Welcome to our Chrystie House page. Below is an article about Chrystie House from the Beacon Historical Society Newsletter,  photos taken of the home in April, 2012,  as well as  an interviews with Yuan Lee,who explains to us the history of this magnificent house
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The Chrystie House

Here is a view of the home from above April, 2012

To the left is a view of the home,
You can visit the web site for Chrystie house  by clicking to the right    www.chrystiehouse.com 

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Report about Chrystie House from Beacon Historical Society Newsletter    July 2012

In an exchange of real estate unprecedented in Beacon's history, Dr. C. J. Slocum in one spectacular move both expanded his Craig House properties and secured a beautiful home for himself when he bought the historic Chrystie/Rumsey home in 1927.  The Albert Chrystie house ( later called the James Rumsey home) dates back to 1821, and may be best known locally as the home where Revolutionary war patriot, Colonel William Few died while visiting his Chrystie relatives. By 1924, the home was in danger of collapse from the encroaching excavations of the nearby clay banks by Dennings Point Brick Works.   Dr. Slocum, recognizing the historic importance of the house, bought the home( and not its property) from the brickyard in 1927 and arranged to have it moved several hundred yards on log rollers, pulled by one horse easterly from the embankment overlooking the river across the road at South Avenue to its present location today..near the Sargent avenue, South Avenue intersection.-an engineering feat baffling even today. Anecdotal history says the move took three days. We do know( from a Fortune Magazine article) that Craig House patients took intense interest in the move.  " Did you hear the house this morning?   was their stock greeting as the job was under way.

-----------------------------------------------   Below is a recording of and interview about the history of Chrystie House Jim Krivo interviewing Yuan Lee.  

 

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-----------------------------------------------Photos from Chrystie House in April, including photo of the grandfather of all Ginkos in America.

There are photos of two tall oaks, where Sargent placed drainage from his home towards them to since they have deep roots.  Five photos down on the right.
There is a section of dwarf trees six photos down on the right and seven on the left.   The dwarf horse chestnut... the one with five eye shape leaves... is a rare specimen Henry Winthrop Sargent planted in  1847 in Wodenethe. He discussed it in his supplement to Downing's book  "A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening"  P.458. 
The photos of the Ginkgo  are seven down on the right and eight on the left . It is the grandfather of all American Ginkos.   You can see the root cellar, and you can see that the deer have chewed on the underside of the giant yews.

Following is an article posted on internet written by a historian in Beacon regarding John Peter DeWindt and his family, It provides some background information to Yuan Lee's history of Chrystie House below.
John Peter DeWindt came to America from the Dutch Caribbean island of St. Eustatius, in what is now the Netherlands Antilles, shortly before the Revolution. A relative of the governor of that
colony, DeWindt decided in 1774 to move to New York with his wife Elizabeth Groebe after the governor returned to the Netherlands. 
With the approach of the Revolution the DeWindts moved inland to escape the war, buying a house in Tappan in Westchester County where his son, also named John Peter, was born in 1787. The DeWindt homestead in Tappan is now a historic site; George Washington stayed
there on many occasions, including, most importantly, the hanging for espionage of Major John Andre, the British officer to whom the traitor Benedict Arnold tried to sell the American fort at West Point.
Around 1795 DeWindt came to our area and began buying land. Some of his earliest purchases were from the Bogardus family and from the heirs of the Van Voorhis family. These purchases included
most of the land around what are now Tompkins Avenue and the  Southern Dutchess Country Club, purchases that include nearly all the land between what is now Route 9 and the Hudson River. He also bought a good deal of land around the ferry landing and most of the land north of Verplanck Avenue. The elder John Peter DeWindt died in 1803 and left his land to his son, John Peter II. A community benefactor, John Peter DeWindt II donated parcels of land for the construction of a Methodist church on Main Street. He donated one parcel on Ferry Street for the building of a Dutch Reformed church and its burial ground, and another parcel on Academy 
Street for the building of a school. The junior Mr. DeWindt's benefactions were possible because of his astute business sense; like his father, John Peter DeWindt II was an energetic entrepreneur. Much of his money came from the Caribbean trade, but in this area he built Long Dock and a boatyard just south of the dock. He also owned a warehouse, hotels on Long Dock and near the  railroad station, the ferry across the river, and, according to James Brown, the escaped slave whose diary is an invaluable look into the life of the early 19th century Hudson Valley, the Orange Hotel
in Newburgh, as well as other property in Orange County. DeWindt also participated in the vigorous river trade, owning several sloops, one of which, the Caroline, sailed from New York to Fishkill Landing in five hours, a remarkable time for a wind-powered vessel. In 1814 John Peter DeWindt II married Caroline Amelia Smith at Quincy, Massachusetts, at the home of her grandparents, John and Abigail Adams. Their new home was a house on Bank Street, near  
the end of the street and overlooking the river; the house burned down in 1862. The DeWindts had twelve children: Caroline, Julia, Emily, Elizabeth, Isabella, Mary, Louisa, Annamarie, John, William, Arthur, and Francis Adams. In 1838 Caroline married the noted landscape architect Andrew Jackson Downing, and then, after his death in a steamboat accident in 1852 (Caroline's mother died in the same accident) she married John J. Monell in 1860. They built a home on land her father gave them and named it Eustatia; the house is at the end of Lafayette Street and is on the National Register of Historic Places. Monell had a daughter from a previous marriage, but he and Caroline had no children of their own. Caroline's sister Emily married Frederick Clark Withers, a well-known architect brought to the United States from England by Downing. Withers designed the Dutch Reformed Church in Beacon, as well as St. Luke's Church and the manse as well. He also 
designed General Howland's home, Tioronda, and the old Tioronda school. 
The other DeWindt sisters also married: Julia married A. W. Van Wagenen, Isabella married George Furman, and Elizabeth married awell-known artist of the day, Christopher Pease Cranch. Mary married George Seaman and Louisa married Samuel Whittimore, with whom she had two children, and (on of them married to) then the noted art critic for The New York Times, Clarence Cook. In 1824, when the Marquis de Lafayette visited America, one of the places he stopped to visit was the DeWindt house here in Beacon. The Marquis was a friend of Mrs. DeWindt's father, William Smith, and was well acquainted with her grandfather, former President, and
her uncle, John Quincy Adams, who would himself be elected President
in November. According to a letter in the files of the Beacon Historical Society, Mrs. DeWindt met with the Marquis in New York before his triumphant trip up the river. John Peter DeWindt II died in 1870. His daughter Caroline still lived at Eustatia when he died, but most of his family had moved
away. In death, many members of the family rested in a family vault on the DeWindt property. Sometime during the 1890's, however,they were apparently re-interred at the Fishkill Rural Cemetery. Several family members lay in nearby cemeteries and at least one DeWindt 
descendant is in the Methodist Cemetery on Verplanck Avenue. 
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A History of Chrystie House, the Hudson Valley and Early History of the United States of America,with facts you may never have learned in school. 

Yuan Lee,owner of Chrystie House: author

The relocated Chrystie House at 300 South Avenue  Beacon today, was a country home owned by Few-Chrystie family between 1819-1833. The family owned a significant amount of property in town of Fishkill until 1840s. This house was the main house among a few houses, on this roughly 99 acres of riverfront property. Their property consisted of the land on both sides of South Ave, the land South and West of Wolcott Ave (9 D) ,  South of Beekman Street and North of Denning's Point. Included in this property were the  Iris Circle, and what would become the destroyed Roseneth Estate. The house was relocated in 1927, into the then still largely intact Wodenethe,  Henry Winthrop Sargent’s garden estate; the original location of the Chrystie House was  in the middle of the property where the Beacon sewage plant is located today.

In 1821, William Few, a Founding Father of the Nation from Georgia, a prominent political figure, banker, merchant, philanthropist, one of the richest New Yorkers at that time, and Albert Chrystie, who would marry Few’s eldest daughter Frances in 1822, purchased the property from William Allen and his wife Maria Cornelia Allen. Albert Chrystie was the registered owner on the deed. He was the younger brother of Rev. James Chrystie, William Few's brother in law of 38 years junior. The Few-Chrystie family was part of a much bigger, influential James Nicholson family in early American history. 

James Nicholson (1737-1804), was son of Joseph and Hannah Smith Nicholson of Chestertown, Maryland; he and his brothers Samuel and John served as captains in the US Navy during Independent War; he was the senior captain and Commodore-in-Chief of the Continental Navy in 1776, after the Revolution, his brother Samuel Nicholson was the Navy Inspector of the construction of the USS Constitution and was her first Commander. USS Nicholson was named to honor James Nicholson, his brothers and his nephew, Commodore William Nicholson and his grandnephew, Rear Admiral James W. Nicholson. He was a friend of George Washington but strongly opposed Alexander Hamilton's Federalist policies. He became one of the New York Democratic-Republican Party leaders and played important role in the 1800 presidential Election. Under President Jefferson, he served as United States Commissioner of Loans between 1801 and 1804; died in his office, which was succeeded by his son in law, William Few. He had one son James and five daughters, who married to William Few, Albert Gallatin, Joshua Seney, John Montgomery and James Chrystie. After his death, his wife Frances, the widow Nicholson, as she was called, became the " dowager queen of New York society... no visit to New York by any dignitary was complete without paying homage to Mrs. Nicholson. " Frances Nicholson's famous mansion was on Skinner Road, on the brink of Greenwich Village, it was on a large estate, which included productive farms. The estate was purchased by James Nicholson and William Few in 1800, and was deeded to William Few, even though it was Frances Nicholson who lived there until 1826. William Few was the manager of the estate, and acted as the host for many social events and festivities. Nicholson Mansion’s guests included four presidents, Thomas Paine, Alexander Hamilton and many other early American luminaries.

