James and Mary Forsyth House
Encyclopedia
The James and Mary Forsyth House is located on Albany Avenue near uptown
Kingston
, New York, United States. It is a brick Italian villa-style house designed by Richard Upjohn
in the mid-19th century. When it was finished it was celebrated locally for its lavish decor. James Forsyth, as well as another later resident, left the house after being accused of financial wrongdoing. It has been modified slightly since its original construction with trim in the Colonial Revival
style
.
Along with the Old Dutch Church by Minard Lafever
, it is the only extant pre-Civil War
building, and the only house from that period, in Kingston designed by a nationally prominent architect. In the 20th century it was used as a Masonic Lodge
. Since 1986 it has been the offices of a local construction company that has restored
some of Kingston's other historic buildings. In 2003 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places
.
on the north side of Albany Avenue across from Academy Green Park, the triangle formed by Albany, Clinton Avenue and Maiden Lane. On the west is a four-story brick Colonial Revival
apartment building, built in the mid-1920s as the Governor Clinton Hotel. To the east are other commercial properties, culminating in the eastern terminus of Interstate 587 and NY 28
at the junction of Albany and Broadway. Behind the house, north of the property, is a parking lot and a small pond.
The building itself is a two-and-a-half-story, three-bay
structure of load-bearing brick walls on a raised foundation
of tooled limestone
in an ashlar
pattern. All the exterior trim is in wood. The roof, hipped
with a gable
crossing the center, is shingled in asphalt, with a molded
cornice
with large brackets
supporting the eaves.
, the first story has a wooden porch covering all three openings. The porch echoes the house, with a modillioned center gable and hipped roof supported by fluted
Ionic
columns with turned baluster
s between them. Behind them the windows have been fitted with French doors.
Windows on the second story have segmental brick arches, wooden hoods and cut stone sills. Above them is a single roundel
window in the center gable.
The east profile has similar window treatments to the front on a one-bay projecting gabled section with a similar porch. The two flanking bays have porches for their French doors that cantilever out with perforated woodwork railings and large wood brackets with drop pendants supporting the hoods. By contrast, the central projecting bay's porch is similar to the front one. The center-bay second-story window has a round arch and is slightly recessed, giving it a Palladian feel. On the opposite side, the west elevation is similar with a bump-out at the southwest corner.
On the north side are similar windows and another projection, with a small frame
addition. A fire escape
runs up the side. There are no French doors on this elevation.
, which in turn leads through another pair of doors with stained glass
lights and transom, possibly depicting scenes from Forsyth family history in a Romantic
medieval fashion, into the L-shaped main hall with linoleum
flooring. The basement stairs are directly ahead; the main stair is off to the right. A library and parlor are on the east and west respectively. Further to the north are a dining room and drawing room
. A small bedroom and dressing room are in the addition on the rear.
Both the front parlor and library retain their original parquet flooring, molded baseboards and plaster cornice. The library also has a paneled wooden door with its original silver hardware, paneled pocket shutters on the French doors to the exterior. A set of wooden cabinets have a cornice with running guilloché
frieze
. In the parlor is a chimney breast with marble Italianate mantelpiece. A wide opening with Corinthian
columns leads into the dining room to the north.
The dining room has similar flooring and walls, as well as another mantelpiece in the same material and style. A bracketed wooden frieze runs around the room at a height of six feet (2 m). The drawing room, the largest space on the first story, has 15 feet (4.6 m) ceilings and many of the same decorative features.
Near the stair to the second floor is a wooden settee. The staircase itself is cantilevered out, and consists of open stringers with carpet on the steps. It is decorated with a turned newel
post and baluster
s. The round arched window on the east profile lights the landing with 19th-century stained glass.
The western half of the second floor is an open meeting room supported by steel I-beam
s visible from the attic, with carpeted floor and dais
es on the wall. The original master bedroom is in the northeast corner. It retains its marble mantelpiece in the chimney breast. It is currently carpeted, with acoustic tiles in the ceiling. The walls, baseboards and plaster cornice are original, as are the doors and silver hardware.
