Grouped Photographs of Clinton Point Opp

with the legislation that produced the Missouri Compromise. In 1825-1826 he served as lieutenant-governor of New York and in 1821 and 1846 was a delegate to the constitutional conventions of the state of New York. Mr. Tallmadge visited Russia in 1836 and aided in the introduction there of American machinery for spinning cotton. He was accompanied to Russia by his only daughter, Mary Rebecca Tallmadge, a noted beauty, who on her return to America married Philip S. Van. Rensselaer of Albany. Mrs. Van Rensselaer received the property at Clinton Point as a gift from her father in 1839. She remodelled the house, developed the grounds, imported rare trees, laid out gardens and made of the old home a notable country seat. In charge of the grounds for many years was Edward Downing, an expert gardener from Ireland. When in 1871 Mrs. Van Rensselaer sold the estate and dismantled the house several pieces of furniture derived from the Clintons passed to Mr. Downing and he it was who, when the house burned down in 1874, saved the corner-stone on which was cut the date: May 5, 1805.

Among the articles from the house which Mr. Downing received in 1871 was an oil painting of Clinton Point, which was inherited from him by his widow, since deceased. The painting is now owned by Mr. William J. Kennedy, attorneyat-law of Baltimore, Md., through whose courtesy a copy of it is reproduced in this issue of the Year Book. It gives but little architectural information of the house at Clinton Point but affords a valuable record of the shore-line of the river before the stone-crusher devastated the once beautiful spot.

Three views of the ruins of the house after the fire of 1874 are also shown herein, being copies of photographs owned by Mrs. Isaac Carlow of Hughsonville and kindly loaned by her for reproduction in the Year Book. From Mrs. Carlow and from the late Mrs. Downing of Wappingers Falls and also from Mrs. John Goring of Wappingers (Mr. Downing's daughter) details have been gleaned of the great estate maintained at Clinton Point by the Van Rensselaers. Before her death the late Mrs. Downing guided a party of visitors to the Point and identified the location of the former house, local

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