Beekman's Irish Connection Lee Eaton

Subject Index

I)UTCHESS COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY

35

)~EAR BOOK 1980

VOLUME 65

Mm: net !T-A O<¼~Jt) ,;/ lo, / </ LJ· Z POUGHKEEPSIE SUNDAY NEW YORKER :Ghost Night at Sylvan Lake

Tales of the· Chained Devil And the Headless Dog Told

Br tlELF.~ ~1n:ns

Many, many years ago a wake wM hdd at Sylvan Lake. This was hy no mean• unu,ual ,r the old iron mines were still in operation, and Sylvan L111e w,u a predominantly lri~h com• unily of $e,·eral hundred resident,. To these men and womrn wakn Wl!'fe " b1t1er••Wt:t:I .ulition. and attendance was a duty. Old lie• were ren<',,-ed i,t •uth gathering• and all d,f. r,nce• fo,go\len. At this particular wake the dep,.rt.-d lay 011 th~ u•ual •tretd,er, •rmH,., a rot, but with an upright stick at ead, of I he fom torNr•. ,.\ white doth fringecl with black ·ng from the s!icks ~o that ii hid the corpse, .-xo•pt wh,•,. so11i,c wa1,her l,ft.-d one comer, r another look at the loved on<'. Sin~r thi• wa• hdore 1~, day, ,:,f <'mhnlmin.i, C'hunks of i«,

,,,. concealed under the str<".l<:hcr.

c- Thf' 9-a~.f'ht>r~ n,ld !hr u.~ual stnriu thAt ni-tht. <lf tht hr-~(lit.~, dQ¥ that u.wd I a roam 1u-,mnrl Ru.s...,ti!l':s c()r'• Of'f. of tht Mram,rr.-rry of 0-~ Ban .. ShM', of the lhtr~ knock, at tll~

dot':fr. A.Cttr on"' of thcst! stones • •rnr~her went I<> the .tre~h~r and IJlted " corner o! !he !ringed cloth.

Wbrn he ,aw th~ "corl>,'le" ottt.lng t,,,lt uprfiht on t.hc ,tretcher, he ttHl frr»n th(" l.i~W!(;< J'Cf~l\m,~. Oth~rs took one look and fo!lnwed ll!m. But thr "depa.rt«I" dldn't know thnt he was suppo,od to be dend, and the rest, thr ke and lhe <:<>m• motion arou•td him.

When he saw the others run he thought the house wns n.fln, so he grnbocd the strekhcr cloth, \\'rapped It around him, and !ollowrd hi• frlrnds and rdatl,•e,. Se,etnl wo!~;.~ .. r?!~~:-~d -~!n~~, .~eA_eo1!ld c~1~--

Portrait of Daniel De Laney as it appeared in the Poughkeepsie Sunday New Yorker, October 26, 1947. The story by Helen Myers describes some of the qualities of the 19th century Irish. Courtesy of Iva De Laney Johns - photo by Gary Williams.

BEEKMAN'S IRISH CONNECTION Lee Eaton

The origins of the Irish settlement in Beekman and the development of the iron mines. The rags to riches story of Daniel DeLaney. Lee Eaton is the Beekman Town Historian.

In the early Nineteenth Century, the Town of Beekman, like the rest of Dutchess County, was predominantly a white Anglo-Saxon community. The majority of settlers were farmers whose roots were English, Dutch and German. They were Methodist, Baptist, Quaker and Episcopalian. They were staunch God-fearing folk who were secure in their ways and faith.

Into this community, sometime in the late 1830sor early 1840s, there arrived a man who was to change the face of Beekman for many years to come. You won't find his name in any of the old history books. Family members say that there was community prejudice toward him and that well may be true, since minorities have been the underdogs from time immemorial. His name may not be in any books, but the imprint he left on Beekman will never be erased.

It's a well-known fact that the Irish are great weavers of tales. Much of what we know about Daniel David DeLaney is part of family tradition which may have been elaborated on over the years. It still makes a good story, and, when put together with the established facts, tells about as good an Irish legend as you can find anywhere.

Daniel DeLaney was born in Kilmadum Parish, County Kilkenny, Ireland in 1801. Family tradition says that as a lad he worked in iron mines near his home. Little did he know that this early experience was to help him make his fortune many years later.

- County Kilkenny is on the southern coast ·of Ireland, which was ruled by the crown of England in those days. As happened with many a young Irishman of the time, Daniel was pressed into service in the British navy, much against his will. His disdain for the English and his antipathy toward the sea led him to jump ship somewhere in South America. He stowed away on another ship and eventually reached the shores of the United States.

