History of Duchess [sic] county, New York, with ... biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers

Introduction

In the preparation of the History of the County treated of in this volume, the authors have endeavored to confine themselves to a concise and truthful statement of facts, leaving deductions and moralisms, except where such were necessary to a proper elucidation of the subject, to the individual reader; and in gleaning these facts they have laid under contribution every available source of information, in the effort to arrive at correct data. This, however, has not always been possible, for much is given that rests for its authority entirely upon verbal statements, which, even among the best informed, are subject to the lapses of memory. When conflicting statements have been observed, an honest effort has been made to reconcile them and make them conform to the probable fact. To this end, records have been consulted where such existed and were accessible, both to supplement and establish a verbal fact, and as an original source of information. These, however, though enabling us to correct many errors in statements of facts made by other writers, were often fragmentary, sometimes entirely wanting, and while their incompleteness was perplexing, their frequent indefiniteness was even more so, so that it was often necessary to supplement them by verbal information.

The materials for such a work were widely scattered. They lay mainly in the impel feet town, county, church, school, society and private records, and in the vague and faded memories of individuals. Much time, labor, diligent research and patient inquiry have been required to gather these materials and collate them into systematic order. Every town has been visited, and its records and well-informed citizens have been consulted. In addition to these, the files of local and other papers have been scrutinized, and the works of numerous authors laid under contribution ; but as the latter have generally been referred to in the text; especially when quoted, we do not deem it necessary to enumerate them here. A few local gleaners of acknowledged ability in this field of historic inquiry have rescued from oblivion much that has served to embellish the annals of Duchess. The fruit of their labors was kindly placed at our disposal.

We fully appreciated the onerous task assumed when we undertook to gather and compress within the limited time and space allotted us, the abundant materials which make up the annals of a County of such historic importance as Duchess. Much more might have been given, enough to swell the volume to twice its present size, by the amplification of subjects and the multiplication of details which some would regard with interest and others as unimportant. Indeed, it was found necessary to eliminate much that was prepared and to omit still more that was gathered in order to bring the materials within the scope of the work. In discarding matter we have aimed to retain that which seemed most important — most worthy of preservation.

An earlier preparation of the work would have lessened the labor and produced more satisfactory results, as it would have given access to the personal experience and relations of many of the immediate descend-

INTRODUCTION.

ants of the first settlers, with whom have died facts and incidents which are now beyond recall. But few of this sacred remnant are left with us, and fewer still retain their faculties sufficiently to relate coherently and positively the interesting incidents of that early period. It must, therefore, be obvious that the time for the publication of this work had fully come, and that a longer delay would only have added to the obscurity of the facts and the difficulty of their acquisition.

The history of Duchess County dates back to the period when the Hudson was discovered by the English navigator whose name it bears, though actual settlement was not commenced until three-quarters of a century later. The first settlers were Dutch, though no settlement was made under the Dutch regime , and for fully half a century after it was begun it progressed but slowly. From the middle of the eighteenth century, however, its growth was rapid, and not until then did it approximate a primal importance. The development of its varied industries and institutions is succinctly stated in the succeeding chapters.

Though this County is not as rich in historical incidents fraught with tragic interest as the counties, which bordered on the confines of civilization during the French and Indian wars, the sanguinary struggle of the Revolution, and the more recent but memorable war with the mother country, which etched in lines of blood the history of these eventful scenes, it witnessed many of the most pathetic and memorable incidents of the Revolutionary struggle, and though no battle was fought within its precincts, its soil is not unhallowed by blood shed to establish those principles which, eighty-two years later, its sons fought so nobly to perpetuate. Around the Revolutionary period cluster its most endearing associations. It has, too, a pacific history, to which many will recur with interest, — yea, with reverence.

We are aware that in adopting an orthography in the name of this County differing from that which usage has sanctioned since its organization, we enter upon debated ground, and a reason for this step may seem to be due to those who differ with us in opinion. We adopt this orthography in deference to that progressive spirit which seeks to simplify and purify our language by purging it of its redundancies and philological anomalies, believing that the public mind will ere long demand official recognition of orthographic changes in this word corresponding with those to which philologists, etymologists, orthcepists and lexicographers have long since subjected that from which it is derived.

