USA > New York > Dutchess County > Dutchess county > Part 2
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Confronted by an untouched wilderness and a rigorous climate, the few bold white settlers had to fight tooth and nail to implant their traditional mode of living. It was perhaps inevitable that they should regard the Indians merely as one of the many forces to be overcome. The peaceable disposition of the latter served only to facilitate their exploitation. Their land was bought for small remuneration or acquired by trickery. When a first foothold was gained; both Dutch and English, at odds with each other, encouraged dis- cord among the Indians. The whole story, to the passing of the last full- blood Indian in Dutchess, about 1800, is one of continuous disintegration in the face of superior force and complex motives. White civilization was in-
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Dover Furnace
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tolerant and destructive of the ancient Indian modes of life; white man's diseases were particularly fatal to him; and he could not long withstand these influences.
Virtually the last stand made by Dutchess Indians was at the remarkable Moravian mission of Shekomeko, about 3 miles west of the present village of that name, said to have been the first Moravian congregation of Protestant Indian converts in America. The Moravians carried on their ministrations from 1740 to 1744; in the latter year they were definitely ordered to leave the country. (See Tour 1.),
The compulsory emigration of the Indians of Shekomeko was but an instance of the many migrations north, south, and west in which the native population of Dutchess melted away during the 18th century. Large numbers wandered into Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland, and many more into Ohio.
In 1774 the entire Indian population on both sides of the Hudson was estimated by Governor Tryon as only 300, and but a small number of these remained in Dutchess County. Although the proportion of women to men was always higher, a balance was struck by the intermarriage of many Indian women with the white settlers. Indian blood flows in many old families of eastern Dutchess.
Territorial Patents
Between 1685 and 1731, by a series of patents, the British Crown granted the territory of the present county to private persons. Although not valid as titles unless confirmed by Crown Patents, preliminary Indian deeds were required under English law. As noted above, a number of deeds were ob- tained from the Indians. When Crown Patents were required to cover these deeds, a confusion of claims arose which extended over a number of years and led to some uncertainty as to the number of patents. However, his- torians are in general agreement that there were 11 authentic patents. The first was granted to Van Cortland and Kip, Dutch merchants, and a Francis Rombout, of Flemish origin. Known as the Rombout Patent, it was based on the purchase of Rombout and Verplanck from the Indians in 1683, and comprised the present towns of Fishkill, East Fishkill, Wappinger, and parts of La Grange and Poughkeepsie. The second was the Minisinck grant, patented by Robert Sanders and Myndert Harmense in 1686, including part of the present town and city of Poughkeepsie. The Schuyler Patent of 1688 comprised two tracts of land : one already partly covered by the Minisinck grant, and the other, along the river, including the greater part of the town of Red Hook. (In 1699 Peter Schuyler conveyed to Sanders and Harmense all his land rights in the present town of Poughkeepsie). Also in 1688, on the same day, the Artsen-Rosa-Elton Patent was granted, including 1,200 acres in the southwestern part of the town of Rhinebeck. This land was in 1702 named Kipsbergen, after Hendrik and Jacobus Kip, whose purchases from the Indians in 1686, shortly after the Artsen-Rosa-Elton purchase, were included in the royal patent.
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The most desirable Iand was along the river, the settlers' highway to the outside world. The first four patents occupied most of the 45-mile river frontage of the present county. The remainder was taken up in four suc- ceeding patents covering territory the bulk of which lay inland. These were the Pawling Patent (1696, Staatsburg) ; Great Nine Partners Patent (1697, about half the territory between Crum Elbow Creek and Fallkill Creek, the bulk of the domain lying inland) ; Rhinebeck Patent (1703, Rhinebeck and part of Red Hook) ; and Fauconier Patent (1705, Hyde Park).
Three wholly inland patents covered the rest of Dutchess: the Beekman Patent (1703, Union Vale, Beekman, parts of LaGrange, Dover, and Pawling) ; Little Nine Partners Patent (1706, Milan, Pine Plains, parts of Stanford and Clinton) ; and the Oblong or "Equivalent Tract" (1731, eastern Dutchess from North East into Westchester).
