USA > New York > Dutchess County > The history of Dutchess County, New York > Part 19
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THE VILLAGE OF POUGHKEEPSIE.
March 27, 1799, Poughkeepsie was incorporated as a village, the charter providing for a board of five trustees to be elected on the third Tuesday in May. That, however, was only for the first election, all subsequent elections for many years coming in April. The boundaries of the village as then fixed remain the limits of the City of Pough- keepsie to-day. The first trustees were James S. Smith, Valentine Baker, Andrew Billings, Ebenezer Badger and Thomas Nelson. The extant records of the village begin in 1803, when Andrew Billings was president. The village then had something like 1,500 inhabitants and the population of the whole town in 1800 was 3,246. In 1810 the town had 4,669 inhabitants and the village 2,981. In 1855, when the city had been taken out, the town had left but 3,110 people. The town added population very slowly down to 1900, when the growth of one of the suburbs of the city, called Bull's Head, East Pough- keepsie and more recently Arlington, had made much progress, chiefly because of the growth of Vassar College. Channingville, that part of Wappingers Falls north of the creek, accounts for several hundred of the town's population.
The earliest recorded act of the trustees authorized the digging of wells for a village water supply. There was already a fire company in existence with a fire engine. The citizens were required to turn out to fires and and assist in extinguishing them by forming bucket lines and passing water from the nearest well or other source of supply to the engine. The buckets were the property of the people individually and after each fire were collected at the court house where their owners came to pick them out. The most notable fire of the early village days was the burning of the court house, September 25, 1806, and
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on that occasion the difficulty of procuring water was a subject of comment. A new court house, the one torn down in 1903, was built in 1809 and the village trustees at a meeting held May 25th of that year warned the commissioners who had the work of construction in charge that "they do not build the said public building further east- ward on Market street than the ground in range of the houses of Joseph Nelson, John Forbes and Valentine Baker, situate on said Market street-also that the said company of commissioners be notified not to put unslacked lime adjacent to the market so as to cause injury to the village." The market at that time stood in the middle of Mar- ket street, at the junction with Main. It was frequently the subject of controversy and stood for a while adjacent to the Dutch Burying Ground-that is on the corner north of the present building of Smith Brothers. The graveyard remained there until 1830, when the prop- erty was leased for a hundred years and the Brewster block, still standing, was erected. By 1830 the village had begun to grow very rapidly and land was considered too valuable to allow a burying ground on its most prominent corner. It is perhaps rather too bad that this open space in the center of the city could not have been pre- served, and it is certainly to be regretted that the court house was not built in the center of the square, between Main, Market and Washing- ton streets, where the land in 1809 was worth little. Washington street, I think, had not at that time been extended through to Union, and on the plot where the City Hall stands was the residence of Ebenezer Badger. West of the court house on Union street there was only a small frame building or two, one of which was the fire engine house. The village market remained in the center of Market street for a number of years after the construction of the court house, but had been removed for some time when the new market building, now the City Hall, was erected in 1831. The new market building, the upper floor of which was used as a village hall and the lower floor as a market, cost $7,200. Before the time of the Civil War its use as a market had been given up and it was rented to the United States Government for a postoffice during the early years of the war. The postoffice remained there until the present government building was erected in 1886 under the first postmastership of Robert H. Hunter.
Among the memorable events in Poughkeepsie during the early part of the nineteenth century was the visit of General LaFayette, Septem-
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ber 16, 1824. Many people must have stayed up all night to greet the famous Frenchman, for the steamboat James Kent on which he was a passenger arrived at about 2:30 A. M., and was welcomed by a great bonfire and a military salute from the Kaal Rock. LaFayette landed early and was greeted with an address of welcome at the Forbus House (on the site of the Nelson House) by Col. Henry A. Livingston, who compared the occasion to the visits of Washington to the village and to the ratification of the Constitution. Gen. LaFayette in reply re- ferred to his own former visits to Poughkeepsie and to the "great and astonishing changes" he beheld in the place. An official breakfast, for which the village trustees appropriated sixty-five dollars, was held at the Poughkeepsie Hotel, then called the Myers Hotel, and the breakfast room had been elaborately decorated for the occasion by a committee of ladies. George P. Oakley described it as an apartment of "Portraits and Banners and Emblems and Evergreens and Flowers and Festoons and Garlands and Temples and Plate and Porcelain and Arches and Mottoes."