William Few, Jr. (June 8, 1748 – July 16, 1828), was born in Maryland to a farming family of Pennsylvania Quaker decent. The family moved to North Carolina for better life when he was young, but forced to leave again, after William Few's brother James was hanged for taking part in the Regulator Rebellion, eventually moving  to Georgia. He served in Continental Army and was  promoted to be a  Colonel during the war. He was an autodidact, passed the bar and was known for his legal capacity, his leadership among the Georgian militia, which conducted effective guerrilla warfare in the South,and  had been credited for the final defeat of the British's "Southern Strategy". During the late 1770s Few won election to the House of Representatives in the Georgia General Assembly, sat on the state's Executive Council, acted as state surveyor-general, represented Georgia in negotiations with the Creek Indians that succeeded in minimizing the danger of frontier attacks. He was elected to represent Georgia in both Continental Congress and Constitution Convention (1780-1782) and became one of the Constitution framers and cosigners. He was asked to reorganize the state government of Georgia while served in the US Senate (1789-1793) in New York. There he married to Catherine Nicholson (1764-1854) in 1788. In Senate he was voted to chair the committee of receiving the elected President Washington in 1789. He went back to Georgia and served in state assembly to ensure the ratification of the constitution and co-founded the University of Georgia as a founding trustee. In 1796, when the state was so shaken by the Yazoo land fraud, the Georgia Assembly appointed him as the federal circuit court judge. Suffered the political abuses caused by his support of Anti-Yazoo Party and his actions against slave trade and slavery; he resigned and moved to New York City in 1799. In New York he served in State legislature as assemblyman (1802-1805), and worked to improve the state penitentiary system as the Chairman of the Inspectors of the Prisons (1802-1810). In 1804 President Jefferson appointed him to be the U.S. commissioner of loans, a position he held until 1816, when that office transferred to the Bank of the United States. He worked with Aaron Burr in forming the Manhattan Company, from 1804 to 1811 he held directorships in Manhattan Company, and served as the president of the Manhattan Bank from 1805 to 1814; among his fellow directors, Dewitt Clinton, whom he supported and worked closely with for the construction of Erie Canal. He served as city alderman (1813-1814) and president of City Bank between 1814 and 1816. In 1816 he was elected as the director, to form the Saving Bank of City of New York; under his directorship the bank was saved during the 1825 Cotton Panic, in 1826 he was named as the president of that bank, and served until he died. As a devout Methodist, he contributed and donated generously to philanthropic causes. He served as the president of the National Institute, president of the Manufacturing Society, Co-founder and first president of the Eye Infirmary (later Eye and Ear Infirmary), Vice-president of the Society For the Prevention of Pauperism and Vice-president of the Colonization Society. William Few, Catherine Few had three daughters, Frances, Mary and Matilda and a son Albert died at 1810, age 13.

Albert Gallatin (January 29, 1761 – August 12, 1849), was a Swiss-American ethnologist, linguist, politician, diplomat, congressman, and the longest-serving United States Secretary of the Treasury (1801-1814). He arrived at Boston in 1780, explored and taught in Harvard College for two years, in 1784 he bought 370 acres of land in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, and named his new home Friendship Hill. In 1795 he founded New Geneva in Pennsylvania, started as a speculative development on the fall-out of French revolution and when it didn't happen, he turned it into a town of glass manufacturing business. In 1793, Gallatin won election to the United States Senate and soon was removed by Federalists Senators' partisan votes, which decided that he did not have the minimum nine years of citizenship required to be a senator. During the time in New York, he met and married Hanna Nicholson (1766-1849). Recognized his political skill and leadership demonstrated in bringing peaceful resolves during the Whiskey Rebellion in the early 1790s, Pennsylvanians sent him to the U.S. House of Representatives, for three terms, 1795-1801. In the House he founded the House Committee on Finance (later the Ways and Means Committee) and became an important member of the Democratic-Republican Party, as its chief spokesman on financial matters. Thomas Jefferson relied on his advice even before the 1800 election. As Secretary of the Treasury, he was a key member of both Jefferson and Madison administrations. The national debt was seen as an indicator of waste and corruption; the Jeffersonian wanted it paid off totally. They also wanted to buy Louisiana and decided to fight a war with Britain, and Gallatin managed to finance these grand objectives. During 1812 war, against polarized politics, he managed to fund the war by chartering the Second Bank of the United States. In 1814 he left Secretary of the Treasury to head the United States delegation for peace talk negotiations and was instrumental in securing the Treaty of Ghent. In a period the US could not afford bad diplomacy in Europe, he served as the US Minister to France from 1816 to 1823, the minister to United Kingdom 1826-1827. Resettled in Manhattan at 1827 he focused on education, in 1831 he founded the University of the City of New York (Renamed New York University in 1896). He had helped President Jefferson planned the Lewis and Clark exploration and financed it, during his political career, he stood for assimilation of Native Americans into the society of European immigrant, but worked passionately to research and preserve Native American languages and cultures, in 1842 he co-founded the American Ethnological Society and has been called the father of American ethnology.

Joshua Seney (March 4, 1756 – October 20, 1798) was a farmer and Chief Justice of Maryland. He represented the state of Maryland in the Continental Congress, and the second district of Maryland in the House of Representatives. He married to Frances Nicholson (1771-1851) in 1790. His son, Joshua Seney, Jr., the grandfather of George E Seney, the famous judge, Congressman of Ohio; was born in New York in 1793 and was graduated from Columbia College and the University Law School. Before he moved to Ohio and established his law career, he was a subordinate officer in the navy in the War of 1812 and had served as private secretary to Albert Gallatin, who was secretary of the treasury under President Jefferson.

John Montgomery (1764 – July 17, 1828) was a lawyer from Baltimore, Maryland. He represented the sixth district of Maryland in the U.S. Congress from 1807 until 1811, and later served as the Attorney General of Maryland (1811–1818) and Mayor of Baltimore (1820–22 and 1824–26). He married to Maria Nicholson (1775-1868) at 1809. 

James Chrystie (1788-1863) was an clergyman, married Jehoiadden Nicholson (1783-1828), James Nicholson's youngest daughter in 1807. Between 1814 and 1818, he served as the pastor of the Reformed Dutch Church in Dutchess County and Unionville in Orange County, at 1818 he was installed as pastor of the Associate Reformed Church of Newburgh. In 1821, he moved to the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Albany and afterwards to New York City. He was the author of "Argument On The Doctrine Of Grace". Being a brother in law of William Few and 38 years junior, many historians confused him with his father Major James Chrystie (1750-1807).


Major James Chrystie was born in Edinburgh, Scotland; at the age of 15 he went to Philadelphia and the next year received the commission of Lieutenant in the Continental army and later was promoted to Captain. He was one of George Washington's favorites; after Benedict Arnold's plot had been exposed, he carried George Washington's personal instruction with a brief order written by Alexander Hamilton to the Garrison in West Point. He served with high reputation till the end of the war. He resided in Manhattan, as one of “Washington’s confidant”, he remained at service for the Washingtons (1790 record showed that he bought china for Martha Washington). Also a good friend of James Nicholson, his three sons, John, James and Albert, grew up among the Nicholsons and Fews. A stone marker erected by Georgian Sons of Revolution in front of Reformed Church in Beacon to mark the original burial place of William Few, confused him with his youngest son Albert and referred him as the son in law of Col. Few.


John Chrystie (1786-1813) was James Chrystie’s eldest son, graduated from Columbia College in 1806, John Peter DeWindt was his class mate. He was a member of Columbia's Philolexian Society; He joined the Army at 1808, served as Lieutenant Colonel in the War of 1812, earned a controversial name for himself at the Battle of Queenstown; eventually he was exonerated and promoted as an Inspected General but died soon after in 1813. He was the namesake for Chrystie Street in New York City. He was also one of the earliest shareholders of the Manhattan Company. Judging from what's being wrote about him on Few-Nicholson family letters upon his death, he enjoyed respect and affections from them, and probably was a preferred son-in-law candidate for William Few, compared to his youngest brother Albert Chrystie.  


Albert Chrystie (1789-1856) had been a shadowy figure on Few family letters until he married Frances Few. Records show that he was a banker, but on his sister in-law's letters he was described as an "enthusiastic farmer, works with his own hands not a little", he was highly praised as an devout Christian, attentive son-in-law, husband and family man. He was the founder of the Reformed Church in Hastings-on-Hudson. The 1846 record shows that he served in New York State assembly, as Trustee of New York Dispensary.

The history:

As New York city residents, William Few, Catherine Few and their children were friends of the Livingston family in Rhinebeck, but had developed a close friendship with Rev. Freeborn Garresttson, the anti-slavery advocate, founder of Methodist Church in Rhinebeck, and his wife Catherine Livingston Garrettson (1752-1849), his daughter Mary Rutherford Garreston (1794-1879) and sister in-law Margaret Livingston Tillotson (1749-1823), the wife of Thomas Tillotson(1750-1832). Between 1808 and 1814 The Fews had been approached a number of times to purchase a country home in Rhinebeck through them, but gave up the idea for it's too far from Manhattan. On a letter dated 1814, Catherine Few told her brother James Nicholson, who was running a glass factory in Albert Gallatin's Pennsylvania settlement, that their mother and his children had been brought to Rhinebeck to avoid the looming war against the British, while Rev. James Chrystie and his wife were living in somewhere between Fishkill Landing and Poughkeepsie. During the 1819 Panic and yellow fever out break, William Few and his family left the city and stayed in the home of Rev. James Chrystie, who was the pastor of Dutch Reformed Church in Newburgh; they were invited by William Allen, to discuss the purchase of his property in Town of Fishkill. On a letter dated August 9, 1819, Matilda Few wrote to her grandmother Frances Nicholson: " We visited last evening with the Allens at their elegant establishment; he has given up the intention of selling it, but Papa seems equally pleased; indeed, more so, with several farmhouses here, and talks more than ever of making a purchase. However, I doubt whether it will not as usual end in talk."

William Allen was the grandson of William Allen (1704 –1780), the founder of Allentown, Pennsylvania, Chief Justice of the Province of Pennsylvania, and mayor of Philadelphia during the colonial period. He married Maria Cornelia Verplanck, his cousin and the eldest among the five daughters of Guilian Verplanck(1751-1799), the largest land owner in Dutchess County in his time. Guilian Verplanck was a New York City Federalist politician, served as Speaker of New York State Assembly, 1789-90 and 1796-97, President of the Bank of New York (1791-1799), co founder of the Tontine Association, a precursor of the New York Stock Exchange.  Verplanck was close to Alexander Hamilton ; the two were the core of the Federalist Party.  In the Metropolitan Museum of Art there is a model of a room from Verplanck's home. William Few was once the first President of  Manhattan Bank, which was a competitor of the Bank of New York at the time, the other major bank in our nation. At the time of Few's visit, the Allens owned roughly 200 acres of land in Town of Fishkill, included: DePeyster Point (now Denning's Point), 40 acres; the marsh of Fishkill Bay, 5 acres; the farm land next to the bay, the land north and east of of John Wiltse's land, bordered with William Byrnes' and Cyrus Newlin's land later sold to Albert Chrystie, roughly 98 acres; 27 acres lot bordered with the lands of M. Wiltse's, J. Dubois's, John Danby's; and the 30 1/4 acres, 94 perches lot east of it. These properties had been confiscated from DePeyster estate after the revolution, sold by Daniel Graham, the surveyor general of State, chief commissioner of forfeitures, to Gulian Verplanck on August 19,1795 for 2,000 pounds. On April 13, 1814, Eliza, Anne, Johnston, Emily and Charlotte Verplanck, the inheritors of the Gulian Verplanck estate, conveyed the whole property to William Allen for $8,500. The Allens built a fashionable Greek revival style mansion (A.J. Downing thought it's more like a Roman style On his 1841 book) on the point, for enjoying the surrounding views and entertaining guests on the point; when 1819 Panic hit New York, they were in need to sell some of their properties. William Few found no use of the famous mansion of leisure when he visited, but he obviously saw something he wanted.

