CHAPTER XXVI.
THE FIRST ROBERT LIVINGSTON'S CHILDREN
AND GRANDCHILDREN.
Pages 236-256
[Page 236]
An account of a voyage taken in 1769 by the proprietor of a wide tract of land called Smith's patent, in the middle of New York State, gives some interesting facts concerning the Manors and the Manor life along the upper Hudson, form an observer's standpoint. It says:
"May 8th.--We went on shore to Two Stone Farm House on Beekman Manor in the County of Dutchess, the Men were absent and the Women and children could speak no other Language then Low Dutch, our Skipper was interpreter. One of the Tenants for Life, or very long Term, or for lives (uncertain which) pays twenty Bushels of Wheat in Kind for 97 acres of cleared Land, and liberty to get Wood for necessary Uses anywhere in the Manor--12 eggs sold here for six pence, Butter 14 d per pound and 2 shad cost 6 d. One Woman was very Neat, and the Iron hoops of her pails scowered bright, the Houses are mean. We saw one Piece of good meadow [page 237] which is scarce hereaway, the wheat was very much thrown out, the Aspect of the Farms rough and hilly like all the rest and the Soil a stiff Clay. One Woman had Twelve good countenanced Boys and Girls all clad in Homespun both Linen and Woolen, here was a Two-wheeled Plow drawn by 3 horses abreast, a Scythe with a short, crooked Handle and a Kind of Hook both used to cut down Grain, for the Sickle is not much known in Albany County or in this part of Dutchess."
"9th.--We arose in the Morng opposite a large Brick House on the East Side belonging to Mr. Livingston Father to Robert R. Livingston, the Judge in the Lower Manor of Livingston. Albany County now on either Hand, and sloping Hills here and there covered with Grain like all the rest we had seen, much thrown out by the Frost of last Winter. Landing on the West Shore we found a number of People fishing with a Sein, they caught plenty of Shad and Herring, and use Canoes altogether, having long, neat and strong Ropes made by the People themselves of Elm Bark. Here we saw the first Indian, a Mohicon named Hans, clad in no other Garment than a shattered Blanket, he lives near the Kaatskill and had a Skunk Skin for his Tobacco Pouch, the Tavern of this Place is most wretched--Trees are cut in Leaf, Cattle and Sheep, nothing different from ours, are now feeding on the Grass which is nearly as forward as with us when we left Burlington, the Tress quite as forward, and the White Pine is common. One Shad taken with the rest had a Lamprey eel about 7 inches [page 238] long fastened to his Back. I was informed here by a Person concerned in measuring it, that the Distance from Kaatskill Landing to Schoharie is 32 1-2 miles reckoned to Capt. Eckerson's, a good Wagon Road and Produce brot. down daily from thence to Cherry Valley half a Day's Journey, that People are now laying out a New Road from Sopus Kill to Schoharie which is supposed to be about 32 1-2 miles, Sopus Creek is about 11 Miles below Kaatskill Creek, and a Mile below where we now Landed, they say that 7 or 8 Sloops belong to Sopus--the Fish are the same in Hudson's River above the Salt Water as in the Delaware--the Skipper bought a Parcel of Fish here cheap, these Fishermen draw their Nets oftener than ours, not stopping between the Draughts. At three ocloc we passed by the German Camp, a small Village so called, having Two Churches, situated on the East Side of the River, upon a rising Ground which shows the Place to Advantage, some Distance further on the same Side of the River we sailed by the Upper Manor House of Livingston, a quantity of low cripple Land may be seen on the opposite Side, and this reaches 4 Miles to the Kaats Kill called 36 Miles from Albany; off the Mouth of this Creek we have a view of the large House built by John Dyer the Person who made the Road from hence to Schoharie at the Expense of 400 Lbs. if common Report may be credited--Two Sloops belong to KaatsKill, a little beyond the Mouth whereof lies the large Island of Vastic--there is a House on the North Side of the Creek and another with several Saw Mills on the South Side but no Town [page 239] as we expected. Sloops go no further than Dyer about a Half a Mile up the Creek, the Lands on both sides of Kaats Kill belong to Van Berger, Van Vecthe, Salisbury, DuBois and a man in York, their lands, as our Skipper says Extend up the Creek 12 Miles to Barber the English Gentleman his Settlement, the Creek runs through the Kaats Kill Mounts said hereabouts to be a Distance of 12 or 14 Miles from the North River, but there are Falls above which obstruct the Navigation (these particular enquiries were made because this was supposed to be the nearest Port to our newly purchased Territory). We landed in the Evening on the KaatsKill Shore 4 Miles above the Creek, but could gain no satisfactory Intelligence, only that the Dutchess of Gordon and her Husband Col. Staats Long Morris were just gone from Dyer's House for Cherry Valley and Susquehanna with Two Wagons, they went by the way of Freehold by the Foot of the Mountains on this Side, and so over them to Schoharie, guessed to be about 32 1-2 Miles as was said before."
