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Theodosius White’s tenant farmhouse is located within a 178-acre property inherited in 1827 after the death of esteemed Revolutionary War surgeon and former Yorktown Supervisor Ebenezer White.
The property is located in the area surrounding what is now Granite Springs Road. It comprises several houses and a smaller one-time tenant farmhouse, which now serves as the home of Trisha Sullivan Rothberg, Seth Rothberg and their son Liam. This home is known as Theodosius White’s tenant farmhouse, and it is the latest selection for Yorktown’s Home of Historic Distinction.
The town lists the building date of the home as 1861, but the commission notes that it’s easy to see architectural elements that are significantly older. Similar to most of the tenant cabins in the mid-Hudson Valley, the primitive and original structure was accented and expanded throughout the years.
The Rothbergs’ renovations of the home have evolved into a series of “archaeological digs” yielding items like a tin of nineteenth-century makeup - “Harry Tetlow’s Superb Gossamer for the Complexion” - as well as a 1914 letter to a Sarah H. Johnson from “Even Wood, Esquire” in Peekskill.
The Commission states that Theodosius White was a successful farmer who lived a long life and passed away in 1885 at the age of 96. Stories reveal him to be a beloved grandfather who was active well into his eighties and a lover of corny jokes.
More than a century later, the farmhouse continues to show clues about the past and the many families who have called it home.
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