William Alexander (1726 – Jan 15, 1783) was the son of Secretary & lawyer James Alexander. His mother, Mary Spratt Provoost, was the widow of David Provoost, a wealthy New York merchant. James and Mary fled from Scotland in 1716 after participating in the Jacobite Rising in 1715. James Alexander (May 27, 1691 – April 2, 1756) was a lawyer, statesman, Secretary and Surveyor in colonial New York. He served in the Colonial Assembly and as the colony’s attorney general from 1721 to 1723.
William Alexander was considered heir to the Scottish title of Earl of Stirling through Scottish lineage (being the senior male descendant of the paternal grandfather of the 1st Earl of Stirling, who had died in 1640), and he sought the title sometime after 1756. Raised on Broad Street in Lower Manhattan, he relocated to the countryside. He chose Baskinridge (Basking Ridge) and became what many feel is the area’s most famous resident. Let’s take a look.
At an early age, William aspired to be an astronomer and had a passion for mathematics. But he also longed for the title of “Lord,” something his father never pursued, but a title his grandfather held as the 5th Earl of Stirling. If you hold the title of “Lord,” you also enjoy the rights and privileges associated with the House of Lords in England. It was also noted that the Stirlings held title to large tracts of land in America and Canada. So, if you held the title, you retained the rights to the land your family had acquired. William Alexander, the great-grandfather, was once an official of Lord Stirling and owned tracts of land, including Maine, Nova Scotia, Block Island, Long Island, and large sections of New Jersey.
Remember, back in the 1700s, the rich typically held their wealth in land. Alexander wasn’t any different. As Alexander chose Basking Ridge, the English Manor was one of the finest in the English colonies. It was typical to have an estate built along a river, similar to Washington’s Mount Vernon. Alexander chose his area along the Black Brook and the Passaic River (which borders the Great Swamp today).
In 1761, Lord Stirling had just returned from abroad. He built his estate after petitioning the House of Lords for his title. The tract of land, approximately 700 acres, was inherited in 1752 from his father, James Alexander, who was also the surveyor general of New York and New Jersey.
The seat of Lord Stirling, called by the country-people ‘The Buildings,’ was two miles distant. Designed to imitate the residence of an English nobleman, it was unfinished when the war began. The stables, coach-houses, and other offices, ornamented with cupolas and gilded vanes, were built behind a large paved court behind the mansion. A large hall extended through the able stream called the Black River. A large hall extended through the centre of the house. On one side was a drawing-room with painted walls and stuccoed ceiling. Being taken there as a child, my imagination was struck with a style and splendor so different from all around.
Mrs. Eliza Susan Morton Quincy, wife of Josiah Quincy of Boston who in her youth had a home near the Stirling Manor, has left us a description of it as she remembered it.
In 1768, Stirling sold his home in New York and retired with his family to the Basking Ridge estate. The improvement of his estate and his public position as Surveyor-General of New Jersey and Member of the Provincial Council occupied his energies until the American Revolution.
Here, this American nobleman lived the life of a gentleman of fortune; he rode a great coach with gilded panels emblazoned with coronets and medallions. Lord Stirling was so generous to the poor on the outskirts of his estate that they bobbed and curtsied to him whenever he passed in his carriage. He dabbled in mining and agriculture and lived a life befitting an English Lord.
This was an expensive lifestyle, and by the early 1770s, Alexander was bankrupt after spending so much of his inheritance in England trying to claim his lordship. Only his position in society had kept him afloat despite expensive failures in mining operations and a failed sale of lottery tickets for his vast and heavily mortgaged real estate holdings. Ultimately, only his leadership in the Revolutionary Army kept him out of jail.
The council of war met at Lord Stirling’s residence on May 2, 1777. George Washington, Nathaniel Greene, and Henry Knox were in attendance. They discussed a possible attack on New Brunswick, New Jersey, but it was decided that the troops were not strong enough or sufficiently trained to choose such a course of action. General Washington referred to Alexander as “My Lord.”
It was known that William Alexander was an accomplished mathematician who loved astronomy and horse breeding, and Stirling was also a devoted student of winemaking. Like Jefferson, Stirling dedicated much of his estate to growing grapes to produce locally produced vintage wine. It was said that the grapes originated in Italy.
The Royal Society of Arts sought to encourage the colony to cultivate grapes. With some awareness of this background of failure, the Society in 1758 offered a premium of 100 pounds to the colonists who, within seven years, should be the first to produce five tons of red or white wine of acceptable quality.
