Peter De Riemer, Goldsmith

from Dutchess County Historical Society Yearbook Vol 053 1968

In Brief

she created a charming water terrace outdoor liivng room within the foundation of the porch.

The same year Mrs. Thorne sent to Japan for the lovely pagoda which adorns the eastern end of Thorndale gardens. The roof of the pagoda symbolizes steps to Heaven, making a seat within view of it, a perfect place for quiet meditation.

In 1934, Mrs. Thorne engaged Mrs. Nellie B. Allen, the landscape architect, to design a new garden in preparation for the annual meeting of the Garden Club of America which was held at Millbrook and West Point in 1936. The garden was noted for being completely green and white and of a formal type. The white flowers were tulips and gas plants. The yews were mostly of a Japanese variety.

The Tribute Garden at Millbrook, New York, was an original idea of Mrs. Thorne's. After consulting the several landscape architects and gardeners who could not visualize what Mrs. Thorne had in mind, she decided to carry out her own idea. Her dream, which happily came true, was to create a garden park as a memorial to the soldiers and sailors of the Town of Washington who served in the armed forces of World War I.

Mr. Thorne was equally enthusiastic about the garden park and, about 1919, he set aside five acres of their land for this purpose, they named it Tribute Garden.

In this beautiful garden there is a plaza planted with maples, each tree having been set out by a veteran or member of a veteran's family. The center of the plaza is a well equipped playground for children, the trees providing cool shade on hot summer days. At the far end is a wading pool.

The garden is beautified with plant material native to Dutchess County. Herbert Durand, who was a recognized authority in that field worked with Mrs. Thorne in selecting the material.

After World War II, Mr. and Mrs. Thorne took over the old railroad station property at Millbrook and turned that into a village green as a memorial to veterans of the Town of Washington serving in the conflict. The green with the Tribute Garden makes a charming entrance to the village of Millbrook.

Mrs. Thorne's achievements in landscape gardening and her extensive studies of plant life won her the admiration of the horticultural world. One of the founders of the Garden Club of America, she was made honorary president for life. She would have been made president of the club if she had resided in New York during the winter.

Mrs. Thorne instigated the Visiting Garden's Committee of the Garden Club of America and served as chairman for many years. The first book compiled by the committee was large and cumbersome. Then a loose-leaf binder was started which was compact and handy to carry when traveling in America and abroad.

She raised money for the club's Red Wood Grove at the South fork of the Eel River, Humboldt county, California. Her research on Cianothus at Santa Barbara Garden was used as a basis for a book written by Mr. Van Rensselaer. The Garden Club awarded him a medal for his work.

After her death in 1952, the Millbrook Garden Club, a chapter of the Garden Club of America, presented a medal in her memory annually at the National Flower Show in New York City for outstanding achievements in architectural detail in landscape gardening. The medal was designed by a Millbrook Garden Club member, Miss Maude Robinson. On one side, she featured the maple and birch allee with the lake and pavilion. The reverse side, showed a blossom of Mrs. Thorne's favorite clematic Henryii.

On March 25, 1889, Edwin Thorne died, leaving Thorndale Farm of 550 acres to his son Oakleigh who dearly loved country life. Oakleigh Thorne was never happier than when he was with his family, hunting and fishing at the Old Homestead. His daughter Charlotte recalled in later life going fishing with him and she always thought of that day as one of the happiest of her childhood.

Under the tutelage of George Lester, Mr. Thorne, in early life, was initiated into the mysteries of the rod and gun. He soon developed superior skill as a marksman and there may still be seen at Thorndale mansion, a massive trophy which he won in an international live pigeon shooting contest held in London in 1832. He also won the Grand Prix in a similar tournament in Paris, France.

Deeply interested in athletics, he encouraged the holding of Field Days and athletic contests. In his youth walking marathons were his delight. As a marksman, he had no superior. He found great enjoyment hunting wild turkeys in North Carolina. An excellent horseman, he rode to the hounds for many years as Master of the Millbrook Hunt and maintained his own pack of fox hounds at Thorndale.

It seemed to him that the dairy business was being over-developed, not only in the country but throughout the East. It would be a good thing if some of the farmers would raise beef cattle. For a man of his temperament, to think was to act. He purchased Briarcliff Farms, comprising 4,000 acres near Pine Plains, New York, in 1918, and developed his magnificent herd of 800 Black Angus beef cattle. At one time males from this herd and their descendants were the heads of five agricultural college herds. From the 1930's, and several years thereafter, few Angus herds were formed in Dutchess County and the East which did not have some animals from Briarcliff in them. Mr. Thorne was the first person to make Dutchess County famous throughout the world for Angus foundation stock.

In 1927, he had the satisfaction of seeing 30 Angus steers, which had been purchased at Briarcliff and raised by 4-H Club members, exhibited at the Eastern States Exposition in Springfield, Mass. Nearly

all of them won prizes. The grand champion steer at the exposition was also from Briarcliff. "Angus Baby Beef" from Briarcliff became most popular on the eastern markets. It is not generally known that Mr. Thorne was responsible for the adoption of the federal system of stamping "prime," "choice" or "good" on beef. This system aids the farmer in obtaining a fair price for his beef.

Like his grandfather Jonathan Thorne, he was a shrewd judge of character. He selected his employees carefully and they often remained with him thirty, forty, and fifty years, serving him faithfully. One of these men was George Aspbury who was superintendent of the Thorndale estate for 50 years.

One of the most enterprising business- men in Dutchess County he had many original ideas. He established the first Night-Day-Bank in New York City. For many years, he was president of the Trust Company of America in New York. When he was only 25 years of age, he settled a serious strike at the mines of the Pennsylvania Coal Company in which the Thorne family had large interests.

When the mine owned by a Tennessee Coal & Iron Company, of which Mr. Thorne was a Director, was closed a carload of mules was sent North to Thorndale. The poor creatures had spent their lives underground drawing loads of coal out of the deep dark tunnels of the mine. They just could not get used to bright daylight and life on the surface of the earth. One by one, they lost their eyesight and died. That is, all except a white mule that was hardy enough to adjust to the new environment. For years this mule was a familiar sight pulling a cultivator in the Thorndale gardens. As a little colt, he was the color of buckskin and everyone called him Buck. By the time he arrived at Thorndale his coat had turned white but he was still called Buck. He died in 1923.

Mr. Thorne served in offices of the village of Mil'brook and gave to every good cause. He presented the Mil'brook Fire Company with its first chemical engine and, strangely enough, he was the first one to receive its services when a fire broke out at Thorndale.

Mr. Thorne gave the house, which he had built at Millbrook for his daughter Charlotte, to Catholic Charities. It then became known as the Cardinal Hayes Home for Convalescent Children. He also gave land upon which St. Joseph's Parochial School and Convent were built. There was not enough land to meet the school's requirements so his grandson Oakleigh Lewis Thorne gave the needed acres. In recognition of his generosity to Catholic Charities, Mr. Thorne received a citation from Pope Pius XII. At the time of his death he was connected with the following companies: Corporation Trust Company of New York, Corporation Trust Company of New Jersey, Director of the Bank of Millbrook, Trustee of St. Francis Hospital of Poughkeepsie.

After he died in 1948 the estate passed to his grandson, Oakleigh Lewis Thorne, who has all the charm of the Thorne men besides their business ability, assuring a happy future for Thorndale

Tragedy stalked through Thorndale gardens Friday night, September 20, 1960, when a high wind felled the giant oak tree which had been badly twisted and two anchor roots broken by Hurricane Donna early in September of the same year. At least 300 years old, the mighty oak was the boundry tree in the Great Nine Partners Patent of 1697. Measuring 95 feet in height and 26 feet, nine inches, in circumference three feet from the base, it was one of the largest red oaks in the United States.

The history of Thorndale acres may be thus briefly summarized: of the 400 which William Thorne took up, he still owned 207 when he died in 1815. He left this nucleus of Thorndale to his sons William Jr., Nicolas and Samuel. In the same year, in which William Thorne Sr. died, William Jr. and Nicolas transferred their share of the land to their brother Samuel.

When Samuel Thorne died on June 30, 1849, he still owned the 207 acres. He left this land to his son Jonathan. In 1871, Jonathan Thorne conveyed to his son Edwin for the consideration of $75,000 not only the 207 acres but the West Farm of 187 acres which he purchased from Jehu Hoag in 1853; the East Farm, purchased from the heirs of Beriah Swift and several other parcels of land, bringing the number of acres in the estate to 537.

Edwin Thorne added a few acres and his son Oakleigh built the estate up to its present size. After deeding a certain part of the land (Barrycroft) to Captain R. S. Hayes in 1904, he conveyed Thorndale to his wife, Helen Stafford Thorne and she made it a place of inspiring beauty.

In 1963 Mrs. Margaret Thorne Parshall took charge of Thorndale and continues to make the house and gardens one of the most beautiful estates in Dutchess County.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am deeply grateful to the following people for their kind assistance in gathering material for this article: Mrs. Daryl Parshall Mrs. John Wilcox Donaldson Mrs. Marguerite Tjader Harris Mrs. Allerton Morey Samuel H. Morrison George T. Whalen Mrs. Ralph Dellavolpe

T h eLA uthor

Bibliography "History of Dutchess County," Philip Smith; "History of Dutchess County," James Smith; "A History of Short-Horned Cattle," and "A History of Aberdeen Angus Cattle," Alvin Howard Sanders; "Blithe Dutchess," Henry Noble MacCracken; "A Religious History of the Thorne Family," Rosalie Thorne; "Testimonials of Jonaftan Thorne," Tributes by his Friends; "Deeds of Thorndale," Asbury Report.

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Katherine L. Babson, Jr.*

With a contented sigh, Peter De Riemer swallowed the last of the roast duck, leaned back and lit his pipe. Young Martha begged her father to continue describing his work as a silversmith in New York City. With great relish he told about his craftsmanship, but in such detail that after a while Martha's eyelids kept sliding shut until finally his wife Elsie gently helped her into the trundle bed in the next room. Indeed, Peter's story might have taken a while to complete because he had spent most of his life as a silversmith in the growing city of New York. His reputation had not followed him to Poughkeepsie, however, where he had been living for the past two years.

Peter De Riemerl- was born in 1738 in New York City and was baptized on January 28, 1739 in the Dutch Reformed Church of New York. His father was Steenwyck De Riemer, a Freeman of the city; and his mother, Catharine Roosevelt, was the great-granddaughter of Claas Martenszen Roosenvelt, the progenitor of the Roosevelt family of the United States.2

Either Peter must have been a strong-willed young man, or Elsie Babbington was simply irrestible, for he abandoned the prevailing custom of the time of Dutch men' marrying Dutch damsels. In fact, he and his older brother, Nicholas, were among the first of the De Riemers to allow their hearts, not the social proprieties, dictate the selection of their mates. Miss Babbington was of English descent; her family had come from England over a century before. In fact, her grandparents' loyalty to the mother country had been rewarded with fifty ounces of "plate" for services in the expedition against the French in Canada in 1717. Elsie and Peter were married between 10 and 11 Sunday morning, May 10, 1763. Elsie was especially hardy, giving birth to nine children, two boys and seven girls, over a twenty year span. Only two died in infancy, which was a good record for those times.

Peter became involved in family business. His uncle, Nicholas Roosevelt, was a silver and goldsmith of high repute.2 He was born in 1687 in Kingston, and seems to have done his apprenticeship under Cornelius Wynkoop of New York. The predominate characteristic of simplicity in Roosevelt's silversmithing is strikingly similar to Wynkoop's style.

Nicholas Roosevelt's shop was located on Thames Street on a Hudson River wharf.3 Here Peter learned the intricacies of silver-making; he studied and painstakingly worked at his apprenticeship, becoming proficient at the craft. Nicholas must have died in peace, assured that his school of silver-smithing would be carried forward by his conscientious student and nephew, Peter De Riemer.

*Miss Babson of Wellesley Hills, Massachusetts, is a member of the Class of 1969, Vassar College. The article is a result of research done on the life of Peter De Riemer for the Junior League of Poughkeepsie. 4-3

The similarities between the two relatives' style are remarkable.

