King Manor
King Manor, also known as the Rufus King House, is a historic house at 150th Street and Jamaica Avenue in Jamaica, Queens, New York City. The two-story house is the main structure in Rufus King Park, an public park that preserves part of the former estate of Rufus King, a U.S. Founding Father. Built 1730 and expanded in 1755 and the 1800s, the house is designed with elements of the Federal, Georgian, and Greek Revival styles. The house is designated as a National Historic Landmark, and the house, its interior spaces, and the park are all New York City designated landmarks.
The house was occupied by the Colgan and Smith families in the late 18th century. King acquired the house and surrounding land in 1805 and expanded it into a 17-room mansion, which he occupied until his death in 1827. King's family lived in the house until 1896 when Rufus's granddaughter Cornelia King died. The house and the remnants of King's land were sold in 1897 to the then-independent village of Jamaica and converted into a public park; when Jamaica became part of New York City the next year, the New York City Parks Department took over the property. The King Manor Association renovated the mansion in 1900 and reopened it as a clubhouse for various local civic groups. King Park underwent several alterations in the early and mid-20th century, and there were numerous unexecuted plans to demolish the mansion or convert it to other uses. The house itself was renovated after a major fire in 1964, and the house and park were again restored in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Additional, smaller renovations of the house and park took place in the early 21st century.
What is now King Manor is composed of several sections, arranged roughly in an "L" shape. The facade is slightly asymmetrical, with frame shingles and a Dutch portico, and is topped by a gambrel roof. The rooms largely date to when Rufus King renovated and expanded the house in the early 19th century. The first floor includes an ornate parlor, library, and dining room, while the second and third floors include bedrooms. King Manor is owned and maintained by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, and its interior furnishings are supervised by the King Manor Association. The house's collection includes objects from the 18th and 19th centuries, and it has hosted various programs, events, and exhibits over the years. There has been commentary about both the museum's exhibits and the house's plain architecture.
Site
King Manor is located at 15003 Jamaica Avenue, within Rufus King Park, in the Jamaica neighborhood of Queens in New York City. It is on the north side of the avenue between 150th and 153rd Streets.Rufus King Park
The house is the main attraction of Rufus King Park, which occupies a city block bounded by Jamaica Avenue to the south, 150th Street to the west, 89th Avenue to the north, and 153rd Street to the east. The park covers and preserves a portion of the former estate of Rufus King, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. It has been cited as measuring across. The park has numerous recreational facilities. At the north end of the park is a gazebo, a soccer field, and basketball courts. There is a play area on the eastern end of the park near 153rd Street and 90th Avenue. The south end of Rufus King Park includes the mansion itself and public restrooms. Also within the park, about north of the mansion, is the gravesite of a 19th-century slave known as Duke.Previous site usage
Prior to the European colonization of Long Island in the 17th century, the island was occupied by Native Americans, though there exists no evidence of Native American settlement on the house's site. The current park site was located between a group of hills named the Woody Heights to the north and Mechawanienck Trail to the south. The first documented structure on or near King Manor's site was a quartering house, which appeared in a 1666 map. According to researcher Jo Ann Cotz, the presence of a chimney and large foundation indicate that this structure may have been used by the British military, but researcher Joel Grossman writes that the nearby huts used by British soldiers were different in design from the quartering house. A leathermaker named John Owlffield bought the land in 1664; the grounds may contain remnants of trenches that he used to soak animal hides. Though it is unknown whether Owlffield's holdings included the King Manor site itself, his descendants, the Oldfield family, did own property that became part of King Manor.There may have been several outbuildings associated with King Manor, although the locations of the outbuildings are not all known. A structure east of the main house, dating from the early 19th century, may have been used as a bathroom. Nothing is known about older outbuildings from as early as the 17th century. Among the buildings that might have existed were a cistern; a well; an outhouse building or privy vault; and structures related to farming. After the King family moved to the site in the 19th century, several structures are known to have been built near the house. By 1813, these included a pair of parallel buildings north of the house, as well as a third structure that was built near Grove Street. In addition, there was a stone edifice known as building K to the east of the manor's rear wing, which may have been used as a barracks, dairy house, or smokehouse. In the 1900s, building K was a milk house, connected to the main house with latticework.
