Category: Uncategorized
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Apoplexy: Losing Everything in a Stroke
Chancellor Robert R. Livingston died on February 25, 1813, at the age of 66. He had suffered a paralytic stroke in November of 1812. Although he showed some improvement in the next few months, he remained bedridden. In February 1813 he suffered another stroke that left him unable to speak. He passed away soon thereafter.…
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“Good Fishing Before the Door”: How Robert Livingston Would Have Fished
On May 17, 1776, Chancellor Robert R. Livingston wrote to his friend John Jay. Livingston had been searching for lodging for the two of them and their wives close to Philadelphia but outside the city proper. They were both planning to return to the Continental Congress after extended absences. Livingston wrote “However I have…
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Palatines on the Map
If you have visited Clermont, you may have noticed if you plugged our address into your GPS that we are listed as being in the town of Germantown. We’re not, we’re in the town of Clermont but it’s a whole thing with the post office. Anyway, Germantown is named after the German Palatines who were…
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Cato Strikes Back
The Treaty of Amity, Commerce, and Navigation, Between His Britannic Majesty and the United States of America or as it is more commonly known, The Jay Treaty, named after its American negotiator, was a sharply dividing document in American history and lead to the strengthening of a two-party system in the states. The treaty became…
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The Life and Times of the Reverend John Livingstone Who Helped to Start the English Civil War
Robert Livingston, the First Lord of Livingston Manor, arrived in America virtually penniless, the son of a banished minister. His father, John Livingstone, had recently died and Robert could have returned home to Scotland but chose to make his own way in the New World. John Livingstone was born on June 21, 1603.…
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“Don’t Give Up The Ship”: Midshipman Courtlandt Livingston and the USS Chesapeake
On July 5, 1813, the Virginia Argus of Richmond, Virginia published a list of those killed and wounded in the battle between USS Chesapeake and HMS Shannon. Among those killed was Midshipman Courtlandt Livingston. Many believed that the Chesapeake was an unlucky ship or event cursed. The Naval Act of 1794 authorized the construction…
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A Livingston Spouse: William Alexander, Lord Stirling
William Alexander has to be one of the most fascinating Livingston relatives of the 18th century. His Livingston connection is through his wife Sarah, who was the daughter of Philip Livingston, the Second Lord of Livingston Manor. They married in 1747 and had three children. The marriage also made him the brother-in-law of William Livingston,…
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The Short-Lived Stockbridge Settlement at Clermont
According to William Strickland, an Englishman who visited Clermont in 1794, “upon a swamp near Clermont, some families of the Stockbridge Indians have resided til within this twelvemonth…” [i] The Stockbridge were mainly Mohicans. The Mohicans had settled what became known as the Hudson River Valley thousands of years ago. They called the river,…
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