National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior

Historical Overview
the boarders as transients who did not socialize with the estate families. 313 Everett left the estate
in the late 1930s to run a tourism cabin business in Hyde Park. 314
The herdsman and dairyman also had charge of two Berkshire brood sows. 315 They were
taken to area farms to be bred each year. 316 In the late 1910s, Herbert Shears took a couple of
sows to Tracy Dow's farm in Rhinebeck each spring to have them bred with the Dows' boar
hog. 317 The sows were kept for the sole purpose of drinking the surplus skim milk produced in
the dairy. The young pigs were sold and never slaughtered on the estate. 318
Horse barn
The horse barn bred Belgian draft horses for farm work. As reported by Cap Newman,
Mr. Vanderbilt took great interest in the estate's breeding operation and the approximately
fifteen horses kept in the horse barn. At Vanderbilt's request, the horseman ordered the best
fancy brass harnesses, calling the teams "regular show horses." 319 The horses were broken and
trained by a horseman, cleaned and fed by a stable man, and driven by four teamsters who used
three teams for haying, snow plowing, and hauling ice, fire wood, coal, ash, and garbage on the
estate. 320 The night watchman for the farm side of the estate assisted the stable man in caring
for the horses and cleaning the barn. 321
About the same time that Cap's brother Everett left the dairyman's position to run his
own business, Cap was asked by Shears to break in a pair of colts on the farm. Cap was a good
horse trainer, and thereafter he was responsible for the Belgian horse teams. From the interview
with Newman, it is unclear whether his horseman duties overlapped with his herdsman duties,
but he spent the last three years before Mr. Vanderbilt's death with the three horse teams. 322
During Cap's tenure as horseman, August Traudt was the stable man. 323
Cap told the story of an unmatched team of two colts, one roan and one chestnut. The
estate wanted a matched team, so a match was found for the chestnut mare. The new horse was
only half broken when it arrived, and Cap finished the work, but the horse remained nervous.
Farm staff knew his temperament and left him to Newman to handle. On one occasion, Cap was
hauling a pile of leaves with the team to the woods below the south gate, and old man Plain, Bill
Plain's father, asked for a ride to his house by the river. Plain, who worked on the estate, patted
the horse's neck before he could be warned. The team bolted, and Plain was dragged and run
over by the wheels of the wagon. He died before he could be taken to the hospital. 324
313
Soulis Newman, 10-11; Peggy Newman, 5.
314
Soulis Newman, 3-4.
315
Snell, "Preliminary Report," 57-60.
316
Soulis Newman, 14.
317
Soulis Newman, 3. Newman refers to the years preceding his own arrival at Hyde Park in 1918. It was
on one of these trips in 1918 that Shears offered Newman and his brother jobs on the Vanderbilt farm.
318
Soulis Newman, 14-15.
319
Snell, "Preliminary Report," 57-60; Soulis Newman, 5.
320
Soulis Newman, 7.
321
Snell, "Preliminary Report," 57-60.
322 Soulis Newman, 5.
323 Soulis Newman, 7.
324 Soulis Newman, 6-9.
67