Albany—Catskill—Kingston—Newburgh—(Jersey City, N.J.). US 9W. Albany to New Jersey Line, 130 m.
Two- and three-lane-concrete with short stretches of macadam.
New York Central (West Shore) R.R. parallels route between Albany and New Jersey Line; Erie R.R. between Nyack and Sparkill.
South from Albany US 9W follows the west bank of the Hudson, the western horizon formed first by the Helderbergs, a dim, distant crest; then by the Catskills, a jagged, rocky mass capped by oak, maple, and hemlock. Below Newburgh the road rides the crest of the Hudson Highlands—Storm King, Crow’s Nest, Bear Mountain, Dunderberg—and looks dizzily down upon vistas of the river and its valley. From the majestic barrier of the Catskill fairyland to below Pyngyp, the region abounds with Indian legends, Dutch hobgoblins, and fables of lost mines and gold hoards cached somewhere—anywhere—by Captain Kidd.
The entire journey is marked by a steady procession of church spires. Church sociables, block dances, the rod-and-gun club, and the volunteer firemen comprise the main staples of social life. The large estates of an earlier era have been subdivided and resold to more recent arrivals in the well-to-do brackets. On the lower stretches of the road, where it skirts the placid expanse of Tappan Zee, well-kept villages combine touches of the Revolutionary era with modern commuter-style comfort and neatness.
South of Catskill, the highway is clogged during the summer season by caravans of vacationists in every breed of motor-driven conveyance packed to the mudguards with baggage and an occasional canoe or outboard motorboat lashed to the top, headed for the vacation lands of the Catskills.
During the Revolution this route was a vital line of communication which Burgoyne and Sir Henry Clinton tried to open between Montreal and New York City. As late as 1830 the road was still no pleasure-seeker’s thoroughfare. One traveler wrote:
At the town of Goshen we changed the mail, thawed our garments, and ate our dinner. As we got north the sleighing got better, so we were accommodated with a covered box on runners . . . We traveled all night. The rain and snow descended through the roof, our hats were frozen to our capes, and our cloaks to one another. In the morning we looked like some mountains of ice moving down the Gulf Stream. And this is what the horse-flesh fraternity advertise as their safe, cheap, comfortable, and expeditious winter establishment for Albany.
Section a. ALBANY to KINGSTON; 56.7 m. US 9W
Between Albany and Kingston US 9W—running for the most part one to three miles west of the river—passes by fruit orchards and brickyards. Swinging buckets on spidery cable railways glide over the road on their way between the limestone quarry in the hillside and the cement plants at the river’s edge. Here and there are abandoned factories and traces of once-vigorous lumber and boat-building trades. The villages still bear the indelible marks of their Dutch origin in their old stone houses and sturdy, stolid citizenry.
South of ALBANY, 0 m. (18 alt., 130,447 pop.), US 9W swings away from the river and at 3.6 m. crosses Normans Kill, named for an early Albany settler who erected a mill near the mouth of the stream around which the first cabins of Dutch traders were built. Called Tawasentha (waterfall) by the Indians, the Normans Kill Valley is said to have been the setting for Longfellow’s ‘Hiawatha.’
At 4 m. is the junction with the River Road.
Left on the River Road 1 m. to the junction with State 144. Right on State 144 to COEYMANS, 11.9 m. (100 alt., 1,506 pop.), where 40 years ago brick was made and ice was cut and both were shipped in large quantities to New York City. When New York began using stone for building and the electric refrigerator replaced the old leaking icebox, Coeymans came to a halt in its growth, though the brick industry is still important.
The angular overhead traveling cranes of the SUTTON & SUDERLEY BRICK PLANT, at the northern village limits (L), swing their 1,500-unit stacks of brick over the barges lining the docks, waiting to be loaded for the down-river market. Behind the cranes are the long roofs of the sheds, kilns, and molding plant. The clay is dumped into hoppers and a regulated amount of coke dust and silica sand added; powerful rotary knives knead the mixture as a bit of red iron ore is added: and the mix is ready for the molder. A thundering mechanism rams, presses, and extrudes the material into brick form and men arrange the wet brick on galvanized pallets to be cured on steam pipes. When properly dried, the brick are stacked by hand in loads of 1,500, so arranged that air can pass freely through the rick. Cranes lower the ricks into the kilns between rows of oil burners that can build up and maintain a temperature of from 1,800 to 2,600 degrees Fahrenheit. The firing ignites the coke dust, which distributes the heat within the brick, a function for centuries accomplished by straw, and the silica sand fuses to form a bond, toughening and strengthening the whole brick.
NEW BALTIMORE, 14.1 m. (100 alt., 734 pop.), settled in 1811 as a shipbuilding port, has the appearance of a Maine coast village. The ways, derricks, sheds, and barges of a prosperous shipbuilding past rot at the water’s edge. Retired rivermen look out from the heights on ocean-going steamers in the broad channel and wistfully recall the pre-steel age when wooden ships built in New Baltimore slid down the ways.
At 16.2 m. State 144 rejoins US 9W.
At 9.7 m. is the junction with State 396.
Left on State 396 to SELKIRK, l.5 m. (173 alt., 250 pop.), terminal yard for the New York Central Railroad. ‘Manifest’ freight which, before this yard was opened in 1924, had been forced to pass through Albany, suffered delay from grades and traffic congestion. The cutoff connecting Selkirk with Hoffmans west of Schenectady makes possible the routing of all freight bound between New York City or New England and the West without touching Albany. On the 256 miles of track stringing the yard, boxcars, flat cars, and gondolas roll and rumble. At the ice plant, with a storage capacity of 25,000 tons, refrigerator cars line up, ice-chest covers tilted back, while workmen lower the rainbow-hued cakes into the openings.
At 18.3 m. is the junction with State 144 (see above).
At 22.8 m. is the junction with State 385.
Left on State 385 to COXSACKIE (Ind., hoot of an owl), 1.6 m. (155 alt., 2,195 pop.), which, settled by the Dutch late in the seventeenth century, preserved its pure Dutch character until the 1790–1830 migrations from New England and Europe.
On January 27, 1775, 225 residents of the village—almost all with Dutch names—signed a ‘declaration of independence’ calling for opposition to ‘the execution of several arbitrary and oppressive acts of the British Parliament.’ The original document, antedating the Declaration of Independence of the Continental Congress by more than a year, is in the Albany Institute of History and Art.
As it did a generation ago, the town still makes bricks and cuts ice, though on a reduced scale. Farming in the vicinity has been static; as one old-timer put it, ‘Those who have farms can keep going, but it is no place to start.’ The AMERICAN VALVE PLANT, a sprawl of brick buildings (R), employs in its foundry and shop more than 100 villagers.
