It Happened Here -- "Dallas" On the Hudson?

A number of years ago (1978-1991) one of the most popular prime-time T.V.  series was the "soap opera" Dallas.  Dallas was about a large extended family of cattle and oil barons from Texas and their disasters, schemes, squabbles and infidelities.  Like any large family, over time,  the Livingston  family of Columbia and Dutchess Counties had their share of disasters, schemes, squabbles and infidelities, as they struggled to maintain their aristocratic life style in a country that was becoming increasingly democratic. At one particular period and among one branch of their family, however, their problems and peccadillo's seemed to reach soap-operatic proportions.

In Colonial America, and most of Western Europe during that period, inheritance laws required that the bulk of a family's fortune be passed down to the oldest male child, thus "preserving" the family fortune. Robert "the Elder"* Livingston,  having become one of the first Patroons of the Hudson River Valley to some extent defied this law by giving a substantial (but not equal) portion of his estate to a younger son, Robert "of Clermont".  Family legend holds that this younger son had once saved his father's life in an Indian attack, so his father was especially close to this son.

From then on, one or another of the Livingston Manor Livingstons seemed to be squabbling with their Clermont Manor kin, and vice versa. By the fourth generation there were a large number of Livingstons (at least five from Livingston Manor, plus spouses, parents and grandparents; ten from Clermont, and their relatives, and a scattering of Livingstons, descended from "Robt. the Nephew" based more or less around Poughkeepsie.)

Border Between Livingston Manor and Clermont on Rte 9G

A major rift between the two Manors occurred when (Chancellor) Robert of Clermont Manor informed his relative, Robert (the 3d proprietor of Livingston Manor,) of his plans to build a mill on the Roeliff Jansen Kill, the creek dividing the two Manors. Robert of Livingston Manor stonily reminded him that Clermont's boundary was specified in the inheritance as lying on the southern shore of the creek, and not extending out into the creek, and certainly not allowing for the construction of a mill dam onto the northern side of the creek. Though the Chancellor went ahead and built his mill, anyway, the dispute poisoned relationships between the two branches of the family for at least two generations.

 Chancellor Robert R. Livingston is a fascinating character,  suffused with Livingston pride--self seeking and public spirited; cunning and trusting; a faithful husband and ladies man; a democrat and a protector of ancient privilege; and a capitalist who sought public monopolies.  He was one of the central players in this "Dallas on the Hudson," but as the most famous of Livingston we will consider him in a future post, devoted to him.

The Revolutionary war brought on a host of problems with high inflation, currency devaluations, high taxes and tenant problems. The problem of disgruntled tenants who withheld rent (a perennial problem) was made worse by the blandishments of Tory recruiters.  Seventeen seventy seven saw disaster with a British raid up the Hudson which destroyed both the Chancellor's home--Belvedere, and the family home, Clermont. Only Clermont was rebuilt.

Sister, Janet Livingston Montgomery's world (see post of 4/21/14) came crashing down when her young husband General Richard Montgomery was killed at Quebec. Janet assumed the role of "The General's Widow," despite the attentions of several suitors, until the day she died. 

Brother Edward worked hard at being a reserved (some said dour) intellectual and droll wit whose
elegant and manly understated fashion sense earned him the nickname of "Beau Ned." In 1788 he married Mary McEvers whose attempts to complement her "Beau's" level of sartorial sophistication were tarnished by memories of a incident at an evening reception that year, hosted by Martha Washington.  The unfortunate Mlle. McEvers wore a towering ostrich feather headdress that caught fire in a chandelier!

And then there was Henry!  Henry Beekman Livingston joined the Continental Army to participate in the Quebec expedition. He loved battle and gloried in the role of warrior. He distinguished himself at the battles of Monmouth, Saratoga, Quaker Hill, and Newport and during the grueling encampment at Valley Forge, but he had a problem with discipline.  His own brother-in-law, Richard Montgomery was quoted saying, "He is brave--but so imprudent in his conduct that I have been made very uneasy by his disputes and often wished him at home--for my own part I by no means think him fit for a field officer...."** It was only a matter of time before Henry was
court-martialed for disrespectful language to a superior officer and barely escaped a conviction of "conduct unbecoming a gentleman and an officer." In 1779 he quit, in a huff, after being passed over for promotions by others he considered "my inferiors."

