Monday, March 30, 2009
'Play it again, Sam'
MOVIE TRIVIA
Every once in a while a movie will come along that matches the mood of the moment so perfectly it captures this nation’s heart. Just such a film was Casablanca. Made in 1942 while the country was still reeling from the disastrous attack on Pearl Harbor, this rare and perfect example of movie making gave a disheartened populace the powerful morale boost it needed.
The Script
Irene Lee, head of the Warner Brothers story department, discovered a play script titled "Everybody Comes to Rick's,” by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison, languishing on a shelf in the company’s New York office. She touted it to studio head Jack L. Warner, who agreed to buy it for $20,000--the most any studio had ever paid for an unproduced theatrical work.
Nothing in the planning and shooting of the film Casablanca gave a hint of greatness to come. Seven screenwriters worked on the film script, often simultaneously. Some actors in featured roles had not been signed before shooting started. Script changes were frequent, with actors being handed new versions of the dialogue for a scene on the day it was to be shot. As a result, shooting ran 11 days over schedule.
To Casablanca’s stars, Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, the dialogue seemed ridiculous and the situations unbelievable. Despite the obvious on-screen chemistry between them, they hardly spoke on the set. One reason may have been the insane jealousy of Bogart’s wife, actress Mayo Methot, who repeatedly accused him of having an affair with Bergman.
The Players
Studio publicity claimed that Ronald Reagan and Ann Sheridan had been scheduled to appear in this film, and Dennis Morgan was named the third lead. This false story was planted merely to keep their names before the public. Producer Hal Wallis had been assigned to search for Humphrey Bogart’s next starring role. When he discovered that George Raft was angling for the part, he told Warner that he had found the perfect script and role for Bogart—that of the cynical, world-weary café owner, Rick Blaine. After that, no other actor was ever considered for the part. Bogart’s salary was $2,200 a week.
In those days, players were under contract to studios or producers, who traded them back and forth almost like baseball cards. Producer David O. Selznick owned Ingrid Bergman’s contract, Wallis sent the film's principal writers, Philip and Julius Epstein, to persuade Selznick to lend her to Warner Brothers for the picture.
After 20 minutes of describing the plot to Selznick, Julius gave up and said, "Oh, it's going to be a lot of s**t like Algiers." Selznick immediately understood and agreed to the loan. French star Michèle Morgan had asked for $55,000, an amount Wallis refused to pay since he could get Ingrid Bergman for $25,000. Warner agreed to lend Olivia de Haviland to Selznick in return.
Bogart was actually about two inches shorter than Bergman. To create the illusion that the opposite was true, Bogart stood on boxes, wore platform shoes and sat on pillows in some shots, or Bergman slouched down (as when she sits on the couch in the "a franc for your thoughts" scene).
Finding a foreign actor for the part of resistance leader Victor Laszlo was a problem. Herbert Marshall, Dean Jagger and Joseph Cotton were under consideration until Selznick lent Warners an unhappy Paul Henreid for the role. Having just starred in Now Voyager with Bette Davis, he was worried that playing anything less than a lead character would ruin his budding career.
Dooley Wilson, who played the part of Sam, the pianist at Bogart’s café, was borrowed from Paramount at $500 a week. His name came from his act in which he sang Irish songs in white makeup. Wilson had to fake playing the piano. The songs were actually played by pianist Elliott Carpenter hidden behind a curtain, but positioned so Wilson could see and copy his hand movements. Wallis briefly considered making the character Sam a female with Hazel Scott, Lena Horne or Ella Fitzgerald in the role.
On loan from MGM, veteran actor Conrad Veidt played the role of Major Strasser. His wife, Lily Prager, was Jewish, and they had fled Germany for England. A fervent anti-Nazi, he spent the last years of his life playing Nazis. His salary, $5,000 a week for five weeks' work, made him the highest-paid actor on the set. Another competitor for the part had been Otto Preminger, under contract to 20th Century-Fox, who wanted $7,000 a week for his services.
Production had already started when Claude Rains was signed as the corrupt Vichy Captain Renault at a salary of $4,000 a week and S.Z. “Cuddles” Sakall as Carl, Rick’s maitre d’ at $1,750 a week. Joy Page, who played the young Bulgarian wife, was the stepdaughter of studio head Jack L. Warner, but earned only $100 a week. Page, Bogart and Dooley Wilson were the only American-born actors in the credited cast.
The Songs
"As Time Goes By," the love song shared by Bogart and Bergman, was written by composer Herman Hupfeld and introduced by Frances Williams in the 1931 Broadway musical "Everybody's Welcome." It had long been a favorite of playwright Murray Burnett. Max Steiner, who composed the background music for the film, was against using the song. He wanted to compose an original song (which would qualify him for royalties). "As Time Goes By" is #2 on the American Film Institute's “100 Years/100 Songs” list.
For the “contest between the anthems" sequence, Warner Bros. had intended to use the "Horst Wessel Lied," the anthem of the Nazi party, But a German publisher owned the copyright, so they switched to the rouing "Die Wacht am Rhein." After the emotional playing of “La Marseilleise” many of the actors, refugees from Europe, were in tears.
Thanks to a stroke of luck, just before the film’s release Allied forces landed at Casablanca and elsewhere in North Africa. The studio moved up the release date to take advantage of this unexpected publicity.
Memorable Lines
Casablanca yielded more memorable quotes than any other film. Interestingly, nobody in the film ever says, "Play it again, Sam.” What Bergman says to pianist Dooley Wilson is, "Play it, Sam. Play 'As Time Goes By.'" Later, a melancholy Bogart tells Wilson: "You played it for her. You can play it for me. If she can stand it, I can. Play it!"
Claude Rains as Capt. Renault had two widely quoted lines: “"I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on here!" and "Major Strasser has been shot! Round up the usual suspects!" When Rains, as Capt. Renault, attempts to probe Bogart about his reasons for coming to Casablanca, Bogart's response is, "My health. I came for the waters." Rains is incredulous. "The waters? What waters. We are in the desert." Bogart: "I was misinformed."
Then there are the other classic gems from Bogart: ”Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine." And the two he says to Bergman, recalling the last time they met: "We’ll always have Paris." and “I remember every detail. The Germans wore gray, you wore blue.”
Few will forget Bogart's memorable parting from Bergman, “I've got a job to do. Where I'm going, you can't follow. What I've got to do, you can't be any part of, Ilsa. I'm not good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Now, here's looking at you, kid." Bogart had ad-libbed the farewell toast to Bergman earlier in the film. The line worked so well it was repeated in the airport sequence as he sends her away with Henreid.
The film concludes with Bogart’s optimistic line predictive of eventual victory over the forces of evil, "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship." Three weeks after shooting had finished and unhappy with the film’s final scene, producer Hal Wallis decided to add that line at the end of the film, as Bogart and Rains walk across the airport tarmac together. Bogart was called back from vacation and recorded what would become one of the most famous last lines in movie history.
The Film's Impact
Warners had paid $20,000 for the play, $47,281 to six writers and $73,400 to director Michael Curtiz to pull everything together. The total bill for cast salaries was $91,717. Total cost of the film was $878,000. The take from the first domestic rentals came to a cool $3.7 million, a number that made the brothers Warner very happy. It won Best Picture,, Best Director and Best Screenplay awards for 1942. It was a war picture, a love story, and even had elements of a musical. Most of all, it was a riveting drama about a different kind of bravery: little people willing to take a stand against injustice in a world rapidly falling apart.
Unlike the blatantly propagandistic movies made by Hollywood during the war, Casablanca's celebration of a timeless romance, idealistic self-sacrifice to a greater cause, and the inevitable triumph of good over evil has stood the test of time. With a running time of only 102 minutes, it is a work of art that still speaks to us today. For good reason, the American Film Institute voted it #2 in the 100 best films from the first hundred years of movie making.
Out of the near chaos that attended the making of this movie has come a story of a love that gives, rather than takes, even though the giving is not without heartbreak and pain. A story of a man who loves a woman so much he cannot bear to have her live with what he knows will be vain regret. A story of a woman torn between that love and her worship of a man and the cause he is fighting for. Casablanca is a film that idealistically portrays the beauty of sacrifice for a love that will live forever. Viewers everywhere are glad that it embodies these sentiments. Otherwise, we wouldn't have come to love it so much.
Every once in a while a movie will come along that matches the mood of the moment so perfectly it captures this nation’s heart. Just such a film was Casablanca. Made in 1942 while the country was still reeling from the disastrous attack on Pearl Harbor, this rare and perfect example of movie making gave a disheartened populace the powerful morale boost it needed.
The Script
Irene Lee, head of the Warner Brothers story department, discovered a play script titled "Everybody Comes to Rick's,” by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison, languishing on a shelf in the company’s New York office. She touted it to studio head Jack L. Warner, who agreed to buy it for $20,000--the most any studio had ever paid for an unproduced theatrical work.
Nothing in the planning and shooting of the film Casablanca gave a hint of greatness to come. Seven screenwriters worked on the film script, often simultaneously. Some actors in featured roles had not been signed before shooting started. Script changes were frequent, with actors being handed new versions of the dialogue for a scene on the day it was to be shot. As a result, shooting ran 11 days over schedule.
To Casablanca’s stars, Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, the dialogue seemed ridiculous and the situations unbelievable. Despite the obvious on-screen chemistry between them, they hardly spoke on the set. One reason may have been the insane jealousy of Bogart’s wife, actress Mayo Methot, who repeatedly accused him of having an affair with Bergman.
The Players
Studio publicity claimed that Ronald Reagan and Ann Sheridan had been scheduled to appear in this film, and Dennis Morgan was named the third lead. This false story was planted merely to keep their names before the public. Producer Hal Wallis had been assigned to search for Humphrey Bogart’s next starring role. When he discovered that George Raft was angling for the part, he told Warner that he had found the perfect script and role for Bogart—that of the cynical, world-weary café owner, Rick Blaine. After that, no other actor was ever considered for the part. Bogart’s salary was $2,200 a week.
In those days, players were under contract to studios or producers, who traded them back and forth almost like baseball cards. Producer David O. Selznick owned Ingrid Bergman’s contract, Wallis sent the film's principal writers, Philip and Julius Epstein, to persuade Selznick to lend her to Warner Brothers for the picture.
After 20 minutes of describing the plot to Selznick, Julius gave up and said, "Oh, it's going to be a lot of s**t like Algiers." Selznick immediately understood and agreed to the loan. French star Michèle Morgan had asked for $55,000, an amount Wallis refused to pay since he could get Ingrid Bergman for $25,000. Warner agreed to lend Olivia de Haviland to Selznick in return.
Bogart was actually about two inches shorter than Bergman. To create the illusion that the opposite was true, Bogart stood on boxes, wore platform shoes and sat on pillows in some shots, or Bergman slouched down (as when she sits on the couch in the "a franc for your thoughts" scene).
Finding a foreign actor for the part of resistance leader Victor Laszlo was a problem. Herbert Marshall, Dean Jagger and Joseph Cotton were under consideration until Selznick lent Warners an unhappy Paul Henreid for the role. Having just starred in Now Voyager with Bette Davis, he was worried that playing anything less than a lead character would ruin his budding career.
Dooley Wilson, who played the part of Sam, the pianist at Bogart’s café, was borrowed from Paramount at $500 a week. His name came from his act in which he sang Irish songs in white makeup. Wilson had to fake playing the piano. The songs were actually played by pianist Elliott Carpenter hidden behind a curtain, but positioned so Wilson could see and copy his hand movements. Wallis briefly considered making the character Sam a female with Hazel Scott, Lena Horne or Ella Fitzgerald in the role.
On loan from MGM, veteran actor Conrad Veidt played the role of Major Strasser. His wife, Lily Prager, was Jewish, and they had fled Germany for England. A fervent anti-Nazi, he spent the last years of his life playing Nazis. His salary, $5,000 a week for five weeks' work, made him the highest-paid actor on the set. Another competitor for the part had been Otto Preminger, under contract to 20th Century-Fox, who wanted $7,000 a week for his services.
Production had already started when Claude Rains was signed as the corrupt Vichy Captain Renault at a salary of $4,000 a week and S.Z. “Cuddles” Sakall as Carl, Rick’s maitre d’ at $1,750 a week. Joy Page, who played the young Bulgarian wife, was the stepdaughter of studio head Jack L. Warner, but earned only $100 a week. Page, Bogart and Dooley Wilson were the only American-born actors in the credited cast.
The Songs
"As Time Goes By," the love song shared by Bogart and Bergman, was written by composer Herman Hupfeld and introduced by Frances Williams in the 1931 Broadway musical "Everybody's Welcome." It had long been a favorite of playwright Murray Burnett. Max Steiner, who composed the background music for the film, was against using the song. He wanted to compose an original song (which would qualify him for royalties). "As Time Goes By" is #2 on the American Film Institute's “100 Years/100 Songs” list.
For the “contest between the anthems" sequence, Warner Bros. had intended to use the "Horst Wessel Lied," the anthem of the Nazi party, But a German publisher owned the copyright, so they switched to the rouing "Die Wacht am Rhein." After the emotional playing of “La Marseilleise” many of the actors, refugees from Europe, were in tears.
