President's Report

PRESIDENT'S REPORT

The 1974-75 year was a time of much work accomplished by the Society. The Board meetings and special meetings were exceptionally well attended by the people involved, with many ideas considered, argued and acted upon. Mr. Franklin Butts of the Historical Society and Mrs. Emily Stout, President of the Stanford Society, organized and ran the special pilgrimage to the Stanford area in June. Over ninety people attended the program, and it was enjoyed by all. A footnote to be noted is that at Stanford a total of three railroads junctioned there. Prior to the start of the pilgrimage there was a flag raising ceremony at Glebe House in which the Bennington Battle Flag was raised and has been flown day and night since. This is done to indicate the start of the observance of the Bicentennial celebrations. The May meeting of the State Bicentennial Committee was held in Poughkeepsie with over 150 people attending from eleven counties. This meeting and program was arranged by Mr. Walter Averill. During the same month a tour of the historical homes in LaGrange was enjoyed by many. Mrs. Lawrence McGinnis and Mrs. John Smith chaired the plate committee for the Historical Society and their project will consist of a series of commemorative plates that will be issued by the Historical Society as part of our Bicentennial program and fund raising for the refurbishing of the Glebe House. The details of this program were presented at our annual meeting at the Holiday Inn, and were well received by the general membership. At that time, Mr. John Jenner reported to the membership that our auction of antiques to help defray the purchase of the Chalanda Collection of antiques was only partially successful and the finance problem will remain until we can raise more money from gifts, donations or the sale of duplicates in our possession. The Board asks all of you for your help in making us successful in the complete refurbishing of the Glebe House by the end of 1976. It is to be noted that we have raised the dues for the 1975-76 year moderately, but this increase will probably be eaten up by the additional printing costs of our yearbook. As the parent society for the county, we have endeavered at all times to assist and help the town societies; notably, our financial support to the Fishkill Digs, which has been well recorded and reported to our Society by Mr. Felix Scardapane. At our annual meeting, Mr. Roscoe Balch introduced the speaker, Mr. Joseph Norton, a colleague of his at Marist College who conducts a seminar on Dutchess County history. His topic for the afternoon was what the county was like before the Revolution and how the wealth was distributed. Mr. Norton told the group that he had researched all of the available old tax records of Dutchess County. He said that in 1720 there were 151 taxpayers. In that year the upper 17 percent of the population controlled 21 percent of the wealth, so that there was a fairly good distribution of wealth. Then, in 1770, on the eve of the Revolution, there were 3446 taxpayers and the top 17 percent of the population controlled 45 percent of the wealth. Twenty-three percent of the population in that year held 53 percent of the wealth with the community being heavily oriented toward commercial enterprises. He told of the difficulty in researching the Loyalists who left the county after the Revolution, since it is difficult to find records of losers.

He described the "new" elite who took over after the departure of many of the upper class who had sided with England in the war. There was a very interesting question and answer period after the talk. Mrs. Margaret Partridge has been the chairman of the committee of ten to furnish and repair the Glebe House. This committee has delivered a room by room plan which has been presented to the Board, approved and certain funds allocated for its implementation. The committee should be well applauded for their thoughts and actual physical contribution to the work accomplished. Mr. Gordon Hamersly, our editor, has been appointed committee chairman for the feasibility of gathering and reprinting our past yearbooks, all the articles on the Revolutionary War, and if feasible these proceeds also will go to help our financial picture at Glebe House. Mr. Hubert C. Spross and the Rev. Harmelink were appointed committee chairmen to interest area students studying history in the local institutions to do research on various historical subjects. This was to create interest in local history with the idea of giving awards to the best articles in different age groups. A sub-committee from the Glebe House committee is compiling and will publish a cookbook with the income to assist the Glebe House Committee in its particular programs for the House. Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Van Kleeck are the liaisons between the Historical Society and the Glebe House committee. The Historical Society now possess ten complete sets of plans for the Glebe House reprinted from the Library of Congress. These may be purchased from the Society for $25.00. We are able to obtain more copies as time goes by on the basis of a two-month time limit. These plans include all elevations, floor layouts and detail sheets. These, along with various antiques from the Glebe House, were displayed in the window of the Hudson Valley Savings Bank on Mail Mall in Poughkeepsie prior to Christmas this past year. This showing created much needed interest in the Society by the people in the street, and several new members can be attributed to this small effort. From the Van Kleeck family the Dutchess County Historical Society now possesses on loan an original De Reimer chair and the portrait of Elsey DeReimer, one of the original occupants of the Glebe House. During the year, Mr. Curdy brought some old documents which were for sale. One was a book listing the city poor and there were six account books of a slooping company. These documents were purchased by the Society. There has been some discussion of our selling some of our extra copies of various documents in order to purchase other old documents as they become available. Rev. Harmelink suggested that a committee of acquisition and disposition be formed appointed by the President. This has been done and I have appointed Mr. Buck, Mrs. Losee, Mr. Curdy and Mrs. Smith, with Mrs. Powers ex officio and to vote in case of a tie. The complete Board of Directors' minutes of all meetings will no longer be included in the yearbook, but will be available at the Adriance Memorial Library properly bound so that they may be perused by anyone interested in them. This is one attempt to reduce costs in the publication of the yearbook. The confidence and trust of the Board and general membership that has been shown to me during the past four years

has made the office of President extremely rewarding. As I retire from the position, I want to say most sincerely, "Thank you."

Herbert S. Roig President