IT JUST DOESN'T GET ANY BETTER

Continued from May 23, 2012

[1829]

Mr. and Mrs. James Stuart continue their exploration of 1829 Troy, New York, climbing toward the summit of Mount Ida (most locals call it Ida Hill). He commends the view of the city, river and countryside, commenting that the land, covered in pine and cedar, was considered until recently to be infertile, but similar land nearby in Kinderhook has proved to be quite productive when managed well and manured properly.

Partway to the top their climb is interrupted by a fence, so they head for a cottage to request permission to continue further. The tenants prove to be fellow Scots who, like Stuart, arrived last year, but several months earlier. The Stuarts chat for a while with the Craigs, who had found work superintending the farm on the hillside for the owner shortly after their arrival here. It can't be an easy job, since the hill is mainly formed of clay - although Stuart doesn't mention the latter fact - but the Craigs are making a go of it. Later in the century the unstable clay will result in several landslides, reducing the overall size of the hill somewhats.

Sometime before exploring the hill, excuse me, mountain, and heading north to Lansingburgh, our Scotsman has made a few real estate inquiries and discovered that a 65 x 25-foot tenement building has recently sold for $4,000. Untempted, he and his wife climb back into their carriage and, after short ride, cross the Hudson on the twenty-year-old Union Bridge, an 800-foot covered wooden affair that had originally cost $20,000. Later it would also be known as the Waterford Bridge. They head inland a few miles to view the falls at Cohoes, which they missed seeing last year during their brief ride on the Erie Canal. He mentions seven locks in three-and-a-half miles and he should know - they had convinced him then that canal travel wasn't for James Stuart.

On his visit to Albany last year Stuart found the rooms at the Eagle Hotel to be rather meagrely funished, so he decides on a change, putting up at the boarding house run by Leverett Cruttenden, further uphill on Capitol Sqaure, where Lafayette had stayed five years earlier. Good enough for a marquis it proved equally satisfying to Stuart, who mentioned, "comfortable accommodation . . . and as good a tea and supper as we had seen anywhere." Best of all, "I was asked . . . for the first time in the United States, whether we preferred to sleep on a mattrass or feather bed."

Cruttenden stops by to chat with Stuart, who describes his host as, "a frank, John Bull-looking personage, very fond of Scotch songs and of Burns's poetry." Like the good Scotsmen they are, they discuss local prices, "A goose sometimes to be had for a shilling Sterling, and a turkey for two shillings."

The next morning Stuart - probably with future publication of his travels in mind - has a quest to take up again, his current holy grail, this year's annual report on Auburn Prison. Following the Ossining bookseller's suggestion he pays call on the office of the state's secretary of state. The great man (whom Staurt neglects to identify by name) is apparently not there, but a clerk fields Stuart's request. Albany's reputation for complicating the simplest of matters is not unearned; Stuart is told that all the copies have been given away. We'll follow up on his mission next time.

© 2012  David Minor / Eagles Byte

BARRISTERS AND BOOKS

Continued from April 23, 2012
[1829]

After being legally deprived of some sleep (chatty lawyers nearby in the hotel) the Stuarts arose early the next morning and plowed ahead, breaking their fast at Lewis's Hotel in Kinderhook, lunching fourteen miles further on, at Richardson's Hotel across from Albany, then making Troy by evening, where they checked into Troy House, a hotel near the river on First Street, run by Platt Titus. Stage lines to Albany had been departing from in front of Troy House since the early days of the century, so the Stuarts were staying right in one of the main hubs of activity. He briefly describes Troy, "a considerable city, and the greatest erected upon the alluvial banks of the Hudson, — in fact, it is not above eight or ten feet above the level of high water-mark about six miles above Albany. The population has increased from 3000 or 4000 in 1810, to 11,000 or 12,000 at the present time." He also mentions Mount Ida, rising to the east above the city to a height of about 400 feet.