Nicholas made a pair of beakers4 in 1763 for the Bushwick Church, a part of the Old Collegiate Dutch Church of New York. The plain lines of the bell-shaped beaker are emphasized by the splayed and moulded foot. Standing 75, " high, the beaker is inscribed around the top: "Spreek Dat War is Eet Dat Gaar is En Drink Dat Klaar is" ("Speak what is true, Eat what is well-prepared, and Drink what is pure") ; and, on the bottom: "Boswyck. Novr. 1763". Roosevelt's initials N.VR are inscribed in an oval. This beaker is now a priceless possession of the Reformed Church of Flatbuch, Long Island. Almost identical in form and line is Peter's beaker that he created in 1765 for the Reformed Dutch Church of Claverack, New York. Engraved in Latin around the top is: "Sacrificia Dei Sunt Spiritus Fractus, Animum Fractum et Contritem. 0 Deus Non Spernis. Psalm 51 :V:17." ("The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: A broken and contrite heart, 0 God, thou wilt not despise"). The significance of the engraved threeleaf clover is in the name of the town and church, derived from the Dutch word "Klauver Rack," meaning Clover Reach. This term was u:ed by the ((reaches" or early fields Hudson River along the banks navigators who measured distances by of the stream. Below this is "Claverack Anno Domini-1765." The mark PDR, enclosed in a very clear rectangle, and small rectangle is found on the bottom of the beaker. It is still in use as a Communion cup in worship services in the Reformed Dutch Church of Claverack.

There are six other known pieces of the artisan's silver in existence all of high quality craftsmanship, characterized by simple, flowing lines. A pair of miniature andirons made by De Riemer is in the private collection of silversmith, Philip H. Hamm erslough, of West Hartford, Connecticut. "Just what their use was, is rather indefinate," Mr. Hammerslough writes5 ; the beauty found in their classic form makes them exquisite showpieces. The andirons are 2 in. high, 2 125/16 in. long and weigh one ounce. The initials PDR, inscribed in an oval, are tamped on them. The Garvan Collection at the Yale University Art Gallery includes a De Riemer sauceboat.

The best example of his work is a three-piece tea service found in the Museum of the City of New York. It is thought to be one of the earliest matching tea sets turned out in the colonies. De Riemer made the service for Philip Schuyler Van Rensselaer of Albany; it is this man's initials and in his family's crest which are engraved on each piece. The simplicity of the form and line of the three pieces is in keeping with De Riemer's other work; the same splayed and moulded foot of the Claverack beaker is seen again in the teapot and sugar bowl. There are certain elements, however, that strike a bold contrast with his other extant work, such as the use of wood for the handle of the teapot, the sinuosity of the creamer handle, and use of elaborate decoration. Although not thickly engraved, this ornamentation is composed of numerous small flowers, leaves and swirls. Perhaps the tea service represents the most advanced development in De Riemer's silver-smithing career, or perhaps he

was experimenting with some aspects of English style in vogue at the time —as yet, there is no answer.

Peter De Riemer officially completed his apprenticeship under Nicholas Roesevelt and became a Freeman, five months before Nicholas Reesevelt's death in 1769. Around this time, the young artisan owned and operated a shop on Cortlandt Street, only three blocks to the north of, and two blocks to the west of, what had been his uncle's shop in Manhattan. Peter was also involved in some type of shipping business. His family had had an interest in shipping for several generations, so perhaps he continued in his family calling. His grandfather, Isaac De Riemer, Mayor of New York City in 1700, had been involved in the import-export business with England. In addition, Nicholas Roosevelt owned a dock in New Jersey and one on the North River in New York City, owning and operating a lumber business between the two colonies.

Peter De Riemer and his family lived in Albany for part of the Revolutionary War period as the birth records of two of his daughters indicate. Munsell's Albany Genealogy6 lists Elsie as born in May, 1777, and Sarah in August, 1781. New York City records show the birth of the youngest daughter, Martha, in May, 1785, so presumably the family had returned to their former residence. In the New York directories Peter is listed as a "hay-master," in the city at 4 Whitehall from 1790-93 and at 36 Whitehall from 1794-7. A hay-master, in essence, was a middleman, buying fodder outside of New York, and selling it to those people living within the city who could not raise enough feed for their cattle. In 1796, the De Riemer family moved up the Hudson to the bustling little town of Poughkeepsie.

Beginning with the family move to Albany, a mystery develops around Peter De Riemer's life; from the Revolutionary War period onward, there is not another mention of him as a silversmith. What happened? The family genealogy, printed in 1905, states that "Petrus carefully kept his family record." Unfortunately, this record, with possible answers to the question, has been misplaced—at least local historians have not been able to find it.

A few conjectures might be put forth, but the one which seems most likely, under the circumstances, is that Peter De Riemer suffered some kind of accident or illness that prevented the exacting craftsmanship demanded by silver-smithing. This conjecture would account for his preoccupation with the development of his land and the planting of fruit trees in Poughkeepsie, and, at the same time, continuing his interest in the shipping business. So little known was his association with the silver craft that in a comprehensively researched article in the 1945 Dutchess County Historical Society Yearbook by George B. Cutten and Amy P. Ver Nooy there is absolutely no mention of Peter DeRiemer's name among the list of thirteen men and seven firms engaged in some kind of business using silver during the De Riemers' thirteen years residence in Poughkeepsie.

According to the Dutchess County Records of Deeds, Peter De

Riemer bought a farm called the "Glebe" on the east bank of the Fallkill. He paid Nathaniel Bosworth of Poughkeepsie eleven hundred pounds for the property. The deed included two hundred fifty acres of land in addition to a brick building. The land and house had originally been used by the minister of the Churches of England in Poughkeepsie and Fishkill; because of financial problems, the Church had been forced to sell this property. The brick structure is now over two hundred years old and stands on Main Street near the head of Church Street in Poughkeepsie. It is owned by the City of Poughkeepsie and maintained and operated under the joint auspices of the Dutchess County Historical Society and the Junior League of Poughkeepsie. .Peter must have accummulated a goodly competence from the silver-smithing and shipping business, for he was able to pay the entire amount for the property without incurring a mortgage. Evidently this was somewhat a feat in those days because he was the fir3t of owners who bought the property outright. Also in that year, 1796, De Riemer purchased a second farm for three hundred pounds and six years later, another piece of land in the town for $1,000. It appears that the De Riemer family belonged to the Christ Church in Poughkeepsie, for, in the Records of the Christ Church, the names of Peter and his son Samuel appear on a 1797 subscription list for a church steeple.

In 1809 Peter De Riemer sold the "Glebe," two hundred fifty acres and the house, to James and Sarah Coval, and took back a mortgage of $8,700. In May 1812 De Riemer assigned this mortgage to John Parkinson, who may have been involved in real estate in the area. In February, 1811, Parkinson had bought seventy-two acres and all improvements on the property, known as DeCantillon's Landing, now Hyde Park, on the Hudson River at a foreclosure sale, Parkinson sold this property to De Riemer for $15,000 in the very same month that Peter assigned him the mortgage for the "Glebe." It is possible that both transactions were executed at the same time.

Little did anyone know in the early Poughkeepsie years that the young Martha who had teased her father to tell her the story of his silver-smithing would be the very one to marry Robert Gilbert Livingston who, with her father, owned a boat company. The crafts made regular trips to New York, carrying freight and passengers.

It was probably his preoccupation with this shipping enterprise that led Peter, his wife and their unmarried daughter, Mary, to move farther up the Hudson. A codicil to his Wills signed the day before his death in October, 1814, lists his address as Clinton in Dutchess County. DeCantillon's Landing was located in Clinton (now Hyde Park, having broken away from Clinton in 1821), lending support to the belief that the De Riemer family most likely moved there from Poughkeepsie.

Peter bought DeCantillon's Landing in 1812. The wharf had been built almost a century before; it was the base of the DeCantillon family's trade with the West Indies. Their fleet of sloops had exchanged New York corn for the islands' much sought-after sugar and rum. However,

Set Tea Silver

it seems that De Riemer's and his son-in-law's shipping venture was apparently limited to voyages no farther south than Manhattan. The business was probably confined chiefly to the trading of native Dutchess County produces, such as fruit, hay, and corn, for manufactured items either made in New York City, or, most likely, imported from abroad. Since the river boats were run on a reliable and frequent schedule, the company evidently carried on a thriving traffic in passengers and mail.

Beyond supplying the capital, it is questionable how involved Peter was in the management of the business. It seems likely that as Peter advanved in his years, Livingston gradually assumed more and more control of the operation of the company to the point where he was the sole manager of the entire outfit. In fact, Peter only owned DeCantillon's Landing for a little over two years before he died. Among the tombstones still standing in the Hyde Park Dutch Reformed Church Cemetery, one marks the grave of Peter De Riemer: "Died Oct. 2, 1814, Aged 74 years"; and, another, that of his wife, Elsie: "Died Oct. 19, 1818, Aged 75 years." And, with their deaths, are buried the answers to many questions that are still puzzling us as we try to piece together the life of Peter De Riemer, the Silversmith.

REFERENCES 1. The De Riemer Family P. 7. by Rev. W. E. De Riemer. "The progenitors of the De Riemer family in New Amsterdam were Isaac De Riemer and Lysbet G-ravenraet .. . The name De Riemer indicates a French origin and Huguenot stock, but this couple were from Holland. Genealogists concede .. . that the family ancestors were refugees from France who had, some generations previously on account of anti-Romish convictions, fled from France and remained in Holland until they had become adherents of the Reformed religion and users of the Dutch language". 2. New York Hist. Society Quarterly, Vol. 34, "Nicholas Roosevelt the Goldsmith", Helen Burr Smith. N. Y. World Telegram & Sun, "Pieter de Riemer Beaker used in Claverack Church", Sept. 15, 1950, Helen Burr Smith, 3. American Silversmiths and Their Marks P. 58, Stephen G. C. Ensko. 4. Historic Silver In The Colonies & Its Makers P. 83, Francis Hill Bigelow. 5. Letter from Philip H. Hammerslough, private collector, of West Hartford, Conn., Oct. 23, 1967. 6. Albany Genealogy, Vol. 4, P. 116, Munsell. 7. Year Book, Dutchess Co. Hist. Soc., Vol. 25, P. 79, Helen W. Reynolds. 8. Dutchess Co. Wills, Vol. 1, P. 565.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Catalogue of an Exhibition of Silver Used in New York, New Jersey, and the South. (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art), 1911. Hasbrouck, F. (ed.). The History of Dutchess County. (Poughkeepsie: S. A. Matthieu), 1909. Miller, V. Iabelle. Silver by New York Makers. (New York: Museum of City of New York), 1937. Reynolds, Helen Wilkinson (ed.)_. The Records of Christ Church, Poughkeepsie, New York. (Poughkeepsie: Frank B. Howard), 1911 The Glebe House, Poughkeepsie, New York, 1767. (New York: Pendell Press), 1967. Whittelsey, Charles B. (ed.). The Roosevelt Geneology, 1649-1902. (Hartford: C. B. Whittelsey), 1902.

EARLY AMERICAN GLASS

Kenneth E. Pearce*

When mention is made of the early Jamestown Colony most of us immediately think of Pocohontas and Captain John Smith and perhaps of the Jamestown massacre. And rightly so, since these were the events that have been emphasized by all historians.

There were, however, many other happenings that took place that played a significant part in the development of the colony, and one of these certainly was the manufacture of glass. My paper is to call attention to the early history of American glass manufacture.

I do not pretend to be an authority on glass, and I can only confess to being a fascinated amateur collector who admires fine glass for its beauty and for the workmanship involved in the creation of an individual piece.

This being a Historical Society rather than an antique study club, I have tried to arrange my limited information in a manner that stresses the historical aspect of glassmaking and the position it held as an early American industry.

Glass is almost as old as history itself and objects have been found that date back to at least 2500 years B.C. This glass, of course, is not to be compared to the fine crystal, cut and art glass that we know today but was primarily in the form of beads and other ornaments. Neither was it made by the exact scientific processes that we use today such as the beautiful Steuben glass made at Corning, but was confined to mere globules or fragments of crystalline composition. Nevertheless it was glass and was made of the same basic materials as used today.

We are all familiar with the accepted story of the discovery of glass. Pliny writes that early Phoenician sailors in cooking a meal on a sandy beach used pieces of rock of high soda content to contain their fire and to support their pot, and that when their fire had spent itself globules of glass were found in the ashes. By this experience it was learned that sand, soda and other minerals when combined and exposed to intense heat would produce a substance that was to become known as glass.

