Dutchess County Historical Society Yearbook Vol 047 1962

Year Book Dutchess County Historical Society Volume 47

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Copyright, 1963 by the Dutchess County Historical Society

DUTCHESS COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY Incorporated under the laws of the State of New York December 21, 1918 Certificate of Incorporation filed in the office of the Clerk of Dutchess County Book 10 of Corporations page 153

DUTCHESS COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY

MEETINGS — MEMBERSHIP — DUES ANNUAL MEETING, THIRD FRIDAY IN MAY SEMI-ANNUAL MEETING, THIRD FRIDAY IN OCTOBER

MEMBERSHIP Membership in the Dutchess County Historical Society may be had by the election of the applicant at the May or October meeting or at a meeting of the Board of Trustees and the payment of the dues.

Annual dues Joint membership (two members of one family) Life membership

$ 3.00 $ 5.00 $75.00

Annual dues are payable on January 1 of each year.

These payments carry with them the right to hold office, to vote and to take part in the proceedings of the society.

Payment of three dollars at date of election entitles a new member to a copy of the year book for that current year. Next payment falls due the succeeding January and covers a copy of the year book issued in the year ensuing.

Copies of the year book are mailed only to those members whose dues are paid to date. Only one copy of the year book is mailed to a joint membership.

FORM OF BEQUEST I give and bequeath to the DUTCHESS COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY Dollars

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OFFICERS

1962 President: BALTUS B. VAN KLEECK, Poughkeepsie, N. Y. Vice President at Large: EDMUND VAN WYCK, Poughkeepsie, N. Y. Secretary: MRS. AMY PEARCE VER NOOY, Poughkeepsie, N. Y. Treasurer: MISS ALBERTINA T. B. TRAVER, Rhinebeck, N. Y. Curator:

VICE-PRESIDENTS FOR TOWNS Mrs. J. E. Spingarn Mrs. F. Philip Hoag James Budd Rymph Thomas J. Boyce Mrs. Charles Boos Miss Edith Van Wyck Mrs. John Mulford Hackett Henry R. Billings Chester F. Eisenhuth Egbert Green Mrs. William B. Jordan Miss Agnes K. Bower Miss Annette Young Mrs. A. N. Mahoney Mrs. Donald E. Norton Miss Rachel Rynders Mrs. Harrie D. Knickerbocker Mrs. Theodore Coe Miss Louise H. Tompkins

Town of Amenia City of Beacon Town of Beekman Town of Clinton Town of Dover Town of East Fishkill Town of Fishkill Town of Hyde Park Town of LaGrange Town of Milan Town of North East Town of Pawling Town of Pine Plains Town of Pleasant Valley Town of Poughkeepsie City of Poughkeepsie Town of Red Hook Town of Rhinebeck Town of Stanford Town of Union Vale Town of Wappinger Town of Washington

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BOARD OF TRUSTEES

The President, ex-officio The Vice-President at Large, ex-officio The Secretary, ex-officio The Treasurer, ex-officio The Curator, ex-officio

CLASS OF 1963 Harris N. Cookingham Mrs. Harry H. Hill

Frank V. Mylod Mrs. Stanley G. Smith

CLASS OF 1964 Mrs. Stuart R. Anderson Mrs. Fred C. Daniels

Clifford M. Buck John R. Schwartz

CLASS OF 1965 Joseph B. Bisbee Chester 0. Davison, M.D.

Newton D. Deuel Mrs. T. Van Kleeck Swift

CLASS OF 1966 George A. Badgley Mrs. J. Manfred Finkel

Miss Ruth A. Halstead Henry Noble MacCracken, Ph.D.

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CONTENTS Secretary's Minutes

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Treasurer's Report

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Our President Says • Baltus Barentszen Van Kleeck

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The Annual Pilgrimage

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Bard College and Schuyler House Reamer Kline

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Lincoln's State Department Henry Noble MacCracken

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Dutchess County Cattle Show and Fair of 1820 Amy Ver Nooy

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Poughkeepsie's 275th Anniversary

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How the City of Poughkeepsie was Founded, (a reprint) Helen Wilkinson Reynolds

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America Learned to Write The Editor

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Books

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Bible Records of Dutchess County Families

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Edited by AMY PEARCE VER NOOY The Year Book is published in December. Copies of the Year Book are mailed to those members whose dues are paid for the current year. Single issues are sold for $3.00 each and may be obtained through the secretary or the treasurer. Address: The Dutchess County Historical Society, Poughkeepsie, New York.

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OCCASIONAL PUBLICATIONS OF THE

DUTCHESS COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY 1916—PAMPHLET, Troutbeck, 1 Dutchess County Homestead; by Charles E. Benton. Out of print.

1924—CoLLEcTioNs, VOL. I; Poughkeepsie, The Origin and Meaning of the Word; by Helen Wilkinson Reynolds. (Price: $5.00) II; Old Gravestones of Dutchess County, New York; collected and edited by J. Wilson Poucher, M.D., and Helen Wilkinson Reynolds. (Price: $20.00)

1924-COLLECTIONS, VOL.

1928—COLLECTIONS, VOL. III; Records of the Town of Hyde Park, Dutchess County, New York; edited by Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Edition exhausted.

1930—COLLECTIONS, VOL. IV; Notices of Marriages and Deaths in Newspapers printed at Poughkeepsie, N. Y., 1778-1825; compiled and edited by Helen Wilkinson Reynolds. (Price: $5.00) 1932—COLLECTIONS, VOL. V; Records of the Reformed Dutch Church of New Hackensack, Dutchess County, New York; edited by Maria Bockee Carpenter Tower. (Price: $10.00) 1938—COLLECTIONS, VOL. VI; Eighteenth Century Records of the Portion of Dutchess County, New York that was included in Rombout Precinct and the original Town of Fishkill. Collected

by William Willis Reese. Edited by Helen Wilkinson Reynolds. / (Price: $10.00),/ 1940—COLLECTIONS, VOL. VII; Records of Crum Elbow Precinct, Dutchess County. Edited by Franklin D. Roosevelt.

(Price: $15.00) #41 1958—COLLECTIONS, VOL. VIII; Family Vista, the Memoirs of Margaret Chanler illdrich. (Price: $4.50) A few copies of some of the above publications are available at the prices listed. For information address Mrs. Amy Ver Nooy, Secretary, Dutchess County Historical Society, Poughkeepsie, N. Y. 8

SECRETARY'S MINUTES MEETING OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES March 26, 1962 A meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Dutchess County Historical Society was held on Monday afternoon, March 26, 1962, in the office of Mr. Van Kleeck, at the Poughkeepsie Savings Bank.

Present: President MacCracken, Mr. Van Kleeck, Mrs. Anderson, Mr. Buck, Mrs. Hill, Mr. Mylod, Mrs. Swift, Mr. Van Wyck, Mr. Whalen, the treasurer and the secretary and Mr. John A. Wolf.

Vice-president Van Kleeck presided and announced with regret that Dr. MacCracken had found it necessary to tender his resignation as president. He was persuaded to remain in office until a successor might be elected at the annual meeting to be held in May. Mr. Van Kleeck told that the threatened demolition of the county office building had necessitated the removal of the possessions of this society which had been stored in a room on the third floor. He said that the trustees of Vassar Brothers Institute had very kindly offered storage space in their building and that the belongings of this society had been removed to the third floor of the Institute building, where a "cage- had been constructed to properly care for them. An inventory of these possessions would be made as soon as practicable. Mr. Van Kleeck was asked to write the Board of Trustees of Vassar Brothers Institute expressing the appreciation of this society for its kindness and help in the emergency.

Mr. Van Kleeck reported that a committee of the trustees of the society had had an opportunity to visit the Caroline T. Wells house at Rhinebeck and he described the damaged condition in which the inspecting committee had found the house and its furnishings, the result of vandalism. There was some discussion and it was felt that this society had been more than patient and had waited far too long for the settlement of the estate. It was voted that Mr. John A. Wolf, of Mr. 1V1ylod's office, be authorized to represent the society in filing a petition for an accounting of the entire estate.

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The plans for the annual meeting to be held in May were discussed. Dr. MacCracken said he would be willing to address the meeting on "Abraham Lincoln's State Department," and Mr. Van Kleeck was asked to arrange for a speaker, representing Vassar Brothers Hospital, to tell about the hospital and its seventy-fifth anniversary which is being celebrated this year.

It was noted that the annual meeting was the occasion for the election of some of the officers, including a group of four trustees.

Mr. Van Kleeck appointed Mr. Van Wyck as chairman of a nominating committee, to serve with Mr. Buck and Mr. Whalen, to select candidates to be voted on at the meeting to be held May 19.

The chairman of the Glebe House committee, Mrs. Swift, gave a report and recommended that this society join with the Junior League in requesting the city to install an oil burner in the Glebe House and to remove the wooden addition on the east side of the building.

The trustees also voted to collaborate with a committee of the Junior League in the preparation of a pamphlet descriptive of the Glebe House. It was agreed that money in the Helen Wilkinson Reynolds Memorial Fund might be drawn on for this purpose.

At the same time it was suggested that Miss Traver and Mrs. Ver Nooy prepare a folder, describing the society and its aims, which would include an application blank for membership.

Mr. Van Wyck spoke of the reports that the City Hall might be among those buildings to be demolished. He spoke of its location in the center of the city and said he felt that the building, erected in 1833, was a very good example of the architecture of the time and that the city had permitted the removal of too many of its older buildings. He remarked that urban renewal did not necessarily mean demolition and cited a number of instances where new and modern buildings had been erected in close proximity to older structures, creating an attractive and less monotonous aspect. The board voted that a letter be sent to the Common Council, the Action Council, the Poughkeepsie Planning Board, the Mayor and the City Manager urging that the City Hall be preserved and suggesting its possible use as a museum.

Mr. Van Kleeck stated that a committee would be appointed to make plans for the annual pilgrimage and suggested that a trip might be made to the northwestern part of the county, an area which had not 10

been visited by the society since 1955.

There was no further business to be considered and the meeting adjourned.

Amy Ver Nooy, Secretary ANNUAL MEETING May 19, 1962 The annual meeting of the Dutchess County Historical Society was held on Saturday, May 19, 1962, at the Nelson House, Poughkeepsie. Mr. Van Kleeck, the vice-president, presided and called the meeting to order at 11:30 a.m.

The secretary read the minutes of the semi-annual meeting, held October 27, 1961, and of a meeting of the Board of Trustees, held March 26, 1962. The minutes were approved as read.

The treasurer gave the report for the last half of 1961, July 1, through December 31, and a statement of the present state of the treasury. It was ordered that the report be received and placed on file.

The secretary reported that the society had lost two members by resignation and the following members by death: Miss Florence Eunice Bulmer, a life member, Mr. Martense H. Cornell, a vice-president (representing the Town of Wappinger), Mr. Cornelius Garrison, Miss Florence W. Olivet, Mrs. Anna C. Robinson, Mrs. Roy W. Shaver, Mrs. F. Jay Skidmore, a vice-president (representing the Town of LaGrange) and Mrs. Fred Terwilliger.

Mrs. Swift reported for the Glebe House committee. She reviewed the accomplishments of the past year and listed the many repairs and improvements, both inside and outside. She said that a complete inventory of the furnishings of the house had been made and that photographs had been taken of each room. She told that a history of the Glebe House was in preparation. She recommended that the electric wiring in the house be checked, that a brick path be laid and said that a quantity of old brick had been salvaged from some of the houses 11

that had been demolished in the western part of the city and could be used for this purpose. She also recommended that the picket fence be repaired and stated that a new front door, perhaps a Dutch door, would be desirable. The presiding officer thanked her for her report and said her suggestions would be referred to the Board of Trustees.

Mr. Van Kleeck stated that he had, with Mr. Bisbee and Mr. Van Wyck, visited the Caroline T. Wells house. He described the sad condition in which they found the building and its furnishings. He said that an accounting was almost ready, but had been delayed.

Mr. Van Kleeck reported that letters had been sent to the Common Council, the City Manager, the Mayor and agencies interested in urban renewal in the city urging that the City Hall be preserved and suggesting that it might be used as a museum.

A letter from the Joint Service Committee, signed by Valere Voorhees, was read. It stated that the committee had been started in 1961 by the Junior Chamber of Commerce with about twenty member-organizations and invited the historical society to send a representative to attend a meeting to be held on Monday, May 29, 1962.

Mr. Van Kleeck reported on the removal of the possessions of the society from the old county office building to Vassar Brothers Institute and suggested that, after an inventory had been made, it might be desirable for the society to try to sell much of the collections of old year books and other publications still on hand.

Mrs. Finkel spoke of the new interstate highway, Route 84, about to be constructed through the towns of Fishkill and East Fishkill and mentioned the historic sites which would be in the path of the road. She said that the proposed line would narrowly miss the "Wharton House," (built around 1735 by Cornelius Van Wyck ) and would miss most of the military encampment site used by General Washington's troops at the time of the Revolutionary War. She said that the members of the East Fishkill Historical Society were much interested in the possible salvage of items of archeological importance. She told of the interest in their own neighborhood exhibited by the members of their society and asked those present to share any information or documents relating to the history of East Fishkill and its former residents.

Mr. Van Kleeck spoke of the annual pilgrimage and said a committee would be appointed to make arrangements for the 1962 trip.

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It was noted that 1963 would mark the one hundred and seventyfifth anniversary of the ratification of the Constitution of the United States by the State of New York at a convention held in Poughkeepsie June 17, through July 26, 1788. It was agreed that a suitable celebration should be planned for next year.

For the nominating committee, Mr. Buck presented the following list of suggested candidates: for president, Mr. Baltus B. Van Kleeck ; vice-president, Mr. Edmund Van Wyck ; trustees for a term of four years, Mr. George A. Badgley, Mrs. J. Manfred Finkel, Miss Ruth A. Halstead and Dr. Henry Noble MacCracken ; a trustee to fill the unexpired teim of Mr. Van Wyck, Mrs. Stanley G. Smith; and, for vice-presidents representing their respective townships, Mr. Chester F. Eisenhuth of North East and Miss Louise H. Tompkins of Washington.

There were no other nominations from the floor and the secretary was asked to cast one ballot for the election of those named.

