Brownell-Cornell-Gibbs Farmstead

This farmstead in the Groveside section of Pittstown, Rensselaer County, began around 1800 on Lot 143 of the Third Tract of the Pittstown Patent. The district has five contributing resources: a two-story Federal-period house with an attached woodshed, a threshing barn, a corn house, a hen house, a garage and a 1940s hay shed. The house retains two stacked kitchen hearths with brick bake ovens, and the hewn-timber barn and woodshed are joined with mortise and tenon. The barn's framing shows English and Dutch influences. Later changes, such as early twentieth-century Craftsman-style remodeling of the house and a 1936 hen house built with reused house sash, show how the farm adapted over time. Owners included Preserved Gibbs, David B. Gibbs and, from 1903, Walter G. Cornell and his family. The property was listed for its intact, representative character as a Pittstown farmstead. Agriculture continued through 1962, and the land remains part woodland and part hay cropland.