The New York and Albany Post Road Part 3

The Dutch Church was stone, and was soon used as a prison by the Americans. Probably the most famous prisoner it contained was Enoch Crosby, the spy, the hero of Cooper's novel, who escaped with the help of the Committee of Safety, the only ones who knew his true character.

The second time he was captured the officer in charge being nettled at his previous escape, had him guarded with extra care, but again the Committee of Safety lent a helping hand and Crosby was free once more.

Fishkill, settled in 1683, is one of the old towns. It was the largest town in the county during the Revolution, and in 1789 was one of the seven postoffices in the state; but its glory has departed and it is now a pleasant village living in its memories of the past. Here lived and worked the blacksmith, J. Bailey, who forged General Washington's sword. Joshua Het Smith was arrested here for his partic.i.p.ation in the Arnold treason plot. The Dutch Church was built about 1725, its roof then sloping up from all four sides to a cupola, holding a bell. The window lights were small, set in iron frame (a good prison), and the upper story was pierced for muskets. This was all changed soon after the Revolution, but the stout walls still remain.

[Sidenote: _WAPPINGER FALLS._]

Beyond Fishkill the Post Road traverses a high plateau whose fertile soil is well cultivated, a country beautiful after its kind, but to one fresh from the grandeur of the Highlands the stretch of six miles to Wappinger Falls seems but a tame affair, with only one of the old mile-stones left to tell the tale of long ago. This seemed to read "71 M. to N. York."

A country school was having recess as I went by, the master sitting in the shade outside reading, while the boys were playing the national game and the one little girl stood by admiring their prowess.

Wappinger Falls preserves the name of the Indian tribe that once held sway over these uplands. The falls around which the village has grown up are lined with factories and factory ruins, which latter lend an added charm to the natural beauty of the scene, for even in a dry time water enough tumbles down these rocks to make the place a delight. The village contains an interesting relic of the past in the old homestead of Peter Mesier, a New York merchant, who settled here about the close of the Revolution.

Between here and Poughkeepsie the trolley plies. Its tracks run through the gra.s.s by the roadside, the poles blend with the trees, and this usually unsightly modern convenience hardly mars the beauty of the landscape.

Not a mile-stone was to be seen on this piece of road, but down by the river, at a corner of the Livingstone Mansion, evidently taken from its original station on the old road nearby, and marked "80 M. from N.

York," reposes one of the lost guardians of the highway. The stones appear to have all been set along the west side of the road, so that they were compa.s.s on a cloudy day as well as distance markers, and a man had but to know his right hand from his left to be sure of his direction.

[Sidenote: _LIVINGSTONE HOUSE._]

The Livingstone house, built about 1714, stood on a point on the river bank on what is now the southern edge of Poughkeepsie. Facing the south it overlooks the river for miles, while in front was a sheltered little harbor for river craft, but this has been filled in by the manufacturing concern that now owns the property, and nothing is as it was, except the house. During the Revolution the place was the home of Henry Livingstone, whose well-known patriotism led the British, when ascending the river in October, 1777, to bombard the building, as they did so many others. One of its shingles, pierced by a shot at that time, has been left in place as a reminder of the incident. It also draws attention to the difference between the hand-split shingles of those days and the machine-sawed ones of the present.

[Sidenote: _POUGHKEEPSIE._]

Poughkeepsie is the Apo-keep-sinck of the Indians, the "pleasant and safe harbor" where canoes were safe from wind and wave. The name is said to be spelled some forty-two different ways in the old town records. The "safe harbor" was made so by rocky bluffs projecting into the river; that on the south being known to the Dutch as Call Rock, though it did not sound like that in the vernacular. From this rock old Baltus Van Kleeck and his neighbors were wont to hail pa.s.sing sloops for news or pa.s.sage.

An Indian legend a.s.sociated with the little cove here has the same comfortable and satisfying outcome as the old-fashioned romance, when it was not so necessary to be realistic as in the present day. A war party of the Delawares, after a successful raid on their neighbors, the Pequods, reached this spot on the return journey, laden with spoils and captives, among the latter a young chief who, after the manner of most Indian tribes, was offered the choice of joining the tribe of his foes or suffering death by torture. Being a Pequod Patrick Henry he chose the latter, and preparations were made for his demise, when a beautiful maiden interfered. She was also a captive from the same tribe, and much in love with her doomed tribesman.

