Dutchess County Historical Society Yearbook Vol. 084 2003 2004

D C H S yci¢r Boo¢ . Volume 84

YEAR BOOK 2003-2004

Hollow Oak Chronicles

Thevanvhets of Dutchess county

NANCY A. FOGEL, EDITOR

H- / - ` lmtrs Cclgiv. llistirdcal Scrda./

D.C.H.S. YEAR BOOK, VOLUME 84

Pttbllshed anunally since 1915.

Copyright © 2005 by The Dutchess County Historical Society.

AIl rights reserved.

Published by The Dutchess County Historical Soceity, 549 Main Street, Poughkeepsie, New York,12601, and Post Office Box 88,

Poughkeepsie, New York 12602. Individual copies rna.y be purchased through the Society. Selected earlier Year Books are also available.

ISSN 0739-8565

ISBN 0-94473302-6

Manufactured in the United States of America.

DESIGN BY BRUCE R. MCPHERSON / BOUND TO LAST TYPESET IN GARAMONI)

13579108642,

2,oo52.oo62oo7

CALL FOR PAPERS

The Publications Committee is now soliciting articles for future Year Books. Articles should be no longer than 7500 words, double-spaced typescript or on disc, in Microsoft Word. Inclusion of photographs or other illustrative material is encouraged. Manuscripts, books for review, and other correspondence relevant to this publication should be addressed to: Dutchess County Historical Society, Publications Committee, P. 0. Box 88, Poughkeepsie, NY 12602 The Society encourages accuraey but does not assume responsibility for statements of fact or opinion made by contributors.

The Dutchess County Historical Society was formed in 1914 to

preserve and share the county's rich history and tradition. The only countywide agency of its kind, the Society is an active leader and promoter of local historical works, and the collection and safe-keeping of artifacts, manuscripts, and other priceless treasures of the past.

The Society has been instrumental in the preservation of two preRevolutionary landmarks, the Clinton House and the Glebe House, both in Poughkeepsie. In addition, the Society has educational outreach

programs for the schools of Dutchess County.

The Society offers a variety of activities and special events throughout the year. Contact the Society for further information: by phone at (845) 471-1630, or at the address above.

Table of Contents Geriealogzcal Chart Of the Wan Vl;lets 7

hitroductzon NaJny Fogs;19 The V{an vkets i,n Dutcbess County ]8ineDresser TI

Iri Sickness arid in Heahb - Heriry a;nd Htunab Van Vllet Erica Blumenfeld 2,I

Mr. and Mrs. Vanvllet -George and Mercedes Nan!ey Fog€l T7 ``Dear Mother" -Heleria Garrison v¢m vllet Rosemary Davison Kyle 55 GoEastYoungwioman-HeleriaWanVl;let

Erica Blumenfeld 74 Meeting the Grandee;ugbters -Amtttje tmd Gretchen Jane Dresser and Naney Fogel 95 Rettben Speneer -Van Vhet Neighbor and Friend Jane Dresser 98 Coriclu§Zori r2;6

]esse Effion,1915-2004 r2;8

DCHS St¢f f ; Of f icers, Trustees r2;9

Statemerlt of Reuerlue and Experlse r3o Munzciple HZstorians of Dutcbess County r3;i Hist;orical Societies Of Dlitcbess County I:32.

Books Available f;or Purchase T53

Index r34

AVanVl;4etGenealogy Levi Van Vliet 1786-1860

HenryR.

-

Van Vliet 1833-1914

Homer Coon

May Uhl

1894-1945

chnatje Van Vliet Coon Gilbert b.1932

1793-1869

George Stockwell

Van Vliet Clara.Tremper Van Vliet

John Leroy

1865-1949

1799-1878

1896-1932

Hannah M Leroy

Helena Garrison Van Vliet

-i

1835-1899

Gertrude Crapser

1898-1978

Gretchen Van Vliet Hubert b.1935

Henry Richard Van Vliet 7 -rf JR;J

I::

Katherine - Fink

1800-1852

Jacob L. Tremper Mercedes

1836-1920

Tremper 1867-1945

Minerva RIkert 1843-1920

1899-1966

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Dirck/Derrick Van Comelius Van Vli eTH 1760-1848

Vliet 1721-1800

Adrian Gerritsen Van Vliet AgathaJans Sprught

Aurie Van 1683-1761

1662-?

elena Weaver

Gerritje Masten

Hilletje Hendricks

1733-1805

I

Jindries Barentsen

Joost Garrison 1711-1795

elena Garrison

1757-1801

Comelius

MagdelenaVan Dyke 1716-

|Jc°:thane:jenseweaver

1765-1822

Margaret Streight

David Mulford

#ford+ Phebe Glover

1767-1805

1702-?

d. pre-1775 1731-1798

Huldah

1723-1778

A. Van -

1709-1781

Wagoner

Catherine Maul 1702-1785

1724-1788

John S. Leroy 1744-?

Baltus Van Kleek

Elizabeth Van Kleek

Hannah Westervelt 1777-1855

1742-?

osephWestervelt 1747-1825

John Crapser 1750-1824

Charity

9:trom+

vlaria Van Kleek 1755-1824

John Ostrom 1722-?

1760-1851

Elizabeth

Frederick Streit

John I. Leroy 1773-1858

Dievertje Jans

Denmarken

John Uhl Frederick Uhl

Masten-

Jan/John Masten

Aurie van vliet 1683-1761

Anna Van 1726-?

Gerritje Masten 1687-?

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Aert J. Van Wagoner Annetje Gerrits

Introduction Nancy Fogel

his family the Dutchess County Historical a most 8efore, as wellgave as after, the death of Richard VanSociety Vliet in 1987, wonderful and rare gift. Much of its history had been saved through correspondence, diaries, daybooks, survey books, maps, genealogy, pho-

tographs, clothing and objects. This Collection, given to the Society,

provides readers and researchers with insight into the life of one fanily of modest means through three centuries.

We were most fortunate to have the services of trained researcher, Jane Dresser. Under the direction of DCHS cura.tor, Erica Blumenfeld, Jane took on the job of taking inventory and cataloging the Collection.

Working three or four days a week, it took her a year to complete the project. Ms. Blumenfeld felt that this unique collection lent itself to an entire Year Book. The idea was proposed to the publications committee and they agreed.

We divided the material among three of us, according to our preferences and the amount of information available. It made sense that

Jane write the introductory overview because she was faniliar with the whole collection. Along the way, she was captivated by Reuben Spencer, a Van Vliet neighbor and friend, whose generous spirit and warmth pervade his many letters to the family; she chose to write about him.

Erica Blumenfeld was interested in the field of health care in the nineteenth century and she focused on a seven-month period in the lives of Henry and Hannah Van Vliet. She also admired the early feminist spirit of Helena Van Vliet and wrote about her adventurous life. I like working with personal materials, such as letters and journals, and I had found correspondences between George and Mercedes Van Vliet and

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F.D.R at Home

members of my own family, so they became my subjects.

We went to work, getting together occasionally to exchange informationaboutourtopicsandtoplanournextstep.Wetook"fieldtrips" to former Van Vliet homes and to see the graves of Reuben Spencer's

parents in the Town of Clinton. Erica went to Saratoga to visit the place where Hannah stayed for seven months. We interviewed people whowerefaniliarwithClinton'shistoryandmembersoftheVanVliet family. Over time, our subjects cane to seem like members of our own families.Weporedovertheirphotographs,begancallingthembytheir first names among ourselves, and referred to them as though they were still living. They inspired us and saddened us as well, with their sorrows and difficulties. We came to care for them.

Wewouldliketoacknowledgeandthankthefollowingpeoplewho helped with this project: Mary Lou Davison, whose knowledge of the Van Vliet materials and efforts to preserve it were the catalyst for our book. She helped us every step of the way.

Annatje Gilbert and Gretchen Hubert, Van Vliets themselves, who gave us their time and the experience of being VanVliets,andsharedtheircollectionoffamilyphotographs with us.

William MCDermott, Town of Clinton Historian and President of Clinton Historical Society Sally K]el and Bernhardt Seifert for their knowledge and assistance.

Wendy Anthony, Special Collections, Luey Scribner Library, Skidmore College, Saratoga, NY. Stephanie Mauri for her vast knowledge of Dutchess County history, land patterns, and maps.

Eileen Hayden, DCHS Director, for her support of our project.

Dave Miles, for hours of scanning photographs.

DCHS's Publications Committee, headed by Margaret Zanierowski.

-Nancy Fogel, Editor

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r|he Van Vhets in Dutcbess County Jane Dresser

Bear, a yearling deer, or the mysterious worlds in Middle The are Vanentertained Vliet familiesby ofstories Pleasantabout Plains,Teddy New York, SoneEarth. children the must have stimulated and entertained their children with stories of heroic pioneers, rampaging Tories and patriots, slave-owning

grandmothers, and political intrigue-all part of the history of their own family. Scores of boxes contain documents and heirlooms that hint at the stories of a family that began its local history on Hollow Road in the 1730s. Six generations of the family collected cherished mementoes that trace rural family life from colonial days to the space age. Affection for their home community and pride in theirheritageisreflectedintheirpoliticalleadership,membershipin Dutchheritageorganizations,serviceinthelocalmilitiaandgrange, and awards from county fair competitions for excellence in stock and produce. This rich heritage for the current generations of van Vliet children in Dutchess County, and for us all, can be found in the Collection donated to the Historical Society.

'Ibe Wtm Vllet Collection The Van Vliet Collection contains artifacts and documents of seven genera,tions of the family and their maternal lines, with references to two generations of earlier immigrants from Holland, Jane Dresser greu] up in Minnesota hsteriing i;o fondly sl;ories, from her Swedish grandf;atber ori one side i;o the descendenf;s of a Massachttsetts Puritan o_n th_e other. Having used archives in her acaderyric studies, u)e a;re gratrfu:l to her fior

her help in making the DCHS archives more accessible.

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Hollow Oak Cl]roriicles

Germany, Scotland, and other countries. Documents trace the Van Vliet family from 1662 to 1986, saved by descendants devoted to Dutchess County and its history. Items as small as the buttons fromaWarof1812militaryjackettolargescrapbookspackedwith newspaper clippings are included. An orchid silk wedding dress with lace cuffs and a bustle accompanies an invitation to the ceremony.

A rocking horse once accented with real horsehair entertained the youngest members of the family. Piles of small Victorian-era. social cards and little baskets to hold them share space with hundreds of letters reflecting family and community history of the Dutchess County area.

Correspondence and documents follow the Van Vliet family from the early years of the Republic to the end of the twentieth century, with many references to their colonial ancestors. They trace the transfer of land, farms, and dwellings from generation to generation. Daybooks and journals reflect decades of daily work on their farms, growing crops, running a dairy, raising sheep for wool and meat, chickens for their eggs, marketing milk and cheese, hiring day workers, products sold and purchased. Financial documents record their income and expenditures. Collections of recipes, household cleaning tips and solutions, medical remedies and home treatments reflect the life inside the farm home. Puzzle blocks captured the imaginations of the children and pamphlet-style storybooks helped quiet them.

The Van Vliet family was intimately involved in community affairs for decades, participating in local politics, both as party organizers and as elected officials. Many notebooks chronicle their efforts to canvass their communities, muster support for their political party or their own candidacy, tabulate votes, and conductapost-mortemevaluationaftertheelectionwascompleted.

Several registers of taxes collected reflect the work of a Van Vliet

postmaster and federal tax collector. They were serious about being good stewards of the institutions left to them by their ancestors, serving as officials and educators in their church congregations, spearheading efforts to renovate churches built by the early Van

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THE VAN VLIETS IN DUTCHESS COUNTY

Vliets and reclaim the overgrown cemeteries that held the remains of those fanily members.

They saved materials from all levels of educational institutions, from grammar school penmanship practice books to advanced level mathematic assignments and exercises. Many documents reflect the respect and trust of their neighbors, who chose various Van Vliets to survey their land or act as executor for their estate. Surveying instruments, maps, and reports da.te to the birth of our country.

A large collection of maps and title documentation illustrate the

preparation for performing a survey, often researching the title back to colonial years. Wills, deeds, and probate documents trace surveying commissions by several generations in the nineteenth century. An officer's sash, plume, epaulettes, and ceremonial cord were contributed by a man proud of his military service. A number of locks of hair, some braided with ribbons and flowers, reflect the sorrow of family members left behind after the death of a cherished loved one. Children today would be startled to see metal roller skates with wooden wheels, but their parents with small rimless eyeglasses would find nineteenth century metal glasses with smoked glass quite fashionable. They would be grateful they do not have to deal with the crinoline hoops and horsehair bustle pads.

While much of the collection centers around life in Dutchess County, this family was curious about and aware of the issues of their time. Letters written before and during the Civil War reflect the participants' opinions and experiences, as well as the reactions of those left at home. Race relations are reflected through the centuries, from the colonial grandmother who was the "largest slave owner on the Albany Post Road" to the use of epithets all too common in the 1880s and 1920s. A later generation Van Vliet was entrusted with four paymaster books of the two Dutchess County regiments, which document soldiers enlisted and payments made to them, military music and poems or songs written about the regiments and their wartime experiences, and lists of bounties paid to draft substitutes.

A former neighbor and good friend of several generations of van Vliets wrote to them from 1850s South Carolina, describing the

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Hollow Oak Chronicles

local plantation economy and his reactions to slavery, and then wrote again from rural Wisconsin during the War years, describing the frustrations of being elderly and hoping to live long enough to see the resolution of the conflict. A young Van Vliet traveled to Iowa to examine land for a possible farm and then explored the mountains in Colorado for a potentially lucrative mine claim. His sudden death from an accidental gunshot immersed the family in the challenge of properly caring for their deceased son and brother from a distance, ascertaining whether he had been given proper medical care and then a decent burial in Iowa, their concerns over whether he should be returned to New York, then oidering a headstone for his far away grave that reflected their love and loss. An older patriarch in the family accompanied some of his children as they emigrated to Nebraska. When he died there, the children who cared for him struggled to assure their Dutchess County siblings that he had never forgotten them and tha.t he had been properly buried in his new community.

A collection of almanacs illustrates the dependence of family farmers on the weather and the land. Stacks of social cards and dance programs reveal an immersion in a cultural life of some sophistication. Marriage customs are recalled by a couple in 1878, remembering why they chose each other; the journal of their son's bride recounts her thoughts as she was courted in 1893; a receipt for a wedding ring describes the choice of their grandson in 1934.

Travel itineraries indicate the breadth of the family experience: they may have cherished their Dutchess County roots, but they were curious about and willing to travel or serve in far away places, such as the southwestern sta.tes and Mexico, western Canada, China and the South Pacific. The hardships of travel from the 1700s to the 1950s are described in letters and postcards. An early twentieth century Van Vliet trained as a surgical nurse and became a medical missionary to China during the turbulent 1920s; her medical materials are found in the collection.

Nineteenth century Van Vliets were interested in preserving the history of their family and in shaping their communities,

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THE VAN VLIETS IN DUTCHESS COUNTY

which overflowed into political action and governance. A later

generation began helping with elections but branched out into a broad collection of family history research of Dutchess families.

This resulted in a large collection of military records, deeds, wills, vital records, and church records. The last generation represented in the collection acted upon that base of community involvement, with one member becoming a town supervisor, one canpalgning for women's suffrage, and the third volunteering as a medical missionary and emergeney electrician. Later in life, this last contributed many articles for a town bicentennial retrospective - surely no one was better prepared to be a source of such information!

TbeV7anVhetF¢mily Seven generations of Van Vliets lived on Dutchess County land, purchased as early as 1709, in family homes and farms where children grew up valuing not only their family heritage, but the history of their community as well. Van Vliet youngsters watched their parents and grandparents participate in town and county groups and activities. When their turn cane, they too stood for elective office, directed the church and Sunday School, cleaned up local cemeteries, and preserved all sorts of documents and records of Dutchess County families and institutions. When the last member of the eighth

generation died, the ninth generation demonstrated their respect for the work of their ancestors by donating a rich collection of county heritage to the Dutchess County Historical Society.

In 1662, Adrian Gerritson Van Vliet, his wife Agatha Jans Spruyt, and their five children, aged seven to thirteen, sailed from Utrecht, Holland to New Amsterdam. Continuing up the Hudson River, they settled on several parcels of land in what is now Kingston. 'Ihe Esopus area was still a frontier outpost, which was proven to the young family a year later when an Indian raid captured their two daughters.

Fortunately, the girls were soon recovered, and the Van Vliets remained safely in Kingston for two generations.

Adrian and Agatha's second son, Dirck, married Anna Barentsen, daughter of Andries Barentsen and Hilletje Hendricks of Mepple,

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Holloiij Oak Chronicles

Holland, whose 1629 Bible became a prized heirloom in the Van Vliet household. Their first child, Aurie, married Gerritje Masten in 1711,

and the young couple established their family in Kingston. By about 1730, however, they wished to obtain a larger landholding to leave to their sons when the boys were ready to leave the family. Aurie and Gerritje moved across the river to Dutchess County with Ari Masten (probably Gerritje's brother) and purchased 760 acres from the Nine Partners Patent holders. Their son, Dirck, married Helena Weaver, daughter ofJohannes Weaver and Catherine Denmarken in 1754, and began living on his portion of his father's land.

Dutchess County began to attract more settlers in the 1740s, with most coming from New England, and others from New York City and Long Island. Aurie and Gerritje Van Vliet were said to be the first settlers in the area that became Clinton. Large landowners dominated the northern part of the county (Livingston) and the southern portion (Philipse), but the center was owned by freeholders with farms averaging just under 200 acres. In 1749, Aurie purchased an additional twenty acres next to his own farm from Catharyna Brett.

One of his sons increased the farm by another 52 acres in 1770.

Dutchess County was not threatened by military conflict during the French and Indian War years, county men were enrolled in militias that served under the New York Colony officials of the British crown.

Aurie's son, John "Van Vleet," enlisted in Captain Nottingham's company in 1758, returning to land in Ulster County after the conflict.

While Dutchess County was in the patriot camp during the Revolution, nearly a third of the freemen refused to sign the Articles of Association pledge and were thereby classified as Loyalists. They were disarmed and if they were landowners, their farms were vulnerable to confiscation. However, of the 264 Loyalists tabulated in the county, only 96 were convicted of Loyalism and of those only 37 had their lands confiscated and sold by the new State of New York. Most of the

sold land was from the Philipse Precinct in Southern Dutchess.

The rectangle formed by West Point to Fishkill to Poughkeepsie to Kingston was a patriot stronghold, home at various times to George

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THE VAN VLIETS IN DUTCHESS COUNTY

Washington's headquarters, the Army's main supply depot, and the fledgling state capitol. But further inland, many farmers retained their allegiance to the Crown, including Aurie and Gerritje's son, Dirck Van Vliet. He, along with Peter and Adam Weaver and Baltus Van Kleeck, was reported to have been arrested and charged with treason in 1776, along with 112 others in the county. Forty-one percent were from the Charlotte Precinct, which later becane Clinton. They were sentenced to be shipped to a prison in New Hampshire, "to provide for the internal peace and security of this Sta.te .... " Another report indicates he

lived on Long Island for five war years, behind British lines. Dirck had been a valued citizen prior to that time, serving as highway overseer and officer of the precinct from at least 1748 to the mid-1770s. He was not listed in an official capacity in 1777. As county patriots were known to administer punishment themselves to local Tories, it may be that his family suffered some difficulties at the hands of his neighbors but avoided confiscation of his farm. Whether he or any of his children actively participated with the "troublesome Tories" of Charlotte is unknown. For whatever reason, Dirck was able to hold on to his farm and returned to it in 1784, on the petition of his neighbors. Perhaps that was due to the presence of his son, Cornelius, alone of all Dirck and Helena Van Vliet's sons to remain in Pleasant Plains. (Cornelius married a Platt for his second wife, who came from a prominent

patriot family, but there were also Travers in the neighborhood, an active Tory family.) Just old enough to serve (age 15-21) during the war, Cornelius' politics rna.y have tended toward the patriot stand or if he agreed with his father's politics, he may simply not have been considered dangerous by the local patriots. By 1785, Cornelius Van Vliet had taken over his father's position as overseer of the highway bordering their land, and by 1788 he was elected constable.

A condition of the peace treaty ending the Revolution was a general amnesty for all Tories who remained in the new United States, which allowed Dirck to return to Dutchess County and live out the remainder of his days with his family. He sold his farm in 1795 and died five years later.

Dirck's first wife and infant daughter died, but he had eleven

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Hollow Oak Chronicles

children with his second wife, Helena Weaver, the fourth of which - Cornelius - remained in the area now known as Pleasant Plains.

Cornelius married Helena Garrison, daughter of Joste Garrison and Magdelena Van Dyke, in 1782 as the Revolution was ending. Among their nine children were six sons, and a second wife to Comelius added another son, which surely stretched his ability to help them begin their own adulthood with some inherited assets. Cornelius purchased the 120 acre farm to the north of his father's farm in 1785.

The War of 1812 was unpopular in the northern states, and Dutchess County reflected the opposition to the conflict and trade continued with Canada during the war years. Nevertheless, Levi Van Vliet, son of Cornelius and Helena, served as an officer in a New York regiment toward the end of the war, and proudly displayed his framed commission as second major of the 141St Infantry for the rest of his life. His brother John was first major.

Levi van vliet

Mary uhl van vliet,

Courtesy ofArmatjc Gilbert

Counesy ofGretchcn Hubert

Levi married Mary Uhl and continued to farm the homestead in Pleasant Plains. Mary was a descendant of John Uhl, a "staunch patriot" with a farmstead in Staatsburgh. The Uhls had been among the Palatines who settled near Beekman around 1710. John married Margaret Streit, from a Bavarian family in Rhinebeck and connected bymarriagetotheMulfordsandGriffings.Asawidow,MargaretStreit Uhl purchased a farm in Staatsburgh along the Hudson River, which is now part of the Mills Estate. A romantic story about tall, handsome Ensign Stephen Griffing meeting Elizabeth Uhl, his future bride, while

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THE VAN VLIETS IN DUTCHESS COUNTY

foraging for supplies during the Revolution has filtered down through the years in tha.t family.

Two of Levi and Mary's three sons, George and Henry, became surveyors trained in educa.tional academies and by private tutorials from Captain Reuben Spencer, Surveyor for the City of New York and a former neighbor, born on the farm next to the Van Vliet homestead.

Hoping to grant his sons a solid foundation for their own families, Levi divided his land anong all three of his own boys, commenting that he took pride in giving them far more than his own father had given him.

Henry Van Vliet married Hannah LeRoy in 1858. Hannah was a daughter of John LeRoy and Gertrude Crapser, and counted Van Kleecks, Westervelts, Ostmans, and Mastens among her ancestors.

Descended from a Normandy family, Simeon I.eRoy signed the patriot

pledge in 1775 with his three sons and one stepson, but another LeRoy branch from Poughkeepsie were Tories and received land in Nova Scotia after the Revolution.

Henry and Hamah Van Vliet continued farming on Henry's father's land, which he obtained from his two brothers. He purchased a deferment from military duty during the Civil Win and became a successful surveyor in his own right. He entered political life with elected positions as Clinton Town Supervisor for three years, served as an elder of his church, directed the Sunday School for decades, and renovated the cemetery where his ancestors were buried. His wife, Hannah, had serious medical problems and searched for relief from among the many cures of the day, including the "water treatment" offered by an institute in Saratoga Springs. A later article will describe this couple in greater detail.

Hannah and Henry Van Vliet had only one child, but George S. Van Vliet learned his lessons well. He ran the family dairy farm, continued the expansion into fruit orchards begun by his father, and raised sheep for wool. His true vocation was as a local historian. For

years he accumulated records and documents concerning not only his own family history, but also that of all the old Dutchess County families. His collection included community history as well, and

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Hollow Oak Chronicles

documented election campaigns dating back to the 1860s. He and his wife, Mercedes Tremper, generously answered the queries that arrived from all over the country concerning ancestors who had lived in Dutchess County, and George was among the founders of the Dutchess County Historical Society.

Mercedes' journals for the years before she married are included in the collection and illuminate the joys and suspense of courting in the "Gay 90s." Her wedding dress and an invitation illustrate the conclusion to George's multiple-year wooing. Their children, Clara, Helena, and Richard, also shared the family respect for history, helping their parents collect and organize documents, and continued to nurture the collection after George and Mercedes' death. Helena continued her father's historical stewardship, writing columns and articles for local papers about county and family history. When H. RIchard Van Vliet died, the last of his generation, his own children contributed the collection, shepherded for so many generations, to the Dutchess County Historical Society.

Hollow Oak Farm, aerial view, c.1960

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THE VAN VLIETS IN DUTCHESS COUNTY NOTES

George Van Vliet stated that land in Dutchess County was purchased "around 1740;" a tax list of 1720 and a 1734 map show land belonging to the Van Vliet family. See: Buck, Clifford M., Dz££c4cff Co%7¢fy rex Zz.JJf, J7J8-J787; Edited

by Arthur and Nancy Kelly (Rhinebeck, NY, Kinship Publisher,1991) Hf=rny Casndry, Cd;thayna Brett, Portrait Of a Colorrial Businessujoman, Dutch; yess County Historical Society Year Book of 1992, p. 94 Ibid.

New York Historical Society for the year 1891, New York Muster Rolls, 17551764 (New York, Printed for the Society,1892).

John T. Reilly, "Sale of Loyalist Estates in Dutchess County, the Effect of Landholding Patterns" Dutchess County Historical Society Year Book Vol. 67, p. 40.

Records of Cru;in Elbow Precinct, Di#tchess County, New York,Fidlfred ty FraliirJin D. Roosevelt, Collections of the Dutchess County Historical Society, Vol. 7, 1940) p. 120.