Ten years later, or July 3, 1834, the village mourned the death of LaFayette. There were public services, a gun was fired every half hour all day from "Pine's Hill on Mansion Square," while a long pro- cession wound through the village and the bells were tolled.
An important event was the establishment of the first central village water supply by the building of the reservoir on top of Cannon street hill in 1835, at a cost of $30,000. Water was pumped from the Fall Kill and was used only for fire extinguishing purposes, pipes being laid only on the main streets. The reservoir happened to be empty on May 12, 1836, when Poughkeepsie was visited by the greatest fire in its history, a fire which burned nearly all the buildings on the south side of Main street, between Liberty and Academy streets. At one time the destruction of a very large section of the village seemed in- evitable, as buildings on the north side of the street were several times on fire, but the force pump which supplied water to the reservoir had been started and water came down through the pipes at the critical time, so that the flames were controlled.
Between 1830 and 1837 the village grew rapidly and a remarkable real estate boom was inaugurated by the Poughkeepsie Improvement Party, which included such men as Paraclete Potter, editor of the Poughkeepsie Journal, Nathaniel P. Tallmadge, United States Sena-
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tor, Matthew Vassar, Walter Cunningham, George P. Oakley and Gideon P. Hewitt. Many acres of land were plotted and sold in lots, two chief centers of development being around Mansion Square and the old French farm, south of the English Burying Ground, that is, south of the present location of Christ Church. The industries and schools established by these enterprising men are described under spe- cial headings. Some of their enterprises were daring in the extreme. Among them may be noted here a locomotive factory, started long before there was any railroad in the neighborhood. They did much more than establish enterprises; they made Poughkeepsie an up-to- date, model village according to the light of the times. The streets in the central section were all paved with cobblestones and the sidewalks paved with brick. Trees were planted and efforts were made to make the town as attractive as possible. In the lower part of the town Delafield street was expected to become a leading residence street and land was sold under the restriction that all houses should be placed fifty feet back from the street, which was named after John Dela- field, a New York capitalist who backed many of the local financial enterprises. Nathaniel P. Tallmadge built there his own mansion, a fine house, still standing. The real estate boom was so notable as to attract considerable attention in New York and it is mentioned in many contemporary letters, particularly in those published by Free- man Hunt, who says, under date September 25, 1835, "Lots which were sold eighteen months ago for $600 have been sold for $4,000. A plot of fourteen acres in the suburbs of the village which was pur- chased ten months since for $4,000 was recently sold for $14,000. Another plot which could have been purchased nine months ago for $10,000 was sold a few days ago for $24,000." The many buildings still standing about town, ornamented by Grecian columns and por- ticos, all date from this period. The panic of 1837 ruined nearly all the members of the improvement party, except Matthew Vassar, who was able to buy what others had to sell and is believed to have made substantial additions to his fortune by doing so. Several of the lead- ing men of the time went west after the panic to retrieve their for- tunes. Senator Tallmadge was appointed Governor of the territory of Wisconsin in 1844 and Paraclete Potter had been made registrar of the United States Land Office in Milwaukee in 1841. Gideon P. Hewitt and Henry Conklin were among others who went to Wisconsin.
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The collapse of the real estate boom and of several enterprises es- tablished by the improvement party retarded the growth of the vil- lage only temporarily, for the schools founded at this time continued to flourish and gave the place a wide reputation. In 1830 the village population was 5,023, in 1840 it was 7,710, in 1855, after incorpora- tion as a city, it was 12,763. The rate of growth was evidently not- less after 1841 than between 1830 and 1840.
