Dutchess County Historical Society Yearbook Vol 012 1927

other was the lease in fee. Under the latter arrangement parcels of undeveloped land were turned over by the actual owners to incoming settlers, who paid little or no purchasemoney but who developed the property and who held possession so long as they paid an annual quit-rent of a merely nominal amount. By this method the orignial patentees retained title to the soil but secured the clearing and planting of large areas of wilderness.

Colonel Henry Beekman followed the system of the lease in fee in connection with the Beekman Patent in the central part of Dutchess. He and his heirs leased much of the land of that patent for several generations and it was not until after the Revolution or even after 1800 that Colonel Beekman's descendants began to sell off their farms and to give deeds in fee simple to purchasers.

While deeds were, as a rule, recorded in the eighteenth century, leases seldom were placed on file with the county clerk and, because of the latter fact, the Year Book for 1927 reproduces an original lease that was given in 1739 by Henry Beekman. The plate shows the form of words used, typical printing of the period and the signature of Henry Beekman. On the reverse side of the sheet one of the grantees of the lease, George Elsworth, on January 5th, 1744, assigned his rights in land, house, barn and "bargh" to Henry Livingston of Poughkeepsie in consideration of £80.

It should be noted, in the body of the lease, that the quit-rent on this property was due on "the Feast Day of the Annunciation or Lady Day being ye Twenty-fifth of March," a provision which was in accordance with an ancient custom in England, where rent is paid on Lady Day, Midsummer Day, Michaelmas and Christmas. The quit-rent charged in 1739

by Colonel Beekman on a farm of 205 acres amounted as called for in this lease to: "one Cupple of Live Fatt Hans," & one day's work yearly or, in lieu of the latter, twenty bushels of good merchantable wheat.

The original lease, here shown, is owned now by Mr. Franklin D. Roosevelt, vice-president of the Dutchess County Historical Society for the Town of Hyde Park, and has 3