History of Duchess county, New York, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 35

Author: Smith, James H. (James Hadden); Cale, Hume H; Roscoe, William E
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y. : D. Mason & Co.
Number of Pages: 868

USA > New York > Dutchess County > History of Duchess county, New York, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 35

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* The other third part of the said tract or parcell of land the said Peter Schuyler hath sold and delivered to the said Barent Van Benthuysen, his heirs and assigns forever. Now this indenture witnesseth that the said parties to these presents being now fully minded and agreed that the aforesaid tract or parcell of land shall be divided and laid out in lotts as equall and conveniently as may be, in manner as the same are laid out, delineated, proportioned and ascer- tained on the surveys, draft or chart thereof, refer- ence whereunto being had may now plainly ap- pear."

Tauquashqueick meadow (Schuyler's Vly) was divided into three parts, and disposed of by lots, Barent Staats drawing the south, Barent Van Ben- thuysen the middle, and Henry Beekman the north part.

The Saw kill was found to have three falls of water, and " eight acres of land conveniently locat- ed to each fall of water, being in all twenty-four acres, which creek, falls, and twenty-four acres are reserved, and undivided, and remain as yet in com- pany between the said parties, each one-third part

thereof, for the use of such saw-mill and saw-mills, grist-mill or grist-mills, as at any time hereafter by the said parties, their heirs and assigns, shall be thereon erected." For the building of these mills the parties reserved to themselves the right to enter on any of the parties' lands not " infenced and improved, and cut down and have, and carry away timber " for any of the mills mentioned.

In this final partition and disposition of the Schuyler patent, Barent Staats acted for himself, and for his brothers, Abraham, Richard and Isaac, and his sister, Elizabeth. The deed was signed, sealed and delivered in 1725, in presence of Har- manis Schuyler, Peter Livingston and Robert Livingston, Jr.

The reservation of the mill sites, and the right to cut timber therefor on each others' lands, seem to indicate that there were no mills on the Saw kill in 1725; and the reservation of the right to pass over each other's lands with teams and wagons, indicates that there were no highways constructed at this date, excepting, perhaps, the post road."*

The Cruger's Island, t referred to in the patent of Col. Peter Schuyler, is one of the most distinguished of any in this section, and one of the best known localities. The Crugers, for whom the island was named, were equally noted as citizens, politicians, and soldiers. As early as 1739 John Cruger was Mayor of New York City, and his son subsequent- ly, was also Mayor. Another son was a colleague of the celebrated Edmund Burke, as representative in Parliament for the city of Bristol, England.

Col. John Harris Cruger was one of the most distinguished Americans who supported the crown during the Revolutionary war ; and besides gallant services on other fields, rendered himself famous by his successful defense of Fort Ninety-Six in South Carolina, in May and June of 1781,} against the American army under a General second only to Washington-Nathaniel Greene -who had with him as director of the siege works, and chief engineer, a man whose celeb- rity was as great in Europe as in America- Thaddeus Kosciusko.

The present representative of the family, Stephen Van Rensselaer Cruger, now Colonel of the Twelfth Regiment, National Guards, S. N. Y., distinguished

* Smith's Hist. Rhinebeck, p. 25.

t The islands in the Hudson near Tivoli-Magdalene Island and Slip- steen, or Slijpsteen Island-have been known by different names ; the lat- ter by the names of " John DeWitt's Island " and "Goat Island ;" while the former was once known as " Marston " and " Wanton " Island, Wanton, in Dutch meaning " mitten shaped."

# Also in command of the British Centre at Eutaw Springs, the last battle of the Revolution in the South, Sth Sept. 1781.

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himself in the Union service during the war of the Rebellion. His first battle was Gettysburg, and in the Atlanta campaign at Resaca, as Adjutant of the 150th Regiment, N. Y. S. Volunteers, he was desperately, and to all appearances mor- tally wounded in two places.