The names of the following persons were presented and they were elected annual members: Dr. Roscoe Balch, Mrs. James R. Breed, Mr. Arthur D. Butts, Mr. and Mrs. Richard A. Dwelley, Mr. Chester F. Eisenhuth, Dr. and Mrs. Theodore H. Erck, Mr. John D. Freer, Mrs. Philip A. Lyons, Mrs. Robert Martin, Mrs. Charles F. Mosher, Mrs. Morey Purdy, Mr. Dominic P. Rinaldi, Mr. Charles D. Robinson, Mr. Warren W. Rockefeller, Mrs. Eunice Hatfield Smith, Mr. and Mrs. Stanley G. Smith and Mr. and Mrs. Hunting Winans.

Mr. Van Kleeck read a tribute, prepared by Mrs. Hackett, in appreciation of Dr. MacCracken's work in local history and his services to the society. In recognition of his numerous contributions, he was elected an honorary member of the society.

It was reported that Mrs. Hackett was confined to the Northern Dutchess Hospital following a recent accident, and that two other members of the society, Miss Mary G. Spafford at Vassar Hospital and Mr. Ben Brown, at Sharon Hospital, were recovering from automobile accidents. The secretary was asked to write each of them expressing the sympathy of the members and a hope for their speedy and complete recovery.

There was no further business to be considered and the group moved into the dining room and enjoyed the usual excellent meal.

Following the luncheon, Dr. MacCracken spoke on "President 13

Lincoln's State Department" and stressed the importance of the career of William H. Seward and other Hudson Valley statesmen associated with him.

Mr. Van Kleeck reminded those present that the Dutchess County Historical Society has always been happy to have a part in anniversary celebrations of local institutions. He spoke of the "Seventy-five Years of Service to the Community," the theme of the anniversary observance of Vassar Brothers Hospital. He presented Mr. Ellison H. Capers, former administrator and presently a trustee of the hospital, who, assisted by Mr. Carr, told of Vassar Hospital's work in the area and illustrated his narrative with slides.

The meeting closed with a rising vote of thanks to the guests who had so kindly contributed to a successful meeting.

Amy Ver Nooy, Secretary SEMI-ANNUAL MEETING November 17, 1962 The semi-annual meeting of the Dutchess County Historical Society was held on Saturday, November 17, 1962, at the Nelson House, Poughkeepsie. The meeting was called to order at 11:30 a.m., the president, Mr. Van Kleeck, presiding.

The minutes of the annual meeting, held May 19, 1962, were read and approved.

The secretary reported that the society had lost two members by resignation and three members by death: Mr. Robert W. Doughty, a vice-president (representing the City of Beacon), Mrs. Benson R. Frost and Mr. Frank H. Lacy.

The treasurer gave a report covering the first half of the year, January 1, through June 30, and a report of the current state of the treasury. These reports were accepted as read.

The president reported that some progress had been made toward a settlement of the Caroline Thorn Wells estate and expressed the hope that the matter would be concluded in the near future.

Mr. Van Kleeck told of a communication received from the County 14

Clerk urging that a suitable recognition be made of the 175th anniversary of the occasion when the Federal Constitution was ratified by the State of New York through its delegates assembled in convention at Poughkeepsie in 1788.

It was moved and seconded that this society recommend to the Mayor, the City Manager, the Common Council and other public officials that a suitable celebration be staged in Poughkeepsie and that the cooperation of this society be offered in such observance.

It was decided that a program in commemoration of this event be arranged for the spring meeting.

The president reported that Mrs. Swift, chairman of the Glebe House committee, Mrs. Southworth, representing a similar committee of the Junior League, and Mr. Van Kleeck had met with the City Manager and discussed a budget for 1963. Mr. Van Kleeck stated that the house was in reasonably good condition, that the installation of a new automatic gas heating plant was about completed and that the picket fence had been built. He said that a long-range plan would provide for the construction of some sort of a garden house for the storage of garden tools and implements, after which the shed on the east side of the house could be removed. It would also include a project for reorganizing and furnishing the kitchen in the period in which the house had been used as a rectory. Another project would be an investigation of the condition of the electrical wiring of the building. He added that a number of organizations had visited the house and that it was being used more and more. He mentioned the visit, made on May 19, of a group of members of the Rockland County Historical Society, at which time the Glebe House Committee was pleased to welcome them and show the house.

Dr. Balch spoke of the groups of Yorkers, an organization sponsored by the New York State Historical Association for young people, under the age of eighteen, with branches in various high schools throughout the state. He thought it might be desirable to invite some of these young persons, all of whom have an interest in local history, to attend some of the meetings of the historical society.

Mr. Van Kleeck announced that the society had received $500 as a contribution to the Helen Wilkinson Reynolds Memorial Fund. The gift had been made by Miss Eleanor S. Upton, a cousin to Miss Reynolds.

It was also reported that the society had received, from Mrs. 15

William D. Rees of Philadelphia, a number of items relating to her ancestors, members of the Storm, Van Wyck and Hewitt families, eighteenth and nineteenth century residents of the county. This gift included portraits, photographs, books, silver, china and handwork. A sampler and two portraits had been selected for possible hanging in the Glebe House.

A report on the recent pilgrimage was given and a description of an enjoyable occasion in which about 150 persons had participated.

The trip carried out the program arranged by the committee, Mrs. Harry H. Hill and Mrs. Robert W. Asher, and proved most interesting. It was moved that a vote of thanks be extended to all who had contributed to a very successful day.

The secretary showed a silver chain bracelet, with the names of three children on separate "charms." She explained that the bracelet had been sent to her by Mrs. Chanler A. Chapman and that it had been found at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Chapman after the visit there on the occasion of the pilgrimage, September 29. She hoped those present would spread the word so that the owner, probably a grandmother, might reclaim a valued keepsake.

It was noted that at the time of the spring meeting it had been reported that three of the members of the society were hospitalized as the result of automobile accidents. Mrs. Gardner reported that Mrs. Hackett had returned to her home and was convalescing. The secretary reported that Mr. Ben Brown had been able to attend the pilgrimage, although still using crutches, and that Miss Mary Spafford had returned to her home and was able to get about with the aid of a "walker." She also mentioned that Mr. Deuel, one of the trustees, had returned to his home, following a stay in hospital and surgery, after having been thrown from a horse. The secretary was asked to write a letter to each of these members expressing a hope for their complete recovery.

Mention was made of the number of regional historical societies in the county and the great interest exhibited by their members in the history of their particular areas. It was reported that the Nine Partners Historical Society of Pine Plains and Vicinity had recently been incorporated and it was noted that the Dutchess County Historical Society has always been pleased to hear of the organization of a new group and to cooperate in any way possible.

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The names of the following new members were proposed and they were elected: Mrs. Joseph A. Butler, Mr. Edwin Ward Case, Mr. William M. Dederer, Mr. Lou Lewis, Miss Jean H. MacFarland, Mrs. Clifford M. Moser, Miss Julia Parker, Mrs. Norton I. Pennock, Mrs. William D. Rees, Miss Nancy Simmons, Mr. Randolph E. Tyrrel, Mr. Charles W. H. Warner and the University of Illinois Library.

Mrs. Hill suggested the appointment of a membership chairman and said she felt that some of the vice-presidents of the society in the. various townships of the county could assist by inviting persons in theft neighborhoods to join the society. Mr. Van Kleeck urged those present to ask their friends to become members. He felt that the list of members should be much larger than its present roster of approximately 400.

Mr. Van Wyck called attention to the fact that 1962 marks the 275th anniversary of the first settlement on lands which are now included in the city of Poughkeepsie. He spoke of an article, written some years ago by Miss Helen Wilkinson Reynolds which told of a lease, signed in 1687, by which the owners of a tract of land leased forty-eight acres each to "Balthus Barensz Cleeck" and "Henderyk Jansz Oostrum" and partners. The president suggested that it could appropriately be reprinted in the 1962 issue of the year book.

Miss Gertrude Brasch told that she had an abstract of title which traced the ownership of her property back to the patent granted on June 2, 1688, to Colonel Peter Schuyler.

When the business meeting was adjourned, the members gathered in the dining room where an excellent luncheon was enjoyed.

Following luncheon, Mr. Van Kleeck spoke of the many changes which have occurred in the county during the past few years and of the many once-familiar landmarks that are disappearing. He mentioned the scenes along the country roads and streams and the wildflowers which once grew so profusely. And he told how very fortunate it was that some of our members had preserved so many pictures. He introduced Mr. George D. Halstead, a long-time member of the society, who showed a generous selection of slides from a collection which he has gathered over the years. The pictures were much appreciated and the meeting closed with a rising vote of thanks to Mr. Halstead.

Amy Ver Nooy, Secretary 17

REPORT OF THE TREASURER January 1, 1962 - June 30, 1962 PERMANENT Accou NT—Poughkeepsie Savings Bank $8,794.61 Balance on hand, January 1, 1962 Interest 176.36 Balance on hand, June 30, 1962 $8,970.97 CHECKING ACCOUNT—DUtCheSS Bank and Trust Company Receipts Balance on hand, January 1, 1962 $ 2.67 Received from dues 816.00 175.20 Received from sale of books $ 993.87 Disbursements Open House Day, Glebe House (1961) $ 40.02 Stamped envelopes 9.53 William J. Olivet, cartage to Vassar Institute 45.00 Lansing-Broas Printing Co., office supplies 13,15 77.89 John G. Pearse, carpentry work at Vassar Institute Secretary 50.00 Treasurer 50.00 Office supplies 28.89 Guest luncheons 11.25 Junior League, Glebe House maintenance 200.68 $ 526.41 Balance on hand, June 30, 1962 $ 467.46 THE HELEN WILKINSON REYNOLDS MEMORIAL FUND POUGHKEEPSIE SAVINGS BANK Balance on hand, January 1, 1962 $2,647.43 Interest 53.00 Balance on hand, June 30, 1962 $2,700.43 Respectfully submitted Albertina T. B. Traver, Treasurer 18

REPORT OF THE TREASURER July 1, 1962 - December 31, 1962 PERMANENT ACCOUNT—Poughkeepsie Savings Bank $8,970.97 Balance on hand, July 1, 1962 700.00 Transferred to checking account $8,270.97 166.15 Interest $8,437.12 Balance on hand, December 31, 1962 CHECKING ACCOUNT — Dutchess Bank and Trust Company Receipts $ 467.46 Balance on hand, July 1, 1962 110.00 Received from dues 106.00 Received from sale of books 700.00 Transferred from Permanent Account $1,383.46 Disbursements Secretary Treasurer Printing year book Binding year book Editing year book Mailing year book Postage on year book Copyright for year book Hyde Park Historical Association, dues Stamped envelopes for bills Office supplies (postage, stationery) Guest luncheons Lansing, Broas Printing Co., printing postcards. .

Lansing, Broas Printing Co., printing bills

$

50.00 50.00 675.00 35.15 200.00 15.00 44.00 4.20 1.00 23.20 44.70 4.50 14.25 15.33 $1,176.33

Balance on hand, December 31, 1962 $ 207.13 THE HELEN WILKINSON REYNOLDS MEMORIAL FUND Poughkeepsie Savings Bank Balance on hand, July 1, 1962 $2,700.43 500.00 Gift Gift 15.00 4.00 Sale of book Interest 58.88 Balance on hand, December 31, 1962 $3,278.31 Respectfully submitted Albertina T. B. Traver, Treasurer 19

OUR PRESIDENT SAYS: The members of our society are very grateful to Mrs. Harry H. Hill and Mrs. Robert W. Asher of Rhinebeck for arranging the 1962 pilgrimage to northern Dutchess and to Dr. and Mrs. Reamer Kline of Bard College, the Reverend Robert J. Creech, rector of the Church of the Messiah, Rhinebeck, and to Mr. and Mrs. Chanler A. Chapman of "Sylvania" for their cordial hospitality to the members during this delightful day in Dutchess County.

Our society was represented at the meetings of the New York State Historical Association. The Seminars on American Culture at Cooperstown are always well attended and offer attractive programs.

The Local History Workshop was held August 22-24 at Buffalo in conjunction with the annual meeting of the American Association for State and Local History and the Congress of Local Historical Societies.

The meeting was arranged by the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society and the University of Buffalo.

Several representatives of the society attended the dedication on June 22 of Camp Hayden, one of the Herald Tribune Fresh Air Fund camps at Sharpe Reservation in the town of Fishkill. We were privileged to visit Sharpe Reservation during the 1961 pilgrimage and to examine the splendid development of this project.

The society received a request from Dr. MacCracken that his resignation as president be accepted since his health would not permit him to continue to the end of his term of office. His resignation was accepted with great regret and, in appreciation of his many years of service, Dr. MacCracken was elected an honorary member of the society.

He continues his interest in the organization and, at the annual meeting, was elected to the Board of Trustees. He addressed the society at the meeting, held May 19, outlining the history of prominent members of President Lincoln's cabinet, particularly William H. Seward, Secretary of State.

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An important Poughkeepsie institution, Vassar Brothers Hospital, celebrated its seventy-fifth birthday this year. We were privileged to have as a luncheon speaker, on May 19, a trustee and the former Administrator of Vassar Hospital, Mr. Ellison H. Capers, who told of the hospital's "Seventy-five Years of Service to the Community." * At the fall meeting, held November 17, Mr. George D. Halstead showed a wide selection of colored slides from photographs which he had taken of local wildflowers, scenes and landmarks in Dutchess County.

We are fortunate indeed to number among our members so many who are so generous with their time and abilities.

Several important gifts have been received by the Dutchess County Historical Society during the year. Miss Eleanor S. Upton of East Orange, New Jersey, sent a gift of $500 to be added to the Helen Wilkinson Reynolds Fund. Mrs. William D. Rees of Philadelphia presented to the society portraits, photographs, books, silver, china and handwork, items preserved in the Storm and Van Wyck families of Dutchess County. An illustrated account of the Aldridge Brick Company of Dutchess Junction and a genealogical chart of the descendants of the founder of the industry, Thomas Aldridge, were presented by Mr. Benjamin Lewis Aldridge. Miss Ruth E. Barlow gave the society a collection of papers, copies of miscellaneous records, which had been the property of Miss Mary H. Reed of Amenia.

Two new historical societies have been formed recently in the county: the Fishkill Historical Society and the Little Nine Partners Historical Society at Pine Plains.

Baltus Barentszen Van Kleeck

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THE ANNUAL PILGRIMAGE After two days of rain, a clear sunshiny day was bestowed on the pilgrims who journeyed to Schuyler House and Bard College on the annual tour. The group assembled at 10:30 a.m. at Schuyler House, east of Rhinebeck, where they were received and served coffee by a gracious reception committee. They admired the transformation within the mansion, where the redecorating had been done by the employees of Bard College, creating a most comfortable and delightful dormitory for some of the students. They enjoyed a visit to the gardens, still bright with fall flowers.