The attic has been extensively modified, although it is still possible to see how it was used originally as servants' quarters. The northeast room still has the original door and beaded board enclosures. The basement is still in its original layout, used for storage and service functions. There is an original cast iron
stove in the kitchen. The servants' dining room retains its original doors and a Greek Revival
wooden mantelpiece.
in Newport, Rhode Island
. One of the earliest uses of that form in the country, it was praised by Andrew Jackson Downing
in his book The Architecture of Country Houses, as "unit[ing] beauty of form and expression with spacious accommodation, in a manner not often seen ... There is dignity, refinement and elegance, all about its leading features".
For the Forsyth house, Upjohn used the center-gable variant of the Italian villa, instead of the tower variant he had used in Newport. His great-grandson, Everard Upjohn, writing about the house in the 1930s, saw similarities between the Forsyth and King houses. "[It] shows the same tendency to break up the mass", he observed. At the same time, he felt that the interior was so tightly divided that there was little possibility of opening it up.
The Forsyth House is also similar to Upjohn's J.J. Johnson House in Brooklyn's Flatbush
neighborhood, since demolished. It, too, was an Italian villa with a center gable and roundel, segmented-arch windows with hoods and a bracketed cornice. "While not exciting, and certainly not such as to cause one to stare", wrote Everard Upjohn, "it escaped the most obtrusive faults of its time."
, James Forsyth moved to Kingston in 1840 at the age of 21. He became a successful lawyer and politician, and married a local woman, Mary Bruyn. In 1847, he visited New Haven, Connecticut
, then a center of contemporary architecture. He wrote his wife about the "exquisite private residences ... in every respect superior to any in Kingston".
The couple decided to build such a house in their hometown. After talking to an architect in New Haven, they turned to Upjohn, then enjoying renown for the success of Trinity Church. They consulted closely with the architect on the design throughout the process, and many of his renderings have survived. They are archived in Columbia University
's Avery Library, and show that the house was not substantially modified from the original design. Asphalt shingles replaced the planned metal cladding on the roof, the only significant change to the exterior before the house was built. No records have been found from the actual construction.
When the house was finished in 1851, the Forsyths threw a housewarming party
, with champagne and oysters, to which they invited many of Kingston's other affluent couples. Nathaniel Booth, a local merchant, echoed the Forsyths' original hope, writing that the house was "a splendid affair throwing all others in Kingston in the shade." The lavish decoration, he wondered, "would rather astonish the honest Dutch
who built Old 'Sopus could they revisit old scenes", referring to Kingston's original 17th-century settlers.
Forsyth did not get to enjoy his sumptuous surroundings for long. He had made $200,000 ($ in contemporary dollars) through a number of fraudulent schemes, including forgery
and illegal stock sales, and just before this was discovered in 1853 he left the country. After traveling through southern Europe for a while he made his way to the English city of Hereford
on the Welsh border. There, under the assumed name of Edward Rashleigh, he drank heavily
and died at the age of 36 in the Green Dragon Inn in 1855.
After his flight and death, his wife and children remained in the house. Sometime almost two decades later, in the 1870s, they sold it to William Fitch, a relative of Ezra Fitch
. Later it was the property of county treasurer John Broadhead. During his tenure, around the turn of the century, the front porch was redone in a Colonial Revival
mode and the columns at the dining room entryway were added. In the early 20th century, Broadhead moved to Connecticut after he was accused of stealing $80–200,000 from the county. At a public auction
in 1907 it was sold to Samuel Gray, a grain dealer from Saugerties
.
In 1939 the local Freemasons bought it. Local architect George Low supervised some large-scale changes, including the bump-out at the southwest corner and the opening of the western half of the second story to create a meeting room. A fire escape was also built on the rear of the building to comply with the building code
.
After remaining vacant for years in the late 20th century when the Masons moved out, it was bought in late 2002 by Carey Construction, a local firm that has restored
some city landmarks like the Persen House and City Hall. As part of its restoration, Carey said it might remove the other second floor walls to create a more open space for offices and add skylights to the roof but did not plan to make any other permanent changes.