The Tou)n of Cl;inton (exclmding Hyde Park, Pleas¢ut Valley at the erid of the 18b cc72£#7)!J, Map by William S. Benson, Jr., April 1987.

Frank Hasbrouck, 7Zc f7Zffory a/Dz£££4c+f Co#7zfy, J\leav %74, (S.A. Matthieu,

publisher, Poughkeepsie,1909).

Brochure of Dr. Strong's Remedial Institute, Saratoga Springs, New York, 1891.

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Henry a,nd Hdmab Van Vliet..

In Sickness and in Heahb Erica Blumenfeld

hospital in Saratoga Springs, New York for what was diagnosed In 1878, as a "fallen Hannah womb" Vanand Vliet possibly spentforseven other months ailments.at This a private article addresses her experience through the letters she and Henry wrote to each other. They show a personal side to an illness, the anguish and heartache of having a loved one ill and far away, and a hopedfor cure. The letters provide a picture of a couple still very much in love a.fter twenty years of marriage, and the love of a mother for her son. While Henry's letters are especially romantic, Hannahi are more concerned with her health problems, life at home, and the cost of keeping her in Saratoga. One has a clear view of the lives of average people struggling through separation, disease, and the everyday minutia of life.

Hannah Maria LeRoy (1835-1899), a native of poughkeepsie, New York, was the daughter of John LeRoy and Gertrude Crapser.

Her LeRoy ancestors were of Huguenot stock. Henry Richard Van Vliet (1833-1914) was a working farmer and a surveyor from Pleasa.nt Plains, Town of Clinton. He was the son of Levi Van Vliet and Mary Uhl, a descendent on the Van Vliet side of early Dutch settlers in the Hudson Valley.

Henry courted Hannah and eventually persuaded her to become Erica Blunerifeid is Director of MIAsei#m Services at the Dutcbess County HZstorzcal Society and Regional ArclJivist for the H44dson Valley. Her tuJeay years of ryiuseurm ex|jerience inclmde positions at the Arizona State Museum,

Moritcltdr Af i Musei#m, MIAsettm of the American hdian, Musei#m f tor Af rican Art, and the Neui yiork Pi4bhc hibray.

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IN SICKNESS AND IN HEALTH

his wife. They married in 1858 when she was 23 years old and he was 25. They lived in Pleasant Plains in a house Henry built. Their union produced only one child, George Stockwell Van Vliet, born at the end of the Civil Win in 1865, the year Hannah was thirty.

The fact that they had no additional children is rather remarkable during a period when access to family planning was limited and "only" children were something of a rarity. It may be that Hannah's

medical problems prevented her from conceiving and carrying to term any additional children.

While staying at a friend's house, trying to heal herself, Hannah received a pamphlet from Henry about Dr. Strong's Remedial Institute in Saratoga Springs, New York. He suggested she read it over and decide if this was where she wanted to go for medical attention. She choose to go there as it had a good reputation-its brochure even states a cure for women's diseases and disorders. Both affected Hannah. Unfortunately, it was far from Dutchess County and Pleasant Plains by horse and carriage or train.

Saratoga had long been a place where the well-to-do cane to rest and recuperate during the summer months. Martin Van Buren, Daniel Webster, Washington IIving, the Vanderbilts, Whitneys and Rockefellers, Diamond Jim Brady and even Lillian Russell were visitors. Religious leaders also cane to escape from the cities and the daily toil of their lives. One such minister described it as follows: "It is the most widely known the world over of any of our American watering places and it is an exceedingly beautiful town. Its spacious Broadway, lined with stately elms, is one of the most sightly avenues in our land; and some of the superb hotels. . . the most attractive spot to me has always been the beautiful park tha.t surrounds the famous Congress Spring, and to which every morning I made my very early

pilgrimage for my drought of its sparkling water. The second reason for my choice of Saratoga was the variety of the wonderful medicinal waters and their renovating effects.

For about thirty summers and occasionally in the winter, I found a happy home at Dr. Strong's Remedial Institute on Circular Street."

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Hollou) Oak Cbronzcles

Hannah and George Van Vliet, c.1864

Dr. Sylvester Sanford Strong began his career as a MethodistEpiscopal minister, ordained in 1835. He also studied medicine with his brother, Dr. Samuel Strong, and graduated from the medical

department of the University of New York. He had a practice in New York, the exact nature of which is unknown, and the one in Saratoga. In 1855 he founded The Remedial Institute. It was located at 90 Circular Street, in Saratoga. It remained a sanitarium until the early 1900s.

A brochure for the Institute describes four reasons "why it shall be preferred by invalids in winter as well as other seasons:" 1. Climate fa.vorable to the recovery of invalids.

2. There is scarcely any disease that won't respond to our Cathartic, Diuretic, Alternative or Tonic Spring Waters, which are equally as efficient in winter as in summer.

3. Our beautiful village of 10,000 inhabitants invites to outdoor exercise by its delightful walks and drives, with cheap and elegant livery.

4. Our unequaled Remedial Appliances, by which many cases are cured (incurable without them), are Turkish, Russian, Sulphur Air, Hydropathic and Electro-Thermal Baths, Equalizer or Vacuum treatment, Laryngoscope, Oxygen Gas, Faradaic and Galvanic Electricity, Health Lift, Calisthenics, etc .,... 3

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IN SICKNESS AND IN HEAIJTH

The brochure goes on to say that, "no one can visit our Institution without being convinced of its desirableness as a winter home." From Hannah's letters it is apparent she did not quite agree as to its desirability.

Although neither Hannah nor Henry was happy to have her away from home, one philosophy of Dr. Strong's Institute was that it was essential for patients to stay at the Institute and not live in their own

h Omes: It is often essential to remove the patient from the cares and anxieties of home and thus secure the benefits of change, not only climate, but also freedom from domestic, social and business environments; the advantages gained by regulation of diet and exercise and the benefit of the marvelous fountains of water and this sunlit, tonic and non-malarial atmosphere.

It is a home for the weary-those suffering from nervous exhaustion, overtaxed by business, domestic or benevolent cares and a delightful resting place for other guests, not health seekers, who come at all times, but more largely in the Saratoga season, to this famous watering place to seek the entertainment and social life of this house year after year.

There was capacity for one hundred and fifty guests, some there for health reasons, others for relaxation. According to an 1891 brochure for the institution, there was a general routine but each

pa.tient had individualized treatments, diets and schedules.

Dr. Strong's Remedial Institute,1891. Courtesy of Department of special Collections, Luey Scribner Library, Skidmore College.

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Hollow Oak Chronicles

A typical day began with a walk down to the particular spring - one of the thirty or forty known at the time - that had been assigned to the patient by the doctors. They would then return for their prescribed breakfast. The physicians recommended fruit at the beginning of meals of cereal and other nutritious foods.

After breakfast the patients attended prayer services, which were optional for guests but largely attended. Hannah would have liked the prayer meetings as she was a religious woman, in fact Henry sent her religious newspapers to read.

Patients would then seek their physicians in consultation, take baths or other treatments. After calisthenic exercises in the gymnasium there was a period of rest when the patients would read the paper or write letters. The time remalning until dinner could be taken up with a stroll or perhaps attending a lecture. Dinner, or what is now called lunch, was at 1 :30 and took one hour.

After the meal, there were more treatments, if needed; otherwise, the patients had time for themselves. Hannah occasionally mentions taking carriage or sleigh rides, probably during this period of the day. The next scheduled event was the ev.ening meal, after which there would be occasions for socializing, visits to other hotels, lectures, concerts, or other entertainments. Nights were quiet so as not to disturb nervous invalids.

Saratoga is, of course, known for its springs, and Dr. Strong made use of these restorative waters. Each patient was prescribed specific wa.ters and was not supposed to drink the other wa.ters indiscrimina.tely. According to the Doctors Strong, "The waters are used at all seasons and form an important curriculum of the establishment." These mineral springs were divided into five distinct varieties, depending on their chemical composition and therapeutical actions : 1 . Muriated cathartic 2. Alternative 8C diuretic 3. Muriated chalybeate 4. Alkaline muriated 5. Sulphurous and sulphureted

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IN SICKNESS AND IN HEAIJTH

As part of her treatment, Hannah drank Red Water. There is a spring in Saratoga called "Old Red" and it is located not far from where Hannah was staying. In the same 1891 brochure cited, the mineral make-up of the Red spring is delineated. It consisted of "chloride of sodium, chloride of potassium, bicarbonate of Lithia, bicarbonate of soda, bicarbonate of magness, bicarbonate of lime, bicarbonate of iron (oxide of iron) and silica."

For many years after its founding, treatments were devoted almost exclusively to the diseases of women. By the time Hannah arrived in 1878 there were a few gentlemen, but the patients were still predominately women. Henry occasionally teased Hannah by asking which gentleman was seated next to her for meals.

When Hannah arrives at Dr. Strong's she is forty-four. She has left at home a devoted husband and a thirteen year old son. At first, as she writes on August 6, 1878, she seems happily ensconced there: "I am as contented as a lamb. I think I ought to be doing

(something), nothing to do but eat (and) sleep both, and three times a. week see the doctor." In the same letter she goes on to worry about all the work Henry has to do at home: "I think it is too bad you slave and slave and I (am) having all the good things, and you do all the work." As would any mother, she worried about her son, ". . . don't have George leave his undershirt off if it gets cool, your thick one is on the clothes closet."

Life at home was unaccustomed to Hannah's absence. Henry writes asking about simple household problems, such as George's shirts. Hannah replies in an August 16 letter, "You spoke a.bout George (sic) shirts, if he would rather have them made like his old ones with a big piece in front, have them made to suit him, only have them shrink the muslin and make them big enough." Or the kitchen: . . . ''you spoke of those plumbs (sic). I will not want more than 7 lbs. done up and if there is enough to send off you might as well get rid of them .... " In the midst of trying to get better and follow the doctors' orders, she still must deal with life at home.

Hannah does seem to be quite ill. In addition to a fallen womb, which appears to cause her great pain on one side, she suffers from

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headaches and is quite nervous. At first her doctors thought she would be able to leave sooner, but two months after her arrival they changed their prediction.

By September, Hannah is writing that she wants to come home.

"I believe it would be better for me to come and get straitened (sic)

up for winter, then I could settle down . . . for a week I have that worryonme....Ifonly1gethomewithyouagain,itseemssolong to look ahead. You know that the Dr. said four or five months, now he said six - that almost discouraged me for I feel sometimes that I cannot sta.y so long" (letter dated September 9,1878).

Even though she is unhappy, she seems to be getting better and realizes that she is better off. Before she came, she couldn't get out ofbedwithoutbeinginagreatdealofpainandcouldnotwalkany distance without becoming exhausted. In several letters she writes that she is feeling quite smart.

She loves to get letters, which are her only contact with home.

There are no telephones yet and her family and friends cannot make the trip as it is too far and too expensive. Henry's letters are frequent, he writes twice a week and sometimes more often, and they do her a world of good.

In a letter dated September 24, 1878, Henry tells her: I received your welcome letter tonight - feel as tickled as a

pup when it first finds out that it has a tall to hear that you was feeling smart. I think that you can now begin to see a lighter look aliead. I knew very well that it would take you some time to get a start and now that you have got a good one, don't lose the advantage that you have gained and I trust that in a few months you will be as well as ever."

On October 30,1878, Hannah writes to Henry: I received your letter and papers on Monday and the other yesterday. I was so glad to hear from you. I began to think you was sick or your letter had got lost for I never thought you would let a whole week pass without writing to your Darlingwife.Iwillexcuseyouthistimefor1knowyouhad

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IN SICKNESS AND IN HEAIJTH

business enough to a.ttend to. I saw your name drawn as

juror. I am glad you had a good time for you have so much to see to. I hope there will be better days to come. We have spent a good many happy years together, and hope we may have more, if only I get well again.

Henry's letters could be extremely affectionate and loving. It would seem he genuinely loved Hannah and missed her terribly: You say that if you stay much longer I will not miss you.

I keep a corner of my heart always warm for you and not an hour of the day goes by but what I think of you. You are not forgotten as the weekly letters must let you know & the hope of receiving you back with restored health is ample compensation for the present separation. (letter dated November 14,1878)

Often Hannah starts her letters to Henry by telling him how happy she is to hear from him, "I received your Dear good letter yesterda.y and it done me so much good" (letter dated November 27, 1878) . Another common greeting is when she tells him, "I was so pleased to get a letter from you last night, it cane so unexpected . . . I glanced a.I the letter box, lo and behold there was a letter." (letter dated December 9,1878).

Although Hannah was very much in love with Henry, she did not always express this emotion in her letters. When she did, it must have made Henry very happy to read the lines, "My Dear good Husband, if only you knew how much I love you. I lay awake last night thinking of you. How I long to get home and see you and George once more." (letter dated November 12,1878) Most often she writes of her love by telling Henry that she has not written of her love but will leave that until they are together.

Henry was a wonderfully expressive correspondent. If, however, one were to read only his daybooks, the picture of Henry would be skewed. His entry for the day Hannah goes to Sara.toga had no emotion attached to the event: "Arrived at Saratoga 2:30 p.in. & took rooms at Dr. Strong's. Very warm day.'' (dated July 18,

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Holloui Oak Chronicles

1878) The same is true of his entry when the day arrived to take her home: "Went to Saratoga for wife." (February 17, 1879), and additionally, "came from Saratoga home." (February 18, 1879) His letters, however, are true works of poetry, although he was not always confident that he could express himself well. After the funeral of an acquaintance, Mrs. Charles Van Wagener, he wrote the following lovely passage: Who can tell, a few years ago she had every appearance of long life but she is gone & others more frail are spared. How thankful we should be that we have been spared sorrow & afHiction 8c have been blessed with worldly prosperity; sickness is not the greatest misfortune that can befall us.

Yet, one must consider that the time will come when one of us must stop by the way and the other go on alone.

Then the sacrifices that have been made will be remembered and cherished as dearest thought of our lives, and then no longer will that one that is left look back, but forward to the meeting in the new 8[ eternal home. Although, my dear wife, you are absent, yet I seem to have you here day by day.

How many things that I do I can almost hear your voice

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IN SICKNESS AND IN HEALTH

and in doing them as you would like, if you were here, gives added pleasure. How often I think over the many happy hours that we have spent together, or your unselfish labors for my comfort 8c prosperity. I cannot thank you in words but may I be permitted to give you every comfort to show my gratitude for your faithfulness 8[ love towards me. (letter dated November 23,1878)

Henry will be the one that will have to go on alone when Hannah dies in 1899; he lives until 1914.

As time passes Hannah seems to improve. The pain in her side begins to ease and she feels less nervous. She is sleeping better and even gaining some weight. The issue of her weight is of concern to both of them. She seems to have lost a great deal and had trouble

gaining it back. Henry wants her to be plump. A number of letters mention the amount of weight she has gained.

One of her treatments is to drink a particular water from one of the springs nearby. In a letter dated November 13, she comments, "I take the Red Spring Water. I think it does me more good than anything else. I can eat most everything without disturbing my stomach." He replies that if the waters are doing her good she shouldn't worry about the cost, but should keep on taking them.

Because she is so far from home, she must learn to do things that she never had to do at home. She needs to deal with the paying of fees and cashing checks. Henry may be a long way away in Pleasant Plains but he has faith in her ability to handle this new situatiori.

Out of necessity, she must, "begin to`learn how to do business, so I will send the check payable to your order. You must write your name across the back. (I will draw a light pencil mark where.) Write it just as it is on the check, H.M Van Vliet. I will date it Friday or Saturday. Don't put your name on till you want to use it. 'Ihen you can do just what you please with it. Have it deposited to your credit and take a receipt as you did for the other ones or they can pay you the balance after you settle your week's board or you can pay them every week. Just as you please." (Letter dated November 30,1878.)

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Hollow Oak Chronicles

Many women of the current generation will be astonished at the fact that Hannah needed so much direction concerning the use of checks, but in 1878 most women did not have their own checking accounts, especially if they were married. Henry is putting a great deal of trust in her and a certain amount of independence into her hands. He was a rna.n ahead of his times, whether forced by necessity or by his own philosophy.

Unfortunately, Hannah has several setbacks, the worst of which seems to have taken place at the beginning of December. By December 6th, she is feeling poorly with a terrible pain in her side.

It kept getting worse but she would not send for the doctor. She thought a hot compress would help but it did not. It was so bad she thought she was going to die. Finally, she called for a. doctor.

Hannah's letter dated December 6, 1878 goes on to complain about how the medicines make everyone sick, the doctors are careless and non-responsive. The doctor says he will check on her but does not and then he goes a.way for a week. She thinks he is losing his ability to practice medicine. His hands shake, he cannot see as well as he ought to and he thinks of the business aspect of the Institute rather than the patients. It was the other women that rallied to her assistance.

All the while she worries about the hardships her family endures to keep her in Saratoga. "I think it is useless to spend your hard earned savings if it is not going to help me," she writes in her December 6 letter. Hannah is afraid that Henry will have to mortgage the farm to keep paying her expenses but he assures her that he could not do that without her consent and that they are financially sound.

On December 14th, she writes, Was I ever so glad to get your letter and paper last night, just at the right time and so unexpected. I cannot find words to express myself and just at the time when I wanted your sympathy and so every kind word, it done me so much good.

I will communicate and tell you all the particulars. I am afraid I cannot tell you in writing as I could if I could talk to you.

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IN SICKNESS AND IN HEALTH

She continues the letter by relating the abysmal treatment she received at the hands of the young doctor as her doctor had left for a week. She was in agonizing pain, she felt something was wrong inside. Three da.ys after the pain began, he finally removed the supportive instrument that was holding her womb in place.

He found her to be very irritated internally and her womb had fallen over on the support. He then tried to insert another one that Hannah described as "big enough for an animal." His manipulations were so painful she again thought he would kill her. She goes on to Say,

When he put a lot of cotton up to keep the womb in place I took it all right, then he said he would see me Friday. I got feeling so bad by the time I went in Friday. Then I asked him how I got so bad while I was right here to be attended to. Henry, if you could have been here then I would have give everything, he got so mad. I cannot write all he said, why he said I had better go home if I thought he was to blame. I told him I only ask for information and tried to smooth it down. It did not do any good. He said it was the worst for him for now he would have to see me every day and I was making a fuss for nothing ....

She again told Henry how badly she felt for him to be working so hard and spending so much money for nothing. In this same letter she asks, as she does in many of her letters, whether or not she should continue to stay or whether it would not be better if she cane home, ". . . to think I have to stay here so long and not get better, I don't think I had better stay any longer, what do you say Dear Pa? If you think I had better stay I will try for I know it has cost you much, if you think I had better come home I can come with Mrs.

or

someone else for so many is a going to leave soon." [sic] Henry sends this response on December 17th, "I received your

letter tonight and will not attempt to say what my feelings are at the trea.tment you have received .... Had he used such language to you in my presence I would have shut him up or broke his head."

One can well imagine how Henry must have felt.

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Hollow Oak Chronicles

The doctors improve their trea.tment and Hannah begins once more to improve. She feels that the doctors came to realize that they did treat her rather shabbily. Perhaps, or was it bad public relations to allow unhappy patients to leave. Many times she comments on their interest in money over their altruistic concern for their pa.tients.

At the end of the month Henry is writing very flattering letters to his wife. He writes of her "black eyes, black hair, peach blossom cheeks, dimpled chin, classic form, well developed bust, alabaster neck, voluptuous form and gracious style ,... personal charms and amiable disposition and loving warm heart." She writes back saying she is none of those things except a warm loving heart, but he disagrees. He tells her he has known her for twenty years, knows it is true and goes on to say, "is it any wonder that I an getting red hot "for her." (letter dated December 26,1878) She responds in a much more practical, no nonsense, selfdeprecating manner: I do think Dear Hub you are putting it on pretty thick. Soft Soap. I mean I think you have got the perfect one, such a good for nothing wife as I am and then write letters as you do. It is too much. I do so wish I could ha.ve been different.

I know I have not done as I ought to with such a Dear Husband and a Dear good son.

At the turn of the new year Saratoga experiences a snowfall and she recalls the sleigh rides of home and though she does go on some snowy outings she can't wait for Henry to take her out. "I never wanted a sleigh ride so bad as I did yesterday, it was so lovely. When I get home you will have business, for you must give me a ride every day." (letter dated January 2,1879) In a January 18,1879 letter to Hannah, Henry recalls what

perfection he found in a wife, "You are indeed the flower of the flock. When a man has the best, what more can he desire."

By the end of January, Hannah is ready to finally leave Saratoga a.nd Dr. Strong's Institute. "I feel so happy about coming home. I don't know what to do, it keeps me awake thinking about it, to

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IN SICKNESS AND IN HEALTH

think only one week before I see my Dear Hub, it makes me almost crazy. I laugh, I hope it will be (as) pleasant next Friday morning as this." (letter dated January 24,1879) She has another slight setback but will leave Saratoga in the middle of February. Her last letter from Dr. Strong's is postmarked February llth. It discussed some of her medical instructions. She tells Henry that she will be ready to leave the next Tuesday. She would like him to come on Monda.y but she will not be disappointed if he cannot arrive until Tuesday. She returns to the mundane choices to be made at home, ". . . had you not better hire a boy in the house and by the day . . ." She tells Henry, "I will not write again unless something else turns up."

Back at the Hollow Oak Farm, Henry and George are busy making preparations for Hannah's return. In a scene reminiscent of aL Carl Gla" EL:rn> Mr. Blandings Bi4ilds His Dream Hottse, H€r[ry is redecorating: . . . shall go to Poughkeepsie to Maron 8c Lane 8c I have ordered new furniture for the house 8c I will take all the week to get it arranged. Sis's room I shall have blue 8c gold,

yourn yaller (sic) as a full blown damask rose, 8[ Rubs red like the azure tint of the Catskill Mountains on an October moming in huskin time. Mine don't make any difference for I shall be around in all your rooms 8c get the good of the The front chamber I shall rig up for a bridal chamber (for you know if I come for you Monday it will be the anniversary of our wedding) that shall be lavender color, trimmed with maroon 8[ straw color. Why Haner (sic) you won't know the place . . . (letter dated February 12, 1879.

The letters end here, Henry arrived in Saratoga on February 17, 1878, stays the night and takes Hannah back home the next day.

As far as I know, Hannah never returned to Dr. Strong's Remedial Institute. She never seemed to fully heal from her ailments.

Daybooks and journals of other family members comment on times Hannah saw physicians or spent time somewhere else trying to recover. It seems to have been a lifelong burden for her.

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Hollou) Oak Chronicles NOTES

TheodoreLedyardcuyler(1822-1909),I?cco//cc}z.o72fo/¢Zo7¢gzz/g..j47¢

4#fo4z.ogrzzp4y, /New York. American Tract Society). 1902.

Sometime after 1912, 'Ihe Strong Institute becane Skidmore College's Luey Scribner Hall. The building burned in the 1940s. The main building and cottages were torn down, and the spring which had been capped long ago was paved over. During the 1960s the Catholic Church built offices on the site.

1891 brochure for Dr. Strong's Remedial Institute.

Aic:K±+cJJwl:EDc:MENFs:. I wottid like to thank the f;o[lou)ing |]er§ons.. Jane

Dresser, u)bo sperit countless hours readirig the letters and org¢vizing

the Van Vllet Co[lectzon; W;eridy Ambony and Special Collections AssocZ¢te, Endly C¢tteuale, Deparmiierit of Special Co[lectzons, Lacy Scrzbner hibray, Skidmore College; the local history ltbr¢rid;ns ¢t the

Sar¢toga Pttbhc hibrary; and Ellzabetb Clarke, who assisted wztb the genealogical chart.

My son, Aaron Mcpherson, and I Visited Sar¢toga to do research

and naturally u]e Visited ``Old Red." It i,s in dowritown Saratogd, located

rather ironically next to Goldis G)/in. The water was fairly meta[llctasting. I do not think I would be able to drink it every day, but ray son tells me be liked it quite a bit.

One of saratoga's many springs, 2005.

Photo: Erica Blumenfeld.

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Mr. And Mrs. Van Vhet..

George and Mercedes Nancy Fogel

ty a former teacher in the early 1870s. At George's equest his father written to Fannie Jewett, and W: first meet George Van has Vliet in a letter written to him she responds, addressing him "My Dear Little Georgie." She writes that she has not forgotten he brought her flowers and what a good boy he was in school. She tells him that one day he will be able to write himself. Her words are prophetic for George would write many letters over the course of his lifetime, as a son, fianc€, friend,

genealogist, historian, Republican, and pa.triarch of a large extended family.

George Stockwell Va.n Vliet was born September 17, 1865, the

only child of Henry R. and Hannah LeRoy Van Vliet, at the family farm in Pleasant Plains. He was an eighth generation descendent of the Dutch family that settled in Kingston in the 1660s, one of whose grandsons bought property and moved to Dutchess County in the 1740s.

Growing up at Hollow Oak Farm in the Town of Clinton, George would become familiar with the annual cycle of farm work, the growing of crops and care of animals, the upkeep of farm buildings and property. As a child he surely followed his father around the acreage, fed baby lambs and helped as piglets and calves were born. He would have known the hard labor of harvest season and accompanied his father to markets in Poughkeepsie and Nancy Fogel has uritten articles for the Year Book and has been i,ts editor for the

past several yeas. She is a graduate ofvassar College and a long-time resideut of Dutchess County.

Holloui Oak Cbroriicles

Rhinebeck, or to the river for shipment of their produce to New York City. As an only child, he must have known the farm would one day be his.

Henry and Hannah wanted George to have more than the usual 6th or 8th grade education. For this reason and partly because of his mother's illness, George was enrolled in the Poughkeepsie Military Institute as a boarding student when he was thirteen years old. He returned home on weekends and vacations and his parents visited him on their frequent trips to Poughkeepsie. George saved several letters from his parents during those years and they are found in the collection.

