in September 1798, an aid to Kosciuszko wrote in his journal of being met
by Gates at the door of "a beautiful house, decorated with a peristyle
of Coryntian [sic] columns." He described Rose Hill as including "a
magnificent residence, green-house, fruit and vegetable gardens, meadows,
etc." The Gates’ kept only the area around the manor house for themselves,
renting most of the farmland.
General Horatio Gates died in 1806 and was buried at Trinity Church in lower
Manhattan. Mary Gates continued to live at Rose Hill until her death in 1810.
Following the Gates’ residency, Rose Hill was rented by Gamaliel Smith, a
merchant who lived with his family on Pearl Street. The estate was the Smith
family's summer retreat from 1811 to 1815. Eliza Leaycraft Smith, who was
9 at the time the family took up residence at Rose Hill, described the farm:
[M]y father hired Rosehill, a beautiful place on the east river, about 24th St. Two blocks below Bellevue hospital, which was commenced while we lived there. This place was only three miles from the Battery, and you would have supposed you were at least thirty miles from the city. The house was large and handsome, standing on a hill with a gentle slope to the farm house, [a] nice large building, with several barns beyondthe lawn was very expansive with numbers of splendid trees. The main entrance was from the old Harlem road....At the gate
