It Happened Here -- What if... 

One of the prerogatives of being a history buff,  as opposed to being a professional historian is you are permitted to (or at least can get away with) occasionally wonder aloud "What if...?"  I have probably allowed myself  more than my fair share of "what if" scenarios.  For example -- What if the guard stationed at Lincoln's box at the Ford Theater had stayed at his post, and chased John Wilkes Booth away, and Lincoln had been allowed to put his stamp on Reconstruction?  What if Aaron Burr had missed, or better yet not allowed himself to become involved in a duel with Alexander Hamilton, and the former resident of Albany, and Vice President, instead of becoming a national pariah, had turned his political fortunes around?  What if Benedict Arnold, instead of breaking bad, and trying to sell out General Washington, and the Continentals, had stayed the course and remained loyal to the war's end when Congress with all its dithering and inaction caused the officers of the Continental Army while in cantonment at New Windsor to nearly stage a military coup? Would the reckless, aggressive and charismatic Arnold, with the others, have been too much for Washington to restrain?

And of course, there is war itself.  War removes suddenly and finally the talents of many men who might have shaped history, leaving us to wonder, "What if...?"  In my pantheon of  "What if" warriors, one who would certainly be near the top is Major General Richard Montgomery.  

Richard Montgomery was born a younger son of Anglo-Irish Gentry in Swords, Ireland. He attended Trinity College for two years at the beginning of the Seven Years War but his father and brother urged him to enter a career in the military, purchasing an ensign's commission for him in the 17th Regiment of Foot. The 17th was deployed to Halifax and participated in the siege of Louisbourg.  Montgomery distinguished himself and was promoted to Lieutenant. In 1759 his regiment was engaged in the Lake George campaign.
Montgomery participated in the investiture and fall of Montreal in 1760 and from there his regiment was shipped to the Caribbean where it helped capture Martinique and Havana.  In Havana he was recognized for his bravery in the storming of Moro Castle and he was promoted to the rank of Captain.

 After the French and Indian War he was dispatched to Ft. Stanwix as part of forces to counter Pontiac's "Rebellion". On the way up the Hudson his ship became grounded near Clermont, the manor house of the southern branch of the Livingston family and while waiting for high tide to re-float the ship, Montgomery went ashore where he met Janet Livingston.  Having served at at Fort Stanwix, Montgomery was assigned to Detroit.  Before the Pontiac "rebellion" he had asked to be allowed to return to England to recuperate from illnesses he had contracted in the Caribbean, that continued to dog him. In 1765 he was granted leave.

In London, with his considerable foreign experience Montgomery became friends with several of Britain's leading liberal/radical members of parliament, Issac Barre, Edmund Burke, and Charles James Fox and he absorbed many of their critiques of British Imperial policy.  His friendship with these radical Whigs also tended to discredit him in the eyes of his conservative military superiors, so when he applied for promotion to the rank of Major, in 1771, he was passed over for someone less qualified. Angered by the snub, in 1772 Montgomery sold his captain's commission and declaring he would devote his life to husbandry, he left for America.

In America he bought a 67 acre farm at Kings Bridge, north of Manhattan and renewed his acquaintance with Janet Livingston who was living in New York.  In 1773 they were married.  Janet's grandfather Judge Henry Beekman gave them a small house in Rhinebeck to live in while they planned a larger house, to be named "Grasmere".

The Montgomery's house located on the Post Rd., was moved to Livingston St., Rhinebeck

Grasmere was begun by Montgomery and finished after his death. Still privately owned, on Mill Rd., Rhinebeck, it is not visible from the road.







Montgomery built a grist mill on the small but fast moving Landsman's Kill

By Bridge, NYS 9, Rhinebeck

 As Britain and her American Colonies became increasingly at loggerheads over the issues of taxation and paying for the defense of the colonies for the French and Indian War, reluctantly both the Livingstons and Montgomery came to believe America needed to fight for its rights and eventually for its independence. Richard was elected to serve as Dutchess County's representative in the New York Provincial Congress then in the summer of 1775 was one of eight offered a rank of Brigadier General in the new Continental Army.  (Only three had any professional military experience.)  With a sense of foreboding, he accepted.