"10th.--We passed by Sunday Islands where of Scutters Island affords a good low Bottom fit for Meadow and some of it is improved, Bear's Island said to be the beginning of the Manor of Rensselaerwic which extends on both Sides of the River, the Lords of the Manors are called by the common People Patroons, Bearen Island or Bear's Island just mentioned is reputed to be twelve Miles below Albany--Cojemans Houses with Two Grist Mills and Two Saw Mills stand a little above on the West [page 240] Side and opposite is an Island of about Two Acres covered with young Button Wood Trees which Island, our Skipper says, has arisen there to his Knowledge within 16 yeas and since he has navigated the River--more low bottom Land is discovered as we pass up, generally covered with Trees, being cleared might be made good Meadow by Banking or Improvement to which the Inhabitants are altogether Strangers, the upper End of Scotic's Island is a fine cleared Bottom not in Grass but partly in Wheat and partly in Tilth, however there was one rich Meadow improved, we saw the first Batteaux a few Miles below Albany, Canoes being the common Craft. One Staats House is prettily fixed on a rising Ground in a low Island, the City of Albany being 3 Miles aHead we discovered for the first Time, a Spot of Meadow Ground Plowed and Sowed with Peas in the Broad Cast Way, the Uplands are now covered with Pitch Pine and are sandy and barren as the Desarts of New Jersey, as we approach the town the Houses multiply on each Shore and we observe a Person in the Act of Sowing Peas upon a fruitful Meadow on an Island to the right. The Hudson near Albany seems to be about a Half Mile over. Henry Cuyler's Brick House on the East Side about a Mile below the Town looks well, and we descry the King's Stables a long wooden Building on the left, and on the same side Philip Schuyler's Grand House with whom at present resides Colonel Bradstreet (since Deceased and Schuyler is now a Major Gen. in the service of the United States) Col. John Van Rensselaer has a good House on the East Side. [page 241] At Half after 10 oCloc we arrived at Albany estimated to be 164 Miles by Water from N. York and by land 157. * * * Stephen Van Rensselaer, the Patroon, or Lord of the manor of Rensselaerwick his House stands a little above the Town, he is a young Man (since deceased)."
The foregoing journal gives some idea of the life of the tenants of the Manors of the upper Hudson a few years prior to the Revolutionary War. Every decade after that brought changes not only on the farms, but the life of the Manors themselves changed with each succeeding generation. When Robert Livingston bought the first tracts of his Manor land, the price paid to the Indians was in "guilders, Blankets and Child's Blankets, large shoes and small, large and small stockings, guns, powder, staves of lead, caps, tin kettles, axes, adzes, two pounds of paint, twenty little scissors, twenty little looking glasses, one hundred fish hooks, one hundred pipes, nails, tobacco, knives, rum, and beer, and four stroud coats, and two duffel coats."
Upon the payment of this price the lands were to be "delivered free and unburdened to Robert Livingston," save only "that the previous Indian owners should [page 242] have the right of fishing in the Kill and hunting deer, provided they brought the head to the new owner." There was a marginal note added to this document by Tamaranachquae and Indian woman, who stipulated before signing the contract, that she should have the privilege "to plant for four years a little hook of land."
This first grant was for two thousand acres on Hudson' River.
In 1685 there was another purchase of land, and both tracts were erected into a Manor, with the right to "One Court Leet and one Court Baron, to hold and to keep at such time and times, and so often yearly as Robert Livingston or his heirs should see meet." Eventually Robert Livingston's grants of land reached sixteen miles long and twenty-four broad, for which he paid the Crown a yearly rent of "eight and twenty shillings, Currant money of this country."
The boundary lines of the Manor were drawn by distances from the spot where "the Indians have laid several heaps of stones together by an ancient custom used among them," along "kills" and "mountain sides" and "runs of water" to other stones, and on to "five lime trees marked by Saint Andrew's Cross." On the [page 243] old maps of Livingston Manor a certain point is marked "Manor Rock" which is presumably one of these old piles of stones which the Indians had thrown one upon the other. The earlier maps of 1714 also contain a print of the group of five lime tree, marking one corner of the estate.
