Among the notables of Columbia County was Samuel J. Tilden, who was born and raised here, but who early gravitated to New York City. The local historian also sets great store by the Hon. Elisha Williams who, during the first quarter of the Nineteenth Century, was the bright particular star of the Columbia County Bar.
FIRST "STAGE- WAGGONS".
In 1786 the first systematic attempt to run stages over the Post Road appears to have been made by three Columbia County men, Isaac Van Wyck, Talmage Hall and John Kinney, as in that year the state granted to these men the exclusive right "to erect, set up, carry on and drive stage-waggons" between New York and Albany on the east side of Hudson's River, etc., fare limited to 4 pence per mile, trips once a week. Right here it is interesting to note that in 1866 Lossing wrote of the Hudson River Railway that "more than a dozen trains each way pass over portions of the road in the course of twenty-four hours."
NEVIS — CLAREMONT — BLUE STORE.
Nevis is little more than a cross-roads. Claremont a straggling village of no moment; further on the road crosses the Roeloff Jansen Kill over a bridge that looks as though it must have heard the rumble of many a stage coach.
Some newspaper antiquarian says:—
"Kill seems to be a Low Dutch word of American coinage. I have never found the word kill for brook in Low Dutch or Low German writings. I think they originally pronounced it 'küll' (cool), and to a people transplanted from a low country to a mountainous one, where the water of the brooks was cool even in midsummer, the suggestion may be plausible. The Low Dutch have 'vliet' (fleet) for stream. The German for streaming is 'strömen.' Hamburg has its numerous fleets or canals. The Low German of the Lünenburger Helde calls a brook a streak or a 'beek.' Note the word 'Beekman.'"
A hundred years or more ago, when they were naming things in these parts, Blue Store was blue store, and they keep up the tradition faithfully to-day. Everything except what nature tints is the favorite color. This was one of the principal stopping places on the Post Road, but it has sadly dwindled since the old days.
JOHNSTOWN — RACE PLACE.
Johnstown contains three Livingston houses, built by various members of this omnipresent family. The one north of the village stands on a commanding hill, and looks from the road like a handsome place. In 1805 there were twenty public houses in this place, even members of the reigning family consenting to take in the sheckels over the bar.