Kingston Stockade District
The Kingston Stockade District is an eight-block area in the western section of Kingston, New York, United States, commonly referred to as Uptown Kingston...
Kingston
Kingston, New York
Kingston is a city in and the county seat of Ulster County, New York, USA. It is north of New York City and south of Albany. It became New York's first capital in 1777, and was burned by the British Oct. 16, 1777, after the Battles of Saratoga...
, New York, United States. It is a brick Italian villa-style house designed by Richard Upjohn
Richard Upjohn
Richard Upjohn was an English-born architect who emigrated to the United States and became most famous for his Gothic Revival churches. He was partially responsible for launching the movement to such popularity in the United States. Upjohn also did extensive work in and helped to popularize the...
in the mid-19th century. When it was finished it was celebrated locally for its lavish decor. James Forsyth, as well as another later resident, left the house after being accused of financial wrongdoing. It has been modified slightly since its original construction with trim in the Colonial Revival
Colonial Revival architecture
The Colonial Revival was a nationalistic architectural style, garden design, and interior design movement in the United States which sought to revive elements of Georgian architecture, part of a broader Colonial Revival Movement in the arts. In the early 1890s Americans began to value their own...
style
Architectural style
Architectural styles classify architecture in terms of the use of form, techniques, materials, time period, region and other stylistic influences. It overlaps with, and emerges from the study of the evolution and history of architecture...
.
Along with the Old Dutch Church by Minard Lafever
Minard Lafever
Minard Lafever was an influential American architect of churches and houses in the United States in the early nineteenth century.-Life and career:...
, it is the only extant pre-Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
building, and the only house from that period, in Kingston designed by a nationally prominent architect. In the 20th century it was used as a Masonic Lodge
Masonic Lodge
This article is about the Masonic term for a membership group. For buildings named Masonic Lodge, see Masonic Lodge A Masonic Lodge, often termed a Private Lodge or Constituent Lodge, is the basic organisation of Freemasonry...
. Since 1986 it has been the offices of a local construction company that has restored
Building restoration
Building restoration describes a particular treatment approach and philosophy within the field of architectural conservation. According the U.S...
some of Kingston's other historic buildings. In 2003 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
.
Building
The house is at the front of a 3.3 acres (1.3 ha) lotLot (real estate)
In real estate, a lot or plot is a tract or parcel of land owned or meant to be owned by some owner. A lot is essentially considered a parcel of real property in some countries or immovable property in other countries...
on the north side of Albany Avenue across from Academy Green Park, the triangle formed by Albany, Clinton Avenue and Maiden Lane. On the west is a four-story brick Colonial Revival
Colonial Revival architecture
The Colonial Revival was a nationalistic architectural style, garden design, and interior design movement in the United States which sought to revive elements of Georgian architecture, part of a broader Colonial Revival Movement in the arts. In the early 1890s Americans began to value their own...
apartment building, built in the mid-1920s as the Governor Clinton Hotel. To the east are other commercial properties, culminating in the eastern terminus of Interstate 587 and NY 28
New York State Route 28
New York State Route 28 is a state highway extending for in the shape of a "C" between the Hudson Valley city of Kingston and southern Warren County in the U.S. state of New York. Along the way, it intersects several major routes, including Interstate 88 , U.S. Route 20 , and the...
at the junction of Albany and Broadway. Behind the house, north of the property, is a parking lot and a small pond.
