Dutchess County Historical Society Yearbook Vol. 080 1995 1996

Dutchess County Historical Society Year Book Volume 80 1995-1996

The Dutchess County Historical Society Year Book (ISSN 0739-8565) has been

published annually since 1915 by the Dutchess County Historical Society, PO Box 88, Poughkeepsie, New York 12602.

© copyright 1997 by the Dutchess County Historical Society AIl rights reserved.

Individual copies may be purchased through the Society. Selected earlier Year Books are also available.

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, Word Perfect 5.1. 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 PO Box 88

Poughkeepsie, New York 12602

The Society encourages accuracy 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 county-wide agency of its kind, the Society is an active leader and promoter of local history in Dutchess County. Principal endeavors include the pubhshing of 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 pre-Revolutionary landmarks, the Clinton House and 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: (914) 471-1630, or the address above.

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Table of Contents MEETINGS 1995-1996

FINANCIAL REPORT THE LANDSCAPE AS HISTORIC EVIDENCE: A Review of Smith field Valley/s Past

Neil Larsoh CHANGES IN DUTCHESS COUNTY'S ART SCENE

Nan Fogel |EROME DEYO'S POUGHKEEPSIE

Nan Fogel "I BEGAN T0 PAINT WIIAT LAY BEFORE ME"

Jerome Deyo on his paintings DO-IT-YOURSELF ``ARTTOURS"

Nan Fogel, Joyce Ghee, Stephanie Mauri Mapping by Stephanie Maini OFFICERS AND TRUSTEES, STAFF

MUNICIPAL HISTORIANS o£ DUTCHESS COUNTY

76

HISTORICAL SOCIETIES of DUTCHESS COUNTY

77

INDEX

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SEMI-ANNUAL MEETING, June 1995 Wethersfield, Amenia, New York The Semi-armual meeting was held at the hilltop estate of the late Chauncey Stillman. Members and guests had the opportunity to tour both the Stillman mansion and splendid formal gardens prior to the meeting. Stephanie Mauri made a presentation on the research done thus far on the proposed historic district of Smithfield in the Town of Amenia. The talk was inustrated by a series of maps which depicted the growth of the area from the formation of the Nine Partners Patent to the present day. In addition, former Congressman Hamilton Fish, Jr. was honored for his service to the people of Dutchess County and the Society. The framed resolution of the Trustees was accepted in his absence by his daughter, Alexa Fish Ward. The resolution, read by John A. Wolf, former President of the Society, was as follows: WIIEREAS, the Fish family has a long and proud tradition, concurrent with the history of this nation; and WHEREAS, the first Halhilton Fish entered the United States Congress in 1843, served as Governor of New York, Secretary of State and Speaker of the Assembly; arid WHEREAS, the United States Congress has seated four generations of congressmen named Hamilton Fish; and WHEREAS, Hamilton Fish, Jr. has completed a career of twenty-six years of distinguished service to his District and to his Country; and, WHEREAS, Congressman Hamilton Fish has fostered in his children a spirit of public service; and, WHEREAS, Congressman Hamilton Fish has been a supporter of local history and the work of the Dutchess County Hstorical Society in particular, by his word of praise for the Society on the floor of the House of Representatives on the occasion of the Society's 75th Armiversary; and WIIEREAS, Congressman Hamilton Fish has returned to his home in Dutchess County; NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the trustees hereby vote him an honorary membership in the Society with all the perquisites of such membership.

January 23, 1995

ANNUAL MEETING, December 1995

Stony Kill Farm Environmental Education Center FishJdi, New York Members and guests met first at the Manor House before crossing the field to the Barn Classroom. Following the business meeting and election of officers and trustees, the assembled were treated to a fascinating lecture and slide presentation

by Marvin Schwariz of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. ELs topic was the paintings of portraitist John Singleton Copley. Dutchess County's Verplanck Family was well represented by Copley, who painted Gulian Verplanck, Samuel Verplanck and Daniel Crommelin Veaplanck during Copley's brief stay in New York City.

Mr. Schwartz conveyed the social and political thought of the period using the varieties of men, women and children depicted by Copley.

ANNUAL MEETING, October 1996 Franklin D. Roosevelt Library

Hyde Park, New York President Lorraine M. Roberts opened the business meeting with a welcome to members and guests and as the first order of business, called upon the nominating committee for its report. The Class of 2000 nominations included Mark Adams, Mary Packer, Joseph D. Quirm, IH and Rocco Staino. Joyce Ghee and Edward J. Shaughnessy were norfunated to fill unexpired terms. There were no nominations from the floor. A motion was made and seconded for the Secretary to cast one ballot for the slate as presented. The Director, Eileen Hayden, gave a report on the events of the year. 1996 was highlighted by the successful Silver Ribbon Tour of

ELF:gk,°irw|was¥¥:nrioGPTr:SsteiTeedakae:Hf::]¥ceturafteeo=°£:#:SdJe°rFfl#iEr;mThiap; lively apd informative talk traced the farfuly from Commodore Vanderbilt to the present with particular attention to the Hyde Park Vanderbilts, Frederick and Louise.

DUTCHESS COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY STATEMENT OF REVENUE & EXPENSES DECEMBER 31, 1996 Revenues:

Investment Income Membership & Other Gifts, Grants & Donations Silver Ribbon Tour

$

TOTAL REVENUE

3,507.00 21,377.00 13,172.00 15,074.00

$ 53,130.00

Expenses: Payroll & Employee Benefits Lrsurance

Utilities & Maintenance Office

#:tcoerTcanpeuobuHPc:Eg::sfsy:a:eE::1kty Affiliations & Professional Fees Depreciation

Mortgage Payments Museum & Library Genealogy, Miscellaneous Sales / Service Excise Tax

$ 34,325.00 3,426.00 5,406.00 4,152.00 1,348.00 5,675.00 1,578.00 1,959.00

275.00 515.00 939.00 112.00

Silver RIbbon Tour

4,136.00

TOTAL EXPENSES

$ 63,846.00

REVENUE 0V`ER (UNDER) EXPENSES 5

( $ 10,716.00 )

The Landscape As Historic Evidence A Review of the Smithfield Valley's Past Neil Larson Netl Larson is the former Curator of the Dutchess County Historical Society. AI present he is Director Of the Hudson Valley Study Center at New Paltz. Mr. Larson has had a serious interest in the life Of rural Dutchess for many years and was curator for The Rural P+aLir\ exhibit at Clinton House and Barrett House. A Hudson Valley native, he resides in Troy, New York.

THE LAY 0F THE LAND: AN INTRODUCTION TO THE SMITHFIELD VALLEY

The Smithfield Valley is located in the northwest corner of the Town of Amenia in east central Dutchess County. It is a small, upland depression located in the Fishkill Mountains near the headwaters of the Wassaic Creek, one of the principal water-courses of the town. The Fishkill range defines the western side of the Harlem Valley, part of a long declivity stretching from Lake Champlain to Long Island Sound along the eastern boundary of New York State.

The floor of the Smithfield Valley is about 750 feet above sea level and enframed by mountains from 1100 to 1400 feet in height. It is roughly 3 miles long, along its north-south axis and 2 miles wide, ridge-to-ridge.

Visually, the Smithfield Valley is quite well defined (FIG. 1). One enters the valley from the north through two narrow, constricted passes skirting a mountain: one on the east side (Smithfield Road) following the course of the Wassaic Creek and, one on the west (County Route 83), which links Smithfield with Federal Square and the Shekomeko Creek watershed. The landscapes along both these entry routes noticeably transform as they emerge into the openness of the valley and immediately convey the sense of having arrived at a ``place." This impression is strengthened by the presence of numerous buildings and active farmland at the points of entry. It was here, along a roadway connecting the two routes, that Amenia's first community appeared in the mid-eighteenth century, known

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(optimistically) for most of its existence as ``The City." Another route into the valley, directly over the mountain from the east, provides a much more dramatic and encompassing view of the valley. From this perspective, the organization of the landscape is revealed: the pattern of fields and woods on the hillsides, the meandering course of the Wassaic Creek and its swampy basin in the valley, the concentration of buildings at the northern head of the valley, and the gradually increasing openness moving south from the built-up portion of the community.

Access from the south is equally compelling in the transitions of the geography and cultural landscape. As from the north, roads are routed along both the east and west sides of the valley. They emanate from the old Dutchess Turnpike (US Route 44), which cuts through a break in the western ridge line at the southernmost end of the Smithfield Valley. From here, the Wassaic plummets through Turkey Hollow down into the Harlem Valley. The eastern route going north from Rt. 44 climbs blindly around the edge of the hillside. It eventuany emerges into the open space of the upper part of the valley. As it approaches The City, the full expanse of the landscape comes into view with its orderly placement of substantial farms and farmhouses. Just as from the north, there is a necessary procession through constricted or obscured space prior to the discovery of the heart of the valley.

Coming into the valley by Separate Road provides a very different view of the Smith€ield Valley. Named for the community that built up around the church (no longer extant) so-called because its congregation separated from that of the church at The City, the rutty dirt track hugs the western hillside between the two church sites. Unlike Smithfield Road on the opposite side, Separate Road is flat on the valley floor between the creek and mountain. The view of the valley is periodically obstructed by the vegetation growing in the creek's wetlands and the low prospect of the road. The neighborhood has a tighter, steeper, and less productive-looking landscape along with smaller, more modest houses and farms. Along Separate Road, one discovers complexity in the Smithfield Valley landscape and hierarchies in its organization, a factor not so evident from the distant eastern hills.

All roads converge on The City at the head of the valley. The City is strung out along a section of Rt. 83 that bends off from Smithfield Road in a westerly direction across the top of the valley and connects with Separate Road at the Smithfield Presbyterian Church. The City links both sides of the valley, just as it bridges the distance between Separate and Smithfield Roads, embracing a multifaceted, multi-

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functional rural community within the geographical and visual limits of an isolated watershed. Looking at the Smithfield Valley, the pattern of its community is discemable directly from the arrangement of its landscape. When the view shifts a map showing the properties making up the landscape, the pattern becomes more graphic (FIG. 2).

Th.is correspondence illustrates the interplay of the arbitrary land divisions and the natural organization of the landscape. Many of those divisions were directed by the peculiarities of the geography: the hillsides, the creeks, the arable land, and the roads.

The ``unspoiled" character of the Smithfield Valley invites historians to study the area to examine the factors that have contributed to its longevity. In fact, in Smithfield's case, it was the desire of a local property-owners group, The Smithfield Valley Association, and the Dutchess Land Conservancy to have the landscape listed on the National Register of ELstoric Places. However, one of the first things leamed about the Smithfield Valley as the study progressed was that the character of the valley is very different now than in the past, and

it has changed a number of times - often quit,e dramatically - over its long history. In the process of discovering and recording Smithfield's complex and evolving history, a richer and more provocative understanding of the history of this rural landscape emerged. Not only does it provide an interesting story to relate, but it gives new impetus to reexamining the history of the rural landscape generally, in Dutchess County, in the Hudson Valley, and beyond.

THE REGIONAL LANDSCAPE IN THE 18TH CENTURY Until the 1690's, the area containing the Smithfield Valley was uncharted by the European colonists. This is not to say that it was uninhabited or unknown. By this time, the Harlem Valley was home to a sizeable Indian population, who had been pushed inland from the Hudson Valley and Connecticut coast by ever-increasing numbers of white settlers. The area was the location of one of the remaining sizeable Indian communities in eastern New York`. The natural conditions of the Smithfield Valley would have lent it as inuch to the hdians' habitation and agriculture as to the colonists',. and since so many European settlements were founded on locations already under cultivation, it is likely that the history of Smithfield began well before any Europeans set foot there.

The Dutch paid little direct attention to this part of their colony except for its general proximity to the long disputed boundary between New England and New Netherlands. During Dutch tenure, territorial issues were more global than local. The Dutch claimed

8

their colony extended east to the Connecticut RIver. Not to be outdone, the English claimed all of New York and Ohio besides! In the seventeenth century, the Dutch West Indies Trading Company was intent on capitalizing on raw materials and hdian trade and committed little energy to encouraging settlement. Meanwhile, New England was rapidly devouring its western wilderness as its population multiplied through constant immigration and natural issue. The Dutch were determined to meet the imminent threat of Yankee expansion, yet their borders were ill-defined and unprotected.

When England wrested control of the colony from the Dutch in 1664, the Duke of York began to map his colony and redefine the land in terms of property. As in New England, the emphasis was on settlement, but the challenge of dividing and populating so vast a colony was enormous. The effort was expedited by granting large patents to proprietors who were given the responsibility for attracting immigrants and organizing local communities in return for thousands of windfall acres. Dutchess County, which had been out of the mainstream of Dutch development, was partitioned at this time.

This period is significant in the sense that the region, once sufficiently defined in the general terms of geography and natural resources, began to be conceptualized entirely differently. The view of the land shifted from a direct, environmental context to the abstract representation of real estate. Geographic features, such as hills, streams and valleys, were still crucial to the definition of the land, yet now they were objectified and abstract values were placed on them, not the least of which was monetary. With this act, the land was transformed from a wildemess to something construed as part of a civilized system. It became a landscape as man's laws became part of the equation. Such terms as ``natune," ``wildemess," ``civfiization" and ``1andscape" were part of the eighteenth century western consciousness, not of the land itself. To the seventeenth-century mind, man's control of nature was demonstrated in the classification and ordering of its many parts. If any idea dominated the settlement of the New World, it was the idea of man's reason, which drove him to explore, discover, put these discoveries in some arbitrary order and control them.

This drive to bring order to the Hudson Valley happened in two

ways. One method - the old method - was applied in a number of early proprietorships, such as Livingston Manor, which bordered Dutchess County on the north, and Phillipse Manor on the south. In this more traditional conception, land was held as an estate.

Ownership of the land rested in the hands of a single authority and

9

the population was provided with space on which to work and live.

The landscape of the estate was conceived as a single entity, even though there were stated divisions between leaseholds and functional areas to classify spaces and patterns of community interaction.

Theonlyrealboundarywasthatofthewholeoftheestate.Itsseamless pattern of cultivated spaces represented the self-sufficient social system it supported, the ideal condition of the aristocratic cultural hierarchy that spawned it. Yet, just as this method was being applied in most of the American colonies, a more democratic method began to find legitimacy. The corporate communities of New England were the standard of this more egalitarian idea of property, ownership and social liberty. This, too, was a product of the Age of Reason, where the idea of the social contract was applied to land distribution. While the distribution of natural assets was more democratic in the second instance, the ambition to control, shape, and cultivate the land was shared by both. Because it needed to accommodate a multitude of individual interests, the corporate model required more precise and detailed land divisions. In this period, extraordinary maps. were created, translating the natural language of the landscape into a babel of lots and lists.

THE GREAT NINE PARTNERS PATENT In 1697, nine well-cormected gentlemen in New York City were granted more than 100,000 acres in the central part of Dutchess County, giving name to the Great Nine Partners Patent (the modifier became necessary when a smaller tract in northern Dutchess was also granted to nine individuals, called the Little Nine Partners Patent). It would take another thirty or so years before the partners settled on a scheme for dividing their holding and distributing the partsamongthemselves.Thepressuresofsettlementdidnotbeginto be felt in eastern Dutchess County until the 1730's, but when it did occur, land holders like the Nine Partners needed to confront the problem of squatters, conflicting land claims, and the fulfillment of their promise. to settle the land, in addition to their desire to capitalize on their investment. During this period, the New York-Connecticut border was finally formalized, reflecting the imperative to secure the boundary as New England was beginning to burst its seams. It was crucial that a settlement plan be devised.

When the Nine Partners acted`to divide their common holding, they began with an abstract view of the land. Their first step was simply to superimpose a grid over a map of the patent. This was achieved irrespective of the natural conditions of the land. In fact,

10

they probably negotiated the details of the partition from a map in a meeting room in New York City without any real familiarity with the land at all. Certain land features were valuable enough to warrant special treatment. For example, the portion of the patent fronting on the Hudson River was partitioned and divided into nine narrow water lots. Even from where they sat, the proprietors placed a much higher value on small amounts of river frontage than on vast inland acreage. Also, by this time the partners would have had all the potential mill sites, mineral sources, and prime forest and agricultural areas they knew keyed on their map, as well as land of little or no profitable use. With this much identified, the nine partners scribed lines within the rhomboid formed by the north, east and south sides of the patent and created 36 rectangular lots of roughly equal size (just ove~r 3000 acres), allowing four lots to a partner (FIG. 3).

At this juncture, it appears they sent the surveyor to plot the map on the land, rather than vice-versa. The surveyor also came back with evaluations of each lot. Three categories were used: good, bad and indifferent. ``Good" meant that the lot contained one or more favorable qualities for farming, industry or mining; ``bad" meant that these resources were lacking; and ``indifferent'' fell somewhere in between. If the surveyor kept notes elaborating on this categorization, they have been lost somewhere along the way. Then the Nine Partners - actually by this point, their heirs, assigns or successors selected four lots each. How smoothly this process went can only be imagined. However, with this much done by about 1740, the land was civilized sufficiently to allow for settlement.

