USA > New York > Dutchess County > The history of Dutchess County, New York > Part 23
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NOTE-See Appendix for list of the farmers and land owners of the town of Poughkeepsie who registered cattle brands under the colonial law, and also list of Supervisors from 1788 to 1854. Ward and Precinct Supervisors in Chapter VI.
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THE COUNTY OF DUTCHESS.
CHAPTER XVI. THE TOWN OF AMENIA.
BY S. R. FREE.
T HE township in Dutchess County known as Amenia, embraces something over forty square miles. This territory comprises a part of the eastern portion of the tract of land originally owned by the Great Nine Partners, and lots numbers 43 to 72 of the Oblong.
It lies on the extreme eastern border of the county, and has for its northern limit the town of North East; for the southern, the town of Dover; for the western, the towns of Stanford and Washington; for the eastern, the towns of Sharon and Kent, in Connecticut.
Stretching along the entire eastern border of the town are the Ta- conic mountains. Near the middle of the town is a broken range of hills that extend southward to the Fishkill mountains.
The valleys skirting these elevations are very fertile and well adapted to grain and grass culture. The production of milk is prob- ably the largest industry in the town. The principal streams of water are Ten Mile River, often called the Weebutook, which was the Indian name; the Wassaic Creek; West Brook and their tribu- taries.
For many years the mining of iron ore has been extensively carried on in several parts of the town. At this writing, the mines are all silent ; but interested parties say that the old mine near the village of Amenia will soon be operated again.
History and tradition appear to agree in making Richard Sackett the first white settler in the Town of Amenia. The old records show that on March 11th, 1703, Richard Sackett petitioned the Colonial Government for a license to purchase a tract of land in Dutchess County, east of the Hudson River, called "Washiack," now softened into Wassaic.
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TOWN OF AMENIA.
The same records tell us that the petition was granted in October of the same year. The precise date of Mr. Sackett's entry upon his vast domain is not known, but there is tradition to show that within three or four years of the above date he built a house near the place which has been known since the days of the Revolutionary War as the Steel Works, where he lived and died. The old records also show that Mr. Sackett was not able to make good his title to said lands, as the British sovereign was not willing his possessions in the New World should be disposed of without his consent.
The unfortunate Mr. Sackett died in poverty in 1746, and was buried not far from the house he built. Mr. Newton Reed, in his valuable history of Amenia, quotes from a manuscript of Barnabas Payne, in which the author says he has "several times visited the grave of Mr. Sackett at the Steel Works, but at this writing no stone re- mains by which the grave can be identified."
The order of succession by which the town was settled has not been well preserved. From about the middle of the eighteenth century the town began to fill up rapidly. Mr. Reed has furnished a long list of early settlers, which includes the following names: Uldrick Winegar and his son Captain Garrett Winegar, Lieut. Samuel Sny- der, Henry Nase, Captain Isaac Delamater, Baltus Lot, Adam Show- erman, the families of Knickerbocker and Van Deusen, Hezekiah King, Abraham Paine, Stephen Kinny, Benjamin Hollister, Peter Klein (Cline), Justus Powers, Elijah Park, Joel and Abner Gillett, Cap- tain Stephen Hopkins, Abraham Bockee, Captain Thomas Wheeler, Col. William Barker, Deacon Moses Barlow and his brother Nathan, Daniel C. Bartlett, Zera Beach, Caleb Benton, Silas Belden, Captain John Boyd, Lemuel and William Brush, Judah Burton, Ezra Bryan, Benjamin Carpenter, Joseph Chamberlain, James Reed, Judah Swift, Jeremiah Ingraham, Nathan Conklin, David Collin, Rev. John Corn- wall, Jacob Evartson, John Garnsey, Roger Gale, Deacon Asa Hol- lister, Samuel Jarvis, Thomas Mygatt and John Balis.
The sturdy German came from the early settlements along the upper Hudson ; and the Dutch came from their "New Amsterdam" (New York) ; and the stern Puritan came from Connecticut and Rhode Island. A blending of these vigorous elements made up the early society of Amenia.
The Colonial boundaries of the Precinct of Amenia embraced a
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THE COUNTY OF DUTCHESS.
large part of the present town of North East. The Amenia of to-day was determined in the year 1823.
There are in the town six villages. Amenia, the largest, a station on the Harlem railroad has above a hundred dwelling houses. Wassaic, the next in size, has above eighty dwellings. Smithfield, Amenia Union, South Amenia and Leedsville are small, pleasant villages.
