page_title: Maizefield
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Maizefield / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Aaron Burr (1756–1836), Vice President of the United States
context_page_description: Maizefield, often locally called Maizeland, is a historic house on West Market Street in the village of Red Hook, New York, United States. It is a large plain brick building, in the Federal style, with clear English Georgian influences, built around the end of the 18th century. In 1973 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
  The house was occupied by General David Van Ness, a Continental Army officer during the Revolutionary War and later Brigardier General of the Dutchess County Militia, state assemblyman and senator who was the first supervisor of the Town of Red Hook. It is not known if house was built prior to his ownership; he sold the property shortly before his death in the 1810s. Aaron Burr hid there for a while shortly after killing Alexander Hamilton in a duel.
  The house has been altered several times since then, including the addition of large wing on the south side. In the middle of the century, a timber-frame Victorian cottage was built on the southwest corner of the property. Later research found that it was designed by Alexander Jackson Davis. A number of prominent local families have lived in both houses since, and they remain private residences.
context_section_description: David Van Ness came to what later became Red Hook from Columbia County to the north, where his brother Peter built Lindenwald, later the home of President Martin Van Buren and today a National Historic Landmark, outside Kinderhook.  He eventually moved south to what is today the hamlet of Upper Red Hook in the northern part of town, married a daughter of prominent local farmer Jacob Heermance, and settled down there, eventually becoming the local postmaster. During the Revolutionary War, he served as an officer in the Continental Army, attaining the rank of captain. In 1778 he was promoted to major in the Dutchess County Militia
  After the Revolution, with the coming of American independence, Van Ness went into public service. He was elected to the State Assembly in 1790, and served as an elector in the 1792 presidential election. The following year he was promoted to brigadier general, second in command of the militia. He continued to serve as postmaster, and since he had brought the title with him, the small settlement at the crossroads, previously referred to as Hardscrabble, became known from then on as Red Hook.
  Starting in 1789 he had begun acquiring property in the lower village of Red Hook, then part of the Town of Rhinebeck, at the crossroads of what is today Routes 9 and 199. His purchases totaled 364 acres (147 ha) by 1797, including the land on which Maizefield now stands. It is unclear whether the house was there prior to his purchases or he built it; either way, it is believed to have been built at a later point in that period, around 1795 at the earliest.
  At the time of its construction, Maizefield had some differences from the current house. An undated watercolor painting shows its original appearance. A side-gabled roof tops the house, and there are no extensions on the north or south. There was, however, a west wing. The painting also shows several outbuildings, including a Dutch barn, but not the cottage currently on the southwest corner.
  The house's interior plan represents a break with previous styles. Houses built by pioneering European settlers in the region had kept their ceilings low to conserve heat during the long, cold winters. But that era had ended by the late 18th century, and the descendants of those settlers, more prosperous in their lives and sophisticated in their tastes, wanted to live in less cramped, more elegant homes, and so built higher ceilings such as those in Maizefield. This change occurred without any corresponding improvement in home heating; the four hearths were thus necessary to keep the house sufficiently heated during the winter.
  With the house complete, in 1800 Van Ness returned to elective office. This time he served a term in the State Senate; the following year he retired from his position in the militia. After he returned to private life, Maizefield played a bit part in the aftermath of one America's early 19th-century political scandals. In 1804, Van Ness's nephew William, an associate and political ally of Vice President Aaron Burr, carried personal letters between Burr and Alexander Hamilton, a fierce opponent of Burr's possible bid for the presidency. In the letters, Burr demanded an apology and explanation from Hamilton for remarks about Burr attributed to him at a Claverack dinner the previous year. When Hamilton's answers proved insufficient to Burr, he instead demanded satisfaction. Van Ness was Burr's second in the ensuing duel, which took place on a midsummer morning on the banks of the Hudson River in what is now Weehawken, New Jersey, near their homes in Manhattan. Burr's shot killed Hamilton, and Van Ness hid Burr for a time afterward at Maizefield.
  The construction of Maizefield and Van Ness's subsequent redesignation of the small settlement nearby as Red Hook had helped promote the development of the future village, and in 1812 the state legislature created the Town of Red Hook by dividing what was then Rhinebeck relatively evenly, using an old land-grant boundary to create the line between the two towns today. Van Ness, one of the citizens who had li
caption: A portrait of Aaron Burr around the time of the duel
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