It Happened Here --The Tough, Wiley Scotsman and his Diligent Vrouw

 

Robert Livingston (“the elder”) arrived in Charleston, Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1674 at age 20 with little more than a few letters of introduction prepared by his father Rev. John Livingston.  John Livingston was a presbyterian cleric whose Puritan leanings had increasingly put him at odds with the established church promoted by King James II.  John had emigrated to avoid trouble to Rotterdam, Netherlands with his wife and youngest son, Robert, when the boy was nine years old. The Reverend quickly became a leader among the Presbyterian Scots living in voluntary exile there. The young Robert put his time to good use, becoming fluent in Dutch, and learning about business in perhaps the best school of business in the mercantile world, a Dutch counting house.

Arriving in Massachusetts the young Livingston used his letters of introduction to secure a loan and a stock of trading goods and set off for Albany. The colony of New York had just returned to English control, having been held briefly (1673-1674) by the Netherlands during the 3d Anglo-Dutch War. During that period traders from Massachusetts had reestablished trading links with Albany Dutch fur traders whose source of English trade goods had been cut off by the war. Now with the English (viz. The Duke of York) back in control, the Duke was insisting that all imports and exports be trans-shipped through the port of New York where duties could be levied on them. Livingston established himself as an agent for two of these Massachusetts traders as he was both fluent in the Dutch language and familiar with Dutch business practices.

Dominie Nicholas Van Rensselaer arrived in Albany about the same time as Livingston to share the pulpit of the Dutch Church in Albany and assumed the directorship of Rensselaerwyck when his brother, Jeremias, became incapacitated, then died, in the fall of 1674. Nicholas hired the young Scot for the position of secretary of Rennslaerwyck, and clerk of the Albany General Court, which by tradition were linked together. The receiving of quitrents and city taxes were part of his official responsibilities. Livingston was unafraid of courting public disapproval. When he negotiated for his salary he asked for a 5% commission on everything he collected, and having got it, appears to have pursued his official duty with tenacity. The following year Governor Andros traveled to Albany to negotiate a treaty with the Iroquois Confederacy. The young entrepreneur met the governor and charmed his way into a position as secretary of the New York Board of Indian Commissioners.  In all these positions fluency in Dutch was essential because not only were most litigants in the court Dutch speakers, and the traders engaged in the Indian fur trade were Dutch, but the Iroquois and Hudson River Indian diplomats/interpreters, themselves, generally spoke Dutch rather than English, at this time. Soon, as a political insider and self trained lawyer, Livingston began selling his services as a legal counselor. The young Scot also used his contacts and insider knowledge to further his fur trading enterprises. But as he continued his trading activities he continued to be plagued by a lack of capital. He spent a great deal of time and effort putting off creditors, while pursuing those who owed him money. Even his salaried clerical and secretarial positions were of little help. Both the Colony and the Patroonship were slow in paying the salaries owed him.

The young Robert appears to have had an active social life. There are references to at least two young women who occupied his attention during this period.¹ But he chose to court and marry a women who would do the most to improve his financial situation and elevate his social position. In 1679 he married Alida van Rensselaer who was the young widow of Nicholas van Rensselaer his former boss, after he died in 1678. In 1680 Alida was appointed to administer the Van Rensselaer's extensive land holding. As important as her wealth was to the struggling young capitalist, her family connections became more important. Alida was the daughter of Phillip Pieterse Schuyler, one of the foremost Albany fur traders. Her five brothers were all active in the business of the colony; and her sister was married to Stephanus Van Cortland a wealthy and powerful New Yorker. The effect of the marriage was almost instantaneous as the frequency of dunning letters from creditors decreased, to be replaced by offers for loans and business opportunities. Soon after they were married, Livingston brought suit on behalf of his wife for her share of the Manor of Rensselaerwyck. Though ultimately he was unsuccessful, his efforts earned him the approval of the Schuylers, and marked him as a man to be reckoned with.  Alida, for her part became a beloved and valuable help-mate, bearing him nine children, and running his enterprises for him, first, in Albany and later on the manor when he was away for extensive periods in New York City, and in England.²

Livingston Circle, Livingston

Like most men of his age, Robert Livingston associated his aspirations for greatness with acquiring large tracts of land. He petitioned Governor Andros for the right to buy 2000 acres from the Wappinger Indians along the eastern shore of the Hudson where the Roeliff Jansen Kill enters it. He received permission and negotiated its purchase for some 300 Guilders worth of muskets, gunpowder, wampum and various trade goods. In 1684 the new Royal Governor, Thomas Dongan bestowed on it a Royal Patent. The next year he applied for, and got permission to buy an additional 600 acres on the Massachusetts border, along the upper reaches of the Roeliff Jansen Kill, in an area the Indians called “Tachkanick”. The following year the two parcels were united by Dongan into one “Lordship or Manor of Livingston...with full power and authority at all times for ever hereafter in said Lordship and Manor one Court Leet and one court Baron to hold and keep”. Carelessly the Governor, by his act united the two tracts of land which were miles apart into one, turning Livingston's 2,600 acres into 160,000 acres and giving him and his heirs the right to adjudicate all civil and most minor criminal matters among his tenants on his new manor.

