History of Westchester county : New York, including Morrisania, Kings Bridge, and West Farms, which have been annexed to New York City, Vol. II, Part 64

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898,
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.E. Preston & Co.
Number of Pages: 1286

USA > New York > Westchester County > History of Westchester county : New York, including Morrisania, Kings Bridge, and West Farms, which have been annexed to New York City, Vol. II > Part 64

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The fifth floor contains the purifiers, on which the middlings are treated. The purifiers consist sim- ply of a horizontal recip- rocating sieve with a cur- rent of air blowing upon the middlings as they travel slowly upon the sieve, which is covered with silk. The currents of air take out the bran impurities and the fluffy and woody fibre, while the clean white mid- dlings drop through the opening in the silk and are conveyed to the

The whole method has been used only a few years, and illustrates the progress of modern invention. The establishment employs from twenty to twenty- five hands.

Mr. J. R. Couper, residing near Dobbs Ferry, is president of the company, and Mr. A. G. Mowbray, of Tarrytown, is superintendent. After twenty years of inilling experience in Minnesota, Mr. Mowbray is thoroughly master of his art, and is well known by all the great millers of the country. The reputation of his goods for their superior quality is almost world- wide.

SOLDIERS IN THE WAR FOR THE UNION .- It is

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estimated by those most competent to judge, and upon the best information attainable, that the number of soldiers from Tarrytown and its vicinity, who served in the army during the War of the Rebel- lion, was not less than four hundred. Many of them went to New York City and other places to enlist, so that their names do not appear among those in the organized company that enlisted and went directly from Tarrytown village. As illustrating this state- ment, may be mentioned Mr. Charles Theodore Car- penter and Mr. George Price, who, on April 19, 1861, seven days after General Beauregard opened fire on Fort Sumter, hastened to New York City to march with the Seventy-first Regiment to the front, but be- ing too late to join it, they were mustered into the Eighth Regiment New York State National Guards, Colonel Lyons commanding. They went on the 21st to Annapolis, thence to Washington, and on May 21st were at Arlington House, where Major Alexan- der Hamilton, now General Hamilton, of Tarrytown, was at that time in command. They were in the first battle of Bull Run, where Comrade Carpenter saved the flag of his regiment, and, afterwards, in 1862, at Fortress Monroe and up the Peninsula through the Seven Days' Fight.

Mr. B. Frank Davis, at the same date, April 19th, was mustered into the famous Seventh Regiment, Colonel Lefferts, and afterwards did good service in the One Hundred and Sixty-fifth Regiment Second Duryea Zouaves.

It is known, also, that General Adam Badeau, a member of General U. S. Grant's staff, and his private secretary, and historian of his campaigns, was a native of Tarrytown. So, likewise, was Horatio Wood, pri- vate secretary of Admiral Farragut, whose marvel- ons achievements have illuminated the naval history of the nation.

Among others who made Tarrytown their home was the late Brigadier-General James H. Hall, who, with his son, fought bravely in the great struggle for the Union.

Others also there were, as in the case of John C. L. | edietions by the people. Stirring speeches were made

Hamilton, who joined the Duryea Zouaves, and was in the battle of Big Bethel. He afterwards served through the whole war and attained to the rank of major. His brother, Edgar Hamilton, joined the Lin- coln Cavalry, under Colonel Charles Cleveland Dodge, and after serving through the war was mustered out with the rank of lieutenant-colonel.

But all these are individual cases, and, like a vast number of others, find no mention in the records of the organized Tarrytown company.

That company was known as Company H, Thirty- second Regiment New York State Volunteers. It was mustered in by Colonel Roderick Mathison, then commanding, who, however, was soon succeeded in command by Lieutenant-Colonel Francis E. Pinto, promoted to the rank of colonel. This company was organized at Tarrytown by Captain William Chal-