THE SMITHFIELD VALLEY AND THE GREAT NINE PARTNERS PATENT LOTS The Smithfield Valley overlaps three of the ``great" lots: Lots 32, 33, & 34 (FIG. 2). The lots have their long sides oriented to an eastwest axis, extending from just beyond the western ridge forming the Smithfield Valley over the east mountains and down to the base of the Harlem Valley. On a north-south axis, they are much shorter, about 1 ]A miles. The head of the valley, where The City is located, is contained in Lot 34. This lot was assigned to David Johnston and later passed to his son-in-law, David Jamison. It was categorized on the Nine Partners' survey map as "good." Since it is a very mountainous area, the mineral and industrial potential (a mill site is located here) must have determined its high value. Lot 33 began just south of where Smithfield Road and Rte. 83 diverge on the east side of the valley; it contains the orderly farm zone south of The City and

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ends a short distance north of the Separate Road/Bangall Road crossroads. Wilhaln Creed owned this lot, and it, too, was considered ``good'' reflecting the agricultural potential of the Smithfield Valley bottom, as well as possible resources in the flanking mountains.

James Emmott owned Lot 32, another ``good" tract. It went as far south as the Dutchess Turnpike, and in addition to including mill sites and farm land, contained most of the site for the present-day village of Amenia in its eastern section. South of Emmott's, in Lot 31, the land becomes very mountainous again, but in spite of the creek and its industrial potential, Caleb Heathcote's great lot was considered ``indifferent."

DIVIDING UP THE GREAT LOTS IN THE SMITHFIELD VALLEY With its overall ``good'' designation, the Smithfield Valey had little difficulty attracting settlers, yet it took another 50 years before the community really took shape. A second phase of land divisions in the Great Nine Partners Patent, coming between 1740 and 1760, helped spur development by breaking up the arbitrary great lots and making the land more physically, economically and conceptually accessible to the settler (i.e., as functional units rather than objects for speculation). Few of the original proprietors actually established domiciles on their land. Those who did intended to develop their lots as estates rather than as capital investments. The Johnston/Jamison family, who established a country seat at Lithgow, just southwest of the Smithfield Valley in Great Lot 24, is one such example. Typical of the tradition- and class-bound world view of these elite patentees, who saw themselves as part of an extended network of English colonial gentry, the Johnston/Jamison clan reinforced their social connection to the Old World by imbuing their land with the aura of the homeland, beginning with naming it after the places from whence they came, such as Lithgow, in the case of the Johnstons', which was where they were from in Scotland.

Yet, the idea of landscape as an estate clearly was ending, as the idealistic and progressive notion of a ``city" in the remote Smithfield Valley suggests. The three great lot owners in the Smithfield Valley, David |amison included, sold their land, in large chunks to speculators looking to capitalize on settling the land. Some, like John Evertson, a NewYorkCitymerchantwhoownedthesouthemtwo-thirdsofLot33 in the 1740's, were still part of the Anglo-Dutch colonial establishment who, experiencing the crowded conditions of southern New York, northern New Jersey and Long Island, invested their surplus

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funds in upstate real estate. Most of the new buyers came from New England, however, particularly Connecticut. For example, Stephen Hopkins from Harwinton, Connecticut, purchased all of Lot 32 from James Emmott in 1744, and he also can be traced to a deed conveying Jamison's Lot 34 to him. Hopkins was no impoverished homesteader; his grandfather was one of the first settlers of the Hartford Colony and its second governor. A 100-acre farm in John Clapp's and Henry Franklin's northern third of Lot 33 was sold by Evertson's former parthers to Judah Burton. Burton was one of the first people to move onto the land, coming to the valley in about 1762 from Stamford, Connecticut. The brick house considered to have been built by him still stands on the east Side of Smithfield Road, just south of Flint Hill Road, and is the oldest building in thervalley. It is reputed that in the following year, Jacob Evertson, John's grandson and heir to 1100 acres in Lot 33, also built a brick house a few hundred yards south of Burton. Samuel Thompson purchased 176 acres at The City from Stephen Hopkins in 1765. The Thompsons and the Burtons intermarried to create a veritable dynasty in the valley.

Other names that appear in the early records include: Stephen Kinne, from New Preston, Connecticut, who had settled south of Evertson in Lot 32 by 1752; Stephen Reynolds from Stamford, who had settled north of the church in The City by 1767; the Smiths from Hempstead, Long Island, who moved into Lot 34 in 1757; the Adamses and Southerlands, who established rfulls in the southwestern corner of Lot 32, at the bottom of the valley (Elisha Adams is reported as being the first white settler in Lot 32 ``west of the mountaius''). Pugsley is also a prevalent name in early land transactions.

During the years between these early subdivisions in the 1740's and 1750's and the end of the colonial era and the opening of the nineteenth century, development at The City was limited to the Evertson, Burton and Thompson tracts. Adams's mill was in operation at the foot of the valley, but no evidence has been found to indicate that the present-day mill site in The City had yet materialized. The Kinnes built their residence near the crossroads that their name came to define, and other houses took form there, although nothing remains to connect them to this period. The cultural landscape of the valley had begun to materialize but had yet to coalesce. Settlement was deliberate and slow, requiring much time and effort in the clearing and cultivating of farms. Social and economic networks were far-flung; the distances and road conditions slowed communications and progress. Because of the small number of people, the enormity of the task (a farmer could only clear an acre or two of forest land a

13

year) and the isolation, it is no wonder that fifty years (the span of a productive lifetime) passed without a dramatic transformation in the landscape. Because time passed so quickly, a generation's span (20-25 years) is an appropriate time frame to measure change in the early ye,ars. In the context of the enormous challenge of converting the wildemess into an agricultural landscape, a human lifetime is a short but significant period. While in the earliest stages of cultivation of the landscape, the progress of a single life's effort was small in comparison to the challenge at hand, its reproductive abhity increased the potential of the second generation in geometric proportions. The third generation multiplied the effort, and the space brought under human control, to an even greater level. This explains why, after only a few generations, the Massachusetts and Cormecticut colonies pressed hard against New York's eastern border, and why a few generations later, eastern Dutchess County had been transformed from a wilderness to a fully populated landscape.

THE HISTORY 0F FARMS AND FARMING IN THE SMITHFIELD VALLEY On the surface, the appearance of a farm is commonly understood.

There is a small area containing the talisman buildings of house, barn and silo, surrounded by open space representing fields, meadows and pastures. Crops and animals usually round out the scene.

However, beyond this general notion of farms, little differentiation is made between one farm and another - except by farmers themselves. Just as a big house differs from a small house, farms vary significantly with scope of the land and operation; and as eighteenth century houses differ from twentieth century houses, farm organization and function transformed dramatically over time at numerous stages of economic and technological development; and just as a northern house differs from a southern house, location for a farm is everything.

Before any effective understanding of the Smith field Valley landscape can be achieved, a more detailed picture of the agricultural landscape needs to be drawn.

THE FARM LANDSCAPE, 1750-1800

A comparison of the 1100-acre Evertson farm and the 100-acre Burton farm provides insight into agriculture in Smithfield during the eighteenth century. The range is quite dramatic. By all accounts, Jacob Evertson operated a plantation, and his extensive holding is likely to have been a rarity, not just in Amenia, but in all of New York, where few farm holdings counted even half that acreage. Yet,

14

he was a member of the Colonial elite. John Evertson, his grandfather, was a successful New Jersey merchant who purchased two-thirds of Great Lot 33 in 1741; Jacob received the farm as an inheritance. He was a member of the Provincial Congress and his daughter married a Connecticut governor. He did not spend all his time in the remote Fishkill Mountains; more time was spent in New York City, where he was involved in politics, commerce and social events.

This large farm was well-watered, and its entire focus was at the bottom. The Wassaic traversed the boxy parcel at the base of the mountain on its western edge, leaving a wide expanse of the valley floor clear for planting. Smaller tributaries of the creek drained off the gradual hillside on the east side of the valley, creating another large expanse of land suitable for cultivation. Only in the steeper reaches of the hill, on the southern end of the property and along its ridge, were sections reserved for woodland. The steep topography of the mountain on the west side would have also discouraged any thought of improvement at this time, especially with rich soil so easily available around the creek. In a Dutch tradition, Evertson would have planted as much of the alluvial area around the Wassaic as he could in wheat. Secondary crops, such as peas, corn and hay, would have been worked in around the wheat, even possibly extending up the hillside. Orchards would have been planted near the house on the east side of the road, and the animals would have been allowed to graze there.

Local histories recan the ``1arge brick house" Evertson built in the valley. It was located at the bottom of the hill, close to a feeder creek and the road facing the expanse of wheat fields. Near the house, he would have also had one or more Dutch barns: large, gable-front grain repositories well known in the region. (These were possibly across the road since there was little level land behind the house.)

Few other buildings would have been necessary on the farm, other than perhaps a wagon shed, smoke house or summer kitchen. Hay stacks, some protected by barracks' roofs, would have been prevalent.

Evertson also operated a store from his farm, either in his house or in a separate building. This would have been a potentially profitable venture for a man with ties to the New York trade. After delivering grain, flour, meat or other farm products to the city, his wagons would load up with store goods and luxuries`for Amenia settlers.

There would not have been many animals other than work animals and food producers (chickens, swine, cows) on the typical wheat farm. However, Evertson may have found meat a marketable commodity. He clearly had the space to maintain sizeable herds.

15

Evertson is also remembered because he owned a large number of slaves, by one account as many as forty. With that many slaves on the farm, he had to be running it as a serious business: another indication of Evertson's wealth, position and absenteeism. It is also an indication of the lack of a resident labor force in this period, since the town was so sparsely settled.

Judah Burton arrived, just north of Jacob Evertson. Unlike his neighbor, Burton operated a small subsistence farm. He, together with his wife and children, provided all the labor. Judah Burton did not own slaves. Located where it was, the entire farm was probably wencleared; Buton also owned a woodlot somewhere on the mountaintop.

The quality of the soft probably motivated him to plant wheat as well, but his operation would have been more diversified than Evertson's, because of both the limited size of his holding and the New England farming tradition in which he was raised. Just as Evertson made choices relative to his class and cultural group, Burton's farm would have reflected the characteristics of his background.

The wheat Judah Burton harvested was stored in a New England type barn, a low, boxy building with its entrance on its long side. It would have been near the house, built on the hillside at a decidedly higher, airier elevation than the Dutchman's. There would have also been animals on the Burton farm: pigs and cattle for slaughter, and a few rangy sheep. Burton would have needed to use the hillside for pasture, since the animals mostly relied on grazing for food. He would have grown some winter feed for the animals: com, oats and wheat. Perhaps he also grew swamp grass for hay and bedding as was the tradition in coastal New England. A garden kept the family in vegetables and there could have been a small orchard. However, it would not be until much later that orchards were common on farms of Burton's scale. Flax and hemp were also typical crops that could be used by the famfty in home manufacturing or sold. Since animal slaughtering was an important part of the farm work, he could have put a smoke house to use. A dairy was also needed, for butter a-hd cheese making, but this was normally located in the house.

The Evertson and Burton farms operated on two very different levels; one was on the level of a country estate and the other was based in subsistence. The Burtons were not poor; instead, they represented the middle-class farmer that soon came to populate all of eastern Dutchess County and New York. These self-sufficient newcomers could afford to buy modest amounts (100-200 acres) of farm land, often with a mortgage, and make a comfortable living growing a variety of farm products for their own sustenance and for market. Evertson's method

16

of farming and style of land management was dying out. International trade commodities, like wheat, once crucial to the Colonial economy, became gradually less important when replaced by the demands of local or regional markets. Also, the class-based land system that supported Evertson's enterprise was eroding, particularly in areas overrun with immigrants. Such large proprietary land holdings became increasingly less profitable to operate. By 1800, an aging Jacob Evertson had retired to more comfortable surroundings in Pleasant Valley and had divided up his estate for sale.

THE FARM LANDSCAPE, 1800-1865

Early in the nineteenth century, the Smithfield Valley landscape solidified into the pattern of farms that endures today. Other than the subtle rerouting of certain roads, changes in architectural fashion, the renewal of farm buildings, the inevitable loss of impermanent housing on the lower end of the economic scale, and the consolidation of farmland into larger entities (which is more evident on boundary maps than visually), the present-day Smithfield cult-ural environment is remarkably similar to what it would have been nearly 200 years ago.

For the first half of the nineteenth century, the agriculture of the valley remained oriented to the small-scale, individually-operated, diversified-output model established by early New England immigrants like Judah Burton. After the turn of the century, wheat production declined severely in the region, due to soil exhaustion, blight and competition from larger farms in western New York.

Farmers' income relied mostly on meat products (beef and pork), dairy products ®utter and cheese), wool, flax, potatoes and apples.

Crops were grown for animal feeds, with oats and corn occupying most of the field space. Wheat and buckwheat were grown, but in small quantities and more for farm consumption than for market. But only a small proportion of the improved (cleared and useable) land

was planted - perhaps only ten percent - and most of the farm was devoted to pasture where the grazing animals found nearly all of their feed.

The landscape pattern changed little from that of the earlier period. The bottom land would have been the preferred area for crops and the hillsides were prime for pasture. Progressively, more land was cleared around the edges of the valley, increasing the sense of openness. Few areas, other than managed woodlots on the crests of the hills, would have been forested in this period, including the steep mountain on the valley's west side. The neatness of this scene was central to the nineteenth century farmer's sense of order and

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would have appealed to his aesthetic eye. ``Improvement" was the word of the day, and the way to demonstrate one's achievement was in open spaces, clean edges and precise geometries. The pastoral image of the rural landscape relied on the control and equilibrium

brought by the human hand, not the diversity and randomness of nature.

This organization was evident all along Smithfield Road. Solid, somber farmhouses, all fairly uniform in a two-story scale and five-bay massing, and all on the east side of the highway, stood as sentinels overlooking their prestigious bottomlands. Their setting was enhanced by a frame of farm buildings and the backdrop of the hillside was ornamented by gardens and orchards and dotted with grazing animals. From The City to the Dutchess Turnpike, a series of impressive properties strung along the valley.

Of course, the most prominent farms were found on the best land at the valley's core. Not surprisingly, these were the earliest settled farms of Burton and Evertson. The persistence of the configuration of these farms attests to their productivity and significance. The Burtons remained in possession of their 100-acre homestead until 1850. Between 1803 and 1805, Jacob Evertson divided his 1100-acre

farm into three lots and sold them. He created two large lots extending from the Wassaic to the eastern boundary of his farm on the hilltop.

One he sold to Judah Burton's son, Daniel, and Daniel's son-in-law, Seth Thompson. The other was sold to a Connecticut speculator named Isaac Biscoe. Burton and Thompson divided their lot down the middle, each retaining half, until Burton's heirs sold Thompson their part in 1824. The remaining lot, west of the creek, which contained the mountain enclosing the west side of the valley, was sold to John Comwell, who already owned land abutting the parcel on the west. Cornwell was the local minister serving the churches at both The City and Kinne's Corners (The Separate Church). This rugged parcel was less valuable than the others: based on amounts for transactions registered in deeds, Cornwell paid $19 per acre, while Biscoe and Burton & Thompson paid $24.75 and $23.50 per acre, respectively.

North of this core area, other farms took shape around the old Thompson homestead, notably those belonging to PerLee (later Van Hovenburgh), Hoag, Pugsley and Flint. The City also began to take shape between the crossroads and Drake's mill at this time. On the south end of the valley were at least two substantial farms paralleling Smithfield Road: the Boyd farm (Conklin on the nineteenth century maps) on the west side, and Judge Ephraim Paine's reputedly elaborate

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spread with ``mansion house" (per Jacob Smith's 1797 map of Amenia), on the east side, both of which no longer exist.

A VIEW OF THE VALLEY IN 1860-1870

Agricultural and population schedules in the 1860 U.S. Census and the 1865 New York State Census help clarify the picture of the Smithfield community when it was more-or-less at the peak of its economic and social development. The names identifying properties on the map of fami lots in 1860 relate to entries in the censuses (FIG. 4).

The agricultural schedules record data about acreage, livestock, production and their monetary values. In a casual comparison with farms in the Town of Amenia, Smithfield Valley farms fall well within the median of farms overall. In this period, Smithfield neither exceeded nor fell behind farms in the Harlem Valley, as a whole.

Certain characterizations can be drawn from examining the census categories. It is shown that while everyone owned one or two horses, they still employed oxen for field work in 1860. Milch (i.e., milkproducing) cows represented a significant proportion of the farms' aninal population, ranging from five or six for small farms to more than forty for the largest. The average herd size was about twenty head. A category for ``other cattle" represents young and nonproductive cows as well as those raised for beef. Looking back to the postings in the 1850 U.S. Census, the three or four animals reported in 1860 were a dramatic decrease from ten years before. Across the town, the number of other cattle dropped from 1357 to 626. Likewise, the number of milch cows appears to have more than doubled since 1850 (714 to 1876 town-wide), indicating a shift in the local market

from meat to milk and the begining of the long dominance of dairy farming in the region.

The rising emphasis on milk production in 1860 also led to a marked decrease in the number of sheep in the Smithfield Valley and the region overan. A comparison of the columns for sheep population documents a reduction of nearly 10,000 in the sheep herd of the town (13,141 to 3,206) or more than 75 percent. Wool blights may have played a factor in this extraordinary shift, as well as competition from other production areas and the increasing popularity of cotton.

The swine population also declined, again demonstrating the transformation of farms from a mixed-production strategy based on meat, cheese and wool to one relying primarily on milk for income. h the early nineteenth century, milk was preserved as either butter or cheese before` it left the farm. These and other perishable commodities were easily marketed in New York City and other

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regional urban centers.` When the Harlem Valley Railroad opened in 1852, it provided a direct transportation link with city markets and thereafter helped stabilize the agricultural economy of the region.