His mother, who signed her letters "dear Ma," gives him news of the farm. She writes about animals being born, the number of eggs she has collected that week and will sell, what his father and the hired men are doing, which field is being mowed or stone wall built, who is being married, is ill or has died. She writes to him about family, neighbors, church activities, social events. Often she tells him she is not feeling well, either with a sick headache or an unspecified iuness. Her letters to him are warm and loving - she tells him she misses him and looks forward to seeing him the following Friday, but her letters also plead for attention. She is lonely and complains he doesn't write often enough and that his letters are too short. At times he upsets her and she threatens to stop writing to him if his letters are not forthcoming. Hannah reminds him to be a gentleman, to obey the school rules, to work hard on his lessons.

She worries about him, warns him to wear the right clothing for the season, to be sure the river is frozen solid before he walks on it, and to double his quilt so he will be warm. She is preoccupied with his health and safety.

Henry's letters to his son are warm and full of humor. He encourages George to do his best. He instructs, corrects, gives advice, but always gently and in a way that shows George it is in his best interest to act in certain ways. He does tell him they have sacrificed so that he may have this further education. What they ask in return is that he apply himself to his studies and behave as a

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GEORGE AND MERCEDES

George and Mercedes T. Van Vliet. Wedding photograph. September 1894.

Courtesy of Gretchen Hubert.

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Hollow Oak Cbronzcles

gentleman. Henry's letters are not as long as Hannah's but they are as frequent. 'Ihey are full of anecdotes about the animals and work of the farm, his surveying jobs, Republican politics in the Town of Clinton, and the number of woodchucks he has shot that week.

George was on the honor roll several times during his years at Poughkeepsie Military Institute. He graduated as a First Lieutenant in 1884 when he was eighteen years old, and returned to the farm.

Courting A collection of 123 letters, saved by both correspondents, records the courtship of George Van Vliet and Mercedes Tremper during the years 1889 to 1894. Their correspondence begins when she is 21 and he is 23 years old. In the letters he addresses her as Miss Tremper and she responds to Mr. Van Vliet, following the

protocol of the day. His letters always begin with the phrase, "May I have the pleasure (or honor) of calling on you Sunday afternoon (or evening)?" Her answer is invariably, "yes." The formality ends there. Although the letters are short, they show an easy relationship between them and something humorous is always included on both sides. He teases her about the pretty women he meets and about her old boyfriends. In one of her letters, after he has told her of

going to Poughkeepsie for a lecture, she writes, "How learned our conversation will be, no gossip." Until late in their courtship she signs her letters "Sincerely" or "Very sincerely."

His requests to call on her or to take her for a drive are occasional during the first year but beginning in 1890 they take on a pattern of coming every two weeks. In May 1893, he begins to address his notes to "Dear Mercedes" and in the fall, "My dearest Mercedes."

She responds, addressing him as "Dearest George," and signs her letters, "Believe me yours" and "With love." From 1893 onward, they arrange to meet at least once a week and often twice. They marry on September 19, 1894, two days after his 29th birthday and a few weeks before she turns 27.

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GEORGE AND MERCEDES

MercedesTremper Mercedes Tremper is the oldest daughter of Jacob and Minerva RIkert Tremper, of Rhinebeck. In a series of personal journals she keeps from June 1889 when she is 21 years old, until her wedding day five years later, she unknowingly reveals herself to us.

It is from these journals that we learn about her family. In a January 1, 1890 entry, Mercedes describes her fanily as "a wonderful

people" - "wonderful contrary and spunky," she adds. The Trempers are a large family. Jacob and Minerva married in 1862 and have eight living children: George, William, Mercedes, Pascal, Moses, Benjamin, Augustus and Clara. Another daughter, Ruth, died in 1888. Jacob owns a butcher shop in the village of Rhinebeck. Their home is a house built by Jam Pier in 1761 and added to by Jacob in 1881, what Mercedes always refers to as "the stone house." It is outside the village but close enough to it to walk. Her maternal

The Van Vliet house on Hollow Road, 2005.

Photo: Jane Dresser.

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Hollow Oak Chroriicles

grandparents live in Schultzville and her father's mother in Bangall.

Of herself, Mercedes says, "I am five feet, five inches tall with brown half, brown eyes, a pug nose, and a large mouth. I smile out loud, as Mamma tells me" In her journals Mercedes records the comings and goings of every member of the family. The Tremper home is a beehive of activity with friends stopping by frequently and staying for meals and spending the night. Grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins make regular visits and there are frequent social calls from local people and out of town visitors. "No one can feel lonesome at our house for long as there's always something to do and see," she writes, and adds that she is proud and glad it is tha.t way. Mercedes has tender feelings for her family. When one of her brothers is sick, she writes of "feeling a little queer the moment anything is the matter with any of the family. I am frightened .... " She worries about their physical health as well as the spiritual well-being of her older brothers who go coon hunting on Sunda.ys and seldom get to church.

The Trempers are members of the Dutch Reformed Church in Rhinebeck and Mercedes faithfully attends church on Sunday mornings and often goes to Wednesday evening prayer services.

Much of her social life revolves around the church as it did for many people at that time. She belongs to The King's Daughters, a Christian women's organization, teaches Sunday School, is secretary of the Christian Endeavor Society and participates in all the church festivals and fund raising events throughout the year. There are monthly "Union Meetings," joint services with other churches, and camp meetings in the summer. In early journals, Mercedes says she feels unworthy of becoming a member of the church or of teaching Sunday School. She does join when the minister encourages her and takes on a class of young children but she expresses a sense of letting them down, "It is as if I had failed to impress the right truth on those children's minds."

Young adults like Mercedes and her older brothers have a variety of entertalnments. They are invited to parties where there is

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GEORGE AND MERCEDES

dancing and games such as "Going to Jerusalem" and "Love in the Dark" are played. Though the minister at her church disapproves of dancing, Mercedes sees no harm in it and joins in. She and her next older brother, Will, belong to the Chautauqua Club, a cultural study group that at the time of her writing is focused on reading the plays of shakespeare. Mercedes tells her journal she values these sessions, both for the lessons and because they make her think. She and many of her friends are members of the temperance society. The Starr Institute, a community center in Rhinebeck, is where public dances are held and where young and old can attend lectures, plays and concerts. The Republican Club and the Masons hold their entertainments there, as do various churches. Depending on the season, there are sleigh rides, ice skating, horseback riding, picnics and "straw" rides. Mercedes excels at tennis; her brothers play baseball, hunt and fish. Shopping trips to Poughkeepsie, an all-day event, are made by train or in a "two-wheeler" and include a meal at Smith Brothers' Restaurant. There are occasional trips to West Point and New York City by boat. Decoration Day and the Fourth of July are celebrated with parades and fireworks.

George Tremper works with his father at the butcher shop; Will teaches in a country school and, in 1892, with two partners, buys 7%c j24z.7¢c4cc4 Gzzzc#€; Pascal farms and supplements his income

with seasonal work, lumbering, ice cutting and road work. The younger boys go to school. Mercedes works alongside her mother to do the work of a large family. There is washing and ironing for a family of nine, cooking, baking, canning in season, sewing. Sheets and pillowcases are made at home, as well as flannel shirts for the boys and dresses for Clara and herself. Clothes must be mended, costumes altered, shortened or lengthened, dresses and hats made new with lace collars and ribbons. Mercedes dusts and sweeps a. room or two a day; spring cleaning demands extra energy as rugs are taken up and some floors repainted. She is cheerful by nature but occasionally, as in a November 12,1892 entry, she complains that it is boring: " . . .the same things to do as ever, bake pie, sweep, dust, make beds, fill the lanps, wipe the dishes, not a few, set table,

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Hollow Oak Chronicles

tend to fires, look over the basket of clothes, etc." When Minerva has to be away from home to care for her parents, Mercedes is left in charge of the house and family. At times the responsibility is so great she is reduced to tears. Her brothers tease her about her pancakes, telling her no one will marry her until she learns how to do better.

She rises to the occasion and gets the job done but is relieved when her mother returns home.

Mercedes is artistic - she likes to draw and sketch, but confides in her journal that she will not ask her father for the art lessons she would like to have because there are several younger children who need to be educated. The journals record her dally activities. She comments on the weather, the sermon she heard on Sunday, the flower seeds she has just planted in her garden. She has a love of the natural world and records the first appearance of pussy willows in spring, the sound of peepers, the flowering of trees. When the leaves first appear on the trees, she writes "It seems as if a green curtain was being drawn down around us . . ." A solar eclipse, the sight of an aurora borealis, a snowfall, vivid sunsets - all are noted in her journals. She speaks of "sunshiny days." Her particular favorite of nature is moonlight. She often comments that she ca.n hardly bear to go to bed because the night and the moon are so beautiful.

There are times when Mercedes is restless, unsure about her future and what to do. In 1892 she states, "I want to do something and I do not know just whether I ought or not and that makes me feel cross and discouraged." For a week in June that year she fills in for her brother, Will, at his country school. Of that experience she writes: "I tell you, old Journal, I do not know if I would like to teach school or not but there are some wonderful nice children up there. There were twenty in my room." Later she writes that she would like to teach but does not think she has enough educa.tion.

In small villages at that time there were limited opportunities for

young unmarried women like Mercedes. She tries to be content but says it is the hardest thing to do. What she knows best and does well are all the varied skills that go into making a home: cooking, sewing, housecleaning, nursing the sick, managing a household,

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GEORGE AND MERCEDES

shopping, gardening, entertaining. She decides if she does have to work for a living that she will "hire out and work for some family as a cook or maid of all work .... I think what the world wants is service good and true."

At the beginning of each year Mercedes puts her intentions on

paper. In the entry on January 1, 1893 she makes no resolution but says her purpose in life is "to do better, to live truer, to conquer my temper, to be less self-assured of my own goodness, to follow more closely the divine example."

In an early journal entry lists the traits she wants in a husband.

Her standards are high: "honesty, integrity, patience, wisdom and kindness -all those and more." The beginning of her journal and her courtship by George Van Vliet almost coincide. Their relationship develops slowly. His letters of invitation and her replies show they each had a sense of humor. In the 1890s, going out in a horse-drawn carriage or a two-wheeler for a drive was a form of entertainment, as well as transportation, and was the typical way they spent their time together. In an April 1890 entry Mercedes wrote, "To go riding with a young man is something so rare that of course I can't help feeling excited." When George and a friend cane late for their date with Mercedes and her friend, she said, "We were just getting ready to shed tears as large as sauce plates when they came." One evening in July 1890 after seeing George, she noted in her journal, "We talked and talked and talked. I had the most wonderful time." The following month she wrote that she had been for a drive with Mr. Van Vliet and "enjoyed it very much."

"He did look handsome. . .he had on some new clothes that

were becoming. I admire his looks anyway," was her entry for a day in December 1891. A few months later, in May 1892, after a drive through Staatsburgh, she commented, "It was a perfect evening," and in August of that year, "My life is very full and I am glad."

She does not commit her deepest thoughts to paper. There are some cryptic passages, such as this one in July 1893: "As for myself

the days have been full of thoughts running through everything,thinking, doubting, doubting, believing, hoping and loving. I have

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Hollow Oak Cl]ronicles

nothing to write. It is too sacred to put on paper where may hap someone may read it. I can keep it all best in my heart." The next month she records this entry: "George came in to spend the evening.

There are so many things I cannot write. I think and think there is something new come into my life. I wonder if I am the same Mercedes that began to write this journal. Sometimes I think I an and then when I think of the promise I have given it seems strange.

I am not repenting of that promise and that is more strange." At the end of the year she tells her journal, "This year has rna.de a change in me.,, Her entries become less frequent in 1894. She was seeing George twice and sometimes three times a week, which must have been hard on him because there are several miles between his home in Pleasant Plains and hers in Rhinebeck. "It was a perfect afternoon," she

entered in her journal one day in May 1894, and the next month, after George took her to Hollow Oak Farm to meet his parents, she wrote of them, "They are lovable people," George and Mercedes were married at her home in Rhinebeck on September 19,1894.

In two of her last journal entries a few days after the wedding, she wrote, "Then I left my home with all the dear ones behind and started with my Dearest for Albany," and "I could not have thought of anything that would have gone any more to my liking than the hours spent on my wedding trip."

George-A hife Zn Fd;rming With tongue in cheek, George Van Vliet once wrote a correspondent, "I'm just a poor, down-trodden farmer." In truth, farming was his vocation and the way he thought of himself.

His interests in history and genealogy and politics he considered hobbies.

When George graduated from Poughkeepsie Military Institute in 1888, he and his father ran the farm together. By the time he married six years later, Henry was in his early sixties and George assumed prime responsibility for the farm. Although there was always a hired man who lived in the tenant house and additional

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GEORGE AND MERCEDES

Clockwise from back: Helena, Mercedes, Clara, Henry R, H. Richard, and George Van Vliet.

Courtesy of Anatje Gilbert.

men hired as needed on a seasonal basis, most of the labor of the 120 acre farm fell to George until he was joined in 1924 by his son, Richard. The records we used to understand the workings of Hollow Oak Farm were found in a series of almanacs kept by Hannah Van Vliet, detailing what each member of the family and hired worker did day by day, and, later, those kept by Mercedes in several day books.

The type of farming changed over time from the raising of a variety of animals and production of gralns and fruit to a focus on dairy farming as Richard took the reins. Part of every day was given to the care of animals: milk collected from the cows, sheep sheered in season, their wool washed and taken to market. Pigs and calves were sold or butchered for customers, oxen and horses cared for as needed. Hay, oats, rye and buckwheat were planted and harvested,

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Hollow Oak Chronicles

some on fields of nearby farms because Hollow Oak was steep and rocky. A variety of vegetables were planted and raised for home consumption, to be canned or stored in barrels of sand in the cellar for winter use. Orchards were pruned in winter, sprayed in summer and, from July through October, apples, cherries and pears were

picked and packed and taken to local markets.

Barns and outbuildings had to be maintained, roofs and floors kept in good repair, exteriors painted or whitewashed. There were fences to build, harnesses to clean, wood to cut and store.

Depending on the season, stoves and storm windows had to be

put up or taken down, snow shoveled, lawns mowed and hedges trimmed. Farmers had to keep their sections of the roa.d in good repair and the Van Vliets mowed the lawns of their church and two nearby cemeteries. It's a wonder George had time for genealogy or anything else.

The women of the family had their chores too. Hannah, until she died in 1899, and Mercedes after her, kept the records we found of animals born and sold or butchered, of the number of men hired and the days they worked, the amount of eggs produced and butter churned, the exact chores done by the men, number of barrels of apples taken to market, grains produced and stored or sold. They took care of the young and elderly members of the family, cooked and cleaned, washed and ironed, sewed and mended for the family and even made blankets for the horses and oxen. They churned butter, took care of the chickens, sold or bartered the eggs at the local store, planted and kept their flower gardens. The social life of the family depended in large part on the women. They made and received social calls, attended funerals, helped at church events, assisted family and friends during illness.

George and His Hobbies George Van Vliet cane by his interests in history and genealogy naturally. We found in the collection several letters and documents that had been saved by ancestors long before George was born in 1865. As an eighth generation Van Vliet, he would ha.ve grown

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GEORGE AND MERCEDES

up with a sense of family and its history, gleaned from stories and conversations with his father and other relatives.

The Van Vliets intermarried with many of the early Dutchess County families. The manes of some families they are allied with a.re Beadle, Bonesteel, Cookingham, Crapser, Dewitt, Emigh, Garrison, Gillies, Le Roy, Masten, Mulford, Ostrom, Platt, Purdy, Sleight, Streit, Traver, Uhl, Weaver and Westervelt.

Like many American families, the Van Vliets were a far-flung group, even in George's time. He carried on a correspondence with a number of family members who addressed him as "Cousin."

Most often these letters are postma.rked from towns in the Hudson Valley and central New York State, but others came from California, Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Utah, Vermont, Wisconsin and a branch of the family in Canada. It seems George Van Vliet was related to everyone.

We found dozens of notebooks in the collection filled with tracings of fanily lines, both Van Vliets and their branches, and those of others. We also worked with two boxes of letters from

people living at a distance who were interested in learning about their ancestors and who wrote to George for information. Over the years his reputation grew, and many letters are prefaced with remarks about having heard of his knowledge of old records or of references to him as "the genealogist of Dutchess County."

George Van Vliet's interests in history and genealogy are closely related. The collection includes two large scrapbooks of newspaper articles he had ca.refully glued in place. They are a compilation of town and church histories, biographies of important Dutchess County men and women in the fields of educa.tion, government, medicine and la.w. There are articles about noted speakers, retiring ministers, especially those from Presbyterian and Reformed congregations in the area, information about local granges and Masonic Lodges and their members. Obituaries were good sources of genealogical information, as were weddings and anniversaries, and there are plenty of them. We also found in the collection a

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Hollow Oak Chronicles

history of schools in the Town of Clinton written by George and a man whose surname was Van Auken, and a book of photographs of old churches and cemeteries, grist mills, covered bridges, fire companies and historic houses.

In 1914 a small group of prominent men and women, including

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, founded the Dutchess County Historical Society. George Van Vliet was one of them. He served as aTrusteeoftheSocietyforthirty-fouryears.Hisknowledgeofearly Dutchess history, the ownership and division of land, and its early settlers made him a valuable resource. For the next three decades he served DCHS by the research done for articles he and others wrote for the Year Books, helping with plans for the annual pilgrimages, creating maps, a.nd loaning records from his personal collection.

He beca.me a trusted member of the "history team," developed by F.D.R. and Helen Wilkinson Reynolds for the purpose of publishing old Dutchess County records and documents. He was a member of the New York Historical Society and the Holland Society, as was Franklin D. Roosevelt, a prestigious institution whose members tra.ced their ancestry to early Dutch settlers.

George Van Vliet was also active in the Masonic Lodge in Schultzville, the Fallkill Grange and Farm Bureau. He was a member of the First Presbyterian Church of Pleasant Plains and served as a Trustee of the North River Presbytery and two local cemetery associations.

As if there were time for other interests, George was an ardent Republican. As early as 1888 when he was 23 years old, the collection shows evidence of his involvement with the Party. A box labeled "Local Government and Elections" contained dozens of notebooks listing names for election districts 1 and 2 in the Town of Clinton; names of men by party affiliation; a division of the county into precincts; boundary lines in the Town of Hyde Park; lists of judges, senators, assemblymen, coroners, and a variety of Republican officers from the early 19th century onward. Some of the notebooks must have been kept by his grandfather, Levi Van Vliet, and his father, Henry R. Van Vliet, who was a Town of Clinton

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GEORGE AND MERCEDES

Supervisor in the 19th century, and George's son, Richard, who would win the 1932 election for the sane office. George served as Assessor of the Town of clinton from 1930 through 1933.

George and Mercedes George and Mercedes Va.n Vliet had three children: Clara, born in 1896; Helena, born in 1898; and Richard, born in 1904. We have to imagine a lot of Mercedes' life as a wife and mother after her marriage for, unlike George, there are few records in the collection specifically concerned with her during those years. Of course, we know indirectly from the activities of others in the family what she was doing. Although she no longer kept a journal, the daybooks she wrote in so carefully provided us with information. 'Ihey are a record of her daily round of work -washing, ironing, mending, sewing, cooking, baking, churning, sweeping and cleaning. We know she kept a garden and entered the dates when she set out various flowers and that she continued to record events from the natural world - the date the peepers were first heard, the day the robins returned. We think she liked to cook from the evidence of many hand-written recipes and several cookbooks from the early 1900s on through the 1930s. Handed down in the collection are her lavender wedding dress and several invitations to the wedding at her parents' home on September 19,1894.

George and Mercedes had three children: Clara, born in 1896; Helena, born in 1898; and Richard, born in 1904. Her daybook of 1 9 1 3 reveals that her nine year-old son, Richard, was often sick that year, a.nd that she was caring for her elderly father-in-law. From 1 9 1 3 to 1916, entries in her daybooks show she drove her da.ughters to her

parents' house in Rhinebeck on Sunday afternoons and returned for them on Fridays so that they might attend high school.

We know Mercedes remained close to her original family from notes of their meetings in her daybooks and from several

photographs of the extended Tremper family, which included her parents, six brothers and their wives and children, her sister Clara, George and herself and their children. We found two letters -51-

Hollow Oak Cbrorizcles

Clara a.nd Helena Van Vliet

H. Richard Van Vliet

Courtery of Gretchen Hubert.

Courtesy of Gretchen Hubert.

tha.t were addressed to her paternal grandfather from her uncle, describing his experiences in the 128th New York State Regiment in the Civil War, and several letters and post cards from her sister, Clara, who loved to travel and seems to have done a lot of it.

We can only imagine her grief over Helena's disappearance in China in 1927, and the dea.th of her oldest daughter, Clara, after childbirth in 1932. We admire her courage when, at the age of sixty-five, she took responsibility for her new granddaughter, with all the physical care, nurturing, training and discipline that are part of raising a child.

George and Mercedes celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary in September 1944. That fall, Mercedes suffered a stroke and was hospitalized. She died after a second stroke in January 1945. George Van Vliet also died of a stroke four years later, in January 1949.

GeorgeVanVlletsEstate Beca.use the Van Vliets rarely threw anything out, boxes of notebooks and receipts, bank books and cancelled checks allowed

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GEORGE AND MERCEDES

us to form a picture of their financial situation. A sampling of those records show earnings from the farm in the form of receipts from companies, as for example, the Farmers Cooperative Milk Company in Poughkeepsie; the Mohican Company for eight pigs; grocery bills with deductions for the barter of eggs and butter produced by the Van Vliet women; a February 1927 letter requesting the price of a flock of sheep George ha.d advertised in the Po%g44apJz.c Coz£77.cys receipts for barrels of apples and pears. The other side of the ledger is seen in payments on a truck; bills for animal feed, lumber, hardware and a variety of other supplies; in records of the number of men hired and times they worked; a receipt for car registration in 1928 for the Studebaker automobile George bought that year; in an a.dvertisement froin J.E. Scopes 8c Company in Albany, New York listing rare books and prints for sale, which must have been a temptation for George.

George and Mercedes Van Vliet had savings accounts at the Poughkeepsie Savings Bank, Fishkill National Bank of Beacon, and theMechanicsSavingsBankinBeacon.Theircustomwastowithdraw only the interest that accumulated in the accounts. Their checking

account was with the Fallkill National Bank and Trust Company in Poughkeepsie. A savings account book was found for Clara, their first child, opened in 1898 when she was two years old; it was closed in 1922, the year she married. Presumably there were savings accounts for the other two children, Helena and Richard, as well.

George Va.n Vliet's will gives the clearest picture of his finances.

At his death in early 1949, his net worth was approximately

$27,000. Most of it was invested in the stock of several local ba.nks, in small numbers of shares of u. S. Steel, Union Pacific Railroad, Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railwa.y, and the International Harvester Company. His surviving children, Helena G. and H. Richard Van Vliet, were executors of the will. With the exception of two bequests of $500 each to The First Presbyterian Church in Pleasant Plains and the Providence Cemetery Association, also in Pleasant Plains, his estate was divided among his children and

grandchildren.

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Hollow Oak Cbronzcles SOURCES

The Van Vliet Collection 1. The correspondence of George S. Van Vliet. Family correspondence.

Genealogical correspondence and notebooks. Miscellaneous papers and ephemera. Business papers. Notebooks of local government and elections.

Financial documents and records. Scrapbooks of G.S. Van Vliet. Research

paper on schools in Town of Clinton with Van Auken. 2. Daily workbooks of Hannah L. Van Vliet (1890s) and Merccdes Tremper Van Vliet (19131916) and (1921-1927). 3. Journals of Mercedes Tremper,1889-1894. 4.

Correspondence between George S. Van Vliet and Mercedes Tremper,18891894. 5. Autograph books and sketchbook of Mercedes Tremper, c.1880s. 6.

Correspondence and miscellaneous documents of Mercedes Tremper Van Vliet, c.1880-1944.

Dutchess County Historical Society Year Books, 1914-1949.

Interviews with Annatje Van Vliet Coon Gilbert and Gretchen Van Vliet Hubert.

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"Dear Mother" ..

Helena Garrison Vd,n Vhet Rosemary Davison Kyle, RN

the spring of 1916. At a time when most women aspired HelenaVanVlietgraduatedfromRhinebeckHighSchoolin to marry and raise a family, she left the farm in Pleasant Plains for the big city and began her nursing career at Methodist Episcopal Hospital School of Nursing in Brooklyn, New York. She was seventeen years old.

Helena came alive to me through her letters. Although I never met her, I feel I cane to know her as she was then, a young woman.

Having started nursing school myself some sixty years after her, I feel a certain camaraderie with her. What follows is a sampling of her letters over a three-year period, from the fall of 1916 to the fall of 1919. Helena wrote to her mother at least twice a week, sometimes more often, depending on the news. Her letters were saved and became part of the Van Vliet Collection.

Her early letters detailed what life was like for a. young nursing student. It definitely wasn't work for the faint of heart. Her days began at 6:30 a.in. and went straight through to 7:30 p.in., with an afternoon off once a week and five hours off on Sunday. Her uniform consisted of a. dress (one long skirt, one short skirt), apron, corset, undervest and drawers. The hospital laundry washed them Rosemay Davison Kyle gradeated from St. Josephis Hospital School of Nursing,

Elmira, New York, in 1979. A lifelong residem of Pottghkeepsie, she is cureritly employed ds a registered riurse at St. Francis Hospital. Her career has incl;nded

riursing posidons in Orthopedics, Neurology/Neurosurgery, Medical/Surgical

and Emergency Nursing, and Case Mend;gemerit. AI the preseut time she is a Q]4aldy Improi)emerit Speczdist.