Along the route to Bard College, the program helped to identify the numbered points of interest which had been well marked by the committee in charge. A stop was made at the Church of the Messiah to give those interested an opportunity to see the interior, particularly the stained glass windows. The Reverend Mr. Creech spoke briefly on the history of the parish and the kinds of glass, its sources and dates.

Passing Rokeby (8-L, on the program), some of the visitors stopped to try to read the almost obliterated inscription on the wall.

Mrs. Aldrich explains: "When Mr. William Astor and Mr. Delano took down board fences and had handsome stone walls erected, Josiah House was superintendent at Rokeby and said, 'The Chanler children must have a stone wall too.' When it was finished, I asked one of my brothers to put the rhyme celebrating his care of us."

Arriving at Bard, the visitors enjoyed lunch at the cafeteria and then adjourned to the Chapel of the Holy Innocents, where Dr. Kline welcomed his guests and told somewhat of the history of the college and the story of Schuyler House and the people who had lived there.

He has written out a copy of his talk and it is presented in this issue of the year book.

After the visit to Bard, a brief stop was made at "Blithewood" and the company proceeded to "Sylvania," where they enjoyed the hospitality of Mr. and Mrs. Chanler A. Chapman and the opportunity to view the famous murals painted by Robert Winthrop Chanler, long and affectionately known to Dutchess County residents as "Sheriff Bob." There were between forty and fifty cars in line when a count was made on several occasions during the day. Some came for the morning 22

others for the afternoon, and some spent the entire day. Late in the afternoon, they dispersed and took their individual ways home, along the Dutchess County roads which were already bright with the color of sumach and some of the maples.

The program for the day was as follows: DUTCHESS COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY Forty-second Annual Pilgrimage Saturday, September 29, 1962

Luncheon served at Bard College

Rhinebeck-Red Hook Area

or basket lunch, if desired

Points of interest along the route will be marked with numbers corresponding to the notes below. The letters L or R indicate whether the number will be found on the right or left side.

10:30 a.m. Assemble at Schuyler House, on private road leading south-east from Route 308, east of intersection with Route 9-G. Visit house and 1-L formal garden. House is now owned by Bard College. Coffee will be served.

11:30 a.m.

Leave Schuyler House, follow leader south to Route 9-G, passing the Robert Sands House.

2-R

The house of Robert Sands, known as "The Homestead," built in 1790 and since then occupied by his descendants. It retains its original construction with few minor changes. The families of Robert Sands and Philip Schuyler were closely related. The two families operated a mill, the millstone of which is still preserved.

3-L

Tunis Pier House, built 1761. Originally one room, many additions were made by various owners. At one time slave quarters were in the basement.

4-R

Home of Chancellor Livingston Chapter, DAR, the gift of Mrs. Helen Reed de Laporte. The house was occupied by General Richard Montgomery, who was killed in the Battle of Quebec in 1775. His widow later built "Montgomery Place," at Barrytown.

5-L

Episcopal Church of the Messiah, Rhinebeck. The Reverend Robert 3. Creech will speak on the history of the church, famous for its stained glass windows. Parking on Chestnut Street and in rear of church.

"Elmwood," home of the late Miss Caroline Thorn Wells.

6-R 7-R

8-L

Kip House. Second house built in Rhinebeck (c1700). Road to river led to docks and ferry.

Turning north on River Road, pass "Ankony Farm" (home of Allan A. Ryan, and famous for Angus cattle), the Astor, Oblensky, Merritt and Delano estates.

"Rokeby," the estate of Mrs. Margaret Chanler Aldrich. Note the slanting stone in wall left of left gate post. Almost indecipherable, it is inscribed: 23

JOSIAH HOUSE Hunc muram (Freely translated: This wall, which Exfundam ent is erexit he erected, is a monument to himself) Quem sibi monumentum posuit Just as it stands With his own hands He quarried and he cut 'em.

When he is gone May every stone Stay where Josiah put 'em.

1880 - 1888 Drive through Barrytown Corners and pass the white gates, on left, of "Montgomery Place," now the home of General John Ross Delafield. This is the home built, c. 1800, by Janet Livingston Montgomery, widow of General Richard Montgomery.

Pass through Annandale-on-Hudson, to Bard College. Park in rear 9-R of dining hall.

Lunch will be served by the college, price $1.50, to those who have made reservations with check on or before Monday, September 24.

Use blank below. Box lunches may be eaten in the dining hall. Coffee will be served. After lunch, assemble in the "Chapel of the Holy Innocents," where Dr. Reamer Kline, President of Bard College, will speak on the history of Schuyler House and of Bard College.

Follow leader to "Blithevvood," the former home of Captain Andrew C. Zabriskie, now owned by Bard College. Note hexagonal gate house at entrance to "Blithevvood."

3 :30 p.m. Visit home of Mr. and Mrs. Chanler Chapman and inspect murals painted by Robert W. Chanler.

Disperse, proceed to River Road or continue straight up hill to Route 9-G. Mrs. Robert W. Asher Mrs. Harry H. Hill Co-chairmen, Pilgrimage Committee

LOST A new dark coloured GREAT COAT, lined with yellow flannel, a large cape and metal buttons. It was taken from the house of William Germond, at the late Fair, supposed through mistake. Whoever will return the same to William Germond, shall have the thanks of the owner.

Stephen Gardner November 2, 1820 The Dutchess Observer, November 8, 1820

24

BARD COLLEGE and SCHUYLER HOUSE * It is a very great privilege to welcome to Bard College today the members of the Dutchess County Historical Society. We are happy to have you in this beautiful and historic spot and hope you will come to visit us often.

Mrs. Hill has asked me to tell you something about the history of Bard College and of Schuyler House in Rhinebeck. I make no claim to being an expert in any area of history. What I have to tell you I have simply assembled from various sources so that you might have in concise form facts which are recorded in a variety of places. What follows is not in any way the fruit of any original historical research on my part. I have simply gathered what is relevant from the work of others, especially Dr. George B. Hopson's Reminiscences of St. Stephen's College; Dr. J. Wilson Poucher's articles in the 1929 and 1930 year books of this society; and Miss Helen Myers' feature article on Schuyler House in the December 17, 1961, Poughkeepsie Journal.

I want now to tell you briefly a little of the history of the college, especially of this chapel where you now are, — and then something of the story of Schuyler House in Rhinebeck where most of you were this morning.

In. Dr. Hopson's history of this college is this paragraph: When Mr. Bard presented to St. Stephen's College the beautiful chapel in which its rel:gious services are held, he reserved the use of it for one day in the year. The day that he selected was All Saints' Day; and while he and his family resided at Annandale it was his custom to invite some bishop or other eminent clergyman to preach the sermon. At times he would secure some well-trained choir to assist in rendering the choral service. After he went to Europe, the day was observed as a college holiday.'

The man who founded this college asked for a day's use of this chapel out of a year. Today, in a sense we continue that custom giving at least part of this day's thoughts to those who made this college what it is.

The writer of Ecclesiasticus exhorts us: Let us now praise famous men, The Lord hath wrought great glory by them through his great power, from the beginning . . " The substance of a talk given in the Chapel of the Holy Innocents by Dr. Reamer Kline, President of Bard College, on the occasion of the pilgrimage made by the Dutchess County Historical Society, September 29, 1962.

25

Briefly, I would like to call up before our attention some of the men and women who have made this college.

Our present day Bard College catalog tells us how one hundred years ago John Bard, as a thank-offering for the birth of his son, founded the college by turning over to it the chapel and Bard Hall and the land occupied today by the main campus. Willie Bard was a long-wanted son, born when his father was thirty-seven and his mother thirty-one. His very birthday was a slim chance, for he was born on the twenty-ninth day of February in the leap year 1856. Eight years after his father's thank-offering founding of the college, Willie Bard died, twelve days before his twelfth birthday. His grieving father had a small marble tablet inserted into the outer wall of the chapel, stating that the building (originally a joyful thank-offering) was now a gift in memory of Willie Bard. Thus the whole character of the donation of this building was changed. (One is reminded of a distinguished later president of this college who, in 1943, dedicated a book to five eminent friends whom he described as men "who knew what heartbreak means.") 2 Following Willie Bard's death, his parents took themselves to England, never returning here save as visitors. But John Bard had not only founded a college, he had changed the very shape of the land.

"This hill-top was a very rough looking place when I came here in 1873," a man who served here as professor for forty-seven years wrote in telling of John Bard's happy eight years of activity before his little boy died. "Rocks were sticking up all along the rugged hillside," he continues, "and half-starved trees were seeking a precarious existence in their clefts. Mr. Bard was the magician who effected the transformation. He removed the unsightly trees, blasted out the rocks, brought in hundreds of loads of good soil, and planted shapely trees. He told me once that he could show from his books that he had spent $80,000 on the college. . . ."3 "Let us now praise famous men!"

And do you know the story of Preston Commons, the house for cooking and eating which a cook built, and where you had lunch today?

Miss Betsey Preston of Barrytown was a cook in the employ of John L. Aspinwall. . . . In long and faithful service, she had accumulated a few thousand dollars, and, having no near relatives, she consulted Mr. Aspinwall as to the disposition of it. He advised her to give it to 26

St. Stephen's College. When the trustees came into possession of it, they decided that the most fitting use which they could make of it was to employ it in building a refectory . . .

"Let us now praise famous men" and, while we are about it, let us praise these other men and women, less well known, but no less glorious!

In its one hundred years of history, Bard College has had thirteen presidents, or wardens, but one man led the college for over a third of that whole time, Robert Brinckerhoff Fairbairn. The Civil War was at its height when Dr. Fairbairn became head of the college. And the twentieth century was only two years away when he laid his responsibilities down, a term of service running from 1863 to 1898! It took the three next longest-serving presidents combined to equal Dr. Fairbairn's years here.

"The College was the predominant object of his concern," our historian writes of Dr. Fairbairn. "He planned and labored and prayed for it. To meet its financial obligations, he advanced money from time to time out of his modest salary, until, at the time of his resignation, the college owed him nine thousand dollars." After his death, the faculty adopted this resolution: The College was his life's work, to which he gave the best powers of his mind and body; all that he was and all that he had. His name will ever be associated with its history: his memory will be cherished as a priceless heritage.'

There are people who will remember the next man of whom I speak, Dr. Bernard Iddings Bell. He was a gifted and controversial man, a shatterer of complacencies. During his fourteen years as head of the college, half the cubic footage which the institution now has was built: the gymnasium, Hegeman Science Hall, Albee Hall, Wardens Hall, and Faculty Circle. Not only did Dr. Bell build many of the buildings which we have today. He also foreshadowed much of the intellectual shape of the college as we know it. Here, for example, is Dr. Bell writing in 1927: The primary purpose of a college is hard intellectual labor . . . .

The chief end desired is that a student shall learn to approach problems rationally and without fear, think them through independently, clearly and imaginatively for himself . . . . Specific information . . . is of secondary importance. We must help students to think . . . .

No two students are alike. Therefore rules, curricula, methods must be adapted to students, not the student to them. The essence of teaching lies in contagion of interest. This means that a teacher . . . must be himself vitally interested both in his own learning and in his students . . . .6 27

The last of the famous men of whom I shall speak is Dr. Donald G. Tewksbury. I make him the last, not to imply that there have been no "famous men" in our college's history since his time, but for the reason that there is always an awkwardness in evaluating the achievements of those who are still among us, which there is not with those who have finished their task and moved on.

More than any other man, Dr. Tewksbury was the intellectual architect of the modern Bard College. It was he who gave Bard its present emphasis on creativity, personal motivation, and the individual — values which underlie the college's present fame.

Dr. Tewksbury's An Educational Program for Bard College, published March 1, 1934, is probably the most influential single document in the college's history. He wrote: The proposed educational program for the college is based upon three fundamental principles: (1) the student's approach to his college work should be made through the particular abilities, interests and purposes which he has discovered and demonstrated during the years of his previous educational experience; (2) the motivating elements in the life of the individual should be the center around which he should proceed to build, under guidance, his own curriculum; and (3) his college education, following the line of his own abilities and the lead of expanding interest and enlarging purpose, should culminate in a broad cultural outlook marked by the power and will to continue selfeducation throughout his adult life.

"Let us now praise famous men . . . by their knowledge and learning, meet for the people, Wise and eloquent in their instructions 1" Now let us turn to the story of Schuyler House in Rhinebeck, where many of you were our guests this morning.

Schuyler House stands on land which was part of the Henry Beekman patent, obtained by royal grant in 1703. Beekman's daughter, Catharine, married John Rutsen, one of the men of the German Palatine families who moved to the Beekman patent from across the river in Ulster. Their son, Jacob Rutsen, Henry Beekman's grandson, married Beekman's granddaughter, Alida Livingston, who was, of course, Rutsen's cousin. This couple were the first of the family to live on the part of the patent where Schuyler House now stands, having moved here in 1739, two years after their marriage.

In 1746, seven years after moving to the property, Jacob Rutsen 28

died, leaving a son, John Rutsen, born in 1743. Jacob's widow, Alida, subsequently married Henry Van Rensselaer of Claverack. The son, John Rutsen, remained on the property and, about 1767, at the age of twenty-four, married Phebe Carman of the town of Beekman. He too died young, leaving two daughters, Catharine and Sarah, about one and three years old. (This Sarah Rutsen, known as Sally, is a very important person in the story of Schuyler House.) John Rutsen's widow, Phebe, married Robert Sands in 1779. Mr. Sands operated the Rutsen mills and store, which the family had built on the property, and supervised the tenant farms.

Sally Rutsen married Philip Schuyler of Albany, the General's son, in 1789, and for them the building which is the nucleus of Bard College's present Schuyler House was built about 1792. During the latter years of Philip Schuyler's life, Mary Morton, the daughter of his sister Cornelia Schuyler Morton, came to Rhinebeck to live with Philip Schuyler. She was, of course, General Philip Schuyler's granddaughter. She later married William Starr Miller and, about 1850 (fifteen years after Philip Schuyler's death), Miller bought for his wife the old Schuyler House in which she had lived and which she loved so much.

At Mrs. Miller's death, the property passed to the late Dr. George N. Miller, a nephew of Mrs. Miller's husband. It was Dr. Miller's daughters, Helen LeRoy Smith and Katherine Miller Hoffman who in January of 1962 gave the property to Bard College.