One significant effect of the railroad and its speed of delivery was that it allowed the shipping of perishable fluid milk directly from the farm. This production item was not itemized until the 1870 census, when all the principal Smithfield farms were on record as providing it. There was a ``milk factory," or condensery, in nearby Federal Square by the 1850's (so designated on an 1858 wall map of Dutchess County), and because Gail Borden also opened a condensery in Wassaic in the 1860's, local farmers must have been encouraged to provide them both with raw milk. Borden's great success came from supplying the Union Army with condensed milk during the Civil War. Surely Amenia farmers benefited handsomely from this enterprise.

Fresh produce was also in great demand, and although descriptions or values of garden products are not recorded in the census, they would have contributed something to a farm's income. Only the potatoes crop and 9rchard output were entered, and Smithfield farms produced both. Otherwise, crop production was minimal, supplying little more than what was needed for household and barnyard use. Of the improved acreage recorded for these farms, based on New York Census schedules that described crop production in terms of both acreage and volume of output, the vast majority of the improved sections of the-farms were devoted to pasture or meadow. Planted fields amounted to twenty-five percent or less of the total figure. The basic crops (ones every farmer had) were corn, oats and potatoes, with rye and barley fairly common and some wheat still being planted.. Nearly every farm recorded the production of orchard products, and hay was a constant item. An anomalous feature of the 1860 and 1865 tabulations is that they register that tobacco was grown in the period between 1850 and 1870 (the-1855 New York State Census for Dutchess County has been lost). On acreage of two acres or less, farmers were producing from 500 to 3000 pounds of tobacco. This was purely a cash crop, and its brief appearance in farm records suggests that it was not as profitable as planned. Since most of the residents of Smithfield had roots in Cormecticut, with its well-established tradition of tobacco growing, it is tempting to make a cultural connection. However, the association is a tenuous one since tobacco did not appear in local agriculture until a century after many of these families migrated into New York.

More than likely, this was an organized effort to improve the local farm economy that was not very successful.

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Although a more comprehensive and systematic analysis of census agricultural data is needed before firm conclusions can be drawn regarding the course of local farm history, general comparisons can be made. In the context of the farm landscape, the census material provides a quantitative picture of farm organization supporting patterns derived from the visual assessment of the valley. It shows that the scene was dominated by meadow and pasture, the likely places being on the hillsides. Crops were limited, and the 20-40 acres per farm they occupied would have fit comfortably on the fertile valley floor.

Extensive pasture land supported sizeable herds of cattle, sheep and swine, the latter actually a grazing animal at this time. Farms with good crop land along the Wassaic could support more cattle, and the statistics record good-sized herds on Daniel and Edmund P. Carpenter's, George Thompson's and George D. James's farms on the old Burton-Evertson lands and even higher numbers on the rolling acreage of Jay Duel's, John Kirby's, Elisha Adams's and Michael Hoag's farms at the foot of the valley. The steeper farms kept sheep in higher numbers, even after herd numbers dropped so significantly in 1860. Waiter Pugsley and Albert Pray, whose farms occupied the steep western valley slope, raised 400 and 80 sheep, respectively. George Sanford and Augustus Flint, on the eastern hillside, also supported uncharacteristically large numbers of sheep (100 and 160). Although he had a herd of more than twenty milch cows, George D. James had noticeably more sheep (42) compared to his immediate neighbors, who had none. Yet, James's farm was much steeper on its eastern slope than the Thompson, Carpenter or Conklin farms, where sheep could negotiate better than cows.

The size and location of farms had an impact on their output and organization. Following natural and social hierarchies, large, prosperous farms controlled most of the good land. Less fortunate farmers found themselves positioned on peripheral lands that were less productive and less profitable. Yet, small farms and farmers were necessary to complement the large ones and to complete the diversity inherent in the landscape and the community structure. In Smithfield, it was on the western side of the vauey where the poorer segment of the population was located. These people occupied small farms on the steep hillside or in the soggy land along the creek. They inhabited the periphery of the landscape where the orderly arrangement of property and efficient land management began to break down. Albert Pray's farm, perched on the west mountain, exemplifies such a place. The value of Pray's 170-acre farm was $6000 in 1860,

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compared to the $9000 appraisal for the 100-acre Burton farm. Of his 140 improved acres, none of it was on level land. He lived in a modest one and one-half-story farmhouse facing Separate Road, with barns and yards behind terraced into the hillside. By all appearances, it was a lesser farm than those across the valley.

Pray owned only five milk cows, well below a town average of fifteen. The farm's topography discouraged grazing and there were few tillable acres. hstead, he kept 80 sheep, which were more adaptable to the terrain and less demanding eaters; however, a better location could have supported more. Nevertheless, sheep raising had declined significantly in the regional farm economy, so this would not have been the most improved or profitable use for the land. The farm also supported an unusually large number of swine (21) and recorded one of the highest figures for value of animals slaughtered ($1000). Wheat production had declined overall, but it represented a sizeable proportion of Pray's field crops. Perhaps he put the area he owned along the creek to use. He reaped a sizeable crop of potatoes and also tried growing tobacco along with his neighbors.

It appears that one result of the low status of Pray's farm and the economic struggle it suggests, is that the farmer was forced to follow declining, less profitable categories of agriculture and outmoded practices. The diversification of farming suggests that he was trying hard to eke the maximum production out of this marginal farm. Yet, Pray experienced the dilemma of the marginal nineteenth century farmer: his farm could not produce sufficient funds to effect the kind of improvement to allow him to make more profit. He was mired in a repressive cycle in an expanding and increasingly competitive market. No wonder Albert Pray subdivided his farm and sold it in the following year, 1861. Some parts went to neighbors to expand their holdings; the core farm, now down to 68 acres from 214, was sold to Irishman Barach Morey, who moved up one step on the rural social ladder, from farm laborer to land owner and farmer.

Shifting to the population schedule of the 1860 census, a more detailed sense of the social organization of the valley begins to emerge. In addition to the farm families already introduced, the census identifies numerous people who were not landowners and who were tradesmen, craftsmen and laborers. Farm households were often large, with a long list of children. Multiple family households were not common, but just about every family boarded farm laborers (males) and domestics (females), most of whom were Irish immigrants. Sometimes, farm help lived in separate housing owned by the farmer and were recorded independent of the farm family. Laboring

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families tended to have larger families, even though they resided in substantially smaller quarters. Multiple households were not unusual in this instance.

By 1860, The City had also reached its peak of development as a hamlet. The census helps define some of its functions and the composition of its population. Charles Fowler lived just north of the Presbyterian church, in a house he rented. He is identified as a butcher with $300 worth of possessions. He and his wife, Christianina [sic], had seven children in the house, ranging from 11/2 to 27 years in age.

Three unrelated people lived with them. The three oldest children worked as farm laborers or domestics, presumably on local farms. The Fowlers and their companions were Black.

Isaac Hunting, a physician, lived across the road from the Fowlers.

He and his wife shared their house with Samuel Carpenter, a farmer, who was probably farming the Hoag place, and his wife, Dwight K. Bartlett, a clergyman (the church was a stone's throw away), and Eliza Corlens, an Irish domestic. Other householders in the hamlet were: Talmadge Eckert, a blacksmith; Pliny Smith, a farm hand; Ethan Gordon, a shoemaker, whose children hired out as carpenters, laborers and domestics; Robert R. Thompson, farmer and insurance agent, who owned the old Thompson homestead west of the mill; millwright Frank J. Anthony, also a Black man; George Haskins and William MCFarlane, shoemakers; Isaac Clark, a contractor; William Bostwick, store owner; Patrick Shannon, tenant farmer of the Van Hovenburg farm; and another blacksmith, William Jackson.

The people living along Separate Road are enumerated, including Albert Pray, who lived with his wife, Margueritte, their six children, and a German laborer (Pray was of German ancestry) in the small house that still exists on the farm. Two laboring families follow Pray in the census and possibly south on the road, and other tenant names are mingled with the farmers on that side of the valley. The City, with its size and diversity, seems to have been the trade and commercial center of the valley; Kirme's Comers was more of a farm workers' community.

Family relationships were the foundation of rural society. Most of the prosperous farm families in Smithfield were related in some way or another. Outside of this dominant group, which controlled the land, economy and social system, clear lines existed between cia.sses of farmers, tradesmen and laborers. Immigrants, mostly Irish and German, were kept segregated, with the Irish treated worse. Thus, another pattern evident in the rural landscape is a social one that tells the history of families and the class structure of a community.

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THE FARM LANDSCAPE, 1865-1900

Smithfield entered a static period in the last half of the nineteenth century, when it reached a point of full capacity and cultivation. This equilibrium, and the enduring pastoral scene, belied a brewing turmoil.

Dairy farming became the sole agricultural pursuit as herds expanded and functions mechanized. Farmers became increasingly directed by the emerging dairy ``industry" and the marketing patterns, technological and sanitary advances, and governmental regulations that accompanied it. By this period, the small farmer - a category that applied to even the more prosperous Smithfield farms - was being squeezed economically by larger, more productive farms. As prices were being driven down and the expenses of keeping up with industry advances and market fluctuations continually rose, the region went into a gradual, but decided, decline. One or two farmers were able to expand their farms at the expense of smaller steads going under. The best example of this in the Smithfield Valley was the farm of Albert Smith, who between 1885 and 1900 assembled more than 800 acres by absorbing the neighboring Adams, Kirby and Duel farms along Separate Road south of Kirme Corners. Later, this farm would serve as the basis for Bel-Air Farms.

What had been an active and progressive farming community in the previous century was now growing tired and shopworn.

Agriculturally, the valley was still productive, but its economy was depressed, the infrastructure outdated and, perhaps more important, the social cohesion of the farm community had become unglued by the disruption of the traditional family, social and occupational bonds that created it in the first place. During this period, rural communities in the region experienced a cultural transformation that had an even greater impact than economic swings. Because these communities and their landscapes were defined by this social imprint, when the family trees became so large and diffuse that they were no longer rooted in the locality - in fact, they no longer needed to be rooted in a place, at all - the community lost its definition and vitality. Before this, if the hamlet's economy lagged or its markets shifted, neighbors would meet the challenge, as was the case in the evolution to dairy farming, the change to fluid milk production, and possibly, the experiment with tobacco. Such revitalization efforts were not possible at the end of the nineteenth century; however, because the hamlet had lost its intimacy, families lost their identity in the farm (it became only a business or real estate for many of the new crop of heirs), and with other options for professions and a far wider vision of personal boundaries, people were now more inclined to

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leave than feel obligated to remain and stick it out. Thus, the Sthithfield Valley was thrown on the block and made ripe for new investors and a new kind of community.

By 1870, Daniel Caapenter's farm (formerly Evertson's) had been sold out of the family to John Putnam. Seth Thompson's farm was sold by his grandson in 1872. George D. James, a newcomer to the valley in 1857, lost his farm to foreclosure in 1899, when another outsider moved in. The Sanford farm was bought by the Flints.

Robert Thompson's daughter had sold numerous parcels north of The City, and the Hoag farm at head of Separate Road changed hands. The Van Hovenbergs, Flints, and E.P. Carpenter at the old Burton Farm, held onto their farms to the end of the century, as did Isaac H. Conklin, but consolidation was already beginning to happen.

As the twentieth century opened, while the face of the Smithfield Valley landscape maintained its tranquil appearance, the organization of its community had radically altered.

THE FARM LANDSCAPE, 1900-PRESENT

Maps from the 1920's and 1930's show new names of families and land corporations on the traditional farm lots. The remaining holdouts at the end of the nineteenth century were gone from the scene, with the exception of the Flints, who continued on their hilltop spread, and the Kinnes, who retained some land in their old neighborhood in the south of the valley. Many of these newcomers were New Yorkers in search of country retreats, who because of the depressed land values, could purchase entire farms for a fraction of the cost of city real estate. Some of these individuals harbored desires to engage in rural pursuits and kept the farms growing crops and raising livestock. These recreational farmers may have been interested in the farm paying for itself, but did not need to be concerned with earning their living from the land. This phenomenon was a boon to Smithfield, as well as numerous other farm communities in the region. The landscape was maintained and kept in cultivation during a period when many of the existing farmers found it impossible to do so. Ironically, many of these farmers became laborers on their old farms, representing a significant restructuring of the region's social organization. However, the action was more that of preservation (arguably, historic preservation), than of economic or community revitalization. Farming continued to be the principal occupation in the region, but the community had lost its localized, organic and familial character. Instead, it returned to the condition that existed in the early eighteenth century where proprietary landholders like

25

Jacob Evertson or David Johnston divided their time between their city homes and their rural estates, dominating the best land and much of the economic power from an aloof, often absentee, perspective.

By 1925, Peter Flanagan was amassing property around The City, taking over all or parts of the Thompson, Hoag and Pugsley farms.

The Flints, whose farm had extended down the hillside to absorb the Sanford farm, had also taken possession of the Van Hovenburg farm (possibly the old-fashioned way: through marriage). They sold the Van Hovenburg place to Thorndale Farms, a real estate holding company owned by the Thorn family of Millbrook that was buying large amounts of land in northeastern Dutchess County. Thorndale Farms acquired additional lands north of The City, creating Briarcliff Farms, presumably to differentiate it from a farm in Pine Plains that also had the Thorndale name. At the same time, Briarcliff Farms picked up more than 1000 acres at the foot of the valley, with Albert Smith's 800-acre farm forming the bulk of the transaction. The farm extended across the base of the entire valley, including what are today the Bel-Air and Amberg Farms. Under the name of Millbrook Holding Company, the Thorns also bought hundreds of acres south of Dutchess Turnpike in Turkey Hollow.

Some changes had been made to the houses and farm buildings over the previous century, but the farm architecture that survives in the valley reflects extensive renovation and rebuilding in the early twentieth century. For example, only a few nineteenth-century barns remain in Smithfield, notably on the James, Flint and Conklin farms.

These are large, voluminous, gable-roof structures, built for the 20-head dairy herds typical in the period, with space for cattle in a basement level and for vast amounts of hay above. Foundations for similar old barns are evident on the R. Thompson and Pray farms.

Other farms, especially the active ones, have large, efficient-looking, early twentieth century farm buildings. The E.P. Carpenter, G. Thompson, and R. Hoag farms have impressive modem fachities built during the Flanagan ownership. Bel-Air Farms also has an extensive barn complex, although it has experienced more recent expansions and changes. The remaining farms have no barns at an, indicating the decommissioning of farms and the rise of simpler country retreats: Van Hovenburg, Sanford, and Daniel Carpenter farms.

The houses are more varied. Most of the houses from the older properties exist as parts of later architecture. The original one and one-half story, five-bay form of the old PerLee house at the head of Smithfield Road is still evident in the enlarged residence there with its Colonial Revival-period decoration. Robert R. Thompson's house,

26

opposite the mill in The City, also started out lower than its present two-story height, and without the kitchen ell and rear appendages that appeared in later nineteenth century installments. Up on the hill, the Flint house is a well-preserved example of a late-eighteenth century, center-chirmey, New England-type house. The brick house on the old Burton farm is the oldest house in the valley, built sometime after Daniel Burton's arrival in 1762. A two-story, five-bay house, it was a substantial dwelling for its period and reflects Burton's affluence as wen as his roots in coastal Comecticut and its architecture.

The old house was enlarged and updated in a Greek Revival taste when Samuel Pugsley (1836) or Edmund P. Carpenter (1850) bought

the property, and received new rear wings and interior decoration when it changed hands in the 1930's or 1940's.

Jacob Evertson's old brick mansion house from his renowned eighteenth century farm survived as part of Daniel Carpenter's as late as 1875, but was replaced soon after by an elegant Second Empire-style house by the next owner, John Putnam. This house still occupies the site, and although no outbuildings remain, one of the few surviving tenant houses is located just south from there along Smithfield Road. Seth Thompson's c.1805 house was either totally renovated into or replaced by the two-story, five-bay, mid-nineteenth century farmhouse occupied by his sons, Sidney and George, after they took occupancy of the property in 1843. George D. James built the two-story, gable-front house on the other half of the Thompson farm when he bought it in 1857; however, its elaborate cornice

ornament and interior paneling were the result of twentieth-century renovations by the Sutton family, who owned the farm between 1899 and 1960.

The southernmost farm on Smithfield Road, the PerLee-Conklin Farm, has an intact Federal-period house at its core, probably built by the Boyd family, who sold the farm to John H. PerLee in 1856. It appears to have remained essentially intact, though gathering wings and extensions, through Isaac H. Conklin's tenure and into the twentieth century, when it was absorbed in Eel-Air farms. What became of the Adams, Kirby, Duel, Smith, Hoag and Kinne farmhouses when first Albert Smith, and later, Bel-Air Farms, consolidated the farms is undocumented. Other than the PerLee-Conklin house and barns, no nineteenth century, much less eighteenth century, buildings have survived. Based on the size, productivity and longevity of some of these farms, their houses should have been as large and prominent as those on Smithfield Road.

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In the category of smaller farm properties, particularly on the valley's west side, only one or two houses remain. A few laborer houses have also survived. Albert Pray's farmhouse on Separate Road is a prominent example. In comparison with the big farms, its small, one and one-half story scale and plain decoration aptly illustrate the social and economic differences between farm lifestyles.

