History of The Gervin Homestead

Jacob Gervin (1825-1918) owned and farmed the land surrounding the house for most of his life. He married Mary Tarrent (1829-1862) and had 5 children together: Mary M. (1851-?), Angelica (1853-1857), Eliza (1854-1863), Infant (1856) and Jerome (1861).

Jacob was the son of Jerome (1799-1871) and Angelica (Van Patten) (1798-1870) He was born and raised in Schenectady, NY and then attended a boarding school in Ballston Spa, NY. His father purchased the farmland in 1845. Jacob assisted his father in farming and soon he took over the farm himself. After Mary passed away in 1862, Jacob remarried to Altina (Catalina) Swart(1835-1908). They had two more children, possibly twins: Vedder (1868-1953) and Adam (1868-1914).

Jacob remarried to Sarah louise Rolfe after Altina passed in 1908. In taking a closer look at the family’s birth and death dates, this house has seen the passing of a mother, infant, 4 year old, 9 year old and second wife/mother. In spite of all this loss, Jacob is noted to be a successful farmer and prominent member of the community in the History of Saratoga County book published in 1893.

Mary’s (Jacob’s first wife) original tombstone is resting at the front of the barn. We believe that her stone was brought back to the farm when it was replaced with the family stone that has many of the family names on it.

This is the grave stone resting in front of the barn. The engraving is only visible when the snow settles into it. Since Mary was the first in the family to pass away here, we believe the stone was moved here and replaced with a family stone.

We recently visited the local cemetery where the Gervin family now rests with a newer family headstone.

Here are the updated grave stones for the Gervin family.

Jacob’s ancestors immigrated from Holland and can be found noted in records dating back to the 1600’s. Angelica, Jacob’s mother is a direct descendant of one of the original Dutch family’s to settle in this area. True to Dutch tradition, we found an old leather shoe, pig jaw, oil cloth, and tin cup hidden in the ceiling nearest the front door (more on this here!). It was a common belief in Dutch culture that hiding such items would protect the house from evil spirits.

when Jacob died in 1918, he passed the farm down to his eldest son, Jerome. Jerome married Minnie Cook and had one daughter, Anges. They lived on High St in Ballston Spa and operated a boarding house and livery. They moved to the farm around the time Jacob passed away until Jerome’s passing in 1937. At this point, the farm was sold to John and Alice Lane, as Minnie moved to Speculator and lived with Anges and her husband, James Call.

John and Alice Lane raised their two children, Clark (1923-?) and Margaret (1930-?) lane there. Alice was a public school teacher and John farmed the land.

In the 1940’s, the Zee Family lived in the house until sometime in the 1960’s. We found a letter tucked behind the kitchen radiator, written to the Zee daughter from her grandmother, wishing her a happy new year.

Items we found fallen behind the radiator including a letter to the Zee daughter.

In a bag tucked in the back of a closet we found this custom made stair runner, which we also believe belonged to the Zee family.

The custom made stair runner from 1949 that we found tucked away in one of the closets. We believe it may tell the story of the Zee family who lived here at the time. We know they had one daughter and the father loved gardening and planted apple trees in the yard.

At some point, the farm land was separated from the house. Although it is still farmed, it no longer belongs to the same property as the house. It’s unknown who lived in the house until 1980 when the house was purchased by the Bussert family. We purchased it in 2020 and this is where our journey began with the Gervin house!