Philipsburg ManorSpending Time in the 18th-centuryBy Marilyn Loeser If you let your imagination free, you’ll immediately feel a change as you leave the visitors center and cross the bridge over the river into Philipsburg Manor.
We understand those gathered to greet us are costumed guides, but for an hour or two, we let our imaginations take us back to the years preceding the Revolutionary War. Philipsburg Manor, located in Sleepy Hollow, NY, was a farming, milling and trading center owned by the Philips family of Anglo-Dutch merchants. At its peak, the manor included 52,000-acres stretching from Yonkers to Croton. Tenant farmers and 23 enslaved Africans operated the complex.  This day, my husband Mark and I are first invited into the manor house. Our guide explains what life was like here more than two centuries ago as we pass through each room and study its contents. This was the business heart of the manor with warehouse rooms and offices. It also was a place for the Philips family to stay and entertain while visiting the property.
When Philipsburg Manor was broken up and sold, successive owners of the manor house modified and expanded it. Beginning in the late 1950s, research identified the original parts of the house and restoration began, turning rooms into period settings which suggested that this was a secondary home of the Philips family. The manor house was reincarnated again and is no longer portrayed solely as a family residence. It’s more accurately interpreted as the commercial center of an enterprise that had worldwide connections.  We enter through the basement where the dairy and lower kitchen are located. This is where slaves worked, cooked, ate and slept. Through the experience and the knowledge of our guide, we’re able to identify not so much with the Philips empire, but with the slaves and tenant farmers whose labor made manor operations possible.
A second kitchen is located on the main level. This is where food was prepared for those staying in the manor house — the Philips family and their guests. The tour continues as we enter the bedchambers furnished primarily with 18th-century period objects including New England chairs, Chinese porcelain bowl and basin, and books in English and Dutch.  Our guide tells us the manor reflects the time just after the death of Adolph Philips. Without a will, the manor is dismantled — including the dissolution of slave families through sale and other means of dispersal. It was a time of chaos as tenant farmers and white employees wondered about their own livelihoods.
As we file into the warehouse rooms and office, our guide explains several aspects of the business and its international connections. It strikes me, as we walk into the parlor, how quickly we’ve gone from slave quarters to family quarters and then warehouse rooms. Now we’re entering the parlor — used for both business and pleasure. Entertaining guests was a way to establish and maintain business relationships. Throughout the manor there are period pieces and reproductions painstakingly researched to reflect the way the manor would have looked in the mid-18th-century. This also allows a lot of hands-on learning. There are no velvet ropes here.  
After our tour of the manor house, we head toward the farm where two oxen pull a cart, sheep graze in the shade of a tree and chickens search for food. In the new world Dutch barn, guests can thresh some wheat or help groom the oxen. 
Our last stop is the gristmill. 
Here we learn the mechanics of grinding grain brought here by tenant farmers. Our guide explains step by step the engineering of the time and then engages the wheel — powered by water channeled from the river — to grind corn into flour.  
Turning back toward the bridge and the 21st century, we leave the past behind. But the memories? They’ll go with us well into the future. RELATED HISTORIC ATTRACTIONSPhilipse Manor Hall State Historic Site
Warburton Avenue and Dock Street
Yonkers, NY 10701
Phone: 914-965-4027
www.philipsemanorfriends.org
A National Historic Landmark, this high-style Georgian mansion was built in stages between 1680 and 1755, and was home to the wealthy Loyalist, Frederick Philipse III. Old Dutch Church and Burying Ground
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Phone: 914-631-1123
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This sacred edifice and adjoining burying ground is considered the oldest functioning church in New York State.  
WHERE TO STAYSheraton Tarrytown Hotel
600 White Plains Road
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The Tarrytown Music Hall, built in 1885, is listed on the National Register for Historic Places and is the oldest operating theater in Westchester.
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Broadway-caliber musical revivals and other special performances are featured at the longest-running, year-round professional Equity theatre in New York State.
Ticket price includes dinner served at your table. The Performing Arts Center
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Phone: 914-251-6200
www.artscenter.org
This is the largest regional performing arts center between New York City and Toronto. For other Westchester County information, check the website www.westchestertourism.com. | 