The story gets a little hazy at this point, but it would seem as though Daniel spent some years in New

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38 Lee Eaton

York City. Along the way he married a girl from home. Katherine Doheny was born in the same parish as Daniel. She was eight years his junior. They probably married late in life since their first child was born when she was 34 and he was 42.

Somewhere along the line, Daniel tired of the bustle of the city and struck out for the country life. He eventually made his way to Sylvan Lake where he worked as a farm laborer.

One day, Dan was asked to dig a grave and bury a cow which had died. (Another version says it was a donkey.) While digging, Dan recognized the presence of iron ore in the ground. Keeping his discovery a secret, he went about trying to buy a piece of the land. The farmer was willing to sell him a portion for $600. This was a goqd deal more thari Dan had. Apparently Mrs. DeLaney came to the rescue with money she had hidden from her husband and the land was purchased. It was a parcel south of Sylvan Lake exte~ding over the East Fishkill line.

By 1850, DeLaney had a functioning mine dug on his property, had built a house on Beekman Road and had fathered four children. In order to secure help for his mine, Dan brought in his own countrymen. It was his habit to go to Castle Garden at the tip of Manhattan Island and hire the strongest looking men he could find fresh off the boat from Ireland~ These men were escaping the ravages of the great famine and were happy to be assured a job and a wooden shanty in which to live. In the beginning, food was probably also supplied by the DeLaney family, much as a farmer supplies his field hands with room and board.

The mining industry in Beekman was booming by the 1850s. Most of the help was Irish, even the managers and foremen. DeLaney mined his ore and sold it to Albert Tower, a wellknown iron man from Poughkeepsie. Tower owned another Beekman mine and had a summer home here. After the iron was mined and melted down, it was sent to Tower's foundry on the river in Poughkeepsie.

As soon as the Irish miners were able to put away a bit of money, wives were brought over from the old country and families were started, thus the Irish connection was made. The women, as was the way of Irish women, worried about the lack of spiritual

Beekman's Irish Connection 39

Photo of St. Denis Roman Catholic Church before it burned May 26, 1935.

facilities. They could live without the niceties of life and they could do without a lot of fancy food on the table, but they could not survive without their faith,,

Daniel DeLaney donated land for the building of the first Roman Catholic church in this area. With his help and the labor of his mineri, they erected the first St. Denis Church on a knoll just over ·the Beekman line in East Fishkill, facing Beekman Road. Tradition says that the lumber used in the church building came from an old schoolhouse in Beekmanville which was carried over. in sections to the site of the new chur~h. It was a very small building and by the time it was dedicated in 1860, it had more worshippers than space. ·in 1874 an addition was attached and sheds were built for the horses. St. Denis became a mission church for Wappingeri Falls.

Meanwhile, the DeLaney enterprises were building up, along with the DeLaney fortune. By the mid-1860s Daniel was considered a millionaire. He had bought up hundreds of acres of land around Sylvan Lake and along Beekman Road. By 1867, the Sylvan Lake Hotel was built by DeLaney. The building is still standing. It is the main building on the Circle Lodge property facing Sylvan Lake Road. DeLaney had also extended his mine holdings and set up his own furnace to melt the ore.

40 Lee Eaton

The 1876 map shows DeLaney to be the owner of the Wooley farm on Sylvan Lake, consisting of 118 acres. He was 75 years old by this time and had retired from the mining industry, selling out to Tower and others. He was living in a substantial -farmhouse overlooking the lake. The house (altered significantly) still stands, as does the carriage house and stables. They are on the property of Forest Lake Country Club.

It may be noted here that none of DanielDeLaney's family went into the iron industry. DeLaney provided well for his children. Two of his daughters died at an early age. His first-born daughter, Mary Anne, was a spinster and remained in her father's home until her early death at age 30. The sons, Richard, James and Daniel, Jr. were sent to school and then were each given their farm. The DeLaney "estates" as they were called, were consecutive pieces of property running along Beekman Road from McDonald Road to Sylvan Lake Road. The boys all married and each raised a large family providing their father with over 25 grandchildren.

Daniel David DeLaney died at the age of 79 in 1880. He was active and involved in the affairs of the Irish-Catholic community to the very end. His wife died in 1895 at the age of 86. The homestead on the lake was sold and she had gone to live with one of her sons.

But the Irish kept coming! Wives were sent for and children were born. Money was saved to send for nephews and nieces. More substantial homes were built and farms were started. Jobs were secured in all the mines from Sylvan Lake out to the Clove. The Irish were beginning to be assimilated into the community.