                                                                                                                                                                     

 Though Livingston's road, connecting separate parts of his manor principally benefited himself, by declaring it a "king's hie way" Livinston, no doubt. was angling for royal support, or at least hoped to claim royal protection against highwaymen. County Rte 10, Linlithgo

 An early map of Livingston's Manor labels this county road
a "waggon path" County Re 10, Linlithgo




Livingston had done his utmost to ingratiate himself with both Andros and the new Governor, and was becoming an important insider in the Albany government. The Van Rensselaer's having recently thwarted his attempts to take a share of their manor may have seen the value in supporting Livingston's efforts to gain a manor of his own. And finally, Livingston, like many successful colonial businessmen was making substantial loans to the governor. In an era when disbursements from the crown and local taxes often lagged far behind colonial government expenses, by 1689, the Governor personally owed Livingston  £ 3000 for sums Livingston had advanced him!

Though Robert built his manor house on a hill overlooking the Roeliff Jansen Kill in 1692 the lands of the manor remained largely unpopulated for many years. By 1700, in all of Livingston's vast holdings only four or five tiny struggling farms could be found along its banks.  The fact was there were simply too many other places from New Jersey to the Carolinas where settlers could buy land free and clear, farm it without burdensome rents and obligations and some day sell it with improvements they had made on it for its full market value. Not until 1710, with the arrival of a new governor, would this situation improve. Robert Hunter arrived at his new post with a scheme to produce naval stores for the British navy. The “War of the Spanish Succession” had produced a wave of German refugees from the Rhineland Palatinate that crowded into tent cities in open fields south east of London. The war also made the procurement of naval stores – pitch and pine tar, essential for ship building, produced in countries ringing the Baltic sea, expensive and difficult to obtain. Hunter reasoned if a large number of these refugees could be indentured³ and transported to America to produce naval stores from the apparently abundant stands of native pine trees, both problems could be alleviated. Hunter arrived at his new office bringing with him between two and three thousand Palatines and after some delay established them in two settlements, West Camp, on the western side of the Hudson, north of Saugerties, and East Camp on land within Livingston's Manor.

Site of the Palatines' first church in West Camp, on Rte 9W. Another state sign, now missing, near here proclaimed:
"West Camp,  Settled 1710 By Paletines from the Rhineland For Production Of Naval Stores. 
Built Church and School 
During First Winter."



 The government bought back a 600 acre parcel of land that contained large stands of white pine trees, paying the Lord of the Manor £400. Livingston was also appointed the government's “victualer”, contracted to supply each of the Palatines with daily rations of 1/3 of a loaf of bread and a quart of ship's beer for the duration of the project. And, he became a salaried inspector of the camps, at £100 per year. While he and his sons scoured the countryside for wheat at the best prices, Alida, his wife ran the baking operations from the manor. She would eventually run most of the family business on the manor, selling commodities from the manor storehouse and extending credit when necessary. 

 A Town Park in Germantown commemorates the Palatines of East Camp, Palatine Park Rd.

 

Site of the Palatine Church in "East Camp" State Rte 9G  in Germantown



The naval stores project, however, was fraught with problems. Naval stores, like many other specialized commodities in the 17^th and 18^th centuries were produced by craftsmen using trade secrets that the English imitators had little access to. More importantly, the white pines of North America were poor sources of the resins necessary for naval stores⁴. And finally the Palatine peasant-farmers, themselves, though they were desperate to escape their war – devastated homelands, had little enthusiasm for the hard, dirty work of producing pitch and pine tar, and for the prospect of what seemed to be perpetual bondage. Livingston, also had difficulty fulfilling his contract. The war that brought the Palatines to America was manifesting itself as Queen Anne's War in North America . With war preparations underway for an invasion of Canada, wheat had become scarce, and expensive. Livingston cut back on the rations he supplied to the Palatines.

In 1711 the Palatines rebelled and Governor Hunter sent soldiers into the camps to put down the rebellion and ensure that the Palatines continued to work. Time passed and no shipments of naval stores were forthcoming. Money for the project dried up and in 1713 Hunter was forced to admit defeat and release the Palatines. Many left for the Mohawk and Schoharie Valleys where other Palatines had settled earlier.

 On State Rte 146 between Guilderland and Altamont




 Some eventually emigrated to Pennsylvania where Germans had settled and they encountered less hostility than they faced in New York.  A large number of Palatines had taken loans from Livingston, and indebted to him, they were obliged to become the first large group of tenants on the manor.

