About the same time Burgoyne was conquered and captured, and Sir Henry Clinton retired to New York. As soon as the alarm had subsided, Governor Clinton called a meeting of the Legislature at Poughkeepsie. It assembled in the old stone building known as the Van Kleek House (then a tavern), early in January, 1778. Various acts, to complete the organization of the state government, were passed; provisions were made for strengthening the civil and military powers of the state; and it was during that session that the state gave its assent to the February 6, 1778 Articles of Confederation, the organic law of the Federal Union until our present Constitution was formed and adopted. This building was the meeting-place of the inhabitants to consult upon the public welfare, when the Boston Port Bill and kindred measures awakened a spirit of resistance throughout the country." There the Committee of Correspondence of Dutchess held their meetings, and there the pledge to sustain the Continental Congress and the Provincial Assembly was signed by the inhabitants of Poughkeepsie, in June and July, 1775. ***

* This is from a sketch which I made in 1835, a few weeks before the venerable building was demolished by the hand of improvement. It stood upon Mill Street, on the land of Matthew Vassar, Jr., a short distance from the Congregational Church. It was built by Myndert Vankleek, one of the first settlers in Dutch-oss county, in 1702, and was the first substantial house erected upon the site of Poughkeepsie. Its walls were very thick, and near the eaves they were pierced with lancet loop-holes for musketry. It was here that Ann Lee, the founder of the sect called Shaking Quakers, in this country, was lodged the night previous to her commitment to the Poughkeepsie jail, in 1776. She was a native of Manchester, England. During her youth she was employed in a cotton factory, and afterward as a cook in the Manchester Infirmary. She married a blacksmith named Stanley; became acquainted with James and Jane Wardley, the originators of the sect in England, and in 1758 joined the small society they had formed. In 1770 she pretended to have received a revelation, while confined in prison on account of her religious fanaticism; and so great were the spiritual gifts she was believed to possess, that she was soon acknowledged a spiritual mother in Christ. Hence her name of Mother Ann. Sho and her husband came to New York in 1774. He soon afterward abandoned her and her faith, and married another woman. She collected a few followers, and in 1776 took up her abode in the woods of Watervliet, near Niskayuna, in the neighborhood of Troy. By some she was charged with witchcraft; and, because she was opposed to war, she was accused of secret correspondence with the British. A charge of high treason was preferred against her, and she was imprisoned in Albany during the summer. In the fall it was concluded to send her to New York, and banish her to the British army, but circumstances prevented the accomplishment of the design, and she was imprisoned in the Poughkeepsie jail until Governor Clinton, in 1777, hearing of her situation, released her. She returned to Watervliet, and her followers greatly increased. Sho died there in 1784, aged eighty-four years. Her followers sincerely believe that she now occupies that form or figure which John saw in his vision, standing beside the Savior. In a poem entitled "A Memorial to Mother Ann," contained in a book called "Christ's Second Appearing," the following stanza occurs:

"How much they are mistaken who think that mother's dead,
When through her ministrations so many souls are saved.
In union with the Father, she is the second,
Dispensing full salvation to all who do believe."

** The city of New York elected James Duane, John Jay, Philip Livingston, Isaac Low, and John Alsop delegates to the first Continental Congress, in 1774. The Dutchess county committee, whoso meetings upon the subject were held in the Van Kleek House, adopted those delegates as representatives for their district.—See Journals of Congress, i., 7.

*** On the 29th of April, 1775, ten days after the skirmish at Lexington, a meeting of the inhabitants of the city of New York, called to consider the alarming state of public affairs, formed a general Association, or fraternized, to use a popular term, and adopted a pledge. The Association and pledge were approved by the Provincial Assembly, and copies of the latter were sent to every county in the state for signatures. The following was the form of the pledge:

*** "Persuaded that the salvation of the rights and liberties of America depend, under God, on the firm union of its inhabitants in a rigorous prosecution of the measures necessary for its safety; and convinced of the necessity of preventing anarchy and confusion, which attend the dissolution of the powers of government, we, the freemen, freeholders, inhabitants of—————-, being greatly alarmed at the avowed design of the ministry to raise a revenue in America, and shocked by the bloody scene now acting in Massachusetts Bay, do, in the most solemn manner, resolve never to become slaves; and do associate, under all the ties of religion, honor, and love to our country, to adopt, and endeavor to carry into execution, whatever measures may be recommended by the Continental Congress, or resolved upon by our Provincial Convention for the purpose of preserving our Constitution, and opposing the execution of the several arbitrary Acts of the British Parliament, until a reconciliation between Great Britain and America, on constitutional principles (which we most ardently desire), can be obtained; and that we will in all things follow the advice of our General Committee respecting the purposes aforesaid, the preservation of peace and good order, and the safety of individuals and property."

The list of signers, and the names of those who refused to sign in Poughkeepsie, have been preserved. The number of signers was two hundred and thirteen; the number who refused to sign was eighty-two. A list of the names of the signers, and those who refused to sign, in the various precincts in the county, may be found in Blake's History of Putnam County, p. 102-143 inclusive.

Huddlestone.—State Convention at Poughkeepsie.—Patriot Pledge.—Federal Constitution.—The Federalist