In 1721 through the influence of the first Lord of the Manor, a church was built, to which an "able and pious Dutch Reformed Protestant minister from Holland" was to be called, and at the time of his death the following year, he willed a number of acres of land for a parsonage glebe, and still further acres for a sustaining fund for the church. Although Robert Livingston had been instrumental in erecting a church, it seems to have been largely for the benefit of the tenants of the estate for the first fifty years, except in case of death, when the members of the Livingston family were brought home to be laid in the vault beneath the Manor Church. The Revolutionary War effected a change in this respect. This patriotic family being driven from the cities, the Manor Church, as well as the homes at Livingston, took on greater importance, and the church books began to bear record that many [page 244] Livingston babies were baptized here, and older members of the family were married in the Manor Houses, while the noted Dr. Livingston who had been compelled to flee from New York took charge of the Manor Church during eighteen months of these troublous times. The old Manor Church and the first Manor House were only a mile and a half apart, the church being at Staatje, (little village).
In this same old record book, whose entries begin in 1723, there is a page written by John H. Livingston in finest script, under date of 1781, the language employed being Low Dutch. An entry is also to be found here of the baptism of "Johannes, son of Hendrick Van Rensselaer and Elizabeth Van Brug, Oct. 20th, 1744," which took place in the Manor Church at a time when the Claverack church was without a pastor, this Hendrick being a younger son of Hendrick Van Rensselaer the first Proprietor of the Lower Manor of Rensselaerwick, and among the early settlers of Claverack.
The first Manor House was very different from those which followed. The walls, as in all well built houses of that period, were built for protection, and were so thick that the windows looked like mere [page 245] indentations. It was low ceiled and heavy raftered, and an old story connected with it, affirms that the first Lord Robert Livingston kept his money on the floor of his bedroom. It was literally his "pile," and a place of untold wealth in the eyes of the children and servants who passed his door, and looking in caught fleeting glimpses of heaps of Spanish coins upon the floor. In later years an occasional rusty coin has been unearthed near the site of the old Manor House, which has been thought to be one of these first rolling Spanish doubloons. This primitive bank had no Board or bank officials connected with it, and its President, and day and night guard, was the Lord of the Manor himself, whose strong personality seems to have been its only safety and defense.
The second Lord of the Manor, Philip the eldest son of Robert, did not live permanently at Linlithgo, but came and went as the business of the estate called him. However there are records of parties of children and grandchildren, and occasional friends in need of country air, coming to the Manor for long stays during the summer months, or a bride and groom spending a honeymoon there. One of these happy honeymoons spent [page 246] at Livingston Manor was that of Sarah Livingston, Philip Livingston's daughter, who chose her country home even in windy March for a wedding trip, on her marriage to William Alexander. There was no hint of spring in the air at this time of year, but like a host of later dwellers along the banks of the Hudson, they probably saw that yearly marvel, the ice moving down the Hudson to the sea.
The marriage of "Sally Livingston" seems to have been pleasing to her family. On the birth of a daughter a year later, a humorous letter from Robert, her eldest brother, to his brother-in-law says:
"I congratulate you on the increase in your family, and hope in the future my sister will beget a more masculine kind, and not spoil the family with such Lilliputians as your daughter."
Upon the death of Philip, the Manor again had a resident proprietor in the person of this same Robert, Philip's eldest son, who married Mary Tong.
Sons and grandsons had built Manor Houses on sightly locations in every direction before the year 1800, but during the war, and for several decades afterward, Robert Livingston, the third Lord, lived in the [page 247] old Manor House while at Livingston, for nearly all the family had winter homes in New York or Albany, as well as on the Livingston Manor.
Governor William Livingston of "Liberty Hall" New Jersey, wrote his brother Robert from Trenton in December of 1781 in reference to the visit of one of his daughters to the Manor.
"Dear Brother: I hear that your very numerous family is going to be increased by one of mine. I fear Susan will be troublesome to a house so overrun with company as yours. But my poor girls are so terrified by the frequent incursions of the refugees into Elizabethtown, that it is a kind of cruelty to insist on their keeping at home, especially as their mother chooses rather to submit to her present solitary life, than to expose them to such disagreeable apprehensions. But she herself will keep her ground to save my body from the Provost in New York, so that we are all scattered about the country. But by the blessing of God, and the instrumentality of General Washington and Robert Morris, I hope we shall drive the devils to old England before next June."
