Saving the Slingerlands Vault
DNA kit kick start's direct descendants mission to rescue an abandoned treasure
Bethlehem
On a small mound of earth behind the old Mangia restaurant in Slingerlands, hidden from view, sits a monument to local history, the Slingerland family burial vault.
Inside the 1852 structure are former congressman and famous anti-slavery champion John I. Slingerland and his brother William Henry, Slingerland's first postmaster, along with several of their family members, including their father, John A. Slingerland.
While the structure is one of the most important historical artifacts in Albany County, it has become so run-down it could be mistaken for a pile of rocks in a stand of trees, not the sacred final resting spot of two of the most important local civic leaders of the 19th century.
And no one may be feeling more angst these days over the condition of the vault than Sue Virgilio of Niskayuna. Virgilio, who visited the vault for the first time this past summer, is a direct descendant of John I. Slingerland and is part of a small movement to have the vault restored.
"It broke my heart to see the condition of the vault," Virgilio said. "And that's why I wanted to be involved."
Virgilio discovered just within the past year that John I. Slingerland is her great great great grandfather. She figured out the connection after her mom got her an AncestryDNA kit last Christmas and she began looking into her family's history on Ancestry.com.
Her mom's maiden name is Slingerland. But Virgilio and her mom never knew their exact connection to the Slingerland family after several male relatives, including Virgilio's grandfather, who was an only child, died young.
John I. Slingerland, in addition to serving in both Congress and the state Assembly and helping to ensure that the Albany & Susquehanna Railroad was built through the town of Bethlehem, was also a leading voice in the anti-slavery movement in the decades leading up to the Civil War. Slingerland supported an early version of the Homestead Act, the law that President Lincoln signed in 1862 granting federal land to small family farmers. Southern slave owners viewed the act as a threat to their existence. Slingerland also gave three-quarters of an acre of land in his will to a man believed to have been a family slave, and he supported the rights of farmers
Virgilio is now part of a committee trying to save the vault and raise money from the public for its repair. Others on the committee are Susan Leath, the town historian, Virgilio's mom, other Slingerland family descendants and neighbors who live near the vault, which isn't just a symbol of the Slingerland brothers, but also the rest of the Slingerland family and the community itself.
Virgilio met Bob Mullens, a Slingerland family member and carpenter from Feura Bush who grew up knowing he was part of the Slingerland family and joined the committee after taking a walking tour with Leath.
Mullens has also researched John I. Slingerlands extensively and worries his story and those of other important figures can easily be lost through time.
The Slingerland family traces its local roots back to a Dutch trader named Teunis Slingerland, who came to Albany around 1650 and later purchased 10,000 acres along Onesquethaw Creek in present-day New Scotland, Bethlehem and the town of Coeymans from the Mohawks.
Today, descendants like Mullens still make their home on the same land, and Virgilio spent her early years there, with some of her most cherished memories visiting her grandmother's mid-1700s farm house in Coeymans Hollow.
What would become the future hamlet of Slingerlands, however, was not part of that original Teunis Slingerland tract. John A. Slingerland, the father of the congressman John I. Slingerland, built a home around 1790 at what is now 1575 New Scotland Road on land leased from a Van Rensselaer patroon, the ancestral landowner who controlled much of the land in Albany County until the breakup of the manor in the mid-1800s.
John I. Slingerland died at that house on Oct. 26, 1861, just months after the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln and the breakout of the Civil War, long after the last patroon died, setting off the anti-rent wars that led to the breakup of the patroon manor and more widespread land ownership.
In 2012, the Slingerlands Historic District, consisting of roughly 100 buildings, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The hamlet was originally named Normanskill before being renamed Slingerlands in 1870 in honor of the Slingerland family. The Slingerlands had spurred an era of growth and development, including bringing the Albany & Susquehanna railroad that connected it to the city of Albany in 1863.
Despite this rich history, the Slingerland burial vault has not been well preserved. For decades there has been worry over what to do with the burial plot, a 60-by-85-foot piece of land that is owned by the town of Bethlehem but is in desperate need of repair and landscaping.
Although the vault is accessible from the former Mangia parking lot by foot, it actually sits directly behind the property of Georgia Fishburn, whose home was built in 1890, nearly 40 years after the vault was erected.
When the vault was built, there was nothing blocking the view of the structure from the road, and there likely were no trees around it like today, making it an impressive monument that rose from the ground for all to see coming through Slingerlands. That's not the case now.
"Most of the residents of Bethlehem are sadly not aware of the Slingerland family vault," said Fishburn, who is a member of the group. "It is hard to see from the road especially during the summer months. I would like to see this vault restored and protected for our future generations."
Committee members also worry about the future of the Mangia site. In September 2016, the owner of the property showed town planners an informal proposal to build apartments and a bank on the former restaurant site. However, the project has yet to move forward and the Mangia building has since been filled with two new tenants, including a dance studio.
Noting that the soil above the burial vault is sinking, Leath said much restoration work would be needed at the site, although she declined to reveal the estimated cost. The hope is that private funding from the public will pay for the work.
"It's not too bad, but we'd like to get it restored, a nice fence around it and a historical marker, all those things," Leath said. "You know it costs money of course. There's such a large extended Slingerland family, and I'm not so much worried about the money, frankly. The town can only do so much. They have their limitations. So it will take the community coming together with donations, and it's going to be a long-term thing. And then there's just the long-term maintenance of the area as well."