This County was named in compliment to the Duchess of York, whose title, like that of all wives of Dukes, is derived from the French word dachesse, which was authoratively spelled with a / until 1755, when Dr. Johnson, the English lexicographer, omitted the /, and likewise the final e. The example thus set has been followed by others, including Webster. It cannot be denied that the popular and official form of the word has the sanction of precedent and long established usage ; but the same may be urged with respect to its original , and analogy would suggest a conformity of the derivative to it. It may, however, be fairly questioned whether it is the legitimate province of the historian, whose duty it is to record things as he finds them, to introduce such innovations, without subjecting himself to the charge of iconoclasm, if not of sciolism. Highly respected local writers, however, agree with us in advocating this change.

In conclusion, the authors take this opportunity to tender their grateful acknowledgments to the many who, in various ways, have so kindly aided them in this laborious work, and to testify to the uniform courtesy which was extended to them, and the cordiality with which their labors were seconded by the hosts from whom it became their duty to solicit information.

PAGE.

CHAPTER I. — Aborigines — Pre-Historic Period — Antiquity of America — Ancient Civilizations — Obscurity of the Origin of the North American Indians — Indian Traditions Respecting It — Migrations of the Lenni Lenapes — The Mahicans a Branch of the Lenape Family — Extent and Location of their Dominions 11

CHAPTER II. — The Iroquois Family — The Algonkin Family — The Delawares — Relative Rank of the Three Tribes of the Delawares— Their Organization and Government— Duties and Powers of the Chief — Organization and Government of the Mahicans— Method of Declaring War — Offensive and Defensive Weapons 16 '

CHAPTER III. — Aborigines of Duchess County — Divisions of the Mahicans— Their Territorial Possessions — The Wappingers — Conflicting Statements Respecting their Location — Chieftaincies of the Wappingers— The Head Chieftaincy Located in Duchess County — Villages of the Wappingers— Traditional Indian Villages 19

CHAPTER IV. — Contemporaneous Emigration of Delawares and Iroquois from the West —

Wars Between the Delawares and Iroquois— Differing Views Respecting the Subjugation of the Delawares by the Iroquois— Wars Between the Iroquois and Mahicans — The Mahicans Unsubdued —

Their Subjugation Asserted by Various Historians — These Statements Refuted by Documentary Proof— Traditional Reverses of the Mahicans — Their Losses and Dispersion— War of 1755— The Delawares in the Revolutionary War 23

CHAPTER V. — The Moravians — Moravian Mission at Shekomeko — Christian Henry Rauch Establishes the First Successful Moravian Mission in North America at Shekomeko —

Joined by Buettner— Joseph Shaw sent to Shekomeko as Schoolmaster — The Missionaries Pyrheus, Senseman and Post join the Mission — Mission at Pachgatgoch Broken Up — Persecutions of the Mission-

CHAPTER V. — (Continued.) page.

aries and their Indian Converts — Death of Buettner — Indians Driven from Shekomeko and Wechquadnach — Interest in Shekomeko and Wechquadnach Revived after the Lapse of a Century- Their Sites Identified — Monuments Erected Thereon to the Memory of the Missionaries Buettner, Bruce, and Powell 28

CHAPTER VI. — Hudson’s Discovery and Exploration of the North River -Diverse Claims of the English, French and Dutch — Character of the Dutch Colonists of New Netherlands— The United New Netherland Company — The Dutch West India Company— Dutch Colonization — The Esopus Wars — The Destruction of Wiltwyck— Expedition to Red Hook during the Second Esopus War — Friendly offices of Wappingers — Indian Treaty of 1664— Supersedure of the Dutch by the English. 40

CHAPTER VII. — Titles to the Soil — Extinguishment of the Indian Title — Land Patents Rombout Patent — Schiller’s Patent Great or Lower Nine Partners Patent — Poughkeepsie Patent — Rhinebeck Patent -Beekman Patent — Little or Upper Nine Partners Tract — Oblong Patent — Disputed Boundary Line Between New York and Connecticut— The Oblong Granted to English and American Patentees — Defective Titles — Anti-Rent Difficulties 47