At the southern end of Cruger's Island is a mimic ruin, built in imitation of the remains dis- covered in Chiapas and Yucatan by John Lloyd Stephens, one of the first of the great American explorers, who brought home carved stones which he presented to John C. Cruger, and which are in- corporated in the walls erected by the latter.

Although, as in the deed above quoted, there seems to have been no mills here in 1725, the mills afterward built on the White Clay kill and Saw kill were a prominent feature of the earlier times.

On the Saw kill-so named because the first use · made of it was to turn saw-mills,-at one time stood Judge Livingston's mill at the river ; Gen- eral Armstrong's mill at Cedar Hill ; Van Ben- thuysen's mill, and a woolen factory, in the same place ; the Chancellor's (now Hendrick's) mill, in the interior ; and Robert G. Livingston's mill on the Rock City branch.

The White Clay kill, so-called because some where it runs through, or from, a layer of white clay, had at one time at its mouth the mill of Jannetje Bradt, Park's mill at Myersville, (Madalin, ) Cook's factory, and Zachariah Hoffman's mill. But very little mill- ing is done on this stream now.

Lossing, in his " Field Book of the American Revolution," (Vol. I, 389,) speaks of the British having burned the Livingston mills above referred to. An antiquarian of Red Hook,* a gentleman well informed on the earlier history of the town, is perhaps the first who ever put on paper the sit- uation of these mills. Not a vestige of them now remains. They consisted of a very fine grist mill, for that era, and a saw-mill which did an immense business, and were located at the south Cove, at the mouth of the Saw kill, a creek which empties into the Hudson river just north of what is known as General Montgomery's house. t

Mr. Winegar, who married George H. Ellsworth's aunt, and who was a carpenter's apprentice at Up- per Red Hook landing in 1810,¿ told General de Peyster that when he came here he often heard the people talk about the burning of these mills by the British. " My father," said Mr. Winegar, "was a

soldier under Putnam in 1777, and the battalion to which he belonged followed the British fleet up the river from Fishkill, but kept out of the reach of their guns. His company was posted on a range of hills back of the river, north of Mr. Tanner's place, on what is now known as the Saulpaugh Ridge. Putnam's troops saw the smoke of the British burnings, and a detachment was pushed down to the edge of the water, near the mouth of White Clay (now Ham's) creek."

As at the mouth of the Saw kill, there were a grist-mill and saw-mill, and also a brick-yard at the mouth of White Clay kill.

At that tinie, and for inany years afterward, there was an artificial channel from deep water through another " Vly " into the estuary of White Clay kill, as far as the tide flowed, or nearly up to the falls. Through this channel sailing sloop scows went in for freight. It has been said that sloops could also enter here, but doubtless reference was made to what the British used for transporting troops-flat bottomed boats with sails.

The North Cove mentioned was once very deep water, and has been filled up rather by the subsi- dence of the clay banks surrounding it than by de- posits. To show the great depth of the alluvial deposit, the railroad company have driven piles seventy feet long on the Cruger "Vly," without finding any solid matter, the piles there being sus- tained by suction. On the Johnston Livingston place, within twenty-five years, about three acres settled over eighty feet, so steadily and without shock, that the trees on the sunken ground were not in the least disturbed from their positions.

This mass seemed to settle into a bed of semi- liquid blue clay mud which was crushed up into a point outside in the bay. A short time after this subsidence a second section of about the same area, and inside the first, also sank down ; but this settlement seemed to encounter a denser substra- tum, because it was forced up under the first sub- sidence and overthrew the trees which had hitherto stood in their natural positions.

Mr. Winegar, to quote from him again, also said that the dock at which all the freighting was done still remained at Reade Hook, now Johnston Livingston's Point, but the store-houses were gone. Just inside of Reade Hook, and between it and the sinking ground, the hull of Chancellor Livingston's or rather Fulton's first regular North River passen- ger steamboat was built. In this enterprise Fulton

* Gen. J. Watts de Peyster.

t Gen. Montgomery never lived on this place, but his widow did.

