Colonel Henry Ludington: A Memoir

by Willis Fletcher Johnson

Colonel Ludington, as has already been stated, at first occupied his estate at Fredericksburgh under a lease, and did not actually buy the land until July 15, 1812, when Samuel Gouverneur and wife made to him a deed for 229 acres. Long before the latter date, however, he had acquired other lands in Dutchess County, at least as early as 1781, when he was the owner of a large tract in the eastern part of the county several miles from his home. It was one of the perilous duties of his daughters Sibyl and Rebecca frequently to ride thither on horseback, through the Great Swamp, to see that all was well on the property. After the war he disposed of that land, as the following notice, in the “County Journal and Dutchess and Ulster Farmer’s Register,” of March 24, 1789, shows:

To Be Sold By The Subscriber:

A Farm of about 104 acres of land in Frederickstown in the County of Dutchess lying on the east side of the Great Swamp near the place where David Akins formerly lived. There are about 30 tons of the best kind of English hay cut yearly on such place, and considerable more meadow hay may be made, a sufficient quantity of plough and timber land, a good bearing orchard of the best of fruit, a large convenient new dwelling house and a stream of water running by the door. The place is well situated for a merchant or tavern keeper. Whoever should incline to purchase said place may have possession by the first of May next; the payments made as easy as possible and an indisputable title given for the same. For further particulars inquire of the subscriber or Mr. Edmund Ogden who keeps a public house on the Premises.

Henry Ludinton.

March 9th, 1789.

The result of this advertisement was the sale of the farm in question to a man from the former home of the Ludingtons in Connecticut. This appears from a document in the possession of Mr. Patrick, the original of an agreement made on November 5, 1790, between Colonel Ludington and James Linsley, of Branford, Connecticut, by which the former covenanted and agreed with the latter “to sell a certain farm situate, lying and being in Fredericksburgh butted and bounded as follows adjoining Croton River on the west side and on the south by Abijah Starr & Ebenezer Palmer and on the north by P. Starr & Samuel Huggins, Containing about one hundred and five acres.” The price to be paid at various times and in various sums was “414 pounds, New York currency.” “And furthermore the said Ludinton doth further agree with the said Linsley to Enter on the Farm of him the said Ludinton where he now Dwells to Cut and Carry away a sufficiency of timber for the framing of a Barn of the following Dimentions forty feet in Length and thirty feet in Breadth and the said Linsley hath further Liberty to enter upon the home farm of the said Ludinton and Cutt sufficient quantity of sawmill logs for to cover said Barn and after the said Linsley has drawn said logs to the saw mill of the sd Ludinton he the said Ludinton will saw sd Logs without delay free from all cost and charges of said Linsley.”

Colonel Ludington was much interested in the Presbyterian church at Frederickstown, now Patterson, and was one of its trustees. On May 22, 1793, he and his fellow trustees purchased for the church from Stiles Peet and his wife Lydia a plot of about a quarter of an acre of land for a burying ground for the church, the price being at the rate of forty shillings an acre. He also personally gave most of the lumber required for building the first academy at Patterson, an edifice which was in later years destroyed by fire.

Colonel Ludington’s tombstone at Patterson (formerly part of Fredericksburgh), N. Y.

In person Colonel Ludington was of more than ordinary stature, and of robust frame and dignified and commanding presence. He was of an eminently social disposition, and in the later years of his life he and John Jay and Colonel Crane were accustomed often to meet at their neighbor Townsend’s, for social evenings over their pipes and mugs, to exchange memories of the stirring days of the Revolution. Throughout his entire life he commanded in a high degree the respect and confidence of all who knew him, and when he died at the goodly age of 78 he was universally mourned. He died of consumption, after a prolonged illness, on January 24, 1817. His remains were buried in the churchyard of the Presbyterian church at Patterson, of which he had been a trustee, and his grave was marked with a simple stone bearing only this inscription: