Staats, Joachim, House and Gerrit Staats Ruin

On Papscanee Island, a flat stretch of farmland along the Hudson River south of Albany, stands a cluster of resources tied to the Staats family. The centerpiece is the Joachim Staats House, a two-story fieldstone building dating to about 1700, with a brick addition of about 1790 and a wood addition of about 1880. Inside, it retains hand-planed floor joists, a wattle and daub wall, an early cone-shaped chimney and early eighteenth-century stairs. Nearby are a family cemetery on a knoll, the remains of a sloop landing and the brick ruin of the Gerrit Staats House, built in 1758 and gutted by fire in 1973. Joachim Staats, a trader and sloop owner, received the farm in 1696. A small trench dug for an electrical conduit turned up Indian and colonial-era artifacts, suggesting the grounds could yield further information about early occupation and the family's trade.