The new Rhinebeck farmer hoped he would serve with Washington in his army outside of Boston but soon learned he was slated for an expedition to take Canada, under General Phillip Schuyler.  Schuyler became ill and Montgomery found himself in command.  On the Richielu River Montgomery probed, then laid siege to Fort St. John.  As the siege dragged on, Montgomery led an assault on the smaller Fort Chambly, ten miles north of Fort St, John.  Perhaps to inspire and give confidence to his amateur troops Montgomery personally led many of the maneuvers himself, demonstrating acts of personal bravery and frequently exposing himself to enemy fire. Standing on a breastwork in front of his siege guns facing Fort St. John he was blown off the embankment by an incoming cannonball but escaped unscathed. After nearly two months Fort St. John finally fell and his force moved on to Montreal. Montreal was evacuated by the British and on December  he linked up with an assault force led by Benedict Arnold. Arnold had made an arduous wilderness journey up the Kennebec River, then down the Chaudiere River to Quebec.

On the night of December 30 in the midst of a covering snowstorm the Americans attacked Quebec. Arnold entered the walled and barricaded city from the north. General Montgomery* attacked the lower town along the river. As usual, Montgomery was in the most exposed position, at the head of the assault troops that sawed through two stockades thrown up to block entrance to the lower city. As he and two of his officers scrambled through the narrow opening a field piece mounted in a fortified house opened fire. A charge of grape shot ripped through the opening. The officers were down and Richard Montgomery was dead.

On the north side of town Arnold's attack was also faltering.  Disabled by a broken ankle, Arnold was having trouble keeping up while his men in the streets, struggling with snow-dampened gunpowder, were pinned down by defenders firing from houses on all sides.  Within a few hours it was over.  Most of the Americans inside the city were killed or rounded up and captured. And the surviving leaderless Americans outside the city began a retreat that would not end until they were well back in New York.

After the battle the British discovered Montgomery's body and gave it a decent burial while he was acclaimed for his bravery in both America and Britain. His memory was held up as the ideal of valor, patriotism and self-sacrifice. Both Schuyler and Washington were described as being "distraught" by his death. Congress ordered a monument from France to be erected in St. Paul's Chapel in New York. Poems and plays were written about him and his death was immortalized in a famous painting by John Trumbull.  Thomas Paine imagined a dialogue in which Montgomery's ghost appeared before Congress to urge them that the time for independence had come. Janet Montgomery wore mourning dress for the rest of her long life, refusing the attentions of General Horatio Gates who proposed to her in 1783, and building a new house, at age 60 that she named Chateau de Montgomery, later called Montgomery Place.

Chateau de Montgomery, Dutchess Co Rte 103
(Portico and wings were added about 1847)

MONTGOMERY PLACE

Home of Janet Livingston

Widow of General Richard

Montgomery Killed in

Quebec 1775 and of Hon.

Edw. Livingston, 1764-1836

                       -NYSHM now missing


   In 1818 the State of New York arranged for Montgomery's remains to be brought from Quebec to be buried at his memorial at St. Paul's. As the ships carrying his remains made their way down the Champlain/Hudson corridor, crowds gathered to watch, salutes were fired and bands played.  From the balcony of Chateau de Montgomery, overlooking the Hudson, Janet Montgomery asked her family for time alone while a band on board the steam boat Richmond, carrying the General's body played in her honor. When they returned they found she had been overcome with emotion and had fainted.

Rear balcony with the Hudson in the Distance

 I have little doubt, in speculating on the "What if" question, that if General Montgomery had not been killed, if he had captured Quebec, he might have become one of Washington's top generals, with Nataniel Greene,  Anthony Wayne and John Sullivan.  Perhaps  he might have even supplanted Greene as Washington's favorite general and military confidante. But what roles might have Montgomery played in the new republic? Would he have become one of the "first sons" of the "founding fathers"-- men of a slightly younger generation who shaped the new government? -- men of Hamilton's, Madison's, Monroe's and Jay's generation?  It is quite possible he might have retired from public life, like Greene and Sullivan or continued in pubic service only as military officers, like Wayne or Arthur St. Claire. Or he might have focused his talents on state politics, like Generals George Clinton,  and Stephen Van Rensselaer II.

In truth, we don't know, or can ever know, but it is still fun to speculate, "What if...?"

*Montgomery had been promoted to the rank of Major General, but hadn't received the news of his promotion.

It Happened Here --War Stories

Fortunately, for the people of New York State the American Civil War was fought miles away from New York's borders.  Blood soaked fields and bullet riddled woods and shattered cities were not a part of New York's direct experience. But as the most populous state in the Union,  New York supplied the most soldiers, suffered the most casualties, was home to some of the biggest war industries, and was site of one of the largest prisoner-of-war camps in the North.  New York was profoundly effected by the war. Within a few years monuments to the War's survivors and memorials to its dead would spring up in nearly every city and small town with a park or village green across the State, as they did in Virginia or the Carolinas. And from its onset, the war generated war stories.