Accordingly, the descent of this property through the generations can be summarized as follows: Philip Schuyler acquired the property by marrying Henry Beekman's great-great-granddaughter, Sally Rutsen; Mary Morton Miller (General Schuyler's granddaughter) acquired it by purchase from the estate of her uncle, Philip Schuyler; Dr. George N. Miller inherited it from his uncle's widow, Mrs. William Starr Miller.

The property accordingly was in the ownership of the Beekman line for five generations: Henry Beekman, Catharine (Beekman) Rutsen, Jacob Rutsen, John Rutsen and Sally (Rutsen) Schuyler.

It was in the ownership of the Schuyler line two generations 29

Philip Schuyler, Mary Morton.

It was in the ownership of the Miller line two generations: Dr. George N. Miller and Helen LeRoy (Miller) Smith and Katherine (Miller) Hoffman.

It is interesting at this point to take note of the importance of the female line in determining the descent of property and the course of history.

Mr. Smith and Mr. Hoffman, who dealt with Bard College in arranging the gift of the property to us, were there because they had married Miller girls.

The Millers were there only because Dr. George N. Miller's uncle had married a Schuyler granddaughter.

The Schuylers were there only because Philip Schuyler had married John Rutsen's daughter.

The Rutsens were there only because John Rutsen's grandfather (also John) had married Henry Beekman's daughter!

Now a word about the Schuyler family, since it is that family's fame which has given the house its present name of Schuyler House.

The Schuyler who is identified with this property is, of course, Philip Schuyler, the son of the Revolutionary War general. Philip was born in Albany in 1768. His father wrote in the family Bible: Born January 21, 1768, Philip Jeremiah. May the Lord grant that he grow up for the glory of God and his happiness.

It should be unnecessary to remind such an audience as this of the events which surrounded young Philip Schuyler's childhood: of the war preparations in Albany; of the displacement of his father by General Gates on the eve of the battle of Saratoga; of General Schuyler's generous congratulations of Gates after the latter's victory; of the Schuyler family's magnanimous hospitality of the defeated Burgoyne and his Hessian officers at the Schuyler home in Albany.

Philip Schuyler had five sisters, of whom three eloped. One of the doping ones was Cornelia who descended by rope ladder and drove with Washington Morton to Stockbridge for the ceremony. (It was this couple who became the parents of Mary Morton, later Mary Morton Miller, who was subsequently to purchase the property from the Philip Schuyler estate and later bequeath it to Dr. George N. Miller.)

Returning to General Schuyler and those five daughters; you 30

remember he is famed for having written to a friend, regarding the elopements: "I frowned, I made them humble themselves, forgave, and called them home."

One marriage of which the General did not disapprove beforehand was that of Betty to Alexander Hamilton. Philip Schuyler, as I have said, married Sally Rutsen and thereby acquired the land on which he built, about 1792, the house which is the subject of our interest today. It was at Schuyler House in Rhinebeck, July 11, 1804, that Philip Schuyler received word of the wounding of his brother-in-law, Alexander Hamilton, by Burr.

In 1812, Philip Schuyler and John C. Stevens built mills at Clay Kill, between Red Hook and Pine Plains.

Sally Rutsen Schuyler died in 1805 and Philip subsequently married Mary Anna Sawyer of Boston. He had six children by Sally: Philip P. Schuyler, John Rutsen Schuyler, Catharine M. Schuyler (who married Samuel Jones), Sibyl Schuyler, Robert Schuyler and Stephen Van Rensselaer Schuyler (who married Catharine Morris). He had two sons by Mary Sawyer: William and George L. Schuyler. Philip Schuyler died in 1835.

One more connection between this house and our national history is the family tradition that the present library of the house was built according to designs drawn by Daniel Webster, who was a frequent visitor here.

I would say finally that Bard College is proud to have this notable property with its rich and colorful history; and that we count it a privilege to have as our guests a group so well-informed and appreciative of our regional history as is the Dutchess County Historical Society.

NOTES 'Hopson, George B. Reminiscences of St. Stephen's College, A. nnandale, New York. (New York, Gorham, 1910), P. 35.

"Bell, Bernard Iddings. The Church in Disrepute. (New York, Harper, 1943).

'Hopson, Reminiscences, p. 51. p. 29. p. 49.

'Bell, Bernard Iddings. "An Adventure in Educational Sanity," St. Stephen's College Bulletin, April, 1927.

31

LINCOLN'S STATE DEPARTMENT* This is a New York story. It has to do with William H. Seward of Orange County, secretary of state for all of Lincoln's terms and all of Johnson's; with Hamilton Fish of Westchester, who served during the war as unofficial ambassador to the then alienated city of New York, and who succeeded Seward for eight years; with William H. Evarts of New York, who was closely associated with both, and who succeeded them for four years; with John Bigelow of Ulster, ambassador to France; and finally with Thurlow Weed of Greene County, Seward's lifelong friend and often called his alter ego. All of these were citizens of New York State and all but Evarts lived on the Hudson River in the area where our Dutchess County rules her neighbors so benignly.

Just to be cosmopolitan, we will add two gentlemen from Massachusetts: John Quincy Adams, whom Seward admired and whose policies he pursued; and his son, Charles Francis Adams, protege and lifelong friend and associate of Seward.

Like his chief, Abraham Lincolm, whom he so loyally served, Seward was the victim of attacks, perhaps the most bitter in American politics. Unlike Lincoln, however, Seward never defended himself well and the judgment of contemporary history has been sadly servile in repeating the old, foul stories, while it has at the same time belittled his great services.

There is one great exception to the long sequence of historical dispraise. Henry Adams, the son of Charles Francis Adams and one of the most perspicuous of our historians of national politics, called Seward "the great man." Of his diplomatic victories, Adams remarked that those won in 1863 by Seward were as important in statecraft as the capture of Vicksburg was in the war, and that their effects lasted much longer.

Abraham Lincoln, too, stood by his secretary of state when a hostile Congress sought to obtain his dismissal. He confronted the disaffected legislators with the object of their bitter attacks; the opposition faded

*A transcript of an address made on the occasion of the annual meeting of the Dutchess County Historical Society, May 19, 1962, by Dr. Henry Noble MacCracken, President Emeritus of Vassar College and retiring president of the Dutchess County Historical Society.

32

away and was no more heard of.

In the time at my disposal today, I propose to ignore this mudslinging and to confine myself to the five great crises which Seward confronted in his capacity as secretary of state, and which he and his successors won for the honor of their country. Will you then give attention to these five points: First, the Confederacy, a state in rebellion, belligerent, but not recognized as a national government.

Second, freedom of the seas and the status of neutral nations; the raiders and the rams.

Third, Mexico and the Monroe Doctrine.

Fourth, Alaska, the great bastion of American continental defense.

Fifth, the defense of President Andrew Johnson against impeachment.

First, just a footnote of facts about this great, but little known, secretary of state. He was born in 1801 in the village of Florida in Orange County, and moved to Auburn, New York. He was twice elected, in 1830 and 1832, to the New York State Senate and refused a third term. He was twice elected governor of New York, in 1838 and 1840, and declined to run again. He was twice elected United States senator from New York, in 1848 and 1854. At the completion of the latter term, he was appointed secretary of state by Abraham Lincoln and continued in office after the president's assassination and during the full term of Lincoln's successor, President Johnson. Then, after forty years in politics, he retired and visited Mexico as the honored guest of the nation, made a notable tour of the world, and died in 1872.

In personality, Seward was a tall, thin, sprawling figure, always with a cigar in his mouth, the picture of a Middle West lawyer. He earned a most enviable reputation as an attorney in cases on patents and in criminal law, between 1844 and 1848. Henry Adams describes him as free and easy in talk, somewhat rough hewn, but good-natured. He was a great whist player and in his later years played every evening.

For years, he was an almost daily visitor at the home of his friend, Charles Francis Adams.

It was characteristic of Seward that he never lost a friend. His two most devoted ones were his young son Frederick, a distinguished official of state in his own right and his biographer, and his adopted 33

daughter Olive, who edited his literary remains. In matters political he was liberal and humane. He worked for the reform of prisons, for an understanding and compromise with the Roman Catholic position on public education, and for the removal of all obstacles to freedom in the arrival of refugee slaves upon free soil. His advocacy of reforms was not confined to the question of slavery, which sometimes led him into the danger of being regarded as a professional radical. I believe, however, that in this period when so many causes created splinter parties, he always sought to unite the do-gooders with his own Whig inclinations.

Before Abraham Lincoln took up the battle against slavery, Seward, in 1850, refused to accept the second Missouri Compromise and insisted that there was a higher law than the Constitution. In 1858, he used the phrase "irrepressible conflict" in speaking of the rebellion, and expressed the opinion that the nation must be all slave, or all free. As early as 1848, he had said, "Slavery must be abolished, and you and I must do it." In all this he was much more explicit than Lincoln.

Nevertheless, when the time came that war was on the horizon, he worked almost desperately to ward it off while Lincoln took no open step to avert it.

In 1862, Seward negotiated an important treaty with Lord Lyons of Britain, agreeing upon the suppression of the slave trade and conceding the right of search upon the high seas of ships suspected of trading in human cargoes.

Like Lincoln, Seward suffered from the bitter hatred of his opponents in the war and shared in the attempt of John Wilkes Booth and his associated assassins to destroy the leaders of the union. Seward was injured by an assassin in his own home so badly that he always limped after it, and his jaw remained a permanently broken member, while his wife and daughter died from the effects of their treatment and shock.

His most unfriendly critic was Gideon Welles, who shared with him the distinction of being the only two cabinet officers to serve Lincoln throughout his term. As secretary of the navy, Welles may be credited with a considerable share in the remarkable growth and achievement of that arm of war. That he was not above criticism was indicated by his utter disregard of the proposal for the building of monitors and by 34

his stupid interference with the official report of the Battle of Mobile Bay, which prevented the recognition of Captain Theodorus Bailey, who commanded the first division of the Union fleet that broke past Forts Jackson and St. Philip and made possible the capture of New Orleans. Admiral Farragut, who planned and commanded the attack, followed him with the main division and honored him by sending him as messenger to Washington with the official news. Unfortunately, Farragut's clerk inserted in the dispatch a line of battle which Farragut himself had revoked before the battle. Welles pounced upon this, introduced it as the official account, and put Captain Bailey under suspicion of having for his own interest presented a false report. Bailey was too proud to protest at the time, but a year later, too late, the correction was made. Thus the navy lost one of its most promising higher officers; it set him to catching blockade-runners. I mention this because Captain Bailey was of old Dutchess stock.

To return then to my points. With his friends Charles Francis Adams as minister to England, and John Bigelow as consul general to Paris, later minister to France, Se-ward's policy was magnificently maintained. Although the great European powers accepted the belligerency of the Confederate States, which was indeed obvious from the size of their armies, they never recognized the Confederacy, as they certainly would have done but for Seward's diplomacy. The incalculable advantages accruing to the Union are too numerous to be itemized here. The failure of the mission of Messrs. Yancey, Mason and Slidell to secure favorable attention from the powers was perhaps due as much to their mistakes as to Se-ward's diplomatic skill, but certainly Seward gave them no opportunity of profiting by his mistakes.

Although Seward did not succeed in preventing the outfitting of the Alabama and the Florida in English shipyards, and their subsequent raids on American commerce, so disastrous to our merchant marine, he nevertheless laid the basis of the breach of international law thus committed which eventuated under his successors and was so successfully pleaded by his friend Evarts, resulting in what has become known as the "Alabama Claims," although each has come to be known by other names.

The sum of fifteen million dollars award was, of course, a mere token, but neverthless it brought up short the arbitrary claim of England to be the unqestioned mistress of the seas.

The second part of this problem was the successful prevention of 35

the two vessels of war, which were ironclad rams from the shipyard of Messrs. Laird of Great Britain. They might have destroyed a great part of the United States' blockading fleet. It was this victory to which Henry Adams attributed such praise. No more exciting story in diplomatic history was ever written than Henry Adams' narrative of the wheels within wheels of English politics at this time. He was then private secretary to his father, the United States minister. All honor should be given to Charles Francis Adams for his own magnificent struggle against heavy odds, because he himself gives the greatest credit to Seward for planning the campaign and for supporting him by every means against the universal diplomatic assault before which so many American secretaries of state have cowered and fled.

The position of Mexico in the light of the Monroe Doctrine refers to Seward's successful ending of the Mexican war of defense against Maximilian, Napoleon III's protege. By every means short of war and by the incessant efforts of John Bigelow, Napoleon was finally convinced that the United States meant business. Seward very wisely and courageously prevented Grant from invading Mexico and merely threatened Napoleon with 30,000 stand of American arms delivered to the Mexicans if his withdrawal of French troops was not immediately forthcoming. Napoleon's bravado proved to be a mere bubble easily pricked, but at the time he was riding high in prestige. He had even proposed war in association with England to compel the United States to recognize the Confederacy.

The fourth great point in Seward's diplomacy was the climax of his policy of expansion by the purchase of Alaska from a friendly Russia, whose good will Seward had cultivated. At the time it was known as "Seward's Folly," but it may be doubted whether even Seward in his most optimistic moments ever expected Alaska to become a state. The purchase of Louisiana alone surpasses it in the history of American expansion, but Louisiana was thrown overboard by Napoleon to lighten his ship of state and the honor of its purchase must be divided between Chancellor Robert R. Livingston, who deserves the major amount of credit, and his rival, James Monroe.

Finally, the fifth of his great services was his defense of Andrew Johnson against the atrocious assault of his enemies in the United States Senate. Seward refused to abandon his chief when everyone else did, and his best friend, William Evarts, conducted the defense, being then 36

attorney general and a fellow member of the cabinet. Hamilton Fish, who during the war had been a tower of strength in the troubled city of New York by heading the Citizens Union Committee, carried out his friend's policies in pursuance of the Alabama claims.

What other secretary of state can show an equal record of achievement? What other secretary of state worked under conditions of incessant hostility from his fellow members in the cabinet, as well as from his own political opponents? What other secretary of state was more loyal than was Seward to his great chief? The two were such close friends that Seward was charged with trying to dominate Lincoln's policy, and the jealous Gideon Welles even wrote a book to show that he did not succeed in this nefarious effort. Lincoln only said, "I leave all the business of state to Seward," and he stuck to it. As a member of the cabinet, Seward, of course, uttered his opinions. He has been credited with urging a larger war plan upon Lincoln, and even with suggesting the second of the great drafts. He was accused of preventing the return of McClellan to the command of the armies.