Amenia and Wassaic have both lost and gained since the publication of the last history of Dutchess County. From Amenia Village have gone the old historic Seminary and the Methodist Episcopal Church; but in the place of the Seminary is a well furnished and officered High School, with an average attendance of 175 pupils. For the loss of the Church there appears to be no substitute. There remain, however, three Churches, Presbyterian, Baptist and Roman Catholic, with ample sittings and a cordial welcome for all who desire to attend religious services.
In a commercial way Amenia has made very substantial gains in the last forty years.
We note first the Willson & Eaton Company, organized in 1878, wholesale and retail dealers in lumber, coal, lime, cement, all kinds of grain and stock foods. An extensive manufacture of bricks, and a wood working plant, well fitted with the most improved machinery for the most elaborate architectural designs. When this company was organized thirty years ago it did a business amounting to about $75,000 a year. Its sales at this writing reach the enormous sum of a million five hundred thousand dollars annually. The company em- ploys in its varied departments upwards of eighty men.
Next in the order comes the Iron Foundry, owned and operated by Mr. B. H. Fry, a native of Amenia, furnishing employment for forty men.
For the next we have the Sheffield Farms Slosson Decker Company for the production of caseine, requiring for the process something above ten thousand quarts of milk per day. This enterprising com- pany has factories scattered along the Harlem railroad from Hills- dale to Patterson.
Last but not least is the Harlem Valley Brick and Supply Com- pany, located here in 1906, for the manufacture of ornamental brick. The stiff mud process is used, and the product is a very superior article. The present drying capacity is 30,000 brick per day. The
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TOWN OF AMENIA.
main office of the company is located at White Plains, where a large business is carried on in the sale of sewer pipe, paving brick, fire brick, and ornamental building brick.
Amenia Village may also boast of a complete water system with hydrants located on the principal streets, a well organized fire and hose company, an acetylene gas plant which furnishes light for the streets, the dwellings and the churches, and an imposing granite foun- tain, the gift of Mrs. Joseph Guernsey, in memory of her husband, who was a native of Amenia.
Wassaic has lost the old Gridley furnace and the Pendelton sash and blind factory, but has gained the Borden condensed milk factory, employing about seventy-five men. The village has a graded school, and a Presbyterian Church.
A modest hamlet lying about three quarters of a mile southeast from Wassaic, long known as the Steel Works, demands some notice here. A half dozen houses make up the hamlet, yet it can boast a carriage making and general repair shop, a sale and exchange stable, with all sorts of horse furnishings, and the Smith Stevens & Benton Motor Company. So the old historic Steel Works, which maintained a forge and worked pig iron into steel for the use of the Colonial army, in the war for liberty and independence, bids fair, after the sleep of the century, to be heard from again. The villages of South Amenia, Amenia Union, Leedsville and Smithfield appear to the casual visitor to change but little as the years go by. The inhabitants change, but the stately residences, well preserved and set in the midst of charming landscapes, seem almost as enduring as the hills that surround them.
Leedsville, once the commercial center of the township of Amenia, is now a quiet hamlet, much appreciated by those who would find relief in summer from the noise and heat of the great cities.
Nestled in a sweeping curve of the Weebotuck, are the vine em- bowered cottages once occupied by the Bentons, long famed as poets and lovers of art. The Bentons are not there, but the moral and intellectual atmosphere which they created still lingers about the place and gives it an air of distinction. As late as 1832, when a seminary for Amenia was seriously under consideration, many of the influential citizens of the town favored Leedsville as the most suitable
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THE COUNTY OF DUTCHESS.
location. From an address given in Amenia in 1875 by George W. Ingraham (now deceased) we quote the following:
"In 1832 this community became enthusiastic on the subject of education, and resolved to have a seminary located somewhere in the town. The three prominent places named were Amenia, Leedsville and Amenia Union. For beauty of situa- tion Leedsville stood first, and a power was brought in favor of that place which was hard to overcome. Two full years were spent in fruitless controversy. How- ever, in the month of May, 1834, a committee was appointed, with Rev. Phineas Rice as chairman, to determine the location of the prospective seminary. In early June the committee rendered a sealed verdict, which was not to be opened for twenty-four hours after the committee had left the place. The following day the seal was broken, the verdict read, when to the surprise of some and the joy of others, Cook's Hill in the Village of Amenia, was named as the favored spot. The most active in this new educational movement were George Ingraham, J. Williams, Dr. L. W. Stanton of Amenia, Selah North, Joseph D. Hunt and William A. Benton of Leedsville, and the whole community of Amenia Union. Work was immediately begun on Cook's Hill to construct a foundation for the new edifice. This was accomplished by cutting down the Hill some sixteen feet and grading the grounds to their present proportions. In the summer of 1835 the seminary was built and the school opened in the autumn of that year, with Rev. C. K. True as principal."