Henry returned home and quickly "cut a wide swath through the female population of Dutchess County, resulting in a staggering number of bastard Livingston babies of a variety of hues, religious persuasions and social classes. Henry financed his profligacies by selling off land, an action which was deeply resented by his brothers and sisters...."**

Co.Rte 308 near Slate Dock Rd., Rhinecliff

Margaret Beekman Livingston, the matriarch of the Clermont Livingstons may have been relieved when  Henry began to seriously court a Philadelphia socialite, Nancy Shippen, even though Nancy was first cousin to Peggy Shippen, wife of Major General Benedict Arnold  who had recently turned traitor and fled to the British. Nancy was attractive, vivacious, and fun-loving and also spoiled, high-strung, and an inveterate flirt. She also had a morbid streak and she had been in love for the past year with a French Diplomat, Louis Otto.  Otto, however, wasn't ready to marry and though he had good prospects, he didn't have a fortune. And Henry was ready to marry and he...well, he was a Livingston!  Henry and Nancy married, moved into the old Beekman place in Rhinebeck and had a daughter, Peggy.  The marriage soon fell apart with Henry raging against his new wife, having bouts of licentious drunkenness, and when she retreated to her parents in Philadelphia, of Henry  publicly accusing her of infidelity. Nancy's parents fearful of alienating the Livingstons (and their money) sent her back. The squabble went on for years with poor little daughter Peggy bouncing from relative to relative (and at least once being kidnapped by her father).  Six years after the beginning of the disastrous marriage, Louis Otto reappeared, (believe it or not!) marrying Henry's second cousin, Eliza Livingston.  Eliza died in childbirth within a year but Louis remained on the scene to provide Nancy with a sympathetic ear in her ongoing struggles. Henry offered Nancy a divorce, so she could marry Louis, if she would give him sole custody of Peggy. Nancy refused, and Louis married someone else, moving forever out of her life. Gradually Henry descended into paranoid isolation, alienated from the rest of the Livingston clan.  Nancy fled to Philadelphia and Peggy divided her days wintering in Philadelphia and summering at Clermont with her grandmother, Margaret Beekman Livingston.

On Rte 9, near Mill Rd and Grasmere, Bhinebeck

Finally, there was sister Catherine Livingston. (There were a couple other sisters, but married off, their lives were comparatively normal.)  Catherine became caught up in a radical new religious movement that was sweeping the country at the end of the 18th and early 19th centuries--Methodism!  Early Methodism was not the Methodism that people tend to think of today-- a mainline denomination with orderly services, a comforting moderate theology and tuneful old-timey hymns. Instead, it was emotional, ecstatic, and placed a high value on individuals having a personal conversion experience with the Almighty.  It was a forerunner of a host of revivalist and pentecostal religions that were born and flourished in the nineteenth century; and conservative denominations and communities considered it dangerously radical. Margret Beekman Livingston, and the family were scandalized but tolerated Catherine's behavior until she became romantically involved with the Methodist circuit-riding minister Freeborn Garretson who they considered nothing more than a vagabond gold-digger.  But Catherine, who was thirty-five and plain, was deeply in love and a four year contest of wills ensued between mother and daughter.  (Though deeply in love, it appears elopement was out of the question. Catherine was not prepared to ride off into to the sunset and away from the Family, and its money on the back of a circuit-rider's horse.)  Eventually she wore her mother down and 1793 the couple was married, with the Family's (grudging) blessing.

As surely as the Ewings of Dallas, the Livingstons of Clermont would make a fine grist for some pulp fiction writer's mill and there is raw material there for at least a season or two of a miniseries.  But, of course we should never forget these were real people and their dramas, though a source of entertainment for us from the distance of a couple of centuries away, like battles in history, were often a source of real pain and suffering.

(Someone has suggested this post, coming on the heels of Mothers' Day should be dedicated to Margaret Beekman Livingston, the long suffering, often embattled matriarch of her Clermont-Livingston brood, in honor of all mothers who similarly labor.)