ATHENS, 7.9 m. (20 alt., 1,618 pop.), the third village in the State to incorporate (1805), also makes brick. Along the water front are buildings of the two shipyards run by the Federal Government during the World War. Old river steamers are tied up at the rotting docks; rebuilding of tugs and smaller craft continues on a small scale. The ice-harvesting industry once flourished here, as at other points along the river; ice cakes were cut and stored in huge icehouses along the water front and shipped to New York City during the summer. But mechanical refrigeration killed this chilly occupation and for a time the great icehouses stood empty. Then it was discovered that these windowless, well-insulated structures made ideal places for the mass production of mushrooms. Today they are filled with trays from floor to roof, from which sprout millions of buttonlike fungi. If the mushroom market is glutted, the production speed can be stepped down by a slight draft over the trays. Additional warmth and humidity increase the rapidity of growth.
The village was settled in 1686 by Jan Van Loon, a Hollander. Two of the Van Loon fieldstone houses built soon after settlement still stand: the ALBERTUS VAN LOON HOUSE (L), at the north village limits, a one-story structure built in 1724, and the JAN VAN LOON HOUSE, foot of Washington St., a solid one-story fieldstone building with gabled Dutch roof built in 1706.
New Englanders who settled the outskirts between 1790 and 1840 called the village Esperanza, after an unrealized dream of the Livingstons—Edward, Brockholst, and John—who lived across the river (see Tour 21B). Envious of the Nantucketers who were making Hudson a prosperous town, they planned a rival city on the west side of the river, envisioning it as a great market for western produce, and even speculating that it might become the terminus of a canal across the State to the Great Lakes. They had their draftsmen lay out the Esperanza Key, and named its streets Liberty, Equality, Happiness, Beer, Cider, Art, and so on. They sold a few lots, but while still in its early stages of development Esperanza was absorbed by Athens.
At the northern entrance to Catskill, 12.5 m., is the junction with State 23 (see Tour 7) and the approach to the Rip Van Winkle Bridge.
In CATSKILL, 13 m. (75 alt., 5,414 pop.), is the junction with US 9W (see below).
South on US 9W at 24.2 m. is the entrance (R) to the BRONCK HOUSE (open daily, June–Nov.), headquarters of the Greene County Historical Society, Inc. The stone wing was built about 1663 by Pieter Bronck, only son of Jonas Bronck, after whom the New York City borough of the Bronx was named. In 1738 Pieter’s grandson built the brick addition.
The stone house is a solid, plain building of the Dutch pioneer type, with high casement windows. The woodwork, including floors and huge, hand-hewn beams, has been restored. The Dutch doors retain their original hinges, knockers, and locks. In the upper room a steep ladder ascends to a platform, once a lookout and rifle station, with loopholes through the front wall. The later addition measures the advance of 70 years. Wooden-pinned beam supports of the interior suggest the influence of a ship’s carpenter. The cellar houses a slave pen.
In the rear of the main house is the STEPMOTHER’S HOUSE, a one-room brick bungalow built in 1800 by Judge Leonard Bronck when his daughters by his first wife refused to live under the same roof with their stepmother. This miniature home has a fireplace furnished with crane, kettle, and Dutch oven, a tiny cellar, and an attic stair fitted with a pulley by which it can be drawn up to the ceiling.
The property remained in the possession of the Bronck family until in 1938 Leonard Bronck Lampman renovated the structure and presented it, with 16 acres of land, to the Greene County Historical Society.
On the hill west of the Bronck House, Indians operated a flint mine. They fractured the rock by first heating it with fire and then pouring cold water on it. From these chips they fashioned arrowheads, spear points, scrapers, and knives. Imperfect examples of these weapons are still found along the slopes.
Opposite the Bronck House is the entrance (L) to the STATE VOCATIONAL INSTITUTION FOR BOYS, which provides for 500 delinquents between the ages of 16 and 20. The architectural style of the enormous brick buildings harmonizes with the Colonial homes of the region. Although the windows appear to be ordinary mullioned ones, they are heavily barred. The aim of the school is to approach normal living conditions as closely as possible and yet make the inmates realize that they are confined for punishment and correction. The boys are taught trades in an effort to make them self-supporting after they are released.
At 32.5 m. is the junction with State 23 and the entrance to the Rip Van Winkle Bridge (see Tour 7).
CATSKILL, 33 m. (75 alt., 5,414 pop.), Greene County seat, crowds the narrow valley of Catskill Creek and stretches two arms up the sloping hillsides. In the spring the swollen creek waters rush through the town and frequently overflow their banks, leaving a deposit of mud in bordering cellars. In the summer, hordes of vacationists descend upon the town. Throughout the year, especially on Saturday afternoons, the hill natives come into the village to do their shopping. Small knitting mills, employing mainly Italian girls, and brickyards and distilleries in the vicinity, giving work to Negro residents, are the principal industries. A number of residents commute to work in Albany. On Saturday night the village seems to try to concentrate a week’s life into a few hours; the narrow Main Street, with cars parked on both sides, is all but impassable.
Early tavern keepers in this community were known as ‘retailers of liquid damnation.’ Catskill mountain-brewed applejack was a staple during the prohibition era; the moonshiners outwitted the ‘revenooers’ by covering the jugs with burlap and burying them in the ground; when a customer came and identified himself with unimpeachable references the liquor was disinterred and sold. This trade and the inaccessibility of the hills to the west attracted the leaders of New York City gangsterdom, who established their hideouts in and near Catskill; as a result the village was associated with the careers of ‘Legs’ Diamond, Vincent Coll, and others of the gun fraternity; Diamond was tried in the Greene County courthouse in Catskill.
Originally known as Catskill Landing, the settlement on the river was subsidiary to the old Dutch hamlet of Kaatskill, still hibernating in the hills to the west, at the fall in Catskill Creek. Mountains, creeks, and village were named by the Dutch for the wildcats that occasionally came down from the hills, where they roamed in large numbers. In the heyday of turnpike and river transportation the place bustled with prosperity. Over the Susquehanna Turnpike across the mountains, the route in part of State 23 (see Tour 7), came a large part of the produce of the southern section of the State, and large mills were erected at Kaatskill to grind the wheat into flour, which was shipped to New York; shipyards at the Landing built boats for the river trade, and fishermen sent their shad and herring to Albany and New York City. The tanning industry in the mountains also shipped its leather from Catskill Landing. But the Erie Canal diverted the trade of the Southern Tier into its channel, the railroads superseded the river steamboat, and the tanneries followed the vanishing hemlock southward and northward.
