Wanted,-Family Bibles

Notes Upon Some of the Illustrations in This Year Book

A word or two of explanation concerning some of the illustrations contained in this issue of the Year Book may be useful to the reader. 1. The committee has shown the two sides of the first leaf of the first book of deeds in the County Court House. The leaf is torn out, is badly defaced. The purpose in reproducing it is not only to preserve the information it carries but to emphasize to the society the need to bring public opinion to bear on the Board of Supervisors to provide funds for the restoration and care of county records. 2. The first Court House for Dutchess County was built 17171720 at Poughkeepsie on land which was a part of the homestead farm of Jacobus Van Den Bogaerdt. On November 13, 1747, Van Den Bogaerdt gave a lease and release for the lot. The original parchment indenture of 1747 is on file in the Court House and i3 reproduced here as a document of interest and value to the whole county. 3. A pamphlet by the late Irving Elting of Poughkeepsie, a scholarly study, entitled: Dutch Village Communities on the Hudson River, published 1886, contains an account of the institution known as "the Commons" in the colonial villages in this vicinity. Rights of pasturage, haying, timber-cutting, hunting, &c, were held in the Commons by many individual residents. Reproduced herewith is a map on file in the Court House, showing "the Commons" at Poughkeepsie in 1787. The Commons lay north of Main street (at Arlington) and east of the Fallkill. The eastern boundary line of the Commons at Poughkeepsie was the western boundary (or "Parallel Line") of the Rombout Patent. The irregularity of the "Parallel Line" is accounted for by the fact that the Line followed all the winds and turns of the Wappingers Creek at a distance of 500 rods. 4. The map of the partition of the Rombout Patent in 1765, in the office of the County Clerk, measures approximately 49 by 31 inches. It is on parchment, in two pieces, and in frail condition. In reproducing it the committee desires to call attention to the bridges across the Wappingers Creek, as shown on the map. They were: (1) "The Bridge South of Brewer's" (at the present Wappingers Falls Village, near the Mesier house, which was built by Nicholas Brewer) ; (2) "The Bridge Crossing the Kill at the King's Road" (at the second falls, or Matapan, the place where the Post Road originally crossed the creek) ; (3) "Thorne's Bridge" (north of New Hackensack, near the farm of Dr. Stephen Thorn, now owned by Mr. Raymond Crum) ;

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