These are minor points and cannot delay us in this restricted summary, nor can the desperate efforts of Seward to awaken Mr. Lincoln from what he thought was a state of lethargy in the weeks just preceding our entrance into the war. Lincoln's conduct at this time is susceptible of several interpretations.

Thurlow Weed, who played Colonel House to Secretary Seward, and who was his lifelong friend and supporter, was never, whatever his faults, far wrong in his judgment of men. When the great crisis came and England was on the point of war with us in '63, Thurlow Weed at Seward's request went to England and organized the first great propaganda bureau that I know of established in a foreign country.

To Weed, Seward shipped every prominent American that he could lay his hands on to go to England and tour it under Weed's guidance telling the nature of the Union cause. Henry Adams was immensely impressed with Weed's success in this first great propaganda machine, which succeeded finally in turning the all-important public opinion of the true-born Englishman back into its traditional currents of freedom, justice and morality.

Thus, in the darkest, or at least the shadiest period of American history, the bright star of Seward's skill and devotion to high ideals shone out over Europe. It might be hoped that some present-day Thurlow 37

Weed might strengthen the hand of our neighbor, Mr. Edward Murrow, in his desperate endeavors to raise the rating of American policy among the world public.

No one was more confident than Seward of the great role America was to play among the powers of the world. He recommended the purchase of Hawaii, the Virgin Islands, and other islands of the seas.

He realized better than others of his time the meaning of the vast expansion in American population and strength. With the successor to John Quincy Adams in national policy, he stood for internal improvement.

It seems to me that in these centennial years the great secretary of state should be permitted to stand in history beside his great chief, honored in our minds as Lincoln honored him with his full confidence.

The greatest of all Lincoln's state papers, the Emancipation Proclamation, was deferred by Lincoln upon Seward's urgent plea that proper timing was essential, and that only after a victory at arms would so radical a document be accepted.

Seward proposed the adoption of the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments because he considered them forced at the point of the bayonet upon the Southern legislators. A few days ago, an American commentator, noting this fact, suggested that these amendments be rewritten and re-submitted in our own time. It may be doubted whether so radical a step would achieve the results desired in the face of the opposition, but Seward, as a great lawyer, was perfectly aware of the value of law in consolidating popular opinion and making it valid.

I believe therefore that a more profound study of this man's work might be of present value in completing the "unfinished task remaining before us bequeathed to us by these honored dead."

A Newburgh man, while sailing along in his sloop, lost his watch overboard, and cut a notch on the side of the sloop, where it was dropped, intending to dive for it when his boat reached Albany.

Poughkeepsie Daily Eagle, May 3, 1877 38

DUTCHESS COUNTY CATTLE SHOW AND FAIR OF 1820 On the morning of Thursday, November 2, 1820, at an early hour the roads in the neighborhood of Washington Hollow were filled with carriages, wagons, horsemen and cattle, all converging on the grounds attached to the inn maintained by Luther Gay. Throughout the morning residents of the county continued to arrive and the assembled crowd was estimated to number between four and five thousand, a throng which must have well surpassed all expectations. (The newspaper reported that "many ladies of the county attended and added by their presence to the pleasures of the day.")

The occasion for the gathering was the Dutchess County Cattle Show and Fair, which was becoming an annual event, sponsored by the Dutchess Agricultural Society, and held in connection with its fall meeting.

"The Reverend of the Clergy, Judges of the Court and other Magistrates, as also the Public Officers, together with the public generally, were respectfully invited to honor the meeting with their company."

Announcement had been made that all livestock and other articles that were to be entered into competition must be registered and ready for inspection at the place of exhibition by ten o'clock in the morning.

The committee of arrangements, composed of William Bard, Richard T. Van Wyck, Thomas L. Davies, Stephen I. Brinckerhoff and Abraham Bockee, had met the evening before. They had appointed several inspecting committees whose duty it would be to judge the entries in the various categories and to decide upon the winners.

The society gathered at twelve o'clock in Mr. Gay's long room and a procession was formed under the direction of the sheriff, Gilbert I. Ketcham, as marshal of the day, in the following order: the president of the society, Isaac Smith; the vice-presidents, Nathaniel Pendleton and Warren DeLancey ; the secretary, William Broom; the treasurer, Henry A. Livingston; the attending clergymen; the judges of the court and the attorney general of the state. They were followed by the members of the executive board of the society: William Bard, Abraham Bockee, Stephen I. Brinckerhaff, John Brush, Thomas L. Davies, Fyler Dibblee, George B. Evertson, Richard James, Bernard Mathewson, 39

Thomas Tabor, 2nd, William Tabor, Richard Teller, John Titus, Alfred Treadway and Richard T. Van Wyck. Then came the inspecting committees and the members of the society, the citizens of the county and visitors.

The procession marched to the large meadow in the rear of Mr. Gay's house, in the centre of which a stage had been erected for the reception of the president, the clergy and the officers of the society.

Here, the Reverend Cornelius C. Cuyler, pastor of the Reformed Dutch Church of Poughkeepsie, offered an appropriate prayer. The fair now was officially open and the inspecting committees were requested to proceed in examining the various articles which had been entered into competition for the several premiums and to report their decisions by five o'clock in the afternoon to the secretary of the society. The visitors to the fair also had the afternoon to view the exhibits and to form their own opinions as to the quality of the entries, a privilege which the general public has always enjoyed and exercised.

On the second day, the board met early and decided on the winners of the various awards. The ploughing match was held at ten o'clock.

At noon the procession was formed again in the same order as on Thursday. They marched to the church where the committees had previously arranged the several articles of plate which the society was offering as premiums. (It is supposed the sum listed with each premium represented the value of a piece of plate, though there may also have been some cash prizes.) Nathaniel Pendleton addressed the assemblage in "a short, eloquent and appropriate speech," immediately following which the president of the society distributed the premiums (as published in the Dutehess Observer of November 8, 1820) as follows: Thomas Swift, Amenia, the best Bull, a piece of plate Jacob Shultz, Rhinebeck, second best Bull Isaac Germond, Washington, two best Milch Cows Thomas Swift, Amenia, 2d best John Wilkinson, Beekman, best Heifer Bernard Matthewson, Stanford, 2d best Samuel R. James, Amenia, best yoke of Steers Samuel V. Peck, second best Gilbert Thorn, Stanford, best Merino Ram John Heaton, Washington, best English Ram Gilbert Thorn, Stanford, best 5 Merino Ewes John Heaton, Washington, best 5 English Ewes 40

$20 10 20 10 10 5 10 5 5 5 5 5

Milo Bird, Amenia, best pair of Pigs John Delavergne, Fishkill, 2d best Warren Delancey, Fishkill, best Stud Horse Thomas Swift, Amenia, Brood Mare Abraham Pence, Amenia, 2 year old Colt Isaac Germond, 'Washington, best Cheese Luther Gay, best Tub Butter Mrs. John Delavergne, Fishkill, best piece of Flannel Mrs. Joseph Potter, Jun., Beekman, best piece of Linen Miss Louisa Smith, Washington, best pair Stockings Mrs. Gilbert Ketcham, Poughkeepsie, a Cotton Counterpane Miss Sarah Jewett, Washington, a Hearth Rug Humphrey Treadway, Clinton, a Drill Machine Jonathan Reynolds, Stanford, a Grubbing Machine Bernard Matthewson, Stanford, 3 acres Barley 57 bushels, 20 qts., per acre Robert Hoag, North East, 1 acre Indian Corn, 128 bushels, 25 qts., per acre Coert Horton, Fishkill, do do 104 bushels, 20 qts.

Brundige Merritt, Beekman, do do 89 bushels, 23 qts.

Coert Horton, Fishkill, 1 acre Potatoes, 447 , bushels Stephen Peckham, Poughkeepsie, the best yoke of working Oxen, having ploughed ,A acre in 55 minutes Henry Sherwood, Amenia, 2d best William Germond, an extra yoke

15 10 30 15 10 5 5 10 10 10 5 5 5 5 20 20 15 10 20 20 10 5

Mr. Germond's yoke could not be entered according to the rules of the Society, but this gratuity was made to Mr. Germond in consequence of his team having finished its task first.

The Board regretted that the third premium on Indian Corn could not be awarded to Ezra Bird, of Amenia, who reported 1 acre of 99 bushels and 16 quarts and another of 94 bushels and 12 quarts; but the certificates were deficient in the required proof, and no details of cultivation were furnished. There were also two other respectable crops reported. G. W. Sandford of Amenia, 87 bushels and 12 quarts, and John H. Newcomb of Clinton, 70 bushels, 14 quarts, on threequarters of an acre and a perch of land; a second good potato crop was reported by John Brush of Poughkeepsie, 4164 bushels. Martin Heermance of Rhinebeck, presented a claim for 43,4 acres of Winter wheat, 159 bushels, which is 33 bushels per acre; and considering the state of the soil on which it grew, much praise is due to the cultivator; it could not, however, be admitted, five acres being required, and a strict observance of the required form of proof which can in no instance be dispensed with.

The newspaper stated that it would be difficult to mention every object worthy of attention but felt there were many entries which should not remain unnoticed. They included a "new contrived and ingenious 41

Scraper"; a model of a very clever combined threshing machine, corn sheller, straw cutter and flax dresser; and a "Smut Cleaner, which is said to be very effective in cleaning wheat, and to have been tried in one of the mills of this county." Also, there was a team of ten yoke of very fine oxen from the town of Amenia ; and a hog, nineteen months old and remarkable for its size, the property of John Delavergne.

Cattle shows and fairs had been held in previous years but this was the largest, by far. It was the first year in which women had entered into the competition, (although in 1819 John -Wilkinson had received an award for the five best pair of woolen stockings and John Yates had been awarded a premium for the best piece of flannel). The women had provided a generous share of the exhibits and, in addition to those articles which had received awards, there were numerous examples of their handiwork. Some of the items of domestic manufacture mentioned were: a piece of very fine lawn, the workmanship of Miss Dorothy Golden of Beekman; two fine pieces of linen, the one by Miss Neely of Amenia and the other by Mrs. Abraham Burton; a very excellent piece of flannel made by Mrs. John Nelson of Poughkeepsie; and five pair of very beautiful woolen stockings, made by Mrs. Wilkinson of Beekman. One of the rules of the society stated that any animal or article having once received an award would be ineligible to a second.

Another rule stated that the articles of domestic manufacture must be the labor of one family, carding of wool and weaving excepted. (At an earlier fair one of the members of the society strutted about wearing a suit of black broadcloth, made from the wool of his own sheep and manufactured entirely on his own farm.)

The accounts in the local newspapers did not mention any barkers, side shows, balloon ascensions, etc., etc. These were to become features of fairs to be held in the future. With many of the visitors the early fairs were rather serious occasions. There was much to be seen and learned. They were interested to know what their neighbors had accomplished and they more than likely enjoyed to the utmost an opportunity to visit and gossip with relatives, friends and acquaintances whom they did not see too frequently.

When the distribution of the premiums had been made, the society returned from the church to Mr. Gay's long room and, after concluding the business meeting of the society, adjourned to meet again on the usual day of meeting in the following April.

42

With reference to the five pair of very beautiful woolen stockings made by Mrs. Wilkinson of Beekman, it is of interest to know that one pair was destined to be presented to the wife of President Monroe, as shown by the following letter, which has been preserved in the family of Mr. Baltus B. Van Kleeck : Poughkeepsie, 4th Novr 1820 Madam I have understood that you intend to present to the Presidents lady, Mrs. Monroe, a pair of stockings knit by yourself and which, with a number others were exhibited at the fair in this county a few days since.

Should this be your intention I beg leave to assure you that it will give me great pleasure to be the bearer of so beautiful a specimen of our household manufactures.

I have the honor to be with great respect Your Ob't ser't [Signed] R. S. Street Mrs. Deborah Wilkinson Beekman It is unfortunate that there seems to be nothing to show that Elizabeth Monroe received and wore the stockings. However, at the beginning of winter it would seem to be a most timely and acceptable gift. (And, a gift of hand-knit wool stockings that might be looked at askance in 1962 could have been very much appreciated in 1820.)

The letter, now the property of Mr. Baltus B. Van Kleeck, was among some papers found in a trunk in a storeroom, in December of 1923, by Mrs. Owen Ward. The trunk had belonged to Mrs. Ward's mother, Mary Wilkinson Doughty. The letter was apparently sent to Mrs. Wilkinson by Randall S. Street, who would have been a logical person to present the gift to the wife of President Monroe. Mr. Street was a lawyer, had been district attorney and, in 1820, was congressman from this area. He had married Cornelia, daughter of Andrew Billings, and lived for some years in the house, built about 1800 by Billings, on the northeast corner of Academy and Cannon Streets. Shortly after 1900, the house was moved to the rear of the lot and still stands, facing Cannon Street, but so changed in appearance as to bear no resemblance to the lovely home of the early nineteenth century.

Amy Ver Nooy 43

POUGHKEEPSIE'S 275th ANNIVERSARY At the meeting of the Dutchess County Historical Society, held November 17, 1962, in observance of the 275th anniversary of the signing of the first lease for land in the present Poughkeepsie and the first settlement of a permanent resident, Mr. Van Wyck read the translation of the lease which was signed June 9, 1687.

The original lease was among some documents of the colonial period which had been inherited by Johnston Livingston Redmond of New York City and Tivoli, Dutchess County, and had been brought to the attention of Miss Helen IN. Reynolds in 1930. It was written in Dutch and was translated for her by Arnold J. F. van Laer, New York State Archivist.

After the reading of the lease by Mr. Van Wyck, it was suggested that it be printed in the year book for 1962 and, inasmuch as Miss Reynolds had told the story very concisely and completely in an article written for the 250th anniversary celebration in Poughkeepsie, her article is also reprinted, following the text of the lease.

LEASE OF THE LAND IN THE LANGHE RACK Know all men whom it may concern that Robbert Zandersz and Meyndert Hermens, lessors of the land lying in the Lange rack, called Minnesingh and Pochkeefisin, being land situated above the falls (de Val), lease the said land for the term of ten years to Balthus Barensz Cleeck and Henderyk Jansz Oostrom, as lessees, with their partners, being five, six, or more, strong, who they trust will also come and live and cultivate there; however, if the same should fail to do so, the aforesaid lessees shall not be obligated on their account.