Thanks to a stroke of luck, just before the film’s release Allied forces landed at Casablanca and elsewhere in North Africa. The studio moved up the release date to take advantage of this unexpected publicity.
Memorable Lines
Casablanca yielded more memorable quotes than any other film. Interestingly, nobody in the film ever says, "Play it again, Sam.” What Bergman says to pianist Dooley Wilson is, "Play it, Sam. Play 'As Time Goes By.'" Later, a melancholy Bogart tells Wilson: "You played it for her. You can play it for me. If she can stand it, I can. Play it!"
Claude Rains as Capt. Renault had two widely quoted lines: “"I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on here!" and "Major Strasser has been shot! Round up the usual suspects!" When Rains, as Capt. Renault, attempts to probe Bogart about his reasons for coming to Casablanca, Bogart's response is, "My health. I came for the waters." Rains is incredulous. "The waters? What waters. We are in the desert." Bogart: "I was misinformed."
Then there are the other classic gems from Bogart: ”Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine." And the two he says to Bergman, recalling the last time they met: "We’ll always have Paris." and “I remember every detail. The Germans wore gray, you wore blue.”
Few will forget Bogart's memorable parting from Bergman, “I've got a job to do. Where I'm going, you can't follow. What I've got to do, you can't be any part of, Ilsa. I'm not good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Now, here's looking at you, kid." Bogart had ad-libbed the farewell toast to Bergman earlier in the film. The line worked so well it was repeated in the airport sequence as he sends her away with Henreid.
The film concludes with Bogart’s optimistic line predictive of eventual victory over the forces of evil, "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship." Three weeks after shooting had finished and unhappy with the film’s final scene, producer Hal Wallis decided to add that line at the end of the film, as Bogart and Rains walk across the airport tarmac together. Bogart was called back from vacation and recorded what would become one of the most famous last lines in movie history.
The Film's Impact
Warners had paid $20,000 for the play, $47,281 to six writers and $73,400 to director Michael Curtiz to pull everything together. The total bill for cast salaries was $91,717. Total cost of the film was $878,000. The take from the first domestic rentals came to a cool $3.7 million, a number that made the brothers Warner very happy. It won Best Picture,, Best Director and Best Screenplay awards for 1942. It was a war picture, a love story, and even had elements of a musical. Most of all, it was a riveting drama about a different kind of bravery: little people willing to take a stand against injustice in a world rapidly falling apart.
Unlike the blatantly propagandistic movies made by Hollywood during the war, Casablanca's celebration of a timeless romance, idealistic self-sacrifice to a greater cause, and the inevitable triumph of good over evil has stood the test of time. With a running time of only 102 minutes, it is a work of art that still speaks to us today. For good reason, the American Film Institute voted it #2 in the 100 best films from the first hundred years of movie making.
Out of the near chaos that attended the making of this movie has come a story of a love that gives, rather than takes, even though the giving is not without heartbreak and pain. A story of a man who loves a woman so much he cannot bear to have her live with what he knows will be vain regret. A story of a woman torn between that love and her worship of a man and the cause he is fighting for. Casablanca is a film that idealistically portrays the beauty of sacrifice for a love that will live forever. Viewers everywhere are glad that it embodies these sentiments. Otherwise, we wouldn't have come to love it so much.
Labels: Casablanca (film), Movie Trivia
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Queen of the Hudson: A History of the Hudson River Sloop
LOWER HUDSON VALLEY
Although the Dutch occupied the Hudson Valley for only fifty years, they nevertheless left a lasting maritime legacy. Many English nautical terms, for example, come from the Dutch. Captains of Dutch vessels were schippers--our word "skippers." The ships they sailed on the Hudson were sloeps and jachts. Dec meant "roof" in Dutch, and so they applied this term to the "roof" of the hold of a ship. Our word for the rail at the stern of a vessel--"taffrail"--is derived from tafereel, the Dutch word for the ornate carvings at the stern of 17th-century ships. Buoy, cruise, luff, marline, scow and yawl are other words that have Dutch antecedents.
The Dutch also left us a distinctive vessel--the Hudson River sloop. A single-masted fore-and-aft rigged, shallow-draft sailing ship with a low bowsprit and a single headsail set from the forestay, early sloops had a square-rigged topsail. A triangular sail that required fewer crew to handle later replaced this.
Evolution of the Sloop
Ungainly keelboats with high sides were the first Dutch ships in New Netherland. Drawing as much as twelve feet of water, they could also be used as ocean-going vessels. Faced with the capricious winds and powerful tides of the Hudson, however, the Dutch soon modified these cumbersome craft.
The specialized Hudson River sloop that evolved was a shallow-draft, flat-bottomed, low-sided, wide boat carrying a large area of sail--a vessel that could navigate the river's unpredictable currents. In its heyday around 1830, the average sloop on the Hudson displaced about 85 tons and could carry cargo of 125 tons more. Seventy-five feet long, with a beam as much as 25 feet, its draft was only about six feet. Emphasis in the design was on large cargo capacity and comfortable passenger accommodations. Even more important was a draft that would allow transit of the notorious Overslough, the treacherous shifting shoals and sand bars in the Hudson's upper reaches below Albany.
The river soon became an elongated commercial empire of vast extent, and the broad-beamed Hudson River sloop was its queen. In 1810, 206 sloops were plying the river. Twenty-two years later, John Finch, an English traveler, would write, "Twelve hundred sloops are employed on the Hudson. They are painted with the most brilliant colors, and their white sails and variegated flags and streamers, present a beautiful addition to the scenery of the river."
Sloops were built in virtually every Hudson River town and village. Among the vessels registered between 1789 and 1867, Nyack built 170, followed by Marlboro (in Ulster County) with 112 and Albany with 106. In the lower Hudson Valley, Mount Pleasant and Sing Sing jointly accounted for 76. Peekskill built 62.
A sloop generally carried a captain, pilot, three or four sailors, and a cabin boy or cook. Cargoes were varied. Produce of the land--flour, grain, hay, lumber, and furs--was brought downriver to the cities. Manufactured goods and imports went upriver--crockery, earthenware, cloth, hardware, oil, rum, salt, sugar, tobacco. Early sloops were called "merchant sloops," "freight sloops" or "market boats." Such vessels had no regular time of departure or fixed destination. They went when and where goods were available to be hauled.
At the peak of the sloop's popularity around 1830, a hundred could be seen on the Tappan Zee on a summer day. Every town and village along the Hudson had its own fleet of sloops, ranging from a half dozen to as many as 50 or 60. Large anchorages resembled a forest of masts.
Sloop Names
In their interesting 1908 book of reminiscences, "The Sloops of the Hudson," William E. Verplanck and Moses W. Collyer recorded the names of some sloops of the last century. Among those sailing from Sing Sing were the Belle, First Effort (built in 1830 by William Collyer), Margaret (built in 1835), Benjamin Brandreth (built in 1839 by Sniffin) and George A. Brandreth (1847).
The Collyer family played an important role in the shipbuilding industry during the 19th century. Thomas Collyer was born in Sing Sing in 1818 and at the age of 14 began working in the boatyard of his elder brother, William. By the age of 19, he had designed and built his own sloop. Eventually, he opened his own boatyard in Sing Sing. His vessels were widely sought. Moving up the Hudson to West Troy, N.Y., he built his first steamboat, the Trojan. Two others followed, the Francis Saltus and the America, for operation on Lake Champlain.
Later Thomas Collyer moved his business to the East River in New York City. Here he built speedy clipper ships, workhorse barques and steam vessels. His steamboat Daniel Drew was one of the best-known vessels on the Hudson, much admired for its speed and design. Members of the shipbuilding Collyer family are buried in Dale Cemetery in Ossining.
Croton was the home port of the sloops Abraham Cosgrove, Anna Van Cortlandt, Gen. Van Cortlandt, Katrina Van Cortlandt, Perry (Pierre?) Van Cortlandt and William Nelson, and the schooners Emma I. Southard, General Torbett, and Nicholas Meyerhoff. The George M. Dallas and Mohican (built 1837) sailed from Peekskill, and the Thomas J. Owen from Verplanck's Point.
Travelers and Artists
Much of what we know about Hudson River sloops and the commerce of the river comes to us from the accounts of early travelers. Another source is the many paintings and prints produced by the artists of the so-called Hudson River School. Dr. Alexander Hamilton, a Scottish physician who settled in Maryland and became wealthy, wrote in 1744, "To this city [Albany] belongs about 24 sloops about 50 tons burden that go and come to [New] York. They chiefly carry planks and rafters. The country about is very productive of hay and good grain, the woods not much cleared."
Swedish naturalist Peter Kalm came to America to get specimens of herb and tree seeds for the Swedish Academy of Sciences. In June of 1749, he traveled by sloop from New York to Albany. His description of sloop traffic: "They go up and down the Hudson River as long as it is open and free from ice. They bring from Albany boards or planks, and all sorts of timber, flour, peas and furs, which they get from the Indians, or which are smuggled from the French.
"They come home almost empty, and only bring a few kinds of merchandise with them, the chief of which is rum. This is absolutely necessary to the inhabitants of Albany. They cheat the Indians in the fur trade with it; for when the Indians are drunk they are practically blind and will leave it to the Albany whites to fix the price of furs. "
Richard Smith, a Quaker from Burlington, N.J., made the trip from New York to Albany in 1769 to search for commercial opportunities on the opening frontier. Attesting to the large capacities of sloops, he reported, "Our skipper says that there are at Albany 31 sloops all larger than this, which carry from 400 to 500 Barrels of Flour each.” Smith also described passenger life aboard a sloop: "These Albany Sloops contain very convenient Cabins. We eat from a regular Table accommodated with Plates, Knives & Forks & enjoyed our Tea in the Afternoon. We had laid in some provisions at N. York & the Captain some more, so that we lived very well."
A Voyage to China
Hudson River sloops occasionally ventured out to sea. One of the most daring voyages was that of the sloop Experiment to China from 1785 to 1787. Originally built at Albany for service on the Hudson, she was prepared for the China journey with only minor hull and rigging modifications. A long boat and a yawl were added, and two guns on carriages for safety, also four blunderbusses, a brace of pistols and other small arms.
The Experiment was 59 feet long on deck, with a beam of 19 feet, a depth in the hold of nine feet. Its registered displacement was 85 tons. Crewmembers included the captain, Stewart Dean, three mates, five sailors, and two cabin boys. A supercargo had charge of 101 barrels of tar, ten barrels each of turpentine and rosin, and seven barrels of "Spirits of Turpentine and Varnish." Other cargo included 15 bushels of wheat, 65 casks and boxes of ginseng root, casks of "Jamaica Spirits, Tobacco, best Scotch snuff, Old Madeira Wine, and Furrs," plus "18 Boxes of Spanish milled dollars containing a thousand dollars each."
Departing New York on December 18, 1785, the Experiment sailed around the Cape of Good Hope, across the Indian Ocean and through the Java and China seas. It reached Canton in China on June 12, 1786. The voyage turned out to be not very profitable. Chinese port charges were assessed at a flat rate, whatever the size of the ship. Captain Dean's little vessel was at a distinct disadvantage compared to larger ships engaged in the China trade. Carrying a cargo of tea, silks, porcelain and nankeen on the return voyage, the Experiment left China on December 10, 1786, and reached New York on April 22, 1787.
After this remarkable venture, the Experiment was sold to new owners and fitted out for passenger service on the Hudson. The French consul in New York, Michel-Guillaume St. Jean de Crevecoeur, chose this sloop for a trip up the Hudson to New Windsor. He cited "the fineness of its construction, the unusual comfort of its staterooms, and especially the hope that the conversation of Captain Dean would be interesting."
More Travelers' Accounts
In July 1796, Isaac Weld, a young Irish "topographical writer" and illustrator, who had come to the United States to check on its sutability to receive Irish immigrants, took passage from New York to Albany. "Our sloop was no more than 70 tons burthen by register," he noted, "but the accommodations she afforded were most excellent, and far superior to what might be expected on so small a vessel; the cabin was equally large with that in a common merchant vessel of 300 tons built for crossing the ocean. This was due to the great breadth of her beam, which was no less than 22 feet and a half, although her length was only 55 feet. All the sloops engaged in this trade are built nearly on the same construction; short, broad and very shallow, few of them draw more than five or six feet of water."
John Maude, another British traveler, embarked from New York in June 1800 "on board the sloop Sally, Captain Peter Donnelly, 70 tons, four hands....24 passengers, not berths for more than half, Board and liquors, as may happen."Uopn his attival ay Albany, "Paid the Captain two dollars for passage-money, and four dollars and fifty cents, for board and liquors; the same sum of six dollars and fifty cents was charged for my servant, though neither his bed nor board were so good as mine." Below Albany the wind died down. Laboriously, the crew towed the sloop with the stern boat.
During Maude's return journey on another sloop, the Magdelene, it grounded twice on the Overslaugh, although much of its cargo was still on an accompanying lighter. It was necessary to move the sloop off the shoals by kedging--carrying a light anchor to deeper water in a small boat and hauling the sloop to the embedded anchor with the windlass. Later, when the wind failed, the crew propelled the Magdalene with long oars called "sweeps."
