USA > New York > Greene County > Catskill > Reminiscences of Catskill : local sketches > Part 4
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She had arrived at womanhood when the first NAPOLEON was born ; she witnessed his career from the time his star first faintly shone at Brienne, and tracked that meteor as it gleamed over fields of blood and conquest until it reached its zenith, and paled at Waterloo, and she saw it go down in darkness at St. Helena.
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She witnessed the birth of our infant Republic ; she saw it rising higher and higher in the scale of Nationalities, until it had attained a glorious el- evation, towards which the gaze of the world was turned in wonder and admiration. She saw, too, with the dimmed eyes of age, impious hands raised to sever the bonds of union, and to pull down from its towering height, that proud republic. Heaven did not permit her to see the foul act ac- complished.
More than three-quarters of a century ago, she made this place her home-when the red men were more numerous than the whites on the present site of the Village, and when the regions beyond the Catskills were a far-off country. Here she has lived while successive generations have sprung into existence, served their allotted time and pass- ed away. And still she has lived on.
Armies of humanity have come up to the battle of life-have borne the heat and burthen of the day, and have laid down beside their arms in end- less rest. And still she has survived.
Thousands, later than she, have commenced the journey of life-have trodden the world's dusty thoroughfare, and have gone to their eternal re- pose. And still she has lingered, until it almost seemed that busy Death had deemed he might well permit to tarry in the world, one whom earth's cares could not too keenly vex, whom its sorrows could not too deeply depress, nor its folly or its sin either sully or corrupt.
And now, she too, who so long awaited her ap- pointed time, has taken the path upon which there are no returning foot-prints. She rests from her labors, and her works do follow her.
We do not propose to write her eulogy. That duty belongs to those who have known her longer and better than we have; yet we cannot refrain from mingling our sympathies with those among whom our lot is east, and who mourn the eutha- nasy which has removed a "Mother in Israel" from our midst.
CATSKILL CEMETERY PAPERS .- SECOND SERIES .- No. I.
AUGUST 6, 1863.
It is now more than seven years since I com- menced a series of articles for the Recorder and Democrat, entitled "The Grave-yard at C-,"* in which I proposed to revive the memories of some of the early inhabitants of the Village. After publication of three or four of those articles, causes (which are not now material) induced me to discontinue them.
More recently, I have attempted to bring to the remembrance of local readers a few more of the "old settlers, " a recollection of whom was suggested by the perusal of a bundle of "Harmony Lodge papers." These sketches were hastily written, and, I confess, were as unsatisfactory to myself as they doubtless were to those who took the trouble to peruse them.
More than seven years, however, have elapsed since my first essay in this direction, and yet no other has undertaken to rescue from utter oblivion the memories of those who have long been laid to rest in the pleasant Village Cemetery, and the rapidity with which those seven years have passed, admonishes me that the number of those who might per- form that "labor of love" is fast diminishing. I can call to mind many who read my first sketch who have gone "to take their places in the silent halls of death." At every visit to my native home I miss some familiar face, some cordial greeting, some warm clasp of the hand. At every visit to the Burial Ground some new raised mound presents itself to the eye, and some newly chiseled monument bears the name of an old friend. It may be of one to whose "tales of the olden time" I listened
in my boyhood ; it may be of one who was the loved companion of my youth and man- hood ; or it may be one of the gentler sex who, many long years ago, attended, with me, the Village School-for whom I built the swing in the pleasant "cedars," and whose course through life, as maiden and mother, I have watched with interest, until she, too, went to her final rest. All, all are passing away.
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My first remembrance of a Cemetery at Catskill, is of the old grave-yard at the present corner of Broad and Livingston streets, near where the residence of Mr. FREDERICK HILL now stands. I was but a child when the remains of those who were buried there were removed to the grounds on the hill, yet I remember to have accompanied my father while he assisted in surveying and laying out the lots. (In after years, when the Cemetery was enlarged, I spent a number of days in the same labor, with my ancient colored friend, BILL THOMPSON, the Village Sexton.) The lots embraced within the limits have been, long since, occupied, and it has been found necessary, quite recently, to extend the borders of this "City of the Dead."