The Hudson River Railroad was built through from New York to Poughkeepsie in 1849, and for a time trains ran to the lower part of the city, where passengers were transferred to steamboats, the heavy rock cutting beyond that point proving a source of delay. The first train, however, came through to the station on January 4, 1850. The Hudson River Railroad was distinctly a Poughkeepsie enterprise. Isaac Platt had been advocating it for a long time in the Eagle and had taken a great deal of interest in obtaining subscriptions for the stock. In March, 1842, a convention of delegates from river towns was brought together at the village hall in Poughkeepsie, and though there were not very many outsiders present, the meeting appointed a central executive finance and correspondence committee, made up wholly of Poughkeepsians, Matthew Vassar, Thomas L. Davies, Isaac Platt and E. B. Killey; and the Poughkeepsie Telegraph in describ- ing the completion of the enterprise in 1850, gives the chief credit to this committee, which as early as 1842 opened subscription books and raised $1,450 for preliminary expenses of obtaining a complete sur- vey and a charter. New York City was very much inclined to oppose the railroad at first and took little interest in it until after it had been practically assured. When the charter was passed its enemies succeeded in incorporating in it a requirement that $3,000,000 must be subscribed before March 1, 1847, with ten per cent paid in. The newspapers of the day contained urgent appeals to the people to "save the charter," and the Eagle on February 27 printed the announce- ment that the amount had been raised, together with a historical sketch of the progress of the enterprise and the difficulties encountered by the original promoters. So rejoiced were the people at the announce- ment that bonfires were lighted and salutes were fired and there was a formal celebration with a splendid spread at the Poughkeepsie Hotel, of which Mr. Rutzer was then the landlord. While the efforts to
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raise money for the railroad were in progress the first 'telegraph office in Poughkeepsie was opened, October 19, 1846. This office was of peculiar interest to the people of Poughkeepsie because Prof. Samuel F. B. Morse, the inventor of the telegraph, lived in the town of Pough- keepsie, only two or three miles south of the village, in the place now owned by William H. Young. Prof. Morse was known to every resi- dent of the village and was an officer in the Presbyterian Church. In 1850, besides its first railroad, the village also had its first gas lights and 1852 saw the establishment of its first daily newspaper, the Press.
THE CITY OF POUGHKEEPSIE.
The City of Poughkeepsie was incorporated by the act of the Legis- lature, March 28, 1854, and the first city election was held the follow- ing April, when James Emott, Jr., became the first Mayor. He re- signed in 1856 to become a Justice of the Supreme Court, as his father had been before him. One of the early aldermen was Henry W. Shaw (Josh Billings). The second mayor was Charles W. Swift. Apart from some notable political meetings on Forbus Hill, the space which remained open for many years between Union and Church streets, back of the Forbus House, nothing of great importance took place in Poughkeepsie down to the Civil War. In October, 1856, fifteen steamboats ran excursions to bring people to a great Democratic rally on Forbus Hill. In the same month a cavalcade of eight hundred horsemen came into town to attend a Republican rally. The cam- paign of 1860 was even more memorable, when the Wide Awakes and Little Giants paraded the town night after night.
The outbreak of the Civil War, of course, caused intense excitement in Poughkeepsie and there were many war meetings to aid the re- cruiting. After the first companies had gone and the enthusiasm to volunteer had worn away the city voted large sums of money and in- curred considerable debt for bounties. The story of the regiments is told elsewhere in the military history of the county. During the war a scarcity of small change occurred in this city, as elsewhere, and the
1. The telegraph line was laid from Buffalo to Poughkeepsle hefore it was extended to New York City, as is shown from the following Item found In a Poughkeepsie paper of the date of May 1, 1850, by Theodore W. Davis : "The office of the Magnetic Telegraph will be removed this day from its former location in Garden street to rooms over the store of Mr. Adam Henderson, corner of Maln and Market streets. Wires are now stretched from Buffalo to this place and will soon he completed to New York. Mr. Curtiss is the op- erator." It Is said that messages were sent from Buffalo to Poughkeepsle for a while and were here put into the mail for New York.
