Three Centuries On The Canoe Hills

THREE CENTURIES ON THE CANOE HILLS

by Janet and George Bookman

The New York Botanical Garden is now in the process of establishing the Cary Arboretum, potentially the most important and complete arboretum in the United States, on nearly 1800 acres of land in Millbrook, New York — land with a colorful history dating back to pre-colonial times.

Although the site is less than two hours from the heart of New York City — and only 90 minutes from the Garden's Bronx headquarters — a visit to the Canoe Hills area in central Dutchess County where the arboretum will be located is like taking a step back through time. The narrow unpaved roads, the farmhouses, even the landowners' names, have changed little since the rugged hill country was settled early in the 18th century.

The serene aspect of the countryside, however, does not mean that history has passed this area by. Indeed, a close look at what has occurred over the centuries on this patch of Hudson Valley land reveals that it was in microcosm a surprisingly accurate mirror of the great and humble events of each succeeding generation.

The very name of the new undertaking — the Cary Arboretum — echoes the area's history. It is so named in recognition of the fact that the land, plus generous financial support, have been made available to the Garden under an initial seven-year agreement with the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, a philanthropic fund created under the will of the granddaughter of Henry Morrison Flagler, a founder of the Standard Oil Company, who traced his ancestry directly back to one of the German Palatines who settled in New York state in the early 1700's, on land that is now included in the Arboretum.

Mrs. Cary, who died in December 1967, was a widely-travelled woman whose broad interests embraced music, education, and rare manuscripts. Her strongest commitment, however, was to conservation. She reserved her deepest feelings for this rough, rock-strewn stretch of land, pocked by glacial outcroppings, containing quite a few acres that a farmer could plow only by going up or downhill.

The Canoe Hills (or "Cannoo" as Mrs. Cary preferred to spell it), are surprisingly beautiful and rural even today, though within minutes of highways and exurbia. Yet the hills still clearly show the evidence that here man has lived, died, and played his role in history for some three centuries.

Tremendous natural diversity is crammed into these 1800 acres. The centerpiece of the area is Canoe Hill itself, 730 feet high. From its limestone flanks, the foothills fall away — heavily wooded at first, and then opening up into meadowland watered by the East branch of the Wappingers Creek, one of the principal streams of Dutchess County.

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Away from the highways, this area is quietly hidden and shielded from the clamor of civilization. Atop Canoe Hill, at the summit of the property, and looking down at the little river plain, it is easy to visualize how man first used this land. It was a favored encampment of the Wappinger Indians, a sedentary tribe that was still living here, growing corn, hunting deer and game birds, when the first Dutch and English settlers arrived in the late 17th century. The dugout canoes that the Wappani fashioned on the stream banks and launched into the swift waters may well have given the hills their name.

White settlement got underway soon after the British crown granted a huge tract of land on the east side of the Hudson River to nine New York City businessmen in 1697. This tract came to be known as the Great Nine Partners Patent, and most of the land now occupied by the Arboretum lies in Lots #12, and #13 of that Patent, and was in the holdings of Henry Filkins of Flushing, Long Island, one of the original enterprising nine partners. A mapmaker of the period, who no doubt surveyed the territory quite accurately, labelled Lot #12 "good", and Lot #13 "bad", for the purposes that 18th century settlers and land developers had in mind. Today the land is a tremendous opportunity for an Arboretum — offering, as it does, diversity of terrain, ranging from heavily-wooded limestone hills to gently sloping, well-watered plains and the remains of glacial bogs.

Historically, the Dutch were the first white people to come to this area. Palatine Germans, fleeing from religious persecution, followed. Included in this group of emigres was the first Flagler ( or Flegelar, as spelled in the old country) to live in this part of Dutchess County. Then came a large influx of Quakers, who moved up from Westchester County and Long Island, in a determined effort to escape the sinful ways of the more heavily populated New York City area, and also to avoid the oppression of British military forces, who could neither understand nor accept the non-violent ways of members of the Society of Friends.

Records of Quaker meetings in the mid-18th Century reveal some reasons for their quest of the rural peace of central Dutchess County. For example, Jacob Underhill, an early settler in the Canoe Hills and a refugee from Westchester County, reported at his monthly Friends meeting that British officers in Westchester had taken two cows from him "worth 11 pounds sterling" when he refused to appear at a military muster. Among other items confiscated from other Westchester Quakers for refusal to bear arms were horses, deerskins, pieces of pewter, and even "a pair of plush britches worth 40 shillings."

