A sheriff in the Hudson River Valley near Albany New York
Last updated: 4/13/2024
A sheriff in the Hudson River Valley near Albany New York about to go into the hills in the fall of 1839 to collect back rents from tenants on the enormous Rensselaer estate was handed a letter the tenants have organized themselves into a body and resolved not to pay any more rent until they can be redressed of their grievances The tenants now assume the right of doing to their landlord as he has for a long time done with them viz as they please You need not think this to be children s play if you come out in your official capacity I would not pledge for your safe return A Tenant When a deputy arrived in the farming area with writs demanding the rent farmers suddenly appeared assembled by the blowing of tin horns They seized his writs and burned them That December a sheriff and a mounted posse of five hundred rode into the farm country but found themselves in the midst of shrieking tin horns eighteen hundred farmers blocking their path six hundred more blocking their rear all mounted armed with pitchforks and clubs The sheriff and his posse turned back the rear guard parting to let them through This was the start of the Anti Renter movement in the Hudson Valley described by Henry Christman in Tin Horns and Calico It was a protest against the patroonship system which went back to the 1600s when the Dutch ruled New York system where as Christman describes it a few families intricately intermarried controlled the destinies of three hundred thousand people and ruled in almost kingly splendor near two million acres of land The tenants paid taxes and rents The largest manor was owned by the Rensselaer family which ruled over about eighty thousand tenants and had accumulated a fortune of 41 million The landowner as one sympathizer of the tenants put it could swill his wine loll on his cushions fill his life with society food and culture and ride his barouche and five saddle horses along the beautiful river valley and up to the backdrop of the mountain By the summer of 1839 the tenants were holding their first mass meeting