75. Nine Partner's Boarding School (restored

428 HISTORY Or DUCHESS COUNTY.

success—at the schools of which she and her husband were the guiding stars. She holds these little tokens as giving her far more satisfaction than if they were of shining gold.

Some of the readers of this volume, who were pupils in the. Nine Partners School, will doubtless recall the shining countenance of Esther, the colored cook, and also the ebony visage of her consort, Emanuel Carman, who figured as a man of all work. She used to "haul him over the coals," so to speak,. after the manner of a notable housewife, when he did not. demean himself according to her standard of propriety. The cut of the school building, here given, is taken from memory,, but is believed to present quite a correct idea of its appearance..

Mite 1'uruiers l3uurdl1L, bC.iuvi--iLe wi eU.

William Thorn, great-grandfather of the present owner of Thorndale, was one of the first settlers of Nine Partners. He was a merchant and large landholder. He also owned considerable land in the State of Vermont. It consisted of bounty lands of soldiers, which he had purchased—giving them a suit of clothes in exchange for a land warrant. His wife: was named Jemina, who died at the extraordinary age of years. She was a tall, spare woman, of very plain features,. but very amiable disposition and sterling worth. William used facetiously to remark that he did not marry Jemima from motives either of love or money, but solely for her beauty. Samuel Thorn, son of William, also kept a store at Nine Partners, (now Mechanic,)opposite the Nine Partners boarding_,

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school, in 1805. This was then the great business mart for all the country round.

The great-grandfather of the venerable William Sharpstein =owned an extensive tract of land at Washington Hollow. The :latter says that as far back as his recollection extends, farms were more or less improved, though there was much more woodland. His grandfather used to tell him about the wild deer that frequented localities in plain sight of the house; he was also -in the habit of pointing out places in the woods where he had =at various times shot wild animals. The Indians had a rendezvous on the south side of a hill, on the farm now occupied by him, where they came to winter. When he was a boy, the Indians were accustomed to visit this vicinity -occasionally, but they were not numerous. He had a mortal °fear of them however, though they were entirely harmless.

Above Washington Hollow, on the main road to Stanford, nearly three-fourths of a century ago, were the following residents: first was one Halleck, and above him was Nicholas Bush; next lived Jacob Sharpstein, and then came Jacob :Smith, who owned land adjoining the south line of Johnson's patent; above him lived, in the order of their names mentioned, one Harrington, John Albright, Coonley, and Tobias Green; David Jo'insoa lived at Lithgow ; he was one of the Nine Partners. The house built by him is still standing, we believe. There was considerable lease land about here at that time.

East of the Hollow, along the turnpike on the hill, were the families of Hallecks. Wallace and Paremore were original settlers. Washington Four Corners used to be a public place, and was then called the Cross Roads. At what is now Mechanic used to live a number of families named Haight. Sheriff Thorn, who figured quite conspicuously in the early history of the county, lived at Little Rest. He hung some fellows in Poughkeepsie. William Sharpstein, Esq., from whom many of the foregoing facts are obtained, went to Poughkeep~ie to sae them hung. The Germonds settled between Nine

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43° HISTORY OF DUCHESS COUNTY.

Partners and Verbank. In 1813, William German kept tavern at Washington Hollow, east of the gate. . Sharpstein,, says he went to Poughkeepsie to see the first carding .machine' that was ever set up in the county. It was set at work in a,. building near Peltons Pond, and was owned by one Booth.

The Bloom House was built in i8oi. Bloom owned a mill on the premises. An extensive cotton factory was burned here a few years ago. Carpenter and Bedell were extensive early landholders. The Conrad Ham House, south of Washington Hollow, on the road to Verbank, is of quaint; construction, and is over a hundred years old.

Swift's Lowlands, a name given in former times to a low, tract of land in the vicinity, is associated by local tradition, with the movements of the Tories in these parts. Mention has already been made of a collision that occurred between a band of Tories and a number of volunteers, in a meadow near the Hollow. The volunteers, many of whom were from Connecticut, met at Blooms Mill, and one fine morning marched down and attacked the Tories, who were on parade. About forty of the latter were captured, and sent to Exeter, . New Hampshire, where they were confined a long time. This was probably the worst Tory nest in the whole country.

Matthew Comstock was one of the oldest settlers in this region. He engaged in the manufacture of refined cider, near Mabbettsville, from various varieties of the apple, viz: The crab apple; a peculiar kind of russet; the styre, red-streak, &c.

North of the Hollow was formerly a small burial ground., Here a little negro boy was buried, over whom was placed a. headstone, with the following quaint inscription:

"Ih relies a little nigger;

If he'd lived a little longer, he'd have been a little bigger."

One of the first substantial church edifices in this town was the Brick Meeting House, built in 1780 by the Society of Friends. The bricks used in its construction were manufac--

* Some sort of a church was in existence prepious to this.

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tured in the .immediate vicinity; the mortar in which the bricks were laid is at this day harder than the bricks themselves. The walls two feet in thickness, and true as when first built; the windows set in heavy sash frames; yellow-pine flooring, fastened to the timbers by wrought iron nails; the antiquated pews and unpainted columns which support the galleries, and which have not been altered since the house was built; the huge rafters, a foot in thickness, which support the roof;— these and other peculiarities fill the mind of the beholder with wonder. Two huge horseblocks stand in front of the church; time has rendered one unserviceable; on the other was a sundial placed there by Jacob Willetts, nearly seventy years ago. A winding flight of stairs leads to the gallery, where are long rows of benches which once were thronged with worshipers, but which are now silent as the chamber of death. A brick in the rear wall bears the date of its erection, 1780. Time as yet has made little or no impression on the building. The same windows and shutters, sills and frames, all of cypress wood, are in good preservation.

Attached to this meeting house was one hundred acres of land, which was purchased by the Friends before the house was built. The church and the Nine Partners Boarding School building was afterward erected on it. After three-fourths of a century had elapsed, they sold ninety acres of land, including the school building. The purchaser demolished that edifice, and now nothing remains of it but its history. The Friends have now about ten acres of land, including the burial ground. The Orthodox house is a plain wooden building, erected about the time of the Sepi.ration.

The burial grounds attached to the Brick Meeting House have been devoted to purposes of interment for more than a century. The Friends in early times were opposed to erecting monuments over the dead; and so long have the graves been there that even the mounds have disappeared. Dig down into any part of the enclosure, and you will find the bones of those long ago laid there to rest. The long rows of sheds; the staples

Dutchess County Historical Society