114 Front St Schenectady

Peter Van Slyck House

The house at 114–116 Front Street consists of two separate structures that appear to have been joined in the mid-nineteenth century although the completed structure appears similar to .  
 
The house at No. 114 is located on a lot that was the rear of the lot of Martin Van Slyck whose home lot faced Green Street, and it has been suggested that the house was constructed prior to Peter’s marriage in 1738.  The house facades were likely covered originally with wide wood board siding with beads along the lower edges, similar to those recently reinstalled on the side walls and rear.  The present street facade of brick veneer laid in American common bond was likely installed in the 1850s during the period when Gothic Revival was popular, as evinced by the pointed arch window at the attic in the gable.  Despite many renovations made to the house at various times, the foundations, masonry arch hearth supports, hand-hewn beams, and wide wood floor boards of the original construction remain.  
 
The eastern wing at No. 116 has a more obscure and less determinate origin.  For many years it had been thought that this structure originated in the 18th century as the one and one-half story house of Simon Speck, the African-American caretaker of the old Dutch Church Burying Ground that formerly was located between Front and Green Streets east of this property.  This theory suggested that the house was relocated and added to the Van Slyck House in the 1820s.  However, other researchers have speculated that the structure was constructed of either a portion of another house moved to the site or constructed of salvaged house parts in the mid-nineteenth century.  Under either hypothesis, the east wing had been joined to the house at No. 114 by the time that the brick façade was added in the 1850s, as the brickwork is continuous across the front.