The landscape of the Stanton parcel is primarily open mown lawn with a mix of volunteer and planted trees and shrubs, except for a mature horsechestnut tree located in front of the house that is believed to date from Stanton’s occupation of the property. Concrete sidewalks parallel Washington and Seneca streets, a narrow concrete walk leads to the front entrance, and asphalt driveways lead to the ranger station and the former site of the Nies House (razed in 2002). None of these circulation features are historic. A 1932 State Education Department marker stands on the lawn between the sidewalk and the road in front of the house, while several NPS wayside interpretive panels are located throughout the site. The roughly triangular-shaped Baldwin/Chamberlain parcel is bounded on the south by Seneca Street, on the west and north by Van Cleef Lake, and on the east by an access road to Locks 2-3 of the Cayuga-Seneca Barge Canal. The relatively flat stretch of land drops off several feet to the lake on the north and west. The non-contributing Chamberlain House near the western corner of the lot was razed in 2020. The landscape of the parcel is primarily open mown lawn with several mature evergreen and deciduous trees, a gravel parking area, and a sidewalks that lead to interpretive waysides.

Stanton House: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Women's Rights National Historical Park

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