Stuart considers the Titus establishment well-run and adds, "for the first time, since we left New York, we found bells in the house — which are a positive annoyance to those for some time unaccustomed to their noise." Meaning himself, we presume. "There are also male waiters here." And he hadn't escaped voluble night-owl lawyers either, circuit court having followed him here to Troy. In spite of bells and briefs pushers he seemed to manage to sleep well enough this time. At seven the following morning the Stuarts had breakfast in the dining room, surrounded by, "those engaged in the business, judges, clerks, lawyers. . . .  I had no conversation with any of the lawyers at breakfast; but in the course of the forenoon I looked into the court. Three judges were upon the bench; and a proof was taking in presence of a jury respecting a mill-dam. As soon as I was observed in the interior of the court, though merely as a stranger, one of the clerks, or other officers of the court, beckoned to me, and then rose and insisted I should have a seat close to the table. He explained to me the particulars of the case, which were not sufficiently interesting to detain me long." Us either. He does insert a little treatise on court procedures, the main difference between here and Scotland being the use of civilians in New York rather than other lawyers, as assistant-advisers to the judges. In both countries the juries still make the final determination. He mentions that the court building is old and quite run down but that construction is under way on a new one. Building had begun last year but completion was still some months off.

Stuart and his wife wander off to do a bit of exploring. No more able to stay out of a bookstore than I am, he heads across the street from the hotel and down a few doors to pay a visit to Parker and Bliss's establishment, enters and stops to chat with William Parker. The co-proprietor is an agent of New York City's G. & C. Carvill company, publisher of the Library of Useful Knowledge. When Parker learns his visitor is British (How did he tell?) he asks about Henry Peter Brougham, English abolitionist and one of the reference works' chief authors. Stuart would not have known Brougham but is flattered for his countryman that Parker considers the Englishman's works the finest in the language, second only to the Bible (he IS a salesman, after all). The work has sold close to 10,000 copies in New York, Stuart's told. A number probably can be found here in Troy, what with Parker's zeal and the city's Willard Female Seminary, Rensselaer School (later RPI) and Lyceum of Natural History. We'll continue our Trojan education next time.

© 2012  David Minor / Eagles Byte

HISTORY IS MESSY

Continued from March 23, 2012

After leaving Fishkill, New York, the Stuarts and their driver headed north again. Stuart found that the hilly road to Poughkeepsie reminded him of his home country. With some differences. "Many of the passes are narrow, and remind a traveller of defiles of the same kind in the Highlands of Scotland. The mountains of Scotland are far more magnificent, for there is no elevation here above 1500 or 1600 feet in height; but there is no such river in the Highlands of Scotland as the Hudson."

They halted their journey in Poughkeepsie at the end of the morning, eating at Swift's Hotel, "as handsomely furnished as any country hotel I have seen anywhere. A piano-forte is in the parlour." By this time the village had a population of close to 7,000 people. There were three weekly newspapers in town, but in order to save on the cost of delivery all three came out on Wednesdays. Which kept carrier John Cornish busy just once a week. It would be a while before the publishers would catch on to the fact that they could collectively sell more papers each week if they didn't all three carry the same news. Cornish and his successors would do better financially as well. The Stuarts were probably unaware of all this; they moved on right after their midday meal.

As they passed Hyde Park on their way towards Rhinebeck, Stuart apparently knew that his recent acquaintance, Dr. David Hosack, was not just then in residence, for he mentions no effort to accept Hosack's offer of hospitality. He does comment on the site's beauty and mentions, "views, ending with the Catskill mountains in the distance, that can hardly be surpassed." He notes that, "A great number of workmen are at present employed by him in extensive improvements upon the grounds, and the enlargement of his mansion-house." A later tourist named Harriet Martineau, who traveled through the state in the mid-1830s, comments on the Hosack mansion. "Dr. Hosack's good taste led him to leave it alone, and to spend his pains on the gardens and conservatory behind." Martineau, by the way, seems to be a soul-mate of James Stuart, also very interested in Auburn Prison.