The lessors promise to deliver to each of the aforesaid lessees (and of all the others who may come) twenty-four morgens of land, with all the necessary free range (uytdrift) for their cattle and meadows (vallayen) to mow hay; these they must divide among themselves and all those who may hereafter come to live there are also to participate in the meadows. All the privileges which the lessors have by virtue of the patent thereof, the lessees and those who may further come to live there to cultivate are to enjoy likewise. The aforesaid patent demands a quit-rent of six bushels of wheat per annum, which all the farms there will have to bear [jointly], each one in proportion, and no more.

The lessees promise and agree to build there each a house, twenty feet square, with bents and corbels as is proper, [the sills being] properly above the ground. The cellar is to be fifteen feet [deep], built of stone (klifisteen), the house, in the rear, [to rest] also on stone, but the lessors shall help to have the cellars built and shall provide a mason at their expense. The roof of the house is to be covered with boards and shingles, but the nails for the shingles are to be provided 44

by the lessors.

The lessees shall each plant an orchard of one hundred trees, but the lessors are to deliver the trees on the strand.

The lessees shall each build a barn, the floor [to be] twenty-eight feet wide, with bents and corbels as required, the length [of the barn] being not stipulated.

At the expiration of the aforesaid ten years, the lessees must deliver the land and the orchard with a good and sufficient fence, and whatever else has been erected becomes the property of the lessors.

The lessors shall deliver to each farmer one hundred pine boards, free on the strand, for which the lessees will not have to pay anything.

At the expiration of the term the lessees must each leave a sow on the farm or the land for the benefit of the lessors.

The lessees may sow ten schepels of wheat, no more (if the lessors think fit), which the aforesaid lessors shall then be obliged to receive on appraisal, or each third sheaf which the lessors may take, at the option of the lessors.

The first six years no calves or cattle may be pastured in the orchards.

With all that is hereinbefore written the lessors and the lessees are well satisfied. Therefore, for the true performance thereof, each as far as he is concerned, they bind their respective persons and properties, real and personal, present and future, subjecting the same to all courts and judges, provided and upon the express condition that the lessees on the date hereof may take possession of the aforesaid land, but that the aforesaid ten year lease shall commence on the first of May anno 1688; but if the lessors during the last year shall think it advisable to sow the vacant land, they shall be free to do so in the last fall or in the spring, according to their convenience, without being prevented from doing so by the lessees.

All this done without guile or deceit on the 9th day of the month of June, anno 1687, at N. Albany, at the house of the aforesaid Meyndert Hermansz, and in witness of the truth this is signed and sealed by both sides.

Note. The above mentioned cellars are to be dug by the lessees, who are also to haul the stone, but the hod-carrying shall be at the expense of the lessors and the lessors shall have the mason-work done at their expense. But in case the lessors fail to have the hod-carrying done, the lessees may claim one-half of the wages of the hod-carriers from the lessors, who shall be obliged to pay the same.

Robbert Sanders (L.S. Meyndert Harmensz (L.S.) This is the mark of Hendryk Jansz Oostrom (L.S.) baltes barentsz (L.S.) Signed, sealed and delivered in our presence: Hendrick Coyler Johannes de Wandelaer In my presence: J. Becker, Notary Public Endorsed: Lease of the land in the langhe Rack. June 9, 1687.

45

HOW THE CITY OF POUGHKEEPSIE WAS FOUNDED* Once upon a time (as all good stories used to begin) the land on which the city of Poughkeepsie stands was covered by a thick forest.

In the forest rose water courses that flowed down grade, westward, and emptied into the river. The largest of these streams had a long course and finally reached the river by a series of cascades that followed successively winding turns (near the present railroad station), the mouth of the stream being near the (present) property of the Central Hudson Gas and Electric Corporation.

In the woods and along the streams were a few Indians. The area in which they lived they called wapan achki (east land) and they, themselves, were called wapani (men of the east land). They were quiet and peaceable Indians, few in number, and no warfare between them and Europeans marred the early chapters of the story of Poughkeepsie.

Through the forest on the site of the city of Poughkeepsie there ran a path, north and south, later referred to as the Indian trail. It was the route followed by the Indians on Manhattan Island and the Indians in the vicinity of the (present) Albany when they communicated with each other and it followed, approximately, the general course that the state highway of today follows between New York and Albany.

As the Indian trail reached the site of the city of Poughkeepsie, coming north from Manhattan, it ran along (the present) Market Street until it reached (the present) Main Street. There it departed from a straight line and wound down hill, over (the present) Main and Washington and Mill and North Bridge Streets, until it came to the large stream above referred to. At the spot where, now, North Bridge reaches that stream, the banks of the stream were low and a fording place was created. From that low place the natives went on to the high ground on which rests now the east end of the Poughkeepsie Bridge.

Late in the seventeenth century two white men who were living in Albany bought from the Indian owners of it a large tract of land, part of which the city of Poughkeepsie now occupies. One of the two men was Robert Sanders, an Englishman who was widely known as an

*An article written by Helen Wilkinson Reynolds and printed in the program published on the occasion of the 250th anniversary celebration held at Poughkeepsie in October 1937.

46

interpreter between Indians and Europeans, and the other was Myndert Harmense Van Den Bogaerdt, a Dutchman, whose name translated into English means Myndert, son of Harmen of the orchard, and of whom it was customary to speak as Myndert Harmense. Those two partners reported to the governor of New York their purchase of land from the Indians and received from the governor legal confirmation of their title. The document issued by the governor was called a patent and has since been known as the Sanders and Harmense Patent and as the Minisinck Patent.

It was the purpose of Robert Sanders and Myndert Harmense in buying this land to sell from out the tract homestead farms to settlers and the first step they took toward getting their property opened and occupied was to enter into an agreement with two other men at Albany, by which agreement (in the form of a lease) it was arranged that the latter should move down from Albany, should each take up forty-eight acres of land as tenants for ten years and should each build a house, cultivate crops and keep livestock. The lease describes in detail the manner in which the houses of the settlers were to be built. The walls were to be of stone, taken from the ground at the site. The wood trim was to be brought by sloop from Albany, which village was then doing a large export business in lumber (boards, planks, shingles, etc.) and masons and hod carriers were to be employed.

The two men who thus agreed to settle as tenants on the lands of Sanders and Harmense were Baltus Barents Van Kleeck and Hendrick Jans Ostrom (both names variously spelled in the original records) and the land that they were to take up was described in the lease as "lying in the Lange rack" and called Minnisingh and Pochkeepsin."

To explain the place-names mentioned in the lease it should be said that "Lange rack" was a Dutchman's way of referring to the sailing channel in the river which is opposite Poughkeepsie. There is a straight channel in the river for a distance of about ten miles, midway in which Poughkeepsie is situated, and when Henry Hudson sailed up the river in the Half Moon in 1609 the mate of the Half Moon, Robert Juet of London, mentioned that course in his log as "the Long Reach."

Subsequently Dutch mariners referred to it in the equivalent Dutch words, de Lange Rak and so in early documents a great many different spellings of the name are found, partly English, partly Dutch. Illinnisingh, the second name mentioned in the lease, is believed to have been 47

applied to the high ground northeast of (the present) Arlington, along the road to Pleasant Valley, and it may have meant, "place where the stones are gathered." The third name cited by the lease was Pochkeepsin.

It will be considered here later, as it involves a story all its own.

The lease, signed by Robert Sanders and 1VIyndert Harmense as owners (lessors) and by Baltus Barents Van Kleeck and Hendrick Jans Ostrom as tenants (lessees), was dated at Albany, June 9, 1687, and it provides the occasion for the celebration in 1937 of Poughkeepsie's two hundred and fiftieth anniversary. It is also rightly to be considered the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the beginning of the settlement of Dutchess County. Before 1687 a transient hunter or squatter of European ancestry may occasionally have explored the woods that covered the area which is now Dutchess County. But 1687 is the earliest date now known for the establishment by white men of permanent legal residence within the boundaries of the county. Following 1687, Peter Pieterse Lassen is known to have been living in 1688 in a house near the river at the mouth of Jan Casper's Kill; in 1700 Hendrick Kip built a house at Kipsbergen (now Rhinecliff ) ; and between 1708 and 1713 five or six farms were laid out along the Fishkill. The first residents of the county all lived close to the river, however, for convenience in travel. The closely grown forests in the interior of the county were not penetrated by white men for the creation of settled homes until during the first quarter of the eighteenth century.

In 1687 there was no continuous road from Albany south to Poughkeepsie. The Indian trail threaded the forest on the east side of the river, but the river itself, was the route of travel and transportation for the white man. Signing the lease for their new homes on the 9th of June, 1687, Baltus Barents Van Kleeck and Hendrick Jans Ostrom must soon after have sailed down from Albany by sloop to build their houses during warm weather.

Arriving in the Long Reach in a bow-shaped cove where there was a beach, mentioned in the lease as "the strand," they deposited on the strand the lumber brought down from Albany for the wood trim of the houses to be built. About 1850 the bow-shaped cove was filled in so that the curved shore-line was made straight and the location is now [1937] occupied by the lumber yard of the C. N. Arnold Company. Going ashore on that little beach Van Kleeck and Ostrom found, close at hand, the stream with the beautiful cascade above referred to.

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The Indians called that series of waterfalls, Pondanickrien, which meant "the crooked place," or "place of many turnings," but the Dutch settlers spoke of the stream as a whole as the Val Kill, Dutch words for fall and stream. Val was pronounced as if spelled in English "foil," the v sounding like f and the word rhyming with doll. The name Fallkill is the result, being half English and half Dutch.

To investigate the neighborhood, the natural thing for the new arrivals to do was to follow the course of the stream inland and, in doing that, they came soon to the fording place on the Indian trail, above described. There before them lay the trail, in the midst of otherwise unbroken forest. Leaving the stream and following the trail along (the present) North Bridge Street, and then turning up ( the present) Mill Street hill, Baltus Barents Van Kleeck selected a spot on which to erect his house between (the present) Vassar and Washington Streets.

The house was placed, approximately, where now is number 226 Mill Street, and it remained standing until 1835, throughout which period of one hundred and forty-eight years it was owned by members of the Van Kleeck family.

The lease of 1687 specified that Van Kleeck and Ostrom were each to take up forty-eight acres of land. Apparently Baltus Van Kleeck occupied a comparatively small tract, such as that, for ten years, at the end of which time he bought, on June 3, 1697, a very large amount of land from Sanders and Harmense, the original deed for which is now on deposit in the Adriance Memorial Library. The deed conveyed to "Balthazar Van Cleake of Long Rock in the County of Dutches" four lots of land, three water-lots (that is to say, three lots fronting on the river) and a fourth, which was called the dwars, or cross-lot, because it lay across the east end of the water-lots. The water-lots extended along the shore of the river from (approximately) the present Church Street to the vicinity of the Vassar brewery site. As a whole, the tract made up of the three water-lots was irregular in shape as it ran inland, narrowing back to (the present) Washington Street. Between Washington and (the present) Catharine Streets it was bounded on the south by (the present) Main Street and, on the north, by a line that was about equivalent to the rear of the (present) house lots on the north side of Mill. The dwars, or cross-lot, was bounded (loosely speaking) by the courses which today are followed by certain streets, namely: Catharine and Academy on the west; Cherry and Smith on 49

the east; Cottage on the north and Church on the south.

The deed of 1697 stated that the four lots which were conveyed by it were "now or lately in the possession and occupation of Mynardt Harmens, Bathazar Barnse, Hendrick Ostroom and Symon Scoute," which statement reveals that land which, before 1697, had been leased to Hendrick Ostrom (one of the two original settlers of 1687) formed a part of the large tract that was purchased outright by Baltus Barents Van Kleeck. Unfortunately, nothing has ever been found to show where Ostrom's house stood. Hendrick Ostrom was not young in 1687 as indicated by the fact that he married in 1652, thirty-five years before coming to Poughkeepsie, and he may not have lived long after his arrival, for the hardships in the lives of the pioneers were many and great. He had one son, only, Jan Hendricks Ostrom, who also came to Poughkeepsie very early. Jan Ostrom leased for a time land south of (the present) Main Street. Later he bought a farm on the north side of Main, between the modern Innis Avenue and Pershing Avenue. That farm ultimately became the glebe of the Church of England in Dutchess County and the Glebe House, built in 1767, is now the property of the City of Poughkeepsie.

Soon after Baltus Van Kleeck and Hendrick Ostrom established themselves on the site of the city of Poughkeepsie, Myndert Harmense, one of the two patentees of the Sanders and Harmense Patent, also arrived from Albany as a permanent resident. He built his house on land that now lies in the angle formed by the northeast corner of Mill and North Bridge Streets and on the Val Kill he put up a sawmill. The sawmill stood beside the rushing, roaring fall of water which today is bounded

by North Water Street on the west and by the tracks of the New York Central Rail Road on the east.

Myndert Harmense and Baltus Van Kleeck were near neighbors, their houses being placed but a stone's throw apart on opposite sides of the Indian trail and in their two households were children. Among the children were two boys, Johannes Van Kleeck (born 1680) and Myndert Van Den Bogaerdt (born 1682). Like all boys, Johannes and Myndert enjoyed wandering in the woods and they early explored the forest that surrounded their homes. Soon they were familiar with the Indian trail. Following that trail as it ran along the course of (the present) Market Street, South Avenue and the state road, they finally 50

reached a spot about a mile and three-quarters south of where the court house now stands and there the spirit of boyish adventure had its reward. On high sloping ground they found a spring, surrounded by cattail reeds. Out of the spring issued a small stream, a stream that is still running and which, rising on the east side of the (present) state road, flows across the Poughkeepsie Rural Cemetery and enters the river at Mine Point. Around that spring the two little Dutch boys found Indians camping. The Indians had cut the cattail reeds, plaited the reeds into mats, hung the mats over branches and thus made "lodges" or shelters for themselves.

The boys called this spot Rust Plaetz, Dutch words (pronounced roost plawts) meaning resting place, because the natives rested or camped there. But the Indians, themselves, spoke of it in three words of their own, words well known to modern students of Indian language, uppuqui, pronounced oo-poo-kee and meaning "lodge covering," (the name of the cattail reed) ; ifiis (little water) ; ing (place) ; a free translation of which word is "the reed-covered lodge by the little water place."

As a matter of fact that spring was about halfway between New York and Albany on the Indian trail and it served as a camping place for Indian runners and for local hunters. It was so well known locally that its name was applied to the general vicinity surrounding it. But when Dutchmen and Englishmen, who arrived as settlers, wrote the name they spelled it phonetically and each man heard it differently so it appears in the early documents in a great many combinations of letters.