However, the peaceable Quakers and other more militant opponents of the Tory rule were soon to have their day. As revolutionary fever rose, life became increasingly difficult, if not downright dangerous, for King George's favorites. Indeed, the seemingly well-entrenched Filkins family, ardent Tory supporters, were forced to flee the area entirely, abandoning their lands in the Canoe Hills — both "good" and "bad" — to the colonial settlers.

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To be sure, the lifestyle of the Tory landowners did not endear them to the peasantry. According to local legend, the Filkins clan lived in sumptuous splendor in the Washington Hollow area right in the shadow of the Canoe Hills. And they did not hesitate to use their wealth to stay in power. Recounting the 1752 election, one political boss in Dutchess County wrote: "Mr. Filkin said he would provide or furnish beef, pork and backing (bacon?) Most all should be built a day or two before the election, and brought to the several houses of ours . . . The cider should also be distributed before the day. I will send you my Negro Sam until the election be over. Bread we intend to bake here; 100 rum we are to have from Bowdwyn that also should be distributed to such houses wherein it cannot be had."

By 1766, however, the local farmers in the area began to actively rebel by withholding rent payments. At the Outbreak of war, the Filkins family were stripped of all their landed wealth. Colonial Committees of Sequestration awarded the property of Filkins and other Tories to patriot farmers.

Even the local Quakers, many of them residents of the Canoe Hills, were caught up by the turbulent events of the times. When a group from this area travelled to Flushing, Long Island, to attend a General Meeting of Friends, they were arrested on their return home, and ordered confined to the town limits. Among those seized were the much-persecuted Jacob Underhill, formerly of Westchester, and Tripp Mosher, who was a substantial landowner in the Canoe Hills.

Indeed, in the year of Independence, 1776, Tories of the Canoe Hills — no doubt encouraged by General Burgoyne's victories — defied a militia guard of 400 and assembled in Washington Hollow ( then known as Carpenter's Field), threatening destruction to all Whigs in the area. Their barracks was the old church in Washington Hollow ( since rebuilt) now used as an antique shop.

Upon receipt of the news of the assemblage, an expedition was immediately sent out from Sharon, Conn., about 15 miles away, to break up the defiant Tories. A strong party of volunteers gathered at Bloom's Mill, the first mill built in the immediate vicinity, and even today still the site of a fine stone mill building, which can be seen about two miles north of Washington Hollow. Early in the morning, according to a contemporary account, the Patriot band marched from the Mill to the Hollow, probably along a road now known as New York Route #82 that today passes through the West portion of the Arboretum land. There they found the Tories paraded in the meadow. "Marching up with spirit, the volunteers fired on the insurgents, who broke and fled. Thirty or forty were captured and taken first to Connecticut, and afterwards to New Hampshire, where they were confined for about two years. About the same time, several Tories were jailed in Poughkeepsie for robbing homes. They were all painted and dressed like Indian men, but it was found that five were women — three of them a mother and her two daughters!"

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Another Revolutionary incident involved an ancestor of Mrs. Cary. Paul Flagler, a descendent of the original Flagler settler, Zachariah, recalled in his old age that when he was a lad of six, and still living in the old Flagler homestead just north of Washington Hollow ( on the site of the Arboretum's new greenhouse), he was captured by Hessian soldiers, who tried to pry information from him about the local patriots. The boy was so young — or perhaps plucky — that he did not satisfy his captors, and they let him go.

Once the countryside was quieted by the American victory, more settlers moved into the Canoe Hills. One of the largest landowners was Jacob Sharpstone, a German Lutheran, who began farming at the foot of the western slope of Canoe Hill in the mid-18th century, and expanded his holdings after the Revolution. It is not untypical of this area that lands that were tilled by Jacob Sharpstone are still farmed to this day by a direct descendent of the man who bought this very farm from Sharpstone, and a nearby hill on U.S. Route #44 is still referred to locally as "Sharpstone Hill."