This letter tells the story of a house full of guests at the low-browed old Manor House at Linlithgo, and not a summer party, but at at time when the roads were white with snow, and the river was a pathway of ice. [page 248] We may imagine that there were merry sleighride parties, and that the slaves who lived in the outhouses near the Manor House kept the fires roaring in the great fire-laces, and warming-pans ready for the Manor beds, in the effort to keep out the one unwelcome guest, Jack Frost; that the apples and cider stored away in the cellars beneath the house, were greatly enjoyed by the guests, and that Susan Livingston did not regret that the troubles of war sent her to her uncle's for a genuine Manor Christmas.
To a friend Governor Livingston speaks again of his daughter, when it was the gayeties of city life which were giving her pleasure:
"My principal Secretary of State, which is one of my daughters, is gone to New York to shake her heels at the balls and assemblies of a metropolis, which might as well be more studious of paying its taxes than of instituting expensive diversions. * * * My secretary is as celebrated for writing a good hand as her father is notorious for scribbling a bad one.
This same William Livingston, the patriotic Governor of New Jersey, had much mechanical talent, and was fond of entertaining his leisure hours with tools. [page 289] He said to his daughter one day, "Come with me, my dear, and see how many house I own, and how rich I am in real estate." She followed him, to find in his study and workshop a large number of wren houses, which he had made with great enjoyment, and afterward put up on his piazza, and in trees all over his place. He was also very fond of children, and delighted in the visits of his sons and daughters and their children. A letter written to his son-in-law Mr. Ridley evinces this pleasure to a marked degree.
"Suppose, in reality, that you, and ----- and Mr. and Mrs. Jay, and ----- should come to Liberty Hall next cherry time; why then, with my romping with some upon the piazza, and shooting robins with others out of the mazzard trees, and talking and romping with the elder boys and girls, and their fathers and mothers around the table, I protest, as some ladies say, that I would not exchange such a scene of happiness for any gratification of the Grand Seigneur."
William Livingston's daughters were as welcome guests at the uncle Robert's at Livingston Manor, as the Schuyler girls were at the Lower Van Rensselaer Manor. In the maps of 1798, previously referred to, the old Manor House waves a flag of pennant from its highest gables, and in the imagination of the [page 250] Livingston girls of Liberty Hall, a flag always waved from this happy country home. In the spring time the breath of the trailing-arbutus, blossoming under the leaves in the woods, and in the fall the spicy odor of the Chancellor's rare fruits, drew them toward the Livingston country.
During the war, Liberty Hall was open to much hostile attention from the British, but the patriotism of their father only bred greater loyalty to the Colonies in the hearts of his children. In a letter written by one of the Governor's daughters to a friend in 1777, we gain a glimpse of the state of things which sent Susan on a visit to the Manor at a later date:
"K.---- has been to Elizabethtown, found our house in a ruinous situation. General Dickenson had stationed a Captain with his artillery company in it, and after that it was kept for a bullock's guard. K---- waited on the General, and he ordered the troops removed the next day, but then the mischief was done. Everything is carried off that mama had collected for her accommodation, so that it is impossible for her to go down to have the grapes and other things secured, the very hinges, locks and panes of glass are taken away."
A couple of years later her father wrote to his daughter Catherine visiting in Philadelphia:
"I know there are a number of flirts in Philadelphia equally famed for their want of modesty, as want of patriotism, who will triumph in our over-complaisance to the Red Coat prisoners lately arrived in that metropolis. I hope none of my connections will imitate them, either in the dress of their heads, or the still more Tory feelings of their hearts."
I am your affectionate father,
"WILLIAM LIVINGSTON.'
In her eighteenth year Sarah Livingston married Hon. John Jay, and to the same daughter as in the previous letter, a few months later Governor Livingston wrote concerning them.
"I am obliged to Mr. Morris for his promise of giving me the earliest intelligence of their arrival in France. I hope his business with the four quarters of the globe will not efface it from his memory. I have already suffered more anxiety on their account than I should have imagined I could be affected by on any account. The tenderness of a parent's heart can never be known till it is tried."
Miss Susan Livingston, who was her father's secretary, proved her kinship to her patriotic parent, when she saved his papers from the British on one of their raids. Governor Livingston, being warned, had left home at an early hour to escape capture by the Red Coats, entrusting his valuable papers to Susan's [page 252] keeping. She placed the papers in a carriage box, and took them to a room in the upper story, then climbed out of a window to watch the approach of the soldiers. An officer, seeing her there, warned her to go within, for she was in danger of being taken for a man and fired upon. She turned to obey, but found it impossible to return by the window, through which she had found so easy egress.