The building itself is a two-and-a-half-story, three-bay
Bay (architecture)
A bay is a unit of form in architecture. This unit is defined as the zone between the outer edges of an engaged column, pilaster, or post; or within a window frame, doorframe, or vertical 'bas relief' wall form.-Defining elements:...
structure of load-bearing brick walls on a raised foundation
Foundation (architecture)
A foundation is the lowest and supporting layer of a structure. Foundations are generally divided into two categories: shallow foundations and deep foundations.-Shallow foundations:...
of tooled limestone
Limestone
Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Many limestones are composed from skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera....
in an ashlar
Ashlar
Ashlar is prepared stone work of any type of stone. Masonry using such stones laid in parallel courses is known as ashlar masonry, whereas masonry using irregularly shaped stones is known as rubble masonry. Ashlar blocks are rectangular cuboid blocks that are masonry sculpted to have square edges...
pattern. All the exterior trim is in wood. The roof, hipped
Hip roof
A hip roof, or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downwards to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope. Thus it is a house with no gables or other vertical sides to the roof. A square hip roof is shaped like a pyramid. Hip roofs on the houses could have two triangular side...
with a gable
Gable
A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of a sloping roof. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system being used and aesthetic concerns. Thus the type of roof enclosing the volume dictates the shape of the gable...
crossing the center, is shingled in asphalt, with a molded
Molding (decorative)
Molding or moulding is a strip of material with various profiles used to cover transitions between surfaces or for decoration. It is traditionally made from solid milled wood or plaster but may be made from plastic or reformed wood...
cornice
Cornice
Cornice molding is generally any horizontal decorative molding that crowns any building or furniture element: the cornice over a door or window, for instance, or the cornice around the edge of a pedestal. A simple cornice may be formed just with a crown molding.The function of the projecting...
with large brackets
Bracket (architecture)
A bracket is an architectural member made of wood, stone, or metal that overhangs a wall to support or carry weight. It may also support a statue, the spring of an arch, a beam, or a shelf. Brackets are often in the form of scrolls, and can be carved, cast, or molded. They can be entirely...
supporting the eaves.
Exterior
On the south (front) facadeFacade
A facade or façade is generally one exterior side of a building, usually, but not always, the front. The word comes from the French language, literally meaning "frontage" or "face"....
, the first story has a wooden porch covering all three openings. The porch echoes the house, with a modillioned center gable and hipped roof supported by fluted
Fluting (architecture)
Fluting in architecture refers to the shallow grooves running vertically along a surface.It typically refers to the grooves running on a column shaft or a pilaster, but need not necessarily be restricted to those two applications...
Ionic
Ionic order
The Ionic order forms one of the three orders or organizational systems of classical architecture, the other two canonic orders being the Doric and the Corinthian...
columns with turned baluster
Baluster
A baluster is a moulded shaft, square or of lathe-turned form, one of various forms of spindle in woodwork, made of stone or wood and sometimes of metal, standing on a unifying footing, and supporting the coping of a parapet or the handrail of a staircase. Multiplied in this way, they form a...
s between them. Behind them the windows have been fitted with French doors.
Windows on the second story have segmental brick arches, wooden hoods and cut stone sills. Above them is a single roundel
Roundel
A roundel in heraldry is a disc; the term is also commonly used to refer to a type of national insignia used on military aircraft, generally circular in shape and usually comprising concentric rings of different colours.-Heraldry:...
window in the center gable.
The east profile has similar window treatments to the front on a one-bay projecting gabled section with a similar porch. The two flanking bays have porches for their French doors that cantilever out with perforated woodwork railings and large wood brackets with drop pendants supporting the hoods. By contrast, the central projecting bay's porch is similar to the front one. The center-bay second-story window has a round arch and is slightly recessed, giving it a Palladian feel. On the opposite side, the west elevation is similar with a bump-out at the southwest corner.
On the north side are similar windows and another projection, with a small frame
Framing (construction)
Framing, in construction known as light-frame construction, is a building technique based around structural members, usually called studs, which provide a stable frame to which interior and exterior wall coverings are attached, and covered by a roof comprising horizontal ceiling joists and sloping...
addition. A fire escape
Fire escape
A fire escape is a special kind of emergency exit, usually mounted to the outside of a building or occasionally inside but separate from the main areas of the building. It provides a method of escape in the event of a fire or other emergency that makes the stairwells inside a building inaccessible...
runs up the side. There are no French doors on this elevation.