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Hollow Oak Cbrorizcles

Helena G. Van Vliet. Graduation photo, Methodist Episcopal School of Nursing,1919.

Courtesy of Gretchen Hubert.

for five cents a week. She wore a starched collar on her uniform, which ga.ve her a red ring around her neck, the beginnings of a collar sore. She wrote that their rooms were inspected every Friday and their letters read. She wouldn't keep a journal because of it.

The Nurses' Residence had three tubs, four sinks, four toilets and a footbath.

During her first month of training she listed what she had learned thus far: "Care of refrigerators Care of bedpans Care of rubber sheeting How to carbolize beds (Zzz.fz.7¢/gc£)

How to make ether bed (pofJ-op 4c¢ Admission and discharge of patients

-56-

"DEAR MOTHER"

Tub bath Contraindica.tions to tub bath Care after death Treatment of pediculosis (bead, body lice-- Pediculz sounded more refued.)

Infant's bath Vaginal douche Enema Mouth washes Bed bath Infant's bath Treatment of bedsores TPRs (temperature, pulse, respiration) General physical exam Typhoid sponge baths Hot packs Cold packs Intestinal irrigation (4 methods) Catheterization Bladder irrigation LAvagc (stomach inigrndori) Ga:Narg;€ (tub e f eedchd NIasal grN:Nag/€ (tube f eeding throi4gh the nose)

Expression of stomach contents Symptoms Hot and cold baths Restraints Preparing food trays and passing them out to patients Feeding patients"

She explained to her mother that the nurses had to pa.y for any equipment they were responsible for if broken. She had broken three thermometers, which cost her $ 1.00; she proclaimed that she was now "broke." In a later letter she wrote that she had broken a hypodermic needle (35 cents) and a thermometer (75 cents). She also encountered many dangers during her average day. She burned her arm from steam in the kitchen and her foot in hot water in the bath; some of her classmates caught "bugs'' from the patients, and she had seen her first cockroach.

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Hollow Oak Chronicles

Women's ward, Methodist Episcopal Hospital.

Courtesy of Gretchen Hubert.

The nurses ate their meals together; in one of her letters home Helena recalled that when her classmate Ford was late for lunch, she was served ham rind and moldy potato. She in turn ate a whole

plate of bread and the maid refused to get her more. She said it sometimes took the maid a half hour to get her utensils and by that time the meal break was over. In all her letters her sense of humor shines through.

From time to time the girls got into a bit of trouble. They were reprimanded for having "a party" on one of the floors because they were "drinking cocoa and eating toast." Helena was caught singing in the hallway and was told by her supervisor it was unprofessional conduct. She also admitted to throwing a glass of ice wa.ter on classma.te Miss Clark, who she referred to as a "Jersey Girl," while she took a hot bath.

Helena also wrote to her sister Clara. From a February 1917 letter:

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"DEAR MOTHER"

"I am glad you approve of my conduct. I guess Miss Hunt (fz£Pcrz#.Joy) does secretly herself though she would not tell anyone about it. That old Miss 8 is certainly nosey. (fl4lz.ff B#¢c7y ow¢f a/fo a japc7z/z+or.) The other night we decided to have a moonlight parade on the roof garden so we all dressed up. I had on my bathrobe over my underclothes and green stockings and my black slippers and over all my couch cover draped. There were seven or eight more dressed equaling becoming and we went up the stairs and just as we

got up by the Infirmary door, the elevator cane and let Miss Mcclellan and Dr. Ma.ys out on top of us. We decided that a retreat would be more conspicuous than an advance so rushed for the garden door and made our EXIT. When we came back Miss 8 was down by our phone and said, `was it so cold that you needed your drapings up in the Infirmary?'

She thought we had been visiting in the Infirmary after seven and she would have a nice time reporting us. I said, `1 am sure I don't know, Miss 8. I guess you had better go up and see for yourself, but if you are going to take a stroll on the roof garden I would advise you to put on your winter union suit.' She would love to see me lose my Pap through her efforts.

`

I am quite satisfied with the training school I have entered, taking all things into consideration, for they say we ranked highest in the State in the Board of Regents, and the State inspector said we had the best supervisor in the State. I an referring to Miss Hinkley, not Dr. Holmes."

In another letter that month Helena mentioned the possibility clf war.. CCM:LIL (Methodist Episcopal HospitaD cowhdbecorme aLFhed

Cross Hospital if war breaks out. New York City will become stark e;"pry:' ('Ibe U.S. eriteredwiorld w;ar I in April 1917.) H!€I leffle;Is make real what it was like back then. In June, one of her supervisors left for France to join a British unit. Helena reported that she couldn't join an American unit as she wasn't a naturalized citizen.

A July 8, 1917 letter stated that she met one of the interns/doctors in the stairwell in his uniform. He told her he was going to "fight for his country." Helena wrote, "All dressed up in his uniform he

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Hollow Oak Chroriicles

looked quite spifty." She said she offered to knit him a sweater and kiss him goodbye, but they just shook hands. Her friend, Rose, made him an eggnog up on the Maternity Ward. Her July 21st letter reported that Dr. Hipps was drafted. The same month she described her work on the Maternity Ward. She had to, "clean the labor rooms, scrub instruments, laundry to sterilizer, gloves to do up Ubef ore disposable gloves they were diszrif ected and powderedi > soh]rfrous

to make up, bottles to get ready for the pharmacy."

What follows is a sampling of her correspondence - A Day in the Life of a Student Nurse. On 7/30/1917 she wrote: "the temperature had registered 124 degrees." She "spent the PM off soaking in an ice water tub they kept in the Accident Room for heat c;as€s:' ('Ibe Acciderit Room wd§ the Emergency Room) She desc;rf eed

their summer uniform collars like sailor collars - "A bit cooler."

8/ 15/ 1917 "Dr. Holmes needed a cathartic - I fixed him one up that I fear will ruin the plumbing of this establishment."

(Nothing was sacred)

9/2/1917"Amusing2000yardsofgoodsaweekandmake fresh dressings for all the patients every day."

9/10/1917 "The grub is fierce. We had some baloney the other night that smelled for three blocks - it smelled just like a bone yard in hot weather."

9/12/1917"Thereareabunchofnursesgoingtohavetheir tonsils out today. Tator (¢7¢o£4c7 ffzfc7c7z£) is in charge of the

Infirmary. All the interns and nurses are happy - think they will have some fun collecting family secrets while the girls are under ether."

11/28/1917 "Maternity-an eclamptic (a/fo 47£oav7¢ ¢f fo#c77¢z.a) who was going from one convulsion to another-

she Cwe" oui Lasit ringhi (diedi . (Ecl¢mp§ia if lef i entreated wZ[l cd,use convulsio7is due to hzgb blood pressure, and the eventaeal ded,tb of both mother and fetus. I;oday any |]atierLt

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"DEAR MOTHER"

preseritzng Eclanptic i,s considered a medical emergeny and wottld most probably have an immediate Caesarian section.

Once the baby is bor`iii the pederit rio loriger has the coriditiori)

fuse as she was g/drn8 oul, a case (another p¢tierit in labor) came off. An old Polish woman (j4c owerp7o4¢4/gr 30yc¢rr

a/¢,-it was her thirteenth pregnancy, and, not wanting an unlucky number of children, decided to have twins. Dr. Clark was away for Thanksgiving and Dr. Hipps was on Obstetrics. Well, her membranes had ruptured two days before and as nothing had happened we thought something was g;dr"8wro"8. (I;oday if a pedends membranes rapture and no active ltlbor has started ¢fier 24 hours, the patierit wZ[l be induced due to threat of irif ectiori) VJc:AI shahaA one pdrri

at 10 o'clock and another in 6 minutes-well I told Rosie to watch her through her next as I was going in to see the Eclamptic as she had just gone bad. I heard both Rosie and the old lady yell as if the devil was behind them so I lit out for the telephone and called Miss Duryea (fapc7z#.for). In two minutes Dr. Hipps and the call girls (£4c 7¢z47Tcj o7¢ c¢/0

were there and Dr. Hipps delivered (baby) Number 1 in bed. We moved her to the table for (baby) Number 2. That

one was in pretty bad condition-had to be resuscitateddidn't breathe for over half an hour. Dr. Clark came back and we had a regular party. The old lady was so grateful to Dr. Hipps she grabbed him and kissed his hands. She is a little dippy tonight-can't exactly blame her, after having fourteen (children) and kissing Dr. Hipps to top off the bargain.

But believe me, post-partum mania is no joke, we have to watch her like a cat would a mouse. She told me that those

two (deliveries) were simply awful-never had such a time before. She'd had them in the kitchen, in the toilet and on the stairs but never in bed."

12/23/1917 "Shock No. 1, I am President of the Class of 1919MEHTrainingSchool."

1/16/1918 "Vi Montrose (¢7£o£4cr c/¢fr7%¢£g) eloped with

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Hollou) Odd Cbrorizcles

a widower about forty years old who she had known three weeks - (it) caused quite a sensation in MEH - would almost be willing to try it myself to get as notorious. Dr. Clark has been called (/or z:4c ow¢r). (He) left this Mondaybeing a native of Georgia, (he) goes to Camp Oglethorpe.

That leaves us with three interns. We had fifteen this time last year. If I were they I would quit the job-there is no use killing yourself even to become a doctor. They are averaging three hours sleep out of twenty-four. The hospital has about twice as many patients as usual. One day last week there were over a hundred patients admitted within twenty-four hours. They are putting nurses in to do doctors' work. (S4c gave the f io[lou)ing exd;mplesJ)..

-One of the Seniors is riding the bus (¢77¢4zfde7zcc).

-There is a nurse in the pathology laboratory.

-One nurse gives the anesthetics in the Op room and takes all surgical patients' histories and prescribes treatment with the approval of one of the interns. ( rocz¢y z:4z.f ovo## 4c 47o7zc by a Certif led Registered Nurse A;nestbetistb .

-The nurses are doing all the minor surgical ops and all dressings, etc.

-This is the 20th century-who says women can't vote." (f7c7 personally shines tbrottgb ori,ce ago,in) 3/8/1918 "My Rose Bud, (¢7zo£4cr c/¢£f77z¢fc) My Wild

Irish Rose, as Dr. Vann calls her, has been put on solitary confinement for one month with bread and water for grub - so to speak - has been hauled in by Marshall law of the M:EH. (Nurses were routinely disciplined f or mistakes made o7¢ £4c/.o4.) And several others have been passed on to their

last reward. Walt passed out of her own accord and Anna Smith is doomed to three months added to her training for giving a helpless female two drams of Iodine instead of ELgoit:' (I;ode;y a medicedon error is serioi4s and is imestzga;ted, but corporal pi#ndsbmerit is not inwloed)

Hospital romance was also a common topic in Helena's letters

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"DEAR MOTHER"

horn!e. (Hos|iital romances stall are hot topics today., not ryiucb has

c4¢zzgrJ z.7¢ Poj/c¢rr.) One of my favorites was written in her July 21,1918 letter:

"Dr. Vann sat at the desk charting and along comes Miss Walt (¢78o£4cr ffzfc7c7zf) all dressed up like a chorus girl on

her way to the home. She plants herself behind the (open) door that goes out to the ward and begins to palaver with Dr. V. When she hears some masculine footsteps coming up the stairs she keeps quiet and prays they will go over the bridge, as Dr. V. goes on charting. Into the ward walks Dr. Clark and Dr. Renaud, they come over to the desk and begin talking to Dr. V. and never see Miss W. till Dr. C. goes to get the charts out of the rack. Then both C 8c R see her.

(She ujas standing behind an open door - Helena had did;wn afooorplanintbishaer)Dr.C.says,C:Wky,pardonrne,was I intruding Vann?' and Dr. R. says, ` I could never see the use of that door till now.'

Miss W. departs midst much laughter. Then Vann, to appear commonplace, goes out on the porch (pediatric ward) and tells the kids it looks like rain, and at once bedlam is let loose - every kid in the place begins to squall.

Such is life in the big city."

Her October 15,1918 letter home tells of her friend Dick's romance with Dr. Hipps. (They refer to each other by their last names.):

"Dick and I have parted while still friends for she has developed a mania which I cannot endure. She is cracked up on Dr. Hipps and all we get for breakfast, dinner and supper is Dr.Hipps. She calls him Therman and he calls her Kit. He is the most detestable fool I know of."

A later letter tells a tale about Dr. Hipps philandering with one of I:he pe:irf:rTrs. (I;oday this wottld border on prof esszonal rhiscondect,

if indeed it was true)..

"Dr. Hipps was in Halls Ill holding hands and occupying

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the same chair with an amorous fluzzy - a patient there. Dr. Vann came on the floor and was informed of the condition of things -he sits down at the desk, picks up the telephone and says, `May I speak with Dr. Hipps.' The telephone operator called, `Dr. Hipps! Dr. Hipps! DR. HIPPS! but

evidently he didn't hear so Vann turns to Wait and says go tell Dr. Hipps he is wanted on the telephone. So Miss Wait does as she is bid. Dr. H. snaps out, `take a message.' Wait

goes out and Vann says to tell him there is a lady to see him down in the reception room. Wait does as bid again. Dr. H. comes out and Vann and he go down in the elevator together. All Halls Ill lean over the banisters and look down to Halls I and Hipps goes into the Reception Room and looks behind all doors and under chairs and finally comes out and goes into staff quarters and calls up Halls Ill and asks who took his message - they tell him Vann did. However he recovered and was up to Halls IV holding a tee to tee and spit-swapping match with Dick within an hour's time.''

In a later letter she spoke of a new intern, "An Italian and the most scared and unsophisticated-looking infant you ever saw. He has been having a wild time on the bus (¢77¢4z£/¢7"c). It (£4c z.7££g77¢) had been off call for two

weeks and I guess it is trying to make up for lost time. He is never in, even to sign death certificates. He no more gets in than is called out again. Some half dozen attempted suicides, gas poisoning cases, pneumonia and criminal abortion cases and all sorts of accident cases."

The war, her co-workers, assignments and hospital gossip continued to be frequent topics as her letters reflect: In March 1918,

she wrote that the hospital had a Navy ward and the government had taken over the whole West Wing of the hospital, including the maids' quarters. In May 1918 Helena wrote, "We paraded in the Brooklyn Red Cross parade yesterday-the ambulance, Dr. Luongo, Ketchen and twelve nurses."

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"DEAR MOTHER''

June 1918 "Due to suspected air raid we are not allowed to have any lights on at night so it is a very good thing that we are using the daylight saving system. Though I don't see how any submarine, even though the Germans did build it, could be made to bring over an alr ship .... I an on my last legs financially, having broken a hypo and the crystal on my watch, and lost my scrub brush and cake of soap down the sewer, and various other minor items such as Sunday paper and a meal at the Old Colony."

Many rumors were flying and on the following day, she wrote, "There is talk of the entire hospital being taken up by the government and Red Cross on the 15ch which either means we become government employees or are transferred, so

perhaps by next month I will be drawing a salary from Uncle Sam or may be in some other hospital in the Eastern Atlantic states. But perhaps it is all a rumor - there's lots of talk everywhere and people panicky about subs."

One of the other students was in the pharmacy before her and she reported "Old Ransford," the female pharmacist we have, as being the worst gossip. "Rips every one up the back except for the one she is talking to. So expect to be well informed on hospital gossip and scandal." Of her experience in the Pharmaey she wrote, " At last I have attained the desire of my life -to sit on a high-1egged stool and concoct formulas and mix dope."

6/19/1918 "A week ago Friday night the Senior Class,

chaperoned by Nurses Hinkley, Duryea, Winter, Hancock, Hansen, Pierce, Metcalf, Richardson, Clark, Baldwin and June, journeyed to Carnegie Hall and, in uniform, attended the first meeting for the Red Cross Drive for 25,000 nurses.

There we sat and listened to what V.H. Belmont or Vinc Astor couldn't hear, for (there was) no admittance without tickets and only the profession could get tickets. There were 1500 nurses there. Going over, we ran into Brooklyn City and Long Island College at Grand Central and believe me, we made the men look small. Coming back, we filled all the

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Hollow Oak Cbrorizcles

trains -there was a marked minus of men -only about one man to twenty women and everywhere you rubbed elbows with a uniform. Cane back and, patronizing home trade, landed at our local refreshment shop at 12:30, thirty-seven strong. Bellevue turned in over a hundred."

She described the sight in Grand Central as a "sea of nurses in blue ca.pes."

7/21/1918Herclassmate,Lindy,

"had been separated from her appendix-some poor idiot had been fool enough to tell her that the abstracted appendage was still in a specimen bottle over in the nurses'

dressing room of the Op Room, and everyone who cane to see Lindy went under a course of persuasions to go over and get the animal. Well I succumbed better than the majority and proceeded to get the animal, but on the sane trip went to the lab and spoke kind words to Eddie Morgan and was allowed to take my pick from the specimens in the museum, the best of which I relabeled and presented with my compliments to Lindy."

9/2/1918 Helena spent a lot of time in the Operating Room and seemed to enjoy it.

"Dick and I were on call last night as they are not having any night nurse any more. Well I was sure there would be nothing doing so didn't even take a call gown and cap over to my room. Well I had just gotten into my sport togs and went out on the tennis court and ready, set, serve, Bert sticks her head out the window and says, `Van! Op Room,' so I sprints - it was an amputation but it took until eleven to get arranged. Then at twelve just nicely dozing away, Sarmen comes over and digs us out for a pus-filled appendix and to bed we go at 3:30 a.in. and the next moming old HH has us drug out at 6:30 for one of the most awful days in the history of mankind. Majors in the AM, chieftest of which was a `Lane' plate reduction of a fracture (£¢7zcP4zfcf avc7ic one of the first plates to be used in open surgical rede4ction of

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"DEAR MOTHER''

/zzc}z£7cj) , which had been trea.ted for six weeks without any good results at Coney Island Hospital. It took the old boy two and a half hours of good honest sweat and raised his disposition to the nth degree of devilishness." (4f a/e4i¢yr 4cr opinions of the doctors ctlme throttgh loud and clear)

"The New York City BOH (Bo¢#J a/f7c¢/£4), due to the war, a shortage of RNs - has given every approved hospital the opportunity to send two of their pupil nurses to fill the shortage in the settlements and on the BOH's district nursing committees. This gives the nurse who is chosen actual emergency nursing in the slums, besides a month's course on Social Service Work in Columbia College. The BOH, in cooperation with Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, furnishes our uniforms, books and tuition in Columbia and we come back to MEH for the night.

Methodist Episcopal Hospital doctors and ambulance, c. 1920.

Courtesy of Gretchen Huben.

=Eji=

Hollow Oak Chronicles

The only cost of us is carfare. Dick and I were chosen for December 1 to March 1. Dick and I were embracing like fochs:' ('Ibis was the begiming of Visiting ri;urse service)

9/15/1918 "In the Accident Room had a dippy patient who I try to talk pigeon Italian to. ( 7bc7¢j; z#c z#c z.72fgap7icfg7

fc7'"z.ccf }o Z#z72fdefg.)Funny, isn't it -profanity is the first part

of a language to be picked up. I can swear almost as good as she can. Luongo (intern) asks me what I an saying. I said I don't know but it sounds rather warm to me. I said that was what she called him."

9/27/1918 She recounted district nursing service to her mother

(evidently she had not replied in a timely fashion and was being admonished by her daughter).

"Have a district nursing service and employ graduate nurses

to care for the sick poor in their homes. They are very short of nurses due to the war demand and are asking the hospitals of Brooklyn and New York to help them out by allowing two of their nurses to take up the work for periods of three months. We are also given a course on Social Service work in Columbia University along with climbing rickety stairs in firetrap tenement houses and preventing drunken wives from brutally treating their husbands. We are allowed to carry a weapon and are officers of the law in that we are allowed to go anywhere through the shipyards, etc. without a pass. Besides, we have certain districts to patrol and attend to all cases of sickness that do not require hospital treatment.

The Long Island Hospital cooperates with the nursing service in our district and sends their interns out to prescribe for and treat the patients that we have in our charge. It is our business to carry out their orders." In this same letter she mentions the Spanish Flu Epidemic. "Suppose you have been reading about the Spanish Influenza - is there anyone around home got it? It is so widespread that all the hospitals have to treat it here. Do you remember my ever speaking of Dr. Chapman - he was an intern here last summer. He

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"DEAR MOTHER''

is in the Army now -a Major -was home on furlough and got the Spanish Influenza - they brought him here. As all cases do, he got pneumonia with it and is going out (c/yz.7¢g) I guess. Has been expected to die every minute the past week and been living on oxygen continuously. Some constitution to last as long as he has.

Miss Hinkley also has it and is not expected to live. (£4c z#as a 7¢z£/tz.7zg fz£Pc7nyz.for). Six nurses died of it in the Long

Island Hospital and one hundred sailors were moved off the receiving ship in one night.

So far we have been very fortunate in treating it, all having recovered except one and that one, poor old Chapman, and we may save him yet; having lasted this long as he has, he rn:ay quAI chlough yet:' ('Ibe Spanish hif uenza Epidemic of 1918 killed over 20 million |]eople worldwide. Heleria coritracted it berselfi her mother was notified by the Director

ofNur§ing) 10/10/18Herletterhomedescribedherexperienceofsuffering from the Spanish Flu: "Like a mixture of delirium tremens, St. Vitus Dance and pneumonia mixed up and passed around like measles. Those who have had it are shunned like lepers and those who haven't had it are wearing masks and getting their noses sprayed with various vile mixtures, each in themselves sufficient to kill you outright.

10/20/18 `Am in town and able to be about. Fred (classmate) is up again. She pretty near cashed in.

Sixteen went out in the past 12 hours but of course they were mostly city cases (indigent) brought in in the last stages."

10/30/18 "The flu is still raging, whole families going in bunches. Most of the nursing force is back on duty. Please

don't lay all the evils of the present administration at my door. I an not a Democrat. Send election returns please."

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Hollou) Oak Chroriicles

11/8/18 "I have made up my mind definitely as to my respect for different nationalities and say most emphatically three cheers for Italy. You go into the poorest Italian homes and, as far as cleanliness is concerned, one might be glad to eat off the floor. And no matter how poor they are they always have simply stacks of the most gorgeous table and bed linens. Sheets that would cover the biggest bed imaginable. Hand woven linen with deep embroidered borders and besides that a crocheted lace edge - often a foot deep. They are very fond of romance and try their best to concoct something between you and their doctor. I have one family who have tried their darndest to make their doctor and me meet at their home. They say, `Oh, yes, nice doctor, young, good looking, no wife. I tell you come at 10 tomorrow - then is when he come. I give you both some cake and nice Italian wine. Oh yes!' Then they all laugh a.nd say, `Oh you too modest and bashful."

11 /9/ 18 "What do you think of the peace rumors -caused

quite some excitement in the Italian quarter where most of the saloons and gambling houses are run by German proprietors. Over all the `Lager beer' signs headed by jaw breaking German names were hung Italian and American flags and the Deutsch bartenders were dealing out free drinks to all Little Italy to keep them from being mobbed and were

drinking to the health of wilson and Victor Emanuel til they were too stewed to pass out any more juice."

11/12/18 In regard to Armistice Day:

"New York has used itself up celebrating and is taking several days off to recuperate."

11/17/18 To her sister Clara:

"Hope the free drinks on peace day did not overcome

you. We went out on the Avenue after we got off duty but all Brooklyn had gone to New York so we merely got our shoes shined and went to bed. The flu epidemic is most completely over."

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"DEAR MOTHER"

12/30/18 Writing about MEH: "Hedwig (¢7¢o£4c7 72z#fc) says that I won't be able to get

anything after I finish, but she with 1 1 years experience is only getting $60.00 (a 77zo7££4) and a room, and I feel certain

that without moving out of my tracks I could get $75.00, a room and meals."

3/17/19 "You know Mrs. Baskin (¢7zo£4c7 7g#7tfc) that old

crabbed widow. Mrs. Baskin got a bawling out from Miss Hunt for carrying on a flirtation with one of the sailors -well nothing shocks me now. And one of the `'Iheda Bara' (fz./c7¢f 77zoaJz.c f}zz7') probs (Pro4¢£z.ozzc#) got sent off duty to

meditate for mushing with one of the interns."

• 4/19/19 0n her plans after graduation: "I still have 22 more days and then I will be a free woman

once again but what to do with my freedom, I don't know.

Guess I will vacate off and on most of the summer and then I shall take a course in Midwifery in Bellevue and Anaesthesia (£¢£z.7z fpc//z.7zg) somewhere else, etc. And then

go back to the wilds of Dutchess and practice Obstetrics - wouldn't the doctors be furious at having a mid-wife put in an appearance on the map."

Helena graduated on May 1, 1919, the valedictorian of her class.

The Baccalaureate Sermon was preached by Rev. William Davison and Pastor Grace from Methodist Episcopal Church, Brooklyn, in the hospital chapel. The graduation ceremonies were held at Greenwood Baptist Church, Brooklyn.

Helena continued working at MEH through the end of 1919.

10/25/19 "The American College of Surgery has been having Congress at the Waldorf Astoria all this week with surgeons from all over the U.S. and Canada. Tickets were issued to all the doctors to attend clinics at the different NY hospitals each day. It gave us twenty to thirty spectators to all the Ops each day, and the doctors carried as big days as

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Methodist Episcopal Hospital, Brooklyn, N.Y. Courtesy of Gretchen Huber[.

they could for the benefit of the audience. Consequently have been ha.ving about 16 majors a day" (772¢/.o7 J#rgr#.cJ).

10/27/19 "The Op Room has been very busy this week.

The surgeons having saved up a stack of their chronics for the Clinical Congress of Surgeons and having about 20 emergency ops come in."