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city issued its own shinplasters, as did also a number of business firms, until they were forbidden to do so by law. One of the leading events of the war years was a Sanitary Fair, held at 178-180 Main street, then an unoccupied building owned by Matthew Vassar, March 15 to 19, 1865. The whole city was interested in it and the net proceeds were more than $16,000. The close of the war brought celebrations over the return of the soldiers and a great throng of students to East- man College, which added much to the prosperity of the city. Harvey G. Eastman soon became a leading citizen and in 1865 purchased and beautified the property which became known as Eastman Park and has just been purchased (February, 1909,) by the city to become a per- manent city park. Vassar College, opened in September, 1865, brought at first but 353 students, but was destined to become a most important factor in the life of the city. It had grown to 1,000 soon after the close of the century. More will be found about these insti- tutions under the heading of "Schools."
Before 1870 the second great period of growth, comparable to that of the days of the old improvement party between 1830 and 1837, was in full sway. This later period of improvement included the building of the new water works, pumping from the Hudson river with sand filtration, the installation of a complete sewerage system, the Fall- kill improvement by which the old mill ponds on the kill were abolished and the stream was walled in, the Poughkeepsie & Eastern Railroad, the building of the city railroad and the beginning of the Pough- keepsie Bridge. Harvey G. Eastman, George Innis, Mark D. Wilbur and George P. Pelton were leaders in this latter improvement era. The Poughkeepsie & Eastern Railroad had been long advocated by the Eagle and at one time, just before the war, there seemed a chance of its construction. Whatever chance there was, however, was destroyed by the panic of 1857 and the project was not again taken up until after the war. The railroad was finished to the Connecticut line in 1872, but the difficulty of procuring capital was so great that it could not be completed until the city had added $600,000 to its own in- debtedness to push the work through. The waterworks and the Fall- kill improvement together with the P. & E. bonds and the bounty bonds increased the debt of the city to about two million dollars, which at seven per cent interest imposed a burden so great that almost a quar- ter of a century was to elapse before the people felt free to go ahead with needed improvements again.
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The sand filter beds installed with the new water system in 1872 were the first successful sand filters in the country and are still in use, though rebuilt and much enlarged.
The most important and far reaching enterprise of the period suc- ceeding the Civil War was the Poughkeepsie Bridge, and it stands to-day a monument to the energy and perseverance of Harvey G. Eastman and John I. Platt. In the earlier movement Eastman was the leader. He was both mayor and member of Assembly and ob- tained the legislation necessary to allow the placing of piers in the river. John I. Platt obtained from the Pennsylvania Railroad presi- dent, J. Edgar Thompson, the necessary financial backing and the cornerstone was laid with great ceremony December 17, 1873. The panic of that year had already occurred, however, and the death of Mr. Thompson caused the Pennsylvania Railroad to repudiate its subscription. After that nothing could be done for a long period but keep the charter alive and wait for better times, and meanwhile, in 1878, Mr. Eastman died. The bulk of the work then fell upon Mr. Platt, who became member of Assembly in 1886. He obtained the charter extensions necessary and succeeded in defeating the rival Storm King project, and also in enlisting new financial support from New Eng- land and from Philadelphia. A group of Philadelphia capitalists finally financed the enterprise to completion and the first train crossed the bridge in December, 1888. The ideas of its promoters, however, that it was to become a great link between the coal fields of Pennsyl- vania and the factories of New England and that it would make a large city of Poughkeepsie, hardly began to be realized for another twenty years.
The capitalists who furnished the money for the building of the bridge were unable to make satisfactory arrangements for the pur- chase of the Poughkeepsie & Eastern Railroad and consequently built a line paralleling it and connecting with the Hartford & Connecticut Western Railroad. On the west side of the river a railroad was built to Campbell Hall, where it made connections with the Ontario & West- ern and the Erie, and soon afterwards a connection was made there also with the Lehigh. After several financial vissicitudes and re- organizations the bridge and its connecting railroads, against which the trunk lines of the country seemed to combine, became known as the Central New England system, and in 1904 came into possession
andnight.
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of the powerful New York, New Haven & Hartford system. Mean- time, soon after the completion of the bridge a railroad was built from Poughkeepsie to Hopewell Junction, connecting the bridge with the Highland division of the New York, New Haven & Hartford, pre- viously the New York and New England Railroad. It is this branch which now carries the bulk of the business. One of the first results of the consolidation with the New Haven road was the running of the Highland division passenger trains to Poughkeepsie instead of Fish- kill Landing, and the abandonment of the car ferry freight transfer at Fishkill Landing followed. In 1907, the old Poughkeepsie & East- ern having passed through a number of bankruptcies, was purchased by the New York, New Haven & Hartford and joined with the Central New England, a system which now includes all railroads reaching the Hudson from the east in Dutchess County. In 1907 the bridge was strengthened by the addition of a central girder, which in- volved almost a rebuilding. The first indication of increased business came in 1908, when a large amount of freight, previously trans- ferred by car ferry through the East River and New York Harbor, was routed. by the New Haven road via the Poughkeepsie Bridge.
Plans were then made to double track the railroad from Hope- well Junction to Poughkeepsie and from Poughkeepsie westward to Campbell Hall, and the work is now (March, 1909,) actively in prog- ress. Meanwhile, the bridge lines have already furnished locations for most of the new factories that have been brought to Poughkeepsie and have taken all but one or two of the lumber and coal firms away from the river front. Largely through the efforts of an active Chamber of Commerce, the city appears to be entering upon a new period of growth and the bridge furnishes the central impetus. The prediction of Eastman that we should some time have a population of fifty thousand seems likely to be verified.
The expansion of municipal activity incident to the improvements inaugurated before 1873 and the great debt accumulated led to an important revision of the City Charter in 1874, by which the present system of government by boards was fully established, with a common council having supervisory power over all expenditures through sub- mission to it of the estimates of each board. This Charter also abolished the spring election, which had been in existence from the time the village of Poughkeepsie was incorporated. The revision of
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1874 was made as the result of a number of meetings organized by a committee from the wards, appointed by Judge Barnard and Judge Taylor, and the Charter itself was largely the work of John I. Platt and Allard Anthony. The city boards were all elected by the people until 1883, when the mayor was given power to appoint the water board and also a police board, then created. In 1896 the water board was abolished and a board of public works was created to have charge of the streets and parks as well as the water and sewer systems. Its members were elected until 1901, when the centralization of all power in the hands of the mayor was completed and he was given authority to appoint all boards and executive officers. In 1902 the offices of recorder and justice of the peace were abolished and a city court was established with Joseph Morschauser as its first judge. Since that time the only important Charter change was one made in 1906, giving authority to place all wires under ground on the main streets.
EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS.
In view of the fact that Poughkeepsie has so long been known as a city of schools it is interesting to record that the first state law "for the encouragement of schools" was passed in 1795 at a legislative session held in Poughkeepsie. This act was passed in response to a recommendation from Gov. George Clinton and became the foundation of the state system of aid to schools and of the state regents. It did not give rise at once to a public school system in the modern sense, meaning free schools, and aid was extended mostly to incorporated schools or academies, though there were also a few schools of lower grade that may have received aid. The Dutchess County Academy was already well established in Poughkeepsie when the act was passed. This long famous institution had been originally founded at Fishkill and it is said that the frame work of the building was removed to Poughkeepsie in 1792, when it was erected on the southwest corner of Cannon and Academy streets, giving Academy street its name. The lot, 1303/4 feet on Academy street and 1123/4 on Cannon, extended westward to that on which the Young Women's Christian Association building now stands. The old building is still in part in existence, as it was removed in 1837 to the northeast corner of North Clinton and Thompson streets, where it still remains, though much altered from its original appearance. A large new building had been erected in 1836 on South Hamilton street, corner of Montgomery, the same building
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which is now the Old Ladies' Home. Many well-known men and women obtained their education in the Dutchess County Academy. Its sec- ond record book, beginning with 1840 is preserved in the Adriance Memorial Library and begins with a report of the trustees to the regents for the year ending October 9, 1839. The first pages con- tain a description of the new building and property, which was valued as follows :
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