The 11 Crown Patents covering 806 square miles of the present county were issued to less than 40 men, about half English and half Dutch. These freeholders held their rights by annual payment to the Crown of a com- modity, usually wheat, which they received in turn from their tenants, upon whom the clearance and cultivation of the county depended. Virtually a feudal system, it was to cause much trouble and unrest in the 18th century, and to prove one of the main incitements, in these parts, to the Revolution.
Territorial Boundaries
Dutchess County was one of the 12 original divisions of the Colony of New York, organized by the first Colonial Assembly on November 1, 1683. It was named in honor of the Dutchess of York, wife of the Duke, later King James II, to whom New York had been granted by King Charles II. Duchess in that day was spelled Dutchess, and this has continued as the official spelling of the county name to this day. The original boundaries were the Van Cortland property (the Westchester line) on the south, the Hudson River on the west, and Roeliff Jansen's Kil (the present Livingston's Creek in Columbia County) on the north. From the river the county was to ex- tend 20 miles east into the woods. Of these boundaries only the river re- mains unchanged. In 1717 Livingston's Manor was taken from north Dutchess, and in 1812 Putman County was organized from south Dutchess.
The boundary line between New York and Connecticut had long been a subject of intercolonial dispute. The Connecticut Charter established the "South Sea" as a western boundary and the royal grant of 1664 to the Duke of York designated the Connecticut River as its eastern boundary. Crown commissioners sent to settle the conflict agreed upon a line north-northwest from a certain point on the Long Island Sound, supposing it would run parallel to, and 20 miles east of, the Hudson. Actually the line struck the river below West Point. As a result, Connecticut agreed in 1731 to cede to New York a territory equivalent in area to the 61,440 acres which comprise the present townships of Greenwich, Stamford, New Canaan, and Darien. The tract ceded by Connecticut to New York extended the whole length of Dutchess County along the Connecticut border and has been known since as
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the Oblong. A slight ambiguity in the surveying remained undecided until 1879, when the present State line was finally established. (See Oblong, p. 123)
Settlement
Before 1664 the Dutch had made three successful settlements in the Hudson Valley (New York, Albany, and Kingston), chiefly for the purpose of exploiting the fur trade, and had systematically attempted to colonize the remaining territory under the patroon system. The wilderness of Dutchess, however, had been left untouched. But it was the Dutch, 20 years after their country had surrendered to Britain the territory renamed New York, that finally formed the vanguard of Dutchess County settlers.
By the time the Rombout tract became the legal property of the patentees, settlement in Dutchess had already begun. A Nicholas Emigh was living at the mouth of Fishkill Creek, and a Peter Lasinck near the mouth of Wap- pinger Creek. Both family names, after many alterations in spelling, survive today. Almost simultaneously, settlements took place in Poughkeepsie and Rhinebeck. In 1687 Governor Dongan reported that none of these deserved the name of a village, but his notice of them at least indicates their existence.
Although the soil of Dutchess was fertile and the river and streams abounded in fish, the conditions under which the first settlers lived were extremely primitive. The earliest habitations, of which there is little record, appear to have been caves dug into the sides of hills, lined with split logs, roofed with spars, and covered with layers of sods. Smoke from the cook fires found egress through a hole in the roof. Though small, these dugouts were doubtless warmer and snugger than the first crude cabins which suc- ceeded them.
The trend of village settlement in the first quarter of the 18th century was back from the river, as is evidenced by the old village centers of Fish- kill, Poughkeepsie, and Rhinebeck. The nature of the land, with its river bluffs and adjacent plateaus, was partly the cause, but the opening of the King's Highway from New York to Albany also exerted a marked influence. Authorized by the Colonial Assembly in 1703, this great artery was to extend from the northern end of King's Bridge, which spanned the Harlem (the first Manhattan bridge), to the "ferry at Crawlew over against the city of Albany." A special dispensation required sparsely settled Dutchess County to maintain only a path or highway wide enough for horse and man. But in 1713 this path was widened to conform to the rest of the highway.
In 1728, three years before the New York-Connecticut boundary line adjustment, the first settlers had arrived in the Oblong. (See Oblong, p. 123.) These were Nathan Birdsall and Benjamin Ferris, Quakers from Connecti- cut, who settled on the long-famous Quaker Hill in the present town of Pawling. (See Tour No. 2, p. 117.) Later other settlers came from West- chester, Long Island, and Connecticut, and helped form the largest Quaker community in the county.