11/19/19 "The actions ofwoodrow (P7icfz.Jc7¢f Wrz.4o72) and

the drift of prohibition caused quite an excitement among the doctors. Drs. Spence and Graham are good Republicans and ardent Prohibitionists. Dr. Fowler's a member of the GOP but a lover of John Barleycorn and Dr. Bogart a Democrat who will be happy when the damn stuff has departed for keeps. So we get all sides of the question and sometimes both sides at once."

Early the following year Helena started doing private duty nursing. ***

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"DEAR MOTHER"

Helena's letters captivated me. Nursing has had many changes in the almost ninety years since she started in the profession, but inherently things have remained the same. Nurses are still responsible for assessing patients and following physician orders, including treatments and medications. They no longer have housekeeping duties or prepare food trays or prepare medications.

These are the responsibilities of others. Medicine has made tremendous advances since 1916 but I saw references to things we still do and use today.

As a nurse, Helena was hard working, witty, intelligent, quite perceptive, and well respected by her peers. She was given responsibilities others may have balked at. She was a true leader in her chosen profession at a time when it was rare for a woman to work outside the home. She was not only ambitious but unafraid to take on new assignments and challenges.

It was an honor and a privilege to read her letters. My hat is off to her! She brought to life what it was like to live through World War I, the Spanish Influenza epidemic, Prohibition and Women's Suffrage. What she wrote was about her everyday life; what I read was a little slice of history.

SOURCE

Letters of Helena G. Van Vliet, Autumn 1916iAutumn 1919. Private collection.

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Go East, Young woman..

Helena Van Vliet in China Erica Blumenfeld

the daughter of George Van Vliet, a farmer, and his wife

Helena Garrison Mercedes Tremper.

Van Vliet Thewas second born of three December children,17, she1898, grew up in Pleasant Plains, New York, at Hollow Oak Farm. She had a.n older sister, Clara, who married but died young after the birth of her third child; her younger brother, Richard Henry Van Vliet, became a farmer like his father.

Helena was an independent, bright, strong-willed person who believed in her own abilities. She grew to womanhood at a time when most young ladies were expected to marry and raise a family.

While this was generally true, it was also the Jazz Age, the time of the flapper, the adventurer and the rebel. Ameila Earhart and Bessie Coleman had taken to the air, Margaret Sanger was advocating birth control, Margaret Bourke-White was taking unbelievable

photographs all over the world and the Navy's "Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service" (WAVES) was formed. This was a time when a determined, strong female personality could choose a path different from the norm.

Rather than choose husband and family, Helena decided to have a career. While she came from a family that seemed to support Ncfte:. The letters of Helena Van Vllet to her mother, while encompassing only

a faction of the Van Vllet collection, include letters from the early to tl]e rnddtweritieth ceritwry. Ms. Van Vllet did not date most of her letters so many Of the

dates are tdeen from the postmarks on em)elopes, when av¢tlable. h the quoted letters, her gr¢:iiiii:ii}iiar and word ttsage bare been retained, while her spelling and

punctud;tion bane been corrected fior the ease of the reader.

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GO EAST, YOUNG WOMAN

women's rights to a certain extent, most of society had a more limited view of the role of women. The career opportunities open to females were still very few. Helena chose the nursing profession.

She probably could have been a doctor if the same opportunities available to today's young women had been available in the 1920s.

While there were a few female doctors in the 1920s and 30s, it was much more difficult for women to be admitted to medical schools, much less develop successful practices.

Helena attended the Methodist Episcopal Hospital Training School for Nurses in Brooklyn, New York. This was a three-year course; in 1919 she graduated as Class Valedictorian. In her commencement address to the graduating class one gets a sense of the Helena to come: . . . Our motto, `Wither the fates lead,' gives us ample chance for diversification and some would say gives the chronic slacker (a) chance to blame her failure on the Fates, but this is not fair to either ourselves or fa.te; merely letting Fate choose your course does not necessarily make that course a fallure. This motto was chosen when most of us, and in fact the entire population of the country were watching, not only the effect of our Army and Navy on the War in Europe, but also wha.t our Red Cross Nurses and Doctors were doing

for that Army and Navy. If we had but graduated the week our Surgeon General issued his call for 25,000 nurses, I an confident that many from our class would have answered that call, but Fate had planned differently for us. While others volunteered their services, we were left to what we felt to be a very plodding and uneventful life. We had to complete our training and during the year that followed, the War which so raised the Nursing Profession in the eyes of the Public had come to a close and Fate had snatched away our splendid opportunity.... We part today, perhaps to be as widely separated as we were before the Training School of the M.E.H united us as one class, but with a short

glance into the future we see some of our members bound for foreign lands, following the call of Fate, while others the

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Hollow Oak Chronicles

M.E.H. seems to have woven a magic net about and they feel that life outside the protecting arms of their Alma Mater would not be alluring ....

Having chosen one of the few careers open to women, Helena made the most of her opportunities. After just three years a.t Methodist Episcopal Hospital, she and several fellow nurses traveled, unchaperoned, to a nurses convention that was held across the country in Seattle, Washington.

Making the trip in 1922 was no easy feat. First, they had to take a boat from Brooklyn to New Orleans. Then they caught a train to Houston, and from there to Sam Francisco and finally to Seattle.

The ship had no fresh water for baths, only salt water, so they didn't have a proper bath until they reached Houston several weeks after the start of the journey.

It was so unusual for young women to travel without a

ilEE.|iE 0 G.E3 A_M ...

_`

ilrvocATioN

suocrinhade8tRqu Jane-i I, Holmes, D.D.

Methodist Episcopal Hospital graduation program,1919.

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GO EAST, YoUNG WOMAN

chaperone that one of the older women passengers on the boat felt obliged to be the nurses' companion. "There is a dear old lady on board who is going to California to see her sons who has appointed herself my chaperone, not that I need it she says, but that she must have someone to look after." Uune 23,1922.)

Though her descriptions of the journey are few, we do know from her letters that the nurses took advantage of stops along the way for sightseeing. Helena wrote that New Orleans "is beautiful, queer, picturesque, and dirty." Texas obviously made a better impression as she describes in her letter of June 26,1922 "... running all day through the grazing land of Texas, endless mesas covered with sand boggy grass, cactus and yucca and all around on the edges of a flat table, lavender and rose colored cliff(s) like mountains built up like pyramids."

Details of the convention itself are not in the collection of letters that were donated to the Dutchess County Historical Society. In fact, after the trip to Texas there are no letters until two months after Helena made the return trip. We do know that trip took her through Reno, Salt Lake City, Chicago, and finally back to New York. 'Ihe entire trip seems to have taken about a month.

Back home, Helena continued with the day-to-da.y life of a nurse at Methodist Episcopal Hospital. It sounds somewhat tedious, the routine of tonsillectomies, childbirth, and bones to be set. Doctors she feels are, on the whole, a bunch of incompetents. In a letter to her mother dated February 2, 1923, she belittles the abilities of a doctor and proclaims that she cured a patient, convinced that if left in the sole care of the doctor the patient would not have survived.

Throughout her life Helena could not suffer fools and she seems to have met many.

She craved adventure and became bored in Brooklyn. Looking for another place to go, she traveled to Pennsylvania Dutch Country to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, but it was not to her liking. Through Dr. Hutcheson of Methodist Episcopal Hospital, she learned of an opportunity to go to China as a medical missionary. According to him, she related, "Nanking is the only spot on earth to live and he

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Hollow Oak Chronicles

can't wait till he gets back." He was taking his wife and four children with him. They would both work at University Hospital Nanking, which was connected to the University of Nanking.

Her letters begin discussing her interest in going to Nanking (now called Nanjing) on March 21, 1923; in April she is still thinking. By May 20, she has asked her family for proof of her citizenship. On June 6,1923, she let her family know that things were progressing smoothly toward her departure and that she has received her passport.

Unfortunately, the Dutchess County Historical Society does not

have the letters from Helena's family back to her, so we do not know what they were thinking about her trip or how they were advising her. By this time in her life, her family must have had a fair idea of her nature and seems to have supported her in her adventures. They must have known they were not going to change her mind.

In order to travel to China, Helena first had to take a train to Chicago and then one to Vancouver, Canada, where she had booked passage on the E77¢P7co a/:4rz.¢. Helena loved Vancouver. On August 8,1923, the day before she sails for China, she writes, . . . and if I were going to retire and didn't have that job in China, I certainly would go no further than Vancouver.

There is so much room for every body and every thing.

Stores are magnificent and cheap, and the trees, well,

you honestly would think it exaggeration if you didn't see them-cedars and red woods 200-300 feet high and frequently they say that they bring in a stick of timber into the mills 350 ft in length. Well tis simply this, of all the cities yet, Vancouver is the best.

For Helena to be so gracious and enthusiastic about another place is indeed a compliment. She was intolerant of places and people other than those that she was part of or familiar with. This is partly a product of the times in which she lived and partly personal inclination. Yet she did decide to travel to as exotic a land as China, a place very different than what she was used to. She sailed with the Canadian Pacific Steamship, Limited RMS E7%p7c+J a/J4Jz.¢, a

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freighter that also carried passengers. There are no more letters until September 2,1923, the day before she arrived in Yokohana, Japan. "I have been ha.ving a glorious time. So many such interesting

people aboard. A great many Chinese students returning home. . . they fascinate beyond words."

From Yokohama she traveled to Shanghai and then finally to Nanking by rail. Once she arrived at the hospital she went straight to work.

Tonsil and adenoidectomy-the child arrived last P.M. and this A.M. the surgeon comes pedaling his way up on a bieycle, followed by his assistant in a rickshaw and father and mother of the patient in a carriage without riders, said carriage having orange and red striped top and outriders wearing the sa.me stripe.1'11 say there is quite a bit of pomp connected with an operation of such magnitude here. I have 20 of the same caliber in M.E.H with no more color about than a red and white checked towel. (Letter #2 -some of the undated letters have been numbered.)

Her letters show few signs of homesickness, but she chastises her family in Letter #4 for not having written, and states that she is not living at the hospital but with Dr. and Mrs. Small. She writes somewhat comically, I was ready to vow never to write to any one any more ever, having heard from no one ever since I left almost 2 mo. Now of course, I know mails have been held up by the doings in Japan but Wilson, MCKinley and Lincoln are all in Shanghal now and I should think between the three of them they could do something about my condition so I am giving you all just 2 hrs more to redeem yourselves and then if I don't hear from you I am off you all for life.

Being a nurse in China probably afforded Helena more authority and power and more adventure than she would have had if she had sta.yed in the United States. Her responsibilities included being left in charge of the hospital when the administrators were

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away; teaching the Chinese nursing staff operating room procedures; fixing the electrical system; digging wells; searching for AWOL

patients and making sure the wards were run properly. Foolishness was not tolerated either by the patients or the staff.

Helena attended a Chinese language school to learn Mandarin because she wanted to teach directly, without a translator. Gradually she begins to feel more comfortable with the language and on February 23, 1924 she writes, "I can't imagine why I ever thought it sounded funny-it seems really very beautiful to me now." She even received a Chinese name -Ling Lie Dua- which means "honesty, ornamental and virtuous."

The situation in China at this time was precarious; the old dynasty of the Empress Dowager came to an end, for all intents and purposes, with her death in 1908. The resulting struggle for control of China involved various figures, among them Sun Yatsen and Yuan Shih-kai. Representatives of Sun Yat-sen held talks with representatives of Yuan Shih-kai, Premier of the provisional

parliament, who controlled Shanghai and the Northern Army. Both sides agreed that the overthrow of the Manchus (dynasty of the emperor) was imperative and tha.t Yuan Shih-kai was to be elected Chief Executive of the new republic. But on December 29 Sun Yat-sen was elected by 16 of the 17 provinces of the provisional government in Nanking. On January 12,1912, Sun stepped aside and allowed Yuan to become the President of the Republic of china, hoping this would help China on the road to recovery.

Things did not work out well. By 1914, Yuan was a dictator trying to restore the monarchy with himself as Emperor. Sun tried to remove him from office but did not find the support he needed, but opposition to Yuan was growing. All his enemies coalesced against him, his own military leaders began to distrust him, and foreign powers advised him not to restore the monarchy. He seems, however, to have died of natural causes in June 1916, deserted by his lieutenants and supporters. A period of anarchy followed his death.

The subsequent Chinese Civil War was underway and was to

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Map of China showing location of Nanking. Drawing by author.

last for the next forty years. In 1917, Sun established a military

government of the Republic of China. In 1920 he was elected President of the Republic of China. Although dissatisfied with the West and its exploitation of China, Sun began by asking for assistance from western countries in 1921. Receiving none, he turned to Russia even though he didn't feel Russian Communism would work in China. At first there was cooperation between the Nationalists and the Communists but it was not to last. When Sun Yat-sen died in 1925, he left no clear successor and his party was to divide into three factions, one pro-Japanese, another loyal to the

party ideas, and a third faction which, under the influence of the Communists, would result in violence.

Helena was in Nanking during a tumultuous and unstable time but her letters home only occasionally, and briefly, mentioned the situation and never in great detail. Perhaps she was trying not to worry her fanily, perhaps she did not feel that she was in any da.nger,ormaybeitwasjustaveryexcitingtimeforayoungwoman from Dutchess County.

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In a letter dated October 13,1923 she writes about Nanking, Nanking, considering itself the center of intellectual China, had quite a demonstration contra the New President on Republic Day, a feast of humiliation they called it, due to the Mexican method of his getting himself into office. There is something doing about here no one knows just what the military governor and civil governor (think), not actually agreeing in their opinion of the new factotum. But one could never anticipate such good luck as civil war, which would mean Shanghai or Hong Kong, as refugees, which would be a rare vacation at the expense of Great Britain.

There is no danger here at all, not a trace of a bandit and everything ordinary and formal, merely Chinese. There are at present 40,000 soldiers in the city, the military gov is for the Pres, and there are as many students who will uphold the civil gov and they are a much more stable character than soldiers. Oh for a bit of excitement but we are kept as ignorant as if we were in NY City.

Not afraid of anything, yet, Helena traveled around China, visiting different cities and regions despite the threat of bandits and war. Easter 1924 saw her in Shanghal for a change of clima.te and to stock up on necessary items. Although she has clothes made in China, she asks her mother to send her sheets and pillowcases from stores back home. She visits the Chinese Theater, the movies, goes shopping, and travels into the countryside.

For the month of August 1924, she travels into the interior to Kuling, loaded down with 75 silver dollars, because one cannot use paper money there. She also had to carry her own supplies, such as canned fruit and baked beans. She decides to take this trip during the worst flood in 50 years; again she is undeterred and with her companions continues the trip. Upon arriving at one location, she is told that she must depart immediately or miss transport of any kind.Sincetheyweretoldtheyhadtocarrytheirownbaggage,they re-pack down to the essentials; in Helena's case that is one pair of socks, a nightshirt, kimono and toothbrush.

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At this time there was a shortage of labor due to the military draft, so Helena and her group ended up walking down the road between rows of sleeping soldiers. When they reached their mountain destination they tried but were unable to hire a porter, "the fear of death was in their bones. The gov. had ordered them all out for his service and if they carried for a foreigner they would be beheaded." Eventually assistance was located and they climbed the mountain by starlight, not even the moon was available to them.

They "scrambled on up clinging to the rock walls to make certain we didn't get too near the precipices and tumble off."

By September the political situation has become more serious in Nanking. On September 10,1924, she wrote, You doubtless all think by this time what with the newspaper scare heads that we all have been ruthlessly slaughtered; however, it is not so and the only wa.y we will ever die I guess is by starvation. . .I hope you will be able to get this

and other of my letters and also that I may get some from you. I really can see no reason why they shouldn't be able to

get them out by way ofTientsin, but I an sure I would risk none of my valuables to the parcel post. 'Ihe city is under martial law, which means tha.t we have to keep off the streets after 9 P.M. and a few other minor inconveniences. Aren't they the dumbbells, right after the worst flood in years and in the face of a famine which is sure to come, all the crops having gone with the floods to start a war. Shanghai might just as well be New York, the chances we stand ever getting there in the next decade; the railroad, although they say it has not been destroyed, is one of the pet possessions of the Military so we are not using same.

The rest of this letter conveys no additional anxiety but talks of the boat trip back to Nanking and describes what she did while at Kuling-hiking and swimming. She is back to studying Chinese and working at the hospital.

In an unda.ted letter of 1925 she tells of being one of the few foreigners to be present as a cornerstone was laid at the memorial

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tomb of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen. She went with some Chinese women she knew (it seems no other foreigners were interested in going as they were afraid of anti-foreign sentiment). She found none but does mention a fight between students, one party interested in ideas from Russia and the other with leanings more toward the West.

At the hospital at least she shows no fear of the soldiers, in fact she takes charge with an iron fist. Her story of April 15,1925 is quite a tale, . . . The soldiers are a mess in the wards, as patients don't

give a hang for regulations and fight with the nurses and other patients, rows all the time, particularly petty officers telling you that you don't realize who they are etc., etc. and they think you are right crazy when you tell them that you don't care if they are Chang Tso Ling (a warlord) himself, that they will have to behave themselves or get out-they laugh in your face and you know (how) well I take having some freshy laugh in my face - well, things went along that way with spasms of rage every other day or so on my part till I decided I was making myself ridiculous, so I picked out a fellow who had been rather more than usually obnoxious and the very next time that he opened his mouth, which happened to be for my purpose a most unusual opportunity as it was such a row as could be heard from the cellar to the attic, without even mentioning his behavior to him got him his clothes and had him dumped out on the street and it so happens that it was but two days after he was operated on.

Well from that day forth they have been behaving better but they require frequent lessons as they seemingly are

polite only from fear, not from any natural decency. Then I fired a coolie and now I could be Supt. of the Hospital if I wanted to. I get what I want when I want it. I get on a high horse and tell them that if they don't, I will and they actually believe that I will.

By 1926 anti-Christian and anti-foreign sentiments were becoming more apparent. The late Sun Yat-sen's tenuous

governmental coalition became more totalitarian under the

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leadership of Chiang Kai-shek (who had been trained in Moscow but was anti-Communist in sentiment), and the political direction of Chou En-lai, a Communist.

Conflict between the Communists and the Nationalists grew the following year. Kuomintang leftists attacked foreigners and demanded a socialist revolution. In reaction, Chiang Kai-shek and Kuomintang conservatives formed their own government at Nanking in April 1927. With what came to be known as The ShanghaiMassacre,KoumintangarmyforcesledbyChiangKai-shek launched a merciless attack on their Communist allies in Shanghai and several other cities, executing thousands. Chiang became the Commander-in-Chief of the Na.tionalist Army and the Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Kuomintang. By 1928, he was China's new dictator and his government was recognized by Western

powers and supported by loans from foreign banks.

First class of female nurses, Nanking University Hospital,1929.

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The wars in China would not be over until 1949, when the Communists under Mao Zedong took control and forced Chiang Kai-shek to flee to Formosa (Taiwan). These conflicts affected Helena.'s life in varying degrees for as long as she remained in China. Interestingly, an official of the Nationalist Party would not visit mainland China again until April 2005, when Lien Chan, head of the Kuomintang ofTalwan, made an eight-day visit to China to discuss peace, stability and increased trade.

Not surprisingly, Helena's letters get a bit more scary during 1926. While life goes on for her, she begins to describe scenes of war, yet still reassuring her family of her safety. A letter of February 27, 1926 is a perfect example: the first part of7 this letter lists

the names and duties of the Chinese men under her supervision including Cheu Wang E, a school nurse who helps Helena in the operating room; Wang Wan Luh, head operating room nurse who is soon to be transferred to Nauchang; and Rau Chang Gen, who is to take Wang Wan Luh's place when he leaves.

She does go on to describe what its like with Northern soldiers and Russian troops coming into the city, Living has been very high here since the war, peticularly (sic) the last part now that we have been deluged with Northern soldiers and Russians who are eating up all the wheat flour, etc. in the city. A modest 300,000 begins to feel the strain when they are forced in addition to support an army of 10,000 outsiders who demand an entirely different brand of food etc than the city is accustomed to furnish. The Yangste Valley of course are rice eaters and could have more or less accommodated an army of the same brand but the Northern troops from Ta.ng tsin and Manchuria would eat nothing but wheat products. The Northern Army was filled with Russian mercenaries-they claimed to be White Russians who had been run out by the Reds and as an alternative to starving had joined the Chinese army. Many people however feel that they were Red spies who were attempting to get a foothold in China and spread propaganda. They were put in the front ranks of the army as they possess what the Chinese

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call a cZ¢7zzc, which being freely translated means (to) have more gall than the Chinese. Like the white race everywhere

they get more or less of a kick out of the excitement and gore, etc. and could therefore, when backed up by several hundred thousand Chinese, be anticipa.ted to carry the thing off with more dash than the Chinese alone.

The Chinese everywhere along the line were pressed

into service-coolies, shop keepers, students-everyone they could get hold of-driven in great herds like goats to do the dirty work of the camps and drag artillery, etc. into position. Nanking was the landing place on the south side and the Tientsin Pukow R.R. ran continuous troop trains in here. For days there was a continuous passing of soldiers through the city going out the Rising Sun and South gates, they passed within a hundred yards or our gate and in order not to have all our men snagged, they had to be kept inside the compound. They first met Chi's forces about 15 miles outside the city where they staged the first battle in a little villagecalledLungTau.Thewinterweatherwasnocheckon procedures, the soldiers were husky northerners who were used to considerable more cold than they got here and with the Russians ahead of them and Chan Tso Ling behind they stopped at nothing. Chi fled from the city about the last week in Dec. and his soldiers, left behind without leader or

pay and facing the rush on of the Northerners, looted and burned and plundered, carrying Nanking silks and silver and jewels along with them in tangled masses that would do themselves or no one else any good. The wounded cane into the hospital wearing diamonds and carrying hundreds of dollars. Most pleasing, knowing that you were helping a bloody villain who had doubtless murdered several noncomba.tants and smashed shop show cases just to hear the glass break. The police rounded up several scores of them andeachmomingforaweekaGuillotineperformancetook

place-they were beheaded in the street and left there as an object lesson till the dogs got too interested in wanting to lick their bones. We are not in the thick of the city but could see the fires burning all night where they had started

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to burn what they could not carry.

At no time have we been in any actual discomfort, just the horror of what was happening under our very noses to poor helpless people where there was no chance for retribution or justice.

We had about 20 Russians in here at one time-big blonde things that hung off the ends of the beds and Op table they were so long. The Chinese boys pulled their hair and mustaches to see if they were real-they always insist that blonde hair is false even though they have seen it a thousand times. Now with the coming of Spring, peace reigneth and the weather is heavenly (Feb. 27), good bye to chill blains and an icy bathroom. The boys have just

passed their National exam-that is the seniors-they all got honors-that is an average of over 85°/o in everything and they are most proud of themselves. Dju Dju Hwa has a stiff neck and I am sure it is for no other reason than from carrying a chip around on his shoulder and his head up so high that he can't see the end of his nose.

Now that all their classes are over they are allowed to study English and I am their victim. I sure get a great kick out of it--will send you some of their classics when anything turns up. I am sending you a picture of the school and will indicate my special pets by ear marks or some other designation. The trouble is my special crush is a different one every day and then each day I have an idol fall from grace by doing something peticularly (sic) naughty. I have

only had two that have weathered all gales-they are Wang An I and Hu Hong Fu. I wasted a lot of sympathy on Wang An I. A month or so ago his father forced him to marry a girl whom he had bought as a bride for him when she was an infant. I was all cut up about it but he has done a most sensible thing and gotten around the difficulty beautifully by falling in love with her after he married her-not so dumb Eh! However she is a beautiful, charming and well creature and he could have done worse if he had started out to look for one himself.

We have a Scot added to our ranks, a Miss Jeffery who is

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a peach although at times her English or Scotch is past our understanding. She pets and coddles Dr. Trimmer which takes a great burden off of our souls.

Sincerely

One can see from this letter that Helena was living under less than peaceful conditions but that she was not terribly scared. Life went on as usual with mundane as weu as amusing details. In August she took a vacation to Tsingtao, a place she visits often on trips away from Nanking. When she returns, she is a bit bored by the nonaction going on around her.

In October she writes home, "The only thing about this blooming war now is that I am afraid that it won't get here and that all the other guys will have all the fun and we won't get any of it." A number of her letters during the next few months describe the war similarly. She begins to believe that Communism is not for the Chinese, "the only salvation for China as a Nation and for National unity is in Canton, getting control and putting the Sun Yat-Sen business through." She did recognize that this would not be good for foreigners and that they would probably have to leave eventually. She hopes when the time comes she will have time to "change our underwear and pack our jewels." How prophetic.

From October on, her letters discuss the war and its possible politicalandeconomicaloutcomes.AletterdatedJanuary.31,1927 astutely analyzes the situation this way,

This present war is different than the other civil wars that have been popping up here and about, in that it is a revolution and whether it lasts one year or ten or twenty it will eventually cover the land, how much it will effect us all depends upon the anount of resistance that is put up when it reaches our particular bit. I am a Socialist at heart although anti-communistic and believe in a government for and by the people at any cost.

The lives of the people in Nanking are daily affected by the

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war. There are strikes, the mails are not running, no telegraphs, no trains, electricity is cut at night, boats are not sailing, and stores are closing early, some not opening at all. Several emergency bulletins are issued from the hospital administration which Helena includes in her letters, bringing the daily issues succinctly to light.

In February 1927, Helena further notes, Actual conditions in Shanghai are uncertain, the general strike was a protest jointly against the landing of the British troops and Sun Chuan Fang's troops' high-hatted manner in executions and conscription. Very deserved in both cases but inconvenient-this is a revolution and it behooves the foreign powers to keep their noses out of it. If the foreigners have to go, let them go, but for the sake of humanity don't let them try to stop something that has been needed for 500 years."

Helena's last letter from Nanking was posted March 3,1927.