Interior
The main entrance consists of a modern door in front of the original paired glazed doors and a round glass transom. It opens into a small vestibuleVestibule (architecture)
A vestibule is a lobby, entrance hall, or passage between the entrance and the interior of a building.The same term can apply to structures in modern or ancient roman architecture. In modern architecture vestibule typically refers to a small room or hall between an entrance and the interior of...
, which in turn leads through another pair of doors with stained glass
Stained glass
The term stained glass can refer to coloured glass as a material or to works produced from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant buildings...
lights and transom, possibly depicting scenes from Forsyth family history in a Romantic
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
medieval fashion, into the L-shaped main hall with linoleum
Linoleum
Linoleum is a floor covering made from renewable materials such as solidified linseed oil , pine rosin, ground cork dust, wood flour, and mineral fillers such as calcium carbonate, most commonly on a burlap or canvas backing; pigments are often added to the materials.The finest linoleum floors,...
flooring. The basement stairs are directly ahead; the main stair is off to the right. A library and parlor are on the east and west respectively. Further to the north are a dining room and drawing room
Drawing room
A drawing room is a room in a house where visitors may be entertained. The name is derived from the sixteenth-century terms "withdrawing room" and "withdrawing chamber", which remained in use through the seventeenth century, and made its first written appearance in 1642...
. A small bedroom and dressing room are in the addition on the rear.
Both the front parlor and library retain their original parquet flooring, molded baseboards and plaster cornice. The library also has a paneled wooden door with its original silver hardware, paneled pocket shutters on the French doors to the exterior. A set of wooden cabinets have a cornice with running guilloché
Guilloché
Guilloché is a decorative engraving technique in which a very precise intricate repetitive pattern or design is mechanically engraved into an underlying material with fine detail...
frieze
Frieze
thumb|267px|Frieze of the [[Tower of the Winds]], AthensIn architecture the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Even when neither columns nor pilasters are expressed, on an astylar wall it lies upon...
. In the parlor is a chimney breast with marble Italianate mantelpiece. A wide opening with Corinthian
Corinthian order
The Corinthian order is one of the three principal classical orders of ancient Greek and Roman architecture. The other two are the Doric and Ionic. When classical architecture was revived during the Renaissance, two more orders were added to the canon, the Tuscan order and the Composite order...
columns leads into the dining room to the north.
The dining room has similar flooring and walls, as well as another mantelpiece in the same material and style. A bracketed wooden frieze runs around the room at a height of six feet (2 m). The drawing room, the largest space on the first story, has 15 feet (4.6 m) ceilings and many of the same decorative features.
Near the stair to the second floor is a wooden settee. The staircase itself is cantilevered out, and consists of open stringers with carpet on the steps. It is decorated with a turned newel
Newel
A newel, also called a central pole, is an upright post that supports the handrail of a stair banister. In stairs having straight flights it is the principal post at the foot of the staircase, but it can also be used for the intermediate posts on landings and at the top of a staircase...
post and baluster
Baluster
A baluster is a moulded shaft, square or of lathe-turned form, one of various forms of spindle in woodwork, made of stone or wood and sometimes of metal, standing on a unifying footing, and supporting the coping of a parapet or the handrail of a staircase. Multiplied in this way, they form a...
s. The round arched window on the east profile lights the landing with 19th-century stained glass.
The western half of the second floor is an open meeting room supported by steel I-beam
I-beam
-beams, also known as H-beams, W-beams , rolled steel joist , or double-T are beams with an - or H-shaped cross-section. The horizontal elements of the "" are flanges, while the vertical element is the web...
s visible from the attic, with carpeted floor and dais
Dais
Dais is any raised platform located either in or outside of a room or enclosure, often for dignified occupancy, as at the front of a lecture hall or sanctuary....
es on the wall. The original master bedroom is in the northeast corner. It retains its marble mantelpiece in the chimney breast. It is currently carpeted, with acoustic tiles in the ceiling. The walls, baseboards and plaster cornice are original, as are the doors and silver hardware.