With September giving way to October (Stuart doesn't give exact dates) the nights were quite bit cooler, especially here in the upper elevations, and the air was cold as they arrived at Jacob's Hotel at Rhinebeck, in time for dinner. Reading that in Stuart's published journal and being a curious person (put your own interpretation on THAT), I started poking around in some old Rhinebeck histories to see if I could find who this Jacob was. I didn't find anything which, of course, proves nothing. However. If you know Rhinebeck at all, you're familiar with the Beekman Arms. In 1766, Arent Traphagen moved his father's inn from the fringes of Ryn Beck to the main intersection, several miles uphill from the river. The southwest corner. At the time of the Revolution it was run by a man with the rather rhythmic name of Everadus Bogardus and called the Bogardus Inn. In the early 1800s it was run by a couple with the last name of Jacques. Today it's still in operation as the Beekman Arms and claims to be the oldest, continually operating tavern in the United States. Fans of the Wayside Inn of Massachusetts strenuously believe otherwise, and bar bets over that question will never be settled to everyone's satisfaction. What I'm wondering is this. When Stuart sat down to publish his travels four years after his stay here, did he perhaps rely on an only-human memory, and Scot-icize (or his equivalent of Anglicize) the name Jacques into Jacob? We may never know.

© 2012 David Minor / Eagles Byte

VERPLANCK SHOPPING SPREE

Continued from February 23, 2012

The Mr. Verplanck that the Stuarts met in late September 1829, helping his hired hands spread manure from the back of a wagon, would have been a Mr. Philip Verplanck. One of several with the same given name, his family had owned Verplanck's Point since the 1680s when Dutch fur trading partners Gulian Verplanck and Francis Rombout purchased 85,000 acres of land from the Wappinger Indians in today's Dutchess County. Around this time Verplanck also bought a point of land at the northern end of the Hudson's Haverstraw Bay, which he passed on down the byways of the family tree. Philip Verplanck had inherited the land last year as well as some land at Stony Point, across the Hudson. Since then he had been making improvements to the property, perhaps with an eye to a future sale.

Learning the Stuarts were visiting from Britain he left the manure wagon to the hands and accompanied his drop-in guests over to the river bank, inviting them to park on the wide lawn in front of the large house. The property contained close to twenty outbuildings, many used as offices. After a brief visit the Stuarts left him to his work, headed back to the main road and headed north again. They stopped for their midday meal at Peekskill, Stuart topping it off with a brandy. He notes that most inns they stopped at had a small library. Always interested in what people found important, he noted here an eclectic mix of the ever-popular Pilgrim's Progress, the works of Byron (very fashionable in these few years after the poet's death in Greece), two English prayer books and Nathan Smith's recent "Practical Essays on Typhus Fever".

It was early evening when they arrived at Phillipstown, in today's Cold Spring, after spending nearly four hours in the coach, traveling east of Anthony's Nose through orchard-strewn hillsides. After a simple late supper of coffee, bread and butter, grape and peach jelly, and cheese at an apparently indifferent hostelry, they were off to bed. The next morning as they headed out, Stuart learned that had they gone just another mile further they could have stayed at Horseborough's house, a splendid home that had once belonged to the loyalist Beverly Robinson. (Beverly being a more common man's name in that century). Forty-nine years earlier George Washington had arrived late for a meeting here with the then current resident Benedict Arnold, busy escaping across the river on his way to becoming a household name.