CHAPTER VIII. — First Settlements — Traditions Respecting Them — Projected Settlement of New Englanders at the Mouth of Wappingers Creek — Nicholas Emigh Supposed to be the First Settler — Settlements at Poughkeepsie and Rhinebeck — The Palatines—Huguenot Settlers — First Census of Duchess County, 1714 — Freeholders in Duchess County in 1740 — Descriptions of the County in 1756 and 1813— Population of County at Different Periods fi-om 1714 to 1880 — Present Status of the County — Enrollment of Quakers in 1 755 — Slaves in Duchess County in 1755 — Early Civil Processes— Oaths of Abjuration and Fealty

Contents

CHAPTER VIII. — (Continued.) page.

in 1760 — Observations on Duchess County in 1780-82, by the Marquis DeCliastel-

lux 55

Chapter I

Aborigines — Pre-H istoric Period — Antiquity of America — Ancient Civilizations — Theories Regarding their Origin — Obscurity of the Origin of the North American Indians — Analysis of Theories Respecting It — Indian Traditions Respecting It — Migrations of the Lenni Lenapes — The Mahicans a Branch

OF THE LENAPE FAMILY — EXTENT AND LOCA- TION of their Dominions.

i i "T X Y HAT we usually term the begin- V y ning of history,” says Humboldt’s Cosmos, “is only the period when the later generations awoke to self-consciousness.” The historic period for the region of country the history of which it is the purpose of this volume to give, may be said to date from the advent of European explorers to its contiguous shores — more specifically of that English discoverer, whose name has been given to the noble river which washes its western border — for their reports give us the first as well as the most exact and comprehensive account we have of the people who then inhabited it. These people are classed under the generic term Indians — a name which obtains from the fact that when this continent was discovered by Columbus and others who succeeded him in search of a western passage to the East Indies, it was supposed to be the eastern shore of the continent of India.* Their history prior to their inti-

* Indians of North A meric a , I, 3.

mate association with civilized people is shrouded in obscurity, and is transmitted to us in the form of vague and fragmentary legends. The Indians were a barbaric race and have left no written history, except that we occasionally discover traces of their rude paintings and still ruder engravings. But these are pronounced merely the totems of the Indians by Catlin, who says, “ I have been unable to find anything like a system of hieroglyphic writing amongst them.”* Heckewelder, however, says, that, although they “ do not possess our art of writing,” and “have no alphabets, nor any mode of representing to the eye the sounds of words spoken, yet they have certain hieroglyphics, by which they describe facts in so plain a manner, that those who are conversant with those marks can understand them with the greatest ease, as easily, indeed, as we can understand a piece of writing.”f But these records were of so perishable a nature as to be almost valueless for historical purposes. They were made upon fragments of bark, or upon the smooth surface of trees from which the bark had been removed for that purpose. This absence of a connected written history is, however, compensated in a measure by the less enduring relics, consisting of the implements of husbandry, the chase and war, which the plow and other means of excavation have numerously disclosed. Their fortified villages and places of burial are rich also in suggestive incidents.

* Catlin’s Norik American Indians, II, 246.

t Historical Account of the Indian Nations , in Pransactions of the American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, 117.

HISTORY OF DUCHESS COUNTY.

Who were the aborigines of this country is a subject of much learned inquiry. It is pretty generally believed that the races who occupied it on the advent of the Europeans, were preceded by one more numerous and more highly cultured, though the evidence that such is the fact is meager and unsatisfactory. De Witt Clinton points to the numerous mural remains which existed throughout the northern, central and western parts of this State, and to the more remarkable ones bordering the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and their branches as evidence of the fact while more recent authors, reasoning from more exact data, ascribe the origin of the former works to a much more recent date, and to a different race of people than the latter. f The evidences referring to a pre-historic period within this State are rare, though the celebrated Pompey stone | may be cited as an instance of this character, without, however, furnishing necessarily conclusive proof.

That the nations of the eastern hemisphere had knowledge of the existence of the American continent long before its discovery by Columbus, their literature gives abundant evidence ; and that its aboriginal inhabitants were descended from eastern peoples is generally conceded, though the theory that American antiquity ante-dates that of Asia, is not without its advocates.