In the late 1830’s Charles L. Beach of Catskill got control of the stage and mail lines between New York and Albany on both sides of the Hudson and between Catskill and Ithaca. He improved vehicles, taverns, and speed of travel and made the trip between New York and Albany a pleasant 15–hour jaunt; in the winter the stages took to the smooth ice for speed and comfort. His most famous hotel was the Catskill Mountain House (see Tour 7). In 1843 he contracted with the New York Sun to get the governor’s annual message to the legislature through ahead of the other newspapers. A copy left Albany a little after 2 p.m., with the famous driver Dimock at the reins; horses were changed every six or eight miles. From Goshen a special engine of the Erie Railroad carried it to Piermont, where a steamboat waited with a dozen printers ready to set type as the boat plowed toward the city. The next morning, to the Sun’s proud headlines were added: ‘by the Sun’s exclusive express, from Albany through, by horse and sleigh in 10 hours and ½.’
The THOMAS COLE HOUSE, Spring St. just north of Cedar St., was built about 1814 by the uncle of Cole’s wife. Cole was one of the first of the Hudson River School of painters (see Painting and Sculpture) and a founder of the National Academy of Design. He spent much of his life in and around Catskill, painting scenes of the mountains. His View of the Catskill Mountain House is one of his most famous paintings. There are almost two score of his canvases still in the Cole House, several unfinished; outstanding among these are Christ’s Temptation in the Wilderness and Prometheus Bound.
At 34.5 m. is the junction with State 23A (see Tour 7).
From the road south of the village are views (R) across the plateau to North and South Mountains and High Peak, jutting out from the northeast ridges of the Catskills, which rise an abrupt 3,000 feet above the plain and are cut by deep gorges known locally as ‘cloves.’
MALDEN-ON-HUDSON, 43 m. (80 alt., 400 pop.), is a quiet village of frame homes, supporting itself by work in a local brickyard and neighboring cement plants, and by fishing. During the latter part of the nineteenth century the place throve on the mining of bluestone for sidewalks and street curbings. In its heyday the local Bigelow bluestone plant employed 125 men in its yards; but as the vogue for bluestone passed, the company went into receivership.
The two-story frame BIGELOW HOME, in the center of the village, is now (1940) the home of Poultney Bigelow, grandson of Malden’s first postmaster and son of John Bigelow, Ambassador to France under Lincoln. Bigelow is a close personal friend of the ex-Kaiser of Germany, to whom he pays an annual visit. Mr. Bigelow gave the village its community hall and a school playground. Once a year the house and grounds are thrown open to the villagers for a field day with basket lunches and speeches by prominent guests.
Set in the hill slopes of the headland formed by the confluence of Esopus Creek and the Hudson River, SAUGERTIES (Dutch, sawyer’s town), 45 m. (100 alt., 3,918 pop.), is an attractive village of Colonial, Greek Revival, and white frame homes with deep lawns, fences, and flagstone walks. Factories turning out paper, leather, and canvas do not mar the pleasing picture.
Saugerties was a live place in the days of the packet trade and the racing steamers; it was a terminus and port of call for the fleetest river boats, including the famed Mary Powell; people said in those days that ‘Albany builds steamers, but Saugerties and Esopus (Kingston) build racing steamers.’ At the mouth of Esopus Creek are the abandoned docks of the Saugerties Night Line, one of some dozen lines on the Hudson River that once maintained a daily passenger service to New York City.
The DUBOIS KIERSTEDS HOUSE, 119 Main St., a one-and-one-half-story stone structure, was built in 1727. The original doors, hardware, kitchen fireplace, and a bed recess in the west room have been carefully preserved.
At 54 m. the highway forks for two approaches to Kingston; the left fork is the through route, the right leads to the center of town.
KINGSTON, 56.7 m. (150 alt., 28,541 pop.), Ulster County seat, rises from the west bank of the Hudson River at the mouth of Rondout Creek. The graceful lines of Overlook Mountain, with other Catskill peaks beyond, circle like a backdrop behind it. On a shelf between broad, muddy Rondout Creek and Chestnut Street is the lower town, a jumble of narrow byways with abrupt railroad crossings, sheds, docks, and oil tanks, its drabness unrelieved by a few stately old homes. Here center the maritime and industrial activities of Kingston. A score of factories manufacture refrigerators, hotel equipment, iron and bronze castings, road machinery, brushes, cigars, bricks, boats, cement, and hardware. In Rondout Creek are the rotting hulls of barges and canal boats, relics of the years when Kingston shipped millions of tons of cement annually. Tugs and barges still ply the creek under a graceful suspension bridge that connects with Port Ewen.
The upper town, on the plateau, is characterized mainly by neat one-family homes. An occasional Victorian dwelling holds itself aloof on a square of lawn, and a scattering of blue limestone houses built in the Revolutionary period impart an eighteenth-century air to the place. The business section, on Broadway, Wall, North Front, and John Streets, comprises groups of two- and three-story brick buildings with here and there a store front done in modern design.
In 1615 Dutch traders established a trading post at the mouth of Rondout Creek and named it Esopus. A group of Dutch colonists from Albany made the first permanent settlement in 1653. The Indians attacked the place on two occasions and took many lives. In 1658 Director General Peter Stuyvesant erected a stockade and blockhouse and in 1661 granted a charter to the village, which he called Wiltwyck (Dutch, wild retreat). In 1669 the English Governor Francis Lovelace gave it its present name in honor of Kingston L’Isle, his family seat in England. During the short Dutch reoccupation in 1673–4 the place was called Swanenburgh.
The memorable Revolutionary history of Kingston was crowded into the year 1777. Moving from place to place before the British advance, the temporary State Government met in the courthouse at Kingston beginning on February 19 of that year. In that building and in what is now known as the Senate House the first State constitution was adopted, the first governor was inaugurated, the first jury under the new constitution was impaneled, and the first session of the State legislature was held. On October 7 the legislature disbanded, again before the advance of the British, leaving the government in the hands of an extralegal Council of Safety. On October 16 the British burned the settlement.
The homes were soon rebuilt and the place was incorporated as a village in 1805. The foundation for the development of the city, which was incorporated in 1872, was laid by the Delaware & Hudson Canal, steamboat navigation on the river, and the manufacture of cement. The canal, opened in 1828 and enlarged in 1842 and 1851, stretched 107 miles, with a lock at every mile, from Honesdale, Pennsylvania, to Kingston, and made possible the introduction of Pennsylvania anthracite coal into profitable commercial use in the East. The canal began to die when the railroads reached the village in 1865 and 1866, and was doomed when the West Shore Railroad came in 1883.
Boat building and the cement industry came simultaneously about 1830. Cement reached its peak production about 1900, when Kingston and its environs produced 3,000,000 barrels annually. The industry waned with the appearance of Portland cement, which solidifies more quickly than the natural product.