By 1731 settlements were finally being made in every section. The county
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was ready for the great influx of second, third, and even fourth generation pioneers from New England, inured to the climate and conditions of the New World and possessing the experience to establish themselves successfully. In the rapid growth of Dutchess during the mid-century, the abundant water power of the many streams, the fertile soil, and the extensive forests all played a part. Grist and sawmills were erected on many streams in the more thickly settled parts of the county; and as settlements reached farther inland, more mills were built until every hamlet with any potential power at all was self-sufficient in the essential staples of flour and lumber.
County Government
Legislation for a system of county government was passed by the Colonial Assembly in 1691. This was the supervisor system, which, except for its temporary suspension in 1701-3, has continued in effect to the present without material modification. It is said to have been the model of the system now generally prevalent throughout the West.
In 1701 freeholders in Dutchess County were authorized to vote in Ulster County across the river as though residing there. Freeholders, or free prop- erty-owners, alone held the right of suffrage. In 1720 their number had risen to 148, but remained a small minority of the total population. The provisional attachment to Ulster County continued until 1713; then Dutchess, with a total of 445 souls, including 29 slaves, was allowed its representatives in the Colonial Assembly. The first county officials, elected in 1714, appear to have divided the county into three wards, the first civil divisions (followed later by precincts and towns), which were established in 1719 by the As- sembly as the South (Westchester line to Wappinger Creek) ; Middle (thence north to Esopus Island off the center of Hyde Park) ; and North (remainder of the county, north to Roeliff Jansen's Kil).
In 1717 Poughkeepsie was named the county seat. A courthouse, first au- thorized in 1715 for erection in the most convenient place in the county, was again authorized for erection in Poughkeepsie within three years, and appears to have been completed within the time set. (See Poughkeepsie, p. 31.)
The first completely recorded election of county officers was held at Poughkeepsie in 1720. Supervisors of the three wards were chosen, together with constables, collectors, assessors, "overseers of the King's Highway," and in the North Ward, a "ponner for ofending beasts."
Land Tenure
Despite the growth and increasing affluence of Dutchess, there was much economic unrest. The source of all property rights was the Crown, to which patentees expressed allegiance in the form of annual quit-rents of money or produce. These tributes, together. with frequently excessive rents, were exacted from the actual cultivators of the land, the tenant-settlers. The man of Dutchess, therefore, could clear his land, build his home, and till his crops, but never could he become independent. Nor could he vote, for the suffrage
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was extended only to the freeholders, absentee landlords for the most part. It was the feudal system in a form modified to meet American conditions.
Numerous small rebellions against this state of affairs occurred in the Hudson Valley, and culminated in the celebrated "Anti-Rent War" of 1766. Armed resistance by the tenant-settlers to the collection of taxes broke out suddenly in Columbia County and spread rapidly to Dutchess. Here, led by William Prendergrast, a farmer, a formidable band of insurgents assembled on Quaker Hill in the town of Pawling. The grenadiers in Poughkeepsie were ordered to advance against the rioters, but refused until reinforced by 200 troopers and two field pieces from New York. Successful resistance against such a force was evidently impossible, and Prendergrast surrendered. Tried in Poughkeepsie and sentenced to be hanged, he received a royal pardon won by the extraordinary efforts of his wife at the very moment when a company of 50 armed farmers arrived at the jail determined to set him free. The temper of the populace is obliquely illustrated in an advertisement which appeared soon after the sentence of Prendergrast offering a large reward "to any one willing to assist as the executioner, and promising disguise against recogni- tion and protection against insults." Although this brief struggle against the landlords ended in failure, its reverberations did much to loosen the soil for the readjustments that followed the Revolution.
Dutchess in the Revolution
The landlord-tenant situation gives a key to the two distinct attitudes taken in Dutchess towards the Revolution. An English writer at the time of the war estimated that two-thirds of the wealth of the Province of New York was owned by the Tories, or Royalists. Dutchess, with its 964 non- signers of the Revolutionary pledge, as against 1,820 signers, was well represented in this faction. But the thousands of struggling tenants, who had actually cleared and cultivated the now wealthy county, were eager for the political and economic freedom which revolution promised. While the Tory landlords opposed by every means in their power the soon irresistible move- ment, the common people of Dutchess swelled the ranks of the militia and the Continental Army, fighting not only for the abolition of unjust taxes and the right to representation, but for a freeholder's title to the soil. Thus actuated, they poured out in large numbers, estimated by Governor Clinton at 10,000, to stem the British invasion in 1777.
