During the last 21 years of his life, Martin Van Buren enjoyed this view and, after a political career in which he traveled widely and kept company with heads of state and leading political figures, became deeply attached to this property and to agrarian life in retirement. Reluctant to be elsewhere, he took an intense interest in improving the land’s productivity, directing farm laborers to construct ditches to better drain fields, use newly patented plows and farm equipment, and experimenting with different fertilizers. An 1849 letter called him “an amateur farmer who prides himself upon having his farm in better order than his neighbor.” In his will, he identified himself as Martin Van Buren of Kinderhook, Columbia County, New York, formerly Governor of the state and more recently President of the United States, but “for the last and happiest years of my life, a Farmer in my native Town,” including that role among his most eminent posts.