Some flavor of life on a comfortable farm of the period can be gained from the will of Jacob Sharpstone. It was made out in 1799 and probated in 1802. To his wife Mary, he left his house, the farm, two cows, all the sheep, "300 weight of pork yearly", and firewood to be drawn to her door by their three sons. The sons were directed by Jacob's last will and testament "to do other things to make her comfortable", and if the three sons complied, "they are to have the farm at her decease." Finally, the will directed "the black woman, Chat, is to be given her freedom; the black boy Calop is to be given his freedom at the age of 24."

Nearby, on the northern edge of the Arboretum land, another enterprising farmer named Ephraim Mosher settled at about the same time as Jacob Sharpstone, on a tract of land purchased in 1752 directly from the Filkins family. When Mosher died in 1823 at the age of 96, the Poughkeepsie Journal reported the death of this revered Quaker patriarch in these words: "He settled in the Town of Washington upwards of 70 years ago (where he has ever since sided), when the country between this place and Canada was almost an entire wilderness. He paid 7s. 6d. per acre fof his farm, which is now worth 15£ per acre. The life of this venerable pioneer was long and useful. He found this country a wilderness, and left it a garden."

Even among the Quakers in the area, however, life was not always serene. In 1792, for example, the above-mentioned Jacob Sharpstone and a nearby neighbor, Quaker Nathaniel Underhill, both were bound over in court before Justice Ebenezer Mott for five pounds sterling apiece or equivalent to post bail. It appears they had robbed a man named Edward Satterly in the Canoe Hills — or at least were accused by him of robbery — and that a fight ensued. Court records indicate that the defendants each were required to post bond, promising, in effect, not to do it again, on penalty of forfeiting the bond.

Indeed, local 18th Century court records reveal a commonplace variety of offenses among the rural population of mid-Dutchess County. Among

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them: tying wife to a horse's tail; tarring, feathering and whipping two men; holding a lottery of watches, tables, etc.; horse stealing; indecent exposure; rape by a local school teacher; deliberately spoiling a neighbor's crops; assault with guns and bayonets; and shooting a young mare.

Aside from court proceedings, the large group of Quakers here frequently ran afoul of the rules of their own church. Records of Friends Meetings tell of suspensions and expulsions from the Society of Friends for reasons that included: "struck wife, dropped a bastard child, child too soon, a frequenter of taverns, keeping rude company, familiarity with housekeeper, gambling, going to a frolic and blacking his face, unlawful and dishonorable familiarity before marriage, went to war because much in debt." One Quaker farmer was disowned by his church because, after helping with hayma,king, he had lingered and allowed himself to watch while a visiting neighbor played a mouth-organ, and the group joined in singing and dancing — all forbidden by the strict Quaker code of the times.

The frugal families of Canoe Hills sometimes took years to acquire their landholdings. For example, starting in 1837 a family named Rynus bought land a little at a time in the very middle of the Canoe Hills. Today, the only vestiges are a derelict, bee-infested house and vine-grown stone foundations barely visible, with the traditional dooryard lilac bushes and apple trees persisting to bloom fragrantly each Spring in the overgrown now wooded fields. Starting with 10 acres, James Rynus — probably a descendant of thrifty Dutch burghers — thus slowly and patiently acquired more than 70 acres in seven separate transactions over a quarter of a century. The entire tract, after changing hands several times, was purchased by Mrs. Cary in the 1930's, and is now deep inside the Arboretum lands.

A good due to the type of farming that prevailed in the Canoe Hills is contained in the 1865 U. S. Census report on the 150-acre farm of Jacob V. Underhill, (descendant of the original Jacob Underhill who migrated from Westchester County about a century before). The farm lay in the north-central portion of the present-day Arboretum tract. Valued at that time at $10,000, the farm consisted of about 80 acres of pasture-land and some 20 acres of meadowland which produced 18 tons of hay. Crops included 200 bushels of wheat, 90 of oats, 300 of barley, and 175 of corn. There were 20 apple trees, producing 100 bushels of apples and two large barrels of cider. Livestock included two working oxen and three horses. Eight milch cows produced 900 pounds of butter. One cow was killed for beef. There also were 15 pigs. The eight that were slaughtered yielded 3000 pounds of pork. Sixty-one sheep were shorn that year, 75 lambs were raised, and 215 pounds of wool were produced. Rounding out the farm was a flock of poultry that was valued at $25 and yielded eggs that brought in $10 of income. Finally, manure and fertilizer from the farm netted another $25.

The extent of the worldly goods of another typical Canoe Hill farming family is evident from the detailed will of an immediate neighbor and

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relative, Isaac V. Underhill, dated 1855. estate listed these possessions: The official appraisal of his modest

16 sheep $48.00 1 Set of Light Harness $10.00 Hay in Hay Barn 30.00 Whipple Tree Lot 1.00 3 Cows @ $37 111.00 Chain and Iron Lot 2.00 2 Heifers @ $18 36.00 3 Shovels 1.50 20 Fowls @ 2/ 5.00 Tool Lot 1.00 4 Turkeys @ 8/ 4.00 Iron Lot .75 Lot of Straw in Barn 2.00 Salt and Wash Dish .88 Hay in Barn 15.00 Lots of Snaths 1.00 Hay in Shed 25.00 Buffalo Robes & Blankets 6.00 Whipple and Trough 1.00 Saddle and Bridle 1.50 3 Ladders 1.00 Barrel Lot .50 Forks and Rakes 1.50 Two Grain Cradles 2.00 Chair Lot .50 125 Bushels Oats @ 3/ 40.87 Fanning Mill 5.00 14 Bushels Rye @ 9/ 15.75 Box of Tub Lot 1.00 Lot of Iron 2.00 1 Lot of Harness 8.00 Sythe Lot 1.00 Plough Harness 2.00 Bag Hoe and Hoes 1.50 1 Spring Waggon 20.00 Dog Churn 1.00 Measure Lot 1.00 Plough Lot 2.00 1 Lumber Waggon 15.00 Lot of Saws 1.50 1 Lumber Sleigh 5.00 Tub Lot .25 1 Pleasure Sleigh 2.50 Axes, etc. .50 1 One-Horse Pleasure Sleigh 10.00 Lot of Wood 4.00 1 Pleasure Waggon 50.00 Box Lot .25 3 Barrels and Contents 3.00 Trumpery Lot .75 30 Bushels Potatoes @ 3/ __ 11.25 210 lbs. Pork 16.00 Grindstone .75 Beetle and Wedges .50 Rake .12 Bags 2.00 Cash on Hand 12.00

One Note of $100 bearing date June Underhill 2, 1855 against George T. $100.00

One note of $430 bearing date May 1, derhill 1855 against Nathaniel Un$430.00

Interest on same to date $19.35

Total -o-

$1157.95

Articles taken by the Widow as inventoried by the appraisors: Stone jars and Butter Tub $1.00 1 Table .25 1 Lot of Pails .75 1 Lot of Pails .12 5 Chairs @ 3/ $1.88 Shovel Tongs & Andirons 1 Pair Glass Candlesticks @ 3/ .38

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Table & Contents 1.00 5 Chairs 1.56

Basket Lot .50 6 Chairs 1.00

2 Stone Jars 75 3 Chairs,

.25 Molasses Keg .50 1 Rocker .25 Meal Chest .50 1 Lounge 2.00 Bowl and Ink 1.00 Cushions to Chairs .50 3 Butter Tubs .75 1 Stand .25 Tin Lot 1.25 1 Looking Glass .50 Butter Bowl and Ladle .25 1 Clock 1.00 Jugs .50 5 Curtains .25 Crockery Lot 1.50 Candlesticks .25 Knifes, forks & spoons 1.50 Table Covers 2.00 Kettle Lot 1.00 1 Set of White Granite 2.00 China Lot 1.00 1 Lot of Glassware 1.50 Knifes, forks & spoons .75 Bread Tray and Server .25 1 Table Spread .25 1 Pair Vegetable Dishes ...... .38 Wearing Apparel of Decd. 10.00 Tumbler Lot 1.00 1 Chest .50 Earthen Lot .12 1 Bed and Bedstead 4.00 Lot of Pichers 2.00 1 Bed and Tick 2.00 Large Metal Dish & Cover .50 3 Pairs of Pillows 1.50 Lot of Tin Ware 2.50 1 Bed 2.50 1 Cupboard .50 2 Stone pots 1.00 22 Yards Carpetting 5.00 Trumpery Lot in Chamber 1.50 1 Lever .25 1 Spittoon .25 2 Baskets and Bores .75 1 Beauro 2.00 2 Blankets 1.00 Washstand and fixtures 1.00 Bedroom carpets 1.50 9 Window curtains @ 2/ 2.25 1 Lot of carpeting 3.00 1 Frame 1.00 1 Lot of Carpeting 3.50 1 Table and spread 1.25 1 Lot of Carpeting 7.00 1 Looking Glass 1.00 1 Lot of Carpeting 1.00 3 Chairs @ 5/ 1.87 1 Oil Cloth .50 2 Cows 56.00