Over the years, the house has been enlarged steadily to meet the requirements for added space in contemporary home life. A similar, Kirby house on the west side of Separate Road south of Kinne's Comers, can also be grouped in this category. Just south of the Pray farm, on property once associated with it, a residence along the creek (on the present Petterson property) provides further illustration of the form and location that were common for lower-class housing.

It was even smaller and more basic than its neighbor, a one and one-half story, one-room plan, frame dwelling, close to the road, with few amenities. Like the Pray house, modem space requirements and a leveling of economic classes in Smithfield have resulted in the expansiori and aggrandizement of the residence, but its historic form and associations are still obvious. Two or three other small houses remain on Separate Road to further document the location and design of nineteenth-century working-class housing in the region.

There is recent working-class housing as well. Eel-Air Farms built new houses for its laborers along Separate Road in the 1940's, and the valley's only other commercial farm, Smithfield Farms, has accumulated a mixture of worker dwellings in a more vernacular tradition. This row is a mix of cottages, ranches and mobile homes.

The twentieth century had an impact in The City, which retains only a fraction of its original dwellings and related buildings; many have been lost and/or replaced with more recent hamlet dwellings that help maintain the sense of its density. The Greek Revival-style Bostwick house and its appended store/post office survive at the Smithfield Road intersection, as does the schoolhouse, which has been expanded and altered for residential use. The blacksmith shops are gone, but two buildings associated with shoemaking remain, one a pattern-book example of a ``front-gable-and-wing" working class house. The mills have long since disappeared, yet the site is intact with its mid-nineteenth century miller's residence. Intermixed are bungalows and cottages typical of early twentieth century hamlet development and one or two more recent suburban-type houses.

Here at the close of the twentieth century, the Smithfield Valley stands out as an historic landscape in an extraordinary state of preservation, where not only a rural landscape survives intact, but

28

the gist of the social and occupational patterns established more than 200 years ago continues. While the landscape, activities and relationships have been revised on numerous occasions, the continuity of the traditional function and organization of the land persists and is directly evident in the physical features of the valley. The landscape has been an active participant in the changing life of Smithfield and is its most eloquent historian.

SOURCES USED: Albany, New York. New York State Archives. U.S. Census, Agricultural Schedules, 1850, 1860, 1870, 1880.

New York State Library. U.S. Census Population Schedules for 1790, 1810, 1820, 1860 and N.Y.S. Census Population and Agricultural Schedules for 1865 and 1875.

Beers, F.W. AfJ¢s a/ D#fchess Co#7zfty, Nezt7 York. Philadelphia,1867.

. AIlas Of New York Cdy and Vicinity. New York, T876.

Commemorative Biographical Record Of Dutchess County, New York.1897 .

MCDermott, William P., ed.18th Century Documents Of Nine Partners Patent, Dutchess Coc£7tty, Nezt7 Yo7*. Poughkeepsie, NY: Dutchess County rmstorical Society, 1979.

Poucher, J. Wilson, and Helen Wilkinson Reynolds. old Gr¢z7csfo7zes a/ Dzffchess Coc£7tfty,

Nezo Yo7*. Poughkeepsie, NY: Dutchess County Historical Society, 1924.

Poughkeepsie, New York. Dutchess County Clerk's Office. Deeds and Mortgages. . Dutchess County Historical Society. Map and Genealogical Conections.

Reed, Newton. E¢dy Hz.sfony a/A773e7tz.a. 1875. Rpt. Amehia, NY: Harlem Valley Times, 1985.

J

Smith, James H. Hz.sfony a/DztcJzess (sic) Co#7zfty, Nczt7 York. 1882. Rpt. Interlaken, NY: Heart

of the Lakes Publishing, 1980.

Thompson, William Baker, co"p. Thonapson Lineage with Mention Of AIlied Fandlies.

Harrisburg, PA: Telegraph Printing Co.,1911.

END NOTES: 1

Newton Reed, £¢dy Hz.sfony o/A7%cHz.a. (1875. Amenia, NY: Harlem valley Times,1985,) p.78

2

Reed,p.92.

3

Reed,p.115

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I

31

FIG. 3 - Map of the Great Nine Partners Patent, 1753. The Smithfield Valley is contained in great lots 32 Games Emmott), 33 (William Creed) and 34 (David Tamison) which are located at the eastern edge of the patent. (Source: From a copy on file at the Dutchess County Historical Society. Scale reduced.)

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Changes in Dutchess County's Art Scene

by Nan Fogel Nan Fogel, a Hyde Parlc resident, has a keen interest ip_thf cultural life If the commurrity, particulaly music and arf . Sfae is recognized for her excellence as a photographer. She is an emptoyee of Vassar Cottege.

The array of art galleries, exhibitions, and educational opportunities for art that we currently enjoy in Dutchess County makes us wonder what was available earlier in the century for people with an interest or talent in art. On the surface it may seem as though little was going on in Dutchess, but, in fact, there were signs of vitality.

An arts colony, Elverhoj, flourished across the river in Milton in the 1920's and 30's, attracting artists and craftspeople, as well as actors who produced summer theater. For a brief period, Elverhoj operated a shop in Poughkeepsie. There were arts communities in nearby Catskill and Woodstock and in Kent, Connecticut, although lack of transportation made it difficult for most people to reach them.

In addition, Vassar College had an art gallery since it opened in 1865 but at the time few members of the community visited it. A handful of women in Poughkeepsie began meeting in the mid-1920's to discuss current events. Their focus turned to the arts, broadly defined, and their numbers grew. The Art Study Club met monthly for several decades and in the 1940's and 50's it was a force for cultural education in Poughkeepsie.

The life of one local artist in the first half of the century may illuminate the experience of artists in Dutchess County during this period. Thomas Weeks Barrett, whose life and times are well documented because of his contributions to the development of art in the county, is an example. Barrett was born in Poughkeepsie at 55 Noxon Street in 1902 and lived there all his Ire. As a young man, he left home to study design at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts School. He graduated in 1926 and moved to New York City.

Although he had some success in finding work as a commercial designer, competition was keen and the times were financially unstable. His total income from design work in 1928-29 amounted to $208. 1 Barrett returned to Poughkeepsie in October 1929 and began

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to paint local scenes -cityscapes and rural subjects. He also produced a series of woodblock prints of historic buildings and monuments in Poughkeepsie and Hyde Park. h finding local subjects worthy of painting, he was foHowing a national trend in the 1930's in a style of painting known as "regionalism."

Barrett wanted to organize a local community of professionallytrained artists for purposes of exhibiting and selling their work.

J-erome Deyo has written that at the time, Dutchess County artists knew neither their colleagues nor buyers of art. 2 He states: ``... There was not Q±e art gallery in the county ... where either the artist or a prosperous buyer could go see just what kind of art was being produced locally and by whom." 3 Assisted by his good friend and fellow artist, Vincent Walker, Barrett wrote to the artists he did know and asked them to contact their colleagues. Slowly, a network of artists from all parts of the county was formed. A decision was made to hold an exhibition and plans went forward for submission and selection of work by an arts committee of peers. Luckey Platt & Co., the Poughkeepsie department store at Main and Academy Streets, offered space for a one-week exhibition in October 1934. Fifty-four artists displayed 115 paintings and drawings on the store's fifth floor.

Among those who exhibited were C.K. Chatterton, a Vassar College art professor and an artist with a national reputation; Randall Davey, who would become a well-known artist; Olin Dows, artist and member of an old Hudson Valley family distantly related to the Roosevelts; Robert Chanler, an internationally-known artist with roots in Dutchess County; Timothy Cole, master wood engraver; and four prominent artists from Dover Plains: Waiter Hartson, Glenn Newell, Arthur Powell, and Harry Waltman, members of some of the country's most prestigious art societies. Eleanor and Sara Roosevelt were patrons, as were several business and civic leaders. With 2,000 people signing the guest book, the show was considered a huge success. The following year Barrett founded the Dutchess County Art Association and became its first president.

During the years of the Great Depression some federal agencies provided opportunities for artists to earn money by conrfussioning artwork for public buildings. A competition posted in T7ze S##d¢y Co%rz.cr for two murals to be executed at the Poughkeepsie Post Office was ``open to all American artists who are residents of or attached to Dutchess or Ulster Counties." 4 The subject was to be views of Poughkeepsie from the west side of the Hudson, one circa 1839, and the other a present-day (1939) view. As the home of PresidentRoosevelt,thecountybenefittedfromhisinterestinbuilding

35

post offices and schools. Several DCAA artists received commissions for murals and paintings under the WPA Federal Art Project and the U.S. Treasury Department's Section of Painting and Sculpture. Tom Barrett painted murals for the Millbrook Memorial School; Harmon Neill worked at Bowne Memorial Hospital in Poughkeepsie; Henry Billings won the competition for murals at the Wappingers Falls Post Office; and Olin Dows received the commissions for the Hyde Park and Rhinebeck Post Offices. In addition, the Works Progress Administration, with a slogan of "Art for the Millions," sponsored an art class at Poughkeepsie High School in 1937.

C.K. Chatterton became DCAA's second president in 1940-41. Art Association members continued to meet at Barrett's home and at a variety of public buildings in Poughkeepsie during the 1940's. They produced a 1943 calendar of paintings by members and donated the proceeds to the war effort. In 1946 Jesse and Lee Effron opened their first ``Three Arts" store and gallery. While Jesse took charge of books

and records, Lee, who had worked in an art gallery in her native New York City, established the first gallery in Poughkeepsie. For the next ten years, she would show the work of artists from Dutchess and surrounding counties in month-long exhibits. After their move to Raymond Avenue, Lee opened a new gallery on Collegeview Avenue in 1964 and continued her pioneering efforts to showcase the work of artists she respected. A fire that destroyed the main store in 1975 put an end to the gallery, but by that time the public was better educated about art.

Tom Barrett's last exhibit was at the Three Arts Gallery in December 1946. The following year he was listed in Wfeo's W7io I.7£ A77ccrz.c¢77 Arf (1947). Barrett died the same year at the age of 45. He

left a legacy of both a strong arts organization and painted records of Poughkeepsie at mid-century. One of his dreams had been to turn his Noxon Street home into an art center. It would be thirty years before his dream was realized.

As IBM expanded and added to its work force in the 1950's and 60's, the county's population grew. Many of the newcomers joined the Art Association; membership rose from 100 members in 1968 to 168 in 1970, and 200 in 1976. 5 In the absence of a home of its own, the IBM Country Club became the site of DCAA's amual exhibitions.

Betty Barrett, Tom Barrett's only sibling, had stayed on in the Noxon Street home after her brother and mother died. She knew of his dream to convert their home to an art center and she agreed with it.

In February 1974, she signed a will, leaving her home, its furnishings, Tom Barrett's remaining prints and paintings, and a residual estate to

36

the Dutchess County Art Association. Four months later, Betty Barrett died in a fire that partially destroyed the house at Noxon Street. Her will stated her wishes: ``It is my desire that this property be known as Barrett House and

that it be maintained by the Dutchess County Art Association as a place where works of art would be exhibited for the general public and for such other purposes as will contribute to the appreciation and understanding of art." 6 The Art Association's Board of Directors accepted the legacy and the process of renovation began. The cost of restoration and remodeling, $85,000, was paid for through the sale of family antiques, property, and an 18th century family portrait by artist Ammi Phillips. Thanks to the hard work of the DCAA Board and members, with special efforts by Jerome Deyo, Julia and James DiMaso, and Jesse Effron, Barrett House opened in June 1976. An opening reception, attended by the Mayor of Poughkeepsie and the County Executive, announced Barrett House as a new institution in the community. Its first exhibit, ``Tom Barrett, Portrait of Poughkeepsie," was a selection of his oil

paintings and graphic work, hung on the new white gallery walls in celebration of his life and the fulfillment of his dream. 7 W'hen the Art Association acquired a home, its role changed from that of a group of artists who met monthly and exhibited two or three times a year, to that of an organization. As Barrett House, it was responsible to the wider community. Staff and instructors were required to carry out the Barretts' directive to promote the visual arts. It also had financial obligations. Growth brought difficult decisions and change, but twenty years later the Art Association has 450 members and Barrett House is thriving. Its director, Ursula Nelson, thinks Tom Barrett would be pleased with the way his home is being used. Its mission is the same as Barrett envisioned sixty years ago: to encourage and nurture the visual arts through high quality exhibitions and art instruction. Each year, three national juried shows are held, in painting, photography, and printmaking, as a means of educating the public about contemporary trends in art. Three member shows and three curated retrospective/historical exhibits complete the amual schedule.

In addition, Barrett House has made a niche for itself by providing excellent studio art instruction. It has a satellite center in Millbrook, and others are planned for the future.

Barrett House has been assisted, as have all county arts orgarLizafrons, by the Dutchess County Arts Council. Founded in 1964, the Council is an advocate for the arts on all levels of government. It oversees the Dutchess Arts Fund, a cooperative effort of business, government, and

37

individual fund raising, which benefits local arts organizations. The Fund provides general operating expenses for ten arts organizations, including Barrett House, and gives project grants and fellowships to individual artists. In 1985, Dutchess County won the Govemor's Arts Award for leadership in New York State in support of the arts.

For county residents there are many opportunities to see paintings and sculpture. Vassar College has been adding to its fine teaching collection for the past 130 years. In 1993 the art gallery was expanded and enhanced with the addition of the Frances Lehman Loeb Center.

The college promotes its collection to the public through listings in the local newspaper and announcements of special exhibits.

Marist College and Dutchess Community Colleges in Poughkeepsie and the State University of New York at New Paltz all have art galleries that are open to the public. Bard College's Center for Curatorial Studies, a graduate training ground for future curators that includes a large art gallery, opened in 1990.

Several private galleries have appeared in recent years. The Lorraine Kessler Gallery in Poughkeepsie opened five years ago. In that time, Ms. Kessler thinks her visitors have become more comfortable and receptive to art. 8 Lee Effron also spoke of the educational role of art galleries to the public. 9 It would have been hard to imagine, 70 years ago, the opportunities that would exist to view and study art in Dutchess County today. To some degree we are all better informed about art because it has had national attention. Museum collections from around the world are the subject of television shows and special exhibits are promoted nationally. Locally, we have been enriched by collections that are more numerous and accessible than at any time in the past. We need not go far to see portraits of eady Dutchess County settlers and leaders, or landscapes painted within our borders by Hudson River School artists. Almost at our doorsteps are the painted records of changing modes of transportation, our industries, historic buildings and architecture. In some post offices we can see a town's history in murals. A variety of traveling exhibitions and new work by artists from around the country are at our beck and call through visits to galleries. We are the fortunate recipients of others' talents and dreams.

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END NOTES: 1

2

Marling, Karel Am and Harrison, Helen A., ``Tom Barrett, Portrait of poughkeepsie," catalog for DCAA exhibition at Barrett House, September 1976 Deyo, Jerome, "Tom Barrett and His Contemporaries," notes for an exhibition at Barrett House, June 1988

3

4

ibid.

``Professor Tonks Is Chairman of Competition Col]rmittee for Two Post Office awards,'' The Sunday Courier: Pougivkeapsie, NY, Octofoer 16,1938, p.17

5

``Art Assodalonca"e of Age," Poughkeepsie Journal progress Edition,Fedmary 6, T9:77, p. [3

6

Elizabeth Barrett's will, DCAA Newsletter, Vol. XIII, No. 2, October 1974

7 Marling, Karel Ann and Harrison, Helen A. 8

Conversation with Lorraine Kessler, April 4,1996

9

hterview with Tesse and Lee Effron, January 18,1996

39

Terome Deyo's Poughkeepsie

by Nan Fogel By creating images that evoke a particular environment in their paintings, artists give us a sense of place. In choosing those elements of a landscape that are both unique and familiar, they allow us to experience again the places we call home. Their paintings provoke feelings we have for our communities. The subject may be a skyline or the shape of a mountain. For those of us who live in Dutchess County, it may be images of apple trees growing on a hillside, or stone walls, or a stand of purple loosestrife in a field. h |erome Deyo's paintings, the Poughkeepsie Raiiroad Bridge hovers above streets and buildings in Mount Carmel Square, shad boats cluster at the river's edge, and apple trees blossom along a quiet country road. Deyo has been painting scenes of Dutchess County for a good many of his nearly 80 years. As a child he sketched on the banks above the Hudson and at the old Day Line pier at the foot of Main Street. IIis interest in art goes back to 1923 when, at the age of six, he made drawings of photographs he had seen in a newspaper of the opening of King Tutankhamen's tomb. Deyo took as many art courses as possible in high school. In his senior year he was an art editor of the Poughkeepsie High School yearbook, Pfeoz.s. When a teacher encouraged him to enter the newly-founded Dutchess County Art Association exhibit, he submitted a drawing of the Dutton Lumber Company that was accepted and hung in the show.

At his high school graduation, he won the Dutchess County Art Association award for general excellence in art.