In 1767, through William Alexander’s gardener, Thomas Burgie, he advised the society that he had planted 2,100 vines. Earlier, in 1763, he had explained to his friend, the Earl of Sherburne, the difficulties that confronted an American viticulturist and had made a plea for governmental encouragement of such projects.
“The making of wine [he wrote on 6th August], also, is worth the attention of Government. Without its aid, the cultivation of the vine will be very slow; for of all the vines in Europe, we do not yet know which of them will suit this climate; and until that is ascertained by experiment, our people will not plant vineyards; few of us are able, and a much less number willing, to make the experiment. I have lately imported about twenty different sorts, and have planted two vineyards, one in this Province [New York] and one in New Jersey; but I find the experiments tedious, expensive, and uncertain; for after eight or ten years’ cultivation I shall perhaps be obliged to reject nine tenths of them as unfit for the climate, and then begin new vineyards from the remainder. But, however tedious, I am determined to go through with it. Yet I could wish to be assisted in it, I would then try to a greater extent, and would the sooner be able to bring the cultivation of the grape into general use.”
William Alexander
In 1767, the Royal Society of Arts awarded Lord Stirling a gold medal for accepting the society’s challenge to establish viticulture and winemaking in the North American colonies by cultivating 2,100 grape (V. vinifera) vines on his New Jersey estate.
I have lately imported about twenty different sorts, and have planted two vineyards, one in this Province [New York] and one in New Jersey; but I find the experiments tedious, expensive, and uncertain; for after eight or ten years’ cultivation I shall perhaps be obliged to reject nine tenths of them as unfit for the climate, and then begin new vineyards from the remainder. But, however tedious, I am determined to go through with it. Yet I could wish to be assisted in it, I would then try to a greater extent, and would the sooner be able to bring the cultivation of the grape into general use.”
William Alexander
Side Note:
The most expensive bottle of wine ever sold at auction was offered at Christie’s in London, on December 5, 1985. The bottle was hand blown dark-green glass and capped with a nubby seal of thick black wax. It had no label, but etched into the glass in a spindly hand was the year 1787, the word “Lafitte,” and the letters “Th.J.” (Thomas Jefferson collection)
Shortly after Alexander died in 1783, the estate remained unoccupied. Numerous attempts to gain funds to maintain the house were made to Congress to no avail. It was hoped that Lady Kitty would visit after she moved to New York, but she didn’t. After years, its glories soon departed. Before the advent of the next century, it was a scene of ruin. The drawing room, with its stuccoed ceiling and decorations featuring goddesses and Cupids, where Lord Stirling and his daughters sang hymns to the accompaniment of a small London spinet, still in existence, was in total disrepair. The tiled courtyard, where many a lordly coach had rumbled, was broken up, and the Stirling gilt coach, itself a reminder of Sir Charles Grandison’s day, was a roosting place for fowl. The entire estate became a dreary picture of neglect and ruin.
For the next 40 years, it was said that the manor fell into disrepair. Read the Story
It was written that 10 years after staying as a winter resident, Nathaniel Green visited the Stirling Manor: “In faded majesty, as if to mourn the dissolution of an ancient race. It’s grand hall and decorated drawing room were being used as a “store-house” and piled with sacks of corn and wheat. Pigs and poultry roamed at will in the paved quadrangle, and its surrounding stables and coachhouse were fast going to ruin.”
Nathaniel Green – Somerset County Historic Quarterly Volume 2 – Somerset County Historical Society, 1913
Then, in 1840, the estate changed hands and was remodeled in the style now referred to as Italianate architecture. The estate stayed as pictured until 1920, when a major fire destroyed the building. Today, a home stands on the original foundation. Each year, during the Lord Stirling Festival in Basking Ridge, part of the original Stirling Manor house foundation still exists under the house now occupying the site. On this day of the year, as part of the festival, the cellar is open to the public for tours. You might call it one of America’s first wine cellars.
Two brick buildings remain of the Lord Stirling/William Alexander estate. Research has established that these were auxiliary buildings related to farm life (granary, farm office, perhaps used by domestic servants). Archaeological digs are ongoing on the site, which is owned by the Somerset County Park Commission. It was entered on the State Register in 1976 and the National Register in 1977.
Research has established that these were auxiliary buildings related to farm life (granary, farm office, perhaps used by domestic servants). Archaeological digs are ongoing on the site owned by the Somerset County Park Commission. They were entered on the State Register in 1976 and the National Register in 1977.
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