HRBT Foundation Provides Major Grant to Repair and Conserve the Historic Robert Jenkins House

March 7, 2024, Hudson, NY: The HRBT Foundation has awarded a major grant of $25,000 to the Historic Robert Jenkins House Campaign to replace its slate roof, rebuild its box gutters, and make masonry repairs. The house, at 113 Warren Street in Hudson, is owned by the Hendrick Hudson Chapter, National Society Daughters of the American Revolution.

Helping to maintain Columbia County’s historic and cultural resources is one focus of the HRBT Foundation. Initially known as The Hudson River Bank & Trust Company Foundation, the Foundation’s mission is philanthropic community support that focuses on not-for-profit enterprises that engage the larger community.

The Robert Jenkins House, located on a particularly beautiful block of the city near the waterfront, is owned by the Hendrick Hudson Chapter, NSDAR. Primary funding assistance is from a Save America’s Treasures grant awarded in 2021 by the National Park Service, Department of the Interior. Under the direction of architect Marilyn Kaplan of Preservation Architecture in Albany, construction by Titan Roofing, Inc. of Springfield, Massachusetts began in December, and work is anticipated to be completed in April.

The 1811 house, built by Robert Jenkins, son of Hudson Proprietor Seth Jenkins, is on the National Register of Historic Places as Nationally Significant and is in the Front Street-Parade Hill-Lower Warren Street Historic District. The house is a fine early example of federal-style architecture in the Hudson Valley where Dutch architecture dominated during the 18th century.

The house is maintained as a chapter house where routine business of the Hendrick Hudson Chapter, NSDAR takes place, and it also features a museum and a historical and genealogical library. In 1900 the chapter received the house as a gift from DAR member Frances Chester White Hartley, the granddaughter of builder Jenkins. Decades earlier, Hartley had been born in the house. In 1900 it became the site of the city’s first and only free public library, losing that distinction only in 1959 when the Hudson Area Library was established. The historical and genealogical library remains open to the public and still is free of charge.

The house is also arguably Hudson’s museum. In 1900, a broad invitation to contribute to the new museum was issued by the Columbia Republican, which, in a lengthy story about the house, said “donations of books, pictures, relics and curios will be most acceptable, in fact anything of merit which will adorn, beautify or be of use.” The resulting historic collections include artifacts and documents from the whaling and Civil War eras, furnishings, and fine art.

Chapter members and others say the Historic Robert Jenkins House is truly an “American Treasure,” as evidenced by the Save America’s Treasures grant.

The Hendrick Hudson Chapter of the DAR was founded in 1895. The National Society Daughters of the American Revolution is a nonprofit, nonpartisan women’s volunteer service organization welcoming eligible women without regard to race, creed, or religion. The Hendrick Hudson Chapter includes 130 members who trace their lineage back to a patriot in the American Revolution–whether serving as soldier, shopkeeper, or seamstress. The mission of the DAR is to promote historic preservation, education, and patriotism.

The chapter and the chapter house can be accessed at hudson-dar.org, facebook.com/HudsonDAR, instagram.com/robertjenkinshouse, hendrickhudsonchapterdar@gmail.com, and (518) 828-9764.