The first expression of Dutchess in Revolutionary affairs was the passing of mollifying resolutions at a meeting in Poughkeepsie in 1774, in which it was declared that "they (the people of Dutchess) ought, and were willing, to bear and pay such part and proportion of the national expenses as their circumstances would admit of." The following year Poughkeepsie was op- posed to the sending of delegates to the Provincial Convention and the Continental Congress, but was outvoted by the county as a whole.
At the first session of the Provincial Congress of New York in May, 1775, county and precinct Committees of Safety were provided for. Circula- tion of the Articles of Association, or "Pledge," as it was popularly called,
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to obtain signatures, effectually brought into the open the trend of feeling. Weapons were confiscated from the non-signers.
The Provincial authorities had determined upon the formation of four New York regiments, one of which was to be provided by Dutchess County. This, the 4th Regiment, was completed June 30, 1775.
The year 1777 was critical in the Revolution and was the year in which Dutchess played its most important part. The paramount question was control of the Hudson Valley, by which the British could divide the states and isolate New England. Fishkill, in its strategic location at the head of the Highlands and on a direct line of communication with New England, was the military center of the county. Here troops were quartered, army supplies stored, and prisoners interned. The newly formed Convention of Representatives of the State of New York met here from August, 1776, to February, 1777; and the village was the hospital center for the wounded from the battle of White Plains.
At Fox's Point, Poughkeepsie (see p. 45), the American frigates Mont- gomery and Congress were built, as well as fire rafts and other small vessels. At Theophilus Anthony's (in Rudco, 2 miles south of Poughkeepsie) were forged parts of the famous chain strung across the Hudson at Fort Mont- gomery to prevent enemy craft from ascending the river. The "Steel Works" near Amenia were busy manufacturing steel for the use of the army. Grist- mills on every stream were grinding day and night to produce flour for the troops.
In the crucial British advance up the Hudson, which commenced October 4, 1777, little of note occurred in Dutchess County, though much alarm was felt and active steps for resistance were taken. On October 8, Governor Clinton reported that "the eastern militia were coming in very fast," and that General Putnam, who was in command of the forces east of the river and had stationed himself at Fishkill, would have "10,000 to head the enemy should they push up the river." As Putnam is said to have had at this time only 600 regulars, this figure represents almost entirely the militiamen recruited from Dutchess.
On October 12, after breaking the famous river chain at Fort Montgomery (whereupon the two Poughkeepsie-built frigates stationed there for addi- tional defense were fired to prevent their falling into the enemy's hands), a few vessels under Sir James Wallace proceeded up the river to Theophilus Anthony's (see above), where much of the chain had been forged. Here they burned a number of shops and mills.
On October 15 a formidable force under General Vaughn was sent far- ther up the river. The fleet anchored that night above Hyde Park. On the 22d, General Putnam, who had followed from Fishkill as rapidly as pos- sible, was in Red Hook, where a few buildings had been burned by the British before retiring to their vessels at the approach of the Dutchess militia. On the 24th, upon being apprised of the surrender of Burgoyne at Saratoga, the British fleet turned back towards Peekskill, where the British commander-in-chief, Sir Henry Clinton, had made his head- quarters. This drive, the failure of which was decisive in the war, was the
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nearest approach towards British control of the Hudson. In the remaining four years of the war fighting did not again come near Dutchess County.
Ratification of the Federal Constitution
Doubtless the most important and most dramatic event in Dutchess Coun- ty history was the ratification of the Constitution of the United States by the State of New York in Poughkeepsie in 1788. The events leading up to the climax of the last ballot were many and varied. From June 17 to the end of July the village was the temporary home of the "best minds" of one of the foremost States of the confederated Nation. Governor George Clinton, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, Robert R. Livingston, Melancthon Smith, Robert Yates, and John Lansing figured prominently in the proceedings. Sixty of the 65 elected delegates were in attendance. Governor Clinton, the chief opponent of ratification, was unanimously chosen chairman and was thus handicapped in debate, in which he was talented and brilliant. Chan- cellor Livingston of Dutchess and Alexander Hamilton, who had been largely instrumental in drafting the Constitution, led the ranks of its sup- porters.