During the delay thus caused the party was unexpectedly attacked by a band of Hurons, and the maiden fell prize to the latter. The chief escaped, and disguising himself as a wizard, visited the Huron camp where, strange to say, the maiden promptly fell ill upon the arrival of the strange medicine man, who was employed to effect a cure. They fled under cover of the dark, appropriating a handy canoe for the purpose, and the Hurons followed in the next boat, but the Pequod, landing his beloved at the mouth of the Minnakee Creek, turned on his pursuers and, like the true hero of legend, drove them off single handed. The lovers returned home, married, and lived happily ever after.

Poughkeepsie, on account of its central position, was early chosen as the county seat, and became the scene of many stirring incidents during the stirring times of '76. But few mementoes of those days are left, however. The Van Kleeck house, at one time a tavern, used by the Dutchess County Committee as a meeting place in 1774 to elect delegates to the first Continental Congress, has disappeared. The Legislature in its migrations around the state met here in January, 1778, at the call of Governor Clinton. Clinton himself, during this time, occupied the Clear Everett House, which is still standing on Main Street, and is open to the public as a museum.

The great struggle which was to decide whether New York should join the newly formed National Government was fought out in Poughkeepsie.

On June 17, 1788, the Convention of the People of the State met to deliberate on the new Const.i.tution. Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and Chancellor Livingston, a magnificent trio of pleaders, were the princ.i.p.al speakers in favor of the Union, while Governor George Clinton and others, whose names are not familiar except to students of history, headed the opposition. New York separated New England from the South, and was necessary to the Union, but there was a powerful party headed by Governor Clinton which opposed the plan. The Governor, in fact, had the majority with him, and when Hamilton and the others carried the convention by only one vote, it was a greater victory than the narrow margin would indicate. Poughkeepsie was a "safe harbor" in which to build ships, and it was here, in 1775-6, that the frigates Congress and Montgomery of the Continental navy were built under the supervision of Captains Lawrence and Tudor.

[Sidenote: _HYDE PARK._]

Leaving Poughkeepsie the intervening six miles to Hyde Park are so park-like that the place seems to come naturally by its name. The road is of the best, the bordering fields are under a high state of cultivation, interspersed with groves of beautiful trees, through whose aisles are to be seen occasional glimpses of the Hudson and, on a clear day, the distant Catskills that, like low-lying clouds, top the nearer hills of the middle distance. The place is named for Edward Hyde, Lord Cornbury, Governor of the Province at the beginning of the Eighteenth Century. Jacobus Stoutenburg, the first settler, built a stone house which still stands on the east side of the road in the southern edge of the village. It has the reputation of having been a Washington headquarters, and is a fine example of a Colonial farm house. Only once during the Revolution was there anything approaching a battle in Dutchess County, and that occurred here during Vaughan's raid up the river, when he burned the landing and a shop or two. He was opposed by a small body of Americans whom he bombarded from the river with no serious results.

James K. Paulding, author, and Morgan Lewis, Revolutionary general and chief justice of the state, once lived in Hyde Park, as did Dr. Samuel Bard, Washington's physician, whose dwelling is placed in Christopher Colles's road book, previously mentioned, as situated on the east side of the Post Road, between the eighty-eighth and eighty-ninth mile-stones.

The next ten miles to Rhinebeck through Staatsburg covers a picturesque country, sometimes too rough for much cultivation, but all the more attractive to the eye on that very account.

[Sidenote: _STAATSBURG._]

Staatsburg or Pawlings Purchase: The earliest owner of this region that I find mentioned in local histories was Henry Pawling, who died in 1695. His heirs sold the property in May, 1701, to Dr. Samuel Staats, of New York City, and another. This was the son of Major Abram Staats, of Albany, who figured largely in the early history of Columbia County. The only man of note living here during Revolutionary days was Major John Pawling, a friend of Washington and an active patriot. His stone house, built in 1761, still stands on the Post Road.

[Sidenote: _RHINEBECK._]

Ryn Beck, Rein Beck, Rhynbeek, Reinebaik, Rhinebeck, was the name at first applied to that region back from the river and located on the property of William Beekman, which was occupied by the "High Dutchers," while in Kipsbergen, on the river bank, lived the "Low Dutchers."