Use as residence
18th century
It is not known when the oldest section of the house was built. According to research by Robert W. Venables in 1989, there was already a small cottage on the grounds by 1730. The cottage's original location has also not been determined, but that residence was likely moved at some point and is preserved as the current house's original kitchen. Other sources date King Manor to 1750, although the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission cites the western half of the house as having been built at that time. In any case, the original section of the house served as a farmhouse, inn, and rectory in the 18th century. One writer, Richard Panchyk, credits Ames Smith as having built the house.Two rectors of Grace Episcopal Church lived on the land in the early and mid-18th century: Thomas Poyer and Thomas Colgan. Thomas Poyer married Sarah Oldfield in 1724 and acquired a farm from his father-in-law, Joseph Oldfield, in 1726. Poyer remained there until his death in 1732; he was recorded as having owned or of land in what was then the town of Jamaica. Poyer sold off some of the land in 1730. Thomas Colgan, the next person to live on the land, bought Poyer's farm and acquired a site in Jamaica, bringing his total holdings to. Colgan lived on the estate until his death in 1755. According to Venables, Colgan may have built the western half of what later became King Manor. He also likely expanded Poyer's original structure to the north. A later pastor for Grace Church wrote that the farm was surrounded by a fence and included a fruit orchard that was capable of producing 100 barrels of cider annually. His estate, at the time, faced the shore of the now-infilled Beaver Pond.
The Colgan house was characterized as having "eight rooms on a floor, and two good rooms upstairs" in the mid-18th century, although Venables described the house as having four rooms per floor. The house was described as having sash windows that overlooked Beaver Pond; this indicates that the house has likely always faced south, since Beaver Pond was to the southwest. Around this time, the main house's western half was built. Colgan's widow placed the house on sale in 1759, and she was living in another house in Jamaica by 1765. Mrs. Colgan died in the house on April 17, 1776.
The house passed to Colgan's son-in-law Christopher Smith, who was married to Mary, one of the Colgan daughters. Although there was a common misconception that George Washington once slept in the house, he never visited it; however, Washington is known to have visited a neighboring tavern. Smith bought land from the Sayre family in 1781 and from Ann Banks in 1785. The Colgan and Smith families may have owned up to 10 slaves on the estate, as recorded in the 1790 and 1800 United States censuses. Little else is known about the Smith family's occupancy of the house. When Christopher Smith died in 1805, he was indebted to the estate of the politician John Alsop, who had given Smith a mortgage for the house.
Rufus King ownership
, who was Alsop's son-in-law, was the next person to own the Colgans' and Smiths' house. King had been a Continental Congress delegate and a United States Senator before becoming the United States Minister to the United Kingdom from 1796 to 1803. He and his wife Mary had moved in 1788 to New York City, but he wanted to move to the countryside by the start of the 19th century, having lived in rural England for several years. After surveying several plots along the Long Island Sound and Hudson River, King decided to move to Jamaica on central Long Island. Just before King occupied the house, there were a narrow gravel path and a carriage driveway leading to Jamaica Avenue, and there were two horse chestnut trees and a white picket fence separating the house from the avenue. There were no other flora on the property aside from a grove of apple trees. One of King's grandsons, Charles King, wrote that the house, fences, and land were similar to those in other residences in Jamaica.King purchased Christopher Smith's house and in 1805 for $12,000, and he also paid off Smith's mortgage. The site extended as far north as the present-day Grand Central Parkway and abutted Grace Church to the east. King moved into the house in early 1806 and shortly afterward began expanding it into a mansion. In front of the house, he built a circular front walkway, some fir and pine trees, and a strip of plantings measuring wide. King also planted a semicircular row of linden trees behind the house; some of the trees were transported from Portsmouth, New Hampshire. According to Venables's research, King obtained pine and oak from the nearby forest, as well as shingles from a nearby property owner, and used these materials to build a new kitchen in 1806. King also erected the eastern portion of the main house. The interiors were redesigned in the Federal and Georgian styles; by 1810, the dining room had been expanded, and the new kitchen had been finished. The original cottage had been moved to behind the main house by this time, creating the current L-shaped layout. There were two buildings north of the mansion, which may have been barns. There was also a lawn to the west of the main house.
King was an abolitionist and paid his workers, in contrast to the slaveowners in the surrounding area. The 1810 United States census shows that he had a slave named Margaret, whom he freed two years later. The New York Amsterdam News said he bought Margaret to free her from the estate of a friend who had died, while Newsday wrote that King had wanted to reunite Margaret with her husband Moses, a free man who worked as King's servant. There were unfounded rumors that King buried slaves on the grounds and used the mansion as a plantation. Under the mansion's previous owners, slaves may have lived behind building K to the east of the main house; by contrast, King's servants likely worked in the lean-to at the north end of the new kitchen, as well as fields and barns north of the main house. King served again as a U.S. senator from 1813 to 1825 and continued to own the house. Additional structures on the property were built after 1813, though it is unknown exactly when these structures were erected. The King estate also had a cistern at an unknown location.