Category: Uncategorized
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An insatiable Ambition devours the Chancellor: Robert Livingston, John Jay, A Treaty, An Election and the Death of a Founding Friendship
Robert R. Livingston\”Insatiable\” Chancellor Robert R. Livingston could be a powerful and influential friend to have. Unfortunately, it was very easy to earn the man’s enmity. As a result, Livingston retained few friends for long periods of time. His three most significant friends from before the Revolution were Richard Montgomery, Gouverneur Morris and John Jay.…
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A Bicycle Comes to Maizeland
Two servants in the Maizeland household support baby KayTimpson on a bicycle, while grandfather John HenryLivingston looks on. c. 1903 I was doing some research for a project on the importance of bicycles to turn-of-the-century American women, when I came across these pictures in the recently-donated Katharine Livingston Timpson collection. They\’re fabulous pictures for all…
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From Our Fellow Bloggers:Gatehouses of the Hudson River District
Our friend and neighbor Conrad Hanson has compiled a list of gatehouses in the area surrounding Clermont. In the late nineteenth century, the riverside was populated with Livingston relations, friends, and people from their wider social circle. As they they flowed from house to house on summer visits, these gatehouses formed part of their landscape,…
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2017 Calendar of Events
February 22 Wednesday 11 am-1 pm Winter Break Playday!: Celebrate winter break and Presidents Day at Clermont! Old fashion hot chocolate making, historic crafts, and snowman building (weather permitting) Parents must accompany children throughout the event. Ages 5-11 Kids are free, adults $5. March 19 Sunday 1 pm Scuttlebutt and Scandals…
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Alice and Katharine–What\'s Their Deal?
So it is a known fact at Clermont that Alice Delafield Clarkson\’s dad Howard was close friends with her eventual husband John Henry Livingston. The two men lived just a few miles apart, and they were distant cousins in the way that so many Hudson Valley elites were at that time. Alice and John Henry…
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"The Gentleman Does Not Reason From Facts": Chancellor Robert R. Livingston and the Fight to Ratify the Constitution in New York
Not that George Clinton That George ClintonYes I know I\’ve done this jokebefore but its still funny When the Constitutional Convention adjourned in Philadelphia the fight to create a unified country out of thirteen individual states was far from over. In every state another convention was to be held where the leaders would decide whether…
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The River Ran Backwards and Other Adventures of Robert R. Livingston\'s First Steamboat on the Mississippi River
Mississippi River icon It is hard to imagine the Mississippi River without its iconic steamboats beating their way up and down stream. Even Mark Twain once wrote, of the steamboats on the Mississippi; “When I was a boy, there was but one permanent ambition among my comrades in our village on the west bank of…
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Lord Cornbury\'s Dress
Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon and Viscount Cornbury is perhaps the most maligned royal governor that the colony of New York ever had. His reign from 1702 to 1708 was marked with greed, bribery and rampant misuse of public funds. Yet the thing he is most remembered for is this: That’s right. If one was…
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Katharine Comes Home: An Exciting New Donation from a Livingston family Descendant
This small collection of mini-ature portraits proved to be justthe beginning. It all started almost three years ago, when a Livingston family member arrived from England with a surprise donation of several miniature portraits from Katharine Livingston Timpson\’s family–his family. Katharine Livingston Timpsonand her first two children:Theo and Kay Katharine, John Henry\’s daughter from his first…
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Dangerous Companion: Chancellor Robert R. Livingston and the Traitor’s Wife
Benedict Arnold Traitor The story of Benedict Arnold’s treasonous actions at West Point is so well known that the man’s very name is synonymous with traitor in the United States. He planned to turn over the fort at West Point along with all the soldiers stationed there to the British in exchange for a…
Clermont State Historic Site 