In 1832, John Finch, another visitor from Britain, wrote that "the port of New York is crowded with vessels of every description; the sloops which sail on the North River, and those which carry on the coatal trade to the East and Southj, are very conspicuous....Twleve hundred sloops are employed on the Hudson. They are painted with the most brilliant colors, and their white sails, and variegated flags and streamers, present a beautiful addition to the scenery of the river."
Sloops Grow Larger
An innovation in design enabled sloops to be made larger and increase their carrying capacity. This was the centerboard, a vertically sliding dropped keel that made the vessel much easier to handle. Arthur H. Clark, author of a 1904 history of yachting, attributes the invention of the pivoted centerboard to a British naval officer, Molyneux Shuldham, who built a model of one in 1809 while a prisoner of war in France.
A U.S. patent for a centerboard was granted on April 10, 1811, to Henry, Jacocks and Joshua Swain, three brothers from Cape May, N.J. Hudson River boat builders added centerboards to sloops five years later. A centerboard made it possible for a large and heavily laden vessel to have a draft of only six feet, and clear the treacherous Overslough. This sandbar was such a hindrance to navigation a channel was dredged through it in the 1830's.
Steamboat operators published timetables showing arrival and departure times at the ports they served. This led to the introduction of competing "packet sloop" service. First to do this was Capt. Elihu S. Bunker of Hudson, N.Y.
John Lambert, an obscure young Englishman, has left us a word picture of travel on a large packet sloop. He had been sent to Canada in 1806 to encourage the cultivation of hemp needed for cordage on sailing ships. Failing in his mission, in 1807 Lambert decided see the sights of North America before returning to England. Because the river was frozen below Albany, his plan to take Robert Fulton's new steamboat to New York was stymied because it had been withdrawn from service for reconstruction to increase its passenger-carrying capacity during the winter.
Lambert traveled overland to the town of Hudson, where he booked passage on Captain Bunker's brand new sloop, paying five dollars, for which passengers also received three meals a day, "including spirits." Built at Marlboro and named the Experiment, at 130 tons it was "the largest and best" sloop specifically designed for the Hudson River passenger trade.
It had two private cabins toward the stern containing several berths for women. Amidships was a large general room upwards of 60 feet long and 20 feet wide, containing on each side a double tier of berths with printed cotton curtains for men. At the front of this cabin was a bar "like that of a coffee-house," where the passengers could buy "wine, bottled porter, ale, segars, and such articles as were not included in the passage-money." Between the bar and the crew's quarters in the forecastle was "a very complete kitchen fitted up with a good fire-place, copper boilers and every convenience for cooking."
Decline and Fall
Starting in 1807, steamboats offered competition, but sloops remained an important means of transport. At first, steam vessels were not ready to capture the bulk of the lucrative passenger business from sloops. Robert Fulton's monopoly on steam navigation limited the number of steam vessels in service before 1825. Moreover, his company had to overcome the misgivings of travelers that steamboats were dangerous. Several well-publicized incidents of mechanical breakdown of steam vessels led some to believe that steamboats were an unreliable or even a dangerous mode of travel. Sloops were also popular because they offered service to and from the smaller towns at which the steamers did not stop.
Completion of the Hudson River Railroad in 1851, however, sealed the sloop's doom. The first train had sped from New York City to Greenbush, opposite Albany, in less than four hours. Additional competition from tow boats and barges eventually limited sloops to two tasks: local traffic in goods and passengers, and the carrying of low-priority bulk cargoes--lumber, bricks, coal, flagstone, lime, cement and hay--in their holds and on their broad decks. Sloops that transported bricks were dubbed "brickers."
By 1860, few sloops were being built. One of the last of these was the Stephen Underhill, displacing 42 tons, launched at Croton Point in 1867. Older sloops that remained were converted to more easily managed two-masted schooner rigs or became mastless barges and harbor lighters. Others were weighted with stones and sunk to become breakwaters, or were run aground and left to rot. At the turn of the century, only a few abandoned hulks survived. The last of these was destroyed on a beach in Staten Island by the devastating hurricane of 1938.
Hudson River sloops are now gone from the scene, but a few modern replicas remind us of their glory days. The Clearwater, designed by Cyrus Hamlin and built in 1969 by the Harvey Gamage Shipyard Company of South Bristol, Maine, is used for educational purposes. Slight modifications in hull design had to be made to conform to Coast Guard regulations, and an auxiliary engine was added. Two smaller sloops, called "ferry sloops," also were built. A wooden-hulled Woody Guthrie, and the Sojourner Truth, with a hull of ferro-cement, replicate the smaller market sloops owned and operated by farmers and local entrepreneurs. These ships remind us that any culture that fails to appreciate and honor its past cannot have much of a future.
Although the Dutch occupied the Hudson Valley for only fifty years, they nevertheless left a lasting maritime legacy. Many English nautical terms, for example, come from the Dutch. Captains of Dutch vessels were schippers--our word "skippers." The ships they sailed on the Hudson were sloeps and jachts. Dec meant "roof" in Dutch, and so they applied this term to the "roof" of the hold of a ship. Our word for the rail at the stern of a vessel--"taffrail"--is derived from tafereel, the Dutch word for the ornate carvings at the stern of 17th-century ships. Buoy, cruise, luff, marline, scow and yawl are other words that have Dutch antecedents.
The Dutch also left us a distinctive vessel--the Hudson River sloop. A single-masted fore-and-aft rigged, shallow-draft sailing ship with a low bowsprit and a single headsail set from the forestay, early sloops had a square-rigged topsail. A triangular sail that required fewer crew to handle later replaced this.
Evolution of the Sloop
Ungainly keelboats with high sides were the first Dutch ships in New Netherland. Drawing as much as twelve feet of water, they could also be used as ocean-going vessels. Faced with the capricious winds and powerful tides of the Hudson, however, the Dutch soon modified these cumbersome craft.
The specialized Hudson River sloop that evolved was a shallow-draft, flat-bottomed, low-sided, wide boat carrying a large area of sail--a vessel that could navigate the river's unpredictable currents. In its heyday around 1830, the average sloop on the Hudson displaced about 85 tons and could carry cargo of 125 tons more. Seventy-five feet long, with a beam as much as 25 feet, its draft was only about six feet. Emphasis in the design was on large cargo capacity and comfortable passenger accommodations. Even more important was a draft that would allow transit of the notorious Overslough, the treacherous shifting shoals and sand bars in the Hudson's upper reaches below Albany.
The river soon became an elongated commercial empire of vast extent, and the broad-beamed Hudson River sloop was its queen. In 1810, 206 sloops were plying the river. Twenty-two years later, John Finch, an English traveler, would write, "Twelve hundred sloops are employed on the Hudson. They are painted with the most brilliant colors, and their white sails and variegated flags and streamers, present a beautiful addition to the scenery of the river."
Sloops were built in virtually every Hudson River town and village. Among the vessels registered between 1789 and 1867, Nyack built 170, followed by Marlboro (in Ulster County) with 112 and Albany with 106. In the lower Hudson Valley, Mount Pleasant and Sing Sing jointly accounted for 76. Peekskill built 62.
A sloop generally carried a captain, pilot, three or four sailors, and a cabin boy or cook. Cargoes were varied. Produce of the land--flour, grain, hay, lumber, and furs--was brought downriver to the cities. Manufactured goods and imports went upriver--crockery, earthenware, cloth, hardware, oil, rum, salt, sugar, tobacco. Early sloops were called "merchant sloops," "freight sloops" or "market boats." Such vessels had no regular time of departure or fixed destination. They went when and where goods were available to be hauled.
At the peak of the sloop's popularity around 1830, a hundred could be seen on the Tappan Zee on a summer day. Every town and village along the Hudson had its own fleet of sloops, ranging from a half dozen to as many as 50 or 60. Large anchorages resembled a forest of masts.
Sloop Names
In their interesting 1908 book of reminiscences, "The Sloops of the Hudson," William E. Verplanck and Moses W. Collyer recorded the names of some sloops of the last century. Among those sailing from Sing Sing were the Belle, First Effort (built in 1830 by William Collyer), Margaret (built in 1835), Benjamin Brandreth (built in 1839 by Sniffin) and George A. Brandreth (1847).
The Collyer family played an important role in the shipbuilding industry during the 19th century. Thomas Collyer was born in Sing Sing in 1818 and at the age of 14 began working in the boatyard of his elder brother, William. By the age of 19, he had designed and built his own sloop. Eventually, he opened his own boatyard in Sing Sing. His vessels were widely sought. Moving up the Hudson to West Troy, N.Y., he built his first steamboat, the Trojan. Two others followed, the Francis Saltus and the America, for operation on Lake Champlain.
Later Thomas Collyer moved his business to the East River in New York City. Here he built speedy clipper ships, workhorse barques and steam vessels. His steamboat Daniel Drew was one of the best-known vessels on the Hudson, much admired for its speed and design. Members of the shipbuilding Collyer family are buried in Dale Cemetery in Ossining.
Croton was the home port of the sloops Abraham Cosgrove, Anna Van Cortlandt, Gen. Van Cortlandt, Katrina Van Cortlandt, Perry (Pierre?) Van Cortlandt and William Nelson, and the schooners Emma I. Southard, General Torbett, and Nicholas Meyerhoff. The George M. Dallas and Mohican (built 1837) sailed from Peekskill, and the Thomas J. Owen from Verplanck's Point.
Travelers and Artists
Much of what we know about Hudson River sloops and the commerce of the river comes to us from the accounts of early travelers. Another source is the many paintings and prints produced by the artists of the so-called Hudson River School. Dr. Alexander Hamilton, a Scottish physician who settled in Maryland and became wealthy, wrote in 1744, "To this city [Albany] belongs about 24 sloops about 50 tons burden that go and come to [New] York. They chiefly carry planks and rafters. The country about is very productive of hay and good grain, the woods not much cleared."
Swedish naturalist Peter Kalm came to America to get specimens of herb and tree seeds for the Swedish Academy of Sciences. In June of 1749, he traveled by sloop from New York to Albany. His description of sloop traffic: "They go up and down the Hudson River as long as it is open and free from ice. They bring from Albany boards or planks, and all sorts of timber, flour, peas and furs, which they get from the Indians, or which are smuggled from the French.
"They come home almost empty, and only bring a few kinds of merchandise with them, the chief of which is rum. This is absolutely necessary to the inhabitants of Albany. They cheat the Indians in the fur trade with it; for when the Indians are drunk they are practically blind and will leave it to the Albany whites to fix the price of furs. "
Richard Smith, a Quaker from Burlington, N.J., made the trip from New York to Albany in 1769 to search for commercial opportunities on the opening frontier. Attesting to the large capacities of sloops, he reported, "Our skipper says that there are at Albany 31 sloops all larger than this, which carry from 400 to 500 Barrels of Flour each.” Smith also described passenger life aboard a sloop: "These Albany Sloops contain very convenient Cabins. We eat from a regular Table accommodated with Plates, Knives & Forks & enjoyed our Tea in the Afternoon. We had laid in some provisions at N. York & the Captain some more, so that we lived very well."
A Voyage to China
Hudson River sloops occasionally ventured out to sea. One of the most daring voyages was that of the sloop Experiment to China from 1785 to 1787. Originally built at Albany for service on the Hudson, she was prepared for the China journey with only minor hull and rigging modifications. A long boat and a yawl were added, and two guns on carriages for safety, also four blunderbusses, a brace of pistols and other small arms.
The Experiment was 59 feet long on deck, with a beam of 19 feet, a depth in the hold of nine feet. Its registered displacement was 85 tons. Crewmembers included the captain, Stewart Dean, three mates, five sailors, and two cabin boys. A supercargo had charge of 101 barrels of tar, ten barrels each of turpentine and rosin, and seven barrels of "Spirits of Turpentine and Varnish." Other cargo included 15 bushels of wheat, 65 casks and boxes of ginseng root, casks of "Jamaica Spirits, Tobacco, best Scotch snuff, Old Madeira Wine, and Furrs," plus "18 Boxes of Spanish milled dollars containing a thousand dollars each."
Departing New York on December 18, 1785, the Experiment sailed around the Cape of Good Hope, across the Indian Ocean and through the Java and China seas. It reached Canton in China on June 12, 1786. The voyage turned out to be not very profitable. Chinese port charges were assessed at a flat rate, whatever the size of the ship. Captain Dean's little vessel was at a distinct disadvantage compared to larger ships engaged in the China trade. Carrying a cargo of tea, silks, porcelain and nankeen on the return voyage, the Experiment left China on December 10, 1786, and reached New York on April 22, 1787.
After this remarkable venture, the Experiment was sold to new owners and fitted out for passenger service on the Hudson. The French consul in New York, Michel-Guillaume St. Jean de Crevecoeur, chose this sloop for a trip up the Hudson to New Windsor. He cited "the fineness of its construction, the unusual comfort of its staterooms, and especially the hope that the conversation of Captain Dean would be interesting."