I have always thought that the present site of the Cemetery must have been the selection of a person possessing a fine appreciation of, and love for, the beautiful in Nature. I know no lovelier spot. In the Western dis- tance, a single glance of the eye takes in the whole range of mountains, framing in a pic- ture of hill and dell, and meadow and wood- land ; up the hill-side rises the hum of the
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busy Village which nestles at its foot ; while | of the surface typifies that equality to which away to the North-west stretches the valley Death reduces all men, and here the rich and the poor, the haughty and the humble "lie down, alike, in the dust." of the Catskill, presenting a view which, we have the warrant of the poet-painter, COLE, in asserting, is unequalled by any scenery And here there are many lying, of whom I have spoken in neither of the series I have attempted, and, as no one else seems willing to assume the task, I propose to resume it, if the editor shall think that my imperfect sketches will so far interest his readers as to warrant their publication. which had fallen under his vision in all his journeyings. All around, the landscape is surpassingly lovely-"a thing of Beauty." Unlike the more fashionable repositories of departed mortality, there are here no elevated spots where the elaborate monuments of the wealthy or the proud may seem to look down contemptuously upon the plain slabs which mark more humble graves ; the perfect level *The three preceding Sketches.
CATSKILL CEMETERY PAPERS .- SECOND SERIES .- NO. II.
AUGUST 20, 1863.
Sauntering through the Cemetery, and scan- ning the inscriptions upon the head-stones, I find, among the names which most frequently occur, that of DUBOIS. While this frequency indicates a numerous race of that name in this vicinity, I presume there are few of the pre- sent generation who bear it, who are cognizant of the slight chance by which their patronymic was perpetuated, or the imminent danger which at one time threatened to extinguish the American branch of this now numerous and respectable family. As the name denotes, this family is of French origin-Du Bois, in that language, signifying "of the wood," or forest.
About the year 1650, a little band of perse- cuted Huguenots left their native land, emi- grated to this country, and settled at a place called Wyltwick, near Kingston, and also at New Paltz. Among the latter was a young man named Dubois, and near New Paltz the incident to which I alluded occurred (probably about 1670-5,) when the entire extinction of the Dubois family was providentially prevent- ed. A party, consisting of Mr. Dubois, his wife, child, and others, werc returning, one Winter evening, from a visit to Rhinebeck, in a sleigh, and while crossing the Hudson, and near their home, the ice gave way, plunging the whole party into the River. Mrs. Dubois, with great presence of mind, threw her infant upon a cake of ice, from which he was rescued, while all the other occupants of the sleigh were drowned ; and but for this escape the name would have been lost. [Does not my old friend, BENJAMIN P., shudder when he thinks how very near he came to being nobody ?]
This rescued waif I suppose to have been Domine GUALTIERIUS DUBOIS, who married HELENA VAN BALEN, on New Year's day, A. D. 1700, and from whom sprang the thousands of the name who exist at this day, and the hundreds with whom I have been personally acquainted. But it is not my pur- pose to trace genealogies.
*
The oldest members of the Dubois family of whom I have any personal recollection, were JOIN, BARENT, PETER and JOEL. John occupied the farm lying on the West side of the Catskill, near its confluence with the Hudson ; a pleasant location, commanding a fine view of the River, embracing Bompies Hook and the Sand Plauchy on the North, and the "Vly" on the East and South-the latter suggestive, doubtless, to the early settler, in its wide expanse of swamp, of the j'ens of Old Holland-or, in the nightly music of its bull-frog orchestra, of the mixed dialect of his Franco-Dutch progenitors. To the West of the homestead, the ground gradually rises, until it reaches the elevated level which crowns "the Hoponose." [And here, permit me to say that I have never yet learned the true sig- nificance or origin of this name. Mrs. Axx S. STEPHENS, the novelist, does, I believe, in some of her works, attempt to fish up its derivation, but I confess I could never make head or tail of her version of the matter, any more than I could of her interminable tale of "Mary Derwent." In my boyhood there was a tradition that a drunken Indian agreed to hop from the hill into the Creek, for a pint of whisky, and that, in the performance of the feat, he fell on his nose, and broke it- hence "Hop-on-nose." My theory, (and it
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is, perhaps, the most improbable of all) is that | had so rudely shaken his extremely sensitive one of the earlier pedagogues of the region, instructing his pupils in trigonometry, made use of this rocky point as a convenient illus- tration of a triangle, describing a vertical line from the top of the hill to the water as the perpendicular, the level of the Creek as the base, and the slope of the promontory as the hypothenuse - subsequently contracted to Hoponose. I don't care much, however, whether your readers believe in my theory, or not, for I can't say I have much faith in it myself.]