71-year-old William Few had associated with other people from town of the Fishkill or had invested there. Among them, Peter A. Schenck, who was Surveyor Customs of New York before 1812 War, and was on the board of the New York state Inspectors of the Prisons, chaired by William Few. In 1812, in partner with John Jacob Astor, Philip Hone, he established the first cotton factory in Matteawan. His wife was Margaret Brett, a granddaughter of Madam Brett, one of the three Rombout Patent holders. The Schenck family also owned a mill near the Landing, provided grains for New York City since 1800. After the revolution, his brother in law, Martin Wiltsie bought the property of the previous Frankfort Association and succeeded the ferry, freight business at Lower Landing. 

This lot of Wiltsie's was surrounded by Allen's land on sale. Martin Wiltsie & Son enjoyed Matteawan's business exclusively until John Peter DeWindt built the Long Dock and provided high speed sloops at the Landing in 1816. John Jacob Astor (1763-1848), was the New York fur trade and real estate mogul, richest man in America at that time. He bought the entire Aaron Burr estate as the fallout of the duel between Burr and Hamilton. Philip Hone (1780 – 1851), was a wealthy New York auctioneer who later in 1825 became the first president of Delaware and Hudson Canal Company and the "Gentleman Mayor" of New York city in 1826 and 1827. Philip Hone was a member of the prestige dinning club in City Hotel; among his fellow members were William Few, and Dr. David Hosack (1769 –1835). Dr. Hosack was Alexander Hamilton's family doctor; he treaded both Alexander and his son Philip after they were fatally wounded in the duels. He was the founder of the Humane Society and Bellevue Hospital in New York City. In 1820 he formed a committee among his club members in order to help two young doctors who had struggled to establish the fist Eye Infirmary in New York; William Few was elected as the chair of the committee and became the president of the infirmary; he donated much of his time until his death to establish the infirmary as a long lasting institution. Dr. David Hosack was also one of the leading botanists in the US; he had received the teaching of some of the most advanced botanists when he studied in University of Edinburgh. In 1805 he personally established a botanic garden (the Elgin) for public at the center of Manhattan Island, he was also the founder and first president of the New York Horticultural Society, established in 1818, the first such organization in America. As honorary members, he brought in his old friend Sir James Edward Smith as well as John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and the Marquis de Lafayette. He was president of the Literary Society and the Philosophical Society and one of the founders of the New York Historical Society—and its fourth president (1820–1827). He shared the love for Hudson River Valley with William Few and his former teacher, partner Dr. Samuel Bard. In 1828, the year Few died, he purchased Bard's Hyde Park estate, with the help of Andre Parmentier(1730-1830), a Belgian landscape gardener, he lay out roads, walks, and scenic vistas, and created the first of the great Hudson Valley estates (the mansion had been rebuilt, later became Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Site). He was also a patron of painter Thomas Cole, who started the Hudson River Valley School. The Hosack’s opulent “retreat” became a popular haunt of artists and naturalists and writers, among them, Washington Irving. Philip Hone didn't own an estate in the Valley, but in 1859, 40 years after William Few did his house hunting in Town of Fishkill, the son of his niece Joanna Esther Hone, Joseph Howland (1834-1886), before he Joint American Civil War and became a Brevet Brigadier General and served as New York State Treasurer, bought 97 acres along the Fishkill Creek, established Tioronda estate and became one of the most important benefactors of the town.

William Few had been a prudent investor after he remove the family to New York, thanked the problematic experiences he and his family had in Maryland and North Carolina; the Yazoo Land Fraud in Georgia and Gallatin's failed Pennsylvania settlement projects in New Geneva must also weight heavily in his mind. In 1819, the time he visited Fishkill, all his investment properties were exclusively in Manhattan, included 12 houses, (not included the Nicholson Estate which was under his name), 6 vacant lots, 1 bake house, 1 stable on Church Street. Always remained in close contact with Albert Gallatin, who served as the Minister of France and resided in Paris at that time, and through him consulted the Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, Gallatin's partner in negotiating the Treaty of Ghent, it's only reasonable that when William Few toured the William Allen's point he also visited near by Mr. and Mrs. DeWindt, the prominent couple who was the classmate of late John Chrystie's, and the niece of John Quincy Adams'. Together with the Chrysities  he must learned every aspects of this property between the Landing and the DePeyster point, including the neighbors disputes such as unsuccessful damage claim made by Martin Wiltsie against John Peter DeWindt over the ferry right infringement, or the failed partnership of William Byrne and Cyrus Newlin who had built and ran mills along Fishkill Creek. At the end of 1819 a deed was recorded in Manhattan that William Few sold a lot in Elm Street for $3,500, one of the properties listed on an inventory he made earlier that year. He would not sell a Manhattan property during the first recession, unless he was ready to make the deal. But something happened to postpone the purchase. The deed recorded at March 28,1821 by Dutchess County Clerk, William and Maria Cornelia Allen sold the 98 1/2 acres and 16 perches of land to Albert Chrystie for $5,200; Albert Chrystie took over a $2,500 Mortgage originally executed by Allens to Edward W. Laight. It's hard to find references about how the talks between Allens and Fews in 1819 evolved to the 1821 deal, but it had to be the combination of Albert Chrystie's passion for farming, his intention to marry Frances, the coordinated plan for country homes supported by productive farms that made William Few, this old farmer felt that the Chrystie House was the end of his long search for a home for retirement and final resting place.


The deed granted a right of road for neighboring John Wiltsie's property to use the road along the river shore to the Landing. The deed described different parcels as the farms but didn't say exactly how many houses, barns, carriage houses were there on the properties. Was Chrystie House built in 1821, like local legend said? Any person who knows the existing Chrystie House and had gone through the Few-Chrystie family letters would come up this question: how can this four bed room house accommodate so many people? Were there other houses near by used by visitors, servants and care takers? On Matilda's letter, she wrote "several farm houses", were them together or far apart? By examining the construction elements of Chrystie House at 300 South Avenue, and it's gate house at it's original location, now at 397 South Avenue did provided some clues: the leaded glass transcends and side lights surround the front entrance, the oval leaded window on second floor, the pane size of glass on 70"x40", six over six windows on the Chrystie house show that they were products around 1821; but the glass panes on the windows of the Gate house appear to be much smaller as the standard size in the colonial period. The timbers used as posts, beans, rafters and the markings on them show something interesting: all the rafters in both houses were hand hewn lumbers, constructed without the ridge bean, cut and put together with pegs and square nails, indicate that they were constructed before 1800, the rafters of the Chrystie house had been reinforced later with milled lumbers fastened with square nails. Some of the beans were milled, the filled notches and markings on some of the lumbers show that they might be the recycled timbers from retired ships; nevertheless, it's clear that they were lumbers made in different eras. There is a photo collected by Beacon Historic society taken around 1927, before Chrystie house relocation, of an similar but smaller house with two chimneys stood on the edge of this fifty feet deep clay mind, with another two smaller houses near by; we can almost say that Albert Chrystie probably did major renovations on a few houses built by the DePeyster family, the owners of the 200 acres property between 1734 and 1775, when American Revolution war began. 


Nicholson-Few-Chrystie family letters indicated that the marriage arrangements of Frances Few and Albert Chrystie had not been known by the rest of the family and close friends until March 1822, a month before the wedding. William and Catherine Few had very liberal thinking about marriage, and seemed never tried to arrange marriage for their well-educated daughters; they had supported the courageous decisions made by Jehoiadden Nicolson Chrystie, the 25 year old daughter of dowager queen of New York society married a 19 year old inspired clergy man; and Catherine Livingston Garrettson, the daughter of Judge Robert R. Livingston, sister of Chancellor Robert R. Livingston, who fought her family in order to married the early Methodist itinerant, anti-slavery preacher. William Few encouraged, supported his daughters' intellectual pursues, worked very hard until he died, provided very comfortable life for them, so they didn't have to get married if they chose not to. 33-year-old Frances Few was an extraordinary woman, well liked and respected by her peers, with the best education New York City could ever provided, she had lived and traveled with the nation's political leaders; without her father's presents, she was invited to dine with two presidents in their homes, she danced with Thomas Jefferson in his inauguration ball; her journals written between 1800 and 1809 in Washington DC, provided detailed accounts for later historians to look into the activities and thinking of the political leaders of the days and people's lives in the developing Capital. It looks like William and Catherine Few quietly supported Albert Chrystie to be their son in law but the young man had to make it happen. 32-year-old Albert Chrystie must worked extremely hard since his proposal had accepted with William Few, he needed to handle the closing of the property; get on top the farming business on this almost one hundred acres of the land, and before he propose to Frances, he had to get the houses ready, not only for the bride but also the whole family and the guests.


Between October 1821 and July 1822, William Few's second daughter Mary Few(1790-1874), who remained unmarried in her life, embarked for a trip to west Europe and stayed with Albert Gallatin in Paris. According to what had been said about this trip on her Journals and the other family member’s letters, it seemed that beside gaining knowledge and experiences, she was sent to carry out some kind of diplomatic missions, the missions other wise should be more likely handled by Frances. In Paris she spent intimate time with General Marquis De Lafayette, updated him "everything about United States" that he was so interested to know. On a letter dated July 14, 1822, sent from Fishkill Landing, Catherine Few, Mary's mother, wrote to her mother Frances Nicholson that Mary Few had planned to leave France, sailing to America in company with Portugal ambassador and "Ms. Patterson" (Mrs. Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte, the woman from Baltimore, Maryland who was the first wife of Jerome Bonaparte, brother of the Emperor of France), but due to the illness of "Ms. Patterson", she would delay her trip, and return home with "Ms. Patterson" by way of Liverpool, England and she will see her family by August.


On the letter to Frances Few dated March 27, 1822, Mary wrote from Paris: "Mama says something about "soon"- what does she mean by it? Do write to me a long letter and tell me all your arrangements. Can you not imagine how painful and tantalizing it is to hear things by halves, when one is three thousand miles distant from home?" At April 19 1822, Rev. James Chrystie married Frances Few and Albert Chrystie in New York. Mary Few didn't make it to her dearest sister's wedding. On the same letter sent to Frances Nicholson at June 14, Catherine Few briefly wrote to her mother that Frances was handsomely set up in Fishkill Landing and seemed happy.