More Travelers' Accounts
In July 1796, Isaac Weld, a young Irish "topographical writer" and illustrator, who had come to the United States to check on its sutability to receive Irish immigrants, took passage from New York to Albany. "Our sloop was no more than 70 tons burthen by register," he noted, "but the accommodations she afforded were most excellent, and far superior to what might be expected on so small a vessel; the cabin was equally large with that in a common merchant vessel of 300 tons built for crossing the ocean. This was due to the great breadth of her beam, which was no less than 22 feet and a half, although her length was only 55 feet. All the sloops engaged in this trade are built nearly on the same construction; short, broad and very shallow, few of them draw more than five or six feet of water."
John Maude, another British traveler, embarked from New York in June 1800 "on board the sloop Sally, Captain Peter Donnelly, 70 tons, four hands....24 passengers, not berths for more than half, Board and liquors, as may happen."Uopn his attival ay Albany, "Paid the Captain two dollars for passage-money, and four dollars and fifty cents, for board and liquors; the same sum of six dollars and fifty cents was charged for my servant, though neither his bed nor board were so good as mine." Below Albany the wind died down. Laboriously, the crew towed the sloop with the stern boat.
During Maude's return journey on another sloop, the Magdelene, it grounded twice on the Overslaugh, although much of its cargo was still on an accompanying lighter. It was necessary to move the sloop off the shoals by kedging--carrying a light anchor to deeper water in a small boat and hauling the sloop to the embedded anchor with the windlass. Later, when the wind failed, the crew propelled the Magdalene with long oars called "sweeps."
In 1832, John Finch, another visitor from Britain, wrote that "the port of New York is crowded with vessels of every description; the sloops which sail on the North River, and those which carry on the coatal trade to the East and Southj, are very conspicuous....Twleve hundred sloops are employed on the Hudson. They are painted with the most brilliant colors, and their white sails, and variegated flags and streamers, present a beautiful addition to the scenery of the river."
Sloops Grow Larger
An innovation in design enabled sloops to be made larger and increase their carrying capacity. This was the centerboard, a vertically sliding dropped keel that made the vessel much easier to handle. Arthur H. Clark, author of a 1904 history of yachting, attributes the invention of the pivoted centerboard to a British naval officer, Molyneux Shuldham, who built a model of one in 1809 while a prisoner of war in France.
A U.S. patent for a centerboard was granted on April 10, 1811, to Henry, Jacocks and Joshua Swain, three brothers from Cape May, N.J. Hudson River boat builders added centerboards to sloops five years later. A centerboard made it possible for a large and heavily laden vessel to have a draft of only six feet, and clear the treacherous Overslough. This sandbar was such a hindrance to navigation a channel was dredged through it in the 1830's.
Steamboat operators published timetables showing arrival and departure times at the ports they served. This led to the introduction of competing "packet sloop" service. First to do this was Capt. Elihu S. Bunker of Hudson, N.Y.
John Lambert, an obscure young Englishman, has left us a word picture of travel on a large packet sloop. He had been sent to Canada in 1806 to encourage the cultivation of hemp needed for cordage on sailing ships. Failing in his mission, in 1807 Lambert decided see the sights of North America before returning to England. Because the river was frozen below Albany, his plan to take Robert Fulton's new steamboat to New York was stymied because it had been withdrawn from service for reconstruction to increase its passenger-carrying capacity during the winter.
Lambert traveled overland to the town of Hudson, where he booked passage on Captain Bunker's brand new sloop, paying five dollars, for which passengers also received three meals a day, "including spirits." Built at Marlboro and named the Experiment, at 130 tons it was "the largest and best" sloop specifically designed for the Hudson River passenger trade.
It had two private cabins toward the stern containing several berths for women. Amidships was a large general room upwards of 60 feet long and 20 feet wide, containing on each side a double tier of berths with printed cotton curtains for men. At the front of this cabin was a bar "like that of a coffee-house," where the passengers could buy "wine, bottled porter, ale, segars, and such articles as were not included in the passage-money." Between the bar and the crew's quarters in the forecastle was "a very complete kitchen fitted up with a good fire-place, copper boilers and every convenience for cooking."
Decline and Fall
Starting in 1807, steamboats offered competition, but sloops remained an important means of transport. At first, steam vessels were not ready to capture the bulk of the lucrative passenger business from sloops. Robert Fulton's monopoly on steam navigation limited the number of steam vessels in service before 1825. Moreover, his company had to overcome the misgivings of travelers that steamboats were dangerous. Several well-publicized incidents of mechanical breakdown of steam vessels led some to believe that steamboats were an unreliable or even a dangerous mode of travel. Sloops were also popular because they offered service to and from the smaller towns at which the steamers did not stop.
Completion of the Hudson River Railroad in 1851, however, sealed the sloop's doom. The first train had sped from New York City to Greenbush, opposite Albany, in less than four hours. Additional competition from tow boats and barges eventually limited sloops to two tasks: local traffic in goods and passengers, and the carrying of low-priority bulk cargoes--lumber, bricks, coal, flagstone, lime, cement and hay--in their holds and on their broad decks. Sloops that transported bricks were dubbed "brickers."
By 1860, few sloops were being built. One of the last of these was the Stephen Underhill, displacing 42 tons, launched at Croton Point in 1867. Older sloops that remained were converted to more easily managed two-masted schooner rigs or became mastless barges and harbor lighters. Others were weighted with stones and sunk to become breakwaters, or were run aground and left to rot. At the turn of the century, only a few abandoned hulks survived. The last of these was destroyed on a beach in Staten Island by the devastating hurricane of 1938.
Hudson River sloops are now gone from the scene, but a few modern replicas remind us of their glory days. The Clearwater, designed by Cyrus Hamlin and built in 1969 by the Harvey Gamage Shipyard Company of South Bristol, Maine, is used for educational purposes. Slight modifications in hull design had to be made to conform to Coast Guard regulations, and an auxiliary engine was added. Two smaller sloops, called "ferry sloops," also were built. A wooden-hulled Woody Guthrie, and the Sojourner Truth, with a hull of ferro-cement, replicate the smaller market sloops owned and operated by farmers and local entrepreneurs. These ships remind us that any culture that fails to appreciate and honor its past cannot have much of a future.
Labels: Hudson River, Hudson River Sloops
Thursday, March 19, 2009
When Sing Sing Was a 'Model' Prison
LOWER HUDSON VALLEY
Today, the average new book has a shelf life somewhere between milk and yogurt. Yet a book published in 1835 continues to command the attention of scholars, politicians, students of government, and the reading public. "Democracy in America," by Alexis de Tocqueville, remains a penetrating and astute picture of American politics, manners and morals of 174 years ago. Unfortunately, the greatness of Tocqueville's book overshadows the joint earlier report on the penitentiary systems of the United States prepared by him and Gustave de Beaumont.
Tocqueville, 26, an assistant magistrate at the law court of Versailles who would later briefly be France's minister of foreign affairs, and his friend Beaumont, 29, arrived in the United States early in May of 1831. Commissioned by the French Minister of the Interior, they came to study American penitentiaries. Their interest in prisons was almost a cover for a private purpose: to understand the social and political institutions of the young republic. In July of 1830, Charles X, the last Bourbon king of France, was overthrown in a revolution that installed Louis Philippe, dubbed "the Citizen King." Tocqueville and Beaumont were unhappy with the new king and wanted an excuse to leave the country. Prison reform was in the air, and so they proposed to study American prisons at their own expense.. The French government accepted their offer.
Although most of the nine months the two spent in the United States was devoted to other matters, they carried out their prison investigations faithfully. Despite their subordinate status in the French bureaucracy, they were lionized everywhere they went in America--much to their surprise and delight. What makes Tocqueville and Beaumont especially interesting to readers in the Lower Hudson Valley is their nine-day visit to the village of Sing Sing [the name was changed to Ossining in 1901] and their close examination of the village and the prison.
They reached Newport, R.I., on May 9, 1831, after a journey from Le Havre of 37 days. Their ship had a crew of 18, 165 passengers, a cow, and a donkey. Boh Frenchmen worked hard to improve their knowledge of English by conversing with as many English-speaking passengers as they could find. The food on board had almost run out, so they convinced the captain to put them ashore at Newport. From here they caught a steamboat for New York City. Arriving the next day, they found lodging in a boarding house at 66 Broadway, diagonally across from Trinity Church.
The New York Evening Post of May 11, 1831, reported their arrival and predicted that they would find American prison authorities cooperative: "Two magistrates, Mssrs. De Beaumont and de Tonqueville [sic] have arrived in the ship Havre, sent by order of the Ministry of the Interior, to examine the various prisons in our country, and make a report on their return to France. The French government have it in contemplation to improve their Penitentiary system, and take this means of obtaining all proper information. In our country, we have no doubt that every facility will be extended to the gentlemen who have arrived."
A New York Welcome
They were royally entertained and shown some of the city's places of detention. The House of Refuge for Delinquent Minors, at what is now the northwest corner of the present Madison Square Park, was of interest to them because a similar institution was being constructed in Melun, France, along the same architectural plan. Next came a visit to the Bloomingdale Asylum for the Insane, located at what is now the Columbia University campus.
On the return trip, the official party, in five carriages, stopped at the Deaf and Dumb Asylum on Fifth Avenue and the Bellevue Almshouse on First Avenue, between 27th and 28th streets. Their tour ended with a visit to a city prison housing four hundred inmates on Blackwell's Island in the East River.
After two hectic weeks, the two young Frenchmen were looking forward to escaping from the city. "You can have no conception of the activity of our existence," Beaumont wrote to his father. "We haven't time to breathe. It's a creeping barrage of agreeable invitations, useful occupations, official presentations, etc., etc."
The state prison at Sing Sing was the largest in the United States. Tocqueville and Beaumont decided to make it the first institution studied on their trip. Before making that journey with Tocqueville and Beaumont, let us pause to examine prison reform in the United States.
The Bad Old Days
The English colonists of America had brought with them the harsh penal practices of England and Scotland in the 17th and 18th centuries. Under a rigorous criminal code, many offenses were punishable by death--the neatest way for a society to get rid of its objectionable criminals. In the words of Edward Channing in his monumental "History of the United States," lesser offenders were "treated with pitiless publicity combined with bodily pain." Their punishment consisted of flogging, mutilation, and branding or public exposure in the stocks, and a heavy timber frame with holes for confining the ankles and sometimes the wrists. Little concern was expressed for the rehabilitation or reformation of criminals
Under this system there really was no prison problem. The dead required no confinement. Those who were punished harshly were returned to society maimed and bruised--but alive. There was no middle ground. Only debtors and those awaiting trial were housed in local jails in the mother country.
Prison Reform Begins
In the colonies, however, such practices were unpopular. Religious freedom had given rise to attitudes that called for changes in the system. One religious group in particular--members of the Society of Friends, called "Quakers"--opposed the harsh punishments of the mother country. With a frontier requiring settlement and exploitation, the feeling was human resources were too scarce and too valuable to waste.
The American Revolution accelerated the growth of these sentiments. With freedom from Britain came a reduction in the number of capital offenses. Punishment for lesser offenses veered away from the infliction of pain and humiliation to imprisonment. The results, however, were not what were expected. Prisoners of all ages, sexes, colors or criminal experience were incarcerated together in large, unventilated, unclean and unhealthful rooms. The overcrowded pestilential prisons became veritable training schools of crime and vice.
The logical solution was detention in individual cells, a movement begun by Quakers in Pennsylvania. Rather than kill or punish criminals, they argued it was a Christian duty to reform them. Their belief was strict solitary confinement, day and night, would cause prisoners to repent. They called this new kind of prison a "penitentiary," or house of penitence.
The Auburn System
In 1821, New York State decided to test the penitentiary theory on 80 convicts at the recently constructed Auburn Prison in the Finger Lakes region. It soon became obvious that solitary confinement broke the health and the spirit of prisoners. Within three years, so many had died or became ill or insane the governor pardoned the survivors.
Penology was still an infant science, but it was clear that it was necessary to employ convicts at useful labor. Accordingly, during the day prisoners at Auburn were brought together in shops to work at various tasks. To maintain their isolation, however, inmates were not allowed to talk or communicate while at work. The whip enforced this rule; welts on a prisoner's body left by a whipping were called "stripes." The practice of solitary confinement by night and group work by day--always in silence--became known as "the Auburn system."
The Pennsylvania System
By contrast, in Pennsylvania the principle of total solitary confinement was maintained, but with a significant difference: inmates were provided with work in their cells, each of which had a small walled backyard where exercise could be taken. The newly constructed Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia epitomized the Pennsylvania system of "solitude and labor," and carried the principle of isolation to an extreme.
Its auditorium was constructed with enclosed seats and a small opening so each inmate in the audience could see only the stage. At a signal, each convict in his cell placed a pillowcase over his head and stood by the cell door. Keepers unlocked the doors; the convicts stepped out, turned and--with one hand on the shoulder of the man in front--were led in single file into the auditorium. After the religious service or lecture, they donned their pillowcases again and returned to their cells. The peculiar gait required in this maneuver was called "the lock step." In effect, America had two competing philosophies and two systems of imprisonment: the Auburn system and the Pennsylvania system.