Seeing he plight, the young officer entered the house, and sprang up the stairs, lifting her in through the window. With this vantage, she asked his name, and upon its being given as "Lord Cathcart" with a sudden inspiration she appealed to him for protection for a box of her own personal possessions, offering to open her father's library to the soldiers. Her request was complied with, and the box was guarded, while her father's library was ransacked, with no results detrimental to the patriot cause.
Mrs. Ellet gives a spicy letter from Kitty Livingston to her sister, Mrs. John Jay, in which many of the members of the Manor families of the upper Hudson are mentioned.
"May 23rd, 1780."
"Lady Mary and Mrs. Watts have rented Mrs. Montgomery's farm for two years; cousin Nancy Brown is one of their family. Colonel Lewis has purchased a house in Albany; one of the girls lives there with Gittey. He and Robert have each presented Cousin Livingston with a granddaughter. The Chancellor's is a remarkably fine child. Mrs. Livingston never looked so well as she did the last winter, and was so much admired in Philadelphia. She and Mrs. Morris are inseparable; she was also a first favorite of Mr. Morris. His esteem I think very flattering. Robert is in Congress, and I believe is at present there; she is to accompany him in the fall. General and Mrs. Schuyler are at Morristown. The General is one of the three that compose a Committee from Congress. They expect to be with the army all summer. Mrs. Schuyler returns to Albany when the campaign opens. Apropos: Betsey Schuyler is engaged to our friend Colonel Hamilton. She has been at Morristown, at Dr. Cochrane's since last February. Morristown continues to be lively."
It was this same Kitty Livingston who married Matthew Ridley of Baltimore, and who sent the following order to Nantes. In a return letter from John Jay dated Madrid, Jan. 21st, 1782, he hopes that at least one of the parcels may reach its destination:
"Be pleased to send for Miss Kitty W. Livingston, to the care of Hon. R. Morris, Esq., at Philadelphia, [page 254] by the first three good vessels bound there, the three following parcels, viz.
"No. 1 to contain 2 white embroidered patterns for shoes; 4 pair of silk stockings; a pattern for a Negligee of light colored silk, with a set of ribbons suitable to it; 6 pairs of kid gloves; 6 yards of cat-gut and ca-puire in proportion; 6 yards of white silk gauze."
"No. 2 to contain the same as above, except the silk for the Negligee must not be pink colored, but of any color that Mrs. Johnson may think fashionable and pretty. The shoes and ribbons may be adapted to it."
"No. 3 to contain the same as above, except that the silk for the Negligee must be of a different color from the other two, and the shoes and ribbons of a proper color to be worn with it.
Perhaps the most interesting of the incidents connected with the patriotic Kitty Livingston's career, was the letter General Washington sent her, from Valley Forge.
"General Washington having been informed lately of the honor done him by Miss Kitty Livingston in wishing for a lock of his hair, takes the liberty of inclosing one, accompanied by his most respectful compliments."
These girls, among the other cousins, continued to come and go at the Livingston Manor, and in time their children came also. the journey on the sloop up river was of itself a great pleasure. The sloops often [page 255] sailed in little fleets, with possibly friends and acquaintances on the neighboring white-winged vessels. Sailing through the beautiful Highlands by day, and anchoring at night under some craggy shelter where the whip-poor-will, or some splashing fish, made eerie noises in the shadows, and the sky above their heads swept in a great dark circle spangled with countless stars, was an experience to look forward to with joy.
All along the wharves of the upper Hudson were waiting relatives. The Chancellor's, Madam Livingston's, and John Livingston's houses were all near the river, and on the days when sloops were expected, there were sure to be some members of the Manor families awaiting merchandise, and others with an eager welcome for the expected guests.
One the Manor road which ran further inland, lived the "Widow Livingston, " Henry W. Livingston, and General Harry Livingston in his bachelor hall, while at the crossing of the Manor-road and the post-road was the home of Walter Tryon Livingston, youngest son of Peter R. Livingston. This house at the cross-roads held one son and six daughters who added a large share to the life and interest of the Livingston [page 256] country. Surely Livingston Manor was a place of which one might dream, and toward which the traveler would turn joyful and willing feet.
Out of the happy visits to the Manor in the early days, we have the printed record of a romantic outcome. Mrs. Lamb writes:
"The newspapers in November, 1796, chronicle a marriage and reception at the Governor's mansion, as follows: 'Married on the 3rd, at his Excellency's John Jay, Governor, Government House, John Livingston of Livingston Manor, to Mrs. Catherine Ridley, daughter of the late Governor William Livingston.' The bride was Mrs. Jay's accomplished and piquant sister, Kitty Livingston, who in 1787 became the wife of Matthew Ridley of Baltimore and after a brief wedded happiness was left a widow."