Humboldt, from his observations of the remains of the civilizations of Mexico and Central America, was convinced that communication had existed between the eastern and western continents, evidence of which he found in the religious symbols, the architecture, the hieroglyphics, and the social customs made manifest by these ruins ; and the Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg shows that the symbols of phallic worship, once so prevalent, and still, to some extent, practiced in the East, were de-

* Collections of the New York Historical Society for 1814, 89.

t Says E. A. Squier, M. A., “ * * * none of the ancient works of this State, (New York,) of which traces remain, displajing any considerable degree of regularity, can lay claim to high antiquity. All of them may be referred, with certainty, to the period succeeding the commencement of European intercourse.” — Antiquities of New York and the West , 9.

$ This is a small boulder about thirteen inches long and twelve inches wide, bearing a most remarkable inscription and figures, which, if genuine, and correctly interpreted, furnishes what is supposed to be the earliest evidences of the presence of Europeans in North America. It dates back to a period earlier than the discovery of New England, New York or Virginia, a hundred years earlier than the founding of Plymouth colony, and within twenty-three years of the discovery of the new continent by Cabot. It has been reasonably conjectured by the author of Clark's Onondaga to be a sepulchral monument, erected, possibly, by a party of Spaniards, who, stimulated by the love of adventure, allured by the love of gold, or driven by some rude blast of misfortune, may have visited that region and lost one of their number by death. This stone was found some sixty years ago at Watervale, in the town of Pompey, in Onondaga county, which town, says Dr. Henry S. Holmes, Librarian of the State Library at Albany, 1 ‘ has yielded up more relics of the aborigines than any other place in this State.”

scribed by the Spanish writers at the time of the conquest. “ These,” says Baldwin, “with the serpent devices, the sun worship, and the remarkable knowledge of astronomy that existed in connection with them, show a system of religion,” of which, with the social institutions it consecrated, “Asia,” says the Abbe,” “ appears to have been the cradle.” “ The traditions of these countries,” says the same author, “ are still more explicit. Their uniform testimony is, that the ancient American civilization came originally from the East across the ocean.” *

The origin of the barbarous Indians of North America is buried in even greater obscurity than that of the probable aborigines of this continent. Our information regarding it is almost wholly traditional and conjectural. Efforts have been made to connect them with the Mound-builders as their progenitors, and there are able advocates of the theory which supposes the unity of the races ; but, says Foster,! a broad chasm is to be spanned before we can link the two, who, he says, “ were essentially different in their forms of government, their habits and their daily pursuits.” The former, “since known to the white man, has spurned the restraints of a sedentary life, which attach to agriculture, and whose requirements, in his view, are ignoble. He was never known to erect structures which should survive the lapse of a generation.” “The Mound-builders,” he adds, “cultivated the soil in a methodical manner, far different from the mode presented by the present Indians,” and he cites as evidence “ the vestiges of ancient gardenbeds” left by them. Baldwin says, referring to the savage tribes, or wild Indians, their barbarism was “ original there was nothing to indicate that they or their ancestors, near or remote, had ever been civilized, “ even to the extent of becoming capable of settled life or organized industry.”! He adds, “ the constant traditions of these Indians, supported by concurring circumstantial evidence, appears to warrant the belief that they came to this part of the continent originally from the west, or north-west, at a period too late to connect them in this way with the Mound-builders.” After referring to the skill of the Mound-builders in the ceramic and other arts, he asks, “who can imagine the Iroquois or Algonquins working the copper mines with such intelligence and skill, and such a combination of systematic and persistent industry !

* Pre- Historic Nations , by John D. Baldwin, A. M., 392-39 5.

t Pre-Historic Races of the U?iited States , 347.

t A ?icient A merica^ 59.

PROBABLE ORIGIN OF THE AMERICAN INDIANS.

They had no tradition of such a condition of life, no trace of it. It is absurd to suppose a relationship, or a connection of any kind, between the original barbarism of these Indians and the civilization of the Mound-builders. The two peoples were entirely distinct and separate from each other. If they really belonged to the same race, which is extremely doubtful, we must go back through unnumbered ages to find their common origin and the date of their separation.”* * * * § Says Bancroft, “ It has been asked if our Indians are not the wrecks of more civilized nations.” He answers: “Their language refutes the hypothesis, every one of its forms is a witness that their ancestors were, like themselves, not yet disenthralled from nature.”!