Building a Prison
In 1825, when the state decided to build a large prison convenient to New York City, the village of Sing Sing was chosen as the site. Selected as warden was Elam Lynds, a veteran of the War of 1812 in which he was promoted from private to captain for bravery under fire. Lynds had developed the Auburn system. Taking a hundred convicts with him from Auburn, he built the Sing Sing prison's first cellblock. At 600 feet long, it was the length of two football fields. Under the twin disciplines of silence and the whip, prisoners cut the gray-white dolomitic limestone in a nearby quarry by day and slept in tents at night. Working as stone masons, carpenters and painters, the inmates actually built their own penitentiary. This historic building was gutted by fire on February 5, 1984, during a snowstorm. An empty shell, it still stands within the prison walls and can be seen from Metro-North trains.
According to one story, Elam Lynds heard that an inmate, a former barber, had vowed to kill him. He had the prisoner brought to his quarters, where he was given a straight razor and ordered to shave Lynds. The man obeyed, but had obviously lost his nerve. When the prisoner finished his task, Lynds said, "I know you wanted to kill me, but I despised you too much to believe that you would ever have the courage to execute your design. Alone and without arms, I am always stronger than you."
Lewis E. Lawes, for many years the warden at Sing Sing, used this anecdote in his 1935 book, "Cell 202--Sing Sing," an account of four prisoners who successively occupied the same cell over a period of a hundred years.
On May 28, 1831, Tocqueville wrote to Abbé Lesueur: "We are going tomorrow to Sing-Sing, a village ten leagues from New York and situated on the North River. We shall stay there a week to study the discipline of a vast penitentiary system recently built there. What we have seen up to now suffices to prove to us that prisons attract general attention here and that in several respects they are much better than those of France. We are delighted to go to Sing-Sing. It is impossible to imagine anything more beautiful than the North of Hudson River. The great width of the stream, the admirable richness of the north bank and the steep mountains which border its eastern margins make it one of the most admirable sights in the world."
Impressions of the Village of Sing Sing
On May 29th, Tocqueville and Beaumont packed their bags and made their way up the Albany Post Road to Sing Sing. They found lodging at a large home not far from Main Street. This was the country house of James Smith, a New York lawyer. It is still standing on State Street, having later become part of the Printex Building. Although the community had officially become Sing Sing in 1813, many still referred to it by its former name, Mt. Pleasant. William Durrell published the first newspaper in Westchester County, the Mt. Pleasant Register, there in 1797.
"It's a town of 1000 to 1200 souls that has been rendered famous by its prison, the largest in the United States," Tocqueville wrote to his father. "We have come here with the intention of examining it from top to bottom; we have already been here a week, and we experience a well-being you cannot conceive. The extreme agitation in which we were obliged to live in New York, the number of visits we had to make and receive each day began to weary us a little.
"Here we have the best employed and most peaceful existence. We live with a very decent American family that holds us in great consideration. We have made the acquaintance in the village of several persons whom we go to see when we are free." The idyllic Hudson was "covered with sails; it penetrates to the north and disappears between high blue mountains." Arising at five each morning, they took a short walk; after breakfast at 8:30, another walk. In the evening at seven, they went swimming in the Hudson, where Tocqueville taught Beaumont to swim.
In a letter home, Beaumont described a peculiar propensity of American women for breaking into song: "They haven't the taste for it, it's only a matter of fashion; they sing in a screamingly funny way. There is in their throat a certain gentle cooing that has a particular character that I could never render, but which has nothing in common with the laws of harmony. If one says to them, 'You sing wonderfully,' they reply with rare ingenuousness, 'It's very true.' They study piano for three months, then they play without the least reluctance, admitting always with good grace they are mad about music and they have a real talent." He added, "What's more, this love of praise crops up everywhere with the Americans, and one could never praise them enough to satisfy them."
Tocqueville's diary reveals many fascinating local tidbits: "There's an old man at Sing Sing who can remember seeing Indians living here. The name itself of Sing Sing is taken from the name of an Indian Chief." Another entry reads: "We were shown the house where a descendant of Oliver Cromwell lives." This would have been Sing Sing resident Oliver Cromwell. Born in London in 1765, he died in 1835 and is buried in the Field plot in Sparta Cemetery.
Investigating the prison
Turning their attention to the prison, Tocqueville and Beaumont pursued their investigations with great vigor. The asked questions about everything: administration, the keepers' salaries, what food was served, what work was done, how many floggings were administered. The latter number turned out to be five or six a day. They pored over archival records, examined architectural plans, poked into every corner, and quizzed everyone they could find. They even sat in classes at the prison school and attended Sunday religious services. They were amazed at what they discovered. Thirty-four keepers controlled about a thousand convicts. The prisoners were "free" during the day. They wore no chains and no walls kept them in. Yet no one tried to escape.
Tocqueville and Beaumont later investigated penitentiaries at Auburn, N.Y., Charlestown, Mass., Wethersfield, Conn., Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, and Pittsburgh. At Philadelphia's Eastern State Penitentiary, they took the unusual step of interviewing each prisoner.
The Aftermath
By the time they returned to France in May of 1832, they had become ardent admirers of American democratic institutions. Tocqueville found himself unable to concentrate on writing their joint report on prisons. In the end, the task fell to Beaumont, who is listed as the principle author. Tocqueville's contribution was limited to the statistical notes in an appendix.
"Du Systeme Penitentiare" appeared in 1833, and influenced prison reform and the science of penology. In it, the authors urged France to copy one of the two American penitentiary systems. Translated into English by Francis Lieber, "On the Penitentiary System in the United States" was published in Philadelphia in the same year. It remains the single best study and description of the two contrasting American penitentiary systems of the 19th century.
Tocqueville's failure to contribute to the prison report is understandable. His eyes were on distant horizons of memory. He was turning over in his mind the treasure trove of information he had gathered about American society and institutions. Two years later he would publish the first volumes of his remarkable "Democracy in America," today regarded as one of the great books of the western world. But the story of that enduring work will have to wait for another day.
Today, the average new book has a shelf life somewhere between milk and yogurt. Yet a book published in 1835 continues to command the attention of scholars, politicians, students of government, and the reading public. "Democracy in America," by Alexis de Tocqueville, remains a penetrating and astute picture of American politics, manners and morals of 174 years ago. Unfortunately, the greatness of Tocqueville's book overshadows the joint earlier report on the penitentiary systems of the United States prepared by him and Gustave de Beaumont.
Tocqueville, 26, an assistant magistrate at the law court of Versailles who would later briefly be France's minister of foreign affairs, and his friend Beaumont, 29, arrived in the United States early in May of 1831. Commissioned by the French Minister of the Interior, they came to study American penitentiaries. Their interest in prisons was almost a cover for a private purpose: to understand the social and political institutions of the young republic. In July of 1830, Charles X, the last Bourbon king of France, was overthrown in a revolution that installed Louis Philippe, dubbed "the Citizen King." Tocqueville and Beaumont were unhappy with the new king and wanted an excuse to leave the country. Prison reform was in the air, and so they proposed to study American prisons at their own expense.. The French government accepted their offer.
Although most of the nine months the two spent in the United States was devoted to other matters, they carried out their prison investigations faithfully. Despite their subordinate status in the French bureaucracy, they were lionized everywhere they went in America--much to their surprise and delight. What makes Tocqueville and Beaumont especially interesting to readers in the Lower Hudson Valley is their nine-day visit to the village of Sing Sing [the name was changed to Ossining in 1901] and their close examination of the village and the prison.
They reached Newport, R.I., on May 9, 1831, after a journey from Le Havre of 37 days. Their ship had a crew of 18, 165 passengers, a cow, and a donkey. Boh Frenchmen worked hard to improve their knowledge of English by conversing with as many English-speaking passengers as they could find. The food on board had almost run out, so they convinced the captain to put them ashore at Newport. From here they caught a steamboat for New York City. Arriving the next day, they found lodging in a boarding house at 66 Broadway, diagonally across from Trinity Church.
The New York Evening Post of May 11, 1831, reported their arrival and predicted that they would find American prison authorities cooperative: "Two magistrates, Mssrs. De Beaumont and de Tonqueville [sic] have arrived in the ship Havre, sent by order of the Ministry of the Interior, to examine the various prisons in our country, and make a report on their return to France. The French government have it in contemplation to improve their Penitentiary system, and take this means of obtaining all proper information. In our country, we have no doubt that every facility will be extended to the gentlemen who have arrived."
A New York Welcome
They were royally entertained and shown some of the city's places of detention. The House of Refuge for Delinquent Minors, at what is now the northwest corner of the present Madison Square Park, was of interest to them because a similar institution was being constructed in Melun, France, along the same architectural plan. Next came a visit to the Bloomingdale Asylum for the Insane, located at what is now the Columbia University campus.
On the return trip, the official party, in five carriages, stopped at the Deaf and Dumb Asylum on Fifth Avenue and the Bellevue Almshouse on First Avenue, between 27th and 28th streets. Their tour ended with a visit to a city prison housing four hundred inmates on Blackwell's Island in the East River.
After two hectic weeks, the two young Frenchmen were looking forward to escaping from the city. "You can have no conception of the activity of our existence," Beaumont wrote to his father. "We haven't time to breathe. It's a creeping barrage of agreeable invitations, useful occupations, official presentations, etc., etc."
The state prison at Sing Sing was the largest in the United States. Tocqueville and Beaumont decided to make it the first institution studied on their trip. Before making that journey with Tocqueville and Beaumont, let us pause to examine prison reform in the United States.
The Bad Old Days
The English colonists of America had brought with them the harsh penal practices of England and Scotland in the 17th and 18th centuries. Under a rigorous criminal code, many offenses were punishable by death--the neatest way for a society to get rid of its objectionable criminals. In the words of Edward Channing in his monumental "History of the United States," lesser offenders were "treated with pitiless publicity combined with bodily pain." Their punishment consisted of flogging, mutilation, and branding or public exposure in the stocks, and a heavy timber frame with holes for confining the ankles and sometimes the wrists. Little concern was expressed for the rehabilitation or reformation of criminals
Under this system there really was no prison problem. The dead required no confinement. Those who were punished harshly were returned to society maimed and bruised--but alive. There was no middle ground. Only debtors and those awaiting trial were housed in local jails in the mother country.
Prison Reform Begins
In the colonies, however, such practices were unpopular. Religious freedom had given rise to attitudes that called for changes in the system. One religious group in particular--members of the Society of Friends, called "Quakers"--opposed the harsh punishments of the mother country. With a frontier requiring settlement and exploitation, the feeling was human resources were too scarce and too valuable to waste.
The American Revolution accelerated the growth of these sentiments. With freedom from Britain came a reduction in the number of capital offenses. Punishment for lesser offenses veered away from the infliction of pain and humiliation to imprisonment. The results, however, were not what were expected. Prisoners of all ages, sexes, colors or criminal experience were incarcerated together in large, unventilated, unclean and unhealthful rooms. The overcrowded pestilential prisons became veritable training schools of crime and vice.
The logical solution was detention in individual cells, a movement begun by Quakers in Pennsylvania. Rather than kill or punish criminals, they argued it was a Christian duty to reform them. Their belief was strict solitary confinement, day and night, would cause prisoners to repent. They called this new kind of prison a "penitentiary," or house of penitence.
The Auburn System
In 1821, New York State decided to test the penitentiary theory on 80 convicts at the recently constructed Auburn Prison in the Finger Lakes region. It soon became obvious that solitary confinement broke the health and the spirit of prisoners. Within three years, so many had died or became ill or insane the governor pardoned the survivors.
Penology was still an infant science, but it was clear that it was necessary to employ convicts at useful labor. Accordingly, during the day prisoners at Auburn were brought together in shops to work at various tasks. To maintain their isolation, however, inmates were not allowed to talk or communicate while at work. The whip enforced this rule; welts on a prisoner's body left by a whipping were called "stripes." The practice of solitary confinement by night and group work by day--always in silence--became known as "the Auburn system."
The Pennsylvania System
By contrast, in Pennsylvania the principle of total solitary confinement was maintained, but with a significant difference: inmates were provided with work in their cells, each of which had a small walled backyard where exercise could be taken. The newly constructed Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia epitomized the Pennsylvania system of "solitude and labor," and carried the principle of isolation to an extreme.
Its auditorium was constructed with enclosed seats and a small opening so each inmate in the audience could see only the stage. At a signal, each convict in his cell placed a pillowcase over his head and stood by the cell door. Keepers unlocked the doors; the convicts stepped out, turned and--with one hand on the shoulder of the man in front--were led in single file into the auditorium. After the religious service or lecture, they donned their pillowcases again and returned to their cells. The peculiar gait required in this maneuver was called "the lock step." In effect, America had two competing philosophies and two systems of imprisonment: the Auburn system and the Pennsylvania system.