The war stories told at the beginning of a conflict, and while it is going on, tend to be different from the war stories told by veterans after the war is over. (And quite different, too, from the author-less rumors that are current throughout a war.) The stories told in the early stages of war tend to laud the patriotism, selflessness, and bravery of our own soldiers while vilifying and emphasizing the cruelty of our enemies. In the Texas Revolt of 1836 such stories gave rise to the cry "Remember the Alamo," and similarly, (with more than a little help from America's jingoistic press) gave resolve to the troopers in 1898 storming San Jan Hill, shouting, "Remember the Maine".

On the other hand, war stories told by veterans are often somewhat different, and told for different reasons, focusing more on the capriciousness of war and the ironies of survival. The horrors of war are shared with other veterans for the cathartic effect sharing them seems to have. Personal recollections of people and events are shared to help old soldiers make sense of them and put them in some kind of historical perspective.

One of the first war stories to come out of the Civil War was the story of Col. Elmer Ellsworth, the first union officer killed in the Civil War.  Elmer Elsworth was born in Malta, New York in Saratoga County in 1837, the same year his father lost his tailor business in the Panic that year and was forced to try to make ends meet by doing odd jobs and peddling pickled oysters, door to door. At age 11 his family moved to Mechanicville. The younger Ellsworth was small in stature and was teased with the nickname "oyster keg" but from an early age he dreamed of military glory and became a student of military tactics and drill.

 At an early age he left home and headed west.  A few years before the beginning of the Civil War, Ellsworth found job as a clerk in a patent lawyers' office, near Chicago. Though he was barely eking out an existence as a clerk, he found time to join a local militia unit, the Cadets of the National Guard.  Local militias, decades removed from the last domestic war (in 1812) had become mainly social organizations like weekend softball leagues or sportsman's clubs. Their training was minimal and arms and equipment mismatched and antiquated..

Around this time Ellsworth met Charles DeVillers, a fencing instructor in a local gym. DeVillers was a veteran of the French Zouaves, a group of exotic colonial regiments based in Algiers known for their dashing appearance and daring precision bayonet tactics. Ellsworth became his eager student and in a few months had transformed himself into an expert fencer, an acrobat and a drill instructor/choreographer. Ellsworth's apparent knowledge and enthusiasm led him to be elected as the unit's major, and Ellsworth set out to transform this doughty, lackadaisical militia into a precision drill team, inspired by the Zouaves. After a few local exhibitions the U.S. Zouave Cadets, as they now styled themselves, became a sensation and were booked on a national tour that  took them to two dozen cities in the north and northeast.  On their next-to-last stop in Springfield, Illinois  Ellsworth met with Abraham Lincoln and secured a job with him as one of his law clerks.* 

County Rte 108, east of the roundabouts, Malta

 Through the summer of 1860 he worked with Lincoln in his office and on his campaign, while
Lincoln kept a low profile. When his employer went to Washington,  Ellsworth went with him; then as the country mobilized for war, he offered an idea. The showman major would raise a regiment of real soldiers by recruiting among New York's firemen, who had shown tremendous enthusiasm for the Zouave Cadets. Lincoln approved and in a short time Ellsworth was Colonel to the 11th Volunteer Regiment, the "Fire Zouaves."

When Virginia seceded from the Union in May 1861, Colonel Ellsworth used his influence with the President to get his unit assigned on the first raid into Alexandria, Virginia, across the Potomac. Entering the city, he learned another body of attacking troops had secured an agreement with the Rebel forces.  The Union forces would be allowed to occupy the city if the Rebels troops could withdraw peacefully.  Disappointed, Ellsworth reconciled himself to the notion there would be no opportunity for glory that day! Ellsworth had sent his men ahead to occupy the telegraph office when he remembered a large Confederate flag he had passed, flying from a flagpole atop the Marshall House Inn.  Ellsworth had observed it through a telescope from the White House with Lincoln's family and it had become something of a symbol for the President's critics of the President's reluctance to take decisive action. Turning abruptly,  Ellsworth took four soldiers with him and entered the hotel. There he encountered a disheveled James W. Jackson, the proprietor who pretended to be a border who said he knew nothing about the flag.  In fact, Jackson was an ardent secessionist and slaveholder with a penchant for violence.  Ellsworth and his men rushed passed Jackson up the stairs to the roof.  On the way back down Ellsworth, encumbered with the massive flag, ran into Jackson on the second floor landing. Jackson was now armed with a double barrel shotgun and he fired both barrels at the Colonel at extremely close range. Ellsworth died instantly. A second later Corporal Francis E. Brownell shot Jackson in the face and bayoneted him repeatedly.
 