Mary Telfair (1791-1875), best remembered as the benefactor of the Telfair Museum of Art in Savannah, was the daughter of Edward Telfair(1735-1807), three-termed Governor of Georgia and the closest friend of William Few. She had spent all her school years in the Few household in New York, who was also never married and kept a life-long, close relationship with Few family, especially Mary Few, whom she called "My Siamese Twin" and to whom she penned at least 300 letters between 1811 to 1844. She wrote at June 1822 from Savannah to Mary Few: " I'm glad to hear you said that Frances's happiness has been promoted by a change of the situation--if the choice is judicious one. I think almost every woman is rendered happy by it, and I'm certain those who enter the Holy Vale without romantic views are far happier than those whose affections are heightened by an illusion coloring it..."

The Allens had a hard time to find other buyer during the "Panic" and it's aftermath, finally they were rescued by the Verplanck sisters, a deed recorded at April 17th, 1822 by Dutchess County clerk, that Eliza, Emily and Charlotte Verplanck bought the properties containing 40 acres DePeyster Point, 5 acres Fishkill Bay marsh, 27 acres lot bordered with the lands of M. Wiltse's, J. Dubois's, John Danby's; and the 30 1/4 acres, 94 perches lot next to it for $12,000. A year later, at May 10, 1823, the Verplanck sisters, together with Emily's "new" husband Claude Sylvaine Guilliard, sold the DePeyster Point and Fishkill Bay marsh, 45 acres to Thomas Hay, William Henderson, William Denning, trustees named in the Codicil to the will of William Denning, for $10,000.

The deceased William Denning (1740 - 1819) was a wealthy New York merchant moved up to Salisburgh, Orange County and served as Captain under Washington when New York City fell under British control. He was member of the Committee of One Hundred in 1775, was a delegate to the New York Provincial Congress (1775-1777) and was a member of the convention of State representatives (1776-1777). He served in the New York State Assembly (1784-1787) and in the New York State Senate (1798-1808).

He was neither Quartermaster-General nor Adjutant- General, but had appointed by Continental Congress to settle accounts for those offices. He was one of the veterans who served with Alexander Hamilton but was against Federalist policies and became Democratic - Republican politician, so were Aaron Burr, James Chrystie. In his early years in New York, William Few bought a house together with the Nicholsons in William Street between Maiden Land and Wall Street, near where the Denning's mansion, 341 Broadway. When William Few served in the State Assembly, William Denning served in the State Senate; politically they shared the same constituency. On May 3rd, 1785, William Denning bought almost entire lot No.1 of the Highland Patent, previously owned by Susannah Robinson, wife of Col. Beverly Robinson, covering parts of what is now Garrison, Philipstown, Putnam Valley, Kent and Patterson, 60,000 acres of the lands from above mentioned Daniel Graham. On the Codicil to his will, he ordered 1,000 prime acres to be selected and bid on by his inheritors, the proceeds would be credited to the estate, the minimum bidding price was $30,000. Upon his death at 1819, in the middle of the Panic, there was no inheritor would make that bid. Eventually the land had been auctioned off by the court of Chancery for $20,000. In 1819, five years after the Treaty of Ghent had been signed, the Hudson River Valley lower than West Point still was not considered the safest place for New Yorkers to build their country home, the Panic certainly made the market worse. In 1823, the success story of the neighboring farms owned by Few/Chrystie family must meant a great deal for William Denning, who obviously shared the same visions of these river front properties.

On "History of Dutchess County", published 1909, William E. Verplanck wrote that Gulian Verplanck bought Dennings Point from the DePeyster family, and " This property was then known as Island in Fishkill Bay that as the records at Poughkeepsie attest", he speculated that the point was an island, and it was the Dennings used the landfill to build a causeway and converted the island to a point. He thought that was the namesake of "Presquile" (almost an island), the name Dennings later gave to the point. The only record in Dutchess County Clerk Office used the words " Island " to address the point was the 1795 deed between Daniel Graham, not DePeysters, and Gulian Verplanck, recorded by Gilbert Livingston; and the words were used as description, as "commonly called Island in Fishkill Bay", not a name. The reason not to use the loyalist ex-owner's name on a deed of selling forfeited land by the state and signed by The Chancellor Robert H. Livingston is understandable. The other chains of deeds made among the Verplancks  the Allens and Dennings, all referred the property DePeyster Point.

During the war the point and Frankfort Association depot were used as supply depot for the northern Continental Army. After the Independence, Martin Wiltsie & Son bought the lot of the Frankfort Association and succeeded it's ferry operation at Lower Landing, the sloop depot was right next the border with the point. Before William Allen sold the river front property to Albert Chrystie, he had secured the right of road between his mansion on the point to there with the Wiltsies  and in exchange, he conveyed the right of road between there to the Landing. A map of Village of Fishkill Landing surveyed at 1863 shows the land connected the point to the mainland was consistent with earlier maps show. There was no reason to move massive amount of fill until the high-profit driven industrialized thinkers came to the area. The landfill work had been done much later was to connect the five acres marshland to the point and expand the previously useless land for the industrial use. The main factory buildings of the Denning's Point Brick Work were completely built on the landfill.

Followed the neighbor's example, William Denning turned the 40 acre ground into a beautiful, productive farm property. The cider plant built on the point processed apples probably from farms in the area including the Chrystie farms. He could not done that without a plan, which had been negotiated among William Allen, John Wiltsie, Albert Chrystie/William Few and even John Peter Dewindt. In 1841 he bought a large lot from J. P. Dewindt at Five Corners (where Main Street meet South Avenue today) and became one of the landowners who contributed to the development of the village of Fishkill Landing, incorporated at 1864.


Between 1822 and 1828, The Few-Chrystie family divided their time between Manhattan and Town of Fishkill. On their letters to friends, William Few's daughters called the river front property "Elmwood". William Few was a hand on patriarch, beside the routine business trips to Albany or visiting friends in Rhinebeck, he would come up just to make sure things were run smoothly; on a letter to invited Mary Garretson to spend summer in Fishkill, his daughter Matilda Few wrote: " Papa goes up in about 10 days . He is all anxiety to see how the new housekeeper make out." On a letter sent to Mary Garretson in December 1822, Mary Few wrote: "The wind whistled chilly about the bleak hills of Elmwood, and Papa, not being able to enjoy the garden, began to sigh for his own fireside, and far from seconding our plans for traveling north, hastened us back to town, after a visit of hardly one week with Frances... Frances is now with us and will remain (we hope) till the spring, Albert will go backwards and forwards, attending a good deal to his farming affairs. He is quite an enthusiastic farmer, and works with his own hands not a little, He has every inducement for it... ". William Few joint Albert Chrystie in farming whenever he could, he proudly sent out produce and seeds to close friends. Mary Telfair was compelled to create specimen of jelly made out of apples "equal to Guava" from the barrels of apples sent by William Few. She traveled from Savannah to visit Elmwood many times, there she changed her thinking about country life: "I have become quite an advocate for country life. It is so independent a one. It affords a better field for an improvement of time, and our reflections in the country have a better influence on the feelings than when in the hurry and hustle of a town with much to distract and dissipate the mind, and little to interest it". She also changed her thoughts on Town of Fishkill  from a place she first thought needed more development to a place it's trees and shrubs should be preserved as "where they belong". She networked with the local ladies; such as the Livingstones  the Verplancks, and the DeWindts; they met in New York, Hudson River Valley or in other Southern cities.

Mary Few went to Paris again in 1823, her mission originally was to accompany her aunt Mrs. Gallatin's safe return to New York, but in stead she came back with the whole Gallatin family. Democratic-Republican Congressional caucus nominated Albert Gallatin for Vice President, and had chosen William H. Crawford as its Presidential candidate. Gallatin never wanted the role but felt humiliated when he was forced to withdraw from the race because he lacked popular support. He returned to Pennsylvania to take care business at home. During his fifth year as Minister to France, Albert Gallatin longed for retirement to Friendship Hill, his home overlooked the Monongahela River. Hoping to live off the profits of the glass business, he made substantial improvements to the house and grounds. But the "Panic of 1819" caught up with the glass business and forced its closure in 1821, and it had never recovered; while "contented to live and die amongst the Monongahela hills, " Albert Gallatin sold his beloved estate and other western holdings at great financial loss. His brother in law James Nicholson who ran the glass business even wound up in debts.


In New York, William Few felt the same frustration for his old friend Dewitt Clinton; in April 1824, a majority of Clinton's political enemies, the Bucktails, after shortened his term as Governor, voted in the New York State Legislature for his removal from the Canal Commission. This caused such a wave of indignation among the electorate, on Monday, April 19 1924, William Few was elected as the chairman in a public meeting of about ten thousand people in Central Park, a first meeting of it's kind, to "stigmatize the resolution of the senate and state assembly". In 1825 Dewitt Clinton was nominated for Governor by the "People's Party", against the official candidate of the Democratic-Republican Party, fellow canal commissioner Samuel Young and was re-elected. The Erie Canal was finished and opened in 1825 with immense success. Clinton's critics either went silent or reversed their rhetoric. He served another term until his sudden death in February 1828. William Few died only a few month later. In 1825 the scandal-plagued, four ways split presidential election went to the House of the Representatives, which had to choose between three Democratic-Republican candidate Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, and the stroke-affected Crawford. John Quincy Adams won the election with another Democratic-Republican candidate Henry Clay used his influence to sway the votes, Andrew Jackson charged "corrupt bargain" had been made between Adams and Clay, and used the next four years campaigning to reverse "the stolen presidential election". Millions of Americans agreed that Jackson had been ill-served in 1824, and he swept Adams out of office in 1828.


There were a lot of behind-the-scene talks about the 1824-25 Marquis de Lafayette tour of America on the Nicholson-Fews family letters, Lafayette was an old friend of most of the Nicholson family members in different states, who were involved in planning the welcoming events; but none of those letters was more interesting than the one Mary Few received from Mary Telfair, who wrote: " The Lafayette Mania has not seized me so far as to pay my devoirs to the Hero. I'm glad to see the enthusiasm of the 76 rekindled and I feel a tender interest for his health... here they mean to out shine New York... How much better it would appear in a Republic to preserve more of republican simplicity, for the greatest display here falls so far short of European splendor." On same letter she wrote: " do try to effect a visit to Georgia this winter to help us to entertain the Marquis." According to a book published in 1846 "A complete history of the Marquis de Lafayette, major general in the army of the United States of America, in the war on the revolution, embracing an account of his late tour through the United States to the time of his departure, September, 1825", at June 7 1825, on his way back to New York city, Marquis de Lafayette attended a gathering in Town of Fishkill of local dignitaries and the Light Infantry men who had served under him, hosted by Mrs. DeWindt in her house ( burn down in 1860) around 7:30 PM, and left for New York in the same evening. We can almost certain that the Few-Chrysties were also involved in this event. 