I cannot dispute this belief as I cannot come up with a better one; but since it takes a temperature of some 3000° F. to fuse the ingredients of glass, it makes one wonder just what these men were cooking at this temperature and just what kind of fuel they had on hand to produce this heat.

Long before the rise of the Roman Empire the Syrians were manufacturing glass and had become particularly adept at imitating rare jewels

*Mr. Pearce, Vice-President At Large of the Historical Society, is an authority on early American glass. His collection of glass includes many articles manufactured in Poughkeepsie.

by their knowledge of the means of producing colored glass, and it is believed that craftsmen captured by the Egyptians carried this art into Egypt.

The art of cutting and decorating glass had been mastered and most of the effort was applied to the manufacture of highly decorated, colored and enamelled objects. Glass at this time was a luxury item and possession of glass in its finer forms was a symbol of wealth and prestige.

The Romans and the Greeks carried industry into all of the provinces and by 1600 all European countries were producing glass. It was about this time that the glass bottle became popular as the successor to pottery jugs.

In the early 1600's reports reached England of the great riches that were available in the new world and that unlimited quantities of gold lay on or near the surface and needed only to be shoveled up and hauled away. Furs and skins for clothing and export, and game and corn for food were reported to be easily acquired from the Indians.

Here was a golden opportunity that could not fail and the London Company was formed for the express purpose of acquiring a share of this easy to be gotten wealth. There apparently was no difficulty in arranging an expedition to sail to America and gather up some of these riches.

Just 360 years ago last Sunday, on the 14th of May 1607, three small sailing vessels, the Goodspeed, the Discovery and the Sarah Constant, dropped anchor in Chesapeake Bay at Point Comfort, having been sent out by the London Company to establish a colony in the New World. One would think than an expedition into the wilderness would be composed of construction men and men familiar with the out-of-doors. This was not the case. The first group of 105 men included 48 gentlemen unaccustomed to any form of hardship and who felt that any type of work was disgraceful. Of the remainder, only four carpenters and a few mechanics had any background for the type of work ahead, the rest being scldiers or servants of the gentlemen.

Unfortunately the gold turned out to be only sand with flecks of mica and the hopes of quick riches were quickly dispersed. Disappointed in their dreams and with no capabilities as workmen they made very 1:ttle effort to create any substantial housing, and within eight months the original 105 was reduced in numbers to 38, sick, starving and disillusioned.

Visited only at rare intervals by ships from the mother country wh:ch brought only meager supplies, the remaining 38 boarded a ship and set out to return to England. Scarcely had they started they were met by an incoming vessel with another shipload of settlers, and rather than face a long voyage on meager rations they decided to join the new arrivals and share in the supplies they carried with them.

Capt. John Smith, having taken over command of the colony in Sept. 1608, was responsible to the company for its success and was eager to produce a profit. The gold not having materialized and the Indians not being willing to part with their furs except by barter, the colonists

having nothing to trade, put Smith in a precarious position.

Noting the abundance of high quality sand and the unlimited wood for fuel he resolved to put the colony in the glass-making business. He had a glass house built, furnaces and melting pots made, but the gentlemen of the colony were not inclined to cut wood or shovel sand, so the glass house remained idle.

Smith had arranged for the importing of eight Polish and Dutch glassmakers who arrived late in 1608 and the glass house was put into operation. The gentlemen of the colony were still not inclined to work, so very little glass was produced.

The London Co. was pressuring and threatening Smith for not producing the profit they had expected, and being thoroughly disgusted with the attitude of the colonists he issued his famous edict of "no work— no eat.

This must have had some slight effect because Smith's History of Virginia records a shipment of pitch, tar, glass, frankincense, soap ashes and clapboard to the London Co.

Severely wounded by a gunpowder explosion, Smith left Virginia at Michaelmas 1609 leaving some 500 settlers behind under the Hon. George Percy. But without the iron hand of Smith to control them they again became disorganized, consumed all available food, traded guns and swords with the Indians, and within six months they were reduced to less than 60 miserable starving creatures subsisting on roots, herbs, acorns, berries and by acts of cannibalism. and The were glassmakers required to had live always been segregated from the colony near the Oasshouse which was some 1/2 itself or 3/4 of a mile outside of the settlement. Not being inclined to starve along with the others and seeing how well housed and well fed the Indians were situated, they made arrangements to live with the Indians and to build a palace for Chief Powhattan.

One of these who was supposed to be a spy for the colonists became involved in counter-espionage for Powhattan, and was able to provide many guns, powder and swords to the Indians and thus were able to survive the attacks that were becoming more and more common.

Upon his arrival in 1617 Captain Argyll reported the glasshouse to be in complete decay and no attempt was made to put it into operation. He was successful, however, in clearing land, raising tobacco and improving in every way the general condition of the colony.

Another unusual group arrived in 1620 which included a number of "pure and uncorrupt" girls, six Italian glassmakers and more gentlemen and servants.

Difficulties had arisen with the Indians over the occupancy of their land and their cooperation was needed to obtain game, corn and other foods as well as furs and hides for clothing. The willingness of the Indian to trade these essentials as well as large sections of land for beads and other trinkets created a new need for glass beads and ornaments.

Subscriptions were taken to what was known as the "Glass House Roll" with the subscribers sharing in the profits from the sale of bottles and table glass sent to England, and in the skins, furs and lands procured by trade with the Indians.

A letter was sent by the London Co. requesting that Captain Norton and the six Italians be given special care, that they be housed in the best surroundings and that a determination be made as to the quantity of beads that could be made without jeopardizing their value, and that the Virginians not be permitted to see or understand how they were made.

The glassmakers were housed near the glass factory which was outside of the stockade protecting the settlement and were not allowed to mingle with the English colonists. This created a great amount of friction and unrest and the task of making beads was a very troublesome one.

On March 22, 1622, a great massacre occurred in which over 350 colonists were killed, but because of the segregation of the Italian workmen, they escaped. There is also reason to believe that the Indians were loathe to destroy the plant and men that produced the beads which were so highly treasured. Another version is that the workmen themselves destroyed the furnaces in 1624. At any rate, no more glass was produced in Colonial Jamestown.

The next attempt at glassmaking in Colonial America appears to have been made in the Salem area of the Massachusetts Bay Co. By 1639 the settlers there were having difficulty raising enough corn and livestock to pay for the commodities imported from England and the colonists decided to try their hand at home industries.

Ship building was begun and six vessels were launched in the first two years and trade was developed with Spain, Madeira, the Canary Islands and other places. Rum was imported from Barbadoes in huge casks and a need for bottles scon developed in order to retail it in small quantities.

In 1641 the Town of Salem voted to loan 30 pounds to Obadiah Holmes, Ananias Concklin and Lawrence Southwick to start a glass factory. It is believed that this factory produced window glass, bottles, lamps and other heavy glass containers. New England cider both sweet and hard had become a popular beverage and was shipped in Salem bottles to Southern colonies and to the West Indies. - Although Henry Hudson discovered and explored the Hudson River in 1609, no actual colonization began there until 1623. There are references made to glass manufacture in these early days but actual records have not been f-ound. It is recorded that Everett Duycking, a glass maker, arrived about 1638 and it is known that he became prosperous in the glass business, but little is known of his glass or the location of his factory.

Duycking was a glass decorator as well as a producer and created the coat of arms in the windows of the Dutch Reformed Church. Upon failure to receive payment for his work, Duycking appealed to the court

to determine who should pay him 21/2 beavers each for the work he had done on the windows. The court decided that he should "go to each one for whom the glass was for his payment, either in trade or as he can agree for same."

In 1658 Duycking and his son Gearit constructed the colored glass windows in their new church at Esopus, Long Island. Duycking, who had enjoyed a prosperous business, retired in 1674 and lived until 1702 in his Long Island home leaving a family of 2 females, 8 children, 4 negroes, 1 negress and 2 negro children.

Jacob Melyer took over the Duycking business and made window glass, bottles, tableware and apothecary supplies at least until 1767, having passed the business on to his sons and grandsons.

In 1654 Johannes Smedes received an allotment of land on the present site of South AVilliam St. between Wall St. and Pearl St. and the pathway through the area took the name of Glass-Makers St. indicating that other glassmen were also located there. Smedes sold his business in 1664 and retired as a well-to-do man on Long Island.

In spite of the uncertainty of the 18th century in this country, there had developed a substantial well-to-do class who desired all of the finer things enjoyed by the better classes of Europe and a great demand for glassware appeared. The arrival of emigrants bringing with them the knowledge of glassmaking as practiced in their home countries soon put this country in the position of being able to supply glassware of all descriptions.

As our ability to produce increased, so did the demand, and many substantial glass works were established in all of the colonies. Caspar Wistar arrived from Heidelberg in 1717 and developed a very successful business in making brass buttons. Perceiving the ever increasing demand for glassware, Wistar sent to Belgium for expert glassmen and succeeded in arranging for four men to come to this country in 1738 and teach Wistar and his son how to make glass. The business, established in Salem County, New Jersey, was an immediate success and at his death in 1752 his estate was estimated at 3000 pounds.

Wistar's son, Richard, carried on the business but was unable to weather the trade depression of the Revolution and in October 1780 the property was offered for sale.

During the period from 1750 up to the time of the Revolution, glass houses too numerous to mention flourished in all of the colonies, but almost all, like Wistar's, did not recover after the war.

One works of particular interest to us is the Samuel Bayard & Co. venture near New Windsor, Orange County, New York. On Aug. 18, 1752, this company acquired 10,360 acres of land in Orange and Ulster counties. Again, expert workmen were imported from Europe, and it is believed that very high quality flint glass was produced. The business went bankrupt and due to a reverter clause in the deed, the land was returned to the original owners.

Perhaps the best known glass works of this period is the Stiegel

plant at Manheim, Pa., not because the glass was better or different from that produced by many other plants but because of the character of the owner and because an accurate bookkeeping system was set up which records many of the transactions of the business.

Heinrich Wilhelm Stiegel was born in Cologne on May 13, 1729 and arrived in Philadelphia on Aug. 3, 1750 and then moved to Lancaster. He married Elizabeth Huber, the daughter of the owner of a very prosperous iron works, and entered the foundry business. Stiegel became a naturalized citizen in 1760 and changed his name officially to Henry William. His first glass furnace was built at the Elizabeth iron works and the first firing took place in Sept. 1763, the first production being coarse bottles and window glass.

Both the foundry and the glass business were highly successful but he was not satisfied to prcduce only the common everyday items, so he sailed to Europe at company expense and studied every phase of glassmaking.

In 1762 a large tract of land was purchased ten miles north of Lancaster and a complete self-sustaining community was laid out centered about a new, and for that period, modern glass furnace.

While in Europe, Stiegel had engaged the best workmen he could find and transported entire families to Manheim where comfortable hcmes were already waiting for them. He was able to persuade many of these workmen to bring along the tools of the trade and there is reason to believe that they brought along even the molds of their previous employers. It was not long before there were 133 hands employed in making glass nct including the cutters, engravers and enamelers who applied the decorative features to the finer products.

He established his own trade centers and had distributing agencies in all of the larger cities. Stiegel glass took the country by storm and there was scarcely a household that did not boast of a few pieces of this exceptionally fine glass.

Wages were low, about a pound a month, and even though most of the workmen worked six cr eight months out of the year due to the need of extended periods of recuperation from the severity of the work, they were paid for a full year.

All of this prosperity apparently went to Stiegel's head and be began to live on a scale unheard of in America. He built a huge mansion of brick imported from England, furnished it with the finest furniture and tapestries that could be obtained, set aside a large room on the second floor for religious purposes and from its pulpit he expounded the gospel. Many of his finest glass-blowers were also musicians and at his command they dropped their work, donned their uniforms and rushed to the mansion to provide music for his family and friends.

At nearby Wormelsdorf he built a castle and installed a cannon which was fired in salute as he approached. His coach and eight were preceded by trumpeters lest anyone not be aware of his approach. At this t:me he also adopted the title of Baron.

A general depression began in 1767 and by 1769 many businesses fa:led due primarily to the heavy taxes imposed by England. Stiegel's associates who had invested heavily in real estate were forced into banksuptcy and withdrew from the business, but in spite of general hard times and cancelled orders, Stiegel insisted on building another glass house. Unable to sell his iron works he mortgaged them for 3000 lbs. and put all the idle men of Manheim to work building the most modern glass works ever built. He had only one idea in mind and that was to give America the finest glass the world had ever known. Stiegel advertised extensively and personally travelled to Boston and other cities to open and supervise salesrooms for his glass. Business boomed and 1772 was probably his best year as far as production and sales were concerned, but it was not enough to liquidate his debts. It was in this year that he gave the community the land for the Zion Lutheran Church for an annual rental of one red rose. Even today in the month of June a red rose is placed on the altar of the church to commemorate his gift.

The Baron attempted to recoup his fortune by a lottery but even this failed, and unable to pay his debts, his few remaining assets were seized and he was thrown into debtors prison. On Christmas Eve 1774, the General Assembly of Pennsylvania passed a special relief act freeing him from prison and allowing him to keep only 10 pounds value of clothing and bedding. He was not allowed to keep a single piece of the glass he had struggled so hard to produce.

He became a caretaker in his former home in Manheim and later moved to a house owned by his brother in Shaefferstown where he got a job teaching school.

On Jan. 9, 1785 he received word that his brother had died and the following day the Baron was found dead in bed. His burial place is unknown and the only memorial to Stiegel is the beautiful glass he created and the "Ceremony of the Payment of the Rose."

The production of glass in America produced many firsts. Jamestown was the site of the first American industry. It was the first time "foreign" labor was imported to America. Glass was the first American product shipped abroad. Glass was the first currency produced in America and the refusal to allow the "foreign" workmen to live within the settlement might be cited as the first act of segregation in America.

Stiegel's putting the unemployed to work during the depression of 1767-1769 could have been the original Work Relief Program; his guarantee of a full year's wages for a part of a year's work could have been the forerunner of an organized labor policy of today, and the furnishing of free medical attention to the glass workers and their families might be considered the predecessor of Medicare.

Early American glass making certainly played an interesting part in our early life, and who knows but that the beads used to purchase Manhattan Island could have been made in Jamestown.

THE DROVERS

Edmund Van Wyck

I wonder how many of our people remember the droves of cattle and flocks of sheep, even herds of pigs, which one might frequently encounter, during the Spring and Fall, ambling along the highways and byways of Dutchess County. It all had to do, of course, with the raising and fatting of livestock for the market, mostly the New York City market. Cattle driving was a big business and an important supplier of food to the big cities and the men who engaged in it were a peculiar breed, roving far and wide, well known over wide areas, honest men or scali-wags, making a living the hard way.

These men, really cattle buyers, usually began the drives in Ulster, Delaware or Sullivan Counties. Through the winter they watched the dairy and sheep farms and had acquired a pretty good idea as to who, would have a bunch of cows, drystock or winter calves, that the farmer did not want to carry over the summer, or perhaps a flock of sheep. So they started out, usually in a one-horse buckboard wagon with a top and sometimes an extra horse led behind, sort o'like nowadays we carry a spare wheel in the trunk. They were accompanied by a trusted employee, often a partner, who was the "trail boss" and one or two men to help drive the herd. These last, including the trail boss, were the "ankle beaters" who pounded the roads from the time the drive began "over west of the mountains" until the last danged "baloney" was sold to some farmer, maybe over east of nowhere. The head drover, the buyer, rode on ahead over pre-determined roads and he stopped to "dicker" at any farm where he thought he might pick up a cow or a calf or an ox to add to the drove when it came along. He had plenty of time to deal and visit with the farmers along the route—you remember he had a horse and buckboard while the "ankle beaters" were slogging along at two or maybe three miles an hour trying to keep a bunch of disinterested, nonminded cattle out of people's door yards and fields, and from dashing through every open gate and bar way or down every side road.

The herds usually came "over the mountain" at the "Steps" (Minni-waska now) and thence off to the northeast toward Newburgh or Highland where there were ferries capable of getting them across the Hudson River. Once across the river, and out of the cities and into the open country, the final phase of the spring drive began and the pace became a little slower. The drover knew very well which farmers were apt to want cattle to fatten and where to stop and hold his herd while they picked out the animals they liked and settled on the price. This procedure of stop and go was repeated until the whole herd was sold and the drover and the "ankle beaters," riding this time returned home perhaps to pick up a flock of sheep or another herd of cattle and start the whole darned thing all over again on other roads in other places.

The summer has gone and it is getting to be time to get the cattle out of pasture and here comes the drover with his trail boss and a man or two. Now the positions of buyer and seller are reversed—the farmer

is selling a fat "critter" and naturally wants to get the best price he can, while what the drover has to pay has a very direct effect on his profit for the season. After a while a deal is made and a cavalcade starts back toward the river at Hudson, Poughkeepsie or Fishkill landing. This little drama is repeated over and over again—the Boss riding ahead to haggle with the next farmer who has a fat cow or steer or maybe three or four or a half dozen—the "ankle beaters" prodding along, very slowly now so as not to take off fat--hold the bunch while the Boss palavers, then on again and repeat. Ah ! but this time we were not looking for a ferry crossing! Now we need a freight boat landing. The cattle are held in yards and pens until a freight boat lands to carry them to the abattoirs in New York. Cattle and sheep went to the city live and were slaughtered there. This was before western beef and electric refrigerators. Hogs were seldom shipped live, they didn't travel well so they were generally sent to market "country dressed" after the weather turned cold in the fall. They were extremely slow on the road, about a mile an hour, and tired easily and when they got tired they simply laid down, right where they were at that particular minute!

All of this came to and end by 1900. They began to build "macadamized" roads which were hard and unyielding, so you had a lot of foot-sore, stiff jointed animals on your hands. Cheap western beef, mutton, veal and lamb tcok over most of the market. Shortly thereafter automobiles began to be common and one of them meeting a herd generally caused a panic with a good chance of having one or two cows over the fence and a half a mile or so off in somebody's back lot. With a team of horses, you simply pulled off to the side of the road and let the herd drift by.

I remember any number of times when our barnyard would be full of cattle, sometimes 25 or 30, and sometimes it seemed to me to be solid full of milling horned stock. I do not know how most of them could find room to lie down! They would be out and away by daylight next morning. The men slept in the hay mows in the barn. I only remember one flock of sheep staying at our place over night. Sheep were easier to handle. They would follow, "like a flock of sheep," a "bell wether" belonging to the Boss, usually a family pet, old in business.

They mostly stopped here on the Spring drive, fairly, late in the daylight and too late to get to a next place where they might stay. In the Fall, when the fat stock was headed west for the river, it was only a short way to Hary Owen's or Cale Ballard's yards at Bull's Head (East Poughkeepsie, Arlington) where there was rest and refreshment (liquid and solid) for both man and beast, and from whence it was a short drive to the boat. The boss Drover and his men accompanied the herd to New York where they unloaded and drove it to the abattoirs which used to be located on the "Upper West Side." Thus came to full cycle the activities of The Drover and his Ankle Beaters. Theirs was a "short life and a merry one." A dull and uninteresting life? Not a bit! They filled an important place in the lives of both city man and country man. They played hard and met life where it was tough going and with their passing we have lost a picturesque, if not a very important, facet of living.

MORE SHUNPIKING IN THE HUDSON RIVER VALLEY

Walter Averill*

Shunpikers are a different breed from Sunday drivers. A leisurely pace along the road is often common to both, but many Sunday drivers are out primarily to escape from the routine life at home. A shunpiker is an explorer searching for features which are of particular interest to him. Shunpiking is for pleasure. It may be an all day or afternoon outing; it may be a stcp by the side of the road to lock over carefully some detail he has passed many times before, or it may be a short side-trip to break the monotony of an otherwise routine trip.

Throughout the Hudson River Valley, the abundance of living history intertwined with scenic beauty has captivated many shunpikers. Historical markers, milestones and monuments hint of earlier days along the road. Some stone walls are a display of haughty splendor; others that climb up a rocky hill through the woods and disappear, have a hidden mystery. Gateposts looking down on a boulder placed between them to block an abandoned entrance have a forlorn appearance, but fortunately, other entrances and gatehouses are livelier than ever.

There are literally thousands of early buildings, many so beautifully restored and maintained that one feels a vicarious sense of pride at living in the same region with owners who thus display their loving care. Those that have been mutilated through "modernization" or allowed to decay beyond hope of repair stimulate a desire to protect other irreplaceable structures before it is too late.

Hudson River Valley architecture covers every period and thus allows the shunpiker to pay particular attention to the kaleidoscopic variety of rcof-tops and chimneys while on one trip and perhaps to front doors and entrances when on another. Such details and many more reveal the way of life in the Hudson River Valley from approximately the beginr ing of the eighteenth century; little evidence remains of seventeenth century settlers.

Shunpikes from New York City to Poughkeepsie with many interesting places to visit or observe were outlined in the 1967 Year Book. Several roads will be combined to suggest a shunpike tour to Albany with many more fascinating points of interest, beginning on the Albany Post Road, known merely as Route U.S. 9 to many. A shunpiker with a little curiosity, keen eyes and a road map will discover numerous additional features which satisfy his own interests and taste.

In the 1935 Year Book of the Dutchess County Historical Society, Helen Wilkinson Reynolds identified eighty county-seats on the Hudson River in Dutchess County alone. Many interesting entrances and gate-

*Walter Averill is the Secretary of the Hudson River Valley Association and a Trustee of the Historical Society. His article "Shunpiking in the Hudson River Valley" was published in the 1967 Year Book and covered the ara from New York to Poughkeepsie. Note: all sites printed in ITALICS are open to visitors. 57

houses remain, such as those at Marist College and St. Andrew's Seminary. Just north of Marist College, note a former entrance behind which large construction machinery is scattered over the former estate grounds. The remains of the dilapidated Victorian buildings were once the home of John F. Winslow, first president of the corporation formed to erect the Poughkeepsie railroad bridge. Winslow was a patron of John Ericsson who drew plans here for the revolving turret which was later erected on the warship Monitor, called a "cheesebox on a raft." A few feet from this entrance is a milestone, "83 miles to N. York." There are many others along the Albany Post Road including ten of the first twelve milestones erected north of the Dutchess County courthouse. Although an unattractive site, evidence of Hudson River Valley history is there and a way-side stop is part of the fun of shunpiking.

A brief side-trip is another method used by shunpikers, and to drive through the entrance of the Hudson River State Hospital to view the main building is well worth while. On land where the Roosevelt family lived until it was sold to New York State stands this Victorian Gothic monument, considered one of the most pretentious and costly ever erected in this state. It was designed and built in 1866-72 under the direction of Calvert Vaux and Frederick Withers, English architects who came to America to assist Andrew Jackson Downing.

The Roosevelts moved north three miles to "Springside," where hundreds of thousands of visitors come each year to see the Franklin D. Roosevelt Home And Library. Once a typical "Hudson River-bracketed" villa, north and south wings were added and in the twentieth century the exterior of this nineteenth century dwelling was transformed to give the appearance of an eighteenth century late Georgian structure. The rose garden surrounded by a century-old hemlock hedge is where President Roosevelt and his wife Eleanor lie buried. The varied assortment of memorabilia in the library increases the pleasure of a visit here.

There are two pre-Revolutionary War Dutch stone houses in Hyde Park standing on land formerly owned by Christian Bergh. His son-inlaw, Martin D op, lived in the yellow Bergh-Dop house until 1776 when the Committee for Detecting and Defeating Conspiracies sent him to a prison for Tories in Exeter, New Hampshire. The Bergh-Stoutenburgh house with its gambrel roof is a fine example of early Hudson River Valley farmhouses. Hyde Park itself is also an example of many Hudson River Valley villages where commercialization has run rampant along its main thoroughfare to destroy the atmosphere it once had. Fortunately, its citizens have had the foresight to overcome this handicap to some degree by erecting their new Town Hall on the Albany Post Road. Another maneuver used by shunpikers is to veer off the main road and try a side street or two while driving through a villaze. As in Hyde Park, one will almost always find many interesting dwellings on the earlier residential streets.

The entrance and gate house of the Vanderbilt Mansion, under the same National Park Service administration as the Roosevelt property, is just north of the main cross-roads in Hyde Park, Frederick W. Vander-

but grandson of the steamboat and railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, had the architectural firm of McKim, Mead and White build here in 1896-98 one of the finest examples of Italian Renaissance architecture in the country as his "country home." The land development history of the property goes back many more years. The influence of Dr. Samuel Bard, who began a serious study of horticulture and agriculture when he retired to this property in 1797, undoubtedly had a great bearing on khe excellent landscaping for which other river estates are also noted. On a clear day there is such a beautiful view of the Hudson River and the Catskill Mountains from the road leading to the northern estate exit that this shunpiker frequently uses for another glimpse when on an upriver trip.

