Historic Cherry Hill

Purpose: Sustaining Cultural Heritage Cherry Hill, on a 900-acre farm outside Albany, New York, was built in 1787 by Philip and Maria Van Rensselaer. It was home to five generations of the family from 1787 through 1963-176 years of continuous family living in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries. The Rankin family maintained the site in the twentieth century, preserving its furnishings and other artifacts. The last family resident, Emily Watkinson Rankin, died in 1963. In accordance with her will, Historic Cherry Hill became a public museum. In this two-year project, the museum will assess the organization of its 30,000-piece manuscript collection, develop a plan to reorganize and rehouse the collection to better meet the needs of the museum and outside researchers, and conduct a detailed inventory. The manuscripts span all five generations of the Van Rensselaer-Rankin families and include personal correspondence, business records, papers relating to the household (including slave ownership), and legal documents. There are references to events of global interest, including major wars, the California Gold Rush, and the women's suffrage movement. Reorganization and relocation of the collection will enable the museum to establish itself as an important resource center in the study of American history.