A photograph of a display of Ellsworth relics exhibited at a U. S. Sanitary Commission benefit (predecessor of the Red Cross) in 1863. Throughout the war Ellsworth memorabilia were used for this purpose and for recruiting, and often featured the bloodstained coat and shirt Ellsworth wore when he was shot.
After the War, the Democratic Party complained Republicans used the Democrats mixed support of the War to link them with the Rebels, and condemn them as "the Party of Secession" a tactic they called "waving the Bloody Shirt" (picture on display at the NYS Military Museum, Saratoga)

 Coat of Col. Ellsworth--Cleaned of Blood when it was conserved, it still shows the fatal damage from Jackson's shotgun blast. Not until 1862, after several friendly fire incidents were all Union troops required to wear blue. (on display at NYS Military Museum, Saratoga)



Within hours, news of the incident was telegraphed to every state in the North. Ellsworth's body was taken to lay in state at the White House. Lincoln was devastated. "My boy! My boy! Was it necessary this sacrifice should be made?"he was heard to murmur.  The funeral was delayed by the thousands that trooped past the body as it lay in state in the East Room. A large military parade accompanied the hearse which brought the body to a special funeral train that would take the Colonel's remains to New York City where tens of thousands more would view the coffin, on its way to Mechanicville. A focal point of that parade to the train station in Washington would be Corporal Brownell who marched with the captured Confederate flag impaled on his bayonet**. The story of Ellsworth's death created a new national martyr. Only a 24 hour Zouave guard prevented the Confederate flag from being cut up into thousands of relics for private veneration. A floodgate holding back the rising antipathy toward the South seemed to have burst. In May Lincoln asked for 42,000 more volunteers. Within a few weeks, fueled by news of the attack on Fort Sumter and the story of Ellsworth's death, five times that number had enlisted.

NYS Rte 32, Mechanicville

                                                                  
                                                                         ---------------

Corporal James Tanner's military career came to an end on August 30,  1862.  He had enlisted when he was 17 in the New York 87th Volunteer Infantry and fought through the long arduous Peninsular
Campaign in the battles of Fair Oaks, Williamsburg, Siege of Yorktown, Seven Days' Battles before Richmond, and Malvern Hill. When his unit came under fire at the Second Battle of Bull Run, he and his fellow infantrymen had been ordered to lie down, to avoid enemy cannon fire.  Then an exploding shell ripped off one of his lower legs and destroyed the foot on his other leg.  Carried unconscious to a farmhouse field hospital he was left by his retreating comrades to the care of the Confederates and was exchanged a few days later.

NYS Rte 7, west of Richmondville

 Somehow Tanner survived his grievous wounds and was fitted with wooden prostheses after a few months. Returning to New York, Tanner became active in Republican politics and secured for himself a position as a doorkeeper for the New York Assembly.  Tanner studied stenography and in 1864 landed a job in Washington as a clerk in the War Department.  In April 1865 he received an urgent call from Secretary Stanton who summoned him to the Petersen Hotel, across from Ford's theater where, as President Lincoln lay dying, he recorded all the incoming information about the assassination.

A year later he returned to New York State to earn his law degree and begin his climb in Republican politics and increasingly important public offices. From its formative days,  Tanner was a most active member of the Grand Army of the Republic, the great Union veterans organization, that developed out of the war. The garrulous Tanner enjoyed the company of other veterans, never missing an annual encampment in 48 years, becoming its President in 1876. Tanner would go on to organize a fund raising campaign to build a 600 bed Soldier's Home for New York's disabled veterans in Bath, New York, then pressure the State government to support its upkeep.  Later in Virginia, he would inspire and instruct Confederate veterans on a similar campaign that resulted in the Confederate Home in Richmond, Virginia.
 

*Ellsworth had met Lincoln a year before and had made a favorable impression on him. Since then he had become engaged to Carrie Spafford. Her father, an Illinois businessman encouraged him to seek out Lincoln to pursue a more lucrative career path, and may have facilitated the meeting.