In 1825, President John Quincy Adams offered the post of Secretary of the Treasury to Albert Gallatin, and was declined. Gallatin wanted to use the time to focus on a book he published next year. Both William Few and him shared the concerns of the future of the Indians and the emerging power of Andrew Jackson, who seemed would win the presidential election of 1828. Regarding Jackson as a president, Gallatin wrote: "an honest man and the idol of the worshipers of military glory, but from incapacity, military habits, and habitual disregard of laws and constitutional provisions, altogether unfit for the office." Gallatin felt the urgency on publishing his researches in Native American language and culture. He had helped to plan the Lewis and Clark exploration, after that he drew upon government contacts in his research, gathering information through Lewis Cass, explorer William Clark, and Thomas McKenney of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, he also developed a personal relationship with Cherokee tribal leader John Ridge, who enabled him to study the vocabulary and structure of the Cherokee language. In 1826, the treaty of Washington had been signed, the Creek Indian conceded most of their land in Georgia to Federal Government; President John Quincy Adams, being fearful of a civil war, eventually allowed Governor George Troup's acts to renegotiate the agreement and seize all remaining Creek lands in the state. The events took William Few out of Georgia came to a tragic end. In the same year, Gallatin published his first of the two works of his research: A Table of Indian Languages of the United States (1826) and Synopsis of the Indian Tribes of North America (1836). These researches later led him to conclude that the natives of North and South America were linguistically and culturally related, and that their common ancestors had migrated from Asia in prehistoric times.


By 1826, there was much contention between the United States and Britain again over claims to the Columbia River system on the Northwest coast. Gallatin was called and put forward a claim in favor of American ownership, outlining what has been called the "principle of contiguity", it was an early version of the doctrine of America's "manifest destiny" and became the legal premise by which the United States was able to claim the lands to the west. In 1826 and 1827, he served as minister to the Court of St. James's (i.e., minister to Great Britain) and negotiated several important agreements, such as a ten-year extension of the joint occupation of Oregon. He resettled in New York city afterwards, Elmwood was a place for him and William Few to talk to each other about politics, family affairs, a more democratic institution for the high education...


Both of William Few's grandchildren were born at Town of Fishkill; his only son Albert died at age 13, Mary had never married, Matilda married in 1833 at age 39, to John Tillotson, her close friend Mary Rutherford Garreston's cousin, subsequently had two stepdaughters but never had children of her own. William Few's grandson William Few Chrystie (1823-1902) had lived a long and distinguished life, he attended Columbia College, Harvard Law School, and was the founding president of the Villiage of Hastings-on-Hudson, and many-termed mayor there. His sister Mary Chrystie(1824-1842) died at age 18. 

William Few started suffering ill health since 1825, but was durable enough to take the president-ship of Saving Bank of New York at 1826. At May 1,1826, William and Catherine Few sold the Nicholson estate in Skinner Road for $33,000, a property had deeded to William Few but did not appear on his 1819 inventory. Frances Nicholson wanted to settle her son James Nicholson's debts in New Geneva, she also knew the legacy of Nicholson Mansion had run it's course. The proceed for the sale also used for another purpose; the Few/Chrystie family’s purchase of another property closer to the city; it's not just the concern of William Few's health condition, after Mary Chrystie was born, because her frail nature, Frances often stayed in the City with her, Albert Chrystie needed to travel much more frequently in order to take care both the farming business and the family. In 1828 a mansion much bigger than the Chrystie house had been renovated, on a large piece of land in Hastings-on-Hudson (in the spot where the Hastings Terraces at 555 and 556 Broadway now stand). William Few didn't have the chance to live there; he died at Elmwood at July 16, 1828. He had brushed with death since the spring and decided to go to Fishkill. Matilda Few described the bond between her father and Albert Chrystie showed in the last days: " He (Albert) has been a brother to me, watched by the death bed of my dear father, and was like the most affectionate and devoted son to him who was insensible to all kindness and apparently all suffering for seven days before he breathed his last, and those days seemed like months and years of suffering to us..." There was no record of public funeral for William Few both in the Duchess county and New York city, seemingly that's what he intended. William Few was interred into the Chrystie family vault at the Dutch Reformed Church yard.


How Col. Few's partially missing remain was exhumed from a dilapidated vault in an overgrown and disorderly church yard in Beacon in 1973, put on Governor Jimmy Carter's private jet and brought to Augusta, re-interred at Saint Paul's Church have become part of the national history. But It's really strange that a Founding Father of the nation died in a town he chose to be his resting place and was the reason of creating a family vault in the church yard he attended, have been totally forgotten by the town and the church. It seems that itself had been a long history of making. The history of the Town of Fishkill written by William E. Verplanck, as a chapter of "The History of Dutchess County", edited by Frank Hasbrouck, published by S. A. Matthieu, Poughkeepsie, New York in 1909, had already completely left out any trace related to the Chrystie and Few. The "Old Gravestones of Dutchess County, New York" by J. W. Poucher published in 1924, New York, pages 92-97, "The interments in the Dutch Reformed Church" had the info as following records: Albert Chrystie, died Apr. 23,1856, in New York City, aged 66-5-3. Rev. James Chrystie, b. 1786, Feb. 20, in New York, d. 1863, Nov.17, in New York. Mary Chrystie, died Nov. 15, 1821 in Newburgh, aged 71; there was no record of William Few.


In 1810 William Few buried his own son Albert in the Nicholson Vault in Trinity Church of New York City, his wife and daughters later were also interred there. According to an indenture recorded Feb. 5,1814, in New York City, William Few paid $12,500 to Matthew McAllister, a fellow New Yorker from Georgia, who later became the Mayor of Savannah, judge in Georgia and California, and Hanna, his wife, for a 25 feet by 75 feet lot to be part of the ground of Trinity Church, and appeared on the city map. That's tremendous amount of money paid for an empty lot next to a church.


After moved to Hastings-on-Hudson, the Chrystie's held a congregations in the carriage house on their property, in 1849 Albert Chrystie and a few members started building a church in the village, on the half-way through, a hurricane destroyed the constructed structure. In 1850, by securing a loan from Collegiate Dutch Church in New York, Albert Chrystie finally founded the Reform Church of Hastings. On " Memoir of George Washington Bethune", published in New York by Harper & Brothers at 1863, author Bethune(1805-1862) wrote: " Mr. Chrystie, at the time of his death, was a greatly beloved elder of the Reformed Dutch Church of Hastings, upon the Hudson, a church he helped to found, and whose continued prosperity is a monument to his worth. Having the refinement and polish of the circle in which he had always moved, with a heart of unaffected kindness, the only and unfailing source of true courtesy, he evinced, wherever he went, the bearing of a thorough Christian gentleman, and commanded universal respect."

Considering the facts that Mary Chrystie had been brought to Town of Fishkill to be interred into this vault built by her sons after she died in Newburgh; both Rev. James Chrystie and Albert Chrystie died in New York City and had been brought to inter the same vault; it's very clear that William Few and Chrystie brother's had made decisions to be buried together in Dutch Reformed Church yard. What have happened to that vault was tragic. The monuments erected in front of the Dutch Reformed Church in 1973 by Georgian Sons of The Revolution to mark the original resting place of Col. Few, have made the story even sadder for anyone truly care about this piece of the American History -- the inscription carved on the stone, referred the son in law of Col. Few "Major James Chrystie".


Albert Chrystie moved Frances and children to Hastings-on-Hudson after William Few's died, but continued managing the property in town of Fishkill until 1841. James Chrystie's four sons stayed in Chrystie House whenever they were not attending school in New York, Thomas, the eldest among the four later lived there and helped the farming business before the family totally removed from the town, later he became a lawyer in the city and a farmer with his own farm in Orange county. Mary Few wrote about the survived members of Few family were comforted so much because Albert and Frances's family lived so much closer; then after Matilda got married at Nov. 30 1833, discussions occurred about Catherine Few's loneliness in New York Park Place residence; since Mary Few spent most of her time reading and writing in her room. The family needed to consolidate their properties again. There were discussions between Mary Few and Mary Telfair about the widower John Tilloson before he married Matilda Few; they discussed the truthfulness of the emotional bond between widowers and their deceased wives, the consideration of dowry, usefulness & economy aspects for those widowers' decisions to be remarried. Judged from the way Few-Chrystie family members helped one another, it's reasonable to speculate that the sale of the Chrystie House had something to do with Matilda's marriage.


According to the deed recorded at May 1 1833, Albert and Frances Chrystie subdivided the property and sold the Chrystie house and the southern half of the property, contained 49 75/100 acres to Harriet Gill, wife of Robert Gill and Dr. James Sykes Rumsey. Robert Gill (1768-1838) was a New York lawyer resided in Broadway, he had a closed relationship with the Protestant Episcopal Church and Daniel Crommelin Verplanck(1762–1834), the largest land owner in Dutchess County at that time. In1834 and 1835, after D.C. Verplanck's death, Gill worked as the commissioner, together with Rev. John Brown and Dr. Bartow White, to partition D.C. Verplanck's 6,475 87/100 acres estate in Dutchess County. On the Journal of the proceedings of the 51st convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Sate of New York, took place in Trinity Church, City of New York,1836; Robert Gill represented the St. Anna's church in Fishkill landing while Gulian C. Verplanck, son of D.C. Verplanck, represented Trinity Church in Fishkill. He was also known among horticulturists for the specimen fruit trees he planted on his New York residence, a reputation his stepson Dr. Rumsey shared and advanced.


Dr. Rumsey(1800-1872) was the grandson of Colonel Charles Rumsey of Maryland, son of Thomas Rumsey and Harriet Sykes. He was educated in France, later became a well known physician practiced in Town of Fishkill. In 1837 he married to his cousin Harriet Caverly, a sister in law of James Delancey Verplanck (1805-1881) in Fishkill. On an article titled " George the Fourth Peach ", appeared on The Magazine of Horticulture, Botany, and All Useful Discoveries and Improvements in Rural Affairs, Volume 13, published in Boston, 1847; Dr. Rumsey was described as " the great connoisseur of fruits" by the author; Robert Gill, Andrew Jackson Downing, the celebrity editor of "The Horticulturist and Journal of Rural Art and Rural Taste" at that time, were also mentioned. Considering the friendship between William Few and Dr. David Hosack, Dr. Rumsey was an ideal successor of Chrystie house and it's farm orchards. After Robert Gill died, Dr. Rumsey removed his estate from Manhattan to Town of Fishkill; some of the furniture he inherited from Gill are now part of the Metropolitan Museum collections.