-oTotal $150.00

Articles exempt for the Widow and Minor Children noticed by the appraisors follow. It is not known the exact reason for the exemption, but one can guess that certain basic essentials were not charged against the widow's share of the estate: 3 Spinning Wheels 6 Chairs 3 Stoves and fixtures 6 Knifes and forks 1 Family Bible, books & 6 Plates pictures 6 Teacups & Saucers 10 Sheep yarn & cloth 1 Sugar Dish manufactured from same 1 Milk Pot 1 Cow 1 Tea Pot 2 Swine and Pork from same 6 Spoons 3 Beds and Bedsteads 1 Table (signed) Morehouse Haim Jacob V. Underhill (brother to Isaac)

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Modest as the possessions of a typical Canoe Hills family were, many of the farms in the immediate area have remained in the same family for a span of three, four, and even five generations. For example, through the very center of the Arboretum property runs Fowler Road, named after an old family of local Quaker farmers whose ancestor, Jacob, bought his place in 1837 from the descendants of the original Palatine settlers, the Sharpstones. Interestingly, Jacob Fowler financed the purchase by a $3300 mortgage loan at 7% from Mrs. Cary's ancestor, Philip Flagler. Wendell Fowler, who works the farm today, is intensely proud of the fact that while his father Virgil was still alive, their 140-acre "home place" was singled out by the State of New York to be honored as a "Century Farm", one that had been worked by the same family for at least a century, and showed promise of remaining in family hands as an active farm for some time to come. When the Fowlers received the award in 1947, Virgil was still tilling his soil with a team of horses.

Indeed, his love of horses gave rise to one of the best beloved horse stories of the area. In 1908, the fashionable Millbrook Hunt was holding its annual meet at the old County Fair Grounds, which used to be in Washington Hollow. The level land there that originally attracted the Tory troops to military drill before the Revolution (and is now the site of State Police barracks), also was ideal for horse-racing. As the story goes, Virgil Fowler and his wife were riding down the road behind their farm team, Kittie and Dan. Seeing the large crowd gathering, Virgil investigated and learned that the red-coated society huntsmen were sponsoring a Farmer's Cup Race, open to horses of humble ancestry. Then and there, Virgil decided to enter. He unhitched his team, mounted Kittie, and off he rode in the race.

Kittie was absolutely spectacular! The little seven-year-old roan mare went around the track in 51 seconds, far ahead of the field. Then, refusing to admit that the race was over, she circled the track a second time. She wasn't clocked the second time around, but spectators asserted that she was just as fast on that second trip. Actually, Kittie made the half-mile distance in less time than any of the fancy thoroughbreds and hunters entered by the wealthy gentlemen farmers of the Millbrook area, and Wendell Fowler still has a handsome trophy to commemorate the famous feat of his father and Kittie, the humble little farm mare.

Directly over the next hill from the Fowlers lived another fine judge of horseflesh, a Quaker farmer named David Scherer. His hobby was pacing a prize-winning pair of Morgan horses over the serpentine roads of Canoe Hills.

Where there are horses, can foxes be far away? Nowadays, foxes can be spotted only occasionally, but in the time of Virgil Fowler, the fox population was plentiful enough to cause note in the local newspaper. George T. Underhill, one of the major landowners in Canoe Hills at the turn of the century, liked to stroll the country roads. According to the Millbrook Round Table, the local weekly, Underhill while on just such an outing in September, 1909, sighted a fox three times. He saw "the same fox each time", the paper reported. "Once it came up on the opposite side of a

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stone wall and was going to jump on him, but he drove it back by hitting at it with his cane." The Round Table also reported that during another walk, a members of the Fowler family shot a wildcat "weighing over 100 pounds, and measuring over five feet from tip to tail."