The present U.S. 9 by-passes Staatsburg, so the shunpike route is to veer left and stay on the old Post Road. A Dutch stone house on the right with four chimneys is believed to have served as an inn during stagecoach days. St. Margaret's Episcopal Church, designated as an English Parish church by Richard Upjohn in 1882, has in the south wall two three-paneled windows of fine thirteenth century stained glass from Chartres Cathedral which was given by Ogden Mills, Sr., as a memorial to his wife, Ruth Livingston Mills.

Just beyond is the Ogden Mills Estate. This land was acquired in 1792 by Morgan Lewis, third Governor of New York State from 1804 to 1807. Then called the Staatsburg house, it was ruined by fire in 1832, but a large portion of its massive brick walls was incorporated in the new house. Architect Stanford White in 1895 achieved some of his finest interiors here when it was remodeled as a French Renaissance mansion of 65 rooms. The priceless rugs, furniture and tapestry remain as they were so that today's visitors leave with the impression that they have seen a busy family home as it was when the Mills family lived there.

Before this shunpike rejoins present Route U.S. 9, the tenth remaining milestone north of the Dutchess County courthouse stands just beyond the Dinsmore estate entrance. This one is far more obvious than many others we have passed. When on U.S. 9 again, another road with two signs leads back toward the Hudson River; the older sign says that this is "Fishing Flats Road," and the new one calls it "Fishing Grounds Road." By either name it is an interesting shunpike. After passing Vanderburgh Cove, a charming dwelling which was once a gatehouse nestles close to Landsman's Kill, a very busy mill stream in years gone by. Then up the hill and entrances to other country-estates appear. The iron gate at the entrance to the modern building of the Convent of the Sisters of St. Ursula retains the name "Linwood." The first dwelling on this site was built in 1796 when this estate was so named by Dr. Tillotson, husband of Margaret Livingston. The beautiful old estate went into decay after the Civil War until purchased by Jacob Ruppert who built a country home here which was demolished in 1967.

At a fork in the road is an excellent example of preservation. At one time a board-and-batten one-room schoolhouse, it is now a beautifully maintained residence. The road to the east leads to Grasmere, now open

to the publ.ic on weekend afternoons and at other t:mes by appointment. Construction began in 1775 by General Richard Montgomry, who was killed in the Battle of Quebec on the last day of that year. Later burned, then rebuilt and altered many times since, it is a pleasing residence to visit. The road to the west from the fork takes the shunpiker to Rhinecliff. On this road is the Cardinal Farley Military Academy, site of the former "Ellersie" estate, owned for many years by Levi P. Morton, Vice President of the United States from 1889 to 1893.

Rhinecliff, at the end of Route 308 from Rhinebeck, is a quiet town as compared with the days when the ferries were hurrying back and forth to Kingston. It is one of few side-trips available from the Albany Post Road when one desires to mosey around a river town with the Catskill Mountains as a background and perhaps watch boats go by. The River Road which starts north from Route 308 has a misleading name for many more river estates offer a view of stone walls and fields and entrances rather than a glimpse of the Hudson. The Abraham Kip stone house at the head of Long Dock Road once served as an inn for the weary traveler. Hendrick Kip, uncle of Abraham, purchased land here in 1686 frcm Esopus Indians and built his house "Kipsbergen" nearby in 1700. It burned in 1910. Some of the old stone was utilized when t. e present Rhinebeck post office was built along the lines of the earliest section of Kipsbergen. -When entering Rhinebeck from Rhinecliff, the Wells house on the north is another example showing how the history of Dutchess County lives on. Originally built in the late eighteenth century, later additions and alterations gave it its present mid-nineteenth century appearance. Miss Caroline Thorn Wells was one of the fifth generation of a family that always loved and cared for their home. Deserted for many years, its contents sold at auction, the future of this residence was bleak until a recent purchaser indicated his desire to make it a true home once again.

At the cross-roads from Beekman Arms, which began operation in the early 1700's, one may go in any direction to find several buildings of architectural and historical interest.

Just south on the Post Road is the Reformed Dutch Church with its brick walls facing the streets and stone walls on the other two sides. On Route 308 to the east is the Jan Pier house, and just beyond Route 9G are the Sands and Schuyler houses on a side road. North on the Post Road is the Delamater House, a Gothic Revival board-and-batten designed by Andrew Jackson Davis. Many books on architectural history point out this 1844 house, for details such as the especially rich band-saw porch portray enthusiastic carpentering as true a form of folk art as are samples and cast-iron hitching posts. The first Montgomery House, in fact the only one occupied by General Montgomery and his wife during their brief marriage before his death, was moved from the Post Road to its present location on Livingston Street in 1859. Now owned by the Chancellor Livingston Chapter of the D.A.R. it is open for inspection ,only upon appointment.

The early Post Road goes west of the Northern Dutchess Hospital and comes back to Route U.S. 9 near the intersection with Route 9G. The "99 miles to N. York" milestone emphasize; the abundance of historical structures and sites within a relatively few miles frcm Poughkeepsie. In the Town of Rhinebeck alone we have seen a gatehouse, a former one-room schoolhouse, the -Wells house and the first Montgomery house as illustrations of methods used to preserve early Hudson River Valley structures.

Even if we could stay on the original Post Road for the remainder of this shunpike expedition, we have quite a way to go, for the final milestone was erected 159 miles from New York. The following must therefore be limited to a suggestion of certain roads to follow and to only a few of many more interesting structures and sites along the way. A wayside stop at the Lutheran "Old Stone Church" on a knoll from which there is a splendid view of the Catskills is well worth while. The church was built around a smaller one which Palatine settlers erected in 1730. In the cemetery are numerous Palatine graves and those of 32 Revolutionary War soldiers.

Across the fields and the river rise the Catskill Mountains, known as "Onteora — Land of the Skys" to the Indians. They will appear and disappear time and again whenever shunpiking along the northern part of the tidal Hudson River. "They are a dismembered branch of the great Appalachian family," wrote Washington Irving," and are seen away to the west of the river, swelling up to a noble height, and lording it over the surrounding country. Every change of season, every change of weather, indeed every hour of the day, produces some change in the magical hues and shapes of these mountains, and they are regarded by all the good housewives far and near as perfect barometers. When the weather is fair and settled, they are clothed in blue and purple and print their bold outlines on the clear evening sky; but sometimes when the rest of the landscape is cloudless, they will gather a hood of gray vapors about their summits, which, in the last rays of the setting sun, will glow and light up like a crown of glory."

Turning away frcm this vantage point, the Stone Church Road goes east to the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome, a living museum of vintage aircraft and vehicles. It is particularly lively on days when the aircraft are zooming overhead to reenact the dog fights of World War I.

On the Post Road in Red Hook is the Octagonal Library and north of the War Memorial is the 1732 Martin homestead with stone walls covered over with white cement. From Red Hook this shunpike trip follows some of the route used for the 1968 Historical Society Pilgrimage by heading west on Route 199. One of the pilgrimage houses, eighteenth century "IVIaizefield" which was built by David Van Ness, Continental line Captain during the Revolutionary -War and later general of a State Militia brigade, is on this road. By crossing Route 9G, a short loop-tour leads to the riverfront at Barrytown and back to the River Road which passes the entrance to Montgomery Place, then through Annandale to Bard College. Among several Bard College buildings of

historical interest is a quaint hexagonal gatehouse. It was designed by Andrew Jackson Downing who also planted the trees along the driveway to "Elithewood," now a dormitory. The Tudor architecture of the imposing entrance to former Ward Manor is indeed ostentatious when compared with the small hexagonal structure.

The next side road to the river is Route 402 at Tivoli, also part of the 1968 Pilgrimage. After visiting the waterfront, Woods Road goes north, opposite the entrance to the Callander House. In back of rough stone, Gothic style St. Paul's Episcopal Church is a semi-circular row of nine burial vaults below the esplanade, several owned by the Livingston family. A vault built of Hudson River bluestone contains the remains of General John Watts dePeyster. Clermont, where the 1968 Historical Society pilgrimage began, is a fine addition to the many Hudson River Valley heritages now open to the public. New York State has had the foresight to acquire such properties; it is somewhat depressing that the State does not follow through with sufficient funds to restore properly and to maintain these buildings and grounds.

Columbia County shunpiking begins at Clermont, situated in the southeastern corner of the county. Below Germantown on Route 9G is a little stone house built in 1752, known as "The Stone Jug" for its temporary use during the Revolutionary War as a jail for British officers. Germantown was first named East Camp when settled by the Palatinates in 1709. Perhaps it is fortunate that no evidence remains of the intense suffering endured by the early settlers at this site. The 1767 parsonage, or "Pfarrhaus," of the German Reformed Church may be seen on a side street.

Olana, a nineteenth-century version of a Persian palace, was built as a home and studio by Frederick E. Church, an outstanding painter of the Hudson River Schocl. Some historians turn up their noses at this museum claiming that it is not in keeping with Hudson River Valley traditions. To the contrary, it is the rugged individualism of its people that has given this valley a variety of structures so that it is an exciting region for shunpikers ; it is Olana and Sunnyside and Bannerman's Castle and many others that portray the independent ventures of Hudson River Valley citizens. It might be noted that Church had architect Calvert Vaux assist on practical matters; there is no record known to indicate that Vaux was selected because of his prior work on the Hudson River State Hospital building.

Parade Hill, a public promenade or mall at the foot of Warren Street in the City of Hudson, was donated to the city in 1795 by the "proprietors," New Englanders who founded the whaling industry here. In contrast to perhaps the only example of 18th century civic planning to take advantage of majestic Hudson River Valley scenery, the end of the patroon system is noted here on a stutue presented in 1896 by General John Watts dePeyster, "last patroon of the lower Claverack manor." There are several buildings remaining in Hudson of New England type architecture. Of the two adjacent Jenkins houses on Warren Street, one is owned by the local D.A.R. chapter and is open upon appointment only. The Amer-

ican Museum of Firefighting, open all year, contains early firefighting equipment and other memorabilia. It is one of the oldest and most complete displays of its kind in America.

Claverack, just east of Hudson via Route 23B, is indeed a very attractive rural community. In addition to the 1685 Van Rensselaer lower manor house, other pre-Revolutionary War houses and several built in the following quarter-century are in excellent condition. The present Town Hall was originally the Columbia County courthouse where Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton tested their legal skills.

At the crossroads, Route 9H, one part of the original Albany Post Road, leads north to Lindenwald, purchased by President Martin Van Buren after his defeat for reelection in 1841. Built in 1797 by Judge Peter Van Ness whose son William was Aaron Burr's second when Alexander Hamilton was killed during that famous duel. Van Buren had architect Richard Upjohn renovate and completely alter the original house in 1849. The National Park Service has found the homestead and land suitable for a National Historic Site which could be administered by the Superintendent in charge of the Roosevelt and Vanderbilt National Sites. For some reason, Columbia County residents appear to be somewhat apathetic about this proposal and therefore its future is uncertain.

Nevertheless, great credit is due the Columbia County Historical Society for the remarkable results accomplished to preserve the Van Allen House. It had dilapidated to an almost hopeless condition but a $100,000 campaign was conducted to preserve this heritage of the Hudson River Valley. The original brick section, built in 1737, and the addition built shortly after offer an excellent example of an early Dutch farmhouse with its steeply-pitched gable roof. Irving's description of a Dutch Colonial farmhouse in "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" is understood to be based on this house.

Many more pre-and post-Revolutionary War houses in Kinderhook are of such interest architecturally and historically that it has been proposed that Kinderhook should become an Historic District. Included is the House of History, a stately brick building built about 1810. This distinguished example of the Federal style is another museum owned by the Columbia County Historical Society. Benedict Arnold Inn, the Van Schaack house and several others south of the House of History on Route US 9 date back to pre-Revolutionary War days.

Just south of Kinderhook, Route 398 heads west to the Hudson River at Stuyvesant where the shunpike now turns north on the River Road, Route 9J. As in Stuyvesant, there may be found many more interesting structures in Schodack Landing and Castleton-on-Hudson. The river is narrow here with long flat islands hugging the nearby shore to block views of vessels on the main channel. Soon after entering the City of Rensselaer, this road connects with the Albany Post Road.