Between 1833 and 1872, the year James Rumsey died, he witnessed and was part of two somewhat contradicted movements imposed major changes not only to Town of Fishkill, but also to the whole country. One was industrial revolution; the other one was the development of Landscape architecture in the US. The later one was a development of a bigger cultural, religious movement started along with the 1800 Revolution, which was to discover, explore and properly manage American landscape with the believes that the vast, untamed but sublime wilderness in this country, visualized in essence by the Hudson river school painters, was an ineffable manifestation of God, and man-made environment are the manifestation of people's mind and souls, in an ideal democratic society, human beings and nature coexist in divine harmony. The results of this movement were the explorations and settlements in the American West, the founding of the national parks, and creations of pubic parks in the major cities. Many of these thinkers found homes in the Hudson River Valley, included many mentioned above, their interactions with the local talents elevated the movement to another level. In the mid 19th century, Town of Fishkill had become one of the important place in American Architecture history. Before Richard Morris Hunt designed Howland library, and finished up the Tioronda mansion for his brother-in-law Joseph Howland (1834-1886) in 1870s, Calvert Vaux , Frederick Clarke Withers came to the area around 1850 by the invitations of Andrew Jackson Downing, who had joint force with Alexander Jackson Davis to promote picturesque ideals in America. They did some comprehension works in the town, but their working relationships with another two associates of Downing’s after Downing's untimely death: Henry Winthrop Sargent and Frederick Law Olmsted, established the American landscape Architecture and land art on both private and public lands as major art form and had great cultural influence on the country.


The visionary who  pulled the whole thing together was Andrew Jackson Downing (1815-1852). Downing grew up in his father's nursery in Town of Newburgh, which specializing in apples and pears. Like William Few, he was an autodidact, began writing articles for various newspapers and horticultural journals in the 1830s. Being a knowledgeable nursery man and avid writer not necessarily facilitated him to be the leading landscape architect in the Mid -19th century, or the editor of the Horticulturist Magazine and the celebrity author whose editorial work and writing influenced governmental policies toward public places and the public tastes of homes and the gardens "for the millions"; but his keen interest in developing personal and professional relationships with the most cultural, resourceful clients and other luminaries would.


On March 17 1834 Robert Donaldson purchased 22 and 22/100 acres of land bordered with the lands of Chrystie and Rumsey from Joseph Byrne. Robert Donaldson, a native of Fayetteville of North Carolina, who had become a wealthy New York resident and arts patron. Prior to this purchase, Donaldson had acquired a larger property in Barrytown, Red Hook, New York, commissioned his friend architect Alexander Jackson Davis (1803-1892) to design the buildings and grounds, and established the Blithewood estate. (In 1853 Blithewood was purchased by John Bard of Hyde Park, who in 1860 gave a corner of the estate for the founding of St. Stephen's College, which became Bard College in 1934. )




Davis, an New York based architect had extended fine art training, was introduced to Donaldson by about 1830, through Ithiel Town, his elder partner who had done projects in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and began a long and productive relationship in which Donaldson became an important friend and patron for him. With the help of Donaldson, in 1832 Town and Davis redesigned the First Presbyterian Church in Fayetteville. In 1833 Town and Davis secured the important commission to design the North Carolina State Capitol in Raleigh to replace the State House, which had also burned in 1831 fire. After 1835 Davis expanded his own practice with an ever-growing national clientele. He also moved toward greater diversity of styles and forms, experimenting with designs in Egyptian, Tuscan, Italian, and Gothic modes. He was a leader in introducing and popularizing these picturesque romantic styles for country residences and other buildings across much of the nation. Influenced by the English theory of the picturesque, Davis emphasized the importance of linking a country house to its surrounding landscape, as elucidated in his only book, Rural Residences (1837). In 1838 Robert Donaldson commissioned Andrew Jackson Downing, one of the foremost landscape artists of the day, to design the grounds for Blithewood, and introduced him to Davis. Davis found his ideas would have broader applications through association with Downing, a landscape designer and publicist who led in the promotion of picturesque ideals in America. For Downing's three books, A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening (1841), Rural Residences (1842), and The Architecture of Country Houses (1850), Davis, as a skilled draftsman, helped with the text, contributed designs and provided he drawings.




In 1835 Robert Donaldson sold his 22 22/100 acres lot in Fishkill to Alexander Robertson Rodgers for $5,552, and brought the Rodgers/ Walsh/James family to Chrystie and Rumsey's neighborhood.

Alexander Robertson Rodgers (1807-1885) was the grandson of Rev. John Rogers, the first American Doctor of Divinity of Revolutionary Army, a friend and chaplain of Washington, one of the founding members of the Society of Cincinnati, and the first pastor of the Wall Street Presbyterian Church. His father John R. Bayard Rogers, and brother John Kearny Rogers were both prominent doctors in New York City. His fortune however, mainly came from his mother, who was a daughter of Alexander Robertson, one of the leading New York merchants in his time. A. R. Rodgers was educated at Princeton, graduated in 1825, studied law with Peter Augustus Jay and was admitted to the bar in 1828. Being a man with great literary interests, he didn't plan to enter the life of practicing law. After three years traveling in Europe, he married Mary Ridgely Darden. He first settled in Westchester, lived a life of a country gentleman. By the time he moved to Fishkill, his inherited fortune, as well as his bothers'; were mainly tied into Banking. Through the Robertson heritage, the Rodgers also related to one of the best-known intellectual family in mid-19th century, the family of the theologian Henry James Sr. (1811-1882). Alexander R. Rodgers was the first cousin of Mary Walsh James and Catharine Walsh, the mother and famous "Aunt Kate" of novelist Henry James (1843-1916), philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James.




The Rodgers lived in the old houses (built by either Byrnes or DePeysters) in the first few years and came up with a plan to develop the property into another Hudson River Estate. The plan and many other similar ones in the country would be interrupted, altered or even killed by The Panic of 1837, the major recession lasted until the mid-1840s. The panic had both domestic and foreign origins. Speculative lending practices in western states, a sharp decline in cotton prices, a collapsing land bubble, international specie flows, and restrictive lending policies in Great Britain were all to blame. On May 10, 1837, banks in New York City suspended specie payments, meaning that the banks would no longer redeem commercial paper in specie at full face value. Despite a brief recovery in 1838, the recession persisted for approximately seven years.




On Oct 1838, Albert and Frances Chrystie sold a parcel north to the land of Rodgers containing 17 1/3 acres for $4,023.00 to Henry Hill Elliot, also a New York banker, and his wife, Elmira Whittemore Elliot (1806-1875), and brought the Whittemore family into town. Henry H. Elliot was from the "Elliot Family" of Guilford Connecticut; he was the direct descendant of the John Elliot, the Apostle to the Indians. His wife was a daughter of Samuel Whittemore (1774-1835) of Arlington, Massachusetts, and a great grand daughter of Samuel Whittemore (1694 - 1793), the oldest colonial combatant in the American Revolutionary War, the official state hero of Massachusetts. Samuel Whittemore was a merchant, founder and President of the Greenwich Savings Bank. In 1828, when New York City had a population of 185,000, a list of citizens worth more than $100,000 was drawn up, the first of it's kind, with fifty-nine people on it, with J.J. Astor on the top, Samuel Whittemore, along with William Few, were among them.


On May 31, 1839, a deed was recorded that Henry Hill Elliot, as the executer of Samuel Whittemore Estate, settled a debt with a creditor, Charles Eliot Scorveille, conveyed the 17 1/3 acres property to Sarah Ann Whittemore (1810-1880), his sister-in-law and her Husband James Harmon Ward, for $3,023, and the money to be paid to Scorveille, "arise from the sale of a portion of the property in which Sarah Ann inherited" from her father's estate. Sarah Ann and James Ward built a Classic Revival style mansion there after the purchase, the house and ground later was known for superb mountain and river views. Lieutenant Ward, as local historians have called him, was another national hero founded home in Town of Fishkill but never had been fully recognized by the locals.

James Harmon Ward, USN, (1806-1861) was born at Hartford, Connecticut. He became a Midshipman in the U.S. Navy in March 1823 and served during the following years on board ships in the Mediterranean, off Africa and in the West Indies. He took a leave of absence to pursue scientific studies, later he became an instructor in ordnance and gunnery at the Naval School at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and authored a book on that important subject. In 1845 Lieutenant Ward became executive officer at the newly opened U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, also teaching gunnery and steam engineering there. His later wrote a textbook on naval tactics and a popular work on steam engineering. During the last part of the war with Mexico, Ward commanded the frigate Cumberland, and, in 1848-1850, the steam gunboat Vixen. During the next decade he had shore duty at the Washington and Philadelphia Navy Yards, was promoted to the rank of Commander, and commanded the sailing sloop of war Jamestown off Africa. At the beginning of the Civil War Commander Ward planned an expedition to relieve Fort Sumter and then was placed in charge of a small squadron operating on the Potomac River. With USS Thomas Freeborn as his flagship, Ward's force engaged the Confederates at Aquia Creek, Virginia, in late May and early June 1861. In another engagement, at Mathias Point on 27 June, he was mortally wounded after he took over the post of a wounded gunner and was aiming Thomas Freeborn's bow gun. He was the first U.S. Navy officer killed in action during the Civil War. Destroyer USS Ward, 1918-1944, was named in honor of Commander James H. Ward.

On June 7,1838, Andrew Jackson Downing married Caroline Elizabeth DeWindt (1815-1896), eldest daughter of John Peter DeWindt and Caroline Amelia Smith, after the wedding the newly-wed moved into DeWindt estate Cedar Grove in Fishkill while Downing was redesigning and rebuilding the old Downing house in Newburgh. One can imagined what these events meant to Fishkill and Newburgh real estate; in a major recession, one estate after another were purchased with relatively high prices and established under the care of a local leading architect and landscape designer.