It crept into the lease given in 1687 to Van Kleeck and Ostrom as Pochkeefisin but the form most often given it was Apokeepsing (which comes rather close to the sound of uppugui-ipis-ing). Out of Apokeepsing came Poughkeepsing and out of Poughkeepsing came Poughkeepsie.

The Indians' camping place became, by-and-by, a boundary mark between the two properties held by white settlers and in later years a boundary dispute arose. In 1742, in connection with that dispute, Johannes Van Kleeck, aged sixty-two years, and Myndert Van Den Bogaerdt, aged sixty, made a sworn statement that they had known the place fifty years previously, which disposition (on record in the court house at Poughkeepsie) establishes that in 1692 they, as children, twelve and ten years old, were familiar with the Rust Plaetz.

Thus Poughkeepsie derives its name from a place in the woods, 51

associated with the Indians, which place two little Dutch boys frequented in the seventeenth century.

Myndert Van Den Bogaerdt, who played with Johannes Van Kleeck as a boy, had a brother, Jacobus Van Den Bogaerdt. When Jacobus was grown his father, Myndert Harmense, one of the patentees of the Sanders and Harmense Patent, presented Jacobus with a large tract of land for him to develop as his homestead farm. The tract lay south of (the present) Main Street; bordered on the river south of (the present) Church Street; and ran eastward from the river to (the present) Academy and Cherry Streets. On the site of the Nelson House of today Jacobus Van Den Bogaerdt built a house. On the north his land abutted the land of Baltus Van Kleeck and so it happened that a lane was gradually trodden between the two properties along the line of what is now Main Street between Market and Academy. The lane widened somewhat ultimately but it never became ample. Main Street is not today wide enough for comfort between Market and Academy.

If the observer will look carefully in 1937 he will see that Main Street broadens out east of Academy Street. The reason for that is that from Academy to Cherry it had its beginnings as a crosscut or footpath through the woods over Baltus Van Kleeck's dwars or crosslot. It grew along the line of least resistance, as all forest footpaths do, and it makes several turns between Academy and Cherry, which show how it wandered and widened at will.

The story of how Main Street came into existence out of original conditions is told here in order to illustrate the manner in which many of the streets of Poughkeepsie can be traced to the boundaries of the farms that were laid out by the first settlers.

Jacobus Van Den Bogaerdt, who lived on the site of the Nelson House, was apparently a man of public spirit. For one thing he opened his house to entertain transient paying guests (to which fact can be traced the beginnings of a hotel on this site) but, what was more than that, he made two gifts to the community which have influenced the course of events in Poughkeepsie and in Dutchess County. One gift was a lot of ground on which to erect a church for the Dutch Reformed congregation and the lot (on the southeast corner of Market and Main Streets) is still owned by the congregation. The other gift was a lot on which to build a court house for Dutchess County and the lot is 52

still occupied for the purpose for which it was given. The erection of the court house made Poughkeepsie the seat of county government, occasioned the building of roads over which the county seat could be reached and made Poughkeepsie a center for county business and commerce.

Thus out of small beginnings in the midst of a forest have developed the city and county of today, whose two hundred and fifty years of growth and prosperity are being given appreciative recognition in 1937.

Cure for the Dropsys Wild cherry tree bark, prickleash bark, white wood bark, sweet appletree bark of the north side of the tree as nigh the root as possible. Pasly root, angelerca root an equal quanty of the roots better than half a gill of mustard seed half a gill of peppergrass seed a large handful of each kind of bark put the whole in a gallon and a half of good cider in an earthen or stone vessel civered tite after drinking out a quart add another half a gallon of cider take a small glass as often as drink is nessary a small handful of angelaca root and a large handfull of pasly root.

From the family Bible of John Lawson (1759-1831)

53

AMERICA LEARNED TO WRITE A "fine Spencerian hand" is a phrase that has been in use for years. It is doubtful if the average person could tell anything about the man who was responsible for the use of this name as descriptive of a system of penmanship or that he was born in Dutchess County.

Platt Rogers Spencer, born September 7, 1800, was the eleventh and youngest child of Caleb and Jerusha Covell Spencer who had come from New England and were living in what is now the town of East Fishkill, Dutchess County, when the 1790 and the 1800 censuses were taken.

There is no recorded deed in the land records of the local court house to indicate that Caleb owned his farm in the county. When young Platt was three years old they removed to Wappingers Falls and not long after to the town of Windham in the Catskills. It was here that the father died, the result of hard work and hard drinking.

It was while they lived in Greene County that the future teacher of penmanship acquired his first piece of paper. He had an obsession to write and draw and his mother encouraged him to practice his art on any sort of surface that he could find. He made letters in sand, mud, snow, or with charcoal on wood or stone, anything but paper.

A friendly shoemaker allowed him to use his chalk and to write on the large slabs of sole leather in his bundles. But paper, such as the family may have had, was far too valuable and scarce to permit a child to use for scribbling. ( His brothers and sisters may have owned a slate.) In later years he told of his first attempts to write on paper. He had obtained a penny and decided to buy a sheet of paper. He asked a lumberman to make his purchase when he went to the village and sat up half the night waiting the man's return. As time passed the sleepy boy's anxiety increased. Finally, he told his mother the reason for his concern and she agreed to stay up to receive the treasure. After midnight the lumberman knocked at the door and delivered a moist, wrinkled, rolled-up sheet of foolscap which he had carried safely within his shirt. History has not recorded how the boy felt about the condition of the paper; Spencer recalled only his great disappointment that a quill pen and oak-gall ink did not produce the same results on paper that his piece of charcoal had on wood, stone or bark. He used only half of that precious sheet of paper and, sadly disillusioned, saved the rest until he could master the use of his utensils.

54

After 1800, the covered wagons were trailing their way westward and every day saw caravans bound for the Western Reserve. The day came when the Spencer family joined the procession and they spent fifty-one days traveling the dusty or muddy, rocky roads and arrived December 5, 1810, at a small group of log cabins, clustered together in the forest and calling itself, in honor of the president, Jefferson, Ashtabula County, Ohio. It is probable that friends or relatives had preceded them and had provided some sort of shelter for them; the month of December was no time to arrive in a wilderness with no arrangements for housing.

There they stayed and the boy Platt grew up and, except for short absences in the pursuit of his avocation, spent the rest of his life in that county. When he was twelve years old, a district school was opened at Conneaut, ten miles away, and he walked the ten miles to and from. Textbooks were scarce and expensive and when the schoolmaster, a Yankee from Vermont, discovered the abilities of his pupil he set him to making copies for the use of the other scholars. Two years later, Spencer was, of course, teaching the writing courses. He spent three winters attending the school and that was all the real schooling he ever had. His mother had taught him to read and he read everything that was available. He studied literature, Latin and law by himself.

In 1821, with this scant preparation, Spencer was conducting his own school in a log house at Geneva, Ohio. He planned for a time to study for the ministry. However, a taste for liquor and the current customs of drinking precluded his admission as a student. After a brief interval as a clerk in a store and again as supercargo on a Lake Erie vessel, he turned to teaching penmanship and traveled from place to place giving lessons in his favorite subject. He was said to be the most succesful of all itinerants of that period. His advertising method was his own; he made posters by hand and placed them in the taverns and country stores. He lingered long enough in some towns to give writing courses in the various schools and academies.

Spencer advocated and emphasized in his teaching the flowing, legible style for which he was most famous. Although he rarely introduced it into his copybooks, he was well accomplished in the offhand flourishing. The swirling strokes with which he produced swans and stags and doves, with their shaded spirals, loops and wreaths, were the admiration of all who viewed them.

He said he received his inspiration "from the graceful forms of the 55

feathered grass, the vine and the undulating waves of Lake Erie."

This same appreciation of nature was expressed in some of his poetry, in which he usually extolled the art of penmanship. A sample of this runs: The tongue is not the only way Through which the active mind is heard, But the good pen as well can say, In tones as sweet, a gentle word.

Then speed us on this art to gain That leads all others in its train, Embalms our task from day to day, Bids budding virtue live for aye, Brings learning home the mind to store Before our schoolday scenes are o'er.

In 1828 Spencer married Persis Duty and a few years later when a wave of temperance swept through Ohio, he became a total abstainer.

In 1832, he delivered an address on temperance advocating total abstinence as the only safe principle, a position which he steadily maintained by example, voice and pen. He was soon after elected county assessor and, as his neighbors became convinced that he had definitely reformed, he was elected county treasurer and held that position twelve years.

He had always been interested in American history and through his efforts the early history of Ashtabula County was collected. He was secretary of its historical society from the date of its founding, in 1838, until his death. He became a zealous worker for abolition and was one of the founders of the Ashtabula County Anti-slavery Society.

Early in the nineteenth century the public in Dutchess County was made aware of its inability to write legibly. Many a gifted penmanship teacher came to town, advertised in the newspapers that he would be here for a short time only and urged men and women (the classes were held at different hours, of course) to improve their calligraphy. It became a status symbol at the time and whether the writer had learned also to spell seemed of little importance. In 1811, Horace Metcalf advertised that he had located at Mr. Ruggles' Hotel. He used two inches of space as he . . . respectfully informs the Gentlemen and Ladies of this place that he will be ready to begin with a last class of pupils in the instruction in the Art of Writing, on systematic and elementary principles . . . on Thursday next at 4 o'clock P.M. As Mr. M. continues but a short time in a place, it is necessary that all those who may wish to attend should make immediate application. By the use of from 15 to thirty exercises, one hour and a half to each lesson, persons of proper age and capacity may acquire a correct, elegant hand writing . . .

56

In 1812, it was William M. Phillips who proposed to open a Writing School "upon Mr. Lown's new invented plan of teaching this invaluable art." He also planned to be in town but a short time.

A little later, in the same year, S. C. Aiken informed "the Gentlemen and Ladies of this Village who wish to acquire ease, elegance and facility of expression in the art of penmanship" that he had lately opened a school for just that purpose.

In 1820, J. H. Winchell offered: Penmanship Running Hand in fourteen lessons Price One Dollar — Only For the whole course of lessons to be paid on commencing.

Each scholar taught to make a good pen, at the Ladies & Gentlemen's Writing Academy, 3 doors east of Harrison's Tavern. . . . Besides the running hand, the Secretary and Italian hands, so fashionable for young ladies, will be taught without extra charge.

The ladies will attend from half past seven until half past nine in the morning and from one until half past three in the afternoon.

The gentlemen will attend from ten till twelve in the morning and in the afternoon from four till six o'clock, when attendance will be given by the Public's humble servant J. H. Winchell

A little later in the 1820's, J. D. -VV. Porter stated that he would teach "the Carstarian System of Penmanship" at the Dutchess Academy building. He would arrange classes for young ladies and gentlemen, and an Evening Class for such gentlemen as could not attend on account of business during the day.

In the 1830's, M. French, "author of a system of practical penmanship," offered to teach, at his rooms in Brewster's row, his system "founded entirely on scientific movements." His message continued: "Those who truly appreciate the elegant accomplishment of writing well, will not fail to embrace the advantages to be derived from the instruction of Mr. French."

One after another, these peripatetic instructors came to town and lingered a few weeks or months. They taught their scientific Carstarian, anti-angular or semi-angular methods. They were a hard-working, dedicated, honest sort and on some occasions came back for repeat visits.

(Peter P. Hayes, the silversmith, watchmaker and jeweler, carried a line of Heely & Sons Rhadiographic steel pens. Mr. E. McWhood advertised "Penn-mending Totally Superseded" and urged a trial of Felt's 57

Patent Perryan Pens on Handles.) Assuredly, chirography was in the air and it was highly contagious.

While these ardent individuals were soliciting the patronage of Dutchess County residents, Spencer was offering his services along the same lines out in Ashtabula County, Ohio. The settlements in Ohio were newer and further apart and saw fewer itinerants. Perhaps, for that reason, they were the more anxious to welcome and patronize Spencer when he came around. He was said to have had a naive and winning manner, an appreciation for grace and elegance and, because of his love for his subject, taught it with skill and enthusiasm. One biographical sketch said that "his arrival in a village was heralded as the event of the year."

It was after this period that the commercial schools were opened and the itinerant writing teacher disappeared from the advertising columns of the local newspapers. As a teacher of penmanship, Spencer was interested in the business colleges. He taught and lectured in several and his sons were connected with others.

Harvey Eastman had come to Poughkeepsie in 1859 and had established his business college which flourished from its beginning. The registration at the school exceeded all expectations immediately following the Civil War when young men from all over the country flocked to Poughkeepsie to acquire in the shortest space of time a business education which would fit them to earn a living. In 1865 there was said to be an enrollment of 1,750 students and, at a later date, as many as 2,000.

In 1865, announcement was made that another business college was opening in the city. It stated that there were Bryant, Stratton & Co.'s Commercial Colleges already located in twenty-eight of the principal cities of the United States and listed them. It also said that Mr. Henry C. Spencer would conduct the writing department of the Poughkeepsie school and referred to him as "the acknowledged head of the Spencerian system of Penmanship, and unexcelled in this country, either as a teacher or as artist." (There was no reference to his father, Platt Rogers Spencer.) Shortly after this the school was advertising as Bryant, Stratton, Spencer & Co.'s Business College, with H. C. Spencer as resident principal. The city directory listed H. C. Spencer as living at the Gregory House. (This was an unusual hotel, kept by Theodorus Gregory as the temperance house, had family prayers every day in the parlors and grace before meals in the dining room. It was sold after 58

the war to George Morgan and was known for years as the Morgan House.)

At this time the Reverend Chauncey D. Rice was conducting his Poughkeepsie Female Collegiate Institute (a predecessor of the Lyndon Hall School) and he engaged Mrs. Henry C. Spencer to teach the Spencerian system of handwriting in his school. And, the local stores were offering Spencerian copybooks and Spencerian pens.

The name of Spencer and that of the business school were kept before the public in the large advertisements and in all sorts of news items. One of the latter stated: The beautiful specimens of Spencerian Penmanship executed by Messrs. Spencer and Williams, at Bryant, Stratton, Spencer & Co.'s Business College in this city have been awarded the highest prizes at the Illinois State Fair held at Chicago.

Eastman had always believed in advertising and had used full page displays, illustrated with cuts and his portrait, of course, to catch the eye of any prospective student. He stressed the advantages of his courses in penmanship (without benefit of the name of Spencer) and probably spurred the other school to use as much advertising space.