Deyo has reminisced that it is easier to recall what was not available to the artistically-minded than what was in the 1930's. 1 A major influence on him was Tom Barrett, the artist and founder, in 1935, of the Dutchess County Art Association. Although Barrett was fifteen years Deyo's senior, both were deeply rooted in Dutchess County and both had spent their childhoods in ``old Poughkeepsie," meaning downtown, where the streets led past large Victorian houses on Academy and South Hamilton Streets, on down to the waterfront and the river. After college and an unsuccessful attempt to support hilnself as a designer in New York City, Barrett returned to Poughkeepsie in 1929. Until his early death in 1947, he used the streets and houses of downtown Poughkeepsie and the industries along the waterfront as subjects for his paintings. Deyo admired

40

Barrett's artistic skills and the subjects he chose to paint. He might have followed in his footsteps had World War H not intervened and instead, he spent the next few years in Europe. After the war Deyo finished college and for several years he was kept busy with a young family and a career, first as a teacher and then as an archivist for 26 years at the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park. He found his interest in photography better suited to his lifestyle during those years and it became his primary means of creative expression.

It was not until 1963 that Deyo had enough leisure to fill his brushes and take up painting again. He began by taking art classes in an adult education program with Emile Waiters, a prominent local artist. The following year he was invited to exhibit in a show of work by charter members for the 30th armiversary of the Dutchess County Art Association. Over the next ten years, Deyo painted many scenes of his Hudson Valley home, exhibiting in DCAA and several one-nian shows. He looked for scenes that were ``unique, picturesque, or typical of the Hudson Valley." 2 He had always loved the old river towns, the waterfronts, and the river itself, with its bridges and majestic views of the Catskill Mountains. Like his mentor, Tom Barrett, Deyo found most of his subjects in the older sections of Poughkeepsie, on streets like Union and South Bridge that were threatened by urban development, and in the Mount Carmel neighborhood along Albany Street, Dutchess Avenue, and Delafield and South Water Streets. ``A feeling of place is important to me," Deyo said in an interview several years ago. 3 0n seeing one of Deyo's paintings of the Mount Carmel neighborhood, a man who had grown up there remarked, ``My whole childhood is in that picture." 4 In addition to taking up painting again, Deyo became more involved in the Dutchess County Art Association, serving as its vice president twice and as president for two terms (1968-70).

Membership had increased in the 1950's and 60's as the county's population grew. Many of the newcomers were IBM families who came from all parts of the country, bringing new energy and change.

The Art Association's policy of full membership for professionallytrained artists was still in force. Under Deyo's leadership, full membership was opened to all categories of people including nonartists interested in the visual arts. He worked hard both to democratize the organization an`d raise the quality of its exhibitions by reviving an arts committee to jury shows and attract good artists. Perhaps remembering the thrill of having one of his drawings accepted for the 1935 DCAA show, Deyo began a competition and exhibition for high school students.

41

The Art Association acquired its permanent home as a result of a tragic fire in 1974 that partially destroyed the Barrett home at 55 Noxon Street. As Chairman of DCAA's Board of Trustees, it fell to Deyo to provide much of the leadership for the long process of restoration and eventual opening as Barrett House. In June 1976, the same month that Barrett House opened, Deyo suffered a massive stroke that paralyzed his left (painting) hand. Determined to paint again, he spent the next three years training his right hand to do what the left hand had once done naturally. By 1979 he was able to draw parallel lines with his right hand. Later that year he entered the Christmas Member Show at Barrett House. Since then, Deyo has exhibited on many occasions and received awards. He has curated one Thomas Barrett exhibition and written the catalog for another.

Three of his paintings were selected for arts calendars of Dutchess County artists. Indeed, he is still painting.

A new generation of artists is painting scenes of Dutchess County and the Hudson Valley today, recording the changes that have taken place, leaving new impressions of our land. Through these paintings, we drive again over winding roads that open to vistas of green farmland; we recall the distinct profile of the Catskills on a clear day; we see again the long blue ribbon that is the Hudson, filling our valley with light. Our landscape is as familiar as family and comects us with hundreds of memories. Artists remind us of the beauty of our particular place on earth. We are grateful to them.

END NOTES: 1

Deyo, ]erome, ``Some Thoughts for a Historical sketch of DCAA," private paper, 5/83

2

Deyo, ]erome, ``Painting poughkeepsie," private paper,1/83, revised 5/84, with addenda

3

Pierce, Barbara, ``IIis Paintings are a Survey," p. lob, Pocfgfekeepsz.e /o#r7!czZ,12/29/74

4

Deyo, |erome, ``Painting poughkeepsie"

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DO-IT-YOURSELF ``ARTTOURS" OF

DUTCHESS COUNTY Itinerary, research, writing: Nan Fogel, Joyce Ghee, Stephanie Mauri

Mapping by Stephanie Mauri For more than a generation the ``Arttours" crow have been worlcing, as individuals and often together, to explore the reaches of aestheti.cs and hanankind's impact on its surroundings. Their special joy is in unearthing

places where art or history ``happened" and where one can still feel the reverberations. Over the years, as the oreative muse struck, they have contributed to projects that broughi their sktlls and interests in art, phot_ogra-

phy, architecture, history and the enviroanend to bear on projects benefilhag the local commundy. Studies, andiovisuals, exhibits, publications, and pro-

grams under the barler Of area noxprrfu organizations and local. government have been the result. The decision fo develop this tour package was inspired by the articles submitted by Nan Fogel and Jerome Deyo. It reminded them of how often this county's envirorrment and history have provided the raw materials for oreative expression.

Nan Fogel, See page 34.

Joyce Ghee, a Dutchess County native and trustee Of the Society, is one Of the co-founders Of the Eleanor Roosevelt Center at VatKj.Il in Hyde Park, New York. Fottowing her years as Dutchess County Historian, she now serves as a consulted to a variety Of

regional cultural institutions.

Stephanie Manri is a trustee Of the Society and a long term Clinton House volunteer. Her expertise ranges from Dutchess County archi,lecture and landscapes to area cultural history. She has served as Director Of Dutchess County Landmarks Association.

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From early in its past the work Of the artist/painter/sculptor has influenced the history of the county, by documenting the lives of those who lived here, chronicling important civic or historic events, and inteapreting the environment in a personalized statement about ``Sense of Place." The vision of locally respected as weu as nationally

and internationally renowned artists has enriched the cultural climate of the region. Dutchess has been home and workplace to hundreds of talented and aesthetically imovative individuals. This tour package is a first echelon attempt at finding evidence of their work and the creative spark which they found here that is still within reach of all of us. By visiting the galleries and institutions where their work(ortheworkofmorerecentartists)isdisplayed...byimmersing ourselves in the envirorment in which they worked... or by sharing the vistas and settings which inspired their creations, we all have an opportunity to experience in a very personal way the beauty, energy and impact of a place and a time, perhaps long gone. By seeing and being there we find a reality not easily captured in historical treatises.

We put ourselves in the picture.

Dutchess County continues to attract artists of stature. The tour team soon realized in outlining the who, what and where...that universal coverage of all persons and places, past and present, contributing to our rich cultural climate, would require several volunesandcreateanitinerarysomewhatresemblingthe19thcentury ``Grand Tour." A realistic appraisal forced our decision to include only those places easiest to locate, still recognizable despite the passage of years, and most easily accessible to the public. We have arbitrarily chosen to highlight the work of those artists from earlier centuries or, if from our own era, to those whose careers were in fun blossom prior to the middle of this century. We realize that despite screening our cast to purely historical figures and saving contemporaries for later, we are still missing much that deserves notice. We encourage local art historians and cultural history researchers to remind us of the people or places overlooked in this first pass and to consider contributing to enrichment of the continuing tale and to future tours through articles and knowledge of their research. This is the tip of the iceberg.

We have developed four itineraries within geographically connected/ related areas. Our suggested routes are only for ease of travel on an afternoon or weekend. If the tourist in you feels creative, reformulate the visitation points according to personal choices, e.g. by pulling out all the sites associated with 19th century landscape artists, or WRA artists, or the galleries or the public places where art

49

or sculpture is located. Use the categories themselves as raw thematic material...and have fun with history and art.

Maps outline suggested routes.

Based upon the availability of something the local history and art lover can truly see and personally experience, we have identified the

points in our itinerary with a number and the following designations:

(I) Institutions: Galleries, museums, public places where art related to or created in Dutchess County may be seen (W) Workplaces: artist's residences/studios (S) Settings: landscapes, vistas or special.settings that have inspired artists.

Since this is a do-it-yourself guide to touring, those who use it will have a little homework to do. Pubfic places often have different schedules and hours and occasional admissious policy changes. We recommend calling public sites directly, or checking with the Dutchess County Tourism Promotion Agency or the Dutchess County Arts Council for current information. We have included privately owned sites from among those that are easily visible from a public street or whose grounds are accessible. Private properties should not be intmded upon, but anything that is visible from the highway is within yourrighttoviewasyoupassby..."AcatcanlookataQueen."

Portraiture of historical figures found in area museums and historic sites may confuse unwary viewers. What appears to be duplication of the same work done by a famed artist may be a very good copy. This is particularly true of Livingston-related faces. The originals of these portraits are often foqnd in major museums elsewhere. Small institutions lacking staff wisely prefer to show copies rather than risk damage or loss of invaluable art works. Where the copyist is known, we share that information.

Murals also may perplex, if we think in terms of European frescoes, in which a painting is joined chemically to the plaster. Most of the murals created for or still shown in area institutions have been painted on canvas and applied in a way similar to hanging wallpaper.

This means that they also may have been removed, redesigned by cutting, adapted to fit an architectural feature...or painted over, in some instances.

A Bibliography is attached of sources stiu in print with site information, visuals of related paintings and`/or historical background.

An appendix by Nan Fogel provides additional information on artists referenced in the tour or whose works or designs relate historically to Dutchess County.

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ITINERARY A: NORTHERN DUTCHESS A-1

I-S-Clermont, Woods Rd., Tivoli (Germantown). New York State Historic Site. Public. The estate of Chancellor Robert R. Livingston, a drafter of the Declaration of Independence, crosses the boundaries of Dutchess and Columbia counties. Livingston, as New York's highest judicial officer, adrjnistered the presidential oath of office to George Washingtonatthenation'sfirstinauguralceremoniesinNewYorkCity.

The Chanceuor's childhood home was rebuilt by his mother, Margaret Beekman Livingston, after it was burned by the British in their 1777 assaults up the Hudson RIver. The original Georgian house, now reminiscent of a French style chateau, was enlarged and altered several times in the 19th century. It rests on a bluff overlooking the river and is filled with portraits of the family and important historical figures with whom their lives were intertwined. These images represent one of the most important and comprehensive conections of American portraiture outside an art museum in New York State. The works of artists from the earnest days of Livingston Manor in the late 17th centny into 19th century are included. Of special interest are the portraits done by Gilbert Stuart of the Chancellor (c. 1795), Thomas Sully's portrait of Andrew Jackson (1819), and Rembrandt Peale's portrait of Margaret Maria hivingston.Theviewsfromandofthesifeitselfhaveinspiredgeneratious of artists. Aldibald Robertson, who also sketched the Dutchess County Courthouse, did a drawing of the house and overlook to the river west (1796).

A-2

W-Edward L. Mooney House. Private. Visible from CR56 at intersection with Old Post Rd. in Upper Red Hook. Angling into the hiuside of the hamlet, this tall, commodious frame house with the gamb-rel

roof was the summer home and studio of portrait painter Edward Mooney, some of whose works are in the collection at the Elmendorph hn or on loan to the Dutchess County Historical Society.

A-3

I-Bard College, River Road, Annandale-on-Hudson, Center for Curatorial Studies. Gallery, Programs open to Public. Founded as Episcopal boys school in 1860 as St. Stephen's by Dr. John Bard, it later became an undergraduate college, renamed after its founder in 1933. Creative arts have had a strong role in Bard's curriculum and collection.

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52

A-4

W-"Poet's Walk." Romantic Landscape Park. Former Home/Property of Robert Chanler. Public access near "Rokeby" estate. River Road, Red Hook, % mile north of Rte. 199. Although Robert Chanler is best known for his contributions to the 1913 Armory Show that shocked traditional lovers of classical art, he also did a number of decorative murals for estate owners in the Hudson Valley. Much of Chanler's art career was invested in Europe but his family home here was ``Rokeby," the present home of another family member, historian and preservationist John Winthrop Aldrich. ``Poet's Walk," a scenic public trail/ path newly created by land owned by Scenic Hudson and limited easements from a portion of estates bordering the Hudson, realizes the aesthetic concepts for which the valley is renowned. The main portions of the ``Rokeby" grounds are private, not accessible to the public, but the white stucco gatehouse is visible near the road at the main entrance to the estate.

A-5

I-Elmendorph Inn, Corner Rte. 9 and Cherry Street, Red Hook Village. Public. Call for appt. This beautifully restored 18th century clapboard vernacular former inn and town hall is operated by the Friends of Elmendorph as a Community Resource and meeting place for the Egbert Benson (town) Historical Society. In its collection, although not currently on display, are portraits of members of leading families by respected artist Edward Mooney: ``Benjamin Seymour Pier" and the artist's sister ``Ann Marie Mooney Pier." A photocopy of Gilbert Stuart's portrait of respected jurist Egbert Benson is perma-

nently hung.

A-6

I-Montgomery Place, River Rd., Armandale, Historic Hudson Valley Museum. Public. Janet Livingston Montgomery, the widow of this nation's first hero in the American Revolution, General Richard Montgomery, built her own home overlooking the Hudson in 1805.

Architect A.I. Davis was twice engaged at later times to remodel the house and property. Members of the Livingston family occupied the house until 1985 when it became part of the properties interpreted by Historic Hudson Valley telling the story of the region. It is considered one of America's finest examples of Federal architecture. The family collection contains important works: portraiture, landscape and sculpture by noted artists of the 18th and 19th centuries, both copies and originals.

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A-7

I-Rhinebeck Post Office. Rte. 9 (14 Mill St.), Rhinebeck. Public.

This Works Progress Administration (WPA) era post office (1938), another of FDR's pet projects, was inspired by the Dutch vemacular stone Kip-Beekman house, built c. 1700. Although the house burned in 1908, it was a familiar and well-documented landmark whose appearance and story were well-known to FDR. Louis Simon was the architect and Olin Dows was commissioned to paint the local history murals. Dows, whose home, ``Glenbum," on the family estate, Fox Hollow, is just south of the village (see ``Southlands''), was a Rhinebeck native.

A-8

I-Starr Institute. 66 West Market Street (Rte. 308), Rhinebeck.

Public. The library was formed in 1857 as an educational memorial to William Starr Miller, given to the town by his wife Mary, a granddaughter of Revolutionary War Gen. Phillip Schuyler. Miller's portrait,

by an unknown artist, hung in the original building on Rte. 9 until the present building was constructed in the 1980's.

A-9

I-Wilderstein. Morton Rd., Rte. 85 Rhinebeck. House Museum.

Public. The home of the Thomas Suckley.family, originally built in 1852, is a Queen Anne architectural masterpiece undergoing careful reconstruction. It was given a whole new aesthetic in its 1888 redesign by Arnout Cannon and the creative talents of several important artist/ designers. The grounds represent the vision of Calvert and Downing Vaux. Interior decoration is by the noted interior designer, Joseph Burr Tiffany, carried out in the exquisite drawing room in Louis Xvlth style furnishings by Pottier-Stymus & Co. and in jewel-like stained glass windows in the Library. The last family member to occupy the house, Daisy Suckley, a distant cousin and long-time personal friend of FDR, placed the property in the hands of Wilderstein Preservation, Inc., shortly before her death in 1991. In addition to the interior design elements, the collection contains a number of important art works of interest to historians and researchers.

A-10

W-"Southlands"/"Glenbum''/''Fox Hollow." From Fox Hollow Rd., along Rte. 9 south of Rhinebeck Village to Fishing Grounds Rd. Limited access to grounds. The contiguous former estates of the

54

Dows family included the home and studio of artist/illustrator O]in Dows. Since the 1980s a portion of the grounds and outbuildings have been part of a drug rehabilitation program working with young people from the metropolitan area. Visible farther south are the open fields and farm buildings of Southlands Farms, now owned by Southlands Foundation, dedicated to equestrian arts and conservation of open space. All this, from the road almost to the river in many parts, was Dows family property. The Dutch vernacular style stone estate gatehouse, near the bridge on South Mill Road at Vandenburgh Cove, was often used by writer Thomas Wolfe on his visits to Dutchess County.

A-11

I-Ogden and Ruth Livingston Mills Mansion. Old Post Rd., Staatsburg, State Historic Site. Public. The imposing present-day Beaux-Arts mansion began life as a much more modest Federal style home built by Governor Morgan Lewis in 1832 for his wife Gertrude Livingston Lewis. Noted architect Stan ford White was given the commission to enlarge and redesign the mansion in 1895 by Ogden Mills for his wife Ruth Livingston Mills. Generations of the same family lived here and put their mark on house and grounds until it was given to the state in 1938. The walls are lined with portraits (some copies of originals in other collections) of family and important historical figures with whom they were associated, done by some of the world's most famous artists. Unsigned portraits of Morgan Lewis have been attributed to Henry hman and copyist Charles Curran.

A-12

S-Hyde Park. The view of the river from the Overlook at Vanderbilt Mansion, Rte. 9 north of the hamlet. This vista from the grounds has been captured by probably more artists than any other spot along the Hudson, vying with Newburgh Bay for first place.

It was popularized by inexpensive engravings created from mid19th century drawings by William Henry Bartlett. Among the most familiar versions are paintings by French painter Victor De Grailly (1870), Thomas Cole, William Stanley Haseltine (1860), Johann Carmeinecke, landscape designs by A.J. Downing. They depict shght changes in vegetation, outdoor furniture and clothing styles, but the impressive view to the mountains over Esopus Island remains the same.