In 1710 Colonel Robert Hunter, Governor of the Province, came over with a considerable colony of Palatines from the Rhine country, some of whom settled on the Beekman property as above, and are said to have given the place its name, which first appears in a deed of 1714.

[Sidenote: _KIPSBERGEN._]

Kipsbergen: There is no evidence to show that any one settled here before 1700, though the region was purchased from the Esopus Indians as early as 1686 by Jacobus and Hendrick Kip. The Kips are said to have been great believers in large families, but, in spite of this, the local chronicler states that a few years ago there was but one of the name left in the territory of ancient Kipsbergen, and it is said that some of the land he possessed had never known any owner but a Kip or an Indian. To-day Kipsbergen is only found on the older maps.

Landsman Kill may have been the boundary line between the High and Low Dutchers, Rhinebeck and Kipsbergen. The name obtains either because its water power was reserved for the "Landsman" or landlord, or because one Caspar Landsman, whose name appears in the early records may have lived along its banks. The stream once ran a grist mill for Gen. Richard Montgomery.

A very interesting side excursion here, of some six or seven miles, starts toward the river from the hotel corner in Rhinebeck, and comes out on the Post Road again a half mile or so south of the starting point. It affords wonderful views of the Catskills and the Hudson, the Shawungunk and lesser mountains toward the south. The property owners do not welcome the stranger within their gates, but he is allowed to look over the fence to the views beyond.

Where the road turns south on the river bluff is the entrance to the Kip place, Anckany, named for the Indian chief with whom the original Kip bartered for this property. An attractive old stone house stands on the roadside here, but a quarter of a mile further on is the place that, of all others, along the Post Road, retains the old-time atmosphere, the "Heermance" place, built on Hendrick Kip's south lot in 1700. This is the house that Lossing says was erected by William Beekman. The place soon (1716) pa.s.sed into the possession of Hendricus Heermance, and in due course to Henry Beekman, whose daughter became the mother of Chancellor Livingston.

A distinct line on the east end of the present building seems to indicate that the original house was very small; the heavy sashes and the distorted little window panes of this old part read a clear t.i.tle back to the early days, which is duly confirmed by the iridescent condition of the gla.s.s. Under the eaves, looking toward the river, were once two portholes; no indications remain of one, but the other is a round opening large enough for the muzzle of a small cannon, but so close to the roof as to make it seem improbable that it was ever intended for purposes of defense. The present tenant remembers when this was a jagged hole without form or comeliness, though at present it is a clean, round opening, and this suggests that there may be something in Lossing's story that the hole was made by a cannon ball from one of General Vaughan's sloops of war in 1777, though local authorities do not appear to place much credence in this theory.

[Sidenote: _RHINECLIFF._]

The road continues south for some two miles through and beyond Rhinecliff, traversing beautiful woods bordering Ex-Governor Morton's grounds, but before entering the woods comes a delightful outlook toward Kingston and its mountain background that is all the more pleasing for its unexpectedness. Still further, and opposite a schoolhouse, a road strikes off toward the south, and here is the entrance to Wildercliff.

The Rev. Freeborn Garrettson, being invited to Rhinebeck to preach, met Catherine Livingston while there, and in 1793 they were married.

Six years later they purchased a place on the banks of the Hudson, calling it Wildercliff--Wilder Klipp, a Dutch word meaning wild man's cliff, from the fact that early settlers found on a smooth rock on the river sh.o.r.e a rough tracing of two Indians with tomahawk and calumet.

Garrettson was educated in the Church of England, but left it to become a Methodist; a man of strong personality, he soon rose to a prominent place in the church. Being a native of Maryland, he was naturally a slave owner, but becoming convinced that slavery was bad, he set his blacks free. Wildercliff was the most noted gathering place in the country for Methodists, and the house was always full. His daughter, Mary, kept up the traditions of the place, and it is said such entertainment kept her poor.

The view down the river from here is something never to be forgotten; the dazzling effect of the sun on the water, the hills of the further sh.o.r.e, and the grand expanse of the picture which is only limited by the condition of the atmosphere, must be seen to be appreciated.

Returning toward the Post Road the highway pa.s.ses through the Camp Meeting Woods, where the Rev. Mr. Garrettson inaugurated those camp meetings which have made this spot as sacred to the Methodist heart as is Wildercliff itself.

In the angle formed by the return road and the Post Road is an extensive estate--Grasmere--which was planned and begun by Gen.

Richard Montgomery who, however, did not live to enjoy the fruits of his labor. His widow finished the house, but dwelt here for a short time only. The house was burned in 1828 and rebuilt and enlarged in 1861-2. The Montgomerys originally lived in a small cottage situated on the Post Road near the northern end of the village. The house has disappeared, but the fact is commemorated in the present name of that portion of the highway.

A pleasant little story is told of General Montgomery's last days in Rhinebeck. His last Sunday at home was spent with his brother-in-law, Livingston. When the General and his wife were about to leave he thrust into the ground a willow stick he had been carrying, remarking with a laugh that they could let it grow as a reminder of him until he came back. The General never returned, but the stick grew to a great tree which has ever since been known as the Montgomery Willow.

[Sidenote: _PINK'S CORNER._]

At Pink's Corner, in the northern edge of Rhinebeck, stands the "Stone Church" of the Lutherans, built some time during the Revolution, but the church site is much older, as there are grave stones in the burial ground dated as far back as 1733. The Post Road sweeps around the church, and as one approaches from the south it looks as though he must needs go to church or take to the fields.

[Sidenote: _RED HOOK._]

It was thick weather when I traveled the country between Rhinebeck and Race Place, and the mist hid the distant hills and dulled the nearby Autumn tints, with now and then a shower to make the roads the better for the sprinkling. All nature had taken the veil, and there was little to see beyond the adjoining fields, and these, lacking the magic touch of the sun, were but dull companions. The towns, however, kept jogging past at frequent intervals, Red Hook being first on the list, the first mention of which is in 1751, when certain baptisms are recorded as occurring in Roode Hoek. The place is said to have its name from the fact that a marsh covered with ripe cranberries was the first thing that caught the Dutch eye in this spot. As one pa.s.ses through the town he sees a guide-board pointing to Barrytown on the river, some three or four miles away, where that Gen. John Armstrong once lived, the author of those celebrated addresses published to the army at Newburg, which might have resulted in trouble among the troops had it not been for Washington's level head.

There are some old buildings in Red Hook, but none of historic interest. It was here that I pa.s.sed the last of the old brown sandstone mile-stones; above here they are of some white stone that looks like coa.r.s.e marble, and from their general illegibility are evidently not as well fitted to stand the rigorous northern climate as are their brown brothers from the south.

Upper Red Hook: The recorded history of most of these towns begins with the early church records. When the population grew dense enough to warrant it, a new church organization would be formed to accommodate those living in a neighborhood distant from the nearest house of worship, and as soon as this happened the good dominie or the scribe of the church would begin to record history; so of Upper Red Hook--all we know of its early beginnings, starting with a record of baptisms in December, 1785, comes from this source.

The road now pa.s.ses into Columbia County, where everything is, was, and ever shall be, Livingston. The family manor is on the river bank, six miles away, but the family, like the locusts for number, has spread up and down the river for a hundred miles or more.

In this county the Township of Livingston contains the villages of Claremont, after the manor on the river; Johnstown, after John Livingston; and Linlithgow, after the old home in Scotland. Dutchess County knows them and knows them well, likewise Westchester, while Rensselaer, on the north, counts them among her prominent citizens.

[Sidenote: _ROBERT LIVINGSTON._]

It appears that human nature was much the same two hundred years ago as at present. It is said of Robert Livingston, first lord of the manor, that he "was shrewd, persistent and very acquisitive; his zeal in this direction leading him sometimes to adopt questionable methods to advance his interests. He always exerted himself to obtain riches and strove continually to promote his family." But we have scripture for it that "men will praise thee when thou doest well to thyself." In March, 1711, Lord Clarendon wrote: "I think it unhappy that Colonel Hunter (Governor of the Province) at his first arrival fell into so ill hands, for this Levingston has been known many years in that province for a very ill man.... I am of opinion that if the substance proposed be allowed, the consequences will be that Levingston and some others will get estates, the Palatines will not be the richer."