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Tin Horns and Calico

by Henry Esmond CHRISTMAN (1906 - 1980)

King Silas

In the early 19th century, in the Hudson Valley of New York State, hundreds of square miles of land were still the feudal domains of large landowners known as patroons. Such families as the Van Rensselaers, Livingstons, and Schuylers owned the farms and towns in which hundreds of thousands of ordinary people lived and worked. Even the capitol city of New York State, Albany, was encompassed in the private fiefdom of a patroon. On July 4, 1839, in the mountain town of Berne, New York, a mass meeting of tenant farmers issued a declaration of independence, promising: "We will take up the ball of the Revolution where our fathers stopped it and roll it to the final consummation of freedom and independence of the masses." The Anti-Rent War consumed the Catskill Mountain region through the 1840's, leading in the end to the downfall of the patroon system and the democratization of land ownership in New York State. - Summary by Maria Kasper

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Listen next episodes of Tin Horns and Calico:
''Brimful of Wrath and Cabbage'' , Deep in the Land , Delhi Justice , ''For the Land is Mine'' , In the Good Cause , Lead Penetrates Steele , ''November Ides'' , Packed Court , Songs and Ballads , The Bastard War , The End of Manor Aristocracy , The Goose is Plucked , ''The Prisoners! They Come!''