THE FIRST WHITE CHILD BORN IN DUTCHESS CO-UNITY Clifford M. Buck
James H. Smith in his "History of Dutchess County" (Note 1.) refers to Nicholas Emigh as the earliest settler in the Town of Union Vale, Dutchess County, and his daughter is identified as the first white child born in the County. She married a Lossing. However George Olin Zabriski writing for the "New York Genealogical and Biographical Record', (2), shows that Nicholas Emigh did not come to Dutchess County until 1710 at the time of the Palatine emigration, not early enough to be the parent of the first white child. From the same sources, (3), there is a record of the baptism on October 16, 1698 of William, son of Peter and Catherine Hoffmayer Lassing, and a quotation, (4), from the Poughkeepsie Advertiser of August 15, 1791: "Poughkeepsie, August 11, died a few days since in this town, Mr. William Lawson, age near 100 years. He was the first born white child in the County of Dutchess." In the diary of John Drakem Jr., of New Hamburg dated May 6, 1831, there appears the following, (5) : "Died at his house in the Town of Poughkeepsie, John P. Lawson, known by me for Forty-five Years. He is gone, one of the oldest that remains of this once numerous and respectable family of Dutch — the first settlers of the south portion of this great County of Dutchess, Town of Poughkeepsie. His grandfather William Lawson died at the advanced age of flinty years old, owner of the farm now possessed by Ferris Bell, Esq., and was to be the first white child born in Poughkeepsie. John P. Lawson was buried at the Presbyterian burying ground at Wappingers Creek." There follows a lengthy description of his good qualities. Years ago when the historian, Helen Wilkinson Reynolds, was asked: "Who was the first white child born in Dutchess County?", she replied that it was probably an Ostrom or a Van Kleeck, but that she had not found sufficient records to reach a conclusion. There were a few families setded near Rhinebeck before 1698, at Kips-berg or Kipsburg. Ulster County deeds (6) refer to a patent given June 2, 1688 to Gerret Aertsen, Adrian Roose, Jan Elting, and Hendrick and Jacob Kipp amounting to 1,200 acres in the Rhinebeck-Rhinecliff area. These men probably settled here before 1698. In his "Historic Rhinebeck", Howard H. Morse states that Hendrick Kip built the first house in 1700, but that log huts or dougouts may have preceeded the Kip house. There is an Ulster County deed, (7), October 12, 1698 from Hendrick Kip to Walran Der Mont, Jr., both of Dutchess County. In her book "Poughkeepsie, the Origin and Meaning of the Word", Miss Reynolds gives a very thorough study of the early settlers in the Town of Poughkeepsie. There is a reference, (8), to the patent of Peter Schuyler of Albany, June 2, 1688, which quotes from the records of the Secretary of 50