The economic activity in the hills at the turn of the century included lumbering in the winter and catering to summer boarders during the warmer months. A news item in the Millbrook Round Table in January, 1898, reported that a local lumberman "placed his steam engine in the Underhill woods last Tuesday for the purpose of sawing up timber. It took all the power of the engine, combined with two teams, to raise the Woodstock Hills on account of snow and ice." The Woodstock Hills are the next ridge north afid lie imthediately adjacent to the Canoe Hills.

In July of that same year, the local paper, noting the change in seasonal activity reported: "City boarders are thick on the Canoe Hill and Woodstock Roads, out riding in their buggies, and if there was a guide board on some corner, it would save them the trouble of inquiring the way to Millbrook."

When gas buggies began to replace the horse-drawn variety, a new kind of problem confronted some of the farmers. One of the first Canoe Hill landowners to buy a car was Tom Smith, who lived in a house now occupied by a member of the Arboretum staff. After his first spin down the road in his car, Farmer Smith, who was an inveterate tobacco chewer, said to a neighbor: "Guess I got to put a spit-box on the car, or I'll splatter the windshield all the time with tobacco juice."

After World War II, the rustic loneliness of the hills was seen as an advantage by one enterprising townsman from Millbrook who bought land in the very middle of Canoe Hill to use as the secluded retreat of a men's sporting club. Activities included cider-making, clam-bakes, beer-busts, poker sessions, and — no doubt — tobacco-chewing. The remote location on a lonely country road was ideal for such masculine pursuits.

No doubt, in a quite different way, the remote retreat offered by the Canoe Hills was also part of their appeal to Mary Flagler Cary. In the late 1920's, Mr. and Mrs. Cary began to search the New York-New England area for a tract of land where they could find peaceful seclusion from the bustle of New York and pursue their love of nature and the outdoors. Land around Lakeville, Conn., they found "too built up" (according to notes on one of Mrs. Cary's maps); land near Sharon, Conn., "possible, but shallow, a little built up"; land near the New York state line was written off as containing a "string of little cottages."

Canoe Hills had much to recommend it to Mr. and Mrs. Cary. In addition to its natural beauty and tranquility, it was not far from Millbrook Village, where her father, Henry Harkness Flagler, owned Edgewood, a large mansion on a beautifully-maintained estate. And, above all, there were the historic ties between the Canoe Hills and the Flagler family that reached far back to the days before the American Revolution.

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Mr. and Mrs. Cary began acquiring land in the Canoe Hills. By the early Thirties, they had bought up 14 farms and various other parcels of land, aggregating nearly 1800 acres. The land purchases ranged in size from a six-acre woodlot high on Canoe Hill that once belonged to the courageous 18th-century Quaker, Tripp Mosher, to the 332-acre farm that was home to the plucky young Flagler who outwitted the Redcoats. The decrepit old Dutch farmhouse on this early Flagler place, with its typical cellar kitchen, was torn down in 1972 to make way for the Arboretum greenhouse, now under construction.

Some of the winding farm lanes that criss-crossed the land were improved by Mr. and Mrs. Cary to provide carriage routes on which they could ride to enjoy the beauty of the terrain. By the time the land came into their possession, many of the old farmhouses had long disappeared, for one reason or another. A number of the others, particularly those fallen into disrepair, Mr. and Mrs. Cary had dismantled. The only new building erected on the vast acreage was a modest, solidly-built two-room stone teahouse at the very top of Canoe Hill, where the commanding view of the rolling Dutchess County hills and the pastoral valley below could be enjoyed by them. As for the rest of the land, Mrs. Cary, widowed in 1941, allowed nature to take its course, enhancing nature only to make sure that the fine old trees that grew throughout the estate received proper care to prolong their lives.

Indeed, one of the most appealing characteristics of the Canoe Hills is that basically, in a topsy-turvy world, so little in this beautiful corner of it has been changed compared to suburban areas just a few miles away. Even the old family names that have been in the immediate area since the 1700's can still be seen on mailboxes as one drives along the twisting local roads — Fowler, Mosher, Vail, Knapp, Boice, Odell, Van Tassell, Thorne.

In such a setting, it is especially fitting that an Arboretum is now being established. An area that has a sense of history and respect for the land, can appreciate a scientific enterprise whose appropriate motto is "Dedicated to a Better Environment Through a Knowledge of Plants."

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