Dutchess County Historical Society Yearbook Vol 010 1925

tenors but that the thick stone walls of the old houses resisted the flames. And so, from this obscure and broken stone in the. front of the house in Poughkeepsie, it is fair to infer that Hugh Van Kleeck's dwelling was one of the structures made of field-stones, which were common in his day, and that the fire which broke out in it in 1782 or 1783 burned the roof and contents.

But the house now owned by the state is a large building, two stories and an attic in height and, when Hugh Van Kleeck was married in 1763, he was a young man of modest resources, which would make it reasonable to suppose that he built for himself and his bride a stone house of the simpler type that was frequently used in his day, namely an oblong shape, a story and a half in height, the whole story of stone, the half story with clapboarded gable ends. An examination of the cellar, of the present house reveals evidence that such actually was the sort of structure erected by Hugh Van Kleeck.

In the cellar may now be seen the foundations, two feet thick, of a house forty-six feet wide, east and west; and twenty feet deep, north and south. The foundations are of rough field-stones, laid by crude workmanship and held together by a mixture composed of clay and gravel. At the east and west ends are large arches of stone, supporting two chimneys in the center of the two gables. From these foundations the walls of the house rise and, in the cellar, the inner side of the walls shows for three feet above the level of the ground. These original walls are of the same stone and workmanship as the. foundations and are held by clay and gravel. So much pointing and filling in with mortar has been done in modern times on the exterior of the house that the original clay and gravel filling cannot be seen on the outside of the building. Overhead, in the cellar, are large handwrought beams, supporting the first story and, in a number of places, these beams are charred, bearing eloquent witness to the fire of 1782-'83.

Back of this construction-unit is an addition to the cellar, of the same width east and west as the original house and measuring nine feet north and south, Apparently, what 57