The Stuarts waited until they got to Fishkill to have breakfast. By the time they arrived at the four-year-old Mansion-house at Fishkill, the other lodgers had already eaten, but the kitchen quickly put together, "one of the best breakfasts I ever saw". For once he didn't provide the gustatory details. Now they were in true Verplanck country, Fishkill being part of the original purchase of 1683. The actual Verplanck family mansion, Mount Gulian, was in nearby Beacon, closer to the river. Last year, about the time the Stuarts were steaming up the Hudson to Albany, another traveler arrived at Mount Gulian. 35-year-old escaped Maryland slave James Brown had fled to New York City and found employment as a coachman and waiter for the Verplancks. They shipped him up to the family country house and hired him to work as head gardener. When he was recognized by a guest this year, the family arranged to purchase his freedom. He would live on at the estate, soon purchase his wife's freedom, and keep a journal until after the Civil War, thus providing the site's most detailed chronicles.                                                                       

© 2012 David Minor / Eagles Byte

UP THE RIVER AND BEYOND

(Continued from January 24, 2012)

We left James Stuart a few weeks ago enjoying his haggis in a Nassau Street tavern. As September 1829 drew to a close, wanderlust once again caught him up and he left Westchester, heading north a third time. He'd made the previous trips by steamboat, thereby missing many of the communities along the way. "I set about preparing for our expedition. The hacks or hackney-coaches of New York are admirably suited for such an expedition as this. They are light, some of them not above 1100 pounds weight, the roof being supported upon a metal frame. Curtains are let down in a moment in case of rain, or for protection from the sun."

Stuart took his wife along this time. Departing from New Rochelle they boarded a hack owned by a Hugh Duffie and set off across Westchester County. Since Stuart doesn't mention passing through Yonkers or White Plains they probably headed straight northwest, hitting the Hudson River south of Tarrytown. Stuart will later recount the story of the capture of Major Andre here at Tarrytown during the American Revolution - his sympathies naturally enough with Andre. The Stuarts didn't tarry in Tarrytown (Sorry!!) but pushed on to Sing-Sing, where Stuart, an avid student of penal systems, notes that the 480-foot-long facility is still not completely finished, the prisoners being put to work all day hewing rock and finishing walls. The main cell building must have looked familiar, having been modeled by architect John Carpenter after one wing of Auburn Prison, which Stuart toured last year. Although the town of Ossining would not be incorporated for another sixteen years, a small community must have already grown up around the prison, for Stuart mentions stopping in at a local bookseller. It wasn't just idle curiosity, he was looking for a copy of this year's annual report on Auburn Prison, required by law for all state penal installations. The bookseller has none in stock but since Stuart mentioned he's on his way to Albany, he should be able to pick up a copy from the secretary of state's office in the capital.

The party pushes on, crossing the Croton River at Van Cortlandt Manor. "We proceeded in the evening to a second rate hotel, near the village of Croton, kept by civil people, of the name of Macleod". Apart from the manor house there would have been little else there except for a Quaker meeting house and a few mills and brickyards. After a simple supper Mrs. Macleod brought in her son and two daughters to see the strangers. The Stuarts found them to be quite well-educated, with the eldest daughter well-versed in geography.

The next day, after a hearty breakfast they were on the road again, heading for Verplanck a few miles further up the Hudson. Stuart had seen the point of land that poked out into the river when he'd come this way by boat earlier and was anxious to check out the area. They soon passed onto private property, in order to get closer to the river, and eventually encountered a fork in the road. Puzzled as to which direction to take, they asked a group of hands spreading manure in a field from the back of a wagon for directions. It turned out that the driver was one of the Verplancks, owner of extensive lands on both sides of the river. Stuart was surprised. He'd expect landowners out in the west to work out in the fields along with their hired hands, but not here in the settled east. Stuart was relieved that Verplanck had the extreme good taste to avoid discomforting his visitor and, "made no allusion whatever to the employment in which we found him engaged". Some things gentlemen just do not discuss.