mers, in April and May, 1861, and was mustered iuto service at New Dorp, Staten Island, May 31, 1861. Its period of service was for two years, unless sooner discharged. The engagements in which it partiei- pated were the following : First Bull Run, West Point, Gaines' Mill, White Oak Swamp, Savage's Station, Charles City Cross-Roads, Malvern Hill, Chantilly, Crampton's Gap, Antietam, first Fredericksburg, sec- ond Fredericksburg and St. Marie's Heights. It was at West Point, Virginia, that Corporal J. Oscar Jones now ('aptain Jones, of Tarrytown, for gallant and meritorious conduct in a desperate charge upon the enemy's position, was promoted to a lieutenaucy on the field of battle. At the organization of the company the command was held by Captain William Chalmers. He resigned July 21, 1862, and having en- tered the service again, was appointed colonel of the Ninth Regiment New York State Volunteers. Wil- liam H. See, who had been first lieutenant under Captain Chalmers, succeeded him as captain. See, in turn, was succeeded as captain by J. Oscar Jones, who commanded until the company was mustered out. First Lieutenant Alfred Lawrence acted as captain during a short period after See's discharge, and before Captain Jones took the command. William Aitchison was for a time second lieutenant, butresigned August 8, 1861. The time of service having expired, the com- pany was honorably mustered out in New York City on June 9, 1863.

The roster of Company HI shows that the number of non-commissioned officers and privates in the com- pany, as first organized. was eighty-seveu men. While in the field eighteen men were added to their ranks, who served with this company until its term expired, when they were transferred to the One Hundred and Twenty-first Regiment New York State Volunteers.

When the company left for the front, in May, 1861, a large and spirited public meeting was held at the monument where Andre was captured, and the com- pany, having marelied upon the scene, was received and sent away with great enthusiasm and warm ben- and the occasion was enlivened with martial music and ringing cheers.

In 1863, when the company returned with decimated ranks and banners torn and begrimed with the shot and smoke of battle, business was suspended and the village turned out to give them a welcome. After being escorted through the streets by a grand proces- sion, they were publicly received on Broadway, in front of Newman's Tarrytown Academy, the first house north of the Andre Brook. The writer of these lines, as he had had the honor to address them atthe Andre Monument on their departure, so he had again, in connection with Major-General John E. Wool, the honor to deliver to them an address of welcome on their return.

After the war, in 1869, a Post of the Grand Army of the Republic was established in Tarrytown, under

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the name of Post Acker, from a Tarrytown soldier, George Acker, who was the first to be killed in battle. Through the efforts of this organization the granite monument was erected, near the cemetery entrance, to the memory of the soldiers who fell or died. The cemetery company donated the plot for that pur- pose.

Post Acker having been disbanded in December, 1883, the Ward B. Burnet Post was organized in 1884, and it is now engaged in raising funds to complete the monument by placing the bronze statue of a sol- dier upon its erown.

The office of the provost marshal was located in Tarrytown during the war, and the place in conse- quence became the scene of many exeitements and of some stirring events. Especially was this the case about the time of the draft riots, in July, 1863. So threatening was the condition of things just then that several companies of United States troops were en- camped in the outskirts of the village, and two United States gun-boats lay in the river off the town. The writer remembers to have been surprised, on returning from New York by the boat one day, toward evening, to find a cannon drawn up in Lower Main Street, near the provost inar- shal's office, and a soldier pacing up and down just near it. Colonel JJames A. Hamilton, of "Nevis," was warmly inter- ested in supporting the government, and having been himself personally concerned in plans to protect the provost marshal's office against the rioters, has given in his published "Reminiscences " some account of what took place.

On July 16, 1863, he wrote to the Hon.

Edward M. Stanton, the great War Secretary under Lincoln, as follows :

"In my letter yesterday I informed you of the measures taken to re- sist the mob in the neighborhood (Tarrytown). At present, all is quiet, with threatening, however, at all the landing places along the River.

* * * * *

"Captain Leonard, Provost Marshal, has acted with great prompti- tude and efficiency. We, at the same time, waut your assistance.

" First -We waut four or five hundred soldiers. When the riots are put down in the city, the soldiers can be sent to us. (Thie rioters will certainly come here.)

"Second .- Whenever the draft is made, it should be done at the Court-House, White Plains (the County town). The building of mas- sive stoue can be made a fortress, It is in an open space, incapable of being burned. The town has not as large a foreign element as there is iu Tarrytown, and, above all, if the building should be fired, private property would not be destroyed. We could in that building and the jail, close by tlie C. H., where there are very few tenants, provide for a large force.

* *

* * *

"P. S. The enrollment papers of the districts are beyond the reach of rioters for the present."

Farther on, in the narrative part of his account, Colonel Hamilton adds :

" A body of rioters went on their way from the south part of the town, advancing to Tarrytown with music and a flag, endeavoring by threats to courpel men in the fields to stop their work and go along with them ; when in their course they learned frour our scouts that we were prepared for them, they stopped by the road side and scattered.