Building a Prison
In 1825, when the state decided to build a large prison convenient to New York City, the village of Sing Sing was chosen as the site. Selected as warden was Elam Lynds, a veteran of the War of 1812 in which he was promoted from private to captain for bravery under fire. Lynds had developed the Auburn system. Taking a hundred convicts with him from Auburn, he built the Sing Sing prison's first cellblock. At 600 feet long, it was the length of two football fields. Under the twin disciplines of silence and the whip, prisoners cut the gray-white dolomitic limestone in a nearby quarry by day and slept in tents at night. Working as stone masons, carpenters and painters, the inmates actually built their own penitentiary. This historic building was gutted by fire on February 5, 1984, during a snowstorm. An empty shell, it still stands within the prison walls and can be seen from Metro-North trains.
According to one story, Elam Lynds heard that an inmate, a former barber, had vowed to kill him. He had the prisoner brought to his quarters, where he was given a straight razor and ordered to shave Lynds. The man obeyed, but had obviously lost his nerve. When the prisoner finished his task, Lynds said, "I know you wanted to kill me, but I despised you too much to believe that you would ever have the courage to execute your design. Alone and without arms, I am always stronger than you."
Lewis E. Lawes, for many years the warden at Sing Sing, used this anecdote in his 1935 book, "Cell 202--Sing Sing," an account of four prisoners who successively occupied the same cell over a period of a hundred years.
On May 28, 1831, Tocqueville wrote to Abbé Lesueur: "We are going tomorrow to Sing-Sing, a village ten leagues from New York and situated on the North River. We shall stay there a week to study the discipline of a vast penitentiary system recently built there. What we have seen up to now suffices to prove to us that prisons attract general attention here and that in several respects they are much better than those of France. We are delighted to go to Sing-Sing. It is impossible to imagine anything more beautiful than the North of Hudson River. The great width of the stream, the admirable richness of the north bank and the steep mountains which border its eastern margins make it one of the most admirable sights in the world."
Impressions of the Village of Sing Sing
On May 29th, Tocqueville and Beaumont packed their bags and made their way up the Albany Post Road to Sing Sing. They found lodging at a large home not far from Main Street. This was the country house of James Smith, a New York lawyer. It is still standing on State Street, having later become part of the Printex Building. Although the community had officially become Sing Sing in 1813, many still referred to it by its former name, Mt. Pleasant. William Durrell published the first newspaper in Westchester County, the Mt. Pleasant Register, there in 1797.
"It's a town of 1000 to 1200 souls that has been rendered famous by its prison, the largest in the United States," Tocqueville wrote to his father. "We have come here with the intention of examining it from top to bottom; we have already been here a week, and we experience a well-being you cannot conceive. The extreme agitation in which we were obliged to live in New York, the number of visits we had to make and receive each day began to weary us a little.
"Here we have the best employed and most peaceful existence. We live with a very decent American family that holds us in great consideration. We have made the acquaintance in the village of several persons whom we go to see when we are free." The idyllic Hudson was "covered with sails; it penetrates to the north and disappears between high blue mountains." Arising at five each morning, they took a short walk; after breakfast at 8:30, another walk. In the evening at seven, they went swimming in the Hudson, where Tocqueville taught Beaumont to swim.
In a letter home, Beaumont described a peculiar propensity of American women for breaking into song: "They haven't the taste for it, it's only a matter of fashion; they sing in a screamingly funny way. There is in their throat a certain gentle cooing that has a particular character that I could never render, but which has nothing in common with the laws of harmony. If one says to them, 'You sing wonderfully,' they reply with rare ingenuousness, 'It's very true.' They study piano for three months, then they play without the least reluctance, admitting always with good grace they are mad about music and they have a real talent." He added, "What's more, this love of praise crops up everywhere with the Americans, and one could never praise them enough to satisfy them."
Tocqueville's diary reveals many fascinating local tidbits: "There's an old man at Sing Sing who can remember seeing Indians living here. The name itself of Sing Sing is taken from the name of an Indian Chief." Another entry reads: "We were shown the house where a descendant of Oliver Cromwell lives." This would have been Sing Sing resident Oliver Cromwell. Born in London in 1765, he died in 1835 and is buried in the Field plot in Sparta Cemetery.
Investigating the prison
Turning their attention to the prison, Tocqueville and Beaumont pursued their investigations with great vigor. The asked questions about everything: administration, the keepers' salaries, what food was served, what work was done, how many floggings were administered. The latter number turned out to be five or six a day. They pored over archival records, examined architectural plans, poked into every corner, and quizzed everyone they could find. They even sat in classes at the prison school and attended Sunday religious services. They were amazed at what they discovered. Thirty-four keepers controlled about a thousand convicts. The prisoners were "free" during the day. They wore no chains and no walls kept them in. Yet no one tried to escape.
Tocqueville's diary entry for May 30, 1831, reads: "We have seen 250 prisoners working under a shed cutting stone. These men, subjected to a very special surveillance, had all committed acts of violence indicating a dangerous character. Each . . . had a stone cutter's ax. Three unarmed guards walked up and down in the shed. Their eyes were in continuous agitation." After a week of visiting the prison, Tocqueville decided that he would not recommend the Sing Sing system.
Beaumont was surprised, as he wrote to his mother, that so many inmates were all around the unfinished celiblock, unrestrained by chains and all engaged in hard labor, and yet, despite the absence of a wall (a few guards were stationed around the perimeter), "they labour assiduously at the hardest tasks. Nothing is rarer than an [escape]. That appears so unbelievable that one sees the fact a long time without being able to explain it."
Nevertheless, Tocqueville saw portents of trouble: "The system at Sing Sing seems in some sense like the steamboats the Americans use so much," he wrote. "Nothing is more comfortable, quick, and--in a word--perfect in the ordinary run of things. But if some bit of apparatus goes out of order, the boat, the passengers and the cargo fly into the air." In their subsequent report, the two Frenchmen concluded ominously: "One cannot see the prison of Sing Sing and the system of labour which is there established without being struck by astonishment and fear. Although the discipline is perfect, one feels that it rests on a fragile foundation. The safety of the keepers is constantly menaced. In the presence of such dangers, avoided with such skill but with difficulty, it seems to us impossible not to fear some sort of catastrophe in the future."
Nevertheless, Tocqueville saw portents of trouble: "The system at Sing Sing seems in some sense like the steamboats the Americans use so much," he wrote. "Nothing is more comfortable, quick, and--in a word--perfect in the ordinary run of things. But if some bit of apparatus goes out of order, the boat, the passengers and the cargo fly into the air." In their subsequent report, the two Frenchmen concluded ominously: "One cannot see the prison of Sing Sing and the system of labour which is there established without being struck by astonishment and fear. Although the discipline is perfect, one feels that it rests on a fragile foundation. The safety of the keepers is constantly menaced. In the presence of such dangers, avoided with such skill but with difficulty, it seems to us impossible not to fear some sort of catastrophe in the future."
Tocqueville and Beaumont later investigated penitentiaries at Auburn, N.Y., Charlestown, Mass., Wethersfield, Conn., Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, and Pittsburgh. At Philadelphia's Eastern State Penitentiary, they took the unusual step of interviewing each prisoner.
The Aftermath
By the time they returned to France in May of 1832, they had become ardent admirers of American democratic institutions. Tocqueville found himself unable to concentrate on writing their joint report on prisons. In the end, the task fell to Beaumont, who is listed as the principle author. Tocqueville's contribution was limited to the statistical notes in an appendix.
"Du Systeme Penitentiare" appeared in 1833, and influenced prison reform and the science of penology. In it, the authors urged France to copy one of the two American penitentiary systems. Translated into English by Francis Lieber, "On the Penitentiary System in the United States" was published in Philadelphia in the same year. It remains the single best study and description of the two contrasting American penitentiary systems of the 19th century.
Tocqueville's failure to contribute to the prison report is understandable. His eyes were on distant horizons of memory. He was turning over in his mind the treasure trove of information he had gathered about American society and institutions. Two years later he would publish the first volumes of his remarkable "Democracy in America," today regarded as one of the great books of the western world. But the story of that enduring work will have to wait for another day.
Labels: Alexis de Toqueville, Gustave de Beaumint, Sing Sing Prison
Sunday, March 08, 2009
No Longer on the Map: Forgotten Place Names in Northwestern Westchester
LOWER HUDSON VALLEY
In the beginning was the land, and it was without names. From somewhere over the horizon the first wanderers reached northwestern Westchester and found the land to be rich and good. They remained and gave names to places--descriptive names by which others could identify them.
Thus, the Indian name for Ossining was "a stony place"; for Peekskill, "the mouth of a stream"; for Croton Point, "a point or ending." Indian names have had a greater persistence than is recognized. For example, 26 state names are of Indian derivation.
Next came the Dutch, doughty burghers and traders. Accustomed to sailing the inland channels of their own country, they stayed close to navigable waterways. A stream was a "kill" or "creek," a "gat" was a passage, a "hoek" was a point of land. But the Dutch were also intensely practical. They accepted the Indian place names they found, altering them slightly to sound more like their own tongue.
Then came the English. They converted many of the names applied by the Dutch: "kreek" became "creek," "bosch" (wood) became "bush," and "hoek" became "point." A lake or a pool became a "pond," a word common in eastern England. Although the English were comparative latecomers, they remained for the longest time. Rejecting many existing place names, they made them over to fit the English language, choosing the names of towns in England or notable persons. The newly minted United States continued this practice.
Soon the land became layered with names. Always lurking in the background, the old names were remembered and kept alive by old-timers. Eventually even they became only a memory. Now-forgotten names of places and people molder on old maps and documents in dusty archives or accumulate moss on old tombstones.
Although overlooked by latter-day cartographers, these intriguing old names need not be lost to us. Listed here from A to Z are a smattering of place names in northwestern Westchester that are "no longer on the map," with their modern equivalents. Maps used for verification were the appropriate topographic sheets of the 1:24,000 series prepared by the U.S. Geological Survey.
Abram's Swimming Hole. At their home on Annsville Creek, two Negro brothers, William and Abraham Hallenback ('Uncle Abram') unselfishly taught generations of Peekskill youngsters to swim.
Auser's Flats. In Ossining; an area north of Cedar Lane, east of Route 9. It took its name from Joseph Auser, who lived on the west side of the Post Road.
Bakers Landing. An early name for Van Cortlandtville.
Bald Hill. In Peekskill; now Gallows Hill.
Barker Pond. In Cortlandt; named for Louis Barker, owner of the land around it in 1930. It is today called Cliffdale Pond.
Barlow's Hill. The hill where the Croton-Harmon High School now stands; it took its name from the Barlow house, a multifamily dwelling.
Bishop Rocks. At the Hudson River in Briarcliff Manor; named for John Bishop, who bought 83 acres south of Kemeys Cove from the Commissioners of Forfeiture after the Revolution. Now the site of a sewage treatment plant.
Boscobel. From 1857 to 1883, this was the name of the post office at Crugers. The name is from the stately home built by Staats Morris Dyckman and later dismantled to make way for the F.D.R. Veterans Hospital. One of the country's finest Federal-style homes, the house was moved to Garrison and painstakingly reconstructed. Fortunately, it had been carefully measured by the Historic American Buildings Survey in 1932. Westchester's loss became Putnam County's gain.
The Bowery. The name of the temporary town along Route 129 during the building of the New Croton Dam. Emulating its New York City namesake, 11 of its 23 buildings were saloons. Boarding houses and bawdy houses made up most of the rest.
Camp of Military Instruction. Camp Smith's name from 1882 to 1926. It was renamed to honor the then Governor, Alfred Emanuel Smith, later an unsuccessful candidate for the presidency.
Canopus Creek. In Cortlandt; named for an Indian chief, it is now Sprout Brook.
Cat Hill. In Cortlandt, south of the Croton River; now Catamount Hill.
Centreville. The hamlet took its name from the Centreville Tavern, so called because it was halfway between Peekskill and Verplanck; it is now named Montrose.
Claremont. The area around the intersection of Routes 133 and 134 in Ossining took this name from the home of Robert Havell, engraver of Audubon's famous bird and animal prints.
Collabaugh Landing. Before 1818, the name of Croton-on-Hudson.
Cornell Dam. An early name for the New Croton Dam. From Aaron Cornell, who owned the land on which it was built.
Cortlandt-on-Hudson. From 1727 to 1886, the former name of the hamlet of Oscawana.
Cortlandtown. Croton-on-Hudson's name between 1818 and 1848.
Cortlandtville. An early name of Van Cortlandtville.
Creek Hill. Near Peekskill Hollow Creek (now Peekskill Hollow Brook) in Cortlandt; later Hawes Hill.
Croton Landing. The name of Croton-on-Hudson between 1848 and 1891. The name Croton is an adaptation pf the name of an Indian chief, Kenotin or Knoten, who lived near the mouth of the Croton River. Philip Verplanck’s 1732 map of Van Cortlandt Manor calls the river Groatun’s River.
Depot Square. Located to the east of the Croton North station, Croton's original railroad station. This bustling area was home to many businesses, a hotel, and a coal and lumber yard. It disappeared when the Croton Expressway (Route 9) was cut through west of Riverside Avenue.
Doverkill Island. In the Croton River; the former name of Paradise Island.
Drake's Hill. In Peekskill; named for Gilbert Drake, it is now Gallows Hill.