The attic has been extensively modified, although it is still possible to see how it was used originally as servants' quarters. The northeast room still has the original door and beaded board enclosures. The basement is still in its original layout, used for storage and service functions. There is an original cast iron
Cast iron
Cast iron is derived from pig iron, and while it usually refers to gray iron, it also identifies a large group of ferrous alloys which solidify with a eutectic. The color of a fractured surface can be used to identify an alloy. White cast iron is named after its white surface when fractured, due...
stove in the kitchen. The servants' dining room retains its original doors and a Greek Revival
Greek Revival architecture
The Greek Revival was an architectural movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in Northern Europe and the United States. A product of Hellenism, it may be looked upon as the last phase in the development of Neoclassical architecture...
wooden mantelpiece.
Aesthetics
A few years before the Forsyth commission, Upjohn had built his first Italian villa, the Edward King HouseEdward King House
The Edward King House, is a monumentally scaled residence in Newport, Rhode Island. It was designed for Edward King in the "Italian Villa" style by Richard Upjohn and was built between 1845 and 1847, making it one of the earliest representations of the style. It was the largest and grandest house...
in Newport, Rhode Island
Newport, Rhode Island
Newport is a city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County, Rhode Island, United States, about south of Providence. Known as a New England summer resort and for the famous Newport Mansions, it is the home of Salve Regina University and Naval Station Newport which houses the United States Naval War...
. One of the earliest uses of that form in the country, it was praised by Andrew Jackson Downing
Andrew Jackson Downing
Andrew Jackson Downing was an American landscape designer, horticulturalist, and writer, a prominent advocate of the Gothic Revival style in the United States, and editor of The Horticulturist magazine...
in his book The Architecture of Country Houses, as "unit[ing] beauty of form and expression with spacious accommodation, in a manner not often seen ... There is dignity, refinement and elegance, all about its leading features".
For the Forsyth house, Upjohn used the center-gable variant of the Italian villa, instead of the tower variant he had used in Newport. His great-grandson, Everard Upjohn, writing about the house in the 1930s, saw similarities between the Forsyth and King houses. "[It] shows the same tendency to break up the mass", he observed. At the same time, he felt that the interior was so tightly divided that there was little possibility of opening it up.
The Forsyth House is also similar to Upjohn's J.J. Johnson House in Brooklyn's Flatbush
Flatbush, Brooklyn
Flatbush is a community of the Borough of Brooklyn, a part of New York City, consisting of several neighborhoods.The name Flatbush is an Anglicization of the Dutch language Vlacke bos ....
neighborhood, since demolished. It, too, was an Italian villa with a center gable and roundel, segmented-arch windows with hoods and a bracketed cornice. "While not exciting, and certainly not such as to cause one to stare", wrote Everard Upjohn, "it escaped the most obtrusive faults of its time."
History
A native of NewburghNewburgh (city), New York
Newburgh is a city located in Orange County, New York, United States, north of New York City, and south of Albany, on the Hudson River. Newburgh is a principal city of the Poughkeepsie-Newburgh-Middletown metropolitan area, which includes all of Dutchess and Orange counties. The Newburgh area was...
, James Forsyth moved to Kingston in 1840 at the age of 21. He became a successful lawyer and politician, and married a local woman, Mary Bruyn. In 1847, he visited New Haven, Connecticut
New Haven, Connecticut
New Haven is the second-largest city in Connecticut and the sixth-largest in New England. According to the 2010 Census, New Haven's population increased by 5.0% between 2000 and 2010, a rate higher than that of the State of Connecticut, and higher than that of the state's five largest cities, and...
, then a center of contemporary architecture. He wrote his wife about the "exquisite private residences ... in every respect superior to any in Kingston".
The couple decided to build such a house in their hometown. After talking to an architect in New Haven, they turned to Upjohn, then enjoying renown for the success of Trinity Church. They consulted closely with the architect on the design throughout the process, and many of his renderings have survived. They are archived in Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
's Avery Library, and show that the house was not substantially modified from the original design. Asphalt shingles replaced the planned metal cladding on the roof, the only significant change to the exterior before the house was built. No records have been found from the actual construction.