The sons of JOHN DUBOIS were as follows : JOHN D., who was called "Young John" long after his head was as bald as a lap-stone. He was a kind-hearted, quiet, genial soul, and had no little faults that I knew, except, per- haps, a slight partiality for schnapps and dominoes. He lived to a good old age, and left to his children the inheritance of an honest name. IsAAo was of a more stirring disposition, and was, at different times, a farmer, a merchant, a skipper and a militia colonel. He served in the War of 1812, and was esteemed as a brave and efficient officer. I can bear witness to the emphatic manner in which he gave the word of command to his regiment, albeit the emphasis was usually of that sort which Corporal TRIM said was so prevalent in "our army in Flanders."
Next, was JAMES, whose unhappy history is so well known to most of your readers as to excuse me from making more than a very brief allusion to it. Early in life he went to New York, as clerk or accountant in a well established mercantile house, and there was, perhaps, no young man who ever left our town with more flattering prospects than James Dubois. No tidings of him ever reached home which were not satisfactory to his parents and friends, and honorable to himself, and a bright future was anticipated for him, when the news arrived that he had become suddenly deranged. I never knew the cause-it was said by some that intense application to busi ness had affected his brain-by others that an unmerited reproof from one of his employers
temperament as to unsettle his mind. He was brought back to the old homestead, and, it is said that, for many years, he never spoke a word ! Yet day after day, at a certain hour he would make the circuit of his father's farm. In the pleasant Spring-time, in the burning Summer, in the mellow Autumn, and in the bitter-cold and snows of Winter, he would traverse that same route, making a round of miles, and return to his chamber, where he would remain in moody silence for the next twenty-four hours, then to resume his solitary walk over the well beaten track, which came to be known as "crazy Jim's path." Many years subsequently, he suddenly resumed the exercise of speech, and, as though to compen- sate for his long silence, he became really garrulous. He abandoned his daily walk, and frequently visited the Village, but liis reason never returned.
IRA DUBOIS is still living, and, of course, it is unnecessary for me to write the history of one who has figured in so many capacities that he cannot be unknown to any adult in- habitant of Catskill. It is sufficient to say that as a merchant, as the founder (in con- nection with Mr. H. H. VAN DYCK) of a newspaper, of which the Examiner is a con- tinuation, as a Justice of the Peace, as Grand High Priest of Masonry, as Assembly Libra- rian, as Custom-house official, and, at last, as clerk or secretary to the Board of Metropolitan Police Commissioners, as well as in all the relations of private life, he has creditably acquitted himself.
JOEL, the youngest son, I believe, is also still living, and, I presume, occupies the old homestead at "the Point." Being nearer to my age than the others, I was more intimate with him than them, and I can only say that the remembrance of our youthful associations is very pleasant.
But I find I am exceeding my limits, and must defer to another number a sketch of the other branches of the Dubois family.
CATSKILL CEMETERY PAPERS .- SECOND SERIES .- NO. III.
OCTOBER 23, 1863.
I believe I proposed in my last to continue my notice of the DuBois family. My earliest recollections of Captain BARENT DUBOIS, is as master (or Skipper) of the packet sloop Thos. Jefferson, famous, in those days, for sailing qualities which, wind and weather permitting, enabled her to make the round trip from Cats-
kill to New York, and home again, in about a fortnight-say a few days more or less. My next remembrance of him is as vocalist at the after-dinner sit-downs on Independence days and General Trainings. It is true that his musical qualifications were not of that high order which would, in these days, command a very large salary in a fashionable choir, yet I
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can bear witness that his performances were always greeted with rapturous applause. I said performances, though I believe he never attempted to sing but one song, and that was something about "Lord Butte," accompanied by sundry pantomimic gestures and genuflex- ions of a cotton handkerchief, twisted into the
As years passed on, carrying me towards "man's estate," I became more intimately ac- quainted with the good old Captain, and I have spent hours in hearing his stories of the bar- barities committed by tories and savages, and of combats in which he had borne no unim- portant part. In all these narratives he man- aged to introduce his beau-ideal of a war- rior-"Old MURPHY"-in such a way as to induce the suspicion that he might have been the coadjutor of the "Schoharie Indian killer." That Capt. Dubois had done good service to his country, (though in what capacity I am unable to say) is proven by the fact that he was in the receipt of a pension from the Gov- ernment until his death.