Charlevoix and other later writers have entered into elaborate disquisitions on the probable origin of the American Indian, and the curious reader will find much to interest, if not to instruct him on this vexed question. The theory of a northwestern immigration by the barbarous hordes of Asia has long been advocated and has gained credence among modern authors generally. John de Laet, a Flemish writer, was an early advocate of this theory and among the first to remark a resemblance in the features, complexion and manners of the Scythians, Tartars and Samoeides and those of the American Indians. “Ledyard,” says Bancroft, “whose curiosity filled him with the passion to circumnavigate the globe and cross its continents, as he stood in Siberia, with men of the Mongolian race before him, and compared them with the Indians who had been his old playfellows and schoolmates at Dartmouth writes deliberately that, universally and circumstantially, they resemble the aborigines of America. On the Connecticut and the Obi, he saw but one race.” “The American and Mongolian races of men, on the two sides of the Pacific,” adds the latter author, “have a near resemblance. Both are alike strongly and definitely marked by the more capacious palatine fossa, of which the dimensions are so much larger that a careful observer could, out of a heap of skulls, readily separate the Mongolian and American from the Caucasian, but could not distinguish them from each other. Both have the orbit of the eye quadrangular, rather than oval ; both, especially the American, have comparatively a narrowness of the forehead ; the facial angle in both, but especially in the American, is comparatively

* A 7icieiit A meric a, 59-61.

t History 0/ the United States , IT, 417.

small; in both, the bones of the nose are flatter and broader than in the Caucasian, and in so equal a degree, and with apertures so similar, that, on indiscriminate selections of specimens from the two, an observer could not, from this feature, discriminate which of them belonged to the old continent ; both, but especially the Americans, are characterized by a prominence of the jaws. The elongated occiput is common to the American and the Asiatic; and there is to each very nearly the same obliquity of the face. Between the Mongolian of Southern Asia and of Northern Asia there is a greater difference than between the Mongolian Tartar and the North American. The Iroquois is more unlike the Peruvian than he is unlike the wanderer on the steppes of Siberia. Physiology has not succeeded in defining the qualities which belong to every well-formed Mongolian, and which never belong to an indigenous American; still less can geographical science draw a boundary line between the races.”* Priest’s observations led him to the conclusion that “ Asia and America were peopled by similar races of men.”f The traditions of the Lenni Lenape J or Delawares as they are called by the English, say that they “resided many hundred years ago in a very distant country in the western part of the American continent.” They resolved to migrate eastward, and having reached the Mississippi, then fell in with the Mengwe, (Iroquois,) who had likewise emigrated from a distant country and struck upon this river somewhat higher up. The Iroquois, like the Delawares, were proceeding eastward. The country east of the Mississippi was inhabited by the Alligewi,§ a

* History of the United States, II., 460,461.

t A merican A ntiquities.

t Lenni Lenape, says Heckewelder, who spent forty years among the Indians as a Moravian missionary, is the national and proper name of the people we call Delawares. It signifies original people' a race of human beings who are the same that they were in the beginning, unchanged and unmixed" The Lenape are known and called, he says, by all the western, northern, and some of the southern nations, by the name of Wapanachki j which, among them, is a generic name, signifying “ ‘people at the rising of the sun,’ or as we would say, Eastlanders," and which the Europeans corrupted into Apenaki. \ Openagi , Abenaquis and Abenakis. — (Introduction to Historical Account 0/ the Indian Nations , 23-26.) “ The term Lenape,” says Schoolcraft, “ appears to carry the same meaning as inaba , a male, and the word was probably used nationally, and with emphasis in the sense of men.” Loskiel defines the name “ Lennilenape," as meaning “ Indian men," and says “ the name Delawares was undoubtedly first given them by the Europeans.”— [History of the Mission of the United Brethren among the Indians in North A merica, by George Henry Loskiel, Part I., Chap. L, 2.)

§ “ It is generally believed,” saysYatesand Moulton, ( History of New York,) “that the Allegewi, or A lleghans, were of Welch origin. Priest (American A ntiquities,) traces the A llegewi from the lake country to the “vale of Mexico, where they finally and permanently rested,” and there assumed the name o( Aztecas, or people of the lakes. The course pursued in their migration is marked by the mounds where they rested, or dwelt temporarily. Schoolcraft says, “ they occupied a large portion of the western area of the State of New York, comprising the valley of the Alleghany river to its utmost source, and extending eastwardly an undefined distance.” “The Alleghany river and mountains,” says Heckewelder, have “ indubitably been named after them.” — ( Historical Account of the Indian Nations, 30.)

