Dutchess County Historical Society Yearbook Vol 018 1933

from John Crooke through successive owners to Archibald Rogers, who in the 1880's acquired the country seat that in 1842 had been named Crumwold by Elias Butler. Mr. Rogers' widow now owns Crumwold, of which Crum Elbow Point is a part. No one named Greer ever owned the point, nor does the name Greer occur anywhere in the vicinity. The local titles are all known in full, from the Nine Partners Patent to the present day. It is therefore necessary to conclude that a clerical error occurred on the table of some draughtsman in an office in Washington when Greer's Point was written on the map.

The southern half of lot 6, a long narrow strip of land, which John Evertson owned in the eighteenth century, was purchased in 1867 by James Roosevelt, who in 1868 bought the north half of lot 5,—the Crooke homestead. The house Mr. Roosevelt lived in stood on lot 6 and there his son, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was born. Title to the Crooke land in lot 5 passed from James Roosevelt to his elder son, James R. Roosevelt, and from the latter to his brother, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who holds it subject to a life-use given to James R. Roosevelt's widow.

The house occupied by Mrs. James R. Roosevelt is a few yards south of the one in which the President was born and a few yards west of the site of the Crooke-Barber homestead.

The house which is the home of the President of the United States and in which he was born is about two miles south of the village of Hyde Park and as Mr. Roosevelt's mail goes through that post office he is often said to live "at" Hyde Park. The village derives its name from residential property, immediately north of it, an old estate (now owned by Frederick W. Vanderbilt) which was called Hyde Park before the Revolution (see: Year Book of the Dutchess County Historical Society, 1932, vol. 17, p. 80). The name: Hyde Park and the village which bears the name each have a story of their own but those stories are separate and distinct from the story of the "place called Krom Elbow."

A century hence documented data bearing upon the birthplace of a President of the United States will have definite value for historians and so these many details in relation to Kromme Elleboog are recorded here for the sake of future generations as well as for readers of today.

In assembling these data the writer has been given expert aid by the Archivist of the State of New York, A. J. F. van Laer ; IVIiss Edna L. Jacobsen, Head of the Manuscript and History Section of the New 67