It was said that in early life he had been a Federalist, but if so, he abundantly atoned for 3 that heresy by a subsequent active and efficient support of the Democracy. I well remember that when, in 1828, I deposited my first vote, for ANDREW JACKSON, it immediately followed one of the same sort from Capt. Barent Dubois, and I know that he lived and died in the Den- ocratic faith. When, at last, at a good old age, he went to his rest, there were none who clid not mourn the loss of an excellent citizen and honest man.
Barent Dubois had three sons, who are all now dead. The eldest, CORNELIUS, was a lawyer, and married a daughter of JOHN DUBOIS, (of whom I wrote in my last article.) He died so long ago that I am unable to give any sketch of his life, character or peculiari- ties. His widow died, I believe, within the last year, leaving two daughters, who suffer the penalty which is said to attach to consan- guineous marriages. The second son was named BARENT, and was a tanner by occupa- tion, having served one of those old-fashioned apprenticeships, of seven years, with the late HENRY ASHLEY, (I think cotemporaneously, or nearly so, with two of your present respected citizens, ISAAC ROUSE and GEORGE BELLAMY.) Soon after attaining his majority, young Barent left Catskill, and was, for many years, an Agent of the Government for the removal of the Indians to the far West. Subsequently he purchased a tract of land at Montgomery, Alabama, and it is said he became quite jacket.)
wealthy. He is especially associated in my memory with a feud between the Villages of Athens and Catskill, which, at one time, as- sumed a belligerent aspect, though it fortunately terminated without any loss of life, or much bloodshed. There had been, for some time, a bitter feeling existing with our Athenian neigh- partial semblance of an old woman, operated bors, growing out of the contest in relation to by the dexter fingers, and keeping time with the chorus of "Boo me here, and scratch me there," at which the aforesaid applause always "'came in."
the location of the County buildings, and very little provocation was requisite to fan the fire into a blaze of war. The immediate casus belli was as follows: Catskill and Athens had each an Artillery Company ; the first com- manded by Capt. JARED STOCKING, and the other by Capt. SAM. HAMILTON. Soon after the close of the last war with Great Britain, (only a few years previous to the time of which I am now writing) the Government withdrew all the ordnance from these Companies, except one brass six-pounder, which had to do duty for both. Just before the fourth of July, about the year 1820, (I am not clear as to the exact year) the Catskillians, having resolved to celebrate that anniversary, asked of the Athenians the return of the gun, which was flatly refused. The war spirit of 1812-15 had not entirely subsided, and the Catskillians determined to capture the artillery, or "perish in the last ditch." Accordingly, two nights before "the Fourth," a devoted band-a sort of forlorn hope-made a midnight raid into our sister Village, and, breaking into the barn which served as an arsenal, bore off the field- piece in triumph.
Athens reposed in quiet until its slumbers were broken by the echoes of the stolen gun, fired from the height near BRANDOW's. Then there was hurrying to and fro, tall swearing and threats of vengeance, as the infuriated Athenians started in pursuit of the despoilers. They were too slow of foot, however, to over- take the Catskillians, who reached town in safety, dismounted the gun, deposited it in the bar of MACKAY CROSWELL's tavern, and put up the carriage in the wagon-house .- Being highly elated with their success, and feeling assured that "the gun" was safe, as they cast an eye upon it every time they went to the bar to drink, this little band of heroes relaxed their vigilance, of which, the Atheni- ans taking advantage, effected an entrance into the wagon-house, recaptured the gun- carriage, and harnessing the landlord's cow to it, they succeeded in reaching home with their prize, before daylight. War was now, of course, fairly inaugurated. Our Village was then placed under martial-law, and young Barent Dubois was constituted Military Gov- ernor. (I well remember how proud and patriotic I felt, young as I was, when he tied a blue ribbon into the button-hole of my Pickets were stationed at every
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outlet or inlet to the town, while the draw- bridge was opened, and a swivel, loaded with slugs and paving-stones, was planted upon it, to repel any attack which might, by possibility, be made by the way of Kiskatamanatie ! All the next day and night the Village resounded with the beating of drums, the squealing of tifes, and the ebullitions of patriotism. The succeeding morning's sun ushered in the "Glo- rious Fourth." It was a lovely day, and such a celebration was never witnessed in Catskill before or since. "The Gun, " mounted on the axletree of an ox-cart, its muzzle pointed towards Athens, bellowed "from morn till dewy cve," doubtless striking terror to the hearts of our adversaries; the little swivel chimed in with a sharp accompaniment. and fire-crackers filled up the intervals. The day closed, as usual, with a dinner and a drink, and the next morning, "the gun" was hoisted up into Isaac DrBois' loft, from which time to the present I have never seen nor heard from it. The war was over, but a long time elapsed before amicable relations were fully re-established between the two Vil- lages.
Perhaps I ought to apologize for this tedious episode, but I could not bear that the waters of oblivion should entirely overwhelm an affair which, at the time, was as important to
the actors in it, as SHAY's Rebellion, the Whisky Insurrection, or the Helderbergh War. Let those who are disposed to sneer at the slight cause which produced this belligerent feeling among neighbors, ask themselves whether the war which is now devastating, depopulating and impoverishing our Country has any nobler or more honorable origin.
The third, and last son of Barent Dubois was SAMUEL. He was only a few years my senior, and was at one time a school-mate. My first recollection of him, in business life, was, I believe, as a partner of Mr. PETER T. MESICK-afterwards he kept a Grocery store "on his own hook" at the corner of Main and Liberty streets. I do not recollect any very especially interesting incident in his life, ex- cept that he once knocked out two of MARK SPENCER's teeth, while under the influence of laughing gas, although there were some ill- natured enough to insinuate that party spirit had more to do with the affair than the pro- toxyd of Nitrogen. He commenced the trade of politician very early, and was, for many years, Under Sheriff and Jailor, and finally, High Sheriff of the County. But his death is so recent that most of your readers knew him as well as I did, and, as I am exceeding my limits, I conclude.
CATSKILL CEMETERY PAPERS .- SECOND SERIES .- No. IV.
FEBEUAZY 24, 1865.
Not far from the center of what was "the old ground," but which is now comprised in the Southerly portion of the present enlarged Cemetery lot is a small area of sunken earth, which, at my last visit, I found covered with brambles and stunted bushes. No marble monuments indicated the separate sepulchres of those who are laid there-no kind hands remove the straggling undergrowth, or plant flowers to mark their lonely graves; and, perhaps, never since their burial, have sur- viving friends revisited the lone spot to drop a tear to their memories. "They are clean forgotten, and out of mind." Yet here the rays of the Summer sun creep in among the matted grass and tangled weeds, and lie warm as upon the more conspicuous graves of those about them-here, the birds of Spring sing as sweetly, and here Winter spreads its snowy covering as smoothly over the sunken surface of their narrow beds, as over the protuberant tombs of their illustrious neighbors in death. In this spot rest the poor and lowly, those of
the lineage of LAZARUS, who on earth lacked the good things of life.
More than forty years ago our Village held numerous specimens of this class, and some of them, perhaps, deserve a more diffuse notice than the remark that they existed and died. Those who have attained to my age, in reverting to the olden time, cannot easily avoid associating in their recollections of Catskill, sneh characters as SIMON SMITHI, JOE GARRISH, JOE WILLIAMS, SAM. STEWART, and a long list of others, (whom I purpose to mention here- after) the very "DOLPHI HEYLIGNS" and "RIP VAN WINKLES" of the town.
When I first knew SIMON SMITH (though he was not an old man then) he had evidently passed the age of work. I think he was the laziest person I ever knew-laziness limped in his laggard gait, and was stamped (or rather painted) in every lineament of his rubicund countenance-indeed, he was too lazy to fol- low the example of his apostolic namesake, and "go-a-fishing." Hour by hour of the long Summer days he would lounge on the
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stoops or boxes, or the side-walk, only shifting | home with a good-sized aperture in his crani- his position to keep in the shade; and, in Winter, he was the first in the morning and the last at night to toast his shins at the Gro- cery fire.
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