The advertisements of the Bryant school were enhanced with a cut showing the word SPENCERLIN spread across the page in a flowing script. And, the course in penmanship was . . . under the immediate supervision of Henry C. Spencer, the present Author of the System for preparing gentlemen and ladies to supply the great and constantly increasing demand for the Teachers of the genuine and unadulterated Spencerian method. . . . Persons of average ability may at a moderate expense, be prepared in three months' time to take positions as Teachers of Penmanship in Seminaries, Public Schools and Commercial Colleges.

So popular were the penmanship classes that the school advertised evening writing classes and stated that "the interesting culture of Spencerian Penmanship is shown by the large attendance at the College Rooms, especially of ladies." Within two years the Bryant, Stratton school had left Poughkeepsie and Harvey Eastman had the field to himself. His school prospered and was continued more than fifty years, long after the death of its founder in 1878.

In 1848, Spencer had issued his first publication, Spencer & Rice's System of Business and Ladies Penmanship. Later he published practically the same pamphlet as Spencerian or Semi-zingular Penmanship.

They were popular and sold as fast as they could be printed and they .59

were followed, from 1855 to 1863, with numerous other publications.

From this time on Spencerian was the word; it became a synonym for penmanship. Spencerian copybooks, with the sample writing on the lefthand page and lines for copying on the right, and Spencerian steel pens were offered by those same shopkeepers who had been selling ordinary exercise books and steel pens; even the "Rhadiographic" and the "double elastic" steel pens were no longer available.

In these years, Spencer taught and lectured in many institutions in the east and in the middle-west. He was for a time professor of penmanship at the Eclectic Institute (later Hiram College) at Hiram, Ohio. While there he had among his students a farm lad named James A. Garfield, who was later to become president of the United States and who remained a friend of Spencer and his family for many years.

Early in 1864, the last lectures and instruction which Spencer gave were before the business schools of New York City and Brooklyn. He died May 16, 1864, two years after the death of his wife.

Spencer and his wife were the parents of six sons and five daughters and were survived by five of the sons and two daughters: Robert Closson, Lyman Potter, Harvey Alden, Henry Caleb and Platt Rogers, Jr., and Ellen and Sarah. All of the sons were engaged in professional or educational work of some description.

Robert C. Spencer, the oldest son, was associated with Henry B. Bryant and Henry D. Stratton in establishing business schools throughout the United States and Canada and at one time maintained as many as fifty in as many cities. He was one of the founders of the International Business College Association and was its first president. He settled permanently in Milwaukee in 1863 and established the Spencerian Business College which he conducted successfully for fifty-three years. He compiled a brief genealogy of the family in 1899, he being of the sixth generation from the first John Spencer who came to America from England in 1636. In the book was included a reproduction of a group photograph of the Spencer brothers, a bearded quintet which very much resembled a multiplication of the nationally famous Smith Brothers.

Following the death of Spencer his five sons and a nephew continued his work and the publication of his text books. Other teachers of penmanship issued instruction books so very similar that the brothers prepared and circulated a pamphlet asserting that Spencerian was the 60

real basis of all succeeding systems, with veiled reference to the copybooks put out by Payson, Dunton & Scribner. This latter firm retaliated with another pamphlet, Payson, Dunton & Scribner's Refutation of the Absurd Claims of the Spencerian System to Originality. This was followed by Platt Rogers Spencer Defended by His Sons, claiming that the Spencerian system had been created by Platt Rogers Spencer.

Undeterred, Spencer's sons continued publishing his books for years; Practical Writing by P. R. Spencer's Sons was printed in 1905 and is still to be found in some public libraries.

It is surprising that the word Spencerian should have outlived all the others and have found a place in present-day dictionaries. (Of course, Spencer had five sons who published his copybooks, fought off competitors and kept the name before the public.) But the "fine Spencerian hand" is rapidly becoming a memory. Penmanship appears to have become a lost art and the American scrawl to have taken its place. The telephone, the typewriter and the many duplicating devices have contributed to this. Writing by hand had been a leisure time occupation and the long, newsy letters, which gave the writer as much joy as the recipient, before the day of radio and television, are now only to be found in attics. Some of the modern schools no longer teach a script. How long will it be before the educational institutions will have to offer a course in the reading of handwritten documents and other research materials?

The Editor

Several of the New York papers are again raising the question how they . shall "relieve Broadway" of the crowds of vehicles with which it is thronged Poughkeepsie Eagle, April 2, 1853

61

BOOKS The Letters of James Kirke Paulding. Edited by Ralph M. Aderman.

(University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, 1962. 631 pp., illus., index and addenda. $10.00) Other than the bare biographical facts that he was born at Great Nine Partners, Dutchess County, on August 22, 1778, was an intimate friend of Washington Irving with whom he collaborated in The Salmagundi Papers, became a well known writer in his day, served (as Secretary of the Navy, 1838-1841) in the cabinet of his neighbor in Columbia County, President Martin Van Buren, and died in Hyde Park, Dutchess County, on April 6, 1860, James Kirke Paulding remained a rather obscure figure known mostly to bibliophiles and historians, and then only through his literary works.

Now we are treated to a portrait of the man, not simply a reproduction of his excellent oil painting by John Wesley Jarvis, though that is a frontispiece, but a revelation of his personality, an insight into his character, observations on his friends and contemporaries, and comments on the leading public questions of the day.

Ralph M. Aderman, the editor, and the University of Wisconsin Press have produced a treasure trove of Paulding letters, most of them never published before. They begin with his youth and extend almost to the day of his death at his beloved home "Placentia," on the banks of the Hudson at Hyde Park — a span of sixty-one eventful years. In addition there is a thorough index, copious notes, a calendar showing the name of the addressee, the date of writing and the location of the original of each letter. There is also a genealogical chart of the Paulding and Kemble families.

The letters are sprightly and make interesting reading, as well as being intimate insights into an important era in the formative period of America. A tome of 631 pages, attractively printed and bound, this is a major contribution to the literary archives of the United States and a work of lasting interest and value to all present and future students of this colorful Knickerbocker author and statesman, who was a native son and lifelong resident of Dutchess County.

J. Owen Grundy 62

Guide to the Covered Bridges of New York State. By Stott Anderson.

(Privately printed, [c1962]. 38 pp., illus. $2.50) Mr. Anderson has pictured and has given detailed information about thirty-four covered bridges still standing in New York State. He has included reproductions of attractive photographs of the structures and has given the dimensions, length and width (inside and out) and type of construction, the date of erection, the name of the builder, the location (county, township and village) with route numbers of nearby roads and the name of the stream which each bridge spans. His list ranges from "the smallest covered bridge in the world" to those which were originally 232 or 240 feet in length. His precise directions, with small insert maps, identifies each particular bridge.

There are no longer any covered bridges in Dutchess County, although there are several in Ulster County, some of them still in use.

The Editor

Our Local Heritage: A Short History of the Town of Hyde Park.

Compiled by Beatrice Fredriksen. (Cross Road Press, Hyde Park, N. Y., [c1962]. 56 pp., illus., map, notes and bibliography. $1.00) Miss Fredriksen has gathered in very concise and readable form considerable data on the Town of Hyde Park. She has covered the life of the township from its earliest beginnings and has selected the subjects which would be of help to students under such headings as: The Town is Established, The Town's First Settlers, Notables of Hyde Park, Expansion of the Town Government, Industrial Hyde Park, Churches of Hyde Park, Schools in Hyde Park, Social Hyde Park, Historic Sites in Hyde Park. The pamphlet includes a number of footnotes and a good bibliography of Dutchess County material especially pertaining to the Town of Hyde Park. It should prove of particular value to the students in their social studies.

Amy Ver Nooy

63

BIBLE RECORDS OF DUTCHESS COUNTY FAMILIES JONATHAN BAKER FAMILY BIBLE HOLY BIBLE,

. . .

Saratoga Springs, G. M. Davidson, 1826.

Records copied from a Bible which belonged to Jonathan Baker, Northampton, Montgomery County, N. Y. Jonathan Baker was born in the town of Beekman, Dutchess County, and his wife, Esther Burr (daughter of Nathan Burr and Phoebe Youngs), was born in the town of Pawling and is buried there. Jonathan Baker was the father of Polly Baker (who married Alexander, son of Lewis Baker), the grandfather of Esther Baker Pells, great-grandfather of Mae Pells Lange and great-great-grandfather of Marion Lange Moser (Mrs. Clifford M.) of Orange, California, who supplied the records.

BIRTHS Jonathan Baker, February 10, 1773 Esther Baker, September 7, 1778 a a

a

Hannah Baker, February 6, 1799 Anna & Phebe Baker, September 16, 1800 Levi B. Baker, June 29, 1802 Sally Baker, June 28, 1804 Benjamin B. Baker, June 11, 1806 Charles Baker, March 18, 1809 Polly Baker, February 17, 1811 John R. Baker, February 25, 1812 Polly Baker, 2d, April 1, 1814 Eliza Baker, February 27, 1816 Solomon Baker, September 1, 1817 Aaron B. Baker, January 23, 1819 Martha Jane Baker, May 28, 1821 Charles Shew, August 20, 1831 Dewitt C. Baker, December 17, 1844 Sarah Elizebeth Baker, October 27, 1846 Jonathan Baker, October 28, 1848 Levi B. Baker, November 4-, 1851 MARRIAGES Jonathan Baker to Esther Burr, October 16, 1797; by Stephen Hait, Esq. Jacob Shew to Phebe Baker, December 12, 1819;

by Alexander St. John, Esq. George Bacon to Hannah Baker, January 6, 1820; by Rev. John Lovejoy Nathaniel Gleason to Anna Maria Baker, July 4-, 1822; by Rev. Jabez King Harry Wadsworth to Saly Baker, May 15, 1824; by Nathaniel Wescot, Esq. Martha Baker to Wm. Baker, May 1, 1843 Anna Gleason to Samuel Spaulding, April 18, 1830 Charles A. Baker to Louisa Palmer, January 18, 1832 64

Benjamin B. Baker to Eliza Ann Palmer, January 8, 1835 John R. Baker to Angeline Foote, November 8, 1836 Alexander Baker to Polly Baker, September 6, 1837 Aaron Baker to Miss Susan Haynes, January 2, 1843 Levi Baker to Betsey Denton, January 2, 1838 DEATHS Polly Baker, February 29, 1811 Eliza Baker, March 28, 1816 Solomon Baker, September 3, 1817 Phebe Shew, October 26, 1833 Esther Baker, December 13, 1839; aged 61-3-6 Jonathan Baker, November ( ? ), 1850 Levi Burr, May 20, 1812; aged 30-4-20 Phebe Burr, April 7, 1802; aged 53 y., 1 m.

Nathan Burr, August 27, 1818; aged 73-7-27 Maria Louisa Burr, February 12, 1825; aged 6-4-10 Aanna Baker, August 15, 1831; aged 76 y., 18 d.

Nathaniel Gleason, February ( ? ), 1828 * * a LEWIS BAKER FAMILY BIBLE HOLY BIBLE, . . . . Cooperstown (N. Y.), H. & E. Phinney, 1837.

Records copied from a Bible which belonged to Lewis Baker (son of Nicholas and Judith Baker), and his wife, Sarah Allen (daughter of Alexander Allen and Abigail Sprague), of Dutchess County. Lewis Baker was the grandfather of Esther Baker Pells (daughter of Alexander Baker), great-grandfather of Mae Pells Lange and great-great-grandfather of Marion Lange Moser (Mrs. Clifford M.) of Orange, California, who supplied the records.

BIRTHS I Parents of the Lewis Baker, June 4, 1792 Sarah [Allen] Baker, March 10, 1787 f undernamed children Alexander Baker, January 28, 1814 William Baker, November 29, 1815 Nicholas Baker, September 1, 1817 Charles Baker, January 25, 1820 Cyrus Baker, December 9, 1822 Children of Cyrus Baker: Samuel A. Baker, May 27, 1848 Harriet Baker, March 18, 1862 Samuel Baker, April 20, 1855 'William Baker, July 11, 1856 MARRIAGES Lewis Baker and Sarah Allen, January 11, 1813 Alexander Baker and Polly Baker, September 6, 1837 Nicholas Baker and Esther White, September 30, 1841 William Baker and Martha Baker, May 1, 1843 65

Cyrus Baker and Emeline White, February 12, 1845 DEATHS Charles Baker, March 13, 1847; aged 27-1-18 Samuel A. Baker, son of Cyrus & Emeline Baker, October 15, 1851; aged 3-4-18 Emeline Baker, March 21, 1850 Harriet Baker, dau. of Cyrus Baker, July 23, 1861; aged 9-4-5 Nicholas Baker, January 18, 1852; aged 95-1-15 Judith Baker, wife of Nicholas, December 29, 1836; aged about 80 y.

Sarah Baker, wife of Lewis, December 31, 1869; aged 82-8-20 Alexander Allen, August 27, 1816; aged 69 y.

Abigail [Sprague] Allen, wife of Alexander, August 15, 1836; aged 85 y.

William Baker, son of Lewis & Sarah, September 22, 1871 Lewis Baker, January [12], 1893 *

*

PELLS FAMILY BIBLE HOLY BIBLE

. . . .

Dordrecht, Jacob and Hendrik Keur, 1744.

Dutch Bible, owned by Mrs. Clifford M. Moser of Orange, California, a descendant of John Pells. It is bound in leather-covered boards, with brass corners and hinges. The clasps are missing. It contains three unprinted pages on which were written the family records. Apparently one page was planned to be used for each of three brothers.

Page 1 John Pells born May 12, 1751 Rachel Laroy born September 21, 1761 First child, Maria, born November 27, 1781 Mary Thorn born September 25, 1771 Second child, Deborah, born June 20, 1784 Son, Michel, born July 8, 1786 Daughter, Jaleche (Hester), born October 24, 1788 Son, Peter, born July 23, 1791 Page 2 Simon Pells born March 1, 1749 Page 3 Francis Pells born September 9, 1744 Son, Miele, born December 3, 1771; died March 2, 1772 Daughter, Franty born September 10, 1773; died August 7, 1777 Son, Micle born October 1, 1775 Daughter, Franty born November 13, 1778; died August 2, 1781 Son, Peter born November 17, 1780 Son, Henry born April 2, 1784; died April 6, 1784 Died May 10, 1812, Francis Pells, in the 68th year of his age 66