New York State History

Old Road, Old Houses, Polhemus Mill, West Nyack, Blauvelt, Orange-burg, Tappan, Sneeden's Landing, Block House, Washington Spring.

The way now wig-wags along in a southeasterly direction to the Nanuet-New City pike, through Germonds, keeping east of Bardonia and Clarksville, through the western borders of West Nyack, and so to Blauvelt, Orangeburg and Tappan.

Certain inhabitants of the West Nyack region who were doing things to their front yard maintained that the only way for Tappan from these parts was by way of Nyack, and not having with me a road map to present them as a certificate of admission to the Ananias Club, I was fain to let them stew in their own ignorance.

Everyone who has been much in the country soon learns how little the average countryman knows of the road which runs past his home, and seldom places much confidence in the most positive assertions. In fact, if the traveller is sure of his way and in the mood for amusement, the systematic asking of
the same question is apt to elicit a most interesting variety of opinion. I recall one case along the Juniata River, in Pennsylvania, where three different persons in the same village varied in their estimates of a certain distance from one and one-half to five miles, the actual distance being somewhat less than three. But to get back to our subject, one can reach Tappan by way of Nyack if he wishes, but it is the long way round, and not ours.

The tracing from Washington's army map placed over a map of the present day locates the old road exactly, except in the neighborhood of Germonds, but here one or two of the old stone houses of other days practically settle the matter. In fact the number of old houses strewn by the wayside along this stretch come to the rescue and settle any doubt, if there is any, as to the road the forefathers went.

And now a word concerning these old brownstone houses: As I understand it, those built of blocks which have been squared and roughly finished belong to the English period of occupation, while those in which the stone was used in the rough represent the Dutch period. Nowadays the poor, ill-used structures fairly cry aloud when they see a sympathetic face coming down the highway. All sorts of mean impositions have been practiced on them. Some have been picked out with jig-saw fantasies in a most cruel manner, some have had their stone fronts painted red. Think of it! A fine old brownstone house daubed with red paint! Is it any wonder they sometimes commit hari-kari by letting their roofs fall in and their walls fall out? In Orangeburg one has actually been
crowned with a slate mansard roof, and it looks as shamefaced as stone and mortar well can-looks like a boy who has pulled his father's stovepipe hat down over his ears and has been caught in the act while playing with his dad's Sunday headgear. There is one example, however, in the southern edge of this same village of Orangeburg that is beautiful in its simplicity. It carries the air of being possessed by one who appreciates the fitness of things, and stands a symphony of symmetry on its gently swelling knoll. In one of these old houses, possibly the one with the foolish mansard cap, it is said that the beams still show marks of British bayonets; this was a bit of information that came too late for personal investigation.

We have got a bit ahead of the map and must step back a moment to lay out the way of going so that the wayfaring man will not be too much puzzled by the many crossroads. The wiggle-waggle road from English Church drops into the north and south road to New City, opposite the "Great Woods". Following this a bit, take the first turn to the east, crossing the railroad track into Germonds, then the first turn south, and travel southeast for a mile and a half, coming up with and following a little branch of the Hackensack River, and turning squarely south at the Polhemus house and the red grist mill which adorns the wayside. If I were a girl I should say that it was just too lovely for anything, for it is lovely. There it stands with its old overshot wheel, in a wooded glen, with the flash and sparkle of the falling water from the millpond just above; a picture that is worth a day's journey to see. The mill was erected by grandfather Aaron Polhemus, no one knows when, but the old gentleman died seventy-five or more years ago at the age of eighty two, so it is safe to say that the building has been standing one hundred years or more; it may even have looked down on the cavalcade that conducted Andre to Tappan. Aaron Polhemus served during the Revolutionary War, and sent home, after one of its battles, a cannon ball which just missed spilling Polhemus blood. The present generation remembers this as in use in the mill during his boyhood as a weight. Grandfather's store and dwelling, which were once located across the street, are no more.

There is a good deal of old house about the last few remarks, but it will not do to suppose that there is nothing else to see, for we are in the hollow of a giant's hand. The Ramapo Mountains are the thumb, while the peaks of Abbey Mountain, Little Tor, High Tor, and of Verdrietege Hook are the tips of the fingers, and the long ridge back of Nyack, and so to the Palisades forms the little finger, laid up a bit to emphasize the bowl, and the Hackensack River, with its many tributaries, are the blue veins running down the wrist. There are meadow lands and marsh lands, highlands and lowlands, and little brooks by the roadside all bent on doing their utmost for the benefit of the traveller, just aching for a word of admiration.