PARDON ME, BOY

(Continued from October 23, 2011)

Those New Yorkers who couldn't afford Manhattan's theaters and dining establishments in 1829 could still find free entertainment around town. On January 15th the ship Columbia arrived in port from Newcastle-on-Tyne, England. Aboard the vessel were a variety of large pieces of formed iron, which were unloaded onto wagons and carted off to the corner of Frankfort Street and Water Street - the northern stretch of the later today renamed Pearl Street, beneath the approach to the Brooklyn Bridge. There the iron sections were unloaded at the iron foundry belonging to Garrett Abeel and Edward Dunscomb. When assembled at the plant the local citizens could gawk at one of the first two locomotives in the United States, the Pride of Newcastle.

The other locomotive, the Stourbridge Lion, arrived just about the same time - under separate cover - aboard the packet boat John Jay from Liverpool at the West Point Foundry, across the Hudson from the military academy. When assembled they were both to be shipped off to Carbondale, Pennsylvania, and used to ship coal eastward up over the Moosic Mountains to Honesdale, then shipped out to the Hudson by the new Delaware & Hudson Canal. Philip Hone - who we've met before - a recent mayor of New York, had been a major backer of that canal. He was a also diarist; on May 27th he wrote: " . . . I went to Abell (sic) & Dunscomb's foundry to meet a large party of gentlemen who were assembled by invitation to see one of the new locomotive engines in operation, which was recently imported from England . . .". Ties magazine - as in railroad ties - would later write, " The two locomotives at their separate locations were mounted on blocks with wheels clear of the ground and run under full steam for observation by groups of prominent men and scientists, plus curious passers - by attracted by the show."

The problem was, when the machines arrived at Carbondale they proved to be too puny to do the job and a different kind of railroad, using gravity rather than steam power, had to be employed. The two British imports were put out to pasture and met various fates. Today the Lion is on display at the Smithsonian, where its remains were brought and reassembled in 1888. A replica can be seen at the Wayne County Historical Society’s Museum in Honesdale. The Pride has been lost, perhaps the victim of an explosion.

If you were the sort that considered such contrivances as railroads to be devil's devices, or if your mind was just on more divine matters, you could find other diversions around town in 1829. On January 11th the Episcopal Church at Washington and Prospect streets in Brooklyn opened a large schoolroom adjacent to the church. After a new Manhattan Dutch Reformed Church was dedicated at the end of July; their cousins over in Brooklyn dedicated their new church two months later. About this time the Brooklyn Sunday School Union was formed and members of three or four classes began annual parades around the village. In years to come the emphasis would turn to secular schools and the holiday called Brooklyn Day was born. But no matter what your religious affiliation, you could always participate in some political action this year, petitioning Congress to halt Sunday delivery of the mails. Congress jumped right on it and passed the legislation in 1912.

© 2005 David Minor / Eagles Byte

EASTERN NEW YORK TIMELINE / 1680-1684

1680

Apr 1

Philipsburgh Manor is granted to Frederick Philipse.

Nov 14

Kirsch’s Comet appears over the northern colonies, causing Boston’s Increase Mather to preach a sermon on Heaven's Alarm to the World, and the Hudson River Dutch to petition for a day of fasting and humiliation. It will have disappeared by March 19th of the following year.

State

Abraham, Jacob and Catherine Schellinger, children of East Hampton settler Jacobus Schellinger, needing land to farm, move three miles east and found Amagansett. ** The approximate date Mohawk spokesman Chief Hendrick (Theyanoquin) is born. ** Dutch missionaries Jaspar Danckaerts and Peter Sluyter visit Albany. ** Daniel Janse Van Antwerp is granted 165 acres of land in Woestina (today's Rotterdam Junction area). ** Over the past decade Hudson Valley travelers have noted that card playing has become increasingly popular among the Munsee Indians.

1681

Feb 8

Trader Evert Wendell is born in Albany to shoemaker and trader Jeronimus (Harmanus) and Ariantie Visscher Wendell.

Nov 30

Albany sheriff Richard Petty is granted a warrant against certain tavern keepers who illegally stay open all night, singling out Ida Barents. She will be in trouble repeatedly over the next two years for similar infractions.