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A-13

I-Hyde Park Post Office. Corner of Post Road and East Market Street, Hamlet of Hyde Park. Public. Another of FDR's pet WPA projects was the new Hyde Park Post Office, dedicated in 1940. The architect, Louis A. Simon, also supervised the construction of the Poughkeepsie Post Office. Both reflect FDR's attraction to local, historically documented architectural styles. This building was modeled after the Bards' ``Red House" which stood on Rte. 9 not far from the present site of the Vanderbilt Mansion. The lobby is decorated with murals painted by O]in Dows, noted illustrator and watercolorist.

As a member of one of the River families, Dows was personally familiar with the history of the area, from the first Stoutenburgh settlers and the noted Bard falmily of physician/ scholars to the halcyon days of the Roosevelt era. He faithfully recorded all in his unique pictorial style.

A-14

I-FDR Home,"Springwood." Albany Post Rd., Hyde Park, National Historic Site. Public. Since President Roosevelt's death in 1945 this site has been managed for public use and education by the National Park Service within the Dept. of Interior. The Roosevelt family home and FDR's birthplace, when purchased by his father, James Roosevelt 11, in the 1860s was a rambling Victorian farmhouse. The present Georgian facade, completed in 1915, represents the tastes of James' second wife, Sara Delano, and the architectural interests of their son.

The interior furnishings include art works from Roosevelt and Delano families of both generations; family portraits and landscapes dear to the parents and nautical paintings of particular interest to the President. Of special interest to local historians are the portraits by Gilbert Stuart (Isaac Roosevelt), Henry Inman (James Roosevelt), Daniel Huntington (Dr. Isaac Roosevelt), Charles S. Forbes (FDR as a boy) and the sculpture of FDR as a young man by Paul Troubetzkoy.

A-15

I-FDR Library and Museum. Albany Post Rd., Hyde Park. Public.

The nation's first presidential library and archives was planned by FDR himself several years before his death in 1945, as a repository for materials created during his historic administration and for the history of the Hudson Valley. The Dutchess County Room, planned with the help of Helen Wilkinson Reynolds, was intended to be set aside for local history. He envisioned spending his retirement years

56

organizing and reevaluating the' rich contents of the Library on the grounds of the Springwood estate. The collection has grown over the years to contain documentary and artifactual materials relating as well to his wife Eleanor, family, associates, the community and region. Portraiture in a variety of media, in addition to nautical paintings and drawings, landscapes and statuary, are included.

ITINERARY 2: CENTRAL DUTCHESS B-1

I-Poughkeepsie Post Office, Civic Center Plaza, Mansion Street, Poughkeepsie. Public. This National Register fieldstone, Georgianinfluenced structure was the realization of a dream for President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who laid the cornerstone in 1937. FDR envisioned the fusion of regional history, art, and architecture in public buildings as the underpinning of a strong sense of place and community, making this building a model for the nation. The building was patterned after a c.1796 drawing by Archibald Robertson found in the collection of the New-York Historical Society. The drawing depicts the third Dutchess County Courthouse, in which the Uhited States Constitution was ratified. The richly styled interior lobby of the post office is decorated with murals documenting the city's past, chosen by a WPA-era competition overseen by the U.S. Treasury Division of Procurement. These include: Georgina Klitgaard's ``View of Poughkeepsie 1839," Charles Rosen's ``View of Poughkeepsie 1939" and three murals by noted illustrator Gerald Foster; ``Rust Plaets 1687" (the Little Resting Place for which the city was named), ``Hamlet of Poughkeepsie 1740" and the most famous ``The Ratification of the U.S Constitution 1788." IEstorical research by Helen Wilkinson Reynolds supported the work of the artists, particularly the definitive moment, nowhere else illustrated, in which Alexander Hamilton and Governor George Clinton agreed to the conditions of ratification. Permanent exhibits in the first floor lobby detail the

history of the structure under FDR's guiding hands and provide information about other Roosevelt and local history sites.

8-2 I-Poughkeepsie Journal. Civic Center Plaza, Mansion Street.

Pou9hkeepsie. Lobby open daily during business hours. FDR's original

vision for Poughkeepsie had included a town square for public buildings reflecting historical/regional stylistic preferences in native fieldstone. The Speidel chain of newspapers caught the sense of his

57

vision in their newspaper building opposite the post office, completed in 1943. Lobby murals lining the circular stairwell to the second floor, done by A. Karoly and L. Santo while the building was under construction in 1941-42, document the history of newspapers in the United States.

8-3

I-S-Dutchess County Courthouse. 10 Market Street, Poughkeepsie.

The present structure, fifth courthouse on the same site since c. 1717, was designed in 1902 by architect William Beardsley with Tuscan Italianate flair. A 1796 drawing by Archibald Robertson, in the collection of the New-York IIistorical Society, shows the exterior of the third courthouse in the small hamlet of Poughkeepsie in which New York ratified the United States Constitution in 1788. Portraits of past jurists line the walls of the second floor Ceremonial Courtroom where in 1988 hundreds of New Yorkers gathered to commemorate the Bicentermial of the U.S. Constitution with a reprise debate of the important issues which produced the Bill of Rights. A lobby exhibit created originally by the New York State Bicentennial Commission for statewide travel interprets the 1788 N.Y. Convention. It was presented to Dutchess by the State and adapted to its present setting as a permanent exhibit. It frames a copy of the original mural in the Poughkeepsie Post Office done by Gerald Foster c. 1937, noted for its portraiture of Constitutional framers, antagonists in the struggle between Federalists and Anti-federalists which eventually produced a strong national federation while insuring individual and state's rights. The exhibit outlines a walking tour of related Constitutionera sites.

8-4 I-Cunneen-Hackett Cultural Center. 9 and 12 Vassar Street, Poughkeepsie. Public lectures and programs. The two handsome Victorian brick structures comprising the center, the original Vassar Institute and the former Vassar Brothers Home for Aged Men, were built on the sites of Matthew Vassar's brewery and home in the early 1880's by his nephews. The restored Institute auditorium, originally a lecture room, is now used for a variety of public presentations, concerts and plays. The ``Home" is a community resource, providing office and meeting space for a number of non-profits and a gallery for changing exhibitions by local artists. There is a permanent collection of antiques and portraits of the Vassar family and a variety of material culture from the Victorian era in Poughkeepsie.

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B-5

I-Barrett House Galleries and School of Art, Dutchess County Art Association, 55 Noxon Street, Poughkeepsie. Public programs, classes, erdibitions. The home of Thomas Weeks Barrett, WPA muralist, graphic artist, designer and regionalist painter, became in 1974 the home of the association he was instrumental in founding in the 1930s. Barrett's works are some of the finest artistic representations and historical records of the city and county. Most familiar are his powerful woodcuts. The Gallery is one of the most vital sources of local aesthetic inspiration.

B-6

I-Adriance Library. 93 Market Street, Poughkeepsie Public Library.

Local History collection, by appt., contains photographs, images of the area. A charming painting of ``The. Phinney Sisters," three little girls who lived at 90 Market Street, c. 1825, is on display. The artist is unknown.

B-7

S-Fallkill Creek, Water Street, Poughkeepsie. The falls at the mouth is depicted in a 1798 student painting in DCHS collection of the Livingston mill by Adriana Vethake. The falls which powered the ]rill is still visible from the Water St. bridge at the creek mouth.

8-8

S-Johnson Iorio Park, Highland, at the western approach to the Mid-Hudson Bridge. The park overlook is reached by turning east at the first traffic light north of the bridge 9W entrance. From the overlook the waterfront and entire shore of the City of Poughkeepsie is visible. This is the view. seen from various perspectives in paintings and engravings done during the 19th century which provided the basis for Georgina Klitgaard's ``View of Poughkeepsie 1839" in the Poughkeepsie Post Office Lobby: a woodcut by Barber and Howe (1840), and E. Whitefield lithograph (1851). With a little imagination

and help from the art of several eras, the vast changes that have taken place at this mid-point landing on the Hudson can be seen in panorama. "Bech's Furnace," a painting by Johann Carmeincke (1856), and cartoons of Harvey Eastman's proposed railroad bridge in the 1880's show waterfront views from the Poughkeepsie (eastern) side across to the present park.

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8-9

I-Dutchess Community College. Pendell Road, Poughkeepsie.

Public. The college, chartered in 1957 as a two year school offering Associate Degrees, was built around the core of the former Samuel F. Bowne Hospital for tuberculosis patients. Beautiful views east and west from Hudson Hall, where the Art Department is housed, offer inspiration to students whose work is frequently featured in the gallery there. A series of paintings by prize winning painter David Lax, who was a respected teacher in the department, are on display in the library, and several sculptures by Louis Durchanek are incorporated into the and landscape of the campus. ``The Family" is architectural located outside Dutchess Hall;design ``Prometheus" is out-

side Drundin Hall.

8-10

I-Dutchess County Historical Society, Corner Main and North White Streets, Poughkeepsie. Public programs, research library, exhibits. Call for an appointment (471-1630). In its rich collections are many unique photographs, engravings and drawings related to Dutchess County history. Of special interest are early 19th century paintings, some by unknown journeyman artists whose works served as the family album of the era, portraying people and places as they were long ago. Other documented, commissioned works by professionals such as Frederick Spencer, George Conarroe and the noted itinerant primitive portrait artist M.I. ("Ammi") Phillips testify to the growing fortunes of founding families. Formal portraits, such as ``Helen Cornell Manney," ``Letitia Adriance" (Mrs. Cornelius Vanwyck), and "Abel Gunn" identify leading community members.

8-11

I-Glebe House, 635 Main Street, Poughkeepsie. Public House Museum. This modest 18th century vernacular brick structure was the home of the Rev. Beardsley (rector of Christ Church) and his family until his Tory politics split the family during the War of the American Revolution, sending some to self-exile in Canada.

Furnishings include family portraits ``Elsie De Reimer Sleight," ``Elizabeth Crannel" and ``Edward Martin."

8-12 I-Vassar College. Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Raymond Ave. Entrance to the College. Public. In 1864 an important decision on the part of Vassar's Board of Trustees established Vassar Female College

61

as a major cultural center with its own gallery and art collection.

With the backing of Matthew Vassar and Samuel Morse, the Reverend Elias Magoon, a strong supporter of American art, sold Vassar his personal collection including a number of landscape paintings of the Hudson River School by Durand, Cropsey, Moore and others, for $20,000. These now priceless art works form the core of the collection. The nationally esteemed art department and gallery have added to their laurels over the years as alumnae, like Frances Loeb have supported growth and variety in the collection and improvement of spatial and departmental resources.

8-13

W-Lewis Rubenstein/ C. K. Chatterton Studio. 153 College Ave., Arlington area of Poughkeepsie. Private. Vassar's faculty row has lengthened through the years since the founding of the college in 1861. The homes of college administration and teaching staff now extend along Raymond Ave. opposite the campus main entrance and around the corner. This grey clapboard two-story house is a 20th century addition to the enclave, built for Professor C. K. Chatterton and his family c. 1915. Chatterton included in the plans a studio that took advantage of the site's northern exposure. Light and shadow were important components of Chatterton's landscapes, many of which dealt with familiar Hudson Valley/ Dutchess County scenes.

Rubenstein, a later member of the art department, made it his family home and studio. Rubenstein, too, found inspiration in the area for his ``time paintings" whose scroll format and brush work show a strong oriental influence.

8-14

S-The Former Wheeler Homestead. Opposite Carlo's Furniture on Rte. 82 (2.2 miles) north of the intersection with Rte. 55. Private.

This white brick and frame farm home with the its lattice-enclosed well house and fenced garden was captured in ``A Country Auction"

by Rosamond Collins of Moores Mills as a 1937 WPA commission.

Collins worked with Tom Barrett on other such projects. (See Millbrook entries).

8-15

S-W- ``Dramamount" Site, east of intersection and Velie Rd., on the north side of Rte. 55. Private. Home and performance center of musician/composer/writer T. Carl Whitmer and his wife, artist/writer Helen C. Whitmer. "Dramamount" was the summer

62

home of pupils and fellow artists and musicians and the setting during the 1920's and 30's for performances of dramas set to Mr. Whitmer's compositions.

8-16

W-Emile Walters Home and Studio. Corner Robinson Lane and Noxon Rd., LaGrange. Private. This rambling 18th c. vernacular frame home was the studio, gallery and classroom for artist/teacher Emile Waiters, noted for his Icelandic paintings in the Smithsonian collection. He concentrated here in Dutchess on the farmlands and orchards of his hometown, mid-20th century.

8-17

S-Wappingers Falls Village. The central hamlet, Market and East Main Streets, South Ave. and Creek Rd. The areas along the Wappinger Creek, around the bridge and park, retain much of the flavor of Clinton Clapp's late 19th century depictions of hamlet life and industry. Henry Billings' Old Post Office murals go further back in time before development changed the landscape.

B-18

I-Wappingers Falls Village Hall (Former Post Office), Corner of South Ave. and East Main St., Wappingers Falls. Public. Another of architect Louis Simon's WPA-era post offices, backed by FDR's interest, was opened in the Village in 1939. Its architecture was inspired by the original Dutch stone vernacular look of the Mesier homestead across the street in the park. Murals by Henry Billings include a depiction of the falls in the Wappinger Creek as described by the Marquis de Chastellux in an account of his late 18th century visit to the area.

8-19

I-Grinnell Library, East Market St., Wappingers Falls Village.

Public. Formed in 1867 as a Reading Room and Circulating Library, the sixth oldest library in the state gained a new ``Swiss Chalet-Style" Victorian home in 1887 by the generosity of Mr. and Mrs. Irving Grinnell. In 1888, the Library was formally incorporated with a Board of Trustees. The walls on both floors are decorated with primitive paintings by Clinton Clapp (1831-1915), who was also a member of the incorporating Board. Trained in draftsmanship and mechanical drawing, Clapp also enjoyed a fine reputation as a local musician. He lived only a few blocks away from the library on South Ave. (see Clinton Clapp House). This self-taught artist and resident of

64

the village documented the town as it was in the mid-19th centryry through cheerful, colorful paintings with an eye for detail and a feel for Hudson Valley atmospheric conditions. Color plates of some of his works are included in S. Velma Pugsley's book N£.77efce77ffe Ce7cf#ny A7`£ I.77 Dc4fcJzcss (see Bibliography).

B-20

W-Clinton Clapp House, 39 South Ave. Rte. 9D Village of Wappingers Falls. Private. Visible from the road, this tall, elegant, brick Empire Victorian structure with its mansard roof and white gingerbread-trimmed porches, was the home and studio of selftaught artist Clinton Clapp (1831-1915), who documented the village life of Wappingers in the mid-late 19th century. His colorful folk paintings are found in the collection of Grinnen Library.

B-21

I-S-W-Samuel F. 8. Morse Historic Site, "Locust Grove," 370 South Road, Poughkeepsie. Public. This National Historic Landmark was originally the home and working farm of Henry Livingston Jr. and was later sold to the Montgomery family. It was purchased in 1847

by Samuel F. 8. Morse, one of America's best known portrait artists, who is more renowned in this era as the inventor of the telegraph.

Morse kept the original Montgomery house, built in 1829, and tripled its size with additions. He put his creative stamp on both house and grounds with the assistance of architect Alexander Jackson Davis and the inspiration of English and American landscape architects. Upon the death of its last owner, Miss Annette Young, the property and house were preserved as a museum. Several drawings by Morse and A.J. Davis of plans of the house are on display, as well as other works

by Morse. Additional works by Sanford Gifford and George Inness and a rare manuscript of J.J. Audubon's Bz.7'ds o/A77terz.ccz are here.

8-22 S-Poughkeepsie Rural Cemetery, Rte. 9, south of Poughkeepsie.

The Smith Thompson Farm ``Rust Plaets" (Resting Place) became by default the model ``rural" cemetery envisioned by Matthew Vassar before his Springside property was passed over. The spring which gave Poughkeepsie its Native American name (Uppuqui-ipis-ing/Little

Resting Place by the Waterfall) runs through the property and was depicted in the 1939 Poughkeepsie Post Office mural by illustrator Gerald Foster.

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B-23

S-Springside. Intersection Academy St. and Rte. 9 Arterial. Private.

A National Historic Landmark. The property across the Arterial from Poughkeepsie Rural Cemetery, formerly owned by Matthew Vassar, was rejected as the site of the Cemetery by its founding board.

Instead, it became Matthew Vassar's country estate, noted for the perfection of its scenic and structural design by Andrew Jackson Downing, the father of American Landscape Architecture.

Downing's own drawing designs and a painting by H. Gritten c. 1852 attest to its original charms despite the loss of several buildings to fire and destruction in recent years. The gatehouse and grounds have been carefully documented and restored even as a portion of the property has been adapted for residential use as condominiums. An interpretive stanchion is in place near the gatehouse.

ITINERARY 3: EASTERN DUTCHESS C-1

I-W-S-Innisfree Gardens. Tyrrel Rd. off Rte. 44., Pleasant Valley.

Public. Open May-Oct. Admission. Artist Waiter Beck's predilection for oriental art and interest in far eastern principles of design inspired the plans for his estate. The house, demolished by the Innisfree Foundation which owns and supervises the property in the mid-1970's, was his home, studio and ganery. Fortunately, plantings, walkways and oriental rock gardens reflecting his aesthetic sensitivities are still intact and open to the public.