*The Livingstons had such a penchant for naming children Robert or Robert R. (that's Robert Robert, believe it or not!) that genealogists and the Livingstons themselves  resorted to nicknames to keep them straight. The Patriarch of the family thus became Robert the Elder; his son to whom he gave the lower grant of lands became Robert of Clermont; and his brother's son who he invited from Scotland to help him with his business affairs became Robert, the Nephew. The Elder's grandson who inherited Livingston Manor was a Robert, as was the proprietor of Clermont, at that time. This Robert of Clermont's son, who sat on two high judicial tribunals became Robert the Judge. The Judge's oldest son. the 3d proprietor of Clermont, who became an important official in the state and early Federalist government, called himself "Chancellor Robert R"  for his position as Chancellor of the State of New York.  There was also a Robert Cambridge, Robert L., Robert Swift and Robert James in the third, forth and fifth generations of Livingstons.

**Quoted from Brandt, Clare. An American Aristocracy: The Livingstons.  pp. 119, 139.  Most of the information for this post was derived from this very readable and fascinating book.

It Happened Here -- First Contacts

He shouldn't have even been here!  The contract Henry Hudson signed with his employer, the V.O.C., the Generaale Vereenigde Geoctroijeerde Oostindische Compagnie, or Dutch East India Company was for him to sail northeast, around Novaya Zemlya and over the top of Russia to China.  Hudson had been turned back by ice twice before and previous explorers who had made the attempt had been lost when their ships were crushed in the ice.  Perhaps the English explorer  had decided all along to explore west instead of east, but he needed a ship, and with English investments tied up in saving their new colony in Jamestown, the Dutch were the only game in town.* So he told them what they wanted to hear; got his ship and made another attempt at finding a Northeast passage before heading across the Atlantic.  The directors of the V.O.C. would be furious, unless of course, he was successful in finding a passage to China, or making other significant discoveries.

Hudson, certainly, knew of John Smith's explorations up the wide rivers around Jamestown, the Chesapeake  and the Potomac. Perhaps there were other rivers, farther north that would connect to lakes and through portages to other rivers flowing to the South Sea (the Pacific).  A wholly navigable channel wasn't essential, only a feasible route,  one that avoided the dangers of the long voyage around South Africa's Cape of Good Hope, or the even more horrific western passage that Magellan had followed. The French had explored far up the St. Lawrence River before being stopped by rapids but rumors persisted of a great lake beyond those rapids and north of that, a salt sea that might lead to China. So after exploring what would become the New Jersey coast, Hudson was intrigued to find a large bay fed by a sizable river that led north, bordering an area the Indians called Mannahatta.

Hudson and his crew's experience with the Native American peoples on his trip up this river that would bear his name was mixed, due in part to his crew's expectations of trouble and a readiness to literally shoot first and ask questions later. Their first contacts were friendly enough with the Mi'kmaq people of what would become Nova Scotia who were familiar with French and Basque fisherman who regularly traded with them. But then Hudson's crew decided they needed trade goods if they were to have regular dealings with native peoples. (They had probably not brought any along because, remember, their planned route had been through the largely uninhabited arctic regions above Russia.)  Unprovoked, they attacked a Mi'kmaq village, drove its inhabitants from it and stole any trade goods and items of value they could find.  Their next significant encounter was in what would become New York Harbor. There they encounter native peoples eager to trade but a day later the ship's boat, out taking soundings was attacked by two large canoes and John Colman, one of the four Englishmen  on the expedition was killed with an arrow to his neck.  For the next several days groups of Indians approached the Half Moon to trade, apparently oblivious to the attack that occurred earlier.

At the mouth of Catskill Creek, Catskill

Some were driven away if the crew perceived any weapons or signs of hostile intent, while others were allowed to approach but not board the ship to trade Indian corn, pumpkins,  oysters and tobacco.