One mile from this junction, the bridge over the Hudson River into Albany is considered the present terminus of the Albany Post Road. As a last stop on this shunpike tour, Fort Grail° is a few feet south on

Riverside Ave. Built as a manor house for the eastern Van Rennselaer manor, some claim that construction dates back to 1642. It remained in the hands of the Van Rensselaer family until 1871. Neglect and decay crept in to destroy a great landmark of the Hudson River Valley until purchased by the State in 1924 and then restored.

There is a little park across the street where a shunpiker may meditate a bit on this focal point of the Hudson River Valley. West of the park is the Hudson River where some of Hendrick Hudson's crew passed by this wilderness in 1609. Twenty-one years later, 1630, Kiliaen Van Rensselaer purchased this land and more from the Indians as the beginning of a 700,000 acre manor extending twenty-four miles along the river and twenty-four miles inland from each river bank. The river was the only transportation route to the coast when building of Fort Crailo began. In 1703 the Albany Post Road began when the Publick Highways Act declared "the Publick Common General Road and Highway to continue and remain forever from King's Bridge to the ferry at Crawlier over against the City of Albany." A militia drill of provincial soldiers in fields to the east during the French and Indian War inspired a British army surgeon to write the derisive words of "Yankee Doodle," which were thrown back at the British when it became the marching song during the Revolutionary War.

Then came civilization. First stage coaches, next steamboats and canal barges, and then railroad trains passed nearby. Industrial revolution, population growth, crowded houses. Coal smoke, noise, pollution. Fort Crailo ? A mansard roof was added, but it was still out-of-date when compared with the "new" Victorian houses. It was just plain old. But it was solid. Somehow, it remained standing in an obscure neighborhood long enough to become historically significant, somewhat as a second-hand piece of furniture changes to an antique. The D.A.R. and others pitched in to save it, and finally it was purchased by the State and later restored. The single-pitch Dutch tile roof is back and the door is open to visitors. Adjacent buildings cramp it a bit, but this park is a bonus. Perhaps civilization is becoming civilized.

From New York City to Albany, shunpikers enjoy the Hudson River Valley. It is a valley of living history, of architectural variety, of scenic beauty. It is a valley where the shunpiker enjoys a brief stop by the side of the road, a short side-trip or an all day outing. It is a paradise for shunpikers.

May 23, 1833. Warm and showery through the day. This is Quaker week and we will have rain in abundance.

June 1, . Very shewery, five showers, heaviest at the time the steamboat landed 200 Quakers for their meeting. June 2, . Quaker Meeting finished and rain has ceased. From the Diary of Mathew Vassar, Junior 64-

SCHOONER

(left) SLOOP VER

;24 HUDSON

OLD WAYS REDISCOVERED

Richard A. Dwelley*

Thirty years ago Carl Carmer wrote these lines in his beloved book, The Hudson, "The people are finding other ways of possessing the river —some of them old ways rediscovered." This statemeent was prophetic.

No group of people possessed the river and loved the river more than the hearty men who sailed Hudson River Sloops. On these sturdy vessels boatmen "learned the ways of the 'Great River of the Mountains' as they leaned on the heavy tillers, their eyes fixed on the points of the high horizons where hill slopes end and stars begin."

Today the people have sparked a powerful revival of interest in Hudson River Sloops . . . "the old way rediscovered." The Hudson River Sloop Restoration, Inc. has been founded, membership is rapidly growing, and funds are being raised to build a replica of one of the early sloops.

There is a renaissance of interest in the Hudson River. People are dreaming of a time "when the river running down from its high sources among the ancient rocks will ripple beside green parks." They see a great revival of sailing on the Hudson. They are expressing the hope that children of the future can swim in a river of clean waters as did "the Algonkin boys and girls before the days of the white explorers." Once again a Hudson River Sloop will embark on a proud journey.

In September 1966 the Hudson River Sloop Restoration, Inc., a membership corporation was formed. The basic purpose of the corporation is to be educational. As clearly stated in the Certificate of Incorporation, the Hudson River Sloop Restoration, Inc. was formed, "to acquaint people with matters relating to our cultural heritage; and to maintain and promote interest in the history of the Hudson River both as a commerical and pleasure artery; and in connection therewith to build, own, operate and exhibit replicas of the great sloops which once freely navigated the river, thereby generating a greater interest in our cultural heritage and an understanding of the contributions made to our culture and commerce by the river and the sloops which sailed it."

The sloop group wants the residents of the Hudson River Valley to see the huge white mainsail of a Hudson River Sloop slipping past the bluffs of the Hudson Valley as they did by the hundreds a century ago. A vessel of solid oak is now being built in Maine; it will carry original cargoes, artifacts of her period, and the history of our beautiful river and

*Richard A. Dwelley, a member and former Trustee of the Dutchess County Historical Society, has been active in the founding of the Hudson River Sloop Restoration, Inc. With Anthony Megargee, Director of Advertising for Central Hudson Gas and Electric Corporation, Mr. Dwelley is producing a sound film about the history of Hudson River sloops.

William F. Gekle, member and Trustee of the Historiacl Society, has written the script for the film. The script is published in this volume. Mr. Gekle is associated with the New College, Sarasota, Florida. 65

valley to all residents. The Hudson River is an ideal setting for a floating museum. -When this floating museum, the Hudson River Sloop, is built she will sail on the Hudson during all the ice-free months of the year between Albany and New York, stopping for a few days each season at every single river community, large or small.

The sloop will be boarded and visited at the dock by residents of the communities along the river. At every port sloop groups will be encouraged to visit the sloop. Educational materials will be sent to classes preparing them for their sloop visit. Local teachers will be able to develop units of study using the Hudson River Sloop as a starting point. Students can collect historical material, tape interviews with community residents, dig lccal library collections for old photographs of Hudson River scenes. Art classes can sketch the sloop. A sloop visit will give students a unique insight into life in another century in their own community and in the Hudson River Valley.

What will a sloop visit be like? It will vary from town to town.

A visit to Albany will remind residents there of the sloop "Experiment" built there in the 1780's. She made America's first voyage to China. This exciting adventure story is told in Carl Carmer's The Hudson.

The Hudson River Sloop docking at the old Dutch settlement of "Klauver Rachen" or Claverack Landing, now the City of Hudson, would be an exciting event. The community would become more aware of their Dutch heritage and of the New England merchants from New Bedford and Nantucket who made Hudson a great whaling port.

At Hudson the sloop will dock at the new boat-site, just built by New York State at the foot of Warren Street, and will become the center of a city celebration. The great homes, built by the whaling captains, along Court Street could be opened to the public. Historical exhibits about Hudson could be created and shown at the docking area.

The Hendrick Hudson Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution could open up their Warren Street home and library for the celebration. A sloop visit, with the renewed interest in the river, could encourage the Hudson Power Boat Association to develop programs to teach the young residents of the city the art of boating.

In Poughkeepsie there will be room at the two-million marina being planned on the site of the former DeLaval plant at water's edge. Or the new sloop can anchor close to shore off Riverfront Park.

Further downstream at Croton-on-Hudson a visit each year by the Hudson River Sloop at Senasqua Park would be eagerly awaited by young and old. Here the Senasqua Boating Association with over one hundred members, are engaged in an active program that teaches sailing to residents.

There are day programs for youngsters and evening classes for adults. Youngsters there recently saw a model of the sloop and are now anxiously waiting until they can spend a week on the sloop as volunteer crew members. just as the Senasqua Boating Association has made Crctonon-Hudson aware of the art of sailing and the recreational value of the river, we believe that the Hudson River Sloop can do this for the entire river valley community.

Newburgh will be reminded of the packet sloops, running from her docks to New York, carrying passengers and produce from the farms and sailing from David Crawford's wharf. There were the sloops Favorite, Orange Packet, Eclipse, and the John Beveridge built in 1838. The latter named after a brewery in Newburgh, whose ale was known throughout the Empire State.

Every historic site along the "North River" will benefit from a visit at a nearby dock by the Hudson River Sloop. The Sleepy Hollow Restorations that include Washington Irving's Sunnyside, the Philipse Manor, and the Van Cortlandt 11/Ianor are associated historically with the Hudson River Sloops. In the two centuries between the Half Moon and the Clermont, hundreds of sloops visited these great estates whose property ran to the shoreline. Isn't it easy to visualize a colorful sloop, painted with stripes of bright colors, slowly sailing toward the docking area of the Van Cortlandt Manor loaded down with corn, blue stone, bricks or perhaps returning with passengers, light parcels and letters?

We know also that a Hudson River Sloop visit would remind visitors of histcric personalities like Benjamin Franklin and Alexander Hamilton who sailed the river on packet sloops, as well as the thousands of settlers who came from Europe to New York and then sailed up the "North River" to Albany and their new homes.

Washington Irving and James Fennimore Cooper wrote of Hudson River Sloops. Artists painted Hudson River scenes in the 18th and 19th centuries bringing attention to the scenic Hudson and sloop traffic. -William J. Bennett, in the 1830's, published many engravings focusing attention on the Hudson and sloops "tacking" across the river.

In 1908 William E. AiTerplanck of Fishkill-on-Hudson with the aid of an old friend, Captain Moses W. Collyer of Chelsea, wrote and published "The Sloops of the Hudson." In this history of the extinct sloops the authors proudly recalled their younger days. Verplanck wrote, "I can see them now 65 to 75 feet long, 20 to 25 feet wide, mast 80 to 100 feet, bowsprit 25. Capacity 50 to 200 tons or cargo; crew of six, including captain, cabin boy and cook."

In 1968 there is not one single Hudson River Sloop in existance. We still have our Hudson River Valley, the highlands from Mt. Marcy to New York, the cities, villages and farmlands. Won't it be fortunate when the proud people of this valley have a replica of the unifying symbol which our forefathers saw fit to place on the great seal and flag of New York State?

Some may say, "How do you think all this will be paid for? The maintenance will be huge." An important and practical plan of the Sloop Restoration has provided for this. There will be one full-time paid pilot, licensed by the Coast Guard for Hudson River work. He will know every rock and mudflat in the river by heart and will live on the boat. He should get a professional salary, probably approaching $10,000 or more a year. His is an extremely skilled job calling for round-the-clock responsibility.

The rest of the crew working under him can be volunteers. The present plan is to organize twenty or thirty such crews, each composed of nine or ten people who will live on the boat for one week at a time.

Each crew should have its own cook. The boat will supply the mcney for the food and they can eat in hearty style. What a wonderful experience it will be for young and old to spend a week working and sailing on the Hudson. There will be no limitations in age, sex, nor any discrimination as to race, nationality or religion in these crews. They should be a living example of the mixture of people who have made their home in this valley and helped its commercial and cultural growth.

The crews will be organized and trained by a mate, who, while not as well trained as the captain, will nevertheless, be able to take over the tiller when the captain goes below and in any emergency will be able to navigate the boat to safety. Each mate will choose his crew with a view to getting a group of congenial people who can live in close quarters for a week and who will have enough muscle power to raise the huge sail and gaff weighing more than half a ton, and to handle the large anchor.

Besides providing the manpower for sailing the boat from town to town, the crew can also take charge of showing visitors over the boat during selected hours of the day an evening.

Jan. 9, 1857. Lecture tonight by Wendell Phillips, "Agitation, Necessary for Progress". A tame affair. Feb. 19, 1861. Great excitement at Railroad Depot. The president-elect, A. Lincoln, passed through, stopped ten minutes, addressed a crowd of at least 7,000 persons, firing of cannon and huzzas of the crowd. From the Diary of Mathew Vassar, Junior.

ROMANCE OF THE HUDSON RIVER SLOOPS

William F. Gekle

First, there was the river. The river was always there, or almost always as we reckon time. Discovered by. . . almost everyone: an Italian in a French ship, a Spaniard in a Spanish ship, an Englishman in a Dutch ship and perhaps by dozens of other navigators . French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch. . . and by a few of the great Elizabethan sea captains who sailed the coast from Laborador to Virginia. They knew only that this was a new world and they sailed without charts or maps. . . or made their own.

It was the Englishman sailing a little Dutch ship who first entered the river and sailed its length and gave it his name. The Hudson is unusual among the world's great rivers ... . it is not so long as many, nor so deep as some, nor so wide, so swift, so mighty, so muddy as others. It has been called "The Lordly Hudson". . . and when you have said that— you have said everything about it.

