Liberty Hall (New Jersey)

The Liberty Hall Museum was built as a Georgian-style house in 1772 by William Livingston, a lawyer who would go on to become a member of the First and Second Continental Congress, founding father, a signatory of the Constitution, and the first Governor of the State of New Jersey. During the first year of occupancy Alexander Hamilton, later the first Secretary of the Treasury, resided with Livingston. The house was built on a 120-acre property purchased by Livingston in 1760 in then-Elizabethtown, close to New York, New York where Livingston worked. The Livingston family moved into Liberty Hall full-time in 1773. The gardens and orchards first planted by Governor Livingston are still evident on the museum grounds today. Guests at Liberty Hall included George Washington, Martha Washington, Lewis Morris, Marquis de Lafayette and Elias Boudinot and the house was the site of the marriage of one of Livingston's daughters to John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. During the American Revolutionary War, in which Livingston fought, the house was damaged by both the American and British armies. After the war Livingston returned to the house and lived there until his 1790 death. Following the deaths of Governor Livingston and his wife, Susannah French Livingston, their son Henry Brockholst Livingston, a future United States Supreme Court Justice, inherited the home. In 1798 the home was purchased by George Belasise, Lord Bolingbroke and wife Isabella, who continued the Livingstons' tradition of enhancing the agriculture and grounds of Liberty Hall.

In 1811 Liberty Hall was purchased by Peter Kean in trust for his mother Susan Livingston Kean Niemcewicz, a niece of William and Susannah Livingston (women could not own property in their own name in the United States until the second half of the nineteenth century). Susan's first husband, John Kean of South Carolina, had been a delegate to the Continental Congress who supported ratification of the United States Constitution in South Carolina, was the first cashier of the Bank of the United States and had been held prisoner during the American Revolution (a consequential respiratory disease lead to his death at age thirty-nine). Susan Livingston changed the name of Liberty Hall to Ursino, the name of her Polish second husband Count Julian Niemcewicz's Polish estate (Niemcewicz had returned to Poland after Napoleon's successful campaigns, having initially been exiled due to his role in unsuccessfully fighting for independence from the Russians.)

Colonel Peter Kean, the only son of Susan and John Kean, and his wife Sarah Sabina Morris, granddaughter of Lewis Morris, the first royal governor of New Jersey inherited Liberty Hall, followed by their son Colonel John Kean II. John Kean II lived at Liberty Hall for 60 years and made the most significant changes to the house and property, expanding the house to its current structure as a 50-room Victorian Italianate structure for the main reason of accommodating his large family, and introduced modern amenities such as running water, gravity hot-air heating, and gas lighting. The house passed to the oldest son of John and Lucinetta Halsted Kean, John, a two-term Congressman and Senator from New Jersey who continued to live and host affairs at Liberty Hall when home.

Captain John Kean, son of United States Senator Hamilton Fish Kean and Katharine Winthrop Kean and nephew of Senator John Kean inherited the house upon his uncle's death and resided there with his wife, Mary Alice Barney after 1932. Mary Alice Kean motivated the restoration of Liberty Hall and other historic homes and was a researcher of Kean family history. Mary Alice Kean was the final resident of Liberty Hall before it became Liberty Hall Museum.