# Died about three years ago.

* This empties into the North Cove, the Saw kill into the South Cove, and these two were separated by a " Vly' now traversed by the cause- way to what is known as Cruger's Island.

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HISTORY OF DUCHESS COUNTY.

was aided by Livingston, the latter furnishing the money. Mr. Winegar took the census of this town in 1825, under the State law, and there were then over two hundred and eighteen slaves in the town .* It is doubtful if there are one hundred negroes, or anything like it, now to be found therein. t

Mr. Winegar was present in 1824, when the Marquis de LaFayette landed, and shook hands with him. The landing-place was at Livingston's dock, about two miles above Tivoli. All the Revo- lutionary soldiers from this neighborhood were drawn up in line to receive him.

General de Peyster's father-in-law, John Swift Liv- ingston, who bought the country seat where Gilbert R. Livingston lived during the Revolution, told him that the British detachment that burned the Liv- ingston mansions, above Upper Red Hook land- ing, now Tivoli, disembarked at the dock opposite the south-west corner of his place; thence they marched up through the woods to the work of destruction. Gilbert R. Livingston was a loyalist, and had been an officer in the British service, and his was the only dwelling spared by the British.

Mr. Winegar, above quoted, said that when he was a lad this place was considered the handsom- est on the river, and was traditionally so. The mills here, perhaps the oldest in the town, were built, according to tradition, by Gilbert Livingston, the second son of the first lord of the manor. The old house, with an enormous central chimney, on an elevation south-west of the mills, must, in whole or in part, be equally as old. The house passed into the hands of his grand-daughter, Helen, who married Commissary-General Hake, of the British forces in the Province.

Robert Gilbert Livingston, second son of the first lord of Livingston manor, married Cornelia, daughter of the noted patentee, Col. Henry Beek- man, and was one of the earliest settlers and land owners of the town of Red Hook. He received from his father one-seventh part of Saratog, (Sara- toga.) He died in. 1746. His eldest daughter, Margaret, married Peter Stuyvesant of New York, another daughter Joannah married General Pierre Van Cortlandt, one of the most prominent patri- ots of this State during the Revolution ; and a third daughter, Alida, married Henry Van Rensselaer, whose son, Jeremiah, was Lieutenant-Governor of this State from 1801 to 1804.

Gilbert Livingston was County clerk of Ulster,

a much more important and respected office in those than in later days. He built the Livingston Mills, and the old house on the hill which was afterward occupied by his great-grandson, Samuel Hake, Jr., and which was the scene of much semi- barbarous luxury and display characteristic of the living of rich country land owners of a century ago. Gilbert's son, Robert Gilbert, was one of the Livingstons who remained loyal to the Crown during the Revolutionary War, and suffered in consequence. He married Catharine McPheadres, whose father built the famous residence now known as the Warner Sherburne, or Whipple House at Portsmouth, N. H., which, with its grounds and gardens, cost a sum at that time equal to the most lavish expenditure made for such an object in these days. In land, Robert Gilbert Livingston was an enormously wealthy man, and large areas which came through him are still held by the descendants of his daughters who married General Hake and John Reade.

Gilbert Livingston's son, Gilbert Robert, occu- pied the only mansion (Green Hill) which was spared by the British in 1777, as before mentioned.

Robert Gilbert Livingston was grand-father to Helen, who, as previously stated, married General Hake, whose daughter Helen married Frederic de Peyster, father to Frederic de Peyster Jr., the present venerable president of the New York His- torical Society.

Harry or Henry Gilbert Livingston, who built the only house on the river's bank which the British spared in 1777, built directly after the Revolution, the mansion now belonging to Mrs. Kidd. He sold the house and lands at Green Hill on the river to his brother, Gilbert Robert, who, because he had held a commission under the Crown, had this property spared. West of this house of Mrs. Kidd's, under the hill, and down near the creek, embodied in the present building, are remains of one of the oldest houses in the town, and was the dwelling belonging to the mills which were at the mouth of the White Clay kill, below the falls. This house, in 1777, was occupied by the Ameri- can forces watching the British fleet lying in the channel from Cruger's Island up to the Columbia county line.