The Hudson is a river that seems at times a chain of lakes—and perhaps it once was—it is a succession of bays, ringed all around with coves and fed by a hundred, a thousand streams and creeks. It is a river that drives, almost straight as an arrow, to the north. . . with just enough bends and curves and narrow passages to add to its beauty.. . a river that flows, full to the brim, past fields and meadows, between mountains and through them. . . with peaks and promontories and headlands and cliffs along its banks.

The Hudson is an extension of the sea itself, swept by tides that reach up one hundred and fifty miles or more. . . and it's salt for nearly half that length. The sea never lets go its hold on the Hudson ... nor do the mountain streams that feed it from the north.

The first Europeans along the river were French—they stayed only long enough to load their ships with furs. The first colonists along the river were Dutch and then the English came. . . the first ships that sailed, day in, day out, upon the river were the sloops. . . sloops that would have been at home in the Zuider Zee or the Schelde.

Who built the first sloop on the Hudson? No one knows.. . but the Dutch were sea-farers before they were farmers . . . and among the first settlers were shipwrights . . . and riggers. . and sailmakers . . . men more at home with an adze than a plow.. . with a marlinspike than a pick. They were hardly settled when Adrian Block built the first ship on the Hudson . . . a fine square-rigged ship ... yet not a ship for the Hudson.

The Hudson, chained to the sea, of the sea, yet not the sea, called for a special craft. .. not too tall, not too wide, not too deep.. . a weatherly craft, quick to turn, and able to point close to the wind. The Hudson called for a boat that could sail with the tides from the sea ... a boat not quite like other boats as the Hudson is not quite like other rivers. The first sloops on the Hudson showed their Dutch ancestry.. . sloops

like the magnificent Statenyachts, or Stubby Hoekers, with leeboards, blunt bows, and great baggy mainsails. Year by year they changed, as the canny Dutchmen borrowed from other vessels that sailed up the Hudson . . . from Bermuda sloops and speedy Baltimore Clippers. They didn't just "borrow" either. The centerboard, perhaps first developed on the Hudson, replaced the clumsy leeboards. They were always refining, building a little better. . . a boat that would carry the commerce of the river, more of it, and faster . . . crops to market . . . stone from the quarries . . . coal frcm the mines. . . hay for the horses and cattle of the city. . a boat to transpert the people of the valley up and down their river.

There were passengers or packet sloops now. . . some of them elegantly appointed and downright luxurious for their day. . . roomy. plenty of deck space. . . where passengers promenaded during the day, and on gala occasions danced to the music of fiddlers under the stars. As the young republic grew, sloops of the river played a leading role in the economic growth of the river towns along its shores. Each town had its market sloops and on the way to New York the green of vegetables. . . the gold of hay and grain. . . the red of apples bobbed above the bright paint of the gun'ls. Why, some were loaded till they looked like floating hayricks!

In 1769, Albany claimed more than thirty market sloops, each carrying four or five hundred barrels of flour on its eleven or twelve trips a year to New York. The captains of these sloops were general agents for the whole town. They sold a farmer's produce in the city. . . bought him what he wished. . . and sailed back to deliver the purchases and the remaining money, they matched clothes for the housewife . . took care of passengers young or old entrusted to them, hove to for a pleasant chat with the captain of a passing sloop when they felt like it. They sent ashore for milk to put in tea . . . or stopped so that passengers might take a walk and admire the "sublimity" of the river scenery.

At the beginning of the Revolution they helped many a rebellious colonist and his family flee bag and baggage from the advancing British. And at Fox's Point, in Poughkeepsie, they built a pair of sloops as shipscf-war. . . rigged them as fire ships . . and sent them down-river to help protect the chain above West Point.

At the end of the Revolution they piloted weeping Tory families down-river to the big boats which would take them to their new life in exile. The men who sailed these boats weren't blue-water sailors. . . but they knew their river. . . they knew every rip and eddy. . . where the tide would help and where the tide would hinder. They spoke of inexplicable "witch tides" . . . so slow that it seemed the moonlit brine was being held back from its periodic race by some mysterious enchantment. And when there was neither wind nor tide they rafted their boats together in the calm and talked over the rails as farmers talk over their fences. But cobwebs in the riggings were spell-breaking counter-charms. Spider-spun traceries hung over the decks could mean only one thing. . . a spanking good breeze in the morning! They knew where to wait for the wind. . . and

where they'd lose it. They knew, as every farmer does, there is a time to reap and a time to sow, and a time to anchor. .. and a time to go.

As more Yankee skippers took to the river at the beginning of the 19th century, new American water lingo replaced the Dutch. Scholarly talk about the moon's phases . . . their effect on the tides . . . their effect on the sloops . . . was soon translated by the skippers into familiar idiom. When the mcon was in apogee . . . they said it was "in the apple tree". And when the moon was in perigee . . . they said it was "in the pear tree".

How big was the Hudson river sloop? How big was the sloop that bore the burden of business . . . of communications ... of travel . .. of _Yrowth of the river towns? The sloops of the Hudson were about 65 to 73 feet long ... 25 or so wide . . . of about one hundred tons capacity. and carried nearly five-thousand feet of sail! Five thousand feet? Of billowing, bellying sail. enough to move tons of produce. .. communities cf peeple .. . enough to move a new country.

Washington Irving traveled in the packet sloop and so did the rich ... and the famous. .. going up-river to visit the great houses. The rich and the famous built their own sloops and there were as many shipyards along the river as there were market docks. Almost every town along the river built sloops: Nyack, Peekskill, Newburgh, Low Point, New Hamburg, Poughkeepsie, Lewisburg, Esopus, Kingston, Hudson, Athens, Albany. .. and now there were whole squadrons, whole fleets . . . a whole river full of sloops. In 1863 ... the July 13th issue of the Poughkeepsie Daily Eagle carried this brief exclamation: "Beautiful! On Saturday last we saw thirty vessels under full sail going up the Hudson, all within fifty yards of each other. .. floating along with the tide, there being no wind at the time. It was a splendid sight".

Old records show about 800 sloops carried on the trade of the Hudson . .. perhaps there were more. . . perhaps five to six sloops to every mile of river! The sloops were colorful boats. Dutch owners slapped paint on them until they looked gaudier on the water than an Italian peasant's cart on its way to a fiesta. Prettiest of all were the Nyack sloops . . . trim and fancy in gold and red and green and in blue stripes. . . sailing palettes on the Hudson's mirror. Hudson river sailors never held with flat sails .. . "Just don't held the wind," they'd say. They loved to see the air at work . . . bellying the ma:ns'l .. . keeping it rap-full beating to windward. They were wrong, as yachtmen of today know, but few sights could be lovelier than that of a Hudson river sloop with a bagful of wind, looking as if she might be lifted out of the water at any moment and become. .. a many-colored magic carpet blowing down a channel between the mountains. Yes, they carried a lot of sail . . and, man! How they could sail!

Perhaps the most famous of all was the sloop "Experiment" out of Albany. . . . she proved herself "Queen of the World's Single Stickers" by sailing to Canton, China. . . and back without incident ... not even a single case of seasickness! By comparison the "Experiment" was small . . only 80-tons . but was the first American craft to make a direct voyage from the United States to China, the second to reach Canton. The return

voyage . . . only four months and twelve days. . . "was nothing", said the crew of six men and two boys as they were welcomed "with all pomp and circumstance of war" as they tied up in New York.

For over two hundred years the sloop was built and sailed on this river.. . in peace and in war.. . and now the sloops are gone ... all gone . . . the sloops with beautiful names: "The Huntress" . . . "Victorine" . . . "Jewel" . . . "Ariel" . . . "Butterfly" .. . all gone. They've disappeared from the river just as the passenger pigeons have gone from the sky. .. . and the eagles from Breakneck and High Tor. . . and the salmon and sturgeon from the river itself.

It wasn't the "Clermont" that drove them from the river. . . any sloop could show its stern to a steamer. . . at first. It wasn't the railroad that came and crawled along its banks. The tow-boats and the barges, the sidewheelers and the locomotives. . the quickening pace of commerce. . . the irresistable force of progress, all of these together . . . they scuttled the sloop. Not one sloop remains of all that sailed the river.. . nct a single sloop . .. not a single sail. . . not even the bare, bleached bones on a mudbank. The only way we'll ever see a Hudson river sloop again. . . is to build one. . . and that ... we're doing!

TABLE

Showing the valuation by assessors of the Real and Personal Estate in the City of Poughkeepsie with tax raised.

Year Valuation of Real Estate

Valuation of Personal Property Total Taxes

1860 $2,249,615 $2,023;923 $4,273,538 $22,828 1861 2,331,365 2,108,590 4,439,955 22,184 1862 2,428,750 2,169,129 4,597,879 24,405 1863 2,524,940 2,201,551 4,726,491 38,843 1864, 2,681,015 2,209,851 4,890,866 54,401

Poughkeepsie Savings Bank: The books of the Poughkeepsie Savings Bank were opened at the office of the Treasurer, 275 Main Street, on Saturday afternoon last, and deposits were made by different persons. The whole amount received was not large, but there were those ready to embrace its advantage, and this was all that could be expected. Its business will increase, and the institution be justly ranked among the best that can be formed for the saving of small gains. Poughkeepsie Telegraphy May 8, 1833

IN MEMORY OF MISS HELEN WILKINSON REYNOLDS

1875-1943

Joseph W. Emsley

Helen Wilkinson Reynolds died 25 years ago in her native Poughkeepsie, but time enriches the memories of her fine work as a general local historian and reemphasizes again and again the reliance upon her writings by others in updating historical activities since her death on January 3, 1943. Miss Reynolds made local history her lifetime pursuit and her carefully documented research was accompanied by a love of her work that was apparent in all her books and articles.

Miss Reynolds, although keenly aware of all phases of the military and political history—she was a close collaborator with President Franklin D. Roosevelt in local history research—was primarily a searcher after material reflecting the social and cultural development of the area. Her most widely read works in all probability are her "Dutch Houses in the Hudson Valley Before 1776," sponsored by the Holland Society of New York, 1929, and "Dutchess County Doorways," sponsored by Mr. and. William Willis Reese, 1931. These, probably more than any other of her writings, epitomize her dedicated aim of carrying on for countless generations the image of area history in the making. Her carefully illustrated and documented stories of houses, doorways and other choice architectural studies will be preserved long after all vistages of the objects of her work are gone. And this was her principal aim in completing such valuable works of history.

Not forgetting her numerous occasional publications, Miss Reynolds is well known also for her contributions of numerous articles to the Year Books of the Dutchess County Historical Society, a never ending source of information to students and scholars as well as just pleasure-bent persons who enjoy her highly readable articles.

Miss Reynolds was a familiar figure during the 1920's and 1930's in the Record Room of the County Clerk's office. She went to the deeds records to complete her own original research on the ownership of myriad properties, whether land or improvements, to round out her articles about interesting estates or other landmarks in the County. She was forever concerned about the lands in Dutchess County and their uses from the days of the original settlers. She even collaborated with Professor Edith Adelaide Roberts of the Department of Botany at Vassar College in the publication of "The Role of Plant Life in the History of Dutchess County." That 1938 publication, accompanied by aerial maps furnished by the County Planning Board, probed environmental factors which affected the plant life up to Man's occupation of area lands. Other maps within the volume include one of the Great Nine Partners and others such as "Some Old Trees of Dutchess County," "Patent and Town Boundaries" and "Indian Encampments in the Vicinity of Poughkeepsie."

Another interesting publication of 1VIiss Reynolds is her "The Campus of Vassar College, Its Background and Landmarks," telling in detail the one-time uses of the present college campus grounds as a race track, the first mention of racing on Vassar's lands March 20, 1783.

Among Miss Reynolds' unusual accomplishments was her production, in collaboration with the late Dr. J. Wilson Poucher, of "Old Gravestones of Dutchess County," an exhausive listing of grave markers from all parts of the County, involving painstaking search for out-of-the-way markers in church and private burial grounds.

One of Miss Reynolds' most important accomplishments was the production of accurate records. She warned newspaper reporters to guard against sloppy writing where references were desirable. There are numerous instances where she corrected long held misconceptions about place names. An outstanding contribution was that of setting the record straight about the Poughkeepsie residence of New York State's first constitutional governor, George Clinton. She went to the County records to confirm that Clinton lived at 449 Main Street while residing in the County during the Revolutionary War period. The designated Clinton House at Main and North White Streets was never his residence, she wrote.