In 1839 while the construction/renovation of the house was getting close to the completion, the second wave of 1837 Panic finally caught up with the Rodgers family. Alexander Robertson Rodgers, Mary Ridgely Darden Rodgers, John Kearny Rogers and another two brothers of theirs as the " president and the company" of the Bank of Cumberland and Highland Bank was sued and their property in Fishkill was ruled by the court of the Chancery of the State of New York to be auctioned off in New York city to pay off the plaintiff. On August 26 1839, a deed was recorded in Dutchess County that Elmira Whittemore Elliot, as the highest bidder in the auction, purchased the Rodgers' 22 and 22/100 acres property for $5,900. On November 1, 1839, Henry Hill Elliot, as the executer of the Whittemore estate, conveyed the same property to Samuel Whittemore, his youngest brother in law for $5,000.

Alexander Robertson Rodgers resettled in New York City and practiced law, in time he would recoup but a large portion of his fortune was lost. The Rodgers/Walsh/James family had not just disappeared from Fishkill; according to a letter Catharine Walsh sent to Henry James dated January 13,1873, the family seems to maintain a close relationship with the Rumseys. Don't know if the relationship pre-existed the purchase of 1835 or developed when they were neighbors, nevertheless, in 1844, the two families became neighbors again. Smith Van Buren (1817-1876) and his wife Ellen King James Van Buren(1813-1849), the sister of Henry James Sr., " Aunt Ellen" for Henry James, bought the properties previously owned by Rumseys, and settled in the southern part of the neighborhood. Smith Thompson Van Buren was the fifth son of Martin Van Buren, the eighth President of the United States. Between 1842 and 1846, he served under Washington Irving, then the minister of Spain, as the Secretary of Legation, and was a political aide to his father, president Van Buren; later of his life he worked as a lawyer and devoted much his life in editing the Martin Van Buren papers, he was regarded as the strongest defender and advocate for his father's legacy. Ellen King James Van Buren died in 1849 and was buried in the St. Luke church cemetery. On February 1, 1855, Smith T. Van Buren married Henrietta Eckford Irving, Washington Irving's niece.

On June 8, 1880, 40 years after Alexander Robertson Rodgers left his unfinished mansion, he watched his daughter Anna Schuchardt Rodgers (1840-1911) married Samuel Verplanck, Jr. (1840-1911) in Fishkill as his second wife. His family finally came back to stay.


In 1840 Samuel Whittemore married Louisa DeWindt, John Peter DeWindt's youngest daughter, Andrew Jackson Downing became his brother in Law. The couple moved into the DeWindt's estate " Wren's Nest", a cottage on beautiful water front property situated on the south of the Long Dock. They expressed their will to sell their property to both sides of the families. Henry H. Elliot quickly found another investor for the estate; On the deed recorded May 1, 1841, Charles Gould took over Samuel Whittemore and Louisa DeWindt's property for $5,223. In less than a month, on May 31, 1841, another deed was recorded; Henry Hill Elliot and his wife Elmira, together with Charles Gould sold the estate to Henry Winthrop Sargent, A. J. Downing's good friend from Boston, for $12,000. This deal obviously involved all the Elliot-Ward-Whittemores; but considering the offered price, the friendship between Downing and Sargent, their plan for the property and the impact on the whole neighborhood; it shouldn't be a difficult case to work out.


Henry Winthrop Sargent was born in Boston, the first child of Hannah (Welles) Sargent and artist Henry Sargent. Educated at the Boston Latin School and at Harvard College, where he was graduated in the class of 1830 with a creditable record, he first studied law in the Boston office of Samuel Hubbard but never practiced law. He next became a partner in the banking house of Gracie and Sargent, New York agents of his uncle, Samuel Welles, a Paris banker. On January 10, 1839, he married Caroline Olmsted, daughter of Francis Olmsted and Maria Wycoff of New York. In 1841 Sargent decided to retire and devote his life to horticulture and landscape gardening. Before the purchase, he must had informed by his "insider" friend Downing, about the works done by Donaldson and Rodgers and Whittemore on the property which has it's main house, a Federal Style dwelling stood in the woods, on a well chosen spot, on a plateau overlooking the Hudson River. By doing a lot of cutting, pruning the trees, exposing the vistas and hiding the edges of the plateau by doing some planting, soon the place became famous for its distant river views and its vistas to the mountains framed by groups of natural woods. In later years the place became known for its extensive plantation of coniferous trees.


On September 15,1840, the Chrysties sold another lot of 11 20/100 acres on the north side of the Ward's estate, south of the road from Metteawan to Lower Landing (todays Wolcott Avenue and Dennings Avenue), to William Henry Van Vleit, for $2,600. William Henry Van Vleit was a very active member of one of the oldest family in town. As an owner of the saw mills and brick yard, he was the first one tried to dry brick with artificial heat, and used the wheel truck to convey bricks from machine to drying yard. In 1885 as the promoter, he organized The Fishkill and Matteawan Water Works, the precursor of the Beacon City water department. On May 1 1841, he and his wife Sarah sold 3 67/100 out of the 11 20/100 acres to Robert G Rankin for a very high price, $1,009.25. It seems that Robert G Rankin was using the purchase to procure the bigger piece of property next to it. On Sept. 4,1841, Albert and Frances Chrystie sold their last piece of the property on east side of the road leads to Cold Spring (including today's Iris Circle), contained 13 99/100 acres to Robert G. Rankin for $3,217.


Robert Gozman Rankin was born in New York City, on June 29, 1806, to Henry Rankin, and Ann Marsh Rankin, native of Litchfield Connecticut. He entered Yale College in 1823, after graduated he studied law with Peter DeWitt of New York City. He attended the Litchfield Law School and then returned to New York City in 1829 to establish a law practice and worked as the attorney for Global Fire Insurance. He married Laura Maria Wolcott in 1831. Laura Wolcott Rankin (1811-1887) was the granddaughter of Oliver Wolcott, signer of the Declaration of Independence and Governor of Connecticut. From 1822-1827 her parents, Frederick and Betsey Huntington Wolcott, had her educated in Sarah Pierce's Female Academy of Litchfield. Four years after completing her formal education she married Robert G. Rankin. They had ten children together, four sons and six daughters. In 1837, a bronchial infection forced him to seek a more active, outdoor lifestyle, he moved to Fishkill. There he found his new interests in engaging manufacturing industries in Matteawan. Around 1841, during the Cotton Craze, Rankin partnered with James Freeland, built a dam and a cotton factory in Wiccopee (today's Madam Brett Park). Rankin also started taking interests in steam engines and iron manufacturing industries. Imaging the time he moved into the neighborhood, beside learning every aspects of fine country dwelling from his neighbors Dr. James Rumsey, Andrew Jackson Downing, Henry Winthrop Sargent, he was also the next door neighbor of James H. Ward, who was teaching steam engineering in Naval Academy and was an author of a popular book on the subject. It's hard to imagine that he would not use the opportunity to advance his knowledge on this subject.


James Ward's naval career eventually compelled him and his wife to give up their established country seat. A deed recorded on June 20 1842, Henry Hill Elliot, acted as "Broker trustee" for Sarah Ann Whittemore and James Ward, sold the 17 1/3 acres estate to Ann Rankin, for $7,000. Ann Marsh Rankin(1814-1868) was the mother of Robert G. Rankin, widow of Henry Rankin, who died on March 21, 1841. The Rankins's relationship with the local families seems pre-existed Henry Rankin's death, a pair of portraits of Henry and Ann Rankin done by Waldo and Jewett (dated 1830s) were among Verplanck's collections in 1930, a duplicate of the same portrait of Ann, also done by Waldo and Jewett, once was among the collection of the Metropolitan Museum, has such inscription on the back: "Miss Ann Rankin, Fishkill Landing"; "Gave (to) Capt. Brinkerhoff...on boat Norfolk", Miss Ann Rankin was the daughter of Mrs. Rankin. The name "Rosenethe Estate" officially appeared on one of Ann Rinkin's two recored wills, as the title. We can almost certain that Rosenethe Estate was named by her.


Robert G. Rankin spent about five years to establish his country seat and helped his mother to embellished the Rosenethe, in this period he became the expert of steam engineering. He started working as a projector in 1847 and later became the general agent and consulting engineer for the Boston, Hartford & Erie Railroad Company and of its successor, the New York & New England Railroad Company. In 1847 he was elected as the Regent of the University of the State of New York. In 1850 he changed his residence to Poughkeepsie, and in 1852 to Astoria, Long Island to engage in business as a consulting engineer. In 1859 he removed to Washington Heights, and was for a time Superintendent of the Institution for the Blind. From 1863 he resided in Newburgh, where he died Aug. 29, 1878, aged 72. At the time of his death he was the most senior Regent of the University of the State of New York. He was interested in philanthropic and religious work, founding, for instance, and carrying on till his death, Bethel Mission, and it's Sunday School in Newburgh.


Influenced by Robert G. Rankin's entrepreneurship and great energy, some of his in-laws, who were among the oldest New England families came to Town of Fishkill, either to live or to do business. James Freeland, Rankin's cotton mill partner, was the widower of Hannah Huntington Wolcott, Laura Wolcott Rankin's sister. After joint Robert Rankin in building the cotton mill, he bought hundreds acres property along the Fishkill Creek. When the cotton craze died down in early 1850, he and Rankin handed over the cotton factory to Charles Wolcott, their brother in law. From 1852 to 1857 Wolcott gradually transformed the factory from spinning cotton to manufacturing rubber product, in 1858 the New York Rubber Company bought the factory, relocated it's operation from Staten Island to Fishkill. This factory brought prosperity to the town for many years. Charles Moseley Wolcott was Laura Wolcott's step brother; born November 20, 1816 to Frederick and Sally Cooke Wolcott. From 1828-1830 Charles studied law at the Litchfield Law School as his father had done several years earlier. Charles M. Wolcott married twice, and had seven children. His first marriage was to Mary Goodrich (1818-1845) in 1843, after her death, he moved to Fishkill, started investing in manufacturing and later real estate, later he owned a good numbers of farms and village properties in the area. On Nov. 26, 1849 he married Robert Rankin's sister Catherine Rankin (1817-1889) in Fishkill. He has seven children.


In 1855 James Freeland conveyed his property along the Fishkill to Joseph Howland. Howland was born into a prominent merchant family that had grown rich in the China trade. His first American ancestor, John Howland, was one of the Pilgrim Fathers and a signer of the 1620 Mayflower Compact; the governing document of what became Plymouth Colony. Howland was a distant nephew of James Freeland and the Rankins and Wolcotts. Laura Rankin Wolcott's brother Frederick Henry Wolcott also had two marriages: before he married Sarah Chase Wolcott, he married Abby Howland (1817-1851), who was the daughter of Gardiner Greene Howland, one of the partners of the Howland & Aspinwall, the Pacific Trade company, the other partner, his brother Samuel Shaw Howland, was Joseph Howland's father. Joseph Howland's mother was Joanna Esther Hone, the niece of Philip Hone, the noted diarist and mayor of New York City, a co-founder of Matteawan.