State

Frederick Philipse erects a house on the Nepperhan River, at the future site of Yonkers. ** Southampton farmer Joseph Pierson registers his own cattle earmarks.

1682

Nov 4

Mohawks transfer deeds to Jan Mangelse, Captain Johannes Clute, and Claes VanBoeckhoven. The latter deed reserves the right to the Indians to have free wood and hunting.

State

The Verplanck family buys Hudson Valley land for farming in the future Newburgh area. ** Robert Livingston begins buying land along the Hudson River, the nucleus of the future Livingston Manor.

1683

Jul 26

Mohawk Indians grant deeds to Cornelis Van Dyck and three others, retaining hunting & fishing rights. The Indians confirm the loosely-defined Kyaderosseras or Queensborough Patent, encompassing most of today's Saratoga County, to May Beckley, Johannes Beekman, Ann Bridges, Samson Broughton, Johannes Fisher, Peter Franconneer, Manning Hermanse, Adrian and Jovis Hogelandt, John Stevens, Johm Totham, John Tuder, and Rip Van Dam.

Sep 26

Mohawk Indians deed to Arnold Viele lands covering 16 to 17 morgens (a Dutch measure equal to about 2 acres).

Nov 1

New York's Albany, Kings, Dukes, Westchester, Ulster, Cornwall (islands off the Maine coast), Dutchess, New York, Orange, Queens (including Hempstead and Oyster Bay), counties are chartered by Royal Governor Thomas Dongan. Long Island's East Riding of Yorkshire is organized as Suffolk County. Martin's Vineyard, in Dukes County, later becomes Martha's Vineyard, part of Massachusetts.

Nov 8

The Connecticut-New York boundary dispute is temporarily settled by a new commission sent over from England,

Nov 28

The Connecticut-New York boundary dispute is settled by committee, temporarily.

State

The General Assembly of Freeholders reorganizes the province’s governmental structure into 12 counties.

1684

May

The Connecticut Assembly approves the border with New York.

June 5

Algonquin Indian chief Sepham and others cede lands of the Tuckahoe Hills, later part of Yonkers, to Frederick Philipse.

Jul 30

The Iroquois renew peace treaties with New York's governor Thomas Dongan, at Albany, plant a Tree of Peace.

Aug 1

Iroquois land is deeded to Governor Dongan.

Aug 21

New France (Canada) governor Joseph-Antoine de la Febvre leads a force of 1800 out of Fort Frontenac (Kingston) to the mouth of New York’s Salmon River, for a parley with the Indians. A scarcity of fish leads to the death of a number of his troops.

Nov 1

Dongan grants a patent for Schenectady County.

Nov 4

The village of Schenectady is patented. Control of all the common lands is vested in the original grantees. ** The Saratoga Patent, in Washington and Saratoga counties, is granted to Cornelius Van Dyck, Peter Schuyler, and others.

© 2011 David Minor / Eagles Byte

Passage of Time

In 1900 New York City military surplus dealer Francis Bannerman purchased Pollepel Island in the Hudson River, south of Poughkeepsie. Over the next 17 years he built a castle-like structure as a combination summer home and storage warehouse. After Bannerman’s 1918 death the structure underwent a series of destructive incidents, including an explosion and later a fire, that destroyed the interior. In 1967 the family, who had continued living there during the summers, sold the building to New York State.

Last winter I was returning from Manhattan by train on a wintry day and took these pictures out of the passenger car window, which due to conditions turned out to have an almost abstract look.

















Then, this past December, the New York Times reported that two thirds of the eastern tower and a third of the adjacent wall had crumbled, due to over a century of poor weather.

So, there’ a slightly smaller portion left to see today. Still, worth a look, if you get a chance.

© 2010 David Minor / Eagles Byte

RECENT NOTE

A Preservation News Story on Banerman's Castle can be found at

www.preservationnation.org/magazine/story-of-the-week/2010/end-of-a-fairy-tale.html