**Brownell was eventually awarded the Medal of Honor for killing Jackson!

Marker of the Week -- Who knew?!   I had always assumed the Town in Saratoga County named Malta was named for the rather large island in the Mediterranean Sea, once a British Protectorate, home to Crusaders and scene of a spirited defense by British forces during WWII, etc.

There are certainly many towns in New York named for countries.  New York has a China, a Sweden, a Mexico, a Peru, a Greece and a Russia, and there are probably others. It would be interesting to investigate the who, why and when of the name change--perhaps if "NYSHMS: It Happened Here" looks at the Temperance Movement, in some future post.

It Happened Here --In Precarious Positions, Part III*

(Isabella in Ulster)

Nineteenth century antebellum New York placed many blacks in "precarious positions."  Charles Nalle, born into slavery in the South, and escaped to New York and freedom a few years before the Civil War had his freedom nearly taken away from him by slave catchers operating under the U.S. Fugitive Slave Act.  Solomon Northrup, born a free black man, had his freedom stolen from him by a pair of kidnappers, nearly two decades before. And Isabella, a slave women battered physically and emotionally by domestic slavery in New York State, in the first decades of the nineteenth century would gradually forge a new identity for herself as New York incrementally freed its slaves, confirming her freedom, but keeping her children in bondage.

Isabella was born a slave to the wealthy Col. Johannes Hardenberg, one of seven he owned, around 1797.  Her parents were Betsey and James "Baumfree," nicknamed in Dutch, "the tree" due to his tall and lean physique. She would inherit these traits from her father. Isabella was the next to youngest of ten or twelve children. Most of the children had been sold away but she would hear the stories told by her parents of her siblings lost to them.  After Colonel Hardenberg died his son Charles kept Isabella, her parents and other slaves in the damp cellar of a hotel he ran until he died in 1806 when Isabella was sold off at age 9 with a herd of sheep for $100.

                " Sojourner Truth
             179? - 1883 Born into 
         Slavery in Swartekill, Then            marker on Ulster Co. Rte 25, Rifton  
        Hurley, She Rose to Become
            A Famous Orator and
         Champion of Human Rights "
               --George Pataki, Governor 

Isabella was purchased by a Kingston store owner and importer of West Indies goods, near the port on Roundout Creek, where it empties into the Hudson River. Growing up in a Dutch speaking household, Isabella could speak only Dutch.  When she didn't understand her new owner's orders, he regularly beat her. Two years later she was sold to a fisherman and tavern keeper, Martinus Schryer in what became Port Ewen. There she hoed his garden, carried fish and hauled jugs of spirits from the port to the tavern.

Rte 9W and River Rd, Port Ewen

"Isabella"

"Jug Tavern" River Rd. Port Ewen

In 1810 Schryvers sold Isabella for $105 to John Dumont, a fellow parishioner of the Klyne Esopus Reformed Dutch Church who lived a few miles south of Schryver.

      Coincidentally, this church replaced an older  church where Schryver and Dumont were members,  the year New York's slaves were freed

Isabella worked as a farm laborer for Dumont, plowing, hoeing and reaping, and he praised her for her hard work. Some biographers believe he may have sexually abused her. His wife disliked Isabella and may have sexually abused Isabella as well. Characteristically, she adored Dumont and when he "married" her off to Tom, one of his older slaves, after several years she expressed feelings of pride of having borne five children that increased her master's property.

Beginning in 1799, New York began planning for the emancipation of its slaves.  More concerned with the economic impact emancipation would have on slave owners, than the effect it might have on the families of enslaved blacks, the State enacted a phased emancipation. Slaves born before 1799 would be freed on July 4, 1827; Slaves born after 1799 but before 1817 would be "free" but would serve their masters as "indentured servants" for 21 years after 1827; Slaves born after 1817 and before 1827 would have to serve 25 years as "indenture servants".**

Several years before the 1827 emancipation date Dumont promised Isabella and Tom if they continued to work hard up to July 4, 1826 he would free them then-- a year early; but 9 months before the 1826 date Dumont reneged on his promise.  Isabella was incensed.  Working extra hard, to accomplish all the work she thought she would owe him in the extra year, she walked away from Dumont's farm on her promised release date, carrying the infant daughter she was still nursing. Tom, fearing to go, stayed behind to care for the other children who still faced years of indentured servitude. 