C-2

I-Thorne Building. Corner Franklin and Maple Aves., Millbrook Village. Public. Taking ownership of this property, a gift of the Thome family, forced the hamlet of Millbrook to incorporate in 1895.

The building has served a number of purposes over the years and is presently a community resource, meeting place and occasional gallery. IIistorians Emily Johnson and David Greenwood have found photographic evidence supported by a January 30, 1937, newspaper article, of a WIIA arts project for murals documenting local scenes as decorative elements throughout the building. Planned by Thomas Weeks Barrett and a young artist from Moores Mills, Rosamond Collins, the planned work was never instaued. With the addition of the Thorne Building to the National Register in 1996, architectural restoration is plarmed.

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C-3

I-Millbrook Village Hall. Merritt Awe., Mi]1brook. Public. A hometown baseball game provided inspiration for a local artist whose work was removed in recent years from the local veterans' meeting room to its present place of honor in the village hall. The familiar faces of present day Millbrook neighbors are among those portrayed.

C-4

I-Millbrook Primary School, Elm Ave., Millbrook. Public. Call for appt. Paintings done in the 1920's and 30's by local Millbrook artists documenting familiar landmarks are part of a local art collection stored at the school and occasionally displayed. An N.H. Worrell landscape and painting of a stone house by John W. Bentley are part of the collection.

C-5

W-Benson Lossing Farm Site. Holsapple Rd. off CR24 from NY 343.

Private. The remnants of stone walls and outbuildings on the north side at the intersection of CR24 and Holsapple Road are all that is left of the farm of one of this nation's most productive and respected

itinerant historian/ artists, but his frame house with its unusual twostory stone tower is being restored by the current owners, visible on the east side of Holsapple Rd. The remote Chestnut Ridge area with breathtaking vistas in all directions was his sanctuary and wockplaLce. Lossing's Field Book Of the American Revolution is both aL

narrative and pictorial resource for scholars.

C-6

I-I.H. Ketcham Hose Company, Rte. 22, Dover Plains Hamlet.

Public. Call for appt. Located on the west side of Rte. 22 opposite the Library. This working fire company is the repository for the local work of a group of artists with country retreats in the area. Newell, Hartson, Waltman and Powell, respected professional landscape artists, painted the rural countryside of eastern Dutchess County documenting a way of life that may soon be only a memory. (See Dover Plains Junior/Senior High School).

C-7

W-Dover Plains Four/ Artist's Residence and Studio. Benson Hill Rd. Private. 500 feet north of intersection with Mill St. in Dover Plains hamlet, just over the bridge on the Ten Mile River, is the former power plant that Harry F. Waltman remodeled into a studio. This

68

charming home, angled into the west side of the hill and overhanging the Ten Mile RIver, provided an unusual perspective of the landscape for a member of the artists' group know locally as the Dover Plains Four (see Dover Plains Junior/Senior High School), who lovingly documented the rural beauty of eastern Dutchess in the first half of this century.

C-8

S-Harlem Valley. CR 6 between Duncan Hill Rd. and Lime Kiln Rd., 2-3 miles south of intersection with NYS 22. The view to the east was captured c. 1848 by Asher Durand, landscape artist of the Hudson River School, in his painting "Dover Plains, Dutchess County, NY." The vista over farm fields to the hills bordering Connecticut has lost little of its charm and is still recognizable as his inspiration. However, finding just the right aspect amid recent changes is now almost impossible, leading one to suspect that artistic license was taken with the view. From other hills in the same elevation a similar view is available. It is fun simply to wander the back roads in an eastern semicircle beyond Dover Plains and decide for oneself the ``most correct" vista.

C-9

I-Dover Plains Junior Senior High School, Rte. 22, south of Dover Plains Hamlet. Call ahead for appt. Located 1 mile south of Duncan Hill Rd. The library walls of the school are the gallery for the landscape paintings of a local colony.of artists working in the community from well before the Depression into the mid-century.

The Dover Plains Four - Walter E. Hartson, G. Glenn Newell, Arthur J.E. Powell and Harry F. Waltman - were prominent in New York City art circles but chose to live and work here. Their enchantment with the Dover area resulted in several local collections of paintings docunenting the rural landscape of eastern Dutchess, pre-WWH. ITINERARY 4-SOUTHERN DUTCHESS D-1

I-Van Wyck Homestead (Fishkill Historical Society) intersection Rte. 9 and I-84. House Museum. Public. This simple, spacious clapboard house, built 1732, the home of generations of the Van Wyck family, played an important role during the American Revolution. It was at the center of a major supply depot near the Hudson River, crossing to the middle and southern colonies, and was a gathering

69

spot for Revolutionary leaders from Hamilton and Von Steuben to General Washington. It is recognized by millions of James Fenimore Cooper fans as the setting for one of his most famous novels T7ze Sz7y.

Prized in the collection are M.I.(Ammi) Phillips' portraits of family members.

D-2

W-Tallix Foundry, Fishkill Ave., Beacon. Private Business/Industry.

The former Green Fan plant in the shadow of Mt. Beacon turned from a caterpillar into a butterfly in 1989 when its huge space lured Tallix to Beacon. The lawn in front of the foundry continues to lure art lovers as it sprouts castings for sculpture that may be headed almost anywhere in the world, including the recent Davinci equestrian sculpture destined to be a gift to the Italian Government.

D-3

I-Beacon Post Office, 134 Main Street, Beacon. Public. This handsome fieldstone structure, designed by Gordon Thompson in traditional Neo-Classical style, was built in 1936 as one of a number of local public projects of the WRA era. Lobby murals by Charles Rosen done with the assistance of Clarence Bolton map the entire Mid-Hudson area and depict local landmarks in sketches of Mt. Beacon, Fishkill Creek, mills and falls. Commissions for architecture and art in public buildings, under the auspices of the U.S. Treasury Department, were often decided by competition.

D-4

I-Howland Center. Corner Main St. and Tioranda Ave., Beacon.

Public. The former Howland Library was built as a gift of General Joseph Howland in 1872 and served as such until 1976 when a new library structure was constructed. The handsome brick Norwegian Tudor building was given a second life as The Howland Center, both a gallery and a programming/performing arts center. Regularly planned exhibitions provide an opportunity for local artists to show their talent. There is an annual chamber music series as wen as classical music for children.

D-5

I-Madam Brett Homestead. Corner Van Nydeck and Teller Ave., Beacon. House Museum. Public. Dutchess County's oldest house was erected in a wilderness by Catharyna and Roger Brett shortly after the young couple emigrated to her lands in the Rombout Patent

70

c. 1709. The low, flat-dormered, scallop-shingled wooden structure is unique among remaining houses of the period, most of which were built of local stone. The house was constructed in several stages and reflects the various occupants in taste, ornamentation, and in what remains of their belongings. The eclectic collection and property, in the care of the Melzingah Chapter of the D.A.R., whose efforts saved the house in 1954, contain a number of engravings and paintings by local artists relating to the history of the Bretts and their descendants •among the Teller and Crary families, including a portrait of Margaret

Brett Schenck, Catharyna Brett's granddaughter.

D-6

S-Beacon Waterfront. Rte. 9D from River front Park and Main Street on the north to Wolcott and South Ave. and Rte. 9D south of the City. Newburgh Bay, Mouth of the Fishkill near Dennings Point. The various vistas from this area afford one a modern view of the bay and Mt. Beacon area that has been captured in earlier scenes by a number of artists. Charles H. Moore (1861), Thomas Doughty (c. 1839), Thomas Benjamin Pope (c. 1868) Samuel Colman, William

Guy Wall, Calvin Curtis, and John Frederick Kensett all painted the bay and surrounding highlands. The best views are available from the bridge over the railroad tracks leading to the railroad station, from River front Park, and the parking area of Dutchess Manor. John Evers 1827 ``View of Schenck's Mill and Bridge" (originally Madam Brett's) can still be imagined from the area near the National Register truss bridge over the Fishkill Creek at South Ave. The bridge, closed to traffic, abuts a walking trail along the Fishkill Creek with views of the fans and industrial remains of the past.

D-7 I-Mount Gulian Historic Site. 145 Sterling St. off Rte. 9D, within Rombout Village. Public. Admission. This charming stone gambrelroofed, Dutch vernacular structure, used as a meeting place, historical

programndng site and gallery, appears to have survived centuries but is actually a recent reconstruction of the 1730 Verplanck Homestead which burned in 1931. It was resurrected as a Bicentennial preservation project done with the support of the Society of the Cincirmati on the foundations of the original 18th century structure. To the sounds of fife and drums, Colonial era ballads, and a stirring speech by Hamilton Fish Sr., then one of the region's most cherished elder statesmen, it was dedicated to community service in 1976. A Dutch barn behind the house moved from another location dates from 1726.

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D-8

S-New Hamburgh, hamlet park near the Railroad Station and mouth of the Wappinger Creek. Parking near RR station. Clinton Clapp, local ``folk" landscape painter near the turn of the century captured the Hudson shoreline here in his painting ``Marlborough from New Hamburgh." Similar views can be seen from New Hamburgh's RiverFront Park on the west side of the railroad tracks.

Acknowledgments: Dutchess County Historical Society and the authors are grateful to the following persons who shared their knowledge and resources to prepare this tour: Barbara Bielenberg, Dutchess County Art Assn., Jesse Effron, Robert Engel, David Greenwood, Emily Johnson, Melodye Moore, Myra Morales, Winifred Mulvey, Bruce Naramore, Florence Northcutt, Jane Pells, Caroline Reichenberg, Ron Samuelson, Willa Skirmer, Patricia Weber, and Kay Verrilli.

BIBLIOGRAPHY The materials listed are stin available in local bookstores, institutions, and libraries for reference purposes.

Books > Ghee, Joyce C., ed. D#fcJzcss Co#7tfty Pos£ O#ces. Dutchess County Dept. of ffistory. 1983.

Ghae, Tvyce C., ed. Transf ormations Of an American County 1683-1983. Duldness Coon:ty Historical Society for D.C. Dept. of History, Poughkeepsie, NY. 1986.

Howat, John K. T72e H#dso7t Rz.z7er fl7td I.£s Pczl.71£e71s. Scenic Hudson Preservation Conference.

Viking Press, 1972.

Jearmeney, John and Mary L. D#fchess Co#7zf/I/ A Pz.cforz.CZZ Hz.stony. The Donning Company, Norfolk Beach, Va. 1983.

Kiewel, Ar\ne, ed. Guide to Museums, Historical Organizations, Local Historians, LibrariesDutchess-Orange- Putnam-Ro ckland-Ulsier-West chesier-Bronx. Lower Hudson Corferemce o£ Historical Agencies and Museums, Elmsford, NY. 1989.

Lossing,Be=onJ.FieldBookoftheAmericanRevolution,Harper&Brothe:sPuELshals,Now York. 1850 Phillips, Sandra S. and Weintraub, Linda. Cher77{ed PJ¢ces, Hc{dso7t Rz.z7er Arfz.sis fl72d T7!e!.r

Ho#scs, S£#dz.os fl77d Vz.s£#s. The Edith C. Blum Institute, Bard College and the Vassar Art

Gallery in Association with Harry N. Abrams, Inc. Publishers, New York. 1988.

Pugsley, S. Velma. Nz.7icfee7iffe Ce7t£#ny Arf I.7t D#£cJzess. Dutchess County American

Revolution Bicentennial Commission. 1976 Puglsley, S. Velma. Porfr¢z.£s o/D#£cJzess 1680-1807. Dutchess County American Revolution Bicentennial Commission. 1976

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Val\ Zandi, TtoLand. Cheohicles Of the Hudson Th:Tee Centuries Of Travelers Accounts. Rulgers

University Press. New Brunswick, New Jersey. 1971

Booklets, Pamphlets Anderson, Dermis. Art in the Home Of Franklin D. Roosevelt. NIElfuonal Pack SeIviee, u.S. Dept. of Interior. n.d.

Chapman, Chanler. Dows, 0lin. Seabrook, William. M#7.¢Js I.71 #ze RJ2z.7ccZ7eck Post O#.ce.

Civic Club of Rhinebeck, New York. 1940 Glee, Joyce C. Dutchess County Scenic & Historic Drive Tours Exploring the ``Dutchess' Co#7tfz.e''. Dutchess County Tourism Promotion Agency, Poughkeepsie NY. 1985.

Re-edited 1994.

Exhibit Catalogs Faison, S. Lane and Mills, Sail:y. Hudson Valley People Albany to New York 1700-1900. VaLssar College Art Gallery, Poughkeepsie, NY 12601, 1982.

Foshav, ELaL and Mills, Sail:y All Seasons in Every Light Nineteenth Century American Landscapes From the Collection Of Elias Magoon. Vassair Cdiege Art Gallery, Poughkeepsie, NY 12601.1983.

MaLddoc:ks, Ke:r\mcth. In Search Of the Picturesque/ Nineteenth Century Images Of Industry Along

#zc Hz/dso7t V¢Zky. Edith C. Blum Art Inst. Mlton and Sally Avery Center for the Arts. 1983 Marling, Karel Arm and Harrison, Helen A. ``To77z Bar7.ef£ Porfrtzz.i o/Po#g7zkecz7sz.e. " Barrett

House, 55 Noxon Street, Poughkeepsie, NY. 1976 Piwonka,Ruth.APorfrflz.£o/Lz.z7z.regsfo#Mfl77or1686-1830.F`riendsofClermont.1986

Audiovisuals Fogel, Nan. 300 Ycflrs o/Art I.7€ Dc4fchess Co#7tfty. Barrett House for Dutchess County

Department of History. 1983.

74

Dutchess County Historical Society Officers and Trustees Lorraine Roberts, Presz.de7z i

Wappingers Falls, New York Anne Friedland, Vz.cc-Presz.de7zf

Poughkeepsie, New York Catherine Gerardi, T7ie¢s#7ie7`

Millbrook, New York Margaret Zamierowski, Secref¢ny

Hyde Park, New York 1997

Michael Englert E. Peter Krulewitch John A. Wolf

Poughkeepsie, New York New York, New York Pleasant Valley, New York 1998

Armon Adams Joyce Ghee Stephanie Mauri

Poughkeepsie, New York Hyde Park, New York Hyde Park, New York 1999

Sudhir Desai Susan Hochhauser Ray LaFever Carmen MCGill

Wappingers Falls, New York Poughkeepsie, New York Staatsburg, New York Poughkeepsie, New York 2000

Mark Adans

Poughkeepsie, New York Dover Plains, New York Millbrook, New York Poughkeepsie, New York

Mary Parker Edward J. Shaughnessy Rocco Staino

STAFF Eileen M. Hayden, Dz.7iecfor Erica Blumenfeld, Ccfr4zfor

M:errHee Brown, Administrative Assistant Maryarm Thompsett, Bockkecz7cr

75

MUNICIPAL HISTORIANS OF DUTCHESS COUNTY COUNTY HISTORIAN Vacant

CITY HISTORIANS Beacon, Joan Vanvoorhis, 82 North Walnut Street, Beacon, NY 12508 Poughkeepsie, Vacant ,

TOWN HISTORIANS Amenia, Kemeth Hoadley, RR1, Box 688, Amenia, NY 12501 Beekman, Gay Kendall, 4 Baker Road, Hopeweu Junction, NY 12533 Clinton, William MCDermott, Box 208, Clinton Comers, NY 12514 Dover, Edward Hogan, Craig Lane, Dover Plains, NY 12522 East Fishkill, Everett Lee, Rushmore Road, Stormville, NY 12582 Fishkill, Wiua Skirmer, Charlotte Road, Fishkill, NY 12524 Fishkill (Village), Rodney Koopmans, Dutch Reformed Church, 55 Main Street, Fishkill, NY 12524 Hyde Park, Margaret Marquez, 13 Main Street, Hyde Park, NY 12538 LaGrange,EmilyJohuson,MooreRoad,RD4,PleasantValley,NY12569 Milan, Patrick ELggius, 286 Milan Hollow Road, Rhinebeck, NY 12572 Millbrook, David Greenwood, RR1, Box 227, Millbrook, NY 12545 Millerton, Vacant North East, Vacant Pawling, Vacant Pine Plains, Elizabeth Potter, Johrmy Cake Hollow Road, Pine Plains, NY 12567 PleasantValley,01iveDoty,RD2,WigstenRoad,PleasantValley,NY12569

Poughkeepsie, Jean Murphy, 74 New Hackeusack Road, Poughkeepsie, NY 12603 Red Hook, I. Winthrop Aldrich, ``Rokeby," Barrytown, NY 12507 Red Hook (Village), RIchard Coons, 34 Garden Street, Red Hook, NI 12571 Rhinebeck, Nancy Kelly, 60 Cedar Heights Road, Rhinebeck, NY Rhinebeck (Village), Rhinebeck IIistorical Society, PO Box 291,

12572

ELebeck, NY 12572 Stanford, Dorothy Burdick, Route 82, Stanfordville, NY 12581 Tivoli (Village), Richard Wiles, Box 267, Tivoli, NY 12583 Union Vale, Irena Stolarik, North Smith Road, LaGrangevme, NY 12540 Wappinger, Brenda Von Berg, 34 Prospect Avenue, Wappingers Falls, NY 12590 Wappingers Falls (Village), Victoria Kolb, 31 Liss Road, Wappingers Falls, NY 12590 Washington, Carmine DiAapino, PO Box 80, Route 343, Dover Road, Millbrook, NY 12545