Rte 9J, south of Kinderhook

Around the mouth of the Catskill Creek, the Half Moon passed from Munsee into Mahican territory.  Eighty years later Indian villages would still dot the shores of the river.  Hudson had no inkling of the many tribes that lived along the "North" river or the complex inter-tribal relations between tribes, but perhaps for the first time as he journeyed north he began to sense differences.  He described these people as "loving" and agreed to invitations to go ashore. (Relationships may have also improved between himself and his Dutch crew who he could neither fully understand, nor did he trust. Hudson may have harbored suspicions that more than a few of them were former "sea beggars" or  dutch pirates, so previously he had avoided leaving his ship for fear of being marooned.)  At latitude 42 degrees, 18 minutes (about the location of Athens, NY or Stockport Creek) the Indians took him ashore in a canoe to a large circular hut in a village of some 60 Indians.  His hosts attempted to allay any fears he might have had by kindling a fire, breaking and burning several arrows in it, a sign of their peaceful intent. They dined on freshly killed pigeons, maize and a fatted dog.  Unlike later years when the village would have certainly been surrounded by a palisade of logs, Hudson makes no mention of such defenses.

NYS 23B, Leeds

A few years later such settlements fearful of Iroquois raids brought about by Dutch inspired competition for beaver pelts would have certainly been protected by a palisade and would be known to the Dutch as a Casteel, the English, an Indian Castle.

A few days later Hudson's ship began to run aground repeatedly in shallows and on sandbars.  Somewhere around Albany  Hudson anchored and sent his men out in the ship's boat to explore farther north and search for a channel.  How far

NYS 32, Waterford

they got is anyone's guess. The city of Waterford has claimed the honor of being the northernmost limit of Hudson's river explorations, but skeptics have noted that to reach Waterford they would have had to pass the thundering Cohoes falls near where the Mohawk River enters the Hudson River and Hudson's crew made no mention of the falls or any confluence of two rivers.

With the boat's return, Henry Hudson and his crew began their descent downriver and headed directly for Europe. But it was not Amsterdam they sailed for.  November 7th would see the Half Moon anchored safely in Dartmouth Harbor, England.  The Dutch would protest and demand back their ship and ship's log and all the charts and papers produced on the voyage. The English would surrender them after they gleaned every bit of information they could from Hudson's papers, and they strictly forbade the explorer from sailing again under any flag but England's. Hudson would begin again to lobby for a new expedition, one that would benefit from "secret information" he had learned on his last voyage but chose not to reveal in any of his logs or papers turned over to the authorities. In spring of 1610 Henry Hudson was on the voyage of his dreams, on an officially sanctioned expedition to find a northwest passage. In a little more than a year he would probably be dead, set adrift by a crew who had starved and overwintered at "Hudson's Bay" and concluded that if they didn't commandeer their ship, its captain would drive them until they all perished in the frozen north.

Marker of the Week -- Some old houses are special because of their architecture; some are special because of the famous people who inhabited them or the historic deeds that occurred on their grounds; and some are special because of what they (or, more precisely, their inhabitants) could have witnessed. The Northrup house in Athens commands a spectacular view of the Hudson River. Even after the trees, no doubt once cleared down to the shore, had grown back, that view was probably unobstructed from the upstairs windows.  Today, if they  so chose, it inhabitants could watch the tugs and oil barges shuttling back and forth between between New York City and the Port of Albany.  At the last quarter of the 19th and first decades of the twentieth centuries they could have watched the opulent Hudson River Day Liners churning their way up to Albany or at night, the Night Liners, ablaze with lights heading south to deliver their passengers at the start of a new day into "the City".  And before that there were several centuries of Hudson River Sloops, one and two masted schooners, designed to catch every fickle breeze blowing from the hills that surround the Hudson to bring passengers and all manner of cargo to destinations up and down the river.  And, of course, if they were watching from that grand pillared porch on  August 17, 1807, they could have seen the awkward, smoke belching first steamship North River laboriously  make its way up-stream from Robert Livingston's Clermont dock to Albany.                   

 Another NYSHM, no longer surviving, once marked the arrival of Fulton's paddle-wheeler,  in front of the D&H Building (SUNY Administration Building Plaza) Broadway, Albany.
                                                                   CLERMONT
                                                   NEAR THE FOOT OF MADISON
                                                    AVENUE ROBERT FULTON IN
                                                    AUG. 1807, COMPLETED THE
                                                            FIRST SUCCESSFUL
                                                         STEAMBOAT VOYAGE 


*Actually the French, too, had shown some interests in employing him, and perhaps Hudson used their interest in him to encourage the Dutch to action.