The SENATE HOUSE and MUSEUM (open 10:30–4:30 daily, adm. 10¢, children under 16 free) are in a small park bounded by Clinton Ave. and N. Front and Fair Sts., the approximate site of the old Dutch stockade and blockhouse. The Senate House is a one-story structure with attic and basement, constructed of rock-cut limestone, with the exception of the rear wall of Holland brick. It was built by Colonel Wessel Ten Broeck in 1676. When the British burned Kingston in October 1777, the Senate House suffered little damage: only the roof was burned. The State purchased the building from a descendant of the original owner in 1887. The open porch on the northeast was added in 1888. In the interior, the furnishings, though not the originals, are of the Colonial period. There are four paintings by John Vanderlyn, native of Kingston.
In the most southerly room of this building the legislature of the State of New York held its first sessions, September 10–October 7, 1777. Here also John Jay convened the first State court on September 9 of that year.
The Museum, opened by the State in June 1930, is a solid fireproof structure of rough-cut bluestone, heavy chimneys, Dutch Colonial windows and blinds, and a simple entrance porch. The gable ends are irregular, a feature borrowed from the architecture of the old Dutch homes in the city. The first floor exhibit includes 28 paintings by John Vanderlyn—one a copy by the artist of his famous Marius on the Ruins of Carthage, the Alton B. Parker collection of governors’ autographs, steel engravings of the Presidents, Indian artifacts, and relics of the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. The second-floor exhibits include the large steering wheel of the Mary Powell, queen of the Hudson River steamboats for decades (see Tour 21C); the bell of the Norwich, another river boat; and a collection of early glassware and china.
Another of the houses to survive the burning of the British with only superficial damage is the HOFFMAN HOUSE (D.A.R. Headquarters) (open 9–3 weekdays), corner of North Front and Green Sts., a substantially built two-story structure of stone painted cream color. The original small one-and-one-half-story house is believed to have been built about 1660; the place was owned by the Hoffman family from about 1707 until after 1900.
The VAN STEENBERGH HOUSE (private), Wall St. facing Franklin St., was the only house to escape altogether the burning of Kingston by the British. Originally it was a one-story-and-attic house built of limestone, with front center gable, end gables, and solid blinds. Tobias van Steenbergh, Jr., conducted a tavern in the building during the Revolution. Two local legends explain why the British spared the house: one is that admiration of the owner’s beautiful daughter softened their hearts and stayed their hand; another that the redcoats tarried so long over a barrel of whisky in the cellar that when they were called to re-embark on their ships they lacked both the time and the poise to fire the house.
The CONRAD ELMENDORF TAVERN (private), 88 Maiden Lane, is a two-story-and-attic limestone building erected in 1725. The Council of Safety met here October 11–15, 1777.
A local newspaper is housed in the OLD KINGSTON ACADEMY BUILDING (open by permission), SW. corner of Crown and John Sts., a plain two-story limestone structure erected before 1770. This was the first academy in the State, chartered in 1773, opened in 1774, and incorporated in the city school system in 1864. Among its graduates were Governor De Witt Clinton and John Vanderlyn.
The DUTCH REFORMED CHURCH, at the junction of Wall, Main, and Fair Sts., erected in 1852, is a bluestone structure, rectangular in plan, of crude, heavy Roman classical architecture, with a square tower ending in a tall spire. The entire rear wall is taken up by a large colored leaded glass window and a pulpit. The pews are of the New England Colonial style. The congregation dates from 1659. In the burial ground adjoining the church is the GRAVE OF GEORGE CLINTON (1739–1812), first governor of New York State. Many of the surrounding headstones are pre-Revolutionary.
The ULSTER COUNTY COURTHOUSE, Wall St. between Main and John Sts., erected in 1818, is a two-story stone building suggestive of the post-Colonial style but not true in detail, especially in the main cornice brackets and the octagonal tower. The present structure occupies the site of the earlier courthouse in which the ‘Convention of the Representatives of the State of New York’ adopted the first State constitution on Sunday, April 20, 1777. Two days later the secretary of the Convention, standing on a barrel in front of the courthouse, read the constitution to the assembled crowd. On July 30, in the same building, George Clinton took his oath as first governor of the State; and his induction into office was proclaimed by the sheriff of Ulster County from the courthouse steps.
In Kingston are the junctions with US 209 (see Tour 6) and State 28 (see Tour 15).
Section b. KINGSTON to the NEW JERSEY LINE; 77.3 m. US 9W
South of Kingston the route is cradled in fruit orchard, vineyard, and berry patch; many of the farms are operated by Italians. South of Newburgh it winds over the gigantic buttresses of the Hudson Highlands past Revolutionary shrines. Campsites and resorts dot the valleys and the walls of Storm King and Bear Mountain, and the towers of West Point rear above a bulwark of trees.
South of KINGSTON, 0 m., US 9W crosses RONDOUT CREEK. Site of a Dutch trading post built in 1614, the mouth of the creek was the busiest port along the mid-Hudson until the development of automobile transportation.
On October 16, 1777, when British men-of-war hove into sight, the American galley, Lady Washington, lay in the mouth of Rondout Creek. Cannonading began at 9; the British fire was answered by a battery of five guns on a hill above the creek. By noon the Americans had scuttled the Lady Washington and the militia had spiked their guns and fled. Within three hours Kingston was in burning ruins.
US 9W follows close to the river on a plateau that stretches westward to the base of the Catskill wall. Across the river can be seen the Vanderbilt and Roosevelt estates.
In WEST PARK, 9.1 m. (170 alt., 700 pop.), is RIVERBY (L), the estate of John Burroughs. The two-story stone house, built in 1873, was designed by Burroughs. ‘I built into my house,’ he wrote, ‘every one of those superb autumn days which I spent in the woods getting out stone.’ In 1881 he built the one-room BARK STUDY, a few rods east. Its wide windows offer superb views of the Hudson; the huge cobblestone fireplace and built-in bookshelves filled with Burroughs’s books are much as the naturalist-author left them. THE NEST, a rustic bungalow a few rods north, was built in 1902 by the naturalist’s son, Julian Burroughs, who still lives here. On April 2, 1921, Henry Ford, Thomas A. Edison, and other distinguished persons gathered at The Nest for brief funeral services for the naturalist.
Right from West Park on a macadam road 0.9 m. to the entrance (L) to SLABSIDES, built in 1895 by Burroughs as a retreat when ‘lion-hunters became too numerous,’ and now owned by the John Burroughs Memorial Association. It is a rustic two-story structure with walls of slabs, fieldstone chimney and fireplace, and rustic furniture made by Burroughs. When President Theodore Roosevelt, a long-time friend, came to see Burroughs in a Government steam yacht, the tawny recluse was quite docile. Roosevelt arrived ‘on the 10th of July, the hottest day of the whole year,’ Burroughs reported; ‘we walked from the river up to Slabsides, and Roosevelt sweat his white linen coat right through at the back.’
Just south of West Park, sloping down to the river, at a point directly opposite the Roosevelt estate, is (L) the 500-acre estate sold by Howland Spencer to Father Divine in July 1938 for a ‘heaven,’ one of the many pieces of property owned by Father Divine and his followers in Ulster County.