The 1880 census shows approximately 390 Irish names. Out of these, five families lived in Poughquag, nine in Green Haven, and about sixty in the mine area from Sylvan Lake to Clove Valley. In addition, there were about thirty-three Irish working as servants and living in non-Catholic homes. There were also fifty-one single Irish men boarding in homes throughout the town. Names like Quinlan, Skane, Daly, Martin, Whalen, Hynes, Murphy, Burns, Buckley and Kavanagh, to name but a few, are still to be found today in the area.

The Irish community extended to the Clove where

Beekman's Irish Connection

there were other mines. Around 1890, Our Lady of Mercy, a mission church of St. Denis, was built. The Irish managed to collect $500 to buy the property from John Ross, the only one who would sell to the Irish. The miners hauled slag from the mines to build the church foundation. Considering that these hardworking men only earned $1.00 a day for ten hours work, this had to have been a labor of love. The Catholics in the area used both St. Denis and the Clove church for masses, sometimes going to one and then the next week, the other. They were loyal and faithful to their church, as witness the entire debt of St. Denis ($3,000) being paid off in 35 years.

Not only did the Irish meet for Sunday Mass, but in the early days all their socializing was done among their own. They had their dances to the tune of the fiddler, their church picnics held atDeLaney's lakefront picnic grounds, and of course they had that traditional bit of Irish socializing known as the "Irish wake." 41

Daniel DeLaney's grandson, John E. DeLaney, was interviewed by Helen Myers in 1947. In the October 26th issue of the Sunday Poughkeepsie New Yorker for that year, an article appeared showing Daniel's picture and giving some interesting reminiscences of the old days in Sylvan Lake. The following is quoted from the article to give a more vivid idea of what an Irish wake was all about. Many, many years ago, a wake was held at Sylvan Lake, a predominantly Irish comrrrunity of several hundred residents. To these men and women, wakes· were a bittersweet tradition, and attendance at them was a duty. - Old ties we1°e renewed at such gatherings and aZZ differences forgotten. At this particular wake, the departed Zay on the usual stretcher, similar to a cot, but with an upright stick at each of the four corners. A white cloth fringed with black hung from the sticks so that it hid the corpse, except when some watcher lifted one corner for another Zook at the loved one. Since this was before the days of embalming, chunks of ice were concealed under the stretcher. The watchers told the usual stories that night, of the headless dog that used to roam around Russell's cor'ner, of the strange cry of the Banshee, of the three knocks at the door. After one of these stories, a watcher went to the stretcher and lifted a corner of the fringed cloth.

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Lee Eaton

When he saw the 'corpse' sitting boZt upright on the stretcher, he ran from the house screaming. Others took one Zook and foZZowed. But the 'depart~d' didn't kn@w he,was supposed to be dead, and the rest, the ice and the corronotion aroused him. When he saw the others run, he thought the house was afire, so he grabbed the stretcher cloth, wrapped it around him, and foZZowed his friends and relatives. Several women fainted before he could convince those who had come to his wake that he wasn't dead and never had been.

Yes, Sylvan Lake in those days would have been a grand place for hearing the old stories and singing the old songs. For it is known that the heritage, so rich in legend and folklore is in the genes of every one having even a bit of Irish in his blood.

Were it not for Daniel David DeLaney, the Irish community may never have been started in Sylvan Lake. For many years, there was a painting of, "himself" hanging in the back of the old ~t. Denis Church. After the church burned in 1934, the portrait disappeared. A photograph of it was taken, however, and we know what DanLel looked like. He was the picture of the country squire in his stovepipe hat, Irish walking stick and pipe. He looked like a grand man. And surely he was a grand man in his time. An illiterate immigrant, he started out with nothing and ended up with the American dream. His story deserves to be told.

Epilogue: The DeLaney property, over the years, was passed down to succeeding generations and divided over and over. Some of the descendents sold ·their holdings and most of them moved to other areas. There are very. few DeLaney folks around today, and we are grateful for the help given by Mrs. Iva DeLaney Johns; her second cousin, Mr. Gene Hughes; his daughter Mrs. Dianne Hughes Zipprich; and her daughter, Miss Dianne Zipprich, a sixth generation DeLaney. Mrs. Johns and Mr. Hughes.still live on DeLaney iand. The newer people in Sylvan Lake hardly realize that among them are the spirits of the rousing, laughing, hearty souls of the Irish of another era. Perhaps on a quiet, moonlit night, if one really tries, the strains of the fiddle may be heard again.