On the corner where crosses the main road for Nyack stands the "Hunter's Home". Its bar is much like the bar of other wayside taverns, except that stuffed rabbits are hanging by their hind legs, and as natural as dead rabbits can be, while various sorts of birds are mounting the rocky slopes that gleam behind glass cases. But it is not of the tavern, nor the bar, nor even of the works of taxidermic art, but of the proprietor that we would speak, for here is one who knows the roads of Rockland County as the man of letters knows the alphabet. For years he drove a butcher cart throughout this rural district and now, in his days of prosperity, he hunts the festive rabbit and the wily fox-a good man to know of if one is puzzled as to his going.

After crossing the east and west highway which leads on to Nyack we take the first turn to the left and then wiggle down to where both wagon and railroad cross the Hackensack, and so on for some two miles and a half, through Blauvelt, where, by the way, stands a house facing the railroad station with a front entrance more after the manner of the mansions of old than is usual hereabouts. The present tenant neither knows who built the house nor when, but, as the newspapers put it, we learn from other sources that this was the hive of the Dederers, from which the last of the name swarmed long ago.

Just beyond the Dominican Convent, where the guideboard points To the Fair Ground, we leave the direct road and, crossing the two railroads that cross each other here, we are in Orangeburg and on the road connecting Nyack with Tap-pan which, if we turn to the south, shortly lands us in the latter village.

Tappan appears to be an English rendering of a Dutch corruption of an Indian word, Tuphanne, meaning cold stream, and was, I presume, applied to the creek now known as the Sparkill.

In April, 1640, Captain David Pietersen de Vries (David, son of Pieter of Vries) bought this region from the Tappan Indians and called it Vriesendael, but some years later the savages burned him out, and he, disgusted, returned to Holland.

Then about 1686 some sixteen farmers secured a patent to the land from Governor Dongan, known as the Tappan or Orangetown patent, and for nearly a hundred years it was known locally as Navassunk or Good Land. Tappantown was its first name, and is still the name of its postoffice. This was the county seat until the courthouse burned in 1774, when a change was made to New City.

Tappan's chiefest claim to immortality is the Andre trial and execution. When he and Joshua Het Smith were brought here, in all probability over the road we have just been following, Andre was imprisoned-September 28 to October 2, 1780 -in the house of Casparus Mabie, erected about 1753. The building was then known as Mabie's Tavern, and has been a public house almost continuously since. Andre's cell was in a sort of lean-to in the rear, from whose window, it is said, he saw the erection of the scaffold that was to end his career. He had petitioned Washington to be shot, as a more honorable mode of death, and is said to have been shocked when he arrived at the scene of execution to discover the scaffold. This seems to put our little legend out of joint, but it is hardly fair to push tradition too hard.

Smith was confined in the Dutch Church, and it was in this church that the trial court sat. The present church merely locates the spot, the historic building having been demolished to make way for a larger pile of bricks.

The old parsonage, handy by, is still a possibility if only a giant would come along and pinch off the excrescences that have been allowed to grow on and encumber its old stones. Built about 1729, it has housed all the dominies from the good Muzelius down.

The army was camped on the ridge in the western edge of the village, and here was the place of execution, a heavy granite block marking the site. The history of this monument is somewhat interesting. My memory goes back to a picture in Harpers' Monthly of a pole surrounded by a heap of stones, but about 1878 the Rev. Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, dean of Westminster, was visiting Cyrus W. Field at the latter's home in Tarrytown. The subject of Andre's execution was brought up, when Mr. Field remarked that he would erect a monument on the spot if the dean would write the inscription, and the dean wrote:-

"Here died, October 2, 1780, Major John Andre of the British Army, who, entering the American lines on a secret mission to Benedict Arnold for the surrender of West Point, was taken prisoner, tried and condemned as a spy. His death, though according to the stern code of war, moved even his enemies to pity, and both armies mourned the fate of one so young and so brave. In 1821 his remains were removed to Westminster Abbey.

"A hundred years after the execution this stone was placed above the spot where he lay by a citizen of the United States, against which he fought, not to perpetuate the record of strife, but in token of those better feelings which have since united two nations, one in race, in language and in religion, in the hope that the friendly understanding will never be broken.
"ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY,
"Dean of Westminster. "

'He was more unfortunate than criminal.'
"GEORGE WASHINGTON."

'Sunt lachrymae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt.'
"-.AEneid, Book I., line 462."

On two occasions cranks have attempted to dynamite the monument, and since Mr. Field's death it has been neglected and sold repeatedly for taxes, but now has come into the possession of the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society, and its troubles are at an end.