The origins of Father Divine (alias Joe Baker), who, his adherents say, is ‘God himself,’ are appropriately shrouded in mystery. His enthusiastic followers proclaim that he was never born but was ‘combusted’ one day in 1900 in Harlem at the corner of Seventh Avenue and 134th Street. He has, however, been traced back to the 1890’s and to Savannah, Georgia, where he set up as a prophet. He arrived in New York in 1915 with 12 disciples and set up a communal organization in Brooklyn; but he found his green pastures in Harlem in the early thirties. To impoverished Harlemites, suffering from the depression and haunted by fear of the future, Father Divine brought his simple creed of peace and brotherhood and unlimited material abundance. He classifies his followers into ‘Children’—people who go to his meetings but are not ready or willing to turn over everything to him, and ‘Angels’—those who turn over to him all their worldly possessions, even their names, and are thereafter known by such names as Love Light, Rebecca Willing, Precious Love, Harmony, and so on. Father Divine’s real estate holdings in Harlem include half a dozen apartment houses, in addition to 25 flats; he runs some 16 businesses, including a dress shop, a garage, a bakery, and several grocery stores. He also owns a number of residence and farm properties along the Hudson, most of them in Ulster County; some of his Ulster County followers are white.
At 14.9 m. is the northern junction with US 44 (see Tour 5); and at 15.4 m. is a traffic circle at the western end of the MID-HUDSON BRIDGE (L) and the southern junction with US 44 (see Tour 5).
The COLONEL LOUIS DUBOIS HOUSE (L), 22.6 m., was built about 1757. The story-and-a-half clapboarded structure was given a jerkin head roof, dormers, and four false windows on the end wall about 1802. Colonel Du Bois was one of the few masters to free his slaves before the New York State law of 1825. But his act was a measure of economy rather than of principle; he felt that it was an extravagance to feed slaves all winter for doing his work when he could hire laborers during the farming season only.
In MARLBORO, 23.2 m. (180 alt., 1,000 pop.), the type designer Frederic William Goudy converted an old water mill into a workshop, in which he created his remarkable series of original type designs. Goudy is probably the only printer ever to carry the printing process from the original design to the printed book without outside help. This is the more noteworthy because he did not learn the technique and mechanics of type until he was 61 years old. In January 1939 the Goudy type shop caught fire, and the flames destroyed 75 or more original type designs, matrices of the 107 type faces originated by Goudy, the specially made precision instruments with which he created his masterpieces, and the press on which the English printer-poet William Morris got out the Kelmscott Chaucer. In 1940, on his 75th birthday, Goudy was appointed to the faculty of the Syracuse University School of Journalism.
CHRIST CHURCH (L), at the south end of town, is a modest brick structure designed in 1858 by Richard Upjohn, architect of Trinity Church, New York City.
At 24.6 m. is the junction with a lane.
Left here 0.1 m. to the MILL HOUSE (L). The stone first story was built in 1714 by Gomez the Jew, as a home and trading post for his fur trade with the Indians. Gomez developed so large a trade that he transported furs in his own boats to Spain and Portugal. In 1772, Wolfert Acker, grandson of the Wolfert Acker of Washington Irving’s Wolfert’s Roost, bought the Mill House, which became a meetingplace for Whigs during the Revolution. Acker added the second story, constructing it of brick made by his slaves.
NEWBURGH, 31.2 m. (160 alt., 31,797 pop.), is a city of tree-bordered streets rising in terraces above the broad expanse of Newburgh Bay. On the east the town drops down a maze of steep, winding streets to the river front, where cargoes are loaded on ocean-going freighters; the old residential section here is a series of faded brick blocks and sedate frame dwellings with broad piazzas and towers. The newer part of town spreads westward over a plateau reaching toward the horizon of the Shawangunk Mountains.
Water Street, narrow and congested, running parallel with the river, is the main shopping center. Broadway, 90 feet wide, climbs the westward slope, jammed at all hours with a stream of traffic between New England and New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and western New York. In sharp contrast, three blocks north is the courthouse square, an oasis of quiet.
In normal times the city’s industries employ about 7,000 workers, producing lawn mowers, overalls, machinery, artificial leather, handbags and pocketbooks, carpets, and silk goods. Industrial buying power is augmented by a large summer tourist trade and an extensive commerce in fruit and farm produce.
Newburgh people are gregarious. The place is a stronghold of church activities, of playgrounds and parks, of sports, of secret and social clubs and organizations. The city cherishes its Revolutionary traditions, keeping them alive by emphasis in the school curricula, reading courses in the public library, and the activities of local patriotic societies.
The first settlement on the site of Newburgh was made in 1709 by a group of about 50 penniless German Palatines led by Joshua Kocherthal, a Lutheran preacher. They settled in the vicinity of Quassaick Creek, the present southern city line, under a patent covering 2,190 acres and known as ‘The Palatine Parish of Quassaick.’ As Scottish, Dutch, and English settlers moved in, the Palatines found it difficult to live in harmony with their new neighbors and sought out the larger groups of their own people up the Hudson, in the Mohawk Valley, and in Pennsylvania and Delaware. The present name was given to the settlement in 1762 in honor of the town in Scotland on the River Tay.
The significant Revolutionary history of the settlement is centered in the Hasbrouck House. After the Revolution, Major Isaac Belknap and others who before the war had sailed sloops of red cedar, staunch rather than speedy, re-entered the boating business, and by 1798 four lines of sloops were in active service from the growing town. Over the Newburgh-Cochecton Turnpike came from the hinterland the agricultural products that the sloops transported down the river. By the end of the century the trade of Newburgh had spread as far west as Canandaigua, whence wagon trails radiated in every direction. But this trade was rapidly diverted by the Erie Canal. For a short time the villagers found a substitute in whaling, and made futile plans for a Government shipyard. When the Erie Railroad was laid out, the plans excluded Newburgh, but repeated pleas were rewarded with a branch line from Chester, which was opened in 1850.
The city was incorporated in 1865 with a population of 13,000. A few years later, the completion of the Dutchess & Columbia Railroad to the east shore of the Hudson, and of the Newburgh & Wallkill Railroad west, with a free connecting barge service across the river, put Newburgh on the direct route between the Pennsylvania coal mines and the New England market. In 1881 the city became the western terminus of the New York & New England Railroad, and in 1883 the West Shore Railroad provided direct connection with New York City.
Attracted in large part by the multiplying rail facilities, between 1880 and 1891 factories came and began to manufacture flannels, overalls, paper boxes, iron products, hats, wire products and furniture, building supplies and paints, soap, electric motors, reed chairs, flour and feed, wallpaper, and lawn mowers.
