New York State History

Wolvert Acker, Lewis Du Bois, Balm of Gilead, Underground Route, Colonel Ettrick, Old Fort, Snake Hill.

Wolvert Acker, whose "Roost" has been celebrated in story by Washington Irving, came to this region some time before the Revolution, and settled in what is now the northeastern corner of Orange County. He was chairman of the Committee of Safety in 1775, and a man of prominence. His house still stands on a crossroad, and almost on the county line, a trifle more than a mile from the river's edge. A brook, which is not named on the map, crosses the road close by the house. This brook runs almost due north to Marlboro, where it becomes one with the Hudson at the mouth of Old Man's Creek.

Old Man's Creek and Major Lewis Du Bois are so inseparably connected that to speak of one is to mention the other: The hill which modestly poses here as the river bank (we are in Marlboro) affords the creek an opportunity for some grand and lofty tumbling before it reaches the lower level. The series of beautiful falls and rapids thus formed were early turned to account by the major, whose mill is an ancient landmark. In fact he had three mills here at different levels; two of them are to-day in operation, the grist mill still using the old overshot wheel. This is a beautiful little picture spot. Toward the river one sees the old mill, with the wooden waterway and a bit of the wheel, while beyond through the branches of the leafless trees is to be seen the single stone arch of the wagon bridge, and still further unlimited space. Looking up stream the eye follows the plank sluice to the dam through whose curtain of crystal water can be seen the moss covered rocks of its construction. At the left a great boulder juts out, which affords the water a fine opportunity for display, while beyond all this tumble and hubbub is the hush of the mill pond with its fringe of autumn foliage, a sight to tempt the painter's brush.

The Du Bois dwelling stands on the bluff overlooking the river, a half mile north of the old mill. It was the first clapboard house in this region, and a. great curiosity in its day. The British, sailing up to the attack on Kingston, had a way of hitting, or attempting to hit, every head in sight, and so sent the major a present of a few round shot, but they failed of their purpose. In after years these cannon balls, which had been gathered and stored in the attic, were used by the children of the house to roll across the floor when in the course of play it became necessary to introduce a thunder storm. The imitation is said to have been a good one.

Doctor John Deyo, great grandson of Lewis Du Bois, has searched the Masonic records at Poughkeepsie, the lodge being known as King Solomon's Temple, and finds that the meetings were held at the houses of various prominent members, and that during one such meeting held in the Du Bois house the name of Benedict Arnold was stricken from the roll of membership.

Previous to the Revolution Lewis Du Bois was a colonel in the local militia. How he became a major in the regular army is told by Dr. Deyo, who is naturally proud of his family tree. The state of New York furnished five regiments for the army, when it became evident that war was at hand, and as there were a dozen or more aspirants for the five positions of command, there was naturally great rivalry and much pulling of wires. One after another, four of the regiments were completed and their officers appointed, and by the time the fifth regiment was to be put in the field competition was at a white heat, so much so that the appointive powers were afraid to hand out the plum, lest powerful interests be antagonized at a time when harmony was greatly to be desired. In order to relieve the pressure and avoid criticism a committee, consisting of Baron Von Steuben and Gouverneur Morris, was appointed to make the selection strictly on merit, and the prize fell to Lewis Du Bois. In other words the committee took to the woods (Bois)!

As we take the road for Newburgh we soon come, after crossing Old Man's Creek, to the ancient burying ground wherein is the sepulchre of Lewis Du Bois, and close beside it the headstone of his wife.

"Under this home doth lie
the body of
Major Lewis Dubois,
Who departed this life
On Wednesday, Dec. 2gth, 1802,
Aged 74 years, 3 months & 27 days,
And was born Septr. 14th, 1728,
Who was also afflicted and speachless with the Palsey
3 years, 7 months & 24 days.
Look down upon this house as you pass by,
As you are now so once was I;
The living know that they must die;
But all the dead forgotten lie.
The dust returns to dust again,
Into the regions of the dead;
Beyond this cold grave wherein I lie,
I hope to reign in eternal Happiness.
Happy are they that fears the Lord,
And all the sons of men.
Their souls to God their refuge make,
Who gives them peace Divine."