It describes the war as being a mere 20 miles away from their back yard and goes on to say she hasn't received any mail in a very long time but life goes on just as before. The next communiques are from the University of Nanking to Helena's mother, Mercedes. The first, dated March 16,1927, declares that according to newspaper dispatches via London, American and British consuls have ordered their nationals to leave Nanking. A dispatch from the 18th of March states, "The whole of the staff carrying on; perfectly safe; many students left a few days ago on account of imminent fighting."

By March 25, 1927, the notice mentions particular people by name but indicates that the whereabouts and safety of those not mentioned specifically is unknown. Helena was not mentioned.

The dispatch goes on to say, "We take it that the cablegram further indicates that no word was available at the time the telegram was sent of the location and safety of any of the men of the staff and of other women and children at Na.nking. "Any further information and a.ny correction of this information will be sent forward as rapidly as it can be verified."

A notice of March 26, 1927 indicates that all University of

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Nanking staff are safe except Dr. J.E. Williams, who was killed and Miss Moffett, who was wounded. There is still no listing of Helena Van Vliet among the evacuated or accounted-for personnel.

Her father kept scrapbooks, one of which included an undated newspaper clipping listing Helena among the missing. Her family must have been frantic.

The next communique of March 29, 1927 states, "There are no foreigners at Nanking. Nine houses have been destroyed by fire.

All the others have been robbed of everything including hospital, middle school, language school. All foreigners have been robbed of everything-personal property (or effects). Many leaving by first opportunity; others awaiting developments." Still no direct word about Helena.

Finally, Mercedes receives the long-awaited, much-anticipated word in a letter dated March 29, 1927, from her daughter that she has survived and is safe: Dear Mother, There is no use discussing the details of our bust up but it may be well known that it is ra.ther thorough.

We got out with our skins but not much on them. I have often wished that I might loose (sic) my junk and start all over again and that is just where I am. This is true Communism-every fellow starts the race as he was made and on foot, no wheelbarrow or motor car handicaps. Am sailing for U.S.A. on first boat on which I can get sailings.

Therefore expect me within about 2 mo of present date

March 29-H.G. Van Vliet.''

Her next letter is dated April 5, 1927. She is on the E77¢p7cJJ a/ C¢7z¢47¢ of the same line as the boat on which she first traveled to China. She indicates tha.t they will be making a fast trip home so the boat can return and pick up more people leaving China. She makes light of the situation, wanting to take a "rest in a Capitalist infested country for a while and next time we endeavor to buck Bolsheviks . . . going to pack a six shooter and shoot first."

By the end of April 1927, Helena is ba.ck home with her family and has written to the Hospital in Na.nking to let them know she

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is safe. On April 23, 1927, a letter is written from the New York office of the University if Nanking. In it the writer mentions, "How thankful I am that you are home! I have just heard in a very vague way of all the personal hardships you experienced, especially what

you went through at the hands of the soldiers, I am deeply sorry to realize wha.t it must have meant to you all, and deeply grateful that your lives were spared."

There are no letters that describe the details of what occurred during the evacuation. There is a family story that describes Helena

burying a set of dishes, and cutting her hair short to pretend she was male, but we know nothing directly from Helena.

What we do know is that Helena came back home for a brief while and then went back to work in Brooklyn. By May 1927, she is again writing to her mother from Methodist Episcopal Hospital.

On June 3, 1927, she writes, "I an pretty weary from lack of action." On June 20, she complains, "Things very slow here. They say that they have a terrific business, etc., but all they can show me is statistics and no action." Her July 101etter indicates that she is thinking of going to Parkersburg, West Virginia. She has never heard of it but is looking at a job down there.

"Action" is what Helena craves as she tells her mother August 21, 1927. She has given up on West Virginia but still wants to find another job. She indicates that she is willing to go almost anywhere.

In the meantime, life goes on as usual, but then in June 1928 she receives a letter from, of all places, China Union Universities, which now includes the University of Nanking. They desire Helena to return to Nanking. If she decides to go she has very little time to get ready. They want her there by the summer. It should be no surprise that she decides to return. By August she is tra.veling back by rail across the country to catch a ship to China.

In December, a little over a year and half since she was forced to leave China, she is settled back in Nanking, and describes some of the differences in the city. Whole sections have been torn down and rebuilt, hills have been leveled and valleys filled in. She continues to write about daily life as well as bits about the political situation. In

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an April 8, 1929 letter, she lets her family know, "we have assembled all our possessions in an easy mobile condition and are prepared to

go traveling, if and when conditions approach our neighborhood," in case she has to flee again.

Wars loom in the background, but in typical Helena fashion she pushes on with the problems of running a hospital, as well as starting a nurses' training school for women, something new to China. She hoped to open the school on the first of November 1929. She is remodeling buildings, moving students around, graduating old students, receiving new students, dealing with the personal problems of staff and students.

There were two things she demanded: "One, that the nurses shall not go to bed with the patients, nor shall they dose themselves with opium or morphine, a.nd the other is that they shall not have an alcoholic breath while on duty." Sounds like she is in her element and not the least bit bored.

Mercedes received a letter from the China Union Universities, dated December 1 1, 1929, indicating that the situation in Nanking was again getting very serious. The letter states tha.I the American Consul advised all foreigners to leave Nanking and, as a result, the women and children are in Shanghai. The cable indica.tes that there is no cause for worry at the present time. Helena's letter does not mention any of this. She continues to perform her duties as well as take trips around the country.

Four years later, Helena begins to talk of leaving China. She doesn't give any particular reason but continually mentions that her Aunt Clara will journey from the United States to China and then travel home with her. On October 5,1933 she writes to her mother, "I have about decided that Aunt Clara. and I will be using the Prince or Silver Line on our way back next summer. They are freight boats with a limited number of passenger cabins, everyone that I know of who has used them is quite crazy about them. . . " November 15,1934 finds Helena and Aunt Clara approaching the Suez. Her letter indicates that they will travel to Naples and then visit Italy for two weeks and travel on to Halifax, Boston, and New

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York. They were scheduled to arrive in New York on December 23, 1934. She mentions that she will be bringing home two large chests.

These could be the two chests now owned by her niece, Gretchen.

Helena returned to Dutchess County and helped her mother raise Annetje, the daughter of her sister Clara, who died in childbirth. When Mercedes died of a stroke in 1945, Helena became Annetje's caregiver.

Life must have slowed down somewhat for Helena. There were no wars going on in Dutchess County. She continued nursing a.nd eventually retired from Vassar Brothers Hospital in 1963. Helena was regarded as an exemplary nurse by her colleagues and the hospital administration. Also in 1963, she applied to the Peace Corps and requested work in Southeast Asia, but for unknown reasons she did not go. Helena was a tough, no nonsense, dedicated nurse throughout her long career. Strangely, she does not seem to have discussed her time in China very much, but from her vast outpouring of letters, it seems to have been a very happy and eventful time in her life. She did so much at a time when there were few opportunities available to women. It is awe-inspiring to think what she might have done with her life had all possibilities been open to her.

Helena Van Vliet died in 1978 at the age of 79, just one week shy of her 80th birthday.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

John A. Harrison. C4z.72¢ Sz.7zcc J800. New York: Harcourt Brace 8C World, Inc. 1967.

Hilda Hookham. 4 £4orJ Zzl¢.ffory a/C4z.7z¢. St. Martins Press. 1970.

Letters from the Van Vliet Collection.

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Meeting the Granddd;ugbters Anna;tje and Gretchen Jane Dresser and Nancy Fogel

personality as a young woman, we did not have similar

Although materialforGeorge,nordidweknowabouttheirolderyears.

Mercedes's journals gave us insight into her Most of what we knew about about them came from old records that provided evidence of their activities. We knew what they did but not wha.ttheywerelike.Fortunatelyforus,twoVanVlietgranddaughters stiH live in Dutchess County and they agreed to meet with us.

Annatje Gilbert and Gretchen Hubert are tenth generation Van Vliets. They gave us information we could not have found in any other way. They let us see the fanily at work, the personalities of relatives we had come to know in our research, and what life was like on Hollow Oak Farm in the 1930s and 40s. They shared family photographs, clarified our misundersta.ndings, related stories that let us imagine the scenes. They filled in the gaps and more.

'Ihrough their eyes we could picture George in Devil's Den,

the name he gave to his study, surrounded by two thousand books and old documents. Ann told of Sunday afternoon drives to small obscure cemet:Cries where George added to his knowledge

of genealogy. We imagined a man of his stature and age would be intimidating to small girls and they agreed. He was a little "gruff," they said, and had a dry sense of humor they didn't always

understand, but the portrait they drew of him was of a generous man, one who would build a tennis court for his daughters, opened savings accounts for his three children and made it possible for them to go to college, a man who shared his wealth of Dutchess County history and genealogy with all who cared to inquire.

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Annatje v. V. Coon.

Gretchen van vliet.

Courtesy ofAnnatje Gilbert.

Courtesy of Gretchen Hubert.

We knew from Mercedes' journals that she liked children. Her

granddaughters told us of a well-loved grandmother, a kind woman who made tea parties for them of cambric tea and snow ice crean in winter, pink lemonade in summer, and gingerbread cookies year round. We had seen her sketchbooks in the collection and we learned from them that she continued to draw and paint. In the kitchen, canning and preserving went on all summer as fruit and vegetables ripened. Ann spoke of a special room in the cellar, the shelves filled with jars of food Mercedes had preserved. Gretchen reminisced about spending nights at her grandparents' house and of the soapstone warmed for her bed on cold nights; Ann told the story of being hustled into the kitchen by Mercedes when F.D.R. came to visit her grandfather. On a visit to the Hollow Oak Farm we saw the "classy outhouse" they described, with shutters and a slate roof, a 3-seater with another small seat for a child. It still stands in the

yard to the left of the house. We visited the flower garden Mercedes and Helena kept which the current owner says still blooms from early spring to late fall.

Through Gretchen and Annatje's eyes, we met George and Mercedes' children, their parents: Clara, Helena and Richard. Clara graduated from Rhinebeck High School in 1916 and went on to Oneonta State Normal School. She taught in a one-room school before her marriage to Homer Coon in 1922. Two sons followed, Garrison and Dirck; in her mid-thirties, Clara died from a serious

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MEETING THE GRANDDAUGHTERS

infection two weeks after giving birth to her daughter, Annatje.

Mercedes and George took her home from the hospital and ralsed

h er.

We got to know the high-spirited Helena, who also graduated from Rhinebeck High School in 1916 and entered nurses' training later that year at a hospital in Brooklyn. Helena, the most adventurous of the three children, did not marry. She worked as a nurse in hospitals in Dutchess County, New York City, and China (see the two articles about her.)

Lastly, we were introduced to Richard, their third child and only son. After a brief time at Eastman Business School in Poughkeepsie, he chose to return home to run the farm. In 1932, he was elected Supervisor of the Town of Clinton, as his grand fa.ther had been in the 19th century. He married Ka.therine Fink in 1934, and they had four children: Gretchen, George, Louise and Margaret.

RIchard purchased the farm from his father in 1937 and sold it to a developer in the early 1970s.

Annatje and Gretchen spoke of their own children, the eleventh

generation, and of their grandchildren, the twelfth. In the not-toodistant future the thirteenth generation of van Vliets will appear.

Annatje V. V. Coon Gilbert, Gretchen V. V. Hubert, 2005. Photo: Jane Dresser.

JJr/ -

Ree4ben Spencer-

Van Vhet Neighbor And Friend Jane Dresser Let Virtue AIL My Acts Coritrol. . .

-Excerpt from one of spencer's poems.

"In early days, the most needed professionals were surveyors

and builders. The surveyor marked his course by linemarker trees, usually oaks, and stone piles and streams. The builder did his own designing and layout and evaluated the building site for all necessary facilities, such as wells and roads. A surveyor of more than local repute, Capt. R(e)uben Spencer, who had accompanied George Washington on his exploration of the Ohio Territory and was a Revolutionary War officer, lived on Rymph Road and is buried in the family burying ground there .... " H!€hermva:nv]:uct, Clinto7i, A BZceriterunial Review

above had a son, also named Reuben, who contributed a fascinating series of letters, included in the Van Vliet collection. This article will highlight the Spencer-Van Vliet friendship.

In 1863, in the midst of a national Civil War, Reuben Spencer, nearing ninety years of age, found himself in the middle of a domestic war. He and his son Henry were contending with "one of the worst women that ever lived . . . " his son's wife, Diana. Ignoring the aches and pains of old age, Reuben stated his health was very good, and "we have plenty of all the comforts of life except domestic

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peace." He was thoroughly sorry he had left his friends and former neighbors in Dutchess County, and he strongly wished he had never left. He testified that although he had led a long and richly varied life, nothing had been as challenging as his current existence in rural Dane County, Wisconsin: "I have to attend to my own little domestic affalrs, such as rna.king my bed, washing my clothes, etc., but enough of this .... " Not one to whine, he finished his letter to his old home county with warm regards to his beloved friends. Having lived with Henry and Diana Spencer for nearly three years, he knew this would be his lot until he ended his days . . . and he was right.

Reuben Spencer was correct in saying he had led a richly varied life. He was born in 1774, on a farm next to the Van Vliet farms in Pleasant Plains, the oldest son of a Revolutionary Win veteran, Capt.

Reuben Spencer and his wife, Elizabeth Snyder. While he apparently had little formal education he thoroughly absorbed what was available to local youth from nearby ministers and rural teachers. Their positive influence was remembered with gratitude and fondness in the above letter, three quarters of a century after their lessons had been taught, as he sent his regards to "Mr. Hoyt for whom I feel great esteem. I frequently call to mind his little church on the River side where I was taught the alphabet." An adult life spent in many corners of the world gave Reuben's sharp mind a unique perspective on events in his native country in the middle of the nineteenth century, and his articulate letters to various Van Vliets are some of the most interesting documents in the Collection. Rather than illuminating the life of a Van Vliet family member, this article will focus on a neighbor who never cut his ties to those who helped shape his childhood and continued to enrich his life until it ended.

Like the Van Vliets, the Spencer ancestors settled somewhere else before moving to colonial-era Dutchess County. While the Van Vliets sailed north on the Hudson River from New Amsterdam to reach Kingston and later Dutchess County, the Spencers took a land route.

Their lineage traces back to Jarrad/Gerrard Spencer and his wife, Hannah Hills, who emigrated from Bedfordshire, England about 1630, settling first in Cambridge, and then in Lynn, Massachusetts,

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where Jarrad and his brother ran a ferry. By 1660, Jarrad and his family

joined another brother, Thomas Spencer, in Hartford, Connecticut, a town Thomas helped found. Within a year Jarrad himself became a founder of Haddam, Connecticut, where he lived for the remainder of his life.

Several generations remained in that area before Jonathan Spencer (1704/05 -1788) and his wife, Content Platts, decided to

move to Dutchess County, New York, Jonathan was a veteran of the French and Indian conflicts, being a member of the Connecticut militia in the mid-18th century. Family lore sa.ys that the marches through upstate New York influenced his decision to remove his family to New York, perhaps coupled with promising reports from a Spencer cousin living in the northern portion of Dutchess County. They moved in the early 1750s, with Jonathan holding several official positions in Beekman Township during that decade and the next.

Jonathan and Content's son, Reuben, born in Connecticut in 1739, grew up in Dutchess County and married Elizabeth Snyder in 1766. In the early years of conflict with the British, Reuben was an ensign in the Dutchess County militia (1778), becoming a captain in 1780. He was called by that title for the rest of his life.

He held several official positions such as overseer and assessor in the later years of the Revolution, even overseeing Dirck Van Vliet's area

when Dirck, as a loyalist, had to leave his farm and remain behind British lines.

In 1790, he appears to have journeyed to England, returning with two pairs of silver or pewter pitchers, emblazoned with the Masonic emblem and this verse: "To judge with candor and to speak no wrong, The feeble to support against the strong, To sooth the wretched and the poor to feed, Wil cover many an idle foolish deed."

One pair went to Frederick Uhl, father-in-law of Levi Van Vliet and the other to Robert G. Livingston, fellow founders of -100-

REUBEN SPENCER

the Clinton Masonic Lodge. One of Frederick Uhl's pitchers was inherited by George S. Van Vliet, his great-grandson.

At age 67, Capt. Reuben Spencer was riding not far from his home when his horse threw him, causing severe injuries. He died shortly after being carried home. His wife died the following year, and they are both buried on the old Spencer farm, now along Rymph Road.

As Helena Van Vliet stated, Reuben was a surveyor as well as a farmer. At least one of Reuben and Elizabeth's eleven children

picked up where the father left off. This child, also named Reuben, was born in Dutchess County in 1774 and married Mary Eames (1781 -1829) in Clinton in 1805. Mary was the daughter ofJesse

and Dorothy Child Brown Eanes of Staatsburgh, New York. This Reuben recalled fondly his eady lessons at the church "on the River side," but perhaps the promise of the Hudson River was more enticing than the farming and surveying talents he learned from his father. Spencer family researchers state that Reuben also becane a

Graves of Captain Reuben Spencer and his wife, Elizabeth Snyder Spencer, 2005.

Photo: Jane Dresser.

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captain, but in this case, a sea captain, who sailed both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. He was apparently very successful, as he is said to ha.ve been a merchant as well as a ship owner. But whether it was losing ships in the British embargoes in the early 1800s, or the

pleas of his new bride, Mary, Reuben left the sea trade and returned to Dutchess County to raise his family. Reuben's youngest brother, Jonathan Spencer, was lost at sea shortly after Reuben married Mary Eanes, and perhaps that added to the young bride's fears of Reuben's occupation at sea.

Reuben and Mary proceeded to have nine children: Caroline 1808-83, married Rev. George Benton Edwin born c.1809 -?

Reuben 1810-25 Henry 1812-91 Mary 1814-20 Jesse Eanes 1816-98 Ezra 1818-20

Mary Elizabeth 1822-60, married James 0. Freeland Julius born c.1828-81

Young Mary and Ezra both died in 1820 and were buried in St. James Episcopal Cemetery in Hyde Park, to be joined five years later by their brother, Reuben. Reuben and Mary Spencer had been confirmed as adults in 1814 a.t Christ Episcopal Church in Poughkeepsie and the family seems to have kept that religious connection. When Mary Eames Spencer died in 1829, she was buried with her children in Hyde Park. The oldest child, Caroline, married an Episcopal minister, George Benton, who conducted his ministry in rural North Carolina. Son Jesse became a noted Episcopal minister, historian and author and was buried at Trinity Church Cemetery in New York City, joining his sister, Mary Elizabeth Spencer Freeland, buried there with her infant son, William.

Jesse Eames Spencer had been named after his maternal grandfather, Jesse Eanes. He later changed the spelling of his middle

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name to Ames, but was usually known by his initials J. A. Spencer.

Jesse wrote an autobiography late in his life, which ably described his fa.ther, and their family life in Dutchess County: My father, Reuben Spencer was a man of marked traits for good service in this world.

He was intelligent, I think, beyond the average of his day, fond of reading, and acquired a fair education, especially in mathematics, which he greatly liked. If he had been allowed the privilege of a college training, he might, I an persuaded, have achieved an honorable place in literature or science. He was industrious, gentle-mannered, temperate, thoroughly honest, and withal a sincere Christian .... Reuben, my father,

(was) born March twenty-second, 1774. He seems to have developed at an early period a taste for sea life, and a desire to gain some of the advantages of successful voyages and trade with foreign countries. This led to his becoming a sailor, and I have often heard, in part at least, of his varied adventures in far away voyages to both European seaports and places in the Pacific Ocean. My father was a Mason, and

Map and survey by Reuben Spencer,1819.

Gift to DCHS in memory of clyde Mcwillians.

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Hollou] Oak Chronicles

he used to mention the fact that, more than once, on the coast of china and elsewhere, his being a Mason was of the greatest service to him and his shipmates. By industry and perseverance he came in due time to own his ship and two or three other vessels, and was in a fair way of making his fortune. But troubles with England and France, in the early

part of the present century, brought distress and virtual ruin upon large numbers of those who were engaged in maritime enterprises. Nearly all my father's earnings, gained by toil and exposure to the risks of the sea, were lost in the period before and during the second war with England in 18121 5 . At my mother's urgency, a few years after her marriage, September twenty-first, 1805, my father abandoned sea life, and set to work to earn a living on shore. This he did at first at Hyde Park, my native place, then in Poughkeepsie, and afterwards in New York City. Though he never attained to wealth, he was able to gain a competeney sufficient for the support and education of his family. Of him it can truthfully be said that he lived up to the Apostolic injunction, `Owe no man anything, but to love one another.' (Ron. xiii, 8) even to the day of his death (1864) .... "

The Spencer family moved to Poughkeepsie in 1823, then on to NewYorkCitythreeyearslater.ReubenbecametheofficialSurveyor and Civil Engineer for the City, working there for almost twenty years. His sons may have worked as apprentices in various printing shops during this time, as two later became newspaper publishers or printers in their adult lives. Son Jesse, later to become a minister, indicated he left school in his mid-teens to work at a print ship in lower Manha.ttan for two and a half years-one suspects an older brother or two also worked there. Jesse later worked as an assistant to his father, but by 1833 he had returned to school, determined to enter the ministry.

Reuben's wife, Mary Eames Spencer, died in 1829, perhaps close enough to the birth of their last child, Julius, to have had complications from childbirth. He brought his wife home to

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REUBEN SPENCER

Dutchess County to bury her with their three young children at St. James Cemetery, then returned to New York City to raise his children on his own. By the early 1840s, during a cholera epidemic in the City, Reuben had had enough and returned to Dutchess County. Shortly after that, Reuben retired from surveying and moved to rural North Carolina to live near his eldest child, Caroline, and her family. Caroline's husband, George Benton, conducted his ministry in Rockfish, Cumberland County. Reuben apparently lived with or near his daughter's family until about 1856. Son Henry was living in New Orleans, daughter Mary Elizabeth married a Royal Navy officer and was living in England, and Julius was in Ohio, publishing a newspa.per.

From the time Reuben Spencer first moved to New York City, he kept up a consistent correspondence with his friends and former neighbors. Reuben enjoyed poetry, and several examples were given to and kept by various Van Vliet family members. The earliest example is a poem written by Reuben at the death of Rachel Van Vliet, daughter of Cornelius and Helena Garrison Van Vliet who died in 1810, a young woman engaged to be married. Reuben inscribed that the poem was meant to be sung by the family, so one

presumes he had the tune of a hymn in mind as he wrote, . . .Rachel -my child -my sister come, We all are plung'd in grief.

0 this is but a dreay home, Where ev'ry eye does weep.

Come children - Brothers sisters come, Let this a warning prove, Soon we must go, where she has gone To endless realms above.

In 1848, he wrote to Levi Van Vliet's older brother, Cornelius,

from North Carolina after hearing of the death of their father, Cornelius:

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It was with the deepest regret I noticed ... the death of

your venerable Father. You have lost a kind and affectionate father, and I, (with many others) a highly respected and exemplary friend, but doubtlessly he is removed to a supremely more happy State. I know him well from my early

youth, he was about 14 Years my Senior -consequently we were not actors on the sane Stage of youthful amusements, he was married when I was about 8 or 9 years old, and his was the first Wedding I recollect. Young as I was I retain a bright recollection of th®e admira.tion I then felt for your worthy mother - as a young Bride I thought she was the most amiable and lovely -Time has been steadily traveling on and thousands and millions have been called away, while he has been spared to a good Old age, like a Father in Israel he has long been a Patriarch in his family and neighborhood and one of the prominent pillars of his beloved Church. He has now gone to his Rest - fallen asleep - doubtlessly in the full faith and assurance that he will arise to life Everlasting, at the Reserection [sic] of the just. When I parted with him last September it was a Solemn Farewell -a firm belief that we should meet no more on this Side the Grave. . .

Age is a sad and weary State No sensual pleasures emulate To soothe decaying natures dooms But conscious Virtue will always The painful ills of trembling age And smoothe our passage to the Tomb.

Conscious Virtue - 0 my Soul!

Let Virtue all my Acts control In peace and Love and Piety;

'Ihen on the verge of life 1'11 sing

0 cruel death "Where is thy Sting 0 Grave, where is thy Victory!"

He continued on to describe his voyage south after his autumn visit with the Van Vliets, with the ship foundering off Cape Fear but -106-

REUBEN SPENCER

all passengers surviving. He enjoyed telling the Dutchess County farmers that the thermometer in his room in February occasionally registered 30 degrees but more often was in the mid-60s, and he and his daughter's fanily were currently planting the gardens. He declines in that letter to comment on the political situation, "For Such a confused and entangled State of affairs into which our

present administration have obstinately involved themselves is a Labyrinth; too dark and intricate for an honest man to meddle with!" Included with his letter is a poem, presumably written about Cornelius Van Vliet's death.

Strangers I knew him even from my Youth And noted every Stage His soul was firm in Gospel truth Through all his pilgrimage.

And they rejoic'd with parting breath In hope and faith and joy 0 let me die the Christians death And join the Saints on high.

Duringthesummerof1853,ReubenSpencerjourneyedbackto Dutchess County, visiting with Levi Van Vliet and his family, which included Henry R. Van Vliet, age 20. Henry was in the process of

applying to academies of higher learning and when he returned to North Carolina, Reuben wrote a letter of recommenda.tion for him, On a late visit to my friend Levi Van Vliet Esq. in this Town I had the pleasure of examining into the mathema.tical Studies of his Son Henry R. Van Vliet. I found him well acquainted with Geometry, Trigonometry, Mapping, and Rectangular Calculations for the accurate contents of Lands, and have no doubt, with a little practical use of instruments, he will be a competent Land Surveyor. I would therefore give him my cordial Recomdation. [sic] R Spencer, late Cfty Surveyor and Civil Engineer of the City of N. York.