One of the most distinguished citizens who ever settled in the town of Red Hook, was General John Armstrong, of the Revolutionary Army, better known, perhaps, as the anonymous author of "The Newburgh Addresses " than for services of much more importance to the country. Washington at

* The final abolition of slavery in this State occurred the 4th or 5th of July, 1827.

t The State census of 1875 gives the colored population as 86.

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first condemned these letters, but in 1797 he did justice to their author, and in a letter assured Armstrong that he believed his object to have been just, honorable, and of service to America. General Armstrong was born at Carlisle, Penn- sylvania, November 25th, 1758. At the age of seventeen he left his studies at Princeton College and entered the army of the Revolution as a private in a regiment from his native State. He afterward became Aide-de-camp and Major in the Revolutionary army, under General Horatio Gates. He was Secretary of State to Governor Franklin, of Pennsylvania, and Adjutant General of that State. He subsequently married Alida, sister to Chancellor Robert R. Livingston, of Clermont, Columbia County, N. Y., and at once became as influential in his adopted as he had been in his native State.

In 1797 he was owner of the Bard property at Annandale, and of the mill at Cedar Hill, and occupied the mansion on the estate, which, it is said, was built by him. In 1801 he accepted the office of United States Senator, which was tendered him by an unanimous vote of both branches of the Legislature. In 1803 he was re-elected to this office, which he retained until 1804, when he re- signed it to accept the mission to France, as suc- cessor to his brother-in-law, Chancellor Livingston. This position he retained seven years. After his return from France he purchased an estate on the Hudson, south of Barrytown, on which he built a fine, and in some respects curiously arrang- ed mansion, which, after his daughter, Margaret, married William B. Astor, became the property of that gentleman, who in the course of time added largely to the area of the domain. This place is known as "Rokeby."

Toward the close of his life General Armstrong built a less spacious dwelling in the village of Red Hook, which is now occupied by his son, Col. Henry Beekman Armstrong, the only surviving child, and the last survivor of Margaret Beekman's grand-children. In this house he died, April Ist, 1843, and his remains are interred in the family vault in the cemetery at Rhinebeck.

Col. Henry B. Armstrong is one of the few living distinguished officers of the war of 1812. His first commission was Captain of the 13th In- fantry, April 19, 1812. He was severely wounded at the assault on Queenstown Heights, October 13, 1812. He was promoted to Major of the 23d Infantry in April, 1813. He distinguished himself at Stony Creek on the 6th of June of the same

year. In March, 1814, he was transferred to the 4th Rifles, and on the 17th of September, 1814, he became Lieut .- Colonel of the Ist Rifles.

Gen. John Armstrong had three other sons in the United States Army and war of 1812,- Horatio G., William, and John, Jr. Another son, Kosciusco, named for the celebrated Polish patriot, was as remarkable for his literary attainments as were the others for their military services.

A large portion of the land about what is now known as Tivoli, was owned by the Hoffman's, a quite prominent family here something more than a century ago, who purchased a portion of the Schuyler patent which had lapsed.