From a Quaker friend Isabella was given the name of a couple known to be opposed to slavery.  Issac and Maria Van Wagenen in the ancient Dutch community of Wagendaal gave her sanctuary and when Dumont came looking for her they worked out a settlement with him.  They would pay him $20 for her year's services, and $5 for the baby and she would repay them, working as their housekeeper. Isabella took their last name as her own, calling herself Isabella Van Wagenen.

Van Wagenen homes in Wagendaal

Wagendaal
On This Farm is Home of
Jacob Aarsten van Wagenen
Built 1669, First Settler
And Home of Johannes
Van Wagenen, Built 1775

State Education
Department 1932

                                                                           

Monument outside of the Ulster County Court

While living with her new employers, Isabella heard her 5 year old son, Peter, had been sold or given by John Dumont to the neighboring Gedney family and they had sold him to one of their kin who had taken him to Alabama.  Isabella was outraged, especially when she learned the new emancipation law prohibited slave owners from selling or taking their slaves or "indentured" children out of state to circumvent the law. She sought the advise of some Quaker friends who drove her to the Ulster County Court, in Kingston to present her case to the Grand Jury.  Unescorted, the illiterate former slave resolutely marched in and accosted the first man she determined appeared "grand" enough to be part of the jury.  Probably astounded and amused, he directed her to the Grand Jury room and they concluded she had a case.  Next, she hired a lawyer and his partner, by agreeing to work as his housekeeper. The lawyers pressured Dumont and the Gedney's to get Isabella's son returned to Ulster County, by threatening them with prosecution and the heavy fines provided for under the new law. But Gedney resisted summonses to bring the boy into court. As the months dragged on and her lawyers appeared unwilling or unable to compel her former owner's friend to appear in court with her son,  Isabella sought out a new lawyer who agreed to work for free but asked for $5 to engage a man to compel Gedney and her son to appear. Isabella took off walking to return to the Quaker community to go door to door to solicit donations. Soon she had the $5 and more, but refused to keep the surplus,  telling her lawyer "I only want my son.  If $5 will get him, more will surely get him."

Soon Gedney was in court with a small traumatized young boy who had been whipped and beaten from head to toe. He didn't recognize his mother and at first refused to go to her but the judge was affected and despite the law ordered the boy immediately released into the care of his mother.

Peter's trauma had lasting effects. As he grew he was constantly in trouble. He stole and gambled and whored and drank. He was supposed to be in navigation school but he didn't attend. Isabella got him a job as a coachman, but he pawned his livery. She got him a job as a lock tender on the new D&H canal, but he failed at that. In desperation she got him a job on a whaling ship. Two years later the ship returned, but her son was not on board. She never heard from him again!

D&H Canal locks where Peter briefly worked

Locks entering the Roundout Creek

While Isabella was with the Van Wagenens, and in Kingston, she was  growing in assertiveness, learning to present herself in public, and learning, if not to read books, to "read people." At the same time, her new employers encouraged her to attend Methodist meetings/prayer sessions.  Early Methodism, unlike the Methodism of modern times was expressive, estatic, and evangelical.  Isabella's life with the VanWagenens was comfortable, but somewhat boring and she missed drinking, carousing, smoking and dancing with her former slave friends. When John Dumont came by the Van Wagenen's household she almost begged him to take her back, but was overcome by indecision, and guilt and she experienced a powerful conversion experience in which she believed she felt God's presence. Isabella felt a calling to preach. She began ministering in her own social circles.  By 1829 she had decided to leave Ulster County for New York City and new challenges to express her new faith. It would not be until 1843 she would leave New York City as a traveling evangelist, and adopt a new name for herself, "Sojourner Truth"; and it would be fully two decades before she became the mature orator and advocate for Women's Rights and the nationwide abolition of slavery for which she became famous.

 
 *Part I on 3/31/13 concerned Charles Nalle in Troy and Part II on 4/7/13 concerned Solomon Northrup from Saratoga.  Both of those posts  can be brought up by scrolling to those dates on the column on the right.

**For anyone who has done NYS income taxes, or participates in a NYS employees Tier-ed retirement system, do you detect a familiar resonance, even if the substance is foreign?




Marker of the Week --This week, (April 1st) is our main holiday dedicated to the promulgation of silliness (though, New Years Eve comes in a close second). In its honor,  I offer you this historic marker.  It is one of a group of historical ho-hum-ers marking the boundaries between towns, that seemed to have been especially popular in Columbia and Dutchess Counties.

 








Now, if you feel compelled to visit this historic shrine (as apparently I was) It is located at the intersection of Dutchess Co. Rte 199 and --

Happy Holiday!