Visitor Center at Martin Van Buren National Historic Site

OPERATING HOURS

The Visitor Center at Martin Van Buren National Historic Site is typically open daily from late May through October between the hours of 9 AM and 4:30 PM. Keep in mind that times can always change, so be sure to get the latest schedule on the National Park Service’s official Operating Hours and Season web page for the park.

AMENITIES

• Ranger-staffed information desk where visitors can get a park brochure and grounds tour map
• Get free tickets for the Lindenwald House Tour
• Informational exhibits
• Restrooms

Interior of the Visitor Center at Martin Van Buren National Historic Site

EXHIBITS

The only exhibits in the Visitor Center at Martin Van Buren National Historic Site are information panels about the Van Buren Family and slavery in the Hudson Valley area in the early 1800s. Martin Van Buren’s parents owned slaves, and it is thought that at one time he had a slave named Tom, a man who escaped and was never captured.

While serving in the Andrew Jackson administration in Washington, D. C., from 1829 to 1831, Van Buren’s household staff consisted of four female slaves, two freed black women, and a white woman. He did not own the slaves, but he did hire them out from a local slave owner. His stance as a potential presidential candidate, and eventually as president, was that the Federal government had no right to end slavery. During his term as president from 1937 to 1841, slaves were used as domestic servants in the White House. Again, these individuals were hired out from their owners and not slaves of Van Buren. Free blacks working for wages were also employed at the White House.

Van Buren’s parents had a half dozen slaves, which placed them into the realm of the larger slave owners in the area. The Van Ness Family, which owned the Lindenwald farm and house prior to Van Buren’s purchase in 1839, was one of the biggest slave owners in the Hudson Valley. Slavery was a common practice throughout America since Europeans came to the continent. It was gradually phased out in New York during the early 1800s, ending completely in 1827. It wasn’t ended in Washington, D. C., until April 1862 when President Abraham Lincoln signed the District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act.

SCHEDULING YOUR TIME

It takes no more than ten minutes to read the information in the Visitor Center. Other than that, the only things to do are get a ticket for the Lindenwald House Tour and speak with a Ranger about what there is to see and do at the park.

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