Smith, Gerrit, Estate

Set in the quiet hamlet of Peterboro, this 7.78-acre estate was the home base of Gerrit Smith, a nineteenth-century reformer and abolitionist. Once a village-like complex of about thirty buildings, it now retains a brick Land Office and smokehouse built in 1804, a mid-century timber-framed barn, a laundry building, and the site of the mansion, which burned in 1936. The Land Office held records of the Smith family's extensive land holdings in New York and other states. Accounts say the barn sheltered people escaping slavery, and the laundry reflects the work of Harriet Russell, who was freed by Gerrit and Ann Smith in 1841. Ruins, garden walls, an iron fence, a limestone dam and wooded and open grounds add archaeological and landscape interest. A nearby house called the lodge is altered and does not contribute. The surrounding hamlet has changed little since the mid-nineteenth century, which preserves the estate's setting. The period of significance runs from 1819 to 1874.