In 1841, while working together with Sargent to develop the first experimental botanical garden, Downing published his first book, "A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening, Adapted to North America", it was the first book of its kind published in the United States and was an immense success. The book was helped by Alexander Jackson Davis, some clients and estates both Downing and Davis had worked on were mentioned, such as Donaldson's Blithwood; the less than one year old Wodeneth and it's owner Henry Winthrop Sargent were also mentioned.


In 1842 Downing collaborated with Alexander Jackson Davis on the book "Cottage Residences", a highly influential pattern book of houses that mixed romantic architecture with the English countryside's pastoral picturesque, derived in large part from the writings of John Claudius Loudon (1783 – 1843), the influential Scottish botanist, garden designer. The book was widely read and consulted, doing much to spread the so-called "Carpenter Gothic" and "Hudson River Bracketed" architectural styles among Victorian builders, for both commercial and private use.


In order to "widen the palate", between 1847 and 1849, Sargent travelled with his family in Europe and the Levant (Eastern Mediterranean), primarily to gather plants and to study the design of parks and country places. Along the way he frequently contributed his findings to horticultural papers, especially to the Horticulturist. Downing, in the need of developing a firm of his own went overseas to find talents. He was born right after the signing of treaty of the Ghent, the artistic exchange between Britain and the USA had reverse it's course. The early exchange, American talents went to Britain in order to excel; one of the example, the Anglo-American artist Benjamin West (1738 –1820), who became the second president of the Royal Academy in London, with William Allen as his main patron. Then the English-born artists such as Thomas Cole (1801-1848), arrived at the shore of a new world in 1818, developed locally the new direction of painting and became the leader of Hudson River School. In the mid 19th century, American artists, such as Sargent and Downing went to England and through there to the rest of the world to find resources to advance their own causes in the US. In 1851, Downing traveled to London to update himself and in search of an architect who would complement his vision. He believes that architecture and the surrounding landscape should be visually integrated into the whole environment, and he wanted to work with someone who had the artistic skills and sensitivity to visualize such plans. The person he found was Calvert Vaux (1824 –1895), best remembered as the co-designer of New York's Central Park and Prospect Park. Vaux was exhibiting in London a collection of landscape watercolors made on a tour to the Continent, and the show captured Downing's attention. Six weeks after their first meeting, Vaux arrived in Newburgh, Downing's home office.

Downing made Vaux his partner soon after they started working together. In the next two years, they designed many significant projects, such as the grounds in the White House and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C.. While they working on these projects, Vaux realized the importance of gaining political support for their work, he wrote an article for Horticulturalist, edited by Downing, to explain to the public why it's time for the US government to supports the arts. As a partner he was introduced to Downing's inner circle of friends, among them Henry Winthrop Sargent and journalist Frederick Law Olmsted.

In 1852, Downing invited another English architect Frederick Clarke Withers (1828–1901) to join his firm, shortly after Withers' arrival, he died of drowning when he attempting to save others, following the explosion of steamboat Henry Clay on Hudson. Vaux took Withers in as a partner, and took over the firm established by Downing in Newburgh until 1856.

In 1853, Sargent commissioned Vaux to design a wing for his mansion, which was started by Rodgers and finished by Wittemore. After he developed the spectacular vistas around the house, Sargent felt it's time to make the "final strokes" on this "painting" he had been working on. Vaux's added a group of Italian style brick structures and a greenhouse to created a graceful conversion which totally in harmony with the original Federal style dwelling. Wodenethe since had been described "the most beautiful place in the United States" on 19th century travel magazines.

While Vaux was working on the Wodenethe, Dr. Rumsey's neighbor, Dr. John De La Montagne, another homeopathic physician who bought three acres of land from Dr. Rumsey earlier, commissioned Vaux to planned a wooden cottage on a hollow, where was on the other side of the road of Wodenethe's Gate House and adjacent to the old Chrystie Gate House. The De La Montagne cottage was considered "one of the finest embodiments of the mood of rural intimacy in Vaux's earlier career. The cottage had been enlarged and extended by Dr. C. J. Slocum in 1927 when he relocated the Chrystie House to just across road and used as his home. The altered De La Montagne Cottage became the housing annex to Craig House Sanitarian.

In 1854, Vaux married Mary McEntee, of Kingston, New York, the sister of Jervis McEntee, a Hudson River School painter; they had two sons and two daughters. In 1855, Frederick Clarke Withers married Emily Augusta DeWindt, another daughter of John Peter DeWindt. In 1856, Vaux moved his office to New York city, gained US citizenship and became identified with the artistic community by joining the National Academy of Design, as well as the Century Club. In 1857, Vaux invited the inexperienced Frederick Law Olmsted, who had never before designed a landscape plan, to help design the Greensward Plan, which would become Central Park. They were able to obtain the commission through Olmsted's public persona as a reputable journalist and their excellent presentation that capitalized on Vaux's talents in landscape drawing and the inclusion of before-and-after sketches of the site. They fought many political battles to make sure their original plan remained intact and was carried out. While historians considered the Wodenethe was Sargent and Vaux's join effort to continue Downing's vision on what country estate should be, the construction of Central Park and later the Prospect Park can be considered the join efforts of Vaux, Olmsted to realizing Downing's visions on what city parks should be. An architect from England, a social advocate from Connecticut and a botanist from Boston, they worked together, learned from one another, and continued doing what Downing expected them to do when he first put the group together. The works had been started in Downing’s home office in Newburgh, carried on in the gardens and library of Wodenete in Fishkill, from there it continued it's path through the Valley, to New York and many other cities in the whole country. In 1857 Vaux became one of the founding members of the American Institute of Architects. Also in the same year, he published Villas and Cottages, which was an influential pattern book that set up the standards for “Victorian Gothic” architecture. Through his writings he paid tribute to the luminaries who had influenced his work: John Ruskin, Ralph Waldo Emerson and his former partner Downing.

After 1856 Frederick Clarke Withers continued working in the area, did some important projects before he joint the 1st New York Volunteer Engineer Regiment and served in the Union Army during the American Civil War. On Thanksgiving Day 1858, Calvary Presbyterian Church in Newburgh was dedicated; it was first American church Withers designed. In 1859, he redesigned the oldest church in town of Fishkill, the 1813 Dutch Reform Church in Fishkill Landing, and it was dedicated in 1860. This church is one of the few designs he did in the Victorian Gothic style, which only became popular after the Civil War. Also in 1859, the construction of the mansion he designed for Joseph Howland's estate was completed; it was the first of a few collaborations he had with Henry Winthrop Sargent, who design the ground for the estate.

In 1859, Sargent did his most important literary contribution to Downing's on going influences in the country, his supplement to the sixth and subsequent editions of Downing's A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening. In this supplement he gave an account of the newer deciduous and evergreen plants and told in considerable detail of the development of his own "Wodenethe" and of the estate of his relative, H. H. Hunnewell, in Wellesley, Massachusetts and Central Park in New York. There was section he detailed described the horticulture and landscaping works in Lake Cuomo, a Swiss-Italian site he obviously carefully studied, as the ideal example of landscape architecture. In there he used the section of Hudson River Valley between Cold Spring and Newburgh as a parallel to explain the geographic setting of the place. This writing gave away his "great expectation" for the area, and why he was willing to pay such a high price for the site where he created Wodeneth. His efforts to bring the world's best to America continued in 1870, when he published a comprehensive garden guide entitled Skeleton Tours, which included the British Isles, the Scandinavian Peninsula, Russia, Poland, and Spain.


After the war ended, Frederick Clarke Withers also set up his office in New York City where he became renowned for his church designs. He worked largely in the Gothic revival mode, and wrote about architecture and designed in the "Ruskinian Gothic" manner. In 1867, Withers designed a mansion in Fishkill Landing for John J. Monell. Monell was a lawyer, New York state judge and an old friend of Downing, Vaux and him. Monell had recently married his sister in law, Caroline DeWindt Downing, widow of Andrew Jackson Downing; the house was built on a property subdivided from Cedar Grove Estate, deeded to them by John Peter DeWindt.


In 1873 with Charles Downing, Sargent wrote a supplement to Downing's Cottage Residences. His second supplement to A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening, added in the edition of 1875, gives a brief account of trees and shrubs introduced since 1859. In a period marks the beginning of the professional practice of landscape architecture in the United States, this book and its supplement exerted a great influence on popular taste.


In 1869, Withers worked with Sargent on designing St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Fishkill. Sargent designed the ground; the church and rectory were built from Withers' designs. The Gothic Revival-styled building strongly reflects contemporary Ecclesiological theories of appropriate church architecture. Withers later on considered the church one of his best buildings. In 1870, St. Luke Church was dedicated, James Sakes Rumsey was the warden; Henry Winthrop Sargent, John J. Monell, Smith T. Van Buren and the other five persons were the Vestrymen. Withers' reputation was formally established after A. J. Bicknell published Withers' Church Architecture in 1873, commissions such as "William Backhouse Astor, Sr. Memorial Altar and Reredos" (1876–77) at Trinity Church, made him the leading architect for church designs of his time.

Dr. Rumsey died in 1872, Smith T. Van Buren died in 1876, they didn't witness what Sargent had to before he died in 1882, on their neighborhood; how this one time American horticulturists and landscape architects beloved river front; the potential Lake Cuomo in America, began to be transformed by a almost opposite social movement and ideology.

In the first phase of the industrial revolution, the power generated by Fishkill Creek brought factories, workers and prosperity to the area. The picturesque views of the town relatively survived. The improvement of the living standards of the ordinary people brought by industrial revolution in the US have begun to undergo sustained growth, and that set forth the second phase of the revolution brought by the development of the steam engine on transportation: boats, ships and the railway systems and the highly efficient manufacturing factories, began an era of per-capita economic growth in the capitalist economies. Over the long term, the Industrial Revolution marked a period in which the living standard of the people in all the affected countries rose tremendously as did the power of the capitalists to use technology for exploiting nature for financial purposes and the common belief of the human being as the rightful dominating owner of the natural world. The people, capitalists and workers alike, who share this belief would not appreciated the divine harmony between the natural wonders and the man-made environments that Jeffersonians had worked so hard to keep.

The most destructive impact on the riverfront came from the brickyard business. In the late 1850s, 20 years after John Gowdy established the first brickyard at rich clay-deposited shoreline of Fishkill Landing on nearby John Wiltsie's property, Benjamin Garner built a brick yard on the property of Rumsey's, later operated by different tenants. For a period of time it seemed a good extra business income to have.

To be continued.