HISTORY OF DUCHESS COUNTY.

powerful nation, of great physical development, who had many large towns and regular fortifications of earth on the great rivers flowing through their lands. They denied the Lenape the privilege of settling in their neighborhood, but gave them permission to pass through their country to the eastward ; when, however, they observed the great numbers of the latter they were alarmed and treacherously attacked with great fury those who had crossed the river, threatening the others with destruction if they persisted in crossing. The Lenape, being too weak to force a passage against so powerful an enemy, made common cause with the Iroquois, and after a series of sanguinary battles, continuing through many years, and in volving immense losses on either side, the Alligewi. to avoid destruction, abandoned their country and fled down the Mississippi, whence they never returned.*

These traditions agree substantially with those of the Mahicans,! who inhabited the country immediately east of the Hudson, and were, says Heckewelder, a branch of the Lenape family.

The Lenape and Iroquois lived peaceably in the conquered territory of the Alligewi for a long period — “some say many hundred years” — and rapidly increased in numbers. Eventually some of the more enterprising Lenape hunters and warriors crossed the mountains to the Atlantic and discovered the Susquehanna and Delaware rivers and subsequently the Hudson. After a long

* Heckevvelder’s Historical Account of the Itidian Nations , 29-3 2.

t Joannes De Laet, who published his Nieuwe Wereldt , or description of the West Indies, as the country was then denominated, sixteen years after Hudson’s discovery, designates them by this name ; also in his map of Nova Anglia Novem Belgium et Virginia, (in Novus Orbis.) According to Messrs. Dr. Barton and Heckewelder, ( Yates and Moulton s History of New York , 226,) the Mankikani and Mahikans of DeLaet ; the Mahiccanders (Joost Hartger’s work, printed in Amsterdam, in 1651,) Mohicanders (Barton) and Nahikanders , (Benson’s Memoir,) of the Dutch ; the Manhikans , Mahikans or Mohegans , according to Prof. Ebeling, and the Mohegans or Mahhekanew, the original name of the Mohegans, (Gov. Clinton Dis. 2 N. Y. : H. Col. 41,) according to the English, (See Edwards on the Mohegan language ;) the Mohiccans , Mahiccon , (Ch. Thompson, Esq.,) and lastly the Mahiccaits and Mahicanni , ( Barton and Heckewelder,) were all one people, originally a branch of the Delaware nation. The name, as adopted by the early French writers, and given by La Hontan in the old Algonkin, is Mahuigan. (Ruttenber, 51.) Heckewelder says he is unacquainted with the origin of the name — Mahicanni — (Ms. Communication to Dr. Miller, 1801, in Library of the New York Hist. Soc) Its equivalent — the word Mohegan—says Schoolcraft is not the true Indian term, having been shorn of a part of its true sound by the early French, Dutch and English writers. ‘■c It was a phrase to denote an enchanted wolf, or a wolf of supernatural power ” — the wolf being “the prevailing totem of all the Hudson River cantons.” The modern Mohegans called themselves Muhhekaniew , a term corresponding, apparently, with that (Muhheakunnuk) used by Capt. Hendrick, the Mohawk Chieftain, in his tradition of the Mahicans, which signifies “ great waters or sea, which are constantly in motion, either ebbing or flowing, ’ and which, being the place of their nativity, was not resembled by any stream in their migrations towards the east until they reached the Hudson. ( hidiati Tribes of Hudson’ s River, 50, 51. Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., IX., 101.)

absence they returned, and gave so favorable an account of the newly discovered country as to induce the belief among their brethren that it was “destined for them by the Great Spirit.” They emigrated thither, at first in small numbers, till the great body of the nation had made it their place of abode, with their central possessions on the Delaware. Here they divided themselves into three tribes. The Turtle, the Turkey, and the Wolf — calling themselves respectively, the Unatnis, the Unalachtgos, and the Minsis. The former two chose for their place of settlement the country lying nearest to the sea; while the Minsis, who were considered the most warlike and active, located to the northward, between them and the Iroquois, who lived in the vicinity of the great lakes and on their tributary streams.