When the house was finished in 1851, the Forsyths threw a housewarming party
Housewarming party
A housewarming party is a party held within approximately 90 days of moving into a new residence. It is an occasion for the hosts to present their new home to their friends, and for friends to give gifts to furnish the new home...
, with champagne and oysters, to which they invited many of Kingston's other affluent couples. Nathaniel Booth, a local merchant, echoed the Forsyths' original hope, writing that the house was "a splendid affair throwing all others in Kingston in the shade." The lavish decoration, he wondered, "would rather astonish the honest Dutch
Dutch colonization of the Americas
Dutch trading posts and plantations in the Americas precede the much wider known colonization activities of the Dutch in Asia. Whereas the first Dutch fort in Asia was built in 1600 , the first forts and settlements on the Essequibo river in Guyana and on the Amazon date from the 1590s...
who built Old 'Sopus could they revisit old scenes", referring to Kingston's original 17th-century settlers.
Forsyth did not get to enjoy his sumptuous surroundings for long. He had made $200,000 ($ in contemporary dollars) through a number of fraudulent schemes, including forgery
Forgery
Forgery is the process of making, adapting, or imitating objects, statistics, or documents with the intent to deceive. Copies, studio replicas, and reproductions are not considered forgeries, though they may later become forgeries through knowing and willful misrepresentations. Forging money or...
and illegal stock sales, and just before this was discovered in 1853 he left the country. After traveling through southern Europe for a while he made his way to the English city of Hereford
Hereford
Hereford is a cathedral city, civil parish and county town of Herefordshire, England. It lies on the River Wye, approximately east of the border with Wales, southwest of Worcester, and northwest of Gloucester...
on the Welsh border. There, under the assumed name of Edward Rashleigh, he drank heavily
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
and died at the age of 36 in the Green Dragon Inn in 1855.
After his flight and death, his wife and children remained in the house. Sometime almost two decades later, in the 1870s, they sold it to William Fitch, a relative of Ezra Fitch
Ezra Fitch
Ezra Hasbrouck Fitch was the co-founder of the modern lifestyle brand Abercrombie & Fitch and is attributed with the historical introduction of Mahjong to the United States....
. Later it was the property of county treasurer John Broadhead. During his tenure, around the turn of the century, the front porch was redone in a Colonial Revival
Colonial Revival architecture
The Colonial Revival was a nationalistic architectural style, garden design, and interior design movement in the United States which sought to revive elements of Georgian architecture, part of a broader Colonial Revival Movement in the arts. In the early 1890s Americans began to value their own...
mode and the columns at the dining room entryway were added. In the early 20th century, Broadhead moved to Connecticut after he was accused of stealing $80–200,000 from the county. At a public auction
Public auction
A public auction is an auction held on behalf of a government in which the property to be auctioned is either property owned by the government, or property which is sold under the authority of a court of law or a government agency with similar authority....
in 1907 it was sold to Samuel Gray, a grain dealer from Saugerties
Saugerties (village), New York
Saugerties is a village in Ulster County, New York, USA. The population was 4,955 at the 2000 census.The Village of Saugerties is a Town in the eastern part of the Town of Saugerties. U.S. Route 9W passes through the village...
.
In 1939 the local Freemasons bought it. Local architect George Low supervised some large-scale changes, including the bump-out at the southwest corner and the opening of the western half of the second story to create a meeting room. A fire escape was also built on the rear of the building to comply with the building code
Building code
A building code, or building control, is a set of rules that specify the minimum acceptable level of safety for constructed objects such as buildings and nonbuilding structures. The main purpose of building codes are to protect public health, safety and general welfare as they relate to the...
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After remaining vacant for years in the late 20th century when the Masons moved out, it was bought in late 2002 by Carey Construction, a local firm that has restored
Building restoration
Building restoration describes a particular treatment approach and philosophy within the field of architectural conservation. According the U.S...
some city landmarks like the Persen House and City Hall. As part of its restoration, Carey said it might remove the other second floor walls to create a more open space for offices and add skylights to the roof but did not plan to make any other permanent changes.