DOWNING PARK, entrance corner of Carpenter Ave. and 3d St., was named for Andrew Jackson Downing (1815–52), native of Newburgh, who, with his brother Charles (1802–85), was largely responsible for the development of the Hudson Valley as a fruit-growing center and exerted a still visible influence on its architecture (see Tour 21C). From the peak elevation of the observation tower (open) on the grounds is a sweeping view of the Hudson.
The ORANGE COUNTY COURTHOUSE, Grand St. between 2d and 3d Sts., is a stuccoed brick building erected in 1841, Thornton M. Niver, architect.
ST. GEORGE EPISCOPAL CHURCH, SW. corner of Grand and 2d Sts., is a rectangular stone structure built in 1819. The Greek Revival steeple is one of the finest in the State.
The ASSOCIATE REFORMED CHURCH, NW. corner of Grand and 1st Sts., is a small clapboarded building erected in 1799 and rebuilt in 1821.
HEADQUARTERS PARK is a seven-acre enclosure with main entrance on Liberty St. between Washington and Lafayette Sts. The low, weathered graystone structure with rambling roof is the HASBROUCK HOUSE (open 9–4 weekdays; adm. free), which served as Washington’s headquarters from April 1, 1782, until August 18, 1783. The building incorporates in its southeast corner a house built about 1725 by Burger Mynders, second white owner of the land. In 1749 Burger Mynders, Jr., deeded the land to Elsie Hasbrouck, whose son Jonathan enlarged the house soon afterward and took title to the land in 1754. A second enlargement in 1770 gave the house the appearance as Washington knew it and as it now stands. After remaining in the hands of the Hasbrouck family for 100 years, it was taken over by the State of New York.
In this house Washington wrote his famous letter of advice to the governors of the States. Here on May 22, 1782, he received the formal letter in which Colonel Lewis Nicola, spokesman for a group of officers, proposed that Washington become king for the ‘national advantage’; and here he wrote his reply that the proposal was received with ‘surprise and astonishment,’ ‘viewed with abhorrence,’ and ‘reprimanded with severity.’ Here, also, on April 10, 1783, Washington announced the cessation of hostilities.
The Headquarters were always overcrowded; and when a visitor remained overnight, he had to arise early so that his cot might be made up and the room turned over to the General as an office. Martha Washington spent a great deal of time here, and helped in receiving distinguished guests and in entertaining the Generals and their wives. Many pleasant evenings were spent at the Headquarters, Washington dipping from time to time into a great bowl of nuts that came on with the wine, and the company frequently convulsed with laughter at the tall tales of that great fisherman, Baron von Steuben, who proved to be something of a Munchausen.
That Martha Washington also mothered the Generals is brought out in the two letters following, sent from and received at the Headquarters:
Newburgh, March 6, 1783
Mrs. Washington presents her compliments to General Knox and begs his acceptance of two hair nets. They would have been sent long ago, but for want of tape to finish them and which was not obtained until yesterday.
West Point, March 8, 1783
General Knox has the honor to present his most respectful compliments to Mrs. Washington and to assure her he is deeply impressed with the sense of her goodness in favor of the hair nets for which he begs her to accept his sincere thanks.
Today the Hasbrouck House contains numerous objects of historical interest, including paintings and engravings of Washington and other Revolutionary personages and furniture of the Colonial and Revolutionary periods, a few pieces of which were used during Washington’s residence. A large central room on the east side of the house—the famous ‘room with seven doors and one window’—served the Washington family as a living room. Its unusual fireplace is without jambs; the fire was built against the wall with no protection, and the smoke rose to the chimney that begins at the level of the floor above.
The MUSEUM (open 9–4 weekdays, adm. free), in Headquarters Park, a two-story red brick structure in the Georgian Colonial style, was erected by New York State in 1910. It contains a large variety of historical mementos, principally of the Revolutionary period: firearms, battle flags, lace, beadwork, costumes, Indian artifacts, and objects associated with Washington and his wife, Lafayette, and Major André.
Among the smaller monuments and numerous cannon and war trophies in the park stands the TOWER OF VICTORY, a 53-foot monument erected in 1883, commemorating the disbanding of the Continental Army on October 18, 1783. In the open section of the tower is a life-size statue of Washington copied by William R. O’Donovan from Houdon’s model.
Right from Newburgh on State 32 to the SITE OF THE LAST CANTONMENT (L), 2.5 m., where the Continental regiments were encamped during the long armistice between the surrender of Cornwallis in 1781 and the signing of the peace treaty in 1783. These winter quarters along the Hudson are considered by many historians to have outdone in hardship the more storied quarters at Valley Forge; Washington wrote of ‘the sufferings and privations of these heroic men, who ate at one time every kind of horse food but hay, and whose clothing was patched, nearly every substance of originality being lost.’ The 8,000 troops quartered here included Continental regiments and brigades from Massachusetts, New York, New Hampshire, and New Jersey.
At 3.8 m. is the junction with Temple Hill Road; right on this road 1 m. to TEMPLE HILL (R), called the ‘Birthplace of the Republic.’ Memorial tablets on the 50-foot stone TEMPLE HILL MONUMENT, erected by the Masons, summarize the history of the site.
On this spot the soldiers erected in 1782–3 the Temple, a log structure that was the religious and executive core of the encampment. Here on March 15, 1783, before a convention of officers presided over by General Gates, George Washington made his ‘Law and Order’ speech in reply to the ‘Newburgh Addresses’ written anonymously by Major John Armstrong, later Secretary of War (see Tour 21B), inciting the soldiers to seize control of the government before peace was made and they were disbanded without their pay. ‘Gentlemen,’ Washington began, ‘by an anonymous summons an attempt has been made to convene you together. How inconsistent with rules of propriety, how unmilitary, how subversive of all order and discipline; let the good sense of the Army decide.’ Pausing a moment, he drew out his spectacles, carefully wiped and adjusted them, and then remarked, ‘These eyes, my friends, have grown dim and these locks white in the service, yet I have never doubted the justice of my country.’ And he concluded with an exhortation: ‘I conjure you, in the name of our common country, as you value your own sacred honor, as you respect the rights of humanity, to express your utmost horror and detestation of the man who wishes, under any specious pretense, to overturn the liberties of your country, and who wickedly attempts to open the floodgates of civil discord, and deluge our rising empire in blood.’
At 3.9 m. on State 32 is the junction with State 45; left on State 45 to (R) the GENERAL KNOX HEADQUARTERS (John Ellison House) 0.4 m. (open 9–4 daily), a large white building of stone and frame construction. Part of the one-story wing was built in 1734 to serve as the hunting lodge of John Ellison; the rest of the one-story section was added in 1754; the main two-story-and-attic stone house was added in 1782. The place is today occupied by fourth-generation descendants of William Bull, builder of the stone portion; the State is represented by a curator.