On the ground near the Marshal's office we collected about fifty men, who were armed with such guns as could be obtained. The arrange- ment was that oue-half of this force should be stationed in the building where the office was, aud the residue in tho secoud story of an opposite building. The orders were, to keep strict silence, and when the rioters made an attack on the door of the office-building, to fire a volley from the opposite side of the street in their midst and most effectively ; and this would have been done. The force in the office-building was under the command of a young Lieutenant of the army, who stopped at the station."

That in the opposite building was under the direc- tion of Colonel Hamilton himself.

OLD HOUSES .- There are several old houses in Tarrytown that have a history going back to the Revolutionary War, and some of them even far

OLD PAULDING AND REQUA HOUSES.

beyond it. The most famous of these probably is known as the Paulding house. It is a frame building, situated on Water Street, and almost within a stone's throw of the cove, which there sets in from the river. It is not more than three minutes walk from the Hnd- son River Railroad depot. The track of the road is quite near it, and the house is plainly visible from the ear-windows. But it is now very much dilapi- dated,-in fact, in a half tumble-down condition, with the floors rotted away, the rooms damp and deserted, and green moss growing on the roof, which consists of three layers of shingles, the lowermost being of cedar, the one put on upon the top of the other, as, after long intervals, there was occasion to make re- pairs. No one would imagine, from looking at the house and its surroundings now, that it had ever been the seat of elegant culture and refinement, where dis- tinguished men and lovely women met and enjoyed the pleasures of a brilliant social life. Yet here it was that James Kirke Paulding, so eminent in the ranks of early American authorship, the intimate friend and literary collaborator of Washington Irving, and Secretary of the Navy under President Van

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Buren, lived from the elose of the Revolution until the year 1800, when he removed to New York City. And from this house it was that Washington Irving, then a very young man, and a guest in the Paulding family, went out for half a day of boating on the river, and rowed down to Wolfert's Roost, where, going ashore, and loitering along the slopes and in the glen, the tranquil beanty and sweet attractive- ness of the place so deeply impressed him that he then first conceived the idea, which he long after- wards carried out, of buying it as a home for himself. Mr. Irving made this statement in a conversation with the late Mrs. Benson Ferris, in the presence of her son, Mr. Benson Ferris, Jr., now president of the Westchester County Savings Bank, who distinetly remembers it, and communicated the fact to the writer. The garden and grounds around the Panld- ing house are said to have been always kept in the best of tasteful order, and the place altogether to have presented every feature of a bright and beauti- ful home. But it has had its day, and served its purpose, and all tokens now indicate that decay will soon lay the old mansion in the dust.

Just north of it, on the corner of the street leading down to the cove, is the old house owned and oceu- pied in those early days by Judge Isaac Requa, long since passed away. That, too, was a place of home comfort and happiness, ahnost as well kept and as at- traetive as the Paulding place adjoining. But that also, like its long-time neighbor, must soon yield to the inevitable law.

It must have been near this point along the river bank, on the upper side of the cove, that the " first public slip," referred to as having been constructed by Gilbert Drake, at least prior to 1787, was located. Among the manuscript "Land Papers." filed in the office of the Secretary of State at Albany, are two caveats, both dated March 13, 1787. The first is the "Caveat of Mary Van Wort against granting the ap- plication of Isaac Requa and Gabriel Reqna, for two thousand feet of land under water at Tarrytown land- ing, unless that there be twenty feet reserve for her from the sonth boundary of her house." (Vol. xliii, p. 162.) The second is the " Caveat of Gilbert Drake against granting to Mary Van Wort, or any other person, two thousand feet of the land under water, from high water mark, opposite Tarrytown landing." (Vol. xliii, p. 163.) The document proceeds to say that it was "By the partienlar request of Captain Frederick Philipse that an interval should be left be- tween the store and dwelling-house of the said Gilbert Drake, and was to be appropriated to the use of a public slip, and the said Gilbert Drake was the first person that docked, or caused docks to be laid on each side of said slip, and is ready to attest to the bounda- ries thereof. The said ship has, since the period of the late war, been claimed and taken up by Captain Glode Requa's sons, and publication has been made by way of advertisement, that lie intends to make application

to the Land-Office for a grant of land under water two thousand feet from the eove at Tarrytown."

