Dairymaid

The Van Tassel dairy supplies the estate and half the frolics in the valley. You own the line end to end — herd to churn to springhouse — and the first hour of the day is yours alone.

The work

• Milk the herd at dawn, every day, in every season.
• Churn the butter and press the cheeses.
• Keep the cool stone springhouse in order; the keys are yours entirely.
• Judge what keeps and what goes to the table this week.

Context

• Reports to the head farmhand.
• Solo ownership of the dairy line, within a farm of a dozen hands.
• Pay is £14–20 New York currency per annum (~$35–50 in silver dollars), with board and lodging on the place.
• In-person and resident: the herd does not wait for a commute.

Recorded in the parish register of Sleepy Hollow, autumn of 1799.

• Skilled at the churn — butter that comes and cheese that keeps.
• A steady hand with skittish cows.
• An early riser, without complaint, in every season.

Not a fit if a pre-dawn start in February is something you would need to negotiate.

The most prosperous farmstead on the green banks of the Hudson: grain, dairy, orchard, and poultry, in profit every season since Baltus Van Tassel took the place in hand in 1770.

Who we are

A dozen year-round hands plus seasonal crews at haying and harvest, all of whom board in and eat from a table that fairly groans. Barns full to the beams, a larder the valley considers a local wonder, and no debts anywhere in the ledger.

How we work

Old Dutch husbandry run on a calendar that has not failed yet: plough at thaw, hay at midsummer, the great crush at harvest, and the frolics that follow. We promote from within — the last head farmhand started as a cornhusker — and the master works alongside the crews.

Who thrives here

Hands who rise early without being told twice and who can be trusted with stock, tackle, and a full cellar. Anyone who has tasted the table tends to stay; our turnover among such is, as far as the books show, nil.

Recorded in the parish register of Sleepy Hollow, autumn of 1799.