As headquarters of General Knox, and for a time of General Gates, this house was a social center of the Last Cantonment, with less formality than was required in the presence of the Commander-in-Chief. The older section of the house contains a perfect specimen of a Dutch oven; there is a curious stairway to the attic, with staggered treads that are removable as the householder ascends, to pull a trap door up after him; and a door on strap hinges opens and closes by means of a rope with a weight at the end, running through a perforated wooden arm. The entire house is furnished with period furniture, fine old open fireplaces, mantels, and woodwork, which have been copied by visiting craftsmen of the present day.
In front of the house ran the Revolutionary highway, crossing Silver Stream by a small arched bridge of dry masonry, which still stands.
NEW WINDSOR, 33.1 m. (160 alt., 2,650 pop.), a Newburgh suburb, is the site of Washington’s headquarters from June 24 to July 21, 1779, and December 6, 1780, to June 25, 1781. On July 4, 1779, in celebration of the third anniversary of American Independence, Washington granted a general pardon to all war prisoners under sentence of death, while 13 rounds boomed from the cannon at distant West Point. George Clinton, the first elected governor of New York State, lived here; and his nephew, De Witt Clinton, also governor in his turn, was born here.
The NEW YORK MILITARY ACADEMY (L), 35.6 m., is one of the oldest military preparatory schools in the State. The military-type brick and concrete Gothic buildings occupy an estate of 350 acres. An accredited military school, it receives a regular allotment of guns, ammunition, and equipment from the U.S. War Department. It prepares students for West Point and college entrance.
In the 1840’s, CORNWALL-ON-HUDSON, 36.3 m. (167 alt., 1,966 pop.), acquired renown as the home of Nathaniel Parker Willis (1806–69), poet, essayist, and historian, and later as the home of Edward Payson Roe, best-selling novelist of the 1880’s. IDLEWILD (private), entrance on Spruce St., the Willis home, is a three-story-and-attic brick structure. On each side of the entrance door is the bronze figure of an American eagle with wings outspread, beak thrust forward.
US 9W swings into the STORM KING HIGHWAY at 36.8 m., climbing the steep paunch of old Storm King itself. Known through the Colonial period as Butter Hill, the mountain, whose peak rises some 1,400 feet, and whose precipitous sides are heavily wooded, was given its present name by the poet, Willis. Curving high above the Hudson with only a low stone wall between it and a 500-foot drop, the highway offers spectacular views north to the Long Reach, south to West Point and the lower Highlands, and across the river to the gigantic bony knuckles of Breakneck and Bull Hill.
Construction is under way (1940) on a new road high up on the Highland ridge to the west, but work has been halted from time to time by injunctions obtained by villages which this new and almost equally scenic road is destined to ignore.
Once believed to be the haunt of hobgoblins and elves, the granite-walled Highland pass is today subdued and beaten by the gouging of rock quarries and the bestrewing of hidden clefts and valleys with bungalow villages, while the Hudson is fettered on each side by the gleaming steel of the New York Central main line and West Shore tracks.
At 40.9 m. is the junction with the road to West Point (see West Point).
Dipping left, US 9W curves through WASHINGTON VALLEY, 41.9 m., a wooded hollow where Washington had his headquarters during the winter of 1779. From the Moore House (demolished), the Commander-in-Chief issued an order forbidding profanity among Continental soldiers; and the next day, as if to compensate for this restriction, he ordered an extra ration of grog for everyone.
While teaching school in HIGHLAND FALLS, 45.3 m. (200 alt., 2,910 pop.), in 1862, John Burroughs discovered Audubon’s Birds; the pictures so fired his imagination that he began his lifelong study of nature. Families of infantrymen, cavalrymen, and bandsmen stationed at the West Point Reservation have their homes here. For a century small boys of the village have been earning pocket money by selling ‘smokes’ to cadets during practice marches.
At 48.7 m. are (L) the grass-covered earth ramparts of FORT MONTGOMERY, built early in the Revolution. With Fort Clinton a mile south and Fort Independence across the river in the shadow of bulging Anthony’s Nose, it guarded the Highland passes. General von Steuben expressed the opinion that upon the success or failure of the British effort to capture West Point and the Highland fortifications ‘depends the fate of America.’ Undermanned because of the demand for men to fight Burgoyne, both Fort Montgomery and Fort Clinton fell on October 3, 1777, before the force sent up the river from New York City by Sir Henry Clinton. The British continued on up the Hudson, burning villages and finally razing Kingston on October 16; but upon learning of Burgoyne’s surrender, they retired to the safety of New York harbor.
Over two gracefully arched steel bridges US 9W sweeps to the junction at 49.3 m. with US 6 (see Tour 4); then past the entrance (R) at 49.5 m. to BEAR MOUNTAIN STATE PARK (see Tour 4).
The village of STONY POINT, 56.7 m. (120 alt., 1,000 pop.), derives its name from the rocky bluff that projects into the Hudson. Here the Federal Government erected in 1826 a lighthouse 179 feet above sea level equipped with a mechanical fog signal and a ‘fixed white light.’ The village itself still has a few buildings that antedate the Revolution, but they are lost among glaring gasoline stations, diners, and tourist homes. Here James A. Farley won his first political victory—election as town clerk.
At 57.6 m. is the junction with a side road.
Left on this road 0.7 m. to the STONY POINT BATTLEFIELD RESERVATION, a site embracing the area held by the British forces and stormed and captured by 1,200 Continentals under General ‘Mad’ Anthony Wayne on July 6, 1779. In the daring charge, General Wayne was wounded and borne forward over the rampart to victory upon the shoulders of his men. An anecdote tells that during the discussion of Hudson River tactics, Washington asked Wayne if he thought he could storm Stony Point, to which Wayne replied: ‘I’ll storm hell, sir, if you’ll make the plans!’ Washington looked at him meditatively for a moment, then replied: ‘Better try Stony Point first, General.’
The STONY POINT MUSEUM (open 9–5 daily), on one of the highest points of the promontory, is an L-shaped one-story structure with Dutch windows, containing murals, battle pieces, portraits, and maps bearing on the storming of the fort. The Museum was opened in 1936 under the supervision of the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society.
Just south of the village is the NEW YORK STATE RECONSTRUCTION HOME (R), 58.8 m., an orthopedic hospital for children established in 1900. It occupies the site of the homestead of Joshua Hett Smith, the TREASON HOUSE, in which Benedict Arnold and John André met to arrange for the betrayal of West Point to the British (see below).
At 61.3 m. is the junction (R) with US 202 (see Tour 2).
Swinging inland, US 9W crosses the Ramapo Valley; then begins the climb through HAVERSTRAW, 59.1 m. (20 alt., 5,906 pop.), which squats on the edge of the Hudson with its back propped against High Tor, Little Tor, and Pyngyp. Its main industry is the manufacture of brick and cement. Here James Wood discovered the modern system of burning brick and set up brickyards in the town, the beginnings of an industry which at the peak included 40 brickyards, producing 326,000,000 brick annually.
