32. Coeymans-Bronck House
 20-28 Main Street

32. Coeymans-Bronck House
20-28 Main Street

c. 1769

The Coeymans-Bronck Stone House, built circa 1769 near Hannacroix Creek and the Hudson River in Coeymans, is one of the Hudson Valley's finest surviving Dutch Colonial stone homes. Built of rubble stone with a gambrel roof and Georgian symmetry, it preserves much of its original eighteenth-century craftsmanship, including wide plank floors, paneled walls, and early hardware.

The house was originally occupied by Charlotte Amelia Coeymans Bronck and Jan Jonas Bronck, descendants of early settler Barent Pietersz Coeymans. It later became associated with John Teunise Van Dalfsen, a Revolutionary War and War of 1812 veteran and the first Supervisor of Coeymans in 1817.

A rare Dutch-English transitional stone dwelling, the home gained further historical interest when restorers uncovered a hidden child's moccasin and a 1787 Connecticut coin inside a wall during 1970s restoration work. The property was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2003.
 

The Coeymans-Bronck House, also built in 1750, carries a particularly distinguished lineage. It was erected by Charlotte Amelia Coeymans and her husband, Jan Jonas Bronck. Charlotte was herself a daughter of Barent Peter Coeymans, making the house a direct expression of the founding family's continued presence along the river. The riverside elevation of the residence retains its original eighteenth-century door and stoep, preserving an intimate connection to the daily life of its earliest occupants. Jan Jonas Bronck was a prominent colonial landowner and justice of the peace in the Hudson Valley,  with ties to Beverwyck (Albany) and Coxsackie, New York. Born 1650, he was the son of Pieter Bronck and part of the influential Bronck family descended from relatives of Jonas Bronck, the Scandinavian settler for whom The Bronx was named. Jan Bronck helped expand the family's presence in the Albany and Coxsackie region, where the Bronck family became known for farming, trade, and landholding. The family legacy survives through the historic Bronck House, regarded as one of the oldest surviving homes in upstate New York. He died in 1742.

The first occupants of the house were Charlotte Amelia Bronck and her husband, Jan Jonas Bronck.

Charlotte Amelia, born December 24, 1727, in Coxsackie, was the daughter of Pieter B. Coeymans.

During restoration work, a discovery of a coin placed within a beam near the original river-facing entrance, indicating the house may have been constructed earlier than the previously believed 1760s date. Through marriage, the property passed to the VanDalfsen family before being sold. In the 1840s, it was purchased by Henry Niles Sr., remaining in the Niles family through several generations until its sale in the late 1950s.

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