In the year 1888 the Amenia Seminary closed its remarkable his- tory. During its existence of fifty-three years students were enrolled from every State in the Union, and at one time there were students from the island of Cuba and South America. The advent of the graded schools rendered the existence of such an institution as the seminary unnecessary. The vacant and time-worn buildings still stand on Cook's Hill, but the halls and class rooms no longer echo with the footsteps of young men and maidens in the pursuit of knowledge. To the multitude who knew and loved the old seminary there is a feeling that the head should be uncovered, and the footsteps be made soft and slow, as one passes over these historic remains.
In the early part of the year 1906 some of the old students ex- pressed a desire for a reunion of the Alumni of the once famous insti- tution. The 22d day of August, 1906, was the day appointed for the event. The day was sultry and threatening, but in spite of heat and clouds, fully a thousand people gathered to celebrate the occasion. Several persons came who attended the seminary at its opening (1835). The exercises opened with an address by the venerable Bishop Cyrus D. Foss of Philadelphia, who was an early pupil of the seminary, and
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TOWN OF AMENIA.
later was principal. He was followed by the Hon. G. G. Reynolds of Brooklyn, a native of Amenia, in a felicitous address. An original poem and short address by Joel Benton, another of Amenia's sons, now of Poughkeepsie; a paper by R. B. Taylor of Brooklyn, and a short address by Rev. D. H. Hanaburgh of Carmel, constituted the afternoon programme.
The evening exercises consisted of an address by Prof. S. T. Frost, of Mount Vernon, N. Y. Address by Mrs. Mary Mead Clark of Amenia. Address by Rev. A. K. Sanford, D. D., Pleasantville, N. Y.
The Rev. Denis Wortman, D. D., of East Orange, N. J., and The Hon. H. C. M. Ingraham were also on the programme, but the hours took wings and would not fold them even for our pleasure. New- man's orchestra and two soloists, Miss Carrie Newman and Mrs. A. F. Conklin added a delightful feature to the occasion. The above outlined programme with the addition of two or three extempore speeches by Dr. S. G. Cook and Rev. C. S. Harrower, D. D, both of New York city made an occasion long to be remembered by the citi- zens of Amenia.
The first movements in the direction of religious organization in Amenia are much involved in obscurity. Mr. Reed says, the first Church was organized near the center of the town in 1748, and was named Carmel in the Nine Partners. Ten years later we discover a more distinct historic trail in the erection of the old "Red Meeting House." We have a very complete record of this early institution to- gether with a list of its membership and the cost of the house of wor- ship. Reliable tradition determines the exact spot where the old his- toric church was erected. About fifteen rods north of the "Old Burying Ground," on land now owned by Mrs. Cora Morgan once stood the famous old "Red Meeting House."
This church organization appears to have been undenominational. Men and women of all faiths made up its membership; and preachers from the several protestant denominations at various times dispensed the gospel message. Tradition says that the celebrated George Whitefield preached in the old "Red Meeting House" in the summer of 1770 to a vast crowd gathered from all parts of the country.
The great war which was waged to decide the liberty of the Colon- ists drew sharp lines of distinction in the social order. Men who had
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THE COUNTY OF DUTCHESS.
fought and suffered for liberty could not easily tolerate those who had been lukewarm and indifferent.
Then too, as the spirit of personal liberty increased among the people, dogmatic questions of a religious character soon began to agitate the popular mind.
In 1790 the Baptists organized a separate society, and about the same time the Methodists took up the same role.
The Baptist people erected their house of worship nearly opposite the Red Meeting House, on land now belonging to John Haskins, and the Methodists built further north on land then belonging to Thomas Ingraham, now best known as the Frost estate. The building was erected almost directly opposite the dwelling now owned and occupied by Mr. I. N. Bristol. Some fragment of broken brick and mortar still remain to mark the site of the first Methodist Episcopal Church in Amenia.
The separation of the Baptists and Methodists from the parent society greatly weakened it; but there is evidence to show that regular services were maintained in the old Red Meeting House for some years thereafter.
In the year 1833 the Presbyterian element in the Society of the Red Meeting House built a house of worship on east Main street in the village of Amenia. Between thirty and forty years later the society found a generous friend in the Hon. A. W. Palmer, who donated a beautiful site for a church and parsonage on North street. On this site the society built and dedicated their new house of worship in the month of June, 1867. This society has of late found a friend in the person of Mrs. H. S. Chapman, formerly of Amenia now of Glen Ridge, N. J., who in the summer of 1903 sent her check of several hundred dollars to be used in the building of an addition to the lecture room.
In the year 1851 the Baptist society pulled down the old structure that stood about a mile north of the village, and converted whatever was useful into a new church building which they located on South street. This house has been repaired, enlarged and beautified from time to time, and is today, with the adjoining parsonage, one of the attractive features of the village.
The Methodists also came down from the north, and worked the old material into a new church, which they located on west Main street in the year 1845. For many years this church was very prosperous, but
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TOWN OF AMENIA.
with the decline of the Seminary its mission seemed to be ended. The property was finally sold, and the few remaining members united with other churches, or were removed by that power that shapes all human ends.
If one inclines to country life Amenia offers as many attractive features as any town in the county. In the first place the land is very fertile and the scenery is unsurpassed. The drive from Amenia village around the mountain via. Wassaic, South Amenia, Amenia Union and Leedsville, a distance of ten miles, can hardly be equaled in the Harlem valley. In summer the fields are strikingly green, the streams clear and pebbly, and the air, fresh from the mountains, very invigorating. Another highway is likewise noteworthy, viz. from Amenia village over De Lavergne Hill and thence to Wassaic via. "Turkey Hollow." This drive, for wildness of scenery is not sur- passed by anything we have seen in the far-famed Berkshire Hills of Mass. The highway follows a stream that leaps and plunges, roars and dashes, foams and splashes like Southey's cataract that came down so mightily from Lodore. Good roads also add greatly to the comfort of country life.
The roads in Amenia are not perfect, but they are being much im- proved and are likely to be much more improved in the near future. A movement has been recently inaugurated to put down stone or con- crete sidewalks in the village of Amenia, and a considerable sum of money has already been secured for this purpose.
Amenia has its full complement of stores, a live weekly newspaper, a National bank,1 and two first-class hotels. These together with an enterprising and intelligent people should insure future prosperity.
The names of the Precinct Supervisors will be found in Chapter VI. The succession of Town Supervisors since its organization in 1788 has been as follows:
1787- '93 Barnabas Paine
1809
Isaac Smith
1794- '97 Edmund Perlee 1810
Benajah Thompson
1798-1800 Cyrenus Crosby
1811- '18
Elisha Barlow
1801- '02 Philip Spencer, Jr. 1819
Abraham Bockee
1803
Elisha Barlow 1820
Joel Benton, Jr.
1804
Benjamin Herrick
1821
Thomas Barlow
1805- '08 Benajah Thompson
1822
Abraham Bockee
1. See Part II of this work.
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THE COUNTY OF DUTCHESS.
1823 1824
Joel Benton
1865
John H. Cline
David Nye
1866-
'67 Milo F. Winchester Isaac H. Conklin
1825- 1828 1899 1880-
'31
Philo Cline
1871
Charles M. Benjamin
1832
Walter Perlee
1872-
"73 Hiram Cooper
1833- '35 Philo Cline
1874-
275 George Williams Ambrose Mygatt
1886-
'37
William A. Benton
1876
'78 John W. Putnam
1841
John K. Mead
1879
Milo F. Winchester John W. Putnam
1844-
$45
Hiram Vail
1881-
'82
Milo F. Winchester
1846
'47
Noah Gridley
1883-
'84
William H. Tanner
1848
'49
John H. Perlee
1885-
'86
Albert Cline
1850
Philo Cline
1887-
'88
Isaac H. Conklin
1851-
'52
George H. Swift
1889 ---
'90
1853-
'54
John C. Paine
1891
1855-
'56 Robert Grant
1892
1857-
'58
Judah Swift
1893
William B. Nelson
1859-
'60
Walter P. Perlee
1894-
'95
William A. Sherman
1861
Milo F. Winchester
1896-
'97
James S. Chaffee
1862
Charles E. Bostwick
1898
'05
Miles K. Lewis
1863
William H. Grant
1906-
'09
Henry N. Winchester
1864
Benj. F. Carpenter
Mr. Newton Reed published in 1875 an excellent little local history of Amenia containing much valuable information respecting the early history of the town and of its people, the original settlers and their descendants.
It is not within the scope of this History of Dutchess County to go into the local histories of the various towns with the particularity that in a special town history would be appropriate and expected.
If one desires more intimate information of Amenia and its people than can be found in the foregoing article, he is referred to "Early History of Amenia by Newton Reed, Amenia, DeLacey & Wiley, Printers, 1875."
The book can be found in the public library of Poughkeepsie in the Adriance Memorial Library Building .- (EDITOR.)
$97 Tabor Belden
1868
Joel Brown
1869
Charles M. Benjamin
Joseph D. Hunt
1870
Isaac H. Conklin
1838-
$40
Philo Cline
1877-
1842- $43
William N. Merritt
1880
William H. Bartlett William H. Tanner James S. Chaffee
267
TOWN OF BEEKMAN.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE TOWN OF BEEKMAN.
T HIS is one of the southern tier towns of Dutchess, its southern angle extending almost to the north line of Putnam county. It is bounded on the north by Union Vale; on the east by Pawling and Dover; on the west by East Fishkill, and for a short distance on the northwest by La Grange. The present area is placed at 18,152 acres.
The surface of the town is generally hilly and in the southern angle mountainous. In the central portion is a good agricultural region, and directly northward are found extensive deposits of hema- tite ore, which have been mined considerably. The streams are mere creeks, tributaries to the Fishkill which flows southwesterly through the center of the town. Near the western border is Sylvan Lake, a beautiful sheet of water, covering over one hundred acres.
The name of the town is derived from Col. Henry Beekman, who, in 1697, obtained a grant of all the land east of Rombout's Patent to the Oblong. This embraced the present towns of Beekman, Union Vale, a portion of La Grange, and nearly all of Pawling and Dover with the exception of a strip along their eastern border. For this grant Col. Beekman was obliged to pay to the Crown of England an annual rental of forty shillings. He therefore surrendered the patent and petitioned for a new grant to the same property on more favor- able terms. The new patent was issued June 25, 1703.
By Colonial Act of December 16, 1737, Beekman's Precinct was formed, the territory corresponding with that embraced in the patent. An act was passed May 20, 1769, by which Beekman's was divided into two precincts, the second to be called Pawling's, which included the present towns of Pawling and Dover. March 7, 1788, Beek- man became one of the original eight towns in the county. This was practically a continuation of the precinct, the territory remaining
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THE COUNTY OF DUTCHESS.
the same until 1821, when the town of Freedom (now La Grange) was set off. Beekman was further reduced in 1827 by the erection of the town of Union Vale.
Settlements within the present town limits are supposed to have been inade early in the eighteenth century, but records relating thereto have been lost or destroyed. A man by the name of De Long is credited with keeping an inn near the present village of Green Haven as early as 1725, but his name does not appear in the list of free- holders of 1740. The location of the tavern on Colles map of 1789 places it about a mile and a half southeast of Sylvan Lake. James De Long, who was town clerk in 1802-'03, is said to have been a descendant of the settler of that name. The families of Carman, Brill, Noxon, Baker, Pleas, Uhls from Germany, Cary, Dennis, Hax- tun, Sweet and Gardner, were among the earliest known settlers. John Carman represented the precinct at Supervisors' meetings from 1739 to '42. His name appears in the official record of Supervisors in 1754, and that of Bartholomew Noxon in 1761. William Humphrey held this office in 1763.
The town records contain proceedings of precinct meetings from April 7, 1772, to the formation of the town in 1788. The following officers were elected in 1772: Joshua Carman, Supervisor; Maurice Pleas, Town Clerk; Samuel Dorland, James Vanderburgh, Assessors; Simeon Noxon, Constable and Collector; Thomas Clements and Maurice Pleas, Inspectors of Intestate Estates.
Additional records of Beekman Precinct will be found in Chapter VI.
The Highland Division of the N. Y., N. H. & H. Railroad, run- ning east and west through the central part of the town, has stations at Green Haven and Poughquag.
The Clove Branch Railroad Company was chartered November 21, 1868, with a capital of $150,000, to construct a road from Clove Branch Junction, on the Newburgh, Dutchess & Connecticut Rail- road, to Sylvan Lake, a distance of 4.25 miles, which was built and opened in 1869. April 28, 1870, the company was allowed to extend its road by a branch to any of the iron mines in the surrounding towns. A branch was accordingly opened in 1877, from Sylvan Lake to Clove Valley, a distance of 4.01 miles. This enterprise in- creased mining operations in northern Beekman, but with the abandon-
CHARLES H. SLOCUM.
0
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TOWN OF BEEKMAN.
ment of the mines in 1883, the railroad service in the course of a few years also ceased.
There are no incorporated villages in the town. Poughquag, Green Haven, Clove Valley and Beekmanville are hamlets.
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