Rankin Historic Cherry Hill

Historic Cherry Hill encourages the public to connect emotionally with one Albany family's response to change, in order to gain critical perspective on the past and present. The museum accomplishes its mission by developing engaging programs and publications based on the site's amazingly intact collections of 20,000 objects, 30,000 manuscripts, 7,500 textiles, 5,000 books and 3,000 photographs. Built in 1787, Cherry Hill was lived in continuously by five generations of the Van Rensselaer family until 1963. Since the family's initial ownership, Cherry Hill has been, and continues to be part of a significantly changing community. Changes to the house and in the lives of each succeeding generation reflect the broader community well. The museum opened to the public in 1964, and in the early years, the Trustees, with the guidance of museum professionals, adopted a "preservation site" philosophy for the care and interpretation of the house. This philosophy embraced the idea that the house be left as it was given--as a twentieth century home which reflects the changes and continuities of 176 years of family occupancy in an ever-evolving community. The site of the famous Cherry Hill murder. Many people have claimed seeing an unidentified ghost on the grounds.