By 1715 the British government had begun to rethink the wisdom of its large scale grants of land given out to friends of the king and colonial governors. Britain was becoming anxious to see its colonies fill out with settlers and develop, particularly in the light of French incursions into its western reaches. But the Crown's large grants of land were often allowed to lie, unpopulated, as their speculator/ owners waited for land prices to rise or they became preoccupied with other matters. Several of these grants had been taken back by the government. The area that included West Camp, where the Palatines were settled, for example, had been the Evans grant of 6300 acres, repossessed by the Crown. In the light of these developments. Livingston sought to reconfirm his patent and applied to Governor Hunter. The exact nature of what Livingston offered Hunter is unknown, though Hunter was indebted to Livingston for several thousand pounds. Whatever it was that Hunter sought to gain, he issued Livingston a new patent for Livingston Manor and with it he created a new Provincial Assembly district, centered on the lands of the manor. With its freeholder/electors beholden to the Lord of the Manor, Livingston was assured of a seat in the Assembly for many years to come – his own “pocket borough” of the type notorious in the history of British Parliamentary politics. It wasn't long before Livingston's charm and political instincts secured for him the Speaker's chair of the Assembly which he held until his retirement in 1725. From it he furthered his financial interests and helped insure that his loans and outlays for government projects would be repaid. From it he also developed a political philosophy of opposition to British taxation and control of the colonies that he would share with most of the colonial Livingstons who came after him.

Site of Tenant Hans Dings House, on the Roeliff Jansen Kill, Silvernails

The population on the Manor continued to grow slowly, both from new tenants and black slaves that the first Lord of the Manor acquired. A census in 1718 reported 126 Palatine households, some 499 tenants were living on the manor. For several of their last years both Robert and Alida were in poor health. Livingston worked to carefully preserve his legacy, even to the extent of securing the political offices he had acquired for his eldest surviving son, Phillip, who became the 2^nd Lord of the manor. To Robert Jr. he gave 160,000 acres at the southern end of his estate,  that became the manor of Claremont. A family tradition holds that Robert Jr. with conspicuous bravery once thwarted an attempt by slaves to kidnap or kill the elder Livingston, and so he was given special consideration, though there is no apparent documentary evidence to substantiate this story.⁵

In 1728 the tough Scotsman who made a personal empire, starting with little more than talent, ruthless determination and cunning, died. He was preceded by his remarkable wife and partner in business and life a year earlier.

Wire Rd., Linlithgo

Marker of the Week -- Right Location, Wrong Battle?

 While NYSHM's are usually pretty accurate, their location  is occasionally wrong.  In this case, the reverse seems to be true. In 1755 Colonial forces and their Indian allies under William Johnson collided with French Regulars and their Indian allies. In a number of bloody engagements Johnson fought off the French under Baron Dieskau. The Baron was wounded and captured and the French broke off the battle retreating back north.  Following this Battle of Lake George, Johnson built a fort, Fort William Henry, on the high ground next to the battlefield.  Two years later, in 1757, the French returned to lay siege to the Fort, this time led by Montcalm. (When the Battle of Lake George occurred Montcalm had been living the life of a contented rural squire in the French countryside with his two young daughters, which he adored.) During this later battle, known as the Battle or Siege of Fort William Henry, the Colonial forces occupied a fortified encampment on the older battlefield. It is here in huts their sick and wounded were probably housed. Other wounded, from the siege itself were sheltered in the casements of the fort itself. Following the textbook siege that left the Fort shattered and indefensible the British Commandant surrendered,  with the understanding that the garrison and their families would be permitted to leave for Fort Edward unharmed. The Indian allies of the French, however, felt they were being cheated out of the spoils (scalps, prisoners and plunder) they were promised. After the surrender they rampaged through the British fort and encampment, scalping and taking whatever they could.

E-Mail Me: If you have comments about this blog or any other thing having to do with NYSHM's I would be delighted to hear from you. I would be especially interested if you know of any new or interesting markers or can report on any efforts to restore old markers. My email is tba998@gmail.com I look forward to hearing and sharing your thoughts on this blog. 

1 Court records also reveal a suit brought against him when he borrowed a violin to entertain his friends, and tried to return it to the owner,  broken in three pieces!

2Unlike English society in the 17^th and early 18^th Centuries, Dutch society regarded women much more as equals in the world of business. Women did not give up their “surnames” when the married. They owned property and often ran their own businesses. After marriage, they often became full partners with their spouses.

3Indentureship was a common practice in Colonial America

4Later in the colonial period several species of southern pines would be found to be excellent sources of resins for naval stores, leading to a major industry in the south, including in North Carolina, “the tar-heel state”.

5John, the eldest son died a few years before, while pursuing his father's interests in London. A younger son, Gilbert, mismanaging his affairs almost to the point of bankruptcy. He was bailed out by his father, but not included in the will.