73 M. POUGHKEEPSIE, Pop. 35,000.
(Train 51 passes 10:14; No. 3, 10:38; No. 41, 2:48; No. 25, 4:27; No. 19, 7:24. Eastbound: No. 6 passes 7:32; No. 26, 7:51; No. 16, 2:02; No. 22, 3:29.)
Poughkeepsie was the Apokeepsing of the Indians—"the pleasant and safe harbour" made by the rocky bluffs projecting into the river, where canoes were sheltered from wind and wave. The city is built partly on terraces rising 200 ft. above the river, and partly on the level plateau above. Poughkeepsie was settled by the Dutch in 1698. The most momentous event in Poughkeepsie's history and one of the most important in that of the whole Union, was the convention held here in 1788 at which the state of N.Y. decided to ratify the federal constitution. The decision was carried by three votes.
The credit for bringing N.Y. into the Union must go largely to Alexander Hamilton and his supporters, John Jay and Chancellor Robert R. Livingston. Of the three N.Y. delegates to the federal convention, Hamilton was the only one to sign its report, and when the state convention was called at Poughkeepsie, June 17, 1788, two-thirds of its members voted against the proposed U.S. constitution. The opposition was led by Gov. George Clinton and his party, known as the "Clintonians." Clinton, though he here fought bitterly the proposed new constitution and government, lived to be a Vice President of the U.S. (He should not be confused with the DeWitt Clinton who later built the Erie Canal.) The eloquence of Hamilton, Jay and Livingston, however, coupled with the news that New Hampshire and Virginia had ratified, finally carried the day, and the N.Y. Convention gave its approval of the new Constitution by a vote of 30 to 27.
Vassar College, the oldest women's college in America, and one of the most famous, occupies extensive grounds to the east of the city.
Vassar was founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar (1791-1868), an Englishman who had established in Poughkeepsie in 1801 a brewery from which he became rich. He got the idea of founding a woman's college from his niece, Lydia Booth, a school teacher. His total gifts to the institution amounted to about $800,000. His nephew, Matthew Vassar, Jr., became manager of the brewery after his uncle's death, and gave in all about $500,000 to the college. Vassar now has a campus and farm of about 800 acres, and possesses an endowment of $2,440,000. Its students number about 1,100.
The Hudson near Poughkeepsie furnishes the course for the intercollegiate races in which American college crews, with the exception of Harvard and Yale (which row on the Thames at New London) have rowed practically every year since 1895. The river is spanned at this point by one of the largest cantilever bridges in the world. It is 2,260 ft. long and 200 ft. above the water, and is the only bridge over the Hudson south of Albany.
It required 4 years to build the bridge, which was finished in 1889 at a cost of $3,500,000. It connects New England directly with the coal fields of Pennsylvania.
Poughkeepsie has more than 50 lines of manufacture, with products of a total annual value of $15,000,000, including mill supplies, clothing, cigars, candied fruit and preserves, cream separators, foundry products, knit goods, ivory buttons, and piano and organ players.
Two miles beyond Poughkeepsie the red brick buildings of the Hudson River State Hospital are passed on the right, and presently our route skirts Hyde Park (79 M.) near which, to the north, can be seen the estate of Frederick W. Vanderbilt. There are many beautiful country-places in the district. A little beyond Hyde Park on the west bank of the river is "Slabsides," the cabin home of John Burroughs, the poet, philosopher, and widely known writer on natural history.
John Burroughs was born in 1837 at Roxbury, N.Y., the fifth son of a farmer. His first books were bought with money he earned from tapping maple trees, boiling the sap and selling the sugar. One season, he tells us, he made twelve silver quarters, and has never been so proud since. Although he has lived much in the world and has travelled widely, the greater part of his time has been divided between Riverby, in the little town of West Park, N.Y., the famous "Slabsides," his cabin in the wooded hills back of the Hudson, and, since 1908, an old farm house which he has christened Woodchuck Lodge, ½ M. from the Burroughs homestead in Roxbury. In his retreat at "Slabsides" he wrote some of his most intimate and appealing studies of nature.
Esopus Island is now passed, on the high left bank of which, near the water, stands the home of Alton B. Parker, Democratic candidate for the presidency against Roosevelt in 1904. We now pass the estates of D. Ogden Mills and W.B. Dinsmore, former president of the Adams Express Company (on the right). Esopus Lighthouse is on the west bank where the river curves sharply to the left. On the high ground on the east bank is the country home of the late Levi P. Morton.
Levi P. Morton (1824-1920), American banker and politician, was born at Shoreham, Vt. After some years in business at Hanover, N.H., Boston and N.Y.C., he established in 1862 the banking house of L. P. Morton & Co. (dissolved in 1899), with a London branch. The American firm assisted in funding the national debt at the time of the resumption of specie payments, and the London house were fiscal agents of the U.S. government in 1873-1884, and as such received the $15,500,000 awarded by the Geneva Arbitration court in settlement of the "Alabama Claims" against Great Britain. In 1899 Morton became president of the Morton Trust Co. of N.Y.C. He was a Republican representative in Congress from 1879 to 1881, U.S. minister to France (1881-1885), vice-president of the U.S. during the administration of Benjamin Harrison (1889-1893) and governor of N.Y. state (1895-1896) signing in that capacity the "Greater New York" bill and the liquor-tax measure known as the "Raines law." In 1896 he was a candidate for the presidential nomination in the Republican national convention.