In 1722, as before stated, Peter Schuyler had the upper fourth of his patent (that fourth which he sold to Harme Gansevoort,) surveyed and divided into thirteen lots, seven of which he set over to "Lowrance Knickerbacker, Cornelius Knickerbacker, Evert Knickerbacker, all of Duch- ess County ; Anthony Bogardus, of Albany, and Janetje, his wife ; and Jan Vosburgh, of the said Duchess County, and Cornelia, his wife ; sons and daughters of Harme Jans Knickerbacker, deceased. In 1766 Jan Vosburgh, and Cornelia, his wife, Lowrance Knickerbacker and Hans Jury Lound- ert, all of Rhinebeck precinct, in Duchess County, of the one part, and Anthony Hoffman, of Kingston, Ulster County, Zacharias Hoffman, of Rhinebeck, of the other part, agree to divide a certain tract of land lying adjacent to the south of the manor of Liv- ingston, apparently belonging to them in common. Either by this, division at that time or at an earlier date and in another manner, the Hoffmans became the owners of lands at the river about Tivoli, and about the old Red Church and the Hoffman Mills, northeast of Tivoli ; and they were freighters, storekeepers, and millers before and after the Revolutionary War."

One of this family had, for those times, a very fine and spacious stone dwelling, of which not a vestige now remains. This mansion stood in a grove of locust trees, at the extreme point of the domain now owned by Johnston Livingston, where there are still to be seen vestiges of the dock belonging to the first freighting establishment at what is now Tivoli. On an old map of those days this point is known as " Hoffman's Ferry."

" Holgate," continues Smith, "in his genealo- gies, says these Hoffmans were descendants of Martinus Hoffman, of Sweden, who settled at Shawangunk, in Ulster county. His son, Nicholas, married Jannitje Crispell, daughter to Antonie

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HISTORY OF DUCHESS COUNTY.

Crispell, a Huguenot, one of the patentees of New Paltz, and thus transmitted some of the best blood of France in the veins of his descendants. He says he settled in Kingston. He was evidently the Nicholas Hoffman who owned land in the precinct of Rhinebeck as early 1725, and was a free-holder here in 1740. He had no son Nicholas, and his grandson of that name was not born at this date.

" Nicholas Hoffman and Jannitje Crispell had five children :- Martinus, born in 1706 ; Anthony, born in 1711 ; Zacharias, born in 1713; Petrus, born in 1727 ; Maria, born 1730. There is here a space of fourteen years between Zacharias and Petrus, which Holgate ought to have accounted for.

" Martinus Hoffman married Tryntje Benson, daughter of Robert Benson and Cornelia Roos, for a first wife, and the widow, Alida Hansen, daughter of Philip Livingston, the second lord of the manor, for a second; and was thus brother-in-law to Rev. Dr. John H. Livingston. By Tryntje Benson he had nine children, as follows :- Cornelia, born in Kingston, Aug. 13, 1734; Robert, born in Kings- ton, Sept, 17, 1737 ; Anthony, born in Red Hook, Aug. 1, 1739 ;* Maria born June 20, 1743 ; Martin, born in Red Hook, January 12, 1747, baptized in the Camp Church, July 3, 1747; Zacharias, born in Red Hook, May 10, 1749, baptized in the Rhine- beck German Reformed Church at Pink's Corners, June 2, 1749; Jane, born February 14, 1752; Harmanus, born January 3, 1745 ; Nicholas, born 1756; he had one child by Alida Hansen Living- ston, Philip L., born December 28, 1767."

Philip Livingston Hoffman married Helen Kis- sam. They had seven children, -Catharine Ann, Alida, Helen, Hannah, Philip, Richard Kissam, Adrian Kissam. The latter had several children, among them John T. Hoffman, ex-Governor of New York.

Martinus Hoffman was a Justice of the Peace for Duchess County in 1750-'51. In 1755 he owned ten slaves, the largest number held by any one person in the precinct. He was doubtless a man of large property and influence. His son, Anthony, was supervisor of the town of Rhinebeck from 1781 to 1785. He was Colonel, and member of the Ist, 3d, and 4th Provincial Congresses.

Anthony, brother to Martinus, resided in Kings- ton. His son, Nicholas, married Edy Sylvester, of New York, and resided in Red Hook. The latter's son, Anthony, married, first, Miss Pell ; second, Ann Cornelia, daughter of Isaac Stouten- burgh and Ann Heermance, aunt to Rev. H.