Another house old, and apparently a great deal older, than the Paulding house, is the one now owned and oceupied by Mr. Jacob Mott, up the hill, on the east side of Broadway, north of Main Street, and very near to the Second Reformed Church. It has under- gone a number of changes, but the original walls, built of stone, still stand as they did one hundred and seventy-four years ago. The house is somewhat back from the road, embowered in trees, and with a pleas- ant yard around it. It is difficult to determine exactly when the house was built, but so far as the facts can be gathered it seems to have been about the year 1712. To Abraham Martlingh, belonging to a numerous family among the early Dutch settlers, is due the credit of its erection. It has had in succession quite a number of owners. It was sold to a Van Houten, then to an Austin about 1816, then in 1818 to Jonathan Odell, then to Andrew Lumoreux, then in 1826 to Jacob L. Mott, father of the present owner, and finally, in 1834, Jacob Mott bought it of his father, and has lived in the house ever since. At the time of the last pur- chase the place contained about eighty acres alto- gether, and the price paid by the son was three thou- sand eight hundred dollars. In 1838 Mr. Mott re- paired the house, without changing it very much, however. as his former school-mate and friend, Wash- ington Irving, came to see him while the work was going on, and urged him to preserve the original building so far as he possibly could. There are many things of interest connected with the old house. During the Revolution it is said to have been a house of public entertainment. A sick officer was quartered there, occupying the room which is now the parlor, and General Washington came to the house a number of times to see him. It is said that a emnon-ball fired from a British ship of war in the river passed through one of the parlor windows, and out through the door- post on the other side. Mr. Irving himself made the statement to Mr. Mott that this was the house in which Katrina Van Tassel lived, when she enslaved the susceptible heart of Ichabod Crane, as recounted in the Legend of Sleepy Hollow. The place at the present day is suggestive of rest and peace, and the gentle creed of its oeenpants, who belong to the So- ciety of Friends, seems to have breathed its peculiar spirit upon them.

Abont two minutes' walk from the Jacob Mott house toward the south, on the same side of Broad- way, below Main Street, and next door to the West- chester County Savings Bank, stands another old house, whose solid timbers were put together more than a hundred years ago. It is the honse now owned and occupied, as it has been for about thirty years past, by Mr. Isaac B. Lovett. The frame is of the best hewed white oak. and has had a somewhat varied history. Ereeted in the closing quarter of the eighteenth century, it first comes to remembered no-

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tice in the opening decade of the nineteenth, as the property of John Archer, long since deceased. In 1810 it stood a little farther south, directly opposite the pleasant antique dwelling now occupied by Mr. D. O. Archer, and having one of its gables toward Broadway. Mr. John Archer, being the owner of a good farm and a large apple orchard, followed the custom of his day, and made large quantities of cider. The frame of this house he used for the inclosure of his cider mill. Seventeen years later, in 1827, he converted the building into a hat factory, and com- bined the two lines of occupation, namely, working the farm and manufacturing hats. It was here and with him that Justice Elias Mann, then a sprightly and volatile lad, now a substantial and honored citi- zen, who has faithfully served the community as a magistrate, familiarized himself, in a practical way, with the last-mentioned branch of business. Later still, in 1836, Mr. Archer moved the old structure from where it then stood down the gradual slope to the spot where it now stands, and having converted it into a dwelling-house and store, he rented it, for that two-fold purpose, to the firm of Messrs. Beach & Wheeler. After four years, the firm was dissolved; but Mr. Beach remained until 1842, when the late Andrew D. Archer, as executor, sold the place to Mr. Elisha Wildey, who occupied it till 1847, when Dr. Fenelon Hasbrouck became the owner, and used the house for a dwelling and a doctor's office until 1854. It was then bought by Mr. George Ricard, of Brook- lyn, but occupied by Mr. Cornelius Van Cott, who used the house for a dwelling and a glassware and lamp store till 1855, when, his wife having died, he gave it up, and Mr. Ricard sold it, December 9, 1856, to Mr. Isaac B. Lovett, who moved in on the day he bought it, and has lived there ever since. In 1873 the house was thoroughly reconstructed, and the shop adjoining on the south was converted into a dwelling-house and store. The stanch old timbers, that have done duty through so many changes for over a hundred years past, give promise that with their "hearts of oak," they will render good service for over a hundred years to come.

