That's right!  George Washington slept here.

                                                                                                     
George Washington slept here---  in the VanAlstyne Homestead. On August 1, 1783 George Washington visited Canajoharie and stayed in the VanAlstyne Homestead with his staff. The earliest part of home found at the south end of the building was built of Waddle & Daub(sticks & mud) construction in 1730 by Marten Janse VanAlstyne. He had built a grist mill on Canajoharie Creek and was a noted area businessman. The rest of the original home was constructed in 1750 by VanAlstyne's son who fortified the structure with limestone. In the early nineteen hundreds (1913) Barlett Arkell, owner of Beech-Nut, bought the building and added the ballroom in 1915. Beech-Nut used it as a lunch and dinner meeting place for many years. It is still used today for that purpose. This home is one of four still standing in the Canajoharie area: Fort Frey, Fort Wagner and Fort Klock. Fort Klock is a museum and Fort Frey and Fort Wagner are private homes.

It is the present home of the Fort Rensselaer Club and the VanAlstyne Homestead Society. The home has a museum which houses the Rufus Grider collection which includes his paintings and powder horns.  He was an art teacher in Canajoharie and in his spare time created watercolors, pencil, pen and ink sketches of scenes, structures, and objects of historic interest found in the Mohawk Valley, the Schoharie Valley, Cherry Valley, the Adirondacks and New England.

The museum is open during the summer months for guided tours conducted by the Canajoharie Library and Art Gallery. The VanAlstyne Homestead is located on Moyer Street in Canajoharie. Travel 1/4 mile west on 5s from Thruway exit, turn left onto Mitchell, straight across Montgomery St. to Moyer St. Just past Episcopal Church.

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