East Haverstraw. The name of Montrose between 1863 and 1868--because it was "east of Haverstraw," across the Hudson in Rockland County.
Enoch Point. Former name of the northwest point of land on Croton Point.
Fort Constitution. An American fort on Roa Hook, burned by the British in 1777.
Fort Independence. The fort rebuilt by the Americans on the site of the burned Fort Constitution.
Fort Lafayette. The name of the American fort constructed in 1777 on Verplanck's Point.
Fourth of July Hill. In Ossining, between Main Street and Broadway; so named because it was the site of fireworks celebrations.
Frank's Rock. On the south shore at the mouth of the Croton River. Named for Frans Beseley who lived nearby in the 18th century and fished from this rock below the former Mary Immaculate School.
Hall Hill. In Cortlandt; named for Caleb Hall; later called Hawes Hill.
Hanover. For administrative purposes, Cortlandt Manor was divided into three wards. Yorktown and Somers made up the Middle District, or Hanover, named for the reigning house of England from 1714 to 1901.
Harmon. Named for Clifford B. Harmon, who planned and sold building lots in Croton in the area between Maple Street and the Croton River beginning in 1907. It was absorbed by Croton-on-Hudson in 1932. The name has virtually disappeared, perpetuated only in the names of the Metro-North station, the village's high school and a few stubborn residents who insist they live in Harmon, not Croton.
Haunted Hollow. An area on Croton Point near the Kitchawank Indian burial ground.
Hawes Hill. In Cortlandt; named for Peletiah Hawes who farmed near Oregon and Pumphouse Roads. Previously Hall Hill, it later became Creek Hill.
Hollman's Corners. The intersection of Hillside Avenue and Oregon Road in Van Cortlandtville; so named from the tavern kept by Gardner Hollman.
Hubble's Corner. In Ossining; at Main Street and the Albany Post Road, G. &. B. Hubble had a hardware store here.
Hunter's Landing. The original name of Ossining; from Elijah Hunter, who bought confiscated Loyalist land from the Commissioners of Forfeiture after the Revolution.
Hunt's Mountain. In Cortlandt, south of Peekskill; now Blue Mountain.
Ice Pond. A former name of the Duck Pond in Croton.
Jamawissa Creek. Furnace Brook's Indian name before 1734.
Jockeytown. The area around Maple and Lafayette Avenues in Cortlandt. So named because horse races were held there.
Jordan Spring. A small hamlet in Ossining Town near Cedar Lane and Route 9A; it took its name from a spring on property owned by the Jordan family.
Keg Mountain. Now Dickerson Mountain.
Laapawachking. The Indian name for what is now Westchester.
Larkintown/Larkinville. Also known as "Little Italy." Built on land owned by Ossining attorney Francis Larkin, this collection of temporary dwellings housed Italian workers on the New Croton Dam. Larkin charged a nominal rental of $40 a year.
Limestone Point. A small peninsula at the southern end of Verplanck's Point, north of Stinsom Cove.
Long Hill. So named for obvious reasons; the former name of Prospect Hill in Briarcliff Manor.
The Lowland Crossing. An early designation of the crossing of the Croton River at the Ferry House at Van Cortlandt Manor.
Lyell. The name of the post office at Montrose between 1860 and 1863. William Lyell was one of the members of the New York City syndicate that bought Verplanck's Point from Philip Verplanck in 1837 for $300,000.
McGregory Pond. In Cortlandt; former name of Gregory Pond.
Melvin Pond. In Ossining; named for Thomas Melvin, who cut ice here. The pond was bought by Dale Cemetery and filled in.
Money Hill. A hill on Croton Point, reputedly where treasure was buried.
Mother's Lap. The small bay to the east of the northwest point of land on Croton Point.
Mount Murray. A small hill now occupied by the Scarborough Manor Apartments. Named for Marcia Murray, a jilted young woman who committed suicide by drowning in the Hudson River in the early 19th century.
Mount Pleasant/Mount Pleasant Landing. Early names for Ossining.
Navish. An Indian name for Croton Point.
New Haverstraw. At one time, the Montrose railroad station had this name.
Nordica Hill. The high ground opposite the Croton Free Library. This was the intended site of the music festival planned by opera diva Lillian Nordica and patterned after the famous Bayreuth music festival in Bavaria.
Northwest Point. The northwest point of Croton Point, Another name for Enoch Point.
Odell's Pond. In Cortlandt; H.E. Odell operated a grist mill on Furnace Brook. The pond is now called Furnace Brook Pond.
Old Fort Hill. An artillery battery was located on the south flank of Manitou Mountain where the Oldstone Inn is located now.
Oregon. In Cortlandt; the name of a hamlet at Oregon and Trolley Roads.
Pahotasack. McGregory Brook runs through Peekskill; this was its Indian name.
Paquintuck. The Indian name for Peekskill Hollow Brook and Annsville Creek in Peekskill.
Parson's Point. Verplanck's Point, so called because the pastor of the Dutch Reformed Church had a farm at the southern end.
Peekskill Landing. This hamlet on Peekskill Bay was settled in 1764; it was also called Travis Landing for Joseph Travis, one of the first settlers.
Peggs Island. Oscawana Island's former name.
Phillips Pond. A former name of Furnace Brook Pond.
Picnic Point. A point of land on Croton Point between Squaw Point and South Point.
Pleasant Mountain. This hill to the west of Lafayette Avenue in Cortlandt lent its name to the hamlet of Pleasantside.
Pleasant Square. In Ossining; at the intersection of Croton Avenue and the Albany Post Road, then the center of the hamlet of Mount Pleasant.
Pocontico. For four months in 1881, the post office at Merritt's Corners (today's Millwood) bore this name. a variant of the more common Pocantico.
Point Comfort. Another name applied to Travis Point in Peekskill.
Requa's Hill. Named for the Requa family. It was later the site of Peekskill's first community hospital.
Sackhoes. The Indian name for Peekskill.
Sarah's Point. Now Croton Point; Sarah Teller was the widow of William Teller.
Scarboro. Scarborough took its name from an English village, but between 1864 and 1928 the official post office designation was Scarboro.
Shatemuc. Another Indian name for the Hudson River.
Sing Sing. The name of the hamlet of Mount Pleasant was changed to Sing Sing in 1813. The name comes from the Sint Sink Indians, the original inhabitants, and means "a stony place." Sing Sing became Ossining in 1901.
Soldier's Spring. In 1777, Nathan Brown, a patriot soldier retreating before British forces, stopped to drink from a spring in Peekskill when he was struck and killed by fragments from a British cannonball. The spring was located on Division Street, north of the junction with Highland Avenue.
Sope Hill. North Riverside Avenue north of Brook Street in Croton; a variant of "Soap Hill," so named because the glazed yellow bricks used as paving stones were slippery, especially in wet weather.
South Point. The southernmost point on Croton Point.
Spring Lake. Now the Duck Pond in Croton, it is still fed by a hidden spring at the head of Bungalow Road.
Squaw Point. A point of land on Croton Point between Northwest Point and Picnic Point.
Squaw Cove is to the north of Squaw Point; Indian women were reputed to have washed clothes there.
Strangtown. An area in Ossining named for the Strang family, who lived on Highland Avenue. The name comes from the French, L'Estrange.
Stormytown. An area in the town of Ossining near the intersection of Route 9A and Croton Dam Road; the name has nothing to do with the weather. The Storm family farmed here in the 18th century.
Sutton Mills. An early name for Van Cortlandtville; George Sutton operated mills at Dogwood and Pumphouse Roads.
Tamoesis Creek. The Indian name for Dickey Brook. It forms the southern boundary of Peekskill.
Teller's Point. Now Croton Point; William and Sarah Teller were early settlers on the Point.
Torbank. The area in Ossining Town west of Route 9A around Ganung Drive took its name from the former estate of Peter Donald, an early linen merchant.
Travis Landing. A hamlet north of Travis Point at Peekskill Bay. Both the point and the hamlet were named for Joseph Travis, an early settler. Travis Landing was another name for Peekskill Landing.
Travis Pond. Now Dickerson Pond in Cortlandt; it takes its name from Frederick Travis, owner of the land around the pond.
Varian's Mill. Isaac L. Varian, mayor of New York City from 1839 to 1841, operated a grist mill near Oregon Road and Root Lane in Cortlandt.
Verdrietige Hoek. The name Dutch skippers gave to Croton Point. It means "tedious or troublesome point of land" undoubtedly because it projects into the river and creates problems with currents and navigation under sail.
Washington Hill. Washington's headquarters were on this hill on Verplanck's Point, west of Buchanan.
Wenehees. The Indian name for the land between Dickey Brook and McGregory Brook in Peekskill.
Wescora. An Indian sachem's name; in 1867 it was briefly the name of the post office in Scarborough.
West Briarcliff. Citizens became agitated when the New York Central changed the name of its station from Scarboro to West Briarcliff in 1909. An objector to the new name threw the offending station sign into the Hudson, and the railroad quickly restored the original name.
Whitson. An early name for Briarcliff Manor; Charles Whitson owned 164 acres here. He was the Putnam Division station agent.
Wickapy. The name for an Indian settlement near Anthony's Nose.
Wild Cat Hill. In Cortlandt, south of the Croton River; now Catamount Hill. It was also called Wild Goat Mountain.
Willow Brook. An early name for Annsville Creek in Peekskill.
Yellow Bass Fishing Rocks. On the south shore near the mouth of the Croton River, about halfway between Crawbuckie Point and Frank's Rock. But the name makes no ichthyological sense. The yellow bass is a fish found in the Middle West. According to Croton's Ed Rondthaler, Theodore Cornu claimed old maps should have read, "Yellow Perch Fishing Rocks"; the yellow perch is a Hudson River fish.
Zion's Hill. Robert Matthews, a religious zealot, gave this name in the 1830's to the estate known as Beechwood in Ossining. It was later acquired by Frank A. Vanderlip, a wealthy New York banker. It is easily identifiable by the two buried Ionic columns at the entrance on the Albany Post Road (Route 9). Dating from 1842, These were removed from facade of the old Merchants' Exchange on Wall Street when it was remodeled in 1907 to become the National City Bank. Only their capitals and the upper portion are visible above ground.
With this final entry, we come to the end of our catalogue of extinct names. Although they have disappeared from maps, they are still rooted deeply in our folk memory. The face of the land may change: hills may be leveled and valleys filled, roads may be straightened, hamlets may be absorbed into larger towns and cities, but the old names will endure. From these vestigial reminders of our rich history--as from the more tangible evidences of archaeology--we are able to piece together a record of the past.
In the beginning was the land, and it was without names. From somewhere over the horizon the first wanderers reached northwestern Westchester and found the land to be rich and good. They remained and gave names to places--descriptive names by which others could identify them.
Thus, the Indian name for Ossining was "a stony place"; for Peekskill, "the mouth of a stream"; for Croton Point, "a point or ending." Indian names have had a greater persistence than is recognized. For example, 26 state names are of Indian derivation.
Next came the Dutch, doughty burghers and traders. Accustomed to sailing the inland channels of their own country, they stayed close to navigable waterways. A stream was a "kill" or "creek," a "gat" was a passage, a "hoek" was a point of land. But the Dutch were also intensely practical. They accepted the Indian place names they found, altering them slightly to sound more like their own tongue.
Then came the English. They converted many of the names applied by the Dutch: "kreek" became "creek," "bosch" (wood) became "bush," and "hoek" became "point." A lake or a pool became a "pond," a word common in eastern England. Although the English were comparative latecomers, they remained for the longest time. Rejecting many existing place names, they made them over to fit the English language, choosing the names of towns in England or notable persons. The newly minted United States continued this practice.
Soon the land became layered with names. Always lurking in the background, the old names were remembered and kept alive by old-timers. Eventually even they became only a memory. Now-forgotten names of places and people molder on old maps and documents in dusty archives or accumulate moss on old tombstones.
Although overlooked by latter-day cartographers, these intriguing old names need not be lost to us. Listed here from A to Z are a smattering of place names in northwestern Westchester that are "no longer on the map," with their modern equivalents. Maps used for verification were the appropriate topographic sheets of the 1:24,000 series prepared by the U.S. Geological Survey.
Abram's Swimming Hole. At their home on Annsville Creek, two Negro brothers, William and Abraham Hallenback ('Uncle Abram') unselfishly taught generations of Peekskill youngsters to swim.
Auser's Flats. In Ossining; an area north of Cedar Lane, east of Route 9. It took its name from Joseph Auser, who lived on the west side of the Post Road.
Bakers Landing. An early name for Van Cortlandtville.
Bald Hill. In Peekskill; now Gallows Hill.
Barker Pond. In Cortlandt; named for Louis Barker, owner of the land around it in 1930. It is today called Cliffdale Pond.
Barlow's Hill. The hill where the Croton-Harmon High School now stands; it took its name from the Barlow house, a multifamily dwelling.
Bishop Rocks. At the Hudson River in Briarcliff Manor; named for John Bishop, who bought 83 acres south of Kemeys Cove from the Commissioners of Forfeiture after the Revolution. Now the site of a sewage treatment plant.
