Head Farmhand

Van Tassel Farm is the largest working farm in the valley — grain, dairy, orchard, poultry. You run the working of it: the calendars, the crews, and the condition of everything that ploughs, pulls, or stores.

The work

• Set the ploughing, haying, and harvest calendars and hold the crews to them through the autumn crush.
• Direct a dozen year-round hands plus the seasonal crews at haying and harvest.
• Keep the barns, teams, and tackle in working order the year round.
• Judge when the fields are ready and commit the crews accordingly.

Context

• Answers directly to Mynheer Van Tassel, each evening, over supper.
• A dozen year-round hands under you, thirty-odd at the peak.
• Pay is £40–55 New York currency per annum (~$100–140 in silver dollars), plus lodging in the stone farmhouse and full board at the famous table.
• In-person and resident. The harvest does not keep office hours.

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

• Ten seasons' farm work, at least two of them directing other hands.
• Can plan a harvest calendar and hold crews to it through the autumn crush.
• Handles horses, oxen, and hired men with equal calm.

Not a fit if you want to be off the place at harvest, or would rather be given the calendar than build it.

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.