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It would appear that the academy Henry had in mind was not quite ready to accept him as a student, for three months later Reuben Spencer began a series of letters to Henry directly, which always included geometry problems to test his mathematical abilities. The letters that were preserved in the Van Vliet Collection begin in January 1854: I have been waiting as patiently as possible until this time hoping that some one of You would take the trouble of writing me a few lines, that I might know whether You all remain still in the land of the living. But, as my patience begins to waver, And I begin to doubt whether you are not all in a torpid state or perhaps paralyzed by your extreme co/J z4Jc¢£4c7 I thought I would rouse you by another short Epistle putting you in mind of old acquaintance and former

good fellowship and Now in plain terms, I do assert that I feel great anxiety to hear how you all are, Particularly your worthy and much respected Parents. I left your father in a Convalescent State, just recovering from a severe and dangerous sickness and I Have never heard a syllable from him or any of you Since!

He comments on his health a.nd that of his son-in-law, fighting respiratory problems but still able to preach and teach.

I suppose you are taking your pleasure S/cz.g4 rz.Zzz.7¢g and

buffeting with the Snow Banks, that kind of pleasure (if it may be called such) we are deprived of, we have had no snow here yet, and but little ice, and the weather at present is mild and pleasant - This is certainly a more comfortable climate in Winter than yours. But that is preferable in summer.

He hopes for a letter from Henry when "convenient," sends profuse greetings to various friends and adds, "You will find enclosed a few Practical problems for your investigation and amusement. . . The (problems) will be sufficient to puzzle you for a month or two." The arithmetic problems are illustrated with -108-

REUBEN SPENCER

perfectly dra.wn geometric shapes, and the phrasing of the first problem is in rhyme.

Capt. Spencer wrote to Henry again in March, grateful for his response to the mathematical problems and concerned about Levi Van Vliet's continued poor health. His own health had been remarkably good, and he "begin(s) to think of "being on the wing again like a bird of passage, taking my flight to the north. But as in three days more I shall be 80 YEARs Old, the idea of traveling a thousand miles by Sea and land may be thought preposterous and it is very uncertain and precarious. You may see me in Old Dutchess again possibly but probably not." He had lived with his daughter for many years now, and although it would seem that Rev. Benton wished to be assigned to a new and larger parish, his health limitations continued, making a move very unlikely. Reuben felt he could not permanently come north, as Caroline's family needed him there. But he had not left his intellectual challenges behind: "My principle amusement this winter has been the investigation of problems applicable to Civil Engineering, and I have (perhaps in my own conceit) made a good many useful discoveries, particularly on the general application of the curves, both horizontal and vertical, which is very important in all necessary calculations by the Civil Engineer. I will give you a few of them for your amusement." Six

problems follow for Henry to solve, and Reuben adds that he could forward another 100 but feels the six will be "sufficient for the present.,,

In July, he wrote to Levi Van Vliet that the weather had been very challenging and his son-in-law was still in precarious health, hence he had given up hope of journeying to Dutchess that year, from several circumstances I gave up the journey - The weather has been so extremely hot for the 6 or 8 weeks that I hardly dared venture out exposed to the Scorching Sun andyouwouldhardlybelieveitthatfromthissecludedspot it costs more trouble and hardship to get to the Seacoast at Wilmington, than all the rest of the journey, and then we heard that the Cholera was raging in N York which would

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Hollou) Oak Chronicles

seem a presumption to rush right into it. When seriously reflecting on my advanced age and the great uncertainty of a continuation of health and strength + though I should be sure of being among good friends, I should not like to be too great a burthen to them, and added to all these, rather discouraging considerations, My dear Daughter and her lovely little girls attached my feelings so affectionately and with such powerful persuasion that I yielded to be content for the present where I an. Still hoping that if we are Spared anotheryearwemayallremovetotheNorth....Tellmybest friend Mary your wife that I never shall forget her kindness to me and that there is no one in the north I should be more glad to see than her, and my dear old last remaining Sister Anna (Spencer Carpenter)! Give my best love and respects to all your family and our Old friends especially - and most

particularly to my young Mathematical friend Henry. Tell him to persevere in study. `A self taught man is worth a dozen syncophants' and a Washington, Clay, and Filmore Standhigherthanmanyofourhighlylearnedspouterswho keep our Legislature Halls in confusion. (Those and the

great Dr. Franklin were self taught-) . . .

In December of 1854, he wrote to Henry directly, chiding him a.t not corresponding, but including three legal size sheets of paper containing geometry problems, teasing, "some of them would

perhaps be too difficult for you-." Henry took the bait, sending a letter back within days of Reuben's letter. Henry had apparently stated that he was pursuing another branch of study and Reuben surmises it was in the Classics field. He was somewhat dismissive

of this study, but admits that, You are just in the Situation I was at your age. I had a great anxiety to be a Classical Schollar, my father was opposed to it (on account of the great expenses at that time) and the little practical use it would be to me. By perseverance in teaching School I raised a little money. Sufficient to enter the Accadamy [sic] at Kingston (Esopus) and I felt pretty sure that as I progressed my father would help me along, -110-

REUBEN SPENCER

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One of the geometry problems Reuben Spencer senttoHenryVanviiet.

at that time (1797) this was perhaps the best Accadamy in the State, well endowed and Organized in Charge of a Mr. Smith a good man and competent Teacher. After being there about a week, One evening after dismission Mr. Smith called my attention with pa.rticular enquiries, as to my future objects and pursuits and in the most kind and friendly manner said, that unless I was bent on preparing myself for some profession, it would be hardly worth my while at my age (about 21 or 22) to attempt the tedious Studies of the dead languages. Saying he had discovered that my talents were for the Mathematics and he would advise me as a friend to put my whole attention to a good English Education, and the various branches of Mathematics and Algebra. I took his Advice and have never since regretted it. My Ma.thema.tical knowledge-practicallyapplied,hasgivenmeadecentliving.

And yet (perhaps more from vanity than usefulness) I should have been very glad to have been a Classical Scholar. This is

an Old Story-apply it as you think proper.

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Hollow Oak Chronicles

He noted that Henry had indicated some insecurity abut being in competition with "Older Surveyors." Reuben comforted him, remarking about several Dutchess County surveyors, including Henry's deceased older brother, George, that The principle Surveying or indeed almost the whole in those old Countries is the devisions of lands as the population increases and young families spring up. There must be Subdivisions of the lands, and this, to be accurately done in all cases, is the most difficult branch of the Science. It requires more than running a few lines and guessing at the result! In the little enclosed paper, you will observe a case No 2. Also No 3, and hundreds of such cases will continually Occur.

He recognized that boys were due a childhood, but bemoans tliose who never quite mature into manhood, being "mere Puppies all their lives."

Hardly more than a month later, in February 1855, Reuben

complained to Heny, I feel a little disposed to find fault with you, in your neglecting so long to write to me. I must enquire into the cause of this long silence on your part. I promptly replyed to your last letter offering any thing I could do towards your progress in mathematics. I hope I did not offend you in jesting so freely on perpetual boyhood and childhood to old age. I certainly meant no offence or no personality, you must excuse us of the last generation, should we express an idea far behind this age of progression. We have all been boys in our youth.

He then offered a clue to his view of the Southern economy for the first time:

This is certainly a more comfortable climate than NYork, the extremes of heat and cold are less here, and it would be a desirable State to live in if this Soil was equal to yours and if all the Negres were in Africa, it is Negro-labor that -112-

REUBEN SPENCER

ruins these Southern States, and if the abolitionists will keep

quiet 8[ say nothing about Slavery it will destroy itself in a few Years. 'Ihat is, if we can prevent its extension in the new Teretories.

Reuben indicated tha.t he was spending the winter making a key to Pierce's 4/gg4„zz for his daughter and son-in-law to use in their teaching capacity. "This is a new treataice on Algebra by 8. Pierce, Professor of Astronomy and Mathematies in Harvard University and it is the most comprehensive of any I have seen. Tis now the Class book in all the Academies 8c Colleges. I meet with some problems that tries my Old head pretty severely." He felt it unlikely that he will ever see "Old Dutchess" again, as the Bentons were well settled in, with both Caroline and George working as teachers, and the low cost of living and mild climate is in their favor." He sent another four problems to Henry, and begged for informa.tion from "the

place of my nativity," asking about births, deaths, and marriages, and sending his greetings, I have traveled far and seen much of the vanities and jostling scenes of life. I have made many critical observations in my journeyings through the world, I have seen Vise (sic - vice) in all its haggard Shapes; and mild Virtues Smiles!

And though vise may triumph for a Season, it will prove a canker to the Soul at last, and Wealth oftimes prove a curse to its possession. I have now arrived nearly to my journies end; and looking back on life I an convinced that virtue and piety with a humble resignation to the Will of Providence will give men lasting happiness here, 8c hereafter, than all the (pomps?) 8c pride of the World's Sensual enjoyments.

His letter to Henry on 28 April 1855 commented on the poor management of the local post office "ever since I resigned it." At age 81, he was still active and contributing to his local community, "we are now making an effort to have it better Organized in the

future." He regretted to hear from Henry that Levi was still "an invalid, confined to the house," saying that must be very difficult -113-

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for an industrious man like Levi. He applauded Henry's comments a.bout Dutchess County politics, saying that the whole country seemed to be waking up to the dangers of "foreign influence" and Romanism, reflecting the concern at that time about immigration.

He was watching foreign events with interest, sure that the victims of yet another prolonged European war would soon need American products: The times are hard and gloomy and will remain so as long as this savage war among the European Despots lasts. A War to establish monarchy on a more prominent basis!! It behooves the farmers throughout our land to produce all the Bread Stuff and other provisions they possibly can -not only to provide Starving and desolating Europe, but the care for the thousands 8c millions among ourselves - under the existing circumstances should this great war continue. A Short crop in this country would be alarming if not ruinous, the great Supply from the Danube being Cut Short. Their only reliable Source is this Country.

The sheet of mathematical problems with this letter were phrased in farming terms, as Henry has indicated he had completed school for the year and would now commence to concentrate on the farm. Henry did not write back for over a month, and Reuben chided him about being too busy farming that he was ignoring one of the occupational advantages, Burnes was a farmer, and at noon (spells?) and evening moon light he wrote some of his best poems! If you could but realize it there is no occupation in which a man has more time for meditation and moral improvement that the cultivator of the ground. He is but the `nurse' - Nature does the principle work, and while Nature is finishing and completing your labors you have ample time to improve

your own talents. I could tell you a long story of my own experience when young, and a farmer, striking long furrows on the Old farm South of you. I was the plough-boy, and many a long imaginary tale I have Spun out, at the tail of -114-

REUBEN SPENCER

the plough. Visionary enough to be sure But Stimulating my mind to look forwards to something more enterprising 8c exaulted. I have made long voyages at Sea - discovered new islands - like Crusoe 8c (Sumanirs?) became a little Sorvere;Hgn over rrry secl,1nded profrmce, ALll tit the tall of the I,10ugb,.

He remarks that the European war continues unabated, with millions needing to be fed, as "when all are subject to be called out for soldiers there can be but few agriculturists!"

During a rainy day in Dutchess County, Henry responded to Reuben's letter, and Capt. Spencer immediately responded on August lst. He loved to receive Henry's farming reports, for I like to hear something from my old native hills and vallies and the view of your Fathers present Farm with its Short history is quite interesting for I see in the little nook to the South the place of my birth 8C juvenile days where I labored with brother (as you do now) to improve 8c cultivate the soil. And 0 that my father had been spared to Execute his Wrz.// I might possibly have been there at this day, But doubtless the ways of providence are all just and right.

He commented that he wished the bloody European war would end even though it enriches the farmers, and ridiculed the politicians who use temperance laws for political gain. Henry apparently commented, concerning immigration, that if life was good where people live, they would not be tempted to move - but Reuben reminded him that "the Young Swarm Should leave the Old Hive," and had that not happened in Dutchess County for the past 50 years, how crowded would he be? He enclosed a copy of the semi-monthly newspaper edited by his son, Julius, in Clevela.nd, Ohio, and encouraged the Van Vliets to subscribe, as the paper included much "interesting matter, particularly on Agriculture and general Scientific improvements." The arithmetic problem he included with this letter was written in the style of the Cleveland Advertiser. He also commented on a small corn mill belonging -115-

Hollow Oak Chronicles

to his North Carolina neighbor, which could be powered by any source: steam, water, horse or mule. He recommended that Henry and his farming neighbors consider this portable mill, "if only to grind for the stock. I am persuaded it would pay for itself in a few years in savings . . . "

Henry apparently expressed great interest in the portable mill, and described other agricultural pursuits to Capt. Spencer. Reuben was greatly pleased, and he responded in September,1855: I perceive you are not ashamed to be found at work, unlike our Southern nabobs who think it disgraceful to spoil their delicate hand by labor. Their maxim is that Negroes only were made for Labor and consequently the scanty Corn bread they get to eat depends on the stringent 8c unwilling labor of the Negro who has no Stimulent or ambition to producemorethanwillkeephisownSoulandbodytogether and thousands of them do not accomplish that. I know several planters here who have 4 or 5000 acres of land and 50 or 60 slaves, and are obliged often to buy large quantities of provisions to keep this Biped Stock from starving! It is a sad picture for a free and wealthy Country - but it is so - while Slavery exists in any country, the lower and middle

class will continue in poverty and their moral condition scarcely a step above the Negro slave! Dr. Franklin did not think labor was a disgrace 8[ he personally set the example and said, `He that by the farm would thrive, Must either hold the plough or drive.' Dr. (Mapes?) and a number of other philosophically practical men have observed, `That no country or community where lal)or is held in contempt can flourish.' It naturally verges into j47izffocfl¢ay and Slfz72fo772.

The K17¢oow IVo£4z.72g or American Party, I discover is going to

be Shipwreckd on the sane craggy rocks that have almost (and eventually) will destroy the union! There is already two distinct parties; the Northern and Southern Know Nothings and the first object of the party; (to guard against foreign influence (particularly Popery) seems to be lost Sight of -116-

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REUBEN SPENCER

- That (Cursed?) Slavery question creeps in, and destroys

the Unity of every party. The South would sooner give up all their rights to the Roman Catholics both of soul and body than they would give up their §±a][es! And office seekers of this new party, like the old ones, will call in the aid of foreigners - even the Slaves of the PQpe to run them into office. This is a Sad view of the virtue and Patriotism of our leading Men, but it is too true!

The War in Europe and Asia seems to be increasing in Magnitude and Violence, it is one of the last and most desperate Struggles of Monarchy against the liberties of the oppressed communities and I have always thought it an unrighteous and unnecessary War Supporting the Turk against the Christian, and Suppressing Liberty, wherever it attempts a foothold!

A month later, Reuben again wrote to Henry, expressing his

appreciation for his relay of "much interesting information from my native and favorite State of New York." Reuben subscribed to the JVcav %7i¢ 1%fty rz.77gcf and kept aware of the agricultural

statistics from Dutchess County, including the substitution of rye in place of poorly producing wheat crops. He continued to regret the violence in Europe, assuring Henry the only purpose was for the political leaders to "rivit the chains of Despotism, more firmly on (the people's) Bodies and minds." He feared an expansion of warfare into Asia and Africa, and hoped desperately that the United States would escape the conflict.

As for local conflicts, he observed that politics seemed to be breaking up and rearranging new groups: The Old Whig party prostrate, and Democracy knocked into an Old Coc4cJ4¢f. Next year must tell the tale! When Gen. Pierce, (either for himself or some particular favorite) will come out with all that Bravery he exhibited in the Mexican War and probably by stratigim or deep intriguing poliey will carry the day.

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Hollow Oak Chroni,cles

He did not forget the mathematical reason for corresponding with Henry, teasing him that it would appear his farming endeavors were eliminating Henry's interest in geometry. Nevertheless, he included a "few little puzzlers," which he claimed would be more productive to Henry tha.n the games of Chefs or Whist. He also indicated that perhaps some of the problems would be beyond Henry's reach - surely guaranteed to entice a quick response from the student!

His next letter was dated Christmas Day, 1855. Henry had returned to school and liked his instructors. Ever the Surveyor, Reuben warned him about accepting theories without testing their practical use. In order to prove the practicality of algebra, Reuben included a few problems for Henry to see how they related to the fields of surveying and civil engineering.

He could not let go of the practicality of algebra, using several mathematical terms to describe his view of the current American political situation:

I perceive by your account the Empire State is politically and up into an irregular Pentigon, having one Side ±a±d, one side SQfi and One Ttmperate, the other 2 of a Salient nature. I am glad that the dominant party are united on opposing the extension of §±a][§ry. That curse to the peace and prosperity of our Common Country. See the present Situation of Kansas! But I fear after all You will send more Douch heads

tocongress,toquailtosouthemchivalry.TheDorfuhead in the White House depends on Southern Slave holders to support him and his administration, and with his influence he will most probably carry the day - no matter what the consequences, should Slavery even be extended over the Whole Union! If (Locofocoism?) can keep in power! You will say, I am rather warm on this subject. I have seen too much of the blighting influence of slavery to be otherwise.

Pride and poverty go hand in hand with the Slave and his Master and very often (though kept in ignorance) The Slave is the Man of the better Sense! . . . Tar, pitch 8c Turpentine is the bread, mea.t and drink of the Wtalthy Slaveholder and -118-

REUBEN SPENCER

the poorer White and black Slaves - the cultivation of the Soil is of but little Object if, On the largest plantations they raise com and sweet potatoes sufficient to feed the Negroes, it is doing Well. And thousands of the best lands in the Sta.te lay dormant from cultivated owned by the Slave Wealthy AIstocracy!

Reuben noted that Christmas Day was spent very differently in the South than in Dutchess County: .... (Christmas Da.y) is not much thought of by the Old Stiff Scotch Presbyterian here. It is quite different from tha.t when I was a boy on the Old Farm adjoining you. When your

Great Grandfather kept a tavern in the Old Stone house (now demolished). When on Christmas 8c New Years holy days - We used to take a little Hot toddy to warm the inside 8c Cheer the Spirits.

He noted that Henry hoped to enter a school at Claverack soon, and he recommended a Professor Davies as a teacher both learned and practical. He also voiced a hope that he would be able to visit Dutchess County during the following summer.

Capt. Spencer's letter to Henry in February of 1856 indicated that Henry was indeed attending the Hudson River Institute at Claverack, and that Levi Van Vliet had written to extend an invitation for the summer, "Come On in June 8c remain for at least 3 months. I have horses and Carriages and time as I cannot do much work now all at your disposal."

Reuben says it would not be appropriate to send any mathematical problems, as Henry now has ."1ega.I professors," but he cannot resist, and draws out one geometrical problem. There was also room for a short political commentary, "I understand they have a.t least elected a Speaker in Congress. The free Soil republica.ns have

carried the day ('Ihey are not all douch heads this Winter.)"

It would appear that Reuben Spencer did indeed journey to Dutchess County the following summer, as there is a poem da.ted July 1856, written in Clinton and given to Mary Van Vliet. It would -119-

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appear he wrote it about his own wife, Mary Eames Spencer, who had died in 1829 and was sharing it with his similarly-named hostess.

Mary A sacred name - by all reverr'd The Mother of our Lord!

And distant lands the herald heard The Gospels glorious word. `AIl nations Shall proclaim `A blessing on this 72¢772c.'

Oh Mary is a blessed nane!

'Ihe dearest name on Earth.

Years of pleasure and of pain She shar'd with me - `til c7ci¢£4.

She shar'd my sorrows and my grief My anxious cares through life; And when no friend could give relief I found it, in My Wife,

It is unclear how long Capt. Spencer remained with the Van Vliet family, or whether he returned to North Carolina with his oldest daughter. One would guess that he did not, as the 1860 Census noted him in the Rhinebeck home of his youngest daughter, Mary Elizabeth Spencer Freeland. The Census was taken in the early autumn, and Mary Elizabeth had died in April of that year, so the household contained her husband, Capt. John 0. Freeland, 48, still working with the Royal Navy, and their (presumed) son, R.H., age 6. In addition to Reuben, Caroline Spencer Benton's son Robert, age 18, and a student, was living in the household.

Reuben's son, Henry Spencer, was living in Dane County, Wisconsin, for the 1860 Census, with his wife, Diana, and a young servant. It would seem that Capt. Spencer left Dutchess County

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shortly after the Census was taken, moving one last time to live out his days with this son. Henry Spencer was a farmer, apparently without children of his own, and his elderly father was no longer able to write letters on his own. The correspondence to the Van Vliets did not continue until September,1863, when Reuben was able to prevail upon a kind neighbor to write a letter on his behalf.

W.R. Romain lived about a half-mile from Henry Spencer's home, and was willing to accept letters to Reuben at his address, as any sent to the Spencer home would apparently never reach Reuben.

The September letter acknowledged that Mary Van Vliet had written twice in the nearly three years Reuben had been in Wisconsin, for which he was very thankful. Unfortunately, Mr. Romain had been very busy that summer and was just now able to take the time to write a letter in return. Reuben sald his health was very good, which was fortunate, as he had to attend to all of his own needs: "I have now been here about three years during which time we have had as many as twenty maid Servants - none of which staid over two months - the last staid twenty four hours." Nearing his 90th birthday, he bemoaned the challenges of his son's home, which underscored even more how much he missed his friends in Dutchess County. He sent greetings to all of them, specifically Mr. Hoyt, Dr. Platt, and the Frost fa.mily. He discreetly added a plea to Henry, "if he is satisfied that I was of any service to him in instructing him in surveying, etc., he may slip me one of uncle San's Green Backs of a very small denomination."

Mary apparently wrote back to Romain in December, offering to send some cash for Capt. Spencer's needs, but the letter was delayed until late spring. Romain immediately wrote back saying the funds weregreatlyneeded.AletterthenextmonthwasdirectlyfromW.R. Romain to Mary Van Vliet, indicating he had received the $5.00 bill, which he would turn over to Capt. Spencer immediately, I saw the old man about a week ago he called at our house.

I am his nearest neighbour, about a half mile from his Son's house, unfortunately for the old Gent. I do not and cannot visit him, his Son's wife has such a very bad character that no -121-

Hollow Oak Cbronzcles

person except a stranger would venture upon the premises.

The Old Gent is gaining his strength again this summer, he

gets at our house about once a week during good weather, he retains full possession of his mental powers, his Sight and Hearing are quite weak. I fear he will not Survive another winter. He knows his end is near, but views the coming change Philosophically and satisfactorily. He is very unfortunately situated. His son's wife is a desperately bad woman, she treats the old man shamefully as also her husband.

Romain noted that Reuben was again interested in a military conflict, this time in his own country. Romain tried to keep him up to date on the status of the Civil War, and noted that Reuben hoped to live long enough to see the country restored.

In July 1864, Romain wrote tha.t Reuben was doing poorly and felt he would never be able to make the walk to Romain's home again. Reuben asked Romain to forward his gratitude to Mary Van Vliet for the funds, with which his neighbor intended to purchase additional wine, sugar, crackers, etc. for Reuben's needs that week.

Reuben once again forwarded his regards to his old friends, saying he knew his end was near and he was glad as he was ready for it.

On December 22, 1864, Romain wrote to Mary Van Vliet that Reuben Spencer had died the previous Monday at midnight. The Captain had gone to his attic room as usual, but awakened his son with a thump of his cane on the floor. By the time Henry arrived upstairs, his father was dead: The good old man is now beyond the reach of that Fiend, his Son's wife who omitted nothing to make him miserable.

With the money you sent him I purchased two Bottles of Wine the first of which she Druged with Bitter allowes, and the second she stole. This winter she allowed him no Stove in his room, nor a sufficient Covering on his Bead. She delighted in Tormenting the poor old man, and his Son had not the Manliness to protect his Father. There were but six persons at the Funeral, so vile is this woman that People will

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not visit the House on any occasion. The Old Gentleman many times talked of the many social Cups of Tea that he had enjoyed with his good friend Mrs. Van Vliet and always expressed his regrets of having left his Friends.

Romain included an inventory of the items he purchased with Mary's money (wine, bitters, sugar, crackers, candles, apples) , which totaled $3.70. He asked for her instructions as to what to do with the remaining $ 1.30. He told Mary that Diana Spencer had already spoken ill of him to neighbors, reporting that Romain had collected funds from Reuben's friends which he used for his own needs, rather than Reuben's, so Romain asked Mary. to sign a receipt and please allow him to return the remaining portion to her, rather than give it to Henry Spencer.

In conclusion I will mention that the old Gentleman retained perfectly all the powers of his mind to the last day. He walked as erect as a man of thirty years, was at all times very sociable and cheerful. He had no fears of Death but viewed it as a happy occurrence to one ready to meet it, which he felt he was.

Capt. Reuben Spencer, interred in Forest Hill Cemetery (now in western Madison), may be the only member of his fanily buried in Dane County, Wisconsin, as Henry a.nd Diana Spencer joined Reuben's son Julius in Cleveland by the 1870 Census. Henry was again working as a printer. By 1880, they were in Brunswick County, North Carolina, perhaps near sister Caroline Spencer Benton, and Henry at age 68 was still working as a printer. No children were listed in any census for Henry and his wife, Diana.

Reuben Spencer left more than a few literate and poignant letters in Dutchess County. His work as a surveyor, pursued after his initial seaborn endeavors were set aside, left results lasting to this day. Mary Van Vliet's grandson, George S. Van Vliet, noted that a bound book of surveys by Reuben Spencer, dated from 1820-21, were left in his possession. In it Reuben delinea.ted all the townships

of Dutchess County, dividing Clinton, Hyde Park, and Pleasant -123-

Hollow Oak Cbrorizcles

Valley for the first time. The only townships not currently still in existence were Wappingers and East Fishkill, which were laid out after Reuben's time in the county. George Van Vliet noted that the drawings were so precise and accurate that disputes that arose between townships and land owners on the borders could easily be resolved by referring to Capt. Spencer's drawings.