Boscobel. From 1857 to 1883, this was the name of the post office at Crugers. The name is from the stately home built by Staats Morris Dyckman and later dismantled to make way for the F.D.R. Veterans Hospital. One of the country's finest Federal-style homes, the house was moved to Garrison and painstakingly reconstructed. Fortunately, it had been carefully measured by the Historic American Buildings Survey in 1932. Westchester's loss became Putnam County's gain.
The Bowery. The name of the temporary town along Route 129 during the building of the New Croton Dam. Emulating its New York City namesake, 11 of its 23 buildings were saloons. Boarding houses and bawdy houses made up most of the rest.
Camp of Military Instruction. Camp Smith's name from 1882 to 1926. It was renamed to honor the then Governor, Alfred Emanuel Smith, later an unsuccessful candidate for the presidency.
Canopus Creek. In Cortlandt; named for an Indian chief, it is now Sprout Brook.
Cat Hill. In Cortlandt, south of the Croton River; now Catamount Hill.
Centreville. The hamlet took its name from the Centreville Tavern, so called because it was halfway between Peekskill and Verplanck; it is now named Montrose.
Claremont. The area around the intersection of Routes 133 and 134 in Ossining took this name from the home of Robert Havell, engraver of Audubon's famous bird and animal prints.
Collabaugh Landing. Before 1818, the name of Croton-on-Hudson.
Cornell Dam. An early name for the New Croton Dam. From Aaron Cornell, who owned the land on which it was built.
Cortlandt-on-Hudson. From 1727 to 1886, the former name of the hamlet of Oscawana.
Cortlandtown. Croton-on-Hudson's name between 1818 and 1848.
Cortlandtville. An early name of Van Cortlandtville.
Creek Hill. Near Peekskill Hollow Creek (now Peekskill Hollow Brook) in Cortlandt; later Hawes Hill.
Croton Landing. The name of Croton-on-Hudson between 1848 and 1891. The name Croton is an adaptation pf the name of an Indian chief, Kenotin or Knoten, who lived near the mouth of the Croton River. Philip Verplanck’s 1732 map of Van Cortlandt Manor calls the river Groatun’s River.
Depot Square. Located to the east of the Croton North station, Croton's original railroad station. This bustling area was home to many businesses, a hotel, and a coal and lumber yard. It disappeared when the Croton Expressway (Route 9) was cut through west of Riverside Avenue.
Doverkill Island. In the Croton River; the former name of Paradise Island.
Drake's Hill. In Peekskill; named for Gilbert Drake, it is now Gallows Hill.
East Haverstraw. The name of Montrose between 1863 and 1868--because it was "east of Haverstraw," across the Hudson in Rockland County.
Enoch Point. Former name of the northwest point of land on Croton Point.
Fort Constitution. An American fort on Roa Hook, burned by the British in 1777.
Fort Independence. The fort rebuilt by the Americans on the site of the burned Fort Constitution.
Fort Lafayette. The name of the American fort constructed in 1777 on Verplanck's Point.
Fourth of July Hill. In Ossining, between Main Street and Broadway; so named because it was the site of fireworks celebrations.
Frank's Rock. On the south shore at the mouth of the Croton River. Named for Frans Beseley who lived nearby in the 18th century and fished from this rock below the former Mary Immaculate School.
Hall Hill. In Cortlandt; named for Caleb Hall; later called Hawes Hill.
Hanover. For administrative purposes, Cortlandt Manor was divided into three wards. Yorktown and Somers made up the Middle District, or Hanover, named for the reigning house of England from 1714 to 1901.
Harmon. Named for Clifford B. Harmon, who planned and sold building lots in Croton in the area between Maple Street and the Croton River beginning in 1907. It was absorbed by Croton-on-Hudson in 1932. The name has virtually disappeared, perpetuated only in the names of the Metro-North station, the village's high school and a few stubborn residents who insist they live in Harmon, not Croton.
Haunted Hollow. An area on Croton Point near the Kitchawank Indian burial ground.
Hawes Hill. In Cortlandt; named for Peletiah Hawes who farmed near Oregon and Pumphouse Roads. Previously Hall Hill, it later became Creek Hill.
Hollman's Corners. The intersection of Hillside Avenue and Oregon Road in Van Cortlandtville; so named from the tavern kept by Gardner Hollman.
Hubble's Corner. In Ossining; at Main Street and the Albany Post Road, G. &. B. Hubble had a hardware store here.
Hunter's Landing. The original name of Ossining; from Elijah Hunter, who bought confiscated Loyalist land from the Commissioners of Forfeiture after the Revolution.
Hunt's Mountain. In Cortlandt, south of Peekskill; now Blue Mountain.
Ice Pond. A former name of the Duck Pond in Croton.
Jamawissa Creek. Furnace Brook's Indian name before 1734.
Jockeytown. The area around Maple and Lafayette Avenues in Cortlandt. So named because horse races were held there.
Jordan Spring. A small hamlet in Ossining Town near Cedar Lane and Route 9A; it took its name from a spring on property owned by the Jordan family.
Keg Mountain. Now Dickerson Mountain.
Laapawachking. The Indian name for what is now Westchester.
Larkintown/Larkinville. Also known as "Little Italy." Built on land owned by Ossining attorney Francis Larkin, this collection of temporary dwellings housed Italian workers on the New Croton Dam. Larkin charged a nominal rental of $40 a year.
Limestone Point. A small peninsula at the southern end of Verplanck's Point, north of Stinsom Cove.
Long Hill. So named for obvious reasons; the former name of Prospect Hill in Briarcliff Manor.
The Lowland Crossing. An early designation of the crossing of the Croton River at the Ferry House at Van Cortlandt Manor.
Lyell. The name of the post office at Montrose between 1860 and 1863. William Lyell was one of the members of the New York City syndicate that bought Verplanck's Point from Philip Verplanck in 1837 for $300,000.
McGregory Pond. In Cortlandt; former name of Gregory Pond.
Melvin Pond. In Ossining; named for Thomas Melvin, who cut ice here. The pond was bought by Dale Cemetery and filled in.
Money Hill. A hill on Croton Point, reputedly where treasure was buried.
Mother's Lap. The small bay to the east of the northwest point of land on Croton Point.
Mount Murray. A small hill now occupied by the Scarborough Manor Apartments. Named for Marcia Murray, a jilted young woman who committed suicide by drowning in the Hudson River in the early 19th century.
Mount Pleasant/Mount Pleasant Landing. Early names for Ossining.
Navish. An Indian name for Croton Point.
New Haverstraw. At one time, the Montrose railroad station had this name.
Nordica Hill. The high ground opposite the Croton Free Library. This was the intended site of the music festival planned by opera diva Lillian Nordica and patterned after the famous Bayreuth music festival in Bavaria.
Northwest Point. The northwest point of Croton Point, Another name for Enoch Point.
Odell's Pond. In Cortlandt; H.E. Odell operated a grist mill on Furnace Brook. The pond is now called Furnace Brook Pond.
Old Fort Hill. An artillery battery was located on the south flank of Manitou Mountain where the Oldstone Inn is located now.
Oregon. In Cortlandt; the name of a hamlet at Oregon and Trolley Roads.
Pahotasack. McGregory Brook runs through Peekskill; this was its Indian name.
Paquintuck. The Indian name for Peekskill Hollow Brook and Annsville Creek in Peekskill.
Parson's Point. Verplanck's Point, so called because the pastor of the Dutch Reformed Church had a farm at the southern end.
Peekskill Landing. This hamlet on Peekskill Bay was settled in 1764; it was also called Travis Landing for Joseph Travis, one of the first settlers.
Peggs Island. Oscawana Island's former name.
Phillips Pond. A former name of Furnace Brook Pond.
Picnic Point. A point of land on Croton Point between Squaw Point and South Point.
Pleasant Mountain. This hill to the west of Lafayette Avenue in Cortlandt lent its name to the hamlet of Pleasantside.
Pleasant Square. In Ossining; at the intersection of Croton Avenue and the Albany Post Road, then the center of the hamlet of Mount Pleasant.
Pocontico. For four months in 1881, the post office at Merritt's Corners (today's Millwood) bore this name. a variant of the more common Pocantico.
Point Comfort. Another name applied to Travis Point in Peekskill.
Requa's Hill. Named for the Requa family. It was later the site of Peekskill's first community hospital.
Sackhoes. The Indian name for Peekskill.
Sarah's Point. Now Croton Point; Sarah Teller was the widow of William Teller.
Scarboro. Scarborough took its name from an English village, but between 1864 and 1928 the official post office designation was Scarboro.
Shatemuc. Another Indian name for the Hudson River.
Sing Sing. The name of the hamlet of Mount Pleasant was changed to Sing Sing in 1813. The name comes from the Sint Sink Indians, the original inhabitants, and means "a stony place." Sing Sing became Ossining in 1901.
Soldier's Spring. In 1777, Nathan Brown, a patriot soldier retreating before British forces, stopped to drink from a spring in Peekskill when he was struck and killed by fragments from a British cannonball. The spring was located on Division Street, north of the junction with Highland Avenue.
Sope Hill. North Riverside Avenue north of Brook Street in Croton; a variant of "Soap Hill," so named because the glazed yellow bricks used as paving stones were slippery, especially in wet weather.
South Point. The southernmost point on Croton Point.
Spring Lake. Now the Duck Pond in Croton, it is still fed by a hidden spring at the head of Bungalow Road.
Squaw Point. A point of land on Croton Point between Northwest Point and Picnic Point.
Squaw Cove is to the north of Squaw Point; Indian women were reputed to have washed clothes there.
Strangtown. An area in Ossining named for the Strang family, who lived on Highland Avenue. The name comes from the French, L'Estrange.
Stormytown. An area in the town of Ossining near the intersection of Route 9A and Croton Dam Road; the name has nothing to do with the weather. The Storm family farmed here in the 18th century.
Sutton Mills. An early name for Van Cortlandtville; George Sutton operated mills at Dogwood and Pumphouse Roads.
Tamoesis Creek. The Indian name for Dickey Brook. It forms the southern boundary of Peekskill.
Teller's Point. Now Croton Point; William and Sarah Teller were early settlers on the Point.
Torbank. The area in Ossining Town west of Route 9A around Ganung Drive took its name from the former estate of Peter Donald, an early linen merchant.
Travis Landing. A hamlet north of Travis Point at Peekskill Bay. Both the point and the hamlet were named for Joseph Travis, an early settler. Travis Landing was another name for Peekskill Landing.
Travis Pond. Now Dickerson Pond in Cortlandt; it takes its name from Frederick Travis, owner of the land around the pond.
Varian's Mill. Isaac L. Varian, mayor of New York City from 1839 to 1841, operated a grist mill near Oregon Road and Root Lane in Cortlandt.
Verdrietige Hoek. The name Dutch skippers gave to Croton Point. It means "tedious or troublesome point of land" undoubtedly because it projects into the river and creates problems with currents and navigation under sail.
Washington Hill. Washington's headquarters were on this hill on Verplanck's Point, west of Buchanan.
Wenehees. The Indian name for the land between Dickey Brook and McGregory Brook in Peekskill.
Wescora. An Indian sachem's name; in 1867 it was briefly the name of the post office in Scarborough.
West Briarcliff. Citizens became agitated when the New York Central changed the name of its station from Scarboro to West Briarcliff in 1909. An objector to the new name threw the offending station sign into the Hudson, and the railroad quickly restored the original name.
Whitson. An early name for Briarcliff Manor; Charles Whitson owned 164 acres here. He was the Putnam Division station agent.
Wickapy. The name for an Indian settlement near Anthony's Nose.
Wild Cat Hill. In Cortlandt, south of the Croton River; now Catamount Hill. It was also called Wild Goat Mountain.
Willow Brook. An early name for Annsville Creek in Peekskill.
Yellow Bass Fishing Rocks. On the south shore near the mouth of the Croton River, about halfway between Crawbuckie Point and Frank's Rock. But the name makes no ichthyological sense. The yellow bass is a fish found in the Middle West. According to Croton's Ed Rondthaler, Theodore Cornu claimed old maps should have read, "Yellow Perch Fishing Rocks"; the yellow perch is a Hudson River fish.
Zion's Hill. Robert Matthews, a religious zealot, gave this name in the 1830's to the estate known as Beechwood in Ossining. It was later acquired by Frank A. Vanderlip, a wealthy New York banker. It is easily identifiable by the two buried Ionic columns at the entrance on the Albany Post Road (Route 9). Dating from 1842, These were removed from facade of the old Merchants' Exchange on Wall Street when it was remodeled in 1907 to become the National City Bank. Only their capitals and the upper portion are visible above ground.
With this final entry, we come to the end of our catalogue of extinct names. Although they have disappeared from maps, they are still rooted deeply in our folk memory. The face of the land may change: hills may be leveled and valleys filled, roads may be straightened, hamlets may be absorbed into larger towns and cities, but the old names will endure. From these vestigial reminders of our rich history--as from the more tangible evidences of archaeology--we are able to piece together a record of the past.
Labels: Forgotten Northwestern Place Names
