Our History

Frans Jansen Pruyn, the first member of the family to come to this country, arrived in Albany in the 1660s and by 1683 family members appear on the rolls of the Dutch Reformed Church in Albany. The next several generations married into prominent local Dutch families such as the Lansings, Gansevoorts, Van Zandts, Bogarts, Ten Eycks, Gerritses, Van Burens and Van Santvoords.

Casparus Francis Pruyn (1792-1846), sixth generation, was the land and business agent for Stephen Van Rensselaer III, one of the last patroons of the Van Rensselaer Manor. He served from 1835 to 1844, after having apprenticed in the position under his uncle, Robert Dunbar. Almost all of Albany and Rensselaer  County and parts of present-day Columbia and Greene County was under lease from the patroon and all the farm tenants had to pay their rent, usually in produce and livestock, to the Land Agent every year.

A patroon owned large tracts of land in the Dutch colony of New Netherland.  Rensselaerwyck was the largest and most successful patroonship in New Netherland.  The Patroon System continued even after the English take over of New Netherland in 1664 and lasted until the death of Stephen Van Rensselaer III in 1839.

It appears that the Pruyn House was built between 1825 and 1830 on land owned by Robert Dunbar as a country home for Casparus, his wife Ann Hewson and their family. Their son, Robert Hewson Pruyn, was educated at Albany Academy and Rutgers, studied law and was one of the founders of Albany Law School.  In 1861, President Abraham Lincoln appointed him Minister (ambassador) to the faraway Kingdom of Japan.

In 1848, two years after Casparus Pruyn’s death, the property of 114 acres was purchased by Alfred Mayell for $3,800. It was next owned by several others until 1893 when the remaining 80 acres were purchased by John H. Henkes Jr. and his wife Carrie, at an Albany County auction. Very few structural changes have been made. Henry (Syd) Bailey, the last owner, died in 1981 and left the estate, now 5 ½ acres, to relatives.

The house was built in “high style,” a combination of Federal and Greek Revival architecture and retains its farm-like setting. It is listed on the National and State registers of historic Places.

The Henkes Family lived in the Pruyn House for many years.

The Henkes Family in Newtonville, by Pat Henkes Pogge:

One hundred and twenty-eight years ago, sometime in 1860, one year before the beginning of the Civil War, a young couple bought a small farm in what was then known as west Troy, Watervliet, and now known as the Town of Colonie. The couple were John Lawrence Henkes and his wife, Eliabeth Gardner Henkes.  They were your great, great, great grandparents.  The first Henkes farm was at the intersection of Old Niskayuna Road and Watervliet Shaker Road.  For some reason their crops failed there one year and they became discouraged.  John and Elizabeth established their next home on a larger, more fertile 50 acre farm down the road at 187 Old Niskayuna Road. Eventually their family consisted of seven children, four boys and three girls, all born at home.

The farm did well as the years passed.  Produce was grown for markets in Albany and Menands for the increasing local population, and naturally all of their own food was grown on the property as well as a thriving hoard of livestock.  The only staples they bought were sugar, salt, flour and coffee.  Tobacco was grown on the farm and cigars were made for sale until shortly after 1862 when President Lincoln passed a bill levying a heavy tax on tobacco in order to support the government during the Civil War.  

There were apple, pear, and cherry tree orchards to tend, raspberry and blueberry bushes and fields of strawberries, which were made into jams and jellies, grapevines for wine making, and all kinds of vegetables.  They raised chickens and geese, cows and horses. When hog-butchering time came, all the local farmers would gather on the Henkes farm, since it was the largest and best equipped.  They smoked their own hams, made their own soap, candles, maple sugar, bread, butter and cheese.  There were two or three very tall wind-mills on the property to pump water from wells for the farm and in the later years supplied water for the greenhouses and nursery.  The family cooked and heated their farm house with wood stoves.

In 1893, John, who was the oldest, and his wife Caroline bought at public auction, the adjoining house and property at 207 Old Niskayuna Road, which is now the Pruyn House Historical and Cultural Center.  The house had changed hands numerous times since the Pruyns live there.  John and Carrie (Caroline) and their children maintained the home and grounds.  They cultivated the 80 acres as a working farm until a portion of it was acquired in 1966 by one of their sons-in-laws, Sidney Bailley.  The Town of Colonie then purchased the property from Sid in 1982.