76

HISTORICAL SOCIETIES of DUTCHESS COUNTY P.O. Box 22

Pleasant Valley Historical Society

Amenia, NY 12501

P.O. Box 309

Amenia Historical Society

Pleasant Valley, NY 12569

Beacon Historical Society P.O. Box 89 Beacon, NY 12508

Egbert Benson Historical Society of Red Hook

Bowdoin Park Historical and Archaeological Society

P.O. Box 1813

Red Hook, NY 12571

85 Sheafe Road Wappingers Falls, NY 12590

Rhinebeck Historical Society P.O. Box 191

ELebeck, NI 12572

Clinton Historical Society Clinton Comers, NY 12514

Roosevelt/Vanderbilt Historical Association

The Town of Dover Historical

P.O. Box 235

Society Dover Plains, NY 12522

Hyde Park, NI 12538

Stan ford Historical Society

East Fishkill Historical Society

Stanfordville, NY 12581

P.O. Box 133

Fishkill, NY 12524

Union Vale Historical Society

Hyde Park Historical Society

Verbank, NY 12585

P.O. Box 100

P.O. Box 187

Hyde Park, NY 12538

Wappingers Historical Society P.O. Box 974

LaGrange Historical Society

Wappingers Falls, NY 12590

P.O. Box 112

LaGrangeville, NY 12540

Washington Historical Society Millbrook, NI 12545

Little Nine Partners Historical Society P.O. Box 243

Pine Plains, NY 12567

North East Historical Society Millerton, NY 12546

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

Pawling, NI 12564

77

INDEX "Abel Gum," 61

Carpenter, Daniel, 21, 25, 27 Carpenter, Edmund P., 21, 25, 27

Academy Street, 40 "A Country Auction," 62

Adaus, 13

€:Effi:eReswam¥::i,,2334

Adams, Elisha, 13, 21, 24

Catskill Mountains, 41, 42 Chanler, Robert, 35, 53

Adriance Library, 58

Chatterton, C.K., 35, 36, 62

Age of Reason, 10 Albany Street, 41, 44

Aldrich, John Winthrop, 53

Amberg Fa-, 26 Amenia, Town of, 6, 12, 14, 19, 20 American Revolution, 53, 61, 66

Andy & Steve's Restaurant, 44 ``Ann Marie Mooney Pier," 53 Anthony, Frank J., 23 Art Depot Gallery, 44 Art Study Club, 34 ``Arttours," 46, 48

Audubon, I.J., 65 Bangall Road, 11 Barber and Howe, 60 Bard College, 38, 51 Bard, John, 51 Barrett, Betty, 36, 37 Barrett House, 37, 38, 42 Barrett House Galleries, 60 Barrett, Thomas Weeks, 34-37, 41, 44, 60, 62

Bartlett, Dwight, 23

Christ Church, 61 Christmas Member Show, 42 Clapp, John, 13 Clapp, Clinton, 64, 65, 73 Clark, Isaac, 23 Clermont, 51 Clinton, Georg'e, 57 Cole, Thomas, 55 Cole, Timothy, 35 Collegeview Avenue, 36 Collins, Rosamond, 62, 66 Colman, Samuel, 72 Colonial Revival, 26 Columbia County, 51 Conarroe, George, 61 Conklin, 18, 21, 26

Corth, Isaac H., 25 Connecticut, 8, 12, 14, 20, 69 Cormecticut River, 8

Cooper, James Fenimore, 70 Corleus, Eliza, 23 Comwell, John, 18

C;ray ,72

E=atcl::,p¥sFjECT,e7F,55

Creed, William,11 Cropsey, 62

Beardsley, Reverend, 61 Beardsley, Wihiam, 59 Beaus-Arts style, 54 ``Bech's Furnace," 60

Cunneen-Hackett Cultural Center, 59 Curran, Charles, 55 Curtis, Calvin, 72

Beck, Walter, 66 Bel-Air Farms, 24, 26, 27, 28 ``Benjamin Seymour Pier," 53

D.A.R., Melzingah Chapter, 72 Davinci, 70

Beuson, Egbert, 53 Bentley, John W., 68 Bin Of Rights, 59

Davis, A.J., 53, 65

Day Line, 40 DCAA, 36, 40-42, 46

E#g;#"ee¥¢,,?5,64

Seec€±aas:%nnTgf#dareg=ia:ice,49

Biscoe, Isaac, 18

De Grainy, Victor, 55 Delafield Street, 41

Bolton, Clarence, 67 Borden, Gail, 20 Boston Museum of Fine Arts, 34

Derings Point, 72 Department of Interior, 56 Deyo, Jerome, 35, 37, 40, 42, 46 Di Maso, James, 37 Di Maso, Julia, 37 Doughty, Thomas, 72 Dover Plains Four, 35, 67, 69 Dover Plains, New York, 35, 65 Downing, Andrew Jackson, 55, 66

Bostwick, Wihian, 23 Bowne Memorial Hospital, 36, 61 Boyd, 18, 27

Brett, Catharyna, 70, 72 Brett, Roger, 70 Briarcliff Farms, 26 Bridge Street, 41 Burton, 14, 22

Dows. 0lin, 35, 36, 54, 55, 56 Drake, 18

Burton Farm, 25 Burton, Daniel, 18, 27 Burton-Evertson, 21 Burton, Judah, 13, 16, 18

Dramamount, 62 Drumlin Hall, 61 Duel, 24 Duel, Jay, 21 Duke of York, 9 Durand, Asher, 62, 69 Durchanek, Louis, 61

Canada, 61

Carmon, Amout, 54 Carmeinecke, Johann, 55, 60

78

fT\ Dutch, 8, 9 Great Nine Partners Patent, 10, 12 Dutch stone vernacular style, 52, 62 Greek Revival, 27, 28 Dutch West indies` Trading Company, 9 Green Fan Co., 70 Dutchess Avenue, 41, 44 Greenwood, David, 66 Dutchess Community College, 38, 61 Grirmen Library, 64, 65 Dutchess County, 6, 8, 9, 16, 20, 26, 34, 35, 40,Grirmell, M. and Mrs. Irving, 64 49, 50 Gritten, H., 66 Dutchess County Art Association (DCAA), 37 Dutchess County Arts Council, 35, 37, 48 Harfuton, 70 Dutchess County Court House, 49, 51, 57, 59 Hamilton, Alexander, 57 ``Hamlet of Poughkeepsie," 57 Dutchess County mstorical Society, 51, 61 Dutchess County Room, 56 Harlem Valley, 6, 7, 11, 19 Dutchess County Tourism Promotion Harlem Valley Railroad, 20 Hartford Colony, 13 Agency, 50 Dutchess Ham, 61 Hartson, Walter, 35, 68, 69 Dutchess Land Conservancy, 8 Harwinton, Connecticut, 13 Dutchess Turnpike (US Route 44), 7, 12, 18, 26 Haseltine, William Stanley, 55 Haskius, George, 23 Dutton Lumber Company, 40 Heathcote, Caleb, 12 ``Helen Comen Manney," 61 Eastman, Harvey, 60 Eckart, Talmadge, 23 Hempstead, Long Island, 13 ``Edward Martin'', 61 Historic Hudson Valley, 53 Hoag, 18, 25, 26 Effron, |esse, 36, 37 Hoag, Michael, 21 Effron, Lee, 36, 38 "Egbert Beuson", 53 Hoag, R., 26 ``Elizabeth Crannel'', 61 Hopkins, Stephen, 13 Howland Center, 70 Elmendorph inn, 50, 51, 53 ``Elsie De Reimer Sleight", 61 Howland, General Joseph, 70 Hudson River, 11, 35, 40, 51 Elverhoj, 34 Hudson River School, 62, 69 E-ott, James, 12, 13 Hudson Valley, 8, 9, 35, 41 Empire Victorian, 63 English, 8, 9 Hunting, Isaac, 23 Huntington, Daniel, 56 Esopus Island, 55 Hyde Park, 35, 41 Evers, John, 72 Evertson, Jacob, 13-18, 26, 27 Hyde Park Post Office, 36, 56 Evertson, John, 12 IBM Country Club, 36 IBM, 36, 41 FaHdi Creek, 60 haan, Heny, 55, 56 Federal period, 27, 53 Lndfree Gardens, 66 FF££edrBalooskqouif#hee'km234canRevolution,68

hish, 23 Italian Government, 70

``First Ward Nocturne," 44 Fishkill Creek, 70 Fishkill Hstorical Society, 69 Fishki]I Mountains, 6, 15 Flanagan, Peter, 26 Flint, 18, 25-27 Flint, Augustus, 21 Flint Hill Road, 13 Fogel, Nan, 46, 48 Forbes, Charles S., 56 Foster, Gerald, 57, 59, 65 Fowler, Charles, 23 Fowler, Christianina, 23 Fox Houow, 54 Francis Lehman Loeb Art Center, 38, 61 Franklin, Henry, 13 Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library,L41, 56 Friends of Elmendorph, 53

]adson, Andrew, 51 Jackson, William, 23 James, 26 James, George D., 21, 25, 27 Jamison, David, 11, 12 Johnson, Enuly, 66 Johnson-Iorio Park, 60 Johnston, David, 11, 26

]ohuston /]arfeon, 12 Karoly, A, 59 Kensett, John Frederick, 72 Kent, Cormecticut, 34 Ketcham Hose Company, 68

Bane, Stephen, 13 Kinne's Comers, 18, 23, 24, 28 Kip-Beekman House, 54 Kirby' 28 REby, John H., 21 Klitgaard, Georgina, 57, 60

Georgian, 51 German, 23 Glebe House, 61

Glenbum, 54 Gordon, Ethan, 23 Govemor's Arts Award, 38

LaGrangevine, New York, 44

:£,efahv¥,P6]Lain'6

Great Depression, 35

79

``Letitia Adriance"

New York State Census 1865, 19 Newburgh Bay, 55, Newell, G. Glenn, 35, 66 Nine Partners, 10 Norwegian Tudor, 54, 61 Noxon Street, 34, 36, 37, 42

pus. Comelius Van Wyck), 61 Lewis, Gertrude Livingston, 55 Lewis, Governor Morgan, 55 Lithgow, 12 Little Nine Partners Patent, 10 Livingston, Heny Tr., 65 Livingston Manor, 9, 49

u

0gden and Ruth Livingston Mills Mansion, 55 Ohio, 8 Old St. Peter's, 45

=iyE8::::'#%#etBeekman,51 Livingston, Robert R. (Chancellor), 51 Locust Grove, 65 Loeb, Frances, 62 Long Island, 12 Long Island Sound, 6 Lorraine Kessler Gallery, 38 Lossing, Benson, farm of, 68 Louis XVI style, 52 Luckey Platt & Co., 35

Paine, Judge Ephraim, 18 Peale, Rembrandt, 49 Per Lee, 18, 26

Per Lee, John H., 27 Per Lee-Conklin Farm, 27 Petterson, 28 Phillips, M.I. ("Ammi''), 61, 67

B#,P4SoeManor,9 Pine Plains, New York, 26 Pleasant Valley, New York, 17 Poet's Walk, 53 Pope, Thomas Benjamin, 72 Pottier-Stymus & Co., 54

Madam Brett Homestead, 70, 71 Magoon, Reverend Elias, 62 Main and Academy Street, 35 Marist College, 38 ``Marlborough From New Hamburgh," 73 Massachusetts, 14 MCFarlane, William, 23 Mesier Homestead, 64 Mid-Hudson Bridge, 58

B:#g8fe¥%es:.:i,eo#„8„?,S4g%9l;36;40

Mllbrook Holding Company, 26

Poughkeepsie, New York, 34, 35, 41 Poughkeepsie Post Office, 35, 54, 57, 59, 60, 65 Poughkeepsie Railroad Bridge, 40

Millbrook Memorial School, 36 Millbrook, New York, 26, 37

::;8e#effi£:?g5alcemetery,65,66

NIbrook Village Hall, 68

Pray' 26 Pray, Albert, 21-23, 28 Pray, Margueritte, 23

Miller, Mary, 54 Miller, William Starr, 54 Mills, Ogden and Ruth Livingston, 55 Milton, New York, 34 Montgomery, Janet Livingston, 53 Montgomery Place, 53 Montgomery, Gen. Richard, 53 Mooney, Edward L., 51, 53 Moore, 62 Moore, Charles H., 69 Moores Mills, 62 Morey, Barach, 22

``Prometheus", 61

Provincial Congress, 15 Pugsley, 13, 18, 26

Pugsley, Samuel, 27 Pugsley, S. Velma, 65 Pugsley, Walter, 21 Putnam, John, 25, 27 Pye, Mr. and Ms. Walter, 44 Queen Arme style, 54

Morse, Salnuel F.B., 62, 65 Mount Beacon, 67, 69

Raymond Avenue, 36 ``Red House," 56

Mount Carmel, 41, 45 Mount Carmel Square, 40

Reynolds, Helen Wilkinson, 56, 57 Reynolds, Stephen, 13 Rhinebeck, New York, 52 Rhinebeck Post Office, 36, 54 Robertson, Archibald, 49, 57, 59

National Historic Landmark, 63, 64 National Park Service, 56 National Register of Historic Places, 8, 57, 64 Neill, Harmon, 36 Nelson, Ursula, 37

Rokeby, 51, 53

Rombout Patent, 67

Neo-Classical style, 67 New England, 8-10, 12, 16

Roosevelt, 54 Roosevelt, Eleanor, 35, 56, 57 Roosevelt, Frarklin (FDR), 35, 54, 56, 57 Roosevelt, James H, 54 Roosevelt, Isaac, 56 Roosevelt, Isaac (Dr.), 56 Roosevelt, Sara Delano, 35, 56 Roosevelts, 35 Rosen, Charles, 57 Route 83, 7 Rubeustein, Lewis, 62 ``Rust Plaets 1687," 57

New Hamburg, 73 New Jersey, 12, 14

New Netherlands, 8 New Preston, Connecticut, 13 New York, 8 New York City, 10, 12, 34, 36, 41, 49, 66 New-York Historical Society, 55, 57, 59 New York State, 6, 38 New York State Bicentennial Commission, 59 New York State Census 1855, 20

80

fE) Rust Plaets qiesting Place), 65

7T±ffo:E'±:ett:hpBF±::fpoughkeepsie,";7

Sanford, 25, 26 Sanford, George, 21 Santo, L, 59 Scenic Hudson, 51

Tory, 59 Troub etzkoy, 56 Turkey Hollow, 7, 26

Tutan±en, 40

U.S. Census 1850 and 1860, 19

§g#en¥¥d=;¥2=ge=itpBrifr¥;,7±

F:io:ie::g#?1;g-ent,36,57

§Eaot:,Rp°aaffzf,1£f22-28 Shekomeko Creek, 6 Simon, Louis A., 54, 56, 64 Smith, 13 Snrith, Albert, 24 Smith, Jacob, 19

United States Constitution, 57, 59 Uppuqul-ipis-ing, 65

§¥g#gETk=f±:ti?;i:',6:6'26

§=E#y6',28?21,28,29 Smithfield Farms, 28 Smithfield Presbyterian Church, 7

Vassar Brothers Home For Aged Men, 59

¥=S=€:#:8:'B¥ii3:'o3f8i=tees,61

Smithfield Road, 7, 11, 13, 18, 26, 27

§=ff:!£V#:¥'£8s'o]:;a:'n],78.19;24,25,28 Sndthsonian, 64 South Hamilfon Street, 40 South Water Street, 41 Southeuland, 13

Vassar Female Conege, 61

Vassar hetitute, 59 Vassar, Matthew, 59, 62, 65 Varex, Calvert, 54

¥:H::A¥#6o Victorian Era, 59

Southlands Fain, 54 Southlands Foundation, 54

;#i:X:i;&uen8hckkgp#]£#Z'g€:"72

Speidel, 57

Von Steuben, 67

i:=CfgF:I,:6:5=E*'6]

WaHter, Vincent, 35

§Ee8rhd¥:%i]ectiout,13

##t'er¥,±]rifie:4uLy'£9

Starr hstitute, 54

Waltman, Hany F., 35 Wappingers Creek, 64 Wappingers Falls Post Office, 36

i:tuE:U#=VEes#55i;:3e,:6Y°rkatNewRE,38

#=PEinLin£:I:,FG¥r¥e¥ag,e7Eall/64

::ffi:y;#==e,t5@4oaisy),54

Wassaic, 15, 20 Wassaic Creek, 6, 7, 18

Sully, Thomas, 51 Swiss Crmet style, 64

Wheeler Homestead, 62 White, Stanford, 55

Tallix Foundy, 70 Teder Avenue, 70 Ten rae RIver, 68, 69

untefield, E., 60 Whiiner, Helen, 62 Whiiner, T. Carl, 62, 64

The City, 6, 7, 11, 13, 18, 23, 25, 26, 28

Who's Who in American Art, 36

Wilderstein, 54 Wilderstein Preservation, inc., 54 Wolfe, Thomas, 55 Woodstock, New York, 34 Works Progress Administration (WPA) 49, 54,

;!:iT!,i'o5n:::r&:6o U.S. Constitution 1788," 57

#S%'£ZCo«».er,35

56, 57, 60, 62

World War H, 41 Worrell, N. H., 68 WPA Federal Art Project, 36

Young, iinette, 6

¥:§§§:§fri::;i;022:672267 Thomdale Farms, 26 Thome Buflding, 66 Three Arts, 36 Three Arts Ganery, 36

81

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