For at least two decades, my wife and I have said we should visit Lindenwald in Kinderhook, NY, less than 30 miles (48 km) from Albany. Moreover, we have been in the vicinity of the Martin Van Buren National Historic Site, which the National Park Service runs. Finally, on September 5, we made a visit.
I felt as though I knew quite a bit about Van Buren. A few years back, there was a story about a 12-year-old girl who discovered that all of the U.S. presidents, from Washington through Obama, were related to each other, except one. The one was Van Buren, while the others were connected to John Lackland Plantagenet, King of England (ruled 1199-1216).
Van Buren’s lineage was Dutch, and that was his first language. He was considered the first President born a United States citizen, as his birth on December 5, 1782, occurred after the British surrender in Yorktown in 1781. However, it was before the Treaty of Paris officially ended the war in 1783.
After serving as Andrew Jackson’s second Vice President—John C. Calhoun was Jackson’s first one — Van Buren was elected the eighth President of the United States (1837-1841).
I vaguely recall the Panic of 1837, an economic crisis that started with Jackson’s unstable economic policies earlier in the decade.
His failed 1840 reelection campaign helped popularize the term OK. In fact, the $800 clue in the JEOPARDY category on 10/23/2025 under Presidential Facts read: This New Yorker’s bid for reelection was hampered by an 1837 financial panic & a depression that followed.
Really?
There was a lot I did not know about Van Buren. According to the White House Historical Society, “His father, Abraham, owned a successful inn and small farm, along with six enslaved individuals.” Also, “Martin Van Buren owned at least one enslaved person during his lifetime—not wholly uncommon for a man who was born and raised in a state that permitted slavery until 1827.”
The most intriguing story I heard about Martin Van Buren, when he was running for reelection in 1840, was that he ran without a vice presidential candidate. There was opposition to Vice President Richard M. Johnson‘s personal life, specifically his relationships with several Black or mixed-race women, including his common-law wife Julia Chinn.
Martin Van Buren purchased the Lindenwald mansion in 1839 while he was President. It became his home and farm from 1841, when he left the White House, until he died in 1862. He launched unsuccessful campaigns from there in 1844 and 1848, the latter as the candidate of the Free Soil party, which focused on opposing the expansion of slavery into the western territories of the United States.
There was no admission. The bigger-named attractions supplement the lesser-known locations. If you can’t make it to Kinderhook, you can take a virtual tour. In fact, it was a treat for me because the physical tour didn’t include the second-floor bedrooms.