There is one more old house in the village, the Washington headquarters, then known as the De Wint house, built in 1700 by John Stratemaker. It is a simple, one story and attic building, of little pretense, at least such was the old house; but one story and attic is not commodious enough for present day needs, and a large frame wart has grown on one end which is mercifully hidden by the trees if one can only view it aright. Here Washington spent the time during the Andre trial, and it was in the southeast room, the then parlor, that he signed the order for the court martial, and a few days later the death warrant. It is said that the pegs in the closet are the original ones on which the Great Chief hung his hat and cloak.

We are getting along toward the end of our trip. Only one more stop, at Sneeden's Landing, the western end of Dobbs Ferry, now known as the village of Palisades, some two miles west and a little south of Tappan-a very pleasant walk.

Palisades is unusual in more ways than one, for it supports a public library, a most unusual proceeding for so diminutive a settlement, and some of its good citizens have worked up the local history to make it easy for strangers.

As we enter the village, which is as rambling as has been my progress, the first house to be noted is that now occupied by the library, the "Big House", supposed to have been erected by Capt. John Corbet before 1734, but why be original when there is a tablet to copy that tells us all about it?

"1685-1899.
"George Lockhart, M. D., who patented the surrounding lands from the British Government February 20, 1685, probably erected the first dwelling on this site. The foundations of the eastern end of the present building are doubtless of that period. The house was destroyed by fire early in the i8th century and rebuilt by Capt. John Corbett, whose only child May married Henry Ludlow, clerk of the town of Orangetown (in 1744).

"Philip Verplanck's map of the George Lockhart Patent, dated June 9, 1745 (now owned by the Palisades Library) designates this edifice as 'Henry Ludlow's House'. It has been known as the 'Big House' for generations. The west wing (now the reading room) was built about 1826, but otherwise the existing stone walls formed the home of Jonathan Lawrence during the Revolutionary war.

"According to tradition Washington and LaFayette (and some have said the Baron Von Steuben) once dined here. History states that General Washington and Count de Roch-ambeau crossed the Hudson from Dobbs Ferry to recon-noiter the British position from the Palisades on July 18, 1781. On their return they may have enjoyed the hospitality of the loyal home then in this building.

"Between the months of July and December, 1898, the house was entirely renovated by Mrs. Henry E. Lawrence, as the home of the Palisades Library, to which purpose it was dedicated on the evening of April 27, 1899."

A table, said to have been used when Washington dined here, now stands in the hall of the library.

Just east of the library where is a bold-lettered sign, "No Trespassing", if one trespasses will be found a cart track that shortly worries out into a footpath across the fields and into the woods, where a grove of young white birches carries it on to a stone wall. This, steadfastly followed, leads to the ruins of 1776, the Block House, built, with a redoubt on a lower level, after the battle of White Plains, when it was feared the British would raid this region.

On the next shelf below is a grass-grown mound-all that is left of the redoubt. Neither of these saw much actual warfare. Occasionally some passing vessel would throw a shot or two ashore by way of a little gun practice, but nothing more serious occurred.

On the map of 1745 the only house that shows on the river is Snedings, the "fferry" house, still standing. The view from the redoubt looks down on this and on all the world hereabouts. This was the first place, from the south, where a road could easily reach the water's edge. The ferry was established about 1698, and at least as early as 1759 was owned by the Snedens or Sneethens. Later the name is spelled Snyden, and once Snyder. The first owner mentioned was Mrs. Mollie Snethen, who is said to have lived to be 101 years old, and whose tombstone still stands in the Palisades burial ground. Mrs. Mollie was her own ferryman, and if the legends are to
be believed, something of a sport, for we are told that with one discharge of her gun she once killed one hundred pigeons. Possibly the birds interfered with the progress of the boat and the lady was just clearing a path; possibly she wanted a pigeon pie.

The Sneedens were suspected of Tory leanings, and prohibited by the local authorities from carrying on the ferry during the Revolution, and at this time it became known as "Dobbs Ferry on the west side of the Hudson". During the Autumn of 1775 Martha Washington crossed here to join the general at Cambridge, Mass., and the ferry was used to some extent by the Americans throughout the war, but there is no record of British troops ever having crossed at this point.

And now we have come to the end of our trip. The "ff erry" is still running, and in the same primitive fashion as of yore-• a skiff propelled by oar or sail, according as wind and weather permit. We can cross and take the train south, or walk back to the Tappan station, and so home as best suits us. If we do walk back we must pass the Washington Spring on the right, just before the road from the river winds over the top of the bluff. It is Washington's spring on general principles, I guess, though it is possible that the chief did slake his thirst here some time; and beyond, a step, is the Riker S. Mann house, which is said to be 126 years of age, but still looks hearty.