The easy way to reach Newburgh from Marlboro direction is by way of Balmville, which takes its name from a giant poplar tree of the Balm of Gilead species which has been so long a landmark that only legend pretends to go back to its beginning. It stands in the old King's Highway. Horses were shod under its shade before the Revolution, it being a large tree even then. As it is not a native of these parts, there are those who believe that it may have been brought by the first settlers who planted themselves about the mouth of the Quas-sic Creek below, and at the Dans Kammer above. Its leaves and bark were used for various healing decoctions.* The giant stands with roads radiating from it in all directions, for all the world as though it thought itself a second Boston.

The breaker of images has been busy around Newburgh of late years, and as a result there are a number of very satisfactory little stories, that, having been turned out of house and home, are wanderers on the face of Orange County. There is the Gardiner house, for instance, on the way out to Orange Lake: Now they say that this house was built just after the Revolution, and the story could not be; but if the tale does not apply here it does somewhere else, and I shall give it a home anyway. Gardner was a Tory, was arrested as a spy at one time and would have been hanged as a spy, had not Washington, who seems to have thought there were mitigating circumstances, interfered. The house stands at Bonds, now known as Crawfords, Mills.

The story has it that this was one of the stations on the underground route between Canada and New York City, then in the hands of the British. This route was used largely to transport the wives of the English officers stationed in New York to that city. Army regulations did not permit the bringing of their wives with them, hence they were shipped to Canada and from thence passed along from station to station by a system identical with that used before the Civil War in conveying negroes to freedom on Canadian soil. The travelling was, of course, done at night, and the resting by day. The midnight rides and alarms that naturally suggest themselves could furnish forth many a tale of adventure, hard riding and narrow escapes on the lonely roads of this backwoods region.

Then there is the Vale and Colonel Ettrick. Mr. Rutten-ber says there was no such man and that the story is impossible, but impossible or not, here it is:-

Colonel Ettrick was a Tory and he lived in the vale, which extended from the mouth of Quassic Creek for a half mile or so up stream. The colonel conceived the idea of capturing Washington and handing him over to the English. He would invite the general to dinner, have the house surrounded by troops, and the job was done; but, like many another well-laid plan, this went astray. The colonel, so the story goes, had an intensely patriotic daughter, and she, learning of the scheme, went to Washington and disclosed it, begging her father's life in return. Being forewarned the visitor went armed, with a guard dressed in the scarlet uniform of the enemy. These arrived on the scene about ten minutes after the guest appeared, whereupon the colonel, supposing his opportunity had arrived, broke the news to the intended victim, only to have his ambition rudely dashed when the redcoats took him prisoner and the true situation was explained. Then followed a short period of unrest which was most painful to Colonel Ettrick. The house which is pointed out as the scene of this tale, and photographed to illustrate it, stands on the high north bank of the creek immediately west of the river road, but here is another misfortune: The De Witt map of "The Winter Cantonment of the American Army and Its Vicinity for 1783", which is supposed to have every building then in existence in the territory covered, neglects to show that there was any building at this point, though the old Trimble mill, just across the creek on its south bank is indicated.

Mr. Ruttenber, Newburgh's historian, says that this story was devised by one Andrew J. Downing, a landscape gardener with a fancy for invention.

Between an impossible story and a building that did not exist we seem to be a bit lame. Not so much so, however, but that we can move on to our next point of doubt.

In the "Order of Councill for Naturalizing and sending certain Palatines to New York", May 10, 1708, we read of the dire straits of these Palatines and the various ways of disposing of them, and finally that "We humbly propose that they be sent to Settle upon Hudson's River in the Province of New York, where they may be usefull to this Kingdom particularly in the production of naval Stores and as a ffrontier against the ffrench and their Indians".