In 1825 the Franklin Community was established here by followers of Robert Owen; they wished to discard ‘absurd and immaterial systems of religion’ and the form of marriage based on them. But local antagonism soon put an end to this Utopia.
Left from Haverstraw on Riverside Ave. 0.3 m. to the RED STONE DOCK CAMPSITES of the Hook Mountain Section of the Palisades Interstate Park. When the local red stone, deposited in the Triassic Period, was being exploited in the 1820’s, it was common to see from 10 to 12 vessels loaded with stone leave the docks each day.
At 62.9 m. is the junction with State 304.
Right on this road 3.9 m. to NEW CITY (200 alt., 1,000 pop.), seat of Rockland County. The ROCKLAND COUNTY COURTHOUSE (R), erected in 1928, was designed by Dennison and Hirons, architects. The interior is remarkable for the restrained use of color and for a historical mural map painted by James Monroe Hewlett.
Southwest of the Courthouse is the DUTCH MEMORIAL GARDEN, interesting not only for its landscape design but also for the use of brick in the pavilion, walks, and garden ornaments.
At 6 m. is the junction with a road; right here 0.4 m. to the MAJOR JOHN SMITH HOME (L), an unusually well preserved and unaltered example of primitive Rockland County farmstead built about 1735. The first-story walls of roughly cut red sandstone and the four-bay plan with an asymmetrically placed entrance door are typical early features. The gambrel roof still has the simple boarded cove treatment in the rear. The garret end walls are shingled; the cellar beams are of huge size; and there is an inside smokehouse.
Two hundred feet beyond is MAJOR JOHN SMITH’S BARN (R), the only such building in the State with stone walls. The plan is clearly derived from house forms rather than, as elsewhere, from the Saxonian peasant barns. Now a private garage, the structure is one of the mellowest, most picturesque relics of the early eighteenth century in New York State.
Although it has several small industries, NYACK, 70.1 m. (68 alt., 5,167 pop.), is essentially a bright and prosperous commuters’ village. The water front offers swimming and boating; there is a public bathhouse just south of the village; and a favorite picnic and bathing place is a sandy beach in the shadow of Hook Mountain. Upper Nyack and South Nyack are separate incorporated villages.
The OLD STONE CHURCH, Broadway, Upper Nyack, is a simple rectangular structure with walls of the ubiquitous local red sandstone and a roof with boarded gables. In February 1813, William Palmer, Nicholas Williamson, and John Green met in Green’s house in Upper Nyack and resolved ‘that this be a meeting to organize and build a Methodist Episcopal Church; and that we begin to build the Church tomorrow morning. Carried.’
The MICHAEL CORNELISON HOUSE (Salisbury House), Piermont Ave., the southern village line of South Nyack, was built in 1770; it is a large two-story gambrel-roofed house commanding a magnificent prospect over Tappan Zee. The red sandstone came from near-by quarries, which extended along the road clear to Piermont. The second-story wall was erected after the Revolution; and the kitchen wing in the stepped gable ‘Sunnyside’ style, inaugurated by Washington Irving across the river, was added about 1840. The house was erected by Michael Cornelison, who had bought the land in 1765 from his father-in-law, Claes Jansen Kuyper, grandson and namesake of the original patentee.
PIERMONT, 74.6 m. (40 alt., 1,872 pop.), took its name from the mile-long pier (L) of the Erie Railroad. When the Erie was first completed in 1851, Piermont was made the eastern terminus because the railroad charter required the line to be constructed entirely within the boundary of New York State; connection with New York was by boat. The village was originally called Tappan Landing. Sir Guy Carleton came ashore here to discuss with Washington, then living at Tappan, peace terms and the orderly withdrawal of the British from New York City. Upon Washington’s return visit to Carleton’s flagship, the British for the first time saluted the flag of the United States of America.
Right from Piermont on a macadam road 1.5 m. to TAPPAN (80 alt., 1,200 pop.), a residential village associated with the beginning and the end of the Benedict Arnold-Major John André tragedy. In the DE WINT MANSION (open, free), Washington’s headquarters in 1780 and again in 1783, the Commander-in-Chief entrusted to the embittered Arnold the command of West Point. Arnold immediately wrote to Sir Henry Clinton in New York City, offering to betray the garrison to the British. Clinton sent Major André to arrange the details with Arnold at Joshua Hett Smith’s house near Stony Point (see above). On his way back André was captured, and plans of West Point defenses were found in one of his boots, together with proof of Arnold’s complicity. As soon as he heard of the capture, Arnold fled down the river to the British (see Tour 21C).
Near the De Wint House is the SEVENTY-SIX HOUSE (open, free), built in 1755, restored in 1897, and now used as an inn, which served as the prison of Major André. It contains a private collection of Colonial relics.
The REFORMED DUTCH CHURCH, on the village green, a fine brick edifice erected in 1835, the third on this site, retains, despite its Greek Revival details, the general arrangement and forms of the preceding Federal period. Typical of the early nineteenth century is the location of the pulpit against the facade wall. In the first church building on this site occurred the trial of Major André on September 27, 1780, before the Board of Enquiry appointed by General Washington.
To ANDRÉ HILL, André Hill Road, out Old Tappan Road, Major John André, adjutant-general of the British army in New York, and then just 29 years old, was brought just before noon on October 2, 1780, to be hanged. The large crowd of spectators was kept at a distance by a hollow square of 500 infantrymen. Washington and his staff were absent. Not until he turned up the Hill Road and saw the high gibbet did André realize that his plea to the Commander-in-Chief for a soldier’s death before a firing squad was not to be granted. Restlessly awaiting the final preparations, he comforted his two weeping body-servants, who had been sent up from New York. Finally he leaped into the wagon stationed below the gallows crossarm, and, standing on the coffin, removed his stock, opened his shirt collar, took the rope from the clumsy hangman—the Tory prisoner Strickland—adjusted the noose about his own neck, and bound his handkerchief over his eyes. To the reading of the order of execution he responded, ‘All I request of you, gentlemen, is that you bear witness to the world that I die like a brave man.’ The signal given, the wagon rolled away, and it was done.
After the removal of General Richard Montgomery’s body from Quebec to St. Paul’s in New York, British authorities requested André’s body in return. The owner of the hilltop field, who had refused many large offers for the land from speculators anticipating a large profit from this very situation, gave his assent; and in 1821 the remains were taken home and laid to rest in the south aisle of Westminster Abbey.
At about 77 m. the ramparts of the PALISADES begin their march.
US 9W crosses the NEW JERSEY LINE at 77.3 m., 22.1 miles north of Jersey City, New Jersey.