The village throbbed to the debates. Tears flowed freely during some of the passionate pleadings of the talented Hamilton, who, as was proved by the final ballot, did not plead in vain. Nor was the opposition of Governor Clinton without benefit, for it resulted in the adoption of the Bill of Rights amendments, which in later years proved to be the backbone of the Consti- tution.
Aside from the demand for a guarantee of liberty, opposition to ratifica- tion was based on the importance of the Hudson River and the prosperity of shipping in the port of New York. Dutchess delegates subscribed to Clinton's opinion that by a tax on this shipping New York would be called upon to defray a disproportionate share of the Federal expense, while as an independent state it would easily be self-supporting. As debate progressed, the Dutchess delegates yielded this contention, but remained firm in their de- mand that the proposed Constitution be amended to include the New York Bill of Rights as a condition of ratification.
On June 24 word was received that New Hampshire, the ninth state, had accepted the Constitution. Virginia was still unaccounted for, and without her and New York the success of the Union was doubtful. On the afternoon of the second of July, Col. Henry Livingston, riding a foam- covered horse, galloped into Poughkeepsie to announce to the assembly that Virginia had unconditionally ratified the Constitution. He had ridden from New York in 10 hours, record time for those days. The news he carried was a blow to Clinton and his followers; to Hamilton, Jay, and Livingston it brought fresh hope and strengthened argument. On July 15, Melancthon Smith of Dutchess, one of the strongest opponents of ratification, moved for acceptance "on condition" that the Constitution be amended to include the Bill of Rights. Since the word condition would render ineffective a vote of ratification, the proposal was not acceptable to Hamilton and his fol- lowers. Finally a motion was made to substitute the words "in full con-
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fidence" for "on condition," and to this Smith acquiesced. This proved to be the climax of the assembly. On July 26 a final ballot was taken, and the Constitution was ratified, "in full confidence," by a majority of 30 to 27. Melancthon Smith, Zephaniah Platt, and Gilbert Livingston, three Dutchess County delegates, had changed their votes from nay to aye. Without these affirmative Dutchess votes New York would have remained, for the time being at least, a separate sovereignty, endangering the Union at its very in- ception.
Commercial and Industrial Development
After the Revolution river traffic increased rapidly. Poughkeepsie, mid- way on the river shore, soon pushed to the front as a commercial center. (See Poughkeepsie, pp. 25-26.) Other river villages, Fishkill Landing, New Hamburg, Rhinebeck, Red Hook also flourished. In all these places power was supplied by the all-important streams. On Landsman's Kil, in Rhine- beck, grist and sawmills stood so close together that the water from one mill pond occasionally backed up and interfered with the operation of the water wheel of the mill above. An ample supply of raw materials encour- aged these early industries. The hills of the county were covered with virgin timber, and the cleared fields produced crops unexcelled in the State for quality and abundance. Transportation facilities and the proximity of the growing New York market combined to bring Dutchess to a temporary leadership among the agricultural counties of the State.
Next to the river, highways were most important in determining the early development of the county. The King's Highway (Albany Post Road), the first officially authorized road through the county, exerted a marked influence upon the development of village centers, as in the case of Pough- keepsie, which grew around the intersection of this road with the road from the east, rather than on the riverbank. The cattle drovers' route from Ver- mont and New Hampshire to New York had an important effect on the growth of the Harlem Valley villages of Amenia, Dover, and Pawling.
Stagecoaches began running regularly over the Post Road from New York to Albany in 1786. The necessity of changing horses every 10 or 20 miles led to the establishment of the stage houses. In the hamlets these taverns were the centers of community life; travelers enlivened discussions with the latest news, and liquor flowed freely. De Chastellux, traveling twice through Dutchess, in 1780 and 1782, writes that he found taverns enough, but few sufficiently unoccupied to accommodate him. It is believed that by 1800 there were nine taverns in Rhinebeck alone.
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