Her Majesty being "graciously pleased", duly unloaded the "necessitous" Germans on Governor Lovelace, and we soon hear of them as "The German Company at Quasck Creek and Thanskamir", with Joshua Kocherthal ministering to their spiritual and temporal needs. Thus came the "New Burgh".

Dr. John Deyo has in his collection what Mr. Ruttenber pronounces an "undoubtedly genuine tomahawk, originally one of the number presented by the French government in Canada to chiefs of the Six Nations". It is a most businesslike little axe, with a long rosewood handle. The edge is keen and bright as when new, but the head is battered in a way to indicate considerable use, and no doubt it has drunk the blood of the paleface more than once. The inlaid decorations, consisting of scimitar and crescent, look like the work of the Orient, and may mean an interesting history prior to its use as a gift of peace by the French, who in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries made strenuous efforts to undo the work of Champlain when he made mortal enemies of the Iroquois.

To pass through Newburgh and not even stop at the old Hasbrouck house, now the Washington's Headquarters, is a most barbarous and unpatriotic thing to do, but there is so much to say, if one attempts anything, and it has all been said so many times, that I hardly feel like competing with the abler pens that have already told its story. Rather let me save the souls of discredited legends.

If, after crossing Quassic Creek, we follow Spring Street to where one turns east for New Windsor, there will be found, on the west side of the road at the bend the former home of Dr. Moses Higby. What else the doctor did I do not know, but he once mixed a dose that has made him famous for more than a hundred years. It was the emetic which was given to Daniel Taylor, the spy, of which Governor Clinton remarked that it was warranted to work either way.

Now keeping to the right we soon come to the Snake Hill Turnpike, and here we will turn back toward Newburgh for a moment, for here, under the shadow of the hill, a quarter mile north of the crossroads, stands the "Old Fort", another of my lame ducks. No one disputes that it is an old building, for it was erected about 1717 by Gen. John Haskell, but from this point on we part company with the man who insists on a reason for things. The story leaves one's imagination in a pleasant state of excitement, which it seems unkind to treat with cold water, as some insist on doing. Well, we will get at the story before it is lost: About sixty years ago the clapboards which for many years had covered the log sides of this building were removed, when the west side, that toward Snake Hill, was found to be pierced with bullet holes and studded with stone arrowheads, silent evidence of Indian attack, and so grew around this spot a misty web of romance. Mr. Rutten-ber insists that there were no Indian troubles in the neighborhood of Newburgh, and that a fort was never necessary or seriously thought of, but what is the use of serious thought, anyway?

During the warm part of the year this region is surely Summer's wonderland. Passing through it one comes in time to take the riot of beauty for granted to a certain extent. The fields and the woods, stone walls and rail fences twined with wild shrubbery, and the wildflowers, common enough to be sure, if any wildflower ever is common, with the many nooks and crannies where rocks prevent close cultivation, for them to disport in, making such beautiful foregrounds for distant mountain views or river glimpses that travelling is slow work indeed. Such a stretch was Spring Street, and now the road to Little Britain, between Snake and Temple Hills, continues the diversion. It is one great playground where the wind is ever teasing the daisies or carrot or goldenrod, pushing them this way and that, and finally blowing their heads off that he may be sure of another frolic next season, when each scalp torn from its owner this year means dozens of children to keep going the sport of the trifling old fellow, who blows hot or blows cold, is on with the new love before he is off with the old. When the hot sun scorches and his caress would be welcome he is off to the highlands or down by the river, leaving his playmates to bake in the swelter.

This same Snake Hill seems always to have had a bad reputation, for the Indians knew it as Muchhattoes, meaning a small, bad hill, but if it is in bad repute it still puts on a bold front, and adds much to the looks if not to the morals of the neighborhood..