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