On the northwest corner of Main Street and Broad- way stands the old Martin Smith house, that was famous as a stage-house on the New York and Albany post-road, and in all the region north and south, and "over back " from Tarrytown village. It is a frame structure, and originally it was only a story and a half high. The date of its erection is not known, but it is believed to have been long before the Revolution, and by some indeed it is claimed to be ahnost as old as the Jacob Mott house. Mrs. John Dean, the widow of John Dean, one of the young men who started out together with Paulding, Williams and Van Wart, on the morning of the day when Andre was captured, and the mother of the late Thomas Dean, stated dis- tinctly that it was an old house when she first knew it. She, of course, lived in the time of the Revolution,

and was very familiar with the neighborhood. In the part of the house near the chimney was what might be called an auditory pipe, or square box, built up like the passage-way of a dumb-waiter, from the side of the fire-place to the upper floor, where a person could stand, and, having removed a piece of board that seemed on a cursory view but a part of the in- closure, could apply his car to the opening and hear everything that was spoken around the fire-place below. In the uncertain days of the Revolution it is said to have been used for the purpose of obtaining information of military movements from persons who stopped at the tavern, and in the talk around the hearth chanced to drop some unguarded word. When' first built, the house was small and squatty, being about twenty-five by thirty feet, and its door was in the south- east corner opening on Main Street ; but afterwards, when it was owned by Jacob Couenhoven, about 1806, the door was so changed as to open on Broadway. Cou- enhoven, who was usually called Conover, is said, in fact, to have built all around the house, almost com- pletely inclosing the original, and rendering the remodeled building much more roomy and conve- nient. The same variable orthography occurs in this name as in so many others. It is spelled Covenhoven, Couenhoven and Cowenhoven ; but Jacob, in his autograph, wrote it Couenhoven.

In tracing the title, the place which previously belonged to the Philips Manor is found to have been conveyed by the Commissioners of Forfeitures, Isaac Stoutenburgh and Philip Van Cortlandt, to Ann Covenhoven, by deed dated December 6, 1785. On October 5, 1786, she mortgaged the place to George Clinton for one hundred pounds. The mortgage was cancelled October 26, 1802. The place passed suc- cessively to Jacob Couenhoven and Edward Couen- hoven.1 The last-named individual conveyed it to Martin Smith by deed dated May 3, 1821. Captain Martin Smith had previously lived in Tarrytown under the hill, and had sailed a sloop between New York and Albany. In his hands the house was a place of public entertainment, where the New York and Albany stages stopped, going and coming, to change horses and allow the passengers to refresh themselves or to dine. Many are the stories told of curious or amusing incidents that occurred there while he was the host. Mr. Smith was a man of marked energy and shrewdness, but of peculiarities that amounted sometimes almost to eccentricity. He accu- mulated a large estate, and gave up keeping a public- house some years before his death, which occurred on September 15, 1860, at the age of seventy-five. Among the incidents of his life as the keeper of a hotel was the "passage at arms" between himself and his son, Mr. Jacob B. Smith, as "party of the first part," and Mr. Freeman Hunt, founder of Hunt's

1 It is claimed that Edward Couenhoven was the original projector of the Erie Canal.

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Merchants' Magazine, as " party of the second part." Mr. Hunt, while making a land tour up the Hudson, had occasion to stop overnight at Mr. Smith's hotel. The son, who is still living in Tarrytown, alleges that Mr. Hunt misused some of the furniture of his sleep- ing apartment, and was not in all respects as tidy as a gentleman should be. The result was a personal dis- agreement and the utterance of a threat by the son that if lie ever eame there again he would pitch him out of doors. Mr. Hunt, deeming " discretion the better part of valor," shook off the dust of his fect, and, mounting to the stage-box, took his departure, like Adam from the gates of Paradise, never to returu. He revenged himself, however, by publishing in the American Traveler some letters, which were afterwards republished in a book-form, in 1837, in which he gave an account of his journey, and attempted to get even with his quondam host. The following is his side of the story, and must be taken for what it is worth :

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History of Westchester county : New York, including Morrisania, Kings Bridge, and West Farms, which have been annexed to New York City, Vol. II, Part 64

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898, Publication date: 1886 Publisher: Philadelphia : L.E. Preston & Co. Number of Pages: 1286

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898,
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.E. Preston & Co.
Number of Pages: 1286