Miss Reynolds manfested her fine qualities at all times. She is remembered for her soft but firm voice, always a charming speaker, injecting humorous notes in her talks before the County Historical Society and other groups. Her love of the finer things of life was evident in her unending search for physical embellishments such as mantelpieces or doorways, treasured silverware or pottery. Her literary tastes made her revel in such undertakings as joining the efforts of the descendants of Henry Livingston, Jr. of the South Road, contending that he was the author of the merry lines of the immortal Christmas poem, "T'was the Night Before Christmas." Dr. Clement Clarke Moore is still credited with the authorship. By comparing lines of the poem with other verses that Livingston had written, Miss Reynolds offered a plausable brief that he could very well have been the author of the poem. Livingston lived in a house on the roadway to Miss Annette I. Young's estate on the South Road opposite Beechwood Avenue. The main house on the property was the home for a number of years of Samuel F. B. Morse, developer of telegraphy and also a portrait artist.

Helen Wrilkinson Reynolds, born December 9, 1875, died January 3, 1943, lived from birth and during girlhood at 341 Mill Street. From 1852 to 1881 the house in which she was born was the home of her grandfather, George Wilkinson, second mayor of Poughkeepsie, and from 1881 to 1918 of his widow and their descendants.

Miss Reynolds' parents were John Richardson Reynolds and Jane Hewitt Wilkinson; her grandparents George and Sophia (Cary) Wilkinson and James and Jane (Richardson) Reynolds, all of Poughkeepsie. Her four grandparents were descended from families which had settled in New England in the Colonial period. From Rhode Island John

Wilkinson, great-great grandfather of Miss Reynolds, came to Dutchess County in 1754-55. His home, Town of Union Vale, is described in her book Dutchess County Doorways". Dr. Ebenezer Cary of Providence, Rhode Island, came to Dutchess in the 1760's and practiced medicine in the County until his death in 1815. He was succeeded by his son, Dr. Egbert Cary who practiced in 1810-62. James Reynolds, great-greatgrandfather of Helen Wilkinson Reynolds, came from Rhode Island to Poughkeepsie about 1800, and played a substantial part in the development of the river commerce of the village. He founded a wholesale grocery establishment in 1819. Upon the centennial of the company in 1919, Miss Reynolds prepared a pamphlet, "Annals of a Century-Old Business." Her father, John Richardson Reynolds, was a member of the firm from 1869 to his death in 1889.

Helen Wilkinson Reynolds was almost entirely self-educated. A spinal affliction caused her withdrawal from school when she was about fifteen. Thereafter she received no formal education. However, she inherited a love for books and writing from both sides of the family. Her maternal grandmother imparted to her an interest in family history. Withdrawn from school, but having an active mind, Miss Reynolds never knew idleness. She occupied herself at first with a study of family records, but soon progressed to a study of the general history of Dutchess County.

A member of Christ Church, she wrote a history of the local parish based on valuable documents owned by the church. This "Records of Christ Church," celebrating the 10th anniversary of the rector, the Reverend Dr. Alexander G. Cummins, contained a record of baptisms, marriages and deaths 1766-1916. A second volume followed.

Because of illness she missed the organization meeting of the Dutchess County Historical Society on May 26, 1914 at Pleasant Valley, but Miss Reynolds was active in the organization virtually from its start.

From the early 1920's she became active in the publication of the Year Books. Her source-material work for the book was started in 1921. She was editor of the publication during most of her years of active association in the society, and served as trustee, starting in 1923.

Miss Reynolds' publications in addition to her numerous articles in the Year Books, include: "Poughkeepsie, The Origin and Meaning of the Word," 1924; "Notices of Marriages and Deaths in Poughkeepsie Newspapers, 1778-1825," 1930; "How the City of Poughkeepsie was Founded"; part of a pamphlet entitled "Two Hundred and Fifty Years, 1687-1937"; "What Happened at Poughkeepsie in 1788," a pamphlet published at the time of the 150th anniversary of the Ratification of the United States Constitution by the State of New York, 1938; and "Eighteenth Century Records of Dutchess County," in collaboration with William Willis Reese, 1938.

RECENT PUBLICATIONS OF NOTE

Mrs. Amy Pearce Ver Nooy, former editor of the Historical Society Year Books and presently a resident of Tulsa, Oklahoma, wrote a very interesting article on the activities of Benson J. Losing, famous Dutchess County Historian, which appeared in a recent copy of Antiques Magazine. Mrs. Ver Nooy's discourse is in her usual precise and factual manner and was received by her many admirers with enthusiasm. Many of Losing's drawings are published with the article.

"How to Retire Creatively" is the title of a short article appearing in the October-November 1968 Modern Maturity Magazine written by Vassar's President Emeritus, Dr. Henry Noble MacCracken. There is no one better fitted than the past president of the Historical Society to write on this subject for he continues to write and to speak very creatively himself during his years of retirement.

John S. Dyson, Millbrook, N. Y., a member of the Society, has published a book of 110 pages entitled "Our Historic Hudson." The publisher of the Millbrook Round Table has added a valuable addition to the recording of ths history of the Hudson Valley and it will be a splendid guide for those travelling about the area on tours of the historic places and historic buildings. Stewart L. Udall, Secretary of the Interior wrote an introduction to Mr. Dvson's book, the photographs are by A. E. Wolley, the designer is Ernest Reichl, and volume is well printed by James B. Adler, Inc. of Roosevelt, New York. It is interesting to find that Mr. Dyson believes as did the historians of the last century, that Poughkeepsie derived its name from the Indian "Apokeepsing", meaning' Safe Harbour", rather than agreeing with Miss Helen W. Reynold's conclusion that the city's name came from "Uppuqui-isis-ing" : the "reed-covered lodge by the little water-place". Perhaps Mr. Dyson's research did not include the Historical Society's publication by Miss Reynolds, Volume 1, (1924) "Poughkeepsie the Origin and Meaning of the Word".

"A Venture in Quaker Education at Oakwood School" has been written by William J. Reagan, retired principal of the Oakwood School and, during his long residence in Poughkeepsie, one of its best loved citizens. After graduating from Earlham College and teaching in several Quaker schools in the west, Mr. Reagan was appointed principal of Oakwood Seminary at Union Springs, New York, commencing a period of

thirty-two years at Oakwood. The first five years were at Oakwood Seminary and the remainder as principal of the Oakwood School, Poughkeepsie, when the school was moved to Dutchess County. While Mr. Reagan's chapters in "A Venture in Quaker Education" are essentially a record of his life and his philosophy, his life was so much part and parcel of Oakwood that it becomes a warm and interesting history of the Oakwood of Mr. Reagan's time. Mr. Lawrence Hall in his introduction to the book so aply states ". .. . we see sources of his energy, of his insights into behavior, and of the educational philosophy that set the objectives, standards, and methods of Oakwood."

Oakwood School commenced its long history in Dutchess County in 1796, one hundred and seventy-two years ago, when the Nine Partners Boarding School at Mllbrook started receiving pupils. The endowment funds of that school were transferred to Friends Academy, Union Springs, in 1863. Friends Academy eventually became Oakwood Seminary and in 1916 Oakwood School, Poughkeepsie.*

*Editor's Note: For the history of the Nine Partners School see Historical Society Year Books, Vol. 7 (1922), Vol. 20 (1935).

* Se 55 55 55

ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS FOR A HUSBAND

It is rumored that a well-known business man recently found himself financially embarrassed. To his surprise his wife retired to her room and returned with one thousand dollars which she gave to her astonished husband. When asked how she happened to have such a large amount of money, she replied that she had saved it from her allowance by trading for twelve years at KONX'S, 133 Main St. Pure Lard 9 cents a pound Molasses 55 cents a gal. Kerosene OH 9 cents a gal. Table Butter 20 cents a pound Tomatoes 9 cents per can Evening Star, Poughkeepsie, Nov. 14-, 1890

BYLAWS DUTCHESS COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Revised May 15, 1964

Name

The name of this organization is: The Dutchess County Historical Society.

Object

The object of the society shall be to discover, procure and preserve whatever may relate to American history in its several phases — social, economic, military, political, literary, artistic, etc., but particularly material regarding Dutchess County in the State of New York;

To encourage the writing of papers and the delivery of addresses on subjects of historical interest;

To collect objects of historical value and arrange for their preservation.

Members

There shall be four classes of members: 1. Active members: individuals, societies and organizations 2. Active family members: husband and wife 3. Life members: any member who shall pay at one time at least seventy-five dollars to the society 4. Honorary members: any person who, in the judgment of the trustees, has attained distinction in historic work of research. Dues

The dues for active members shall be three dollars, payable at the time of election and thereafter annually on the first of January.

The dues for active family members shall be five dollars, payable at the time of election and thereafter annually on the first of January.

Life members and honorary members shall be exempt from the payment of dues.

Any member in arrears for dues for six months shall be considered as having resigned from the society. Officers

The officers of the Dutchess County Historical Society shall be: A president A vice-president at large A vice-president representing each town in Dutchess County A vice-president representing the City of Poughkeepsie A vice-president representing the City of Beacon A secretary A treasurer A curator Sixteen trustees

Board of Trustees

The Board of Trustees shall consist of:

The president, ex-officio

The vice-president at large, ex-officio

The secretary, ex-officio

The treasurer, ex-officio and sixteen trustees

There shall not he duplication on the Board of Trustees. No one person may serve at the same time as an executive officer and a trustee.

Election of Officers and Trustees

Officers and trustees shall be elected at the annual meeting of the society.

Terms of Officers and Trustees

A president and a vice-president at large shall be elected for a term of two years, and each shall be eligible to succeed himself but once after having served one full term.

Vice-presidents representing the towns and cities of Dutchess County, a secretary, a treasurer and a curator shall be elected for a term of two years.

Sixteen trustees shall be elected in four classes, each to serve four years, but no trustee shall be eligible to succeed himself after having served one full term of four years.

Duties of Officers and Trustees

President: The president shall preside at meetings of the society and of the Board of Trustees. He shall initiate and direct the activities of the society in conjunction with the Board of Trustees.

Vice-President at Large: The vice-president at large shall act in the absence of the president as need occasions.

Vice-Presidents for Towns and Cities of Dutchess County: It shall be the duty of the vice-presidents for the towns and cities to stimulate interest in the objects of the society in their several localities.

Secretary: The secretary shall keep a record of all meetings of the society and of the Board of Trustees; shall notify all persons elected to membership; shall notify members of the time and place of meetings; and shall perform all the duties of the secretary of the society.

Treasurer: The treasurer shall collect and disburse all moneys of the society under the direction of the Board of Trustees.

Curator: The curator shall be responsible for the safekeeping of

all possessions of the society, other than securities or bank deposits. He shall keep an inventory of the possessions and shall notify the secretary in writing of all new acquisitions of the society, whether by purchase or by gift.

Trustees: The Board of Trustees shall transact any business of the society and have general management of its affairs, including the election of members.

1VIeetings

There shall be at least two meetings of the society each year: an annual meeting during the month of IVIay, and a semi-annual meeting during the month of October. In addition to the annual and semi-annual meetings, a meeting of the society may be called by the president, or by the vice-president at large, or by the secretary, or upon request of five members of the society. The day and place of all meetings shall be chosen by the officers and all members shall be notified of a meeting by the secretary at least two weeks in advance.

Meetings of the Board of Trustees may be held at any time on the call of the president, or the vice-president at large, or the secretary, or of any three members of the Board of Trustees.

Ten members shall constitute a quorum of the society.

Five trustees shall constitute a quorum of the Board of Trustees.

Reports

The officers of the society and the committees shall report to the society at the meetings in May and October upon such matters as are in their charge, and shall inform the members of the condition of the society.

Order of Business

The order of business at any meeting of the society, or of the Board of Trustees, shall be as follows: Reading of the minutes of the previous meeting Reports of officers Reports of committees Election of members Unfinished business New business Adjournment

Amendments

These bylaws may be amended at any regular, or special, meeting of the society by a majority vote of those present, provided a notice of the proposed amendment shall have accompanied the notice of the meeting at which it shall be acted upon.

Peter De Riemer, Goldsmith

Next Article

In Brief

More articles from this publication:

In Brief

The Town of LaGrange

Annual Pilgrimage

Thorndale

Secretary's Minutes

This article is from:

Dutchess County Historical Society Yearbook Vol 053 1968