Heermance, of Rhinebeck. By his first wife his children were : Jane, born March 15, 1808 ; Laura, born November, 1809; Nicholas, born October 18II; Mary Ann, born January, 1814, married Andrew Pitcher. By the second wife the chil- dren were : Edward, Cornelia, Charles, Augustus, Elizabeth, Francis, Frederick, Anna, Catharine, Howard, Caroline. Cornelia, of this family, mar- ried John M. Keese, and had two children-Char- lotte Suydam and Anthony Hoffman Keese.

Col. Martinus Hoffman's wife was Tryntje Ben- son. Egbert Benson was a Member of Congress from 1789 to 1793. We assume that he was a relative, if not a brother, of Mrs. Martinus Hoff- man. John S. Livingston bought land of Egbert Benson in 1715, and we assume they were the premises on which he resided, and on which Egbert Benson resided when he went to Congress from Red Hook.

The burial ground in which were interred some of the inembers of the Hoffman family was on a sand bluff overlooking Tivoli Landing, back of the Farmers' Hotel, and now a portion of the estate of Col. Johnston L. de Peyster. This is the oldest grave yard in this section of the country, and in which there has been no recorded or remembered interment within the present century.

This, says General de Peyster, was once a very pretty spot, shaded by quite a grove of large, wild plum trees, beneath which there were a considera- ble number of tomb-stones, several quite costly for the era in which they were placed, besides others of less pretension. The vandalism which denuded this spot of its trees for fire-wood was not as bad as that which had previously made spoil of the memorials. It is said that the brick supports and foundations of the slabs were appropriated to other uses, and the slabs themselves, in some instances, converted into flag stones.

Here, on this ancient Hill of the Dead, lying flat on the ground, and yearly wasting away by the elements, are still to be seen several slabs of red sandstone; erected to the memory of those who peopled this locality nearly a century and a half ago.

The oldest of these slabs bears date 1764, and bears this inscription :-

"In memory of Mrs. Hannah Vosburgh, daughter of Col. John Ashley, of Sheffield* She was married to Mr. Martin Vosburgh Jan. 11th Anno Domini 1764, & departed this life the 30th of June follow Being 19 years, 7 months & 28 Days of age."

* Massachusetts.

* Died 1790.

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TOWN OF RED HOOK.

The next, in order of date, bears this inscrip- tion :-

" Here lies interred the Body of Tryntie Hoff- man, wife of Col. Martin Hoffman, who departed this Life March 31, 1765, in the 53 year of her age."

Another stone, commemorative of the Lowrance Knickerbacker, before mentioned, bears these words :---

" Here lies the Body of Mr. Lowrance Knicker- backer, who di'd ye 20th of December and was buryed ye 22, in the 82nd year of his age in ye year 1766."

The last on which the record is legible is

" Helena Van Wyck, wife of Zacharias Hoff- man, who departed this life April 3. 1773, aged 53 years & 3 months."

In the grounds of General de Peyster, just back of St. Paul's church, and facing his vault, is an old sandstone monument bearing this inscription :-

"In Memory of John Vosburgh, Was born No- vember : the 5 : 1680: and Departed this Life May the: 28: 1775 : aged: 94: Years : 6: Months and : 23 : Days."

This stone was thrown out by the frost and washed down from the old burial ground on the bluff, and was recovered from a barnyard below by direction of General de Peyster, who transferred it to his own grounds.

This old burial ground is now a pasture; the few stones lie prone and crumbling on the ground, under the quaint head stone of Lowrance Knick- erbacker the fowls have hid their nests,* and the names even of those who rest on that commanding bluff have almost passed from the memory of a majority of the residents of the town.

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History of Duchess county, New York, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 35

Author: Smith, James H. (James Hadden); Cale, Hume H; Roscoe, William E Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y. : D. Mason & Co. Number of Pages: 868

Author: Smith, James H. (James Hadden); Cale, Hume H; Roscoe, William E
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y. : D. Mason & Co.
Number of Pages: 868