Grafton Anti-Rent War Program Is Heavily Attended

submitted by Anne Kiely
It was a very full house at Grafton Town Hall  when the Grafton Historical Society  and the Grafton Community Library sponsored a joint program on the Anti-Rent War era and the  Down With the Rent banner from that time.
The Banner Unveiled
The first segment of the evening featured the grand unveiling of the recently conserved and preserved Down With The Rent banner owned by the Library. Trustees from the Library as well as Director Carolyn Durnin

The recently conserved Down With The Rent Banner, owned by the Grafton Library, hangs in the Grafton Town Hall. (Bea Peterson photo)

performed the ceremony following an introduction by Richard Wagar. He recounted the history of the Library acquiring the banner from the granddaughter of Peter Hydorn, the purported original owner of the banner.  His granddaughter Mina Hydorn Stuart gave the banner to the Library about the time the Library was opened in 1955.   Mr. Wagar continued to explain the uniqueness of this banner. It is the only known banner from the Anti-Rent War known to  exist.
Following the unveiling the second half of the program was introduced by Paul Ward who gave a brief introduction of each of the speakers on the panel. They were Michael Barrett, Deputy Director of the Hudson – Mohawk Gateway and lecturer on a variety of local history topics, Bill Massoth, local expert on the Anti-Rent Wars, Kathleen Sheehan, Rensselaer County Historian and Registrar of the Rensselaer County Historical Society, Gwen Spicer, textile conservator who performed the conservation work on the banner, and Anne Kiely, of the Grafton Historical Society.
With great expression and humor Barrett explained the legal precedents for land ownership dating to 13th century England and how the laws ensuring tenant rights were respected or usurped by the manorial land owning system of the patroons,  bringing up to date information on legal rental obligations of people today whose property may have been in the patroon holdings.
Massoth went on to tell how the death of the so-called good patroon, Stephen Van Rensselaer III, in January of 1839 precipitated the difficulties associated in the collection of rents from leaseholds in Rensselaerwyck Manor. Escalation of hostilities continued, reaching a peak between 1844-1845, but they continued off and on until the last fatality in 1885. Massoth cited several instances of deputies and sheriffs being set upon by Calico Indians to prevent the serving of eviction letters to leaseholders in arrears of paying their back rents. Tar and feathers were not uncommon means of persuasion. Calico Indians were so named because they adopted an outfit of Calico dresses worn by their wives and  donned leather sheep skin masks, hideously  embellished, to disguise themselves from their actions against law enforcement officials.
There were a number of local associations whose members paid dues to fight the landlords. One such was the Grafton Anti-Rent association. Records of this group are owned by the Rensselaer County Historical Society. Kathleen Sheehan brought copies of parts of the collection including a list of men from Grafton who belonged. She also explained how there were many doctors who were anti-renters, and she speculated on why.
Anne Kiely followed up with a recounting of the murder of Grafton resident Elijah Smith,  an up-renter,  in December of 1844 by some one in a band of about 30 Calico Indians who surrounded Elijah as he returned from a wood cutting trip. Although many were questioned and some even arrested, including an attempted arrest of Reverend Joshua Henry Scriven Lewis on the day of his ordination six years after the murder, in the end no one ever was convicted of the murder.
Gwen Spicer then took the stage to speak about the star of the program – the banner itself. She described the actual fabric of the banner and thought it probably had been some kind of a drapery or window hanging in a previous life. She was amazed by the very tiny stitches used to make the sleeve pockets and to join  the pieces together. The fabric, linen,  was likely hand woven.  The feather-stencils along the border are typical stencils of the time period, and the image of the Indian is quite interesting. The banner was painted with black and brown oil paints – likely just ordinary house paints of the time. Spicer described how she carefully and with great difficulty removed the banner from its old backing, including gently prying loose the 96 staples which held it in place. After that came a laborious cleansing process and finally a new mount in a state of the art archival correct manner.
The evening concluded with a lively question and answer session.  The program was very well received with every one agreeing it was worthwhile.