George Van Vliet also noted the influence upon the vocations of both his father, Henry, and his uncle, George, in surveying. That the Van Vliets considered Reuben Spencer a beloved and respected member of their extended family is apparent by the retention of these informative letters from Capt. Spencer over a period of several decades. Their presence in the Van Vliet Collection give a glimpse of the country outside Dutchess County during a most critical time in our history, and testify to the strength of friendship forged among Dutchess County neighbors.

NOTES

Paul Schaefer, Editor, C4.72£072L. 4 Birc7¢zer272Zfa/ Rea+i.ccc;, Town of Clinton

Bicentennial Committee,1975.

Van Vliet Collection, letter of Reuben Spencer to Van Vliet finily, dated September 14,1863.

Ancestry.com Online source for census information and some Spencer fin.ily ancestry information. (Subscriber service.)

Access to Database-First Settlers of Connecticut and Massachusetts: Genealogical Notes and Contributions, New Orleans, LA: L. Graham and Son, Printers,1899.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Notes from The Town of Clinton, an address given by George Van Vliet before the Dutchess County Historical Society annual meeting, June 4, 1941, Dutchess County Historical Society Year Book for 1941, pp. 55-57.

Trinity Archives, online source: archives@trinitywallstreet. org. ]esseAm!esSpence;I,MemorabthaofSixty-faJeyiears,1820-1866(Ale:wYods, Thomas Whitaker Publisher,1890), pp.13-15.

Ibid.

0# G7zzc;cffo7zcT a/D#£f4ef:I Cog"gr JVccy %#4, Editors J. Wilson Poucher, M.D.

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REUBEN SPENCER

and Helen Wilkinson Reynolds, (Poughkeepsie, New York, Collections of Dutchess County Historical Society, 1924.)

Spencer file in the Van Vliet Collection, Dutchess County Historical Society.

Letter dated November 10,1853, Spencer file.

Other sources:

New England Historic Genealogical Society, Register 29:306, Register 85: 34, Register 131: 45, Register 13: 146, 344

Database: 'Ihe Great Migration Begins (information about 'Ihomas and William Spencer)

Various online websites for family history information: Trinity Church Cemetery online: archives@trinitywallstreet.org

Forest Hill Cemetery, Madison, WI, online: klange@cityof Madison.com (Reuben Spencer's grave is in Section 1, Forest Hill Cemetery, Lot 48 NW1/4.)

Inscription: Reuben Spencer, b. Dutchess Co, NY, 1774 -d. Fitchburg, Dane Co.,19, Dec.,1863. Mistake on the gravestone death verified as the certification of burial was 5 January 1865, which would have been done shortly after the burial.

http://dxsrv4.cpl.org/Webz/Authorize?sessionid=08thext=/html/ obit.html&dbchoice=1:dbnane=necr&bad=html/authofall.html&style=nofra me for death information about Reuben's son Julius and his wife, Hannah.

Ancestry.com for census information and some Spencer family ancestry information. Access to First Settlers of connecticut and Massachusetts.

J. Devlin at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/-jdevlin/source_files/ spencer.htm.

Haddan, CT, town founders: http://haddan.com/tucker/gerrard_spencer.htm.

Spencer family researchers: George Spencer: winger 1 5 @adelphia.net

Tom Gull: tmrgull@msn.com Michael C. Spencer: michaelspencerl ng@hotmail.com

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Conclusion

AI the erld of the project, we all had tbottgbts about the Collection:

The Van Vliet Collection is rare in that we have so many diverse types of objects from one family. Their paper records, which include letters, maps, deeds, wills, receipts, diaries, daybooks and journals, give researchers a multi-sided view into this Dutchess County fa.mily. It is much more complete than if only the daybooks were saved and not the letters. Will future collections be so complete?

Will families collect the e-mails that are sent between members?

Do they contain the same kind of detailed information that handwritten, three-page letters contain?

I certainly hope so, because through the Van Vliet Collection I feel as if I have gotten to know them, in some cases better than members of my own far-flung family. I an truly grateful and wish to express my thanks to the Van Vliet fa.mily for the contribution of their archives to the Dutchess County Historical Society so that we can make this treasure trove available to the public.

-ERICA BLUMENFELD

± During the year spent inventorying and archiving the Van Vliet Collection, I was continually humbled by the realiza.tion that I was being given a clear glimpse into the lives of people who helped form Dutchess County and build its character as well as its physical structures .... (They gave me) an a.ppreciation for those who left us such wonderful records of lives well lived, extended families well

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CONCI.USION

loved, worthy endeavors enthusiastically pursued. The Van Vliets were just "regular folks," but it is such people who formed the world we inherited.

'Ihe letters from Reuben Spencer are priceless reflections of life

outside Dutchess County at a time when the very country was in danger of splintering apart, and yet provide a poignant picture of an individual man who gave much to his world, yet received so little at the end of his productive life. Friendship, both within the family and among neighbors, was strong and enduring-an example to emulate a. century or more later.-JANE DRESSER

± For myself, the value and challenge of a project like this is to bring people to life who lived in the past, using hundreds of pieces of data saved over their lifetimes. It is like doing a puzzle, fitting the pieces of evidence from old records and objects together until a personality or a period of history emerges.

I felt a strong connection to the Van Vliets. Though we were separated by almost a century and by cultural and technological realities, the differences were of less importance than the similar human emotions we shared.-NANc¥ FOGEL

±

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Jesse Effron,1915-2004 Jesse Effron, died on September 2, 2004, just shy of his 89th birthday. Born in Poughkeepsie, the son of Morris and Sarah Effron, he was educated in local schools, was salutatorian in the Poughkeepsie High School Class of 1932 and went on to graduate Magna Gum Laude from Harvard University in 1936. In 1974, he received a Masters Degree in Library. Science from SUNY Albany.

He served in the United States Army Air Force 351S[ Bomber Group during World War 11 and achieved the rank of Captain.

Following discharge, he returned to Poughkeepsie and with his wife Lee, formed The Three Arts-a bookstore that has served legions of local residents and members of the Vassar College community.

The Three Arts was aptly named as Jesse's memberships in a variety of cultural organizations and his wide host of friends reflected his interests in art, music, history and the theater and literature will testify. The Bardavon, Hudson Valley Philharmonic, Barrett House, Poughkeepsie Day School, Mid-Hudson Civic Center and Dutchess County Historical Society are a few of the local groups that drew his interest. Local artists, musicians and authors, among them Tom Barrett, Olin Dows, Lewis Rubenstein, sculptor Ludvik Durchanek, and Nancy Willard were frequently featured in the store.

As a long term member of the Society and its Publication Committee, Jesse could always be counted on for wise advice based on his business experience, knowledge of publishing practices, and marketing techniques. Jesse had an extensive knowledge of county history. He alwa.ys knew who or where source rna.terial could be found.

He was the author of articles for the Year Book. His suggestions for articles and authors for the Society's most recent publication, FDj34f f7o772c, was his last fine gift to the Society.

In 1987, Jesse Effron received the Dutchess County Executive's Arts Award for his contributions, and in 1999 the Society was

privileged to present Jesse Effron with the inaugural Dutchess Award for his excellence in the field of local history. Jesse firmly believed the words of Lewis Mum ford, "To learn the abstractions of history and never to learn the concrete reality is to throw away local bread under the impression that imported stones are more nourishing."

Jesse's absence will be keenly felt.

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Dutchess County Historical Society Post office Box 88 Poughkeepsie, NewYork,12602 Telephone 845-471-1630 Fax 845-471-8777 e-mail: dchistorical@verizon.net STAFF

Eileen Hayden, Executive Director Erica Blumenfeld, Director of Musuem Services Stephanie Mauri, Research Coordinator Larry Miller, Bookkeeper OFFICERS

Werner Steger, President, Poughkeepsie 2006 Richard Birch, Vice President Development, Poughkeepsie 2007 Barbara Van Itallie, Vice President Program, Poughkeepsie 2005 Mary Ann Lohrey, Treasurer, Poughkeepsie 2005 David Dengel, Secretary; Poughkeepsie 2005 TRUSTEES

Marguerite Berger, Hopewell Junction 2008 Rosemarie Calista, Poughkeepsie 2006 Stephen Cole, Poughkeepsie 2008 Donna Kinnear, Amenia 2007 Colette Lafuente, Poughkeepsie 2007 Steve Mann, Rhinebeck 2008

John Pinna, Poughkeepsie 2007 Patricia Prunty, Pleasant Valley 2008 RIchard Reitano, Poughkeepsie 2005 Fred Schaeffer, Poughkeepsie 2007

Joan Smith, Hyde Park 2005 George Stevens, Poughkeepsie 2008

Holly winlberg, Poughkeepsie 2007 Margaret Zamierowski, Hyde Park 2005 ADVISoR¥ BOARI)

Michael Gordon John E. Mack, III Timmian Massie Marcus Molinaro May and Frances RItz Lorraine Roberts Peter van Kleeck COMMITTEES

Black History, Collections/Exhibition, Development, Finance, Membership, Nominating, Publications, Dutchess Award and Road Rallye, Silver Ribbon Tour,

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Statement of Revenue 8c Expenses December 31, 2004

Revenues:

Investment Income Membership & Other Support/Gifts/Grants/Donations Fund Raising/Silver Ribbon/Dutchess Award Historical Publications Genealogy/Sales 8c service/Auction

Transfer In from Investment Accounts

Total Revenue

$620.83 $12,370.00 $86,643.58 $35,371.49 $1,564.29 $4,080.53 $7,000.00

$147,650.72

Expenses: Payroll/Benefits

$53,946.58

Insurance Utilities/Maintenance Office & Security Miscellaneous Expenses Historical Publications Affiliations/Professional Consultants Genealogy/Sales & service Museum 8c Library Fund Raising Capital Improvement

$10,857.42 $1,546.86

Transfer Out to Investment Accounts

$46,600.00

Total Expense

IrJ,5n1J2 $9,211.43

$2,231.33

$4,994.03 $230.05 $6,631.26 $1,467.10 $122.10

$145,209.88

Net

$2,440.84

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Municipal Historians of Dutchess County COUNTY HISTORIAN

(vacant) CITY HISTORIANS

Bcijzco7¢, Joan Van Voorhis, One Municipal Plaza, Beacon, NY 12508

JVo7iz:4 Eas£, Diane 'Ihompson, Acting Historian, 518-789-4346 Pzzz#/z.7zg, Robert Reilly, Town Hall, 1160 Charles Colman Blvd., Pawling, NY 12564 Pz.72c Pdez.7zf, Elizabeth Potter, Acting

Pottgbkeepsie(yaJCAIID

Historian, Town Hall, Pine Plains, NY

ToWN HISTORIANS

12567 I?/cizzfzz7zf Vzz//ey, Olive Doty, Town Hall,

4772c72z.a, Kenneth Hoadley, Town Hall, Route 44, Pleasant Valley, NY 12569 Po#g4¢aprz.c (Town) , Jean Murphy, Amenia, NY 12501 Town Hall, Overocker Rd., Bcc4772¢7z, Thorn Usher, Town Hall, 4 Poughkeepsie, NY 12603 Main St., Poughquag, NY 12570

I?ciJ ffoo4, J. Winthrop Aldrich, Town C/z.7zfo7¢, William MCDermott, Town Hall, 1375 Centre Rd., Rhinebeck, NY Hall,1095 Broadway, Red Hook, NY 12572

12571

Doz;cr, Donna Heam, Town Hall, 126 East Duncan Hill Rd., Dover Plains, NY 12522 E4ff Fz.f44z.//, Everett Lee, Town Hall, 370 Route 376, Hopewell Junction,

jz4z.7¢c4ccle (Town) , Naney Kelly, Town

Hall, 80 E. Market St., Rhinebeck, NY 12572 j24z.7¢c4cc4 (Village), Naney Kelly, 76 E.

Market St., Rhinebeck, NY 12572 Sfzz7¢/o#zJ, Dorothy Burdick, Town Hall, NY 12533 Fz.f44z.//, Villa Skinner, Town Hall, 807 Route 82, Stanfordville, NY 12581 rz.z;a/z., Bernie Tieger, Town Hall, 96 Route 52, Fishkill, NY 12524 Broadway, Tivoli, NY 12583 Fz.j44z.// (Village) , Karen Hitt, Village U7¢z.o7¢ Vz/c, Joann Miracco, Tymor Hall, 91 Main St., Fishkill, NY 12524 Park, 249 Duncan Rd., I.aGrangeville, Z7/lc7c I?zzr4, Margaret Marquez, Town NI 12540 Hall, 27 Albany Post Rd., Hyde Park, T%Z!?z.7zggr (Town) , Janice Hildebrand,

NY 12538 £¢G7zz7zgg, Georgia Herring-Trott,

Town Hall, 20 Middlebush Rd.,

Town Hall, 120 Stringham Rd., LaGrangeville, NY 12540

Wappingers Falls, 12590 T%j!?z.7zggrr F#/4 (Village) , Brenda

fl4lz.de7¢, Patrick Higgins, Town Hall,

Von Berg, Town Hall, 2 South Aye.,

Route 199, Red Hook, NY 12571 jl4lz.//b/oo4, David Greenwood, Town Hall, Merritt Aye., Millbrook, NY

Wappingers Falls, 12590

12545

12545

lyzf4z.7zg}o7z, David Greenwood, 5 10

Sharon Turnpike, Millbrook, NY

A4l¢.//crfo7z, Diane Thompson, Acting Historian, 518-789-4346

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Historical Societies of Dutchess County Amenia Historical Society P.O. Box 22 jhaenia, NY 12501

Historical Society of Quaker Hill and Pawling, Inc. P.O. Box 99

Pawling, NY 12546 Beacon Historical Soceity P.O. Box 89

Pleasant Valley Historical Society P.O. Box 309 Pleasant Valley, NI 12569

Beacon, NI 12508 Clinton Historical Society

Egbert Benson Historical Society

P.O. Box 122

Of Red Hook

Clinton Corners, NY 12514

P.O. Box 1813

Dover Historical Society N. Nellie Hill Road Dover Plains, NY 12522

Red Hook, NY 12571 Rhinebeck Historical Society P.O. Box 291

East Fishkill Historical Society P.O. Box 245 Hopewell Junction, NY 12533

Rhinebeck, NY 12572

Ro o sevelt/Vanderbilt His to rical Association P.O. Box 235 Hyde Park, NY 12538

Fishkill Historical Society P.O. Box 133

Fishkill, NY 12524

Stanford Historical Society Hyde Park Historical Society

P.O. Box 552 Bangall, NY 12506

P.O. Box 182

Hyde Park, NI 12538 Union Vale Historical Society LaGrange Historical Society

P.O. Box 100

P.O. Box 112

Verbank, NY 12585

LaGrangeville, NI 12540 Little Nine Partners Historical Society P.O. Box 243 Pine Plains, NI 12567

Wappingers Historical Society P.O. Box 974 Wappingers Falls, NY 12590

Town of washington Historical Society North East Historical Society BcfAIJTJ Millerton, NY 12546

551 Route 343

Millbrook, NI 12545

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Dutchess County Historical Society Books Available for Purchase

FDjzj4f Ho77zc Naney Fogel, Editor $20.00 Eleanor Rooseueh.. A Hudson Valley Remembrance

Joyce C. Ghee, Joan Spence 19.99* History Of ponghkeepsze Fidmundp+a:tt 2,5.00 Neui Perspectives ori Pottgbkeepsie's Past (T98;7 Y[en Boal!) Tf J .00

Tranof br'matiortt of An American Coi#rty.. 'Ibe I;erceri;terindal Papers 2!0.00

Portrait of A Colorrial Businessu)oman H!enry Casstdy lo.I JO 18tb Ceritwry Documents of the Nine Partners P¢terit

Clifford Buck,William MCDermott 30.00 fl4l¢77Tz.¢ggf ¢7¢J Dc:¢£4J-J778-J82j Helen W. Reynolds, Editor 15.00 44/;y ffci¢7'f Gocf f7o77zc Thomas S. Loessing 18.00*

The Rombout Pd;terLt H!cr[ry Casstdy 3.00 Pottghkeepsze, Half ujay Up the H44dson ]ayce akNee,Joan spc:act: 16.I )y* Pottghkeepsie.. A Century of Cb¢nge 1898-1998

Joyce Ghee, Joan Spence 18.99* r¢co7£z.c Pzz£4ow¢j+T Joyce Ghee and Joan Spence 18.99*

ff¢7i/c772 Vz//ey I?zz£4z#¢j/f Joyce Ghee and Joan Spence 16.99*

Vzfji¢r Co//egg MaryAnn Bruno and Elizabeth Daniels 19.99*

Portraits of Dutcbess-1680 to 1807 Vch"apugsky 3.00 19tb CeriSury Art in Dutcbess County Vedrrrapngsirey 3.00 mstory Of St. Peter's Protestant Episcopal Cburcb 2.oo 'Ibe RJole Of Dutcl]ess County i,n the Revolution Bea:rirceFre;drtlzson 2.I J0

Dutchess County Historical Society Box 88, Poughkeepsie, New York 12602 *Starred items are taxable @8.125°/o

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Index

American College of surgery 71

Chou En-lan 85 Christian Endeavor Society 42,

inerican Counsel 9o, 93 American Revolution 16, 17, 98, Ioo Anaesthesia 71 Anti-Christian 84 Anti-Communism 85 Anti-foreign sentiments 84 Articles of Association 16 Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway 53 Baccalaureate sermon 71 Barentsen, Andries 15 Barentsen, Anna 15 Beadle 49 Bedfordshire, England gg Beekman Township Ioo Bellevue Hospital 66, 71 Benton, Caroline Spencer Io2, Bonesteel 49 Brady, Diamond Jim 2,3 Brett, Catharyna 16 Brooklyn City Hospital 65

Bourke-white, Margaret 74 Caesarian section 6o Canadian Pacific Steamship, Ltd. 78 Canton 8g Cape Fear Io6 Carpenter, Anna Spencer IIo ChanTso Ling 84, 87 Charlotte Precinct 17

Chautauqua Club 43 Cheu Wang E 86

Civil War 13, 2,3, 543 98

Claverack, New York 119 Clinton Town Supervisor 19, 97 Clinton, Town of 2,2,, 37, 403 493 509 97

Coleman, Bessie 74 Columbia University 68 Communism 81, 85, 89. 91 Coney Island Hospital 68

Cookinghan 49 Coon, Clara Van Vliet 96 Coon, Homer g6 Crapser, Gertrude 19, 2,2, 4g

Denmarken, Catherine 16

Dewitt 49 Dutch heritage 11

Dutch Reformed Church 42, Dutchess County Historical Society 11, 15, FfJ.77,7R.,r2!6

Dutchess County militia Ioo Eanes, Dorothy Child Brown Iol Earhart, Amelia 74 Eastman Business School 97 Eclampsia 6o

Emanuel, Victor 7o Emigh 49 Esopus 15

Fink, Katherine 97 First Presbyterian Church, Pleasant Plains 50j 53

Fishkill National Bank 8c Trust Co. 53 China 14, 78, 8o, 82,, 86, 89. 91> 92.] 94] 97 Fishkill, New York 16 Forest Hill Cemetery 12,3 China Union Universities 92,, 93 Freeland, Capt. John 0. 12,o Chinese Civil War 8o Cliinese language 8o Freeland, Mary Elizabeth Spencer Io2,, 12o Chiang Kdi-shek 85, 86

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Garrison 49 Garrison, Helena 18

Methodist Episcopal Hospital,

Garrison, Joste 18

Gilbert, chnatje 94> 95-97 Gillies 49 Great Britain 82, Griffing, Stephen 18

Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. 67 Midwifery 71 Moffett, Miss 91 Mulford 18, 49 Nanking, China 77, 8o-93

Griffings 18

New Jinsterdan 15, 99

Haddan, Conn. Ioo Hartford, Conn. loo

NewYork City 43> 59.104

Harvard University 113 Hendricks, Hilletje 15 Hills, Hannch 99 Holland Society 5o Hollow Oak Farm 35j 37. 46] 74i 95 Hong Kong 82,

New York Historical Society 5o New York State Regiment 12,8ch 54

Hu Hong Fu 88 Hubert, Gretchen 95-97 Hudson RIver Institute 119 International Harvester Company 53 Irving, Washington 2,3 King's Daughters 42, Kingston, New York 15, 16, IIo Know Nothing Party 116 Kuling 82,, 83

Kuomintang 85, 86 Lane plate reduction 66 LeRoy 49 LeRoy, John 2,2, LeRoy, Simeon 19

Lien Char 86 Livingston Family 16 Livingston, Robert G. Ioo Long Island College Hospital 65 Long Island Hospital 68

LungTau 87 Manchu 8o Manchuria 86 Mao Zedong 86 Mason Io3 Masonic Lodges 49, Iol Masten 19. 49 Masten, Ari 16 Masten, Gerritje 16 Mechanies Savings Bank 53 Methodist Episcopal Church 71 Methodist Episcopal Hospital School of Nursing 55. 61. 75

Brooklyn 76, 773 92.

New York city Board of Health 67

New York weekly Times 117 North Carolina, Cumberland County 12,3 North River Presbytery 5o Northern Army 8o Ostman 19

0strom 49 Peace Corps 94 Philipse Family 16 Pierce, 8. Professor 113

Platt 4g Plans, Content Ioo Pleasant Plains, New York 11, 2,2,2,3, 74i 99

Poughkeepsie Military Institute 38, 4o, 46 Poughkeepsie Savings Bank 53 Poughkeepsie, New York 16, 35, 37 Prohibition 72 Providence Cemetery Association 53 Purdy 49 Rau Chang Gen 86 Red Cross 59 Red Spring Water 27, 31, 36 Remedial Institute, The 2,3, 2,4, 2,7, 34> 35

Republic of china 8o Republican Party 4o, 5o Rhinebeck High School 55, 96 Rhinebeck, New York 37 Romain, W. R, 12,I Romanism 114 Roosevelt, Franklin D. 5o, 96 Russell, Lihian 2,3 Russia 81

Sanger, Margaret 74 Saratoga Springs, New York 19, 2,2.-2,5, 2,9, 30> 32.3 34. 35, 38

Shanghai Massacre 85 Shanghai, China 79, 8o, 82, 83, 85, 9o

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Shortage of nurses 68

University Hospital Nanking 78 University of Nanking 78, 9o, 91, 92, Utrecht, Holland 15

Slavery 113, 116, 117, 118

Sleight 49 Snyder, Elizabeth 99 South Carolina 13 Spanish Influenza Epidemic 68, 69 Spencer, Capt. Reuben (Sr.) 98

Van Auken 49 Van Buren, Martin 2,3

Spencer, Jonathan Ioo

Van Dyke, Magdelena 18 Van Kleeck, Baltus 17 Van Vleet, John 16 Van Vliet, Adrian Gerritson 15 Van Vliet, Aurie 16 Van Vliet, Clara 20, 74 Van Vliet, Cornelius 17, Io5 Van Vliet, Dirck 16, 17, Ioo

Spencer, Julius Io2,, 115

Van Vliet, George S. 19, 2,3. 2.79 35> 37-54.

Spencer, Captain Reuben 19, 98-12,5, 12,7 Spencer, Diana 98, 12o Spencer, Henry 98, Io2,, 12,0

Spencer, Jarrad/Gerrard 99 Spencer, Jesse Eames Io2,

Spencer, Mary Eames Iol, IIg Spencer, Thomas Ioo Spruyt, Agatha Jars 15 St. James Episcopal Cemetery Io2, Staatsburgh, New York 18 Starr Institute 43 State of New York 117 Streit 48 Streit, Margaret 18 Strong, Samuel Dr. 2,4, 2,6

74j 95j 12,3

Van Vliet, H. Richard 2o, 53> 97 Van Vliet, Hannah LeRoy 19, 2,2,-36. 37. 47 Van Vliet, Helena Garrison 2,0, 53. 55-94] gr6,err/

Van Vliet, Henry R. 19, 2,2,-36, 37, 50. 107

Van Vliet, Levi 18, 2,2,, 5o, Ioo Van Vliet, Mary Uhl 18, 2,2,, 119, 12,I

Van Vliet, Mercedes Tremper 4o-S4] 9Ij grirgrr/

Strong, Sylvester S. Dr. 24, 2,6

Vancouver, Canada 78

Sun Chuan Fang 9o

Vanderbilts 2,3 Visiting Nurse Service 68

Sun Yat-sen 8o, 81, 84, 89

Taiwan 86 The Rhinebeck Gazette 43

Wanglin I 88

Wangwan Luh 86

Tientsin 83

War of I812, 12,,18

Traver 49 Tremper Family 41. 54

Washington, George 17, 98, IIo

Tremper, Clara 41> 93. 94

Weaver, Peter 17. 49 Weaver, Adam 17 Weaver, Helena 16, 18 Weaver, Johannes 16 West Point 16. 43 Westervelt 19. 49 VAig Party 117 white Russians 86

Tremper, George 41! 43

Tremper, Jacob and Minerva Rikert 41 Tremper, Mercedes 2,o, 40-S2, 74 Tremper, Pascal 41 Tremper, William 413 43

Trinity Church Cemetery, New York City Io2, Tsingtao 89

WAVES 74

Uhl 4g

whitneys 23 Williams Dr. J.E. gl Wilson, Woodrow 7o, 72,, 79

Uhl, Elizabeth 18

Wisconsin (Dane County) 123

Uhl, Frederick Ioo, Iol Uhl, Mary 18, 2,2 Union Pacific Railroad 53

World War I 68, 73 Yangste valley 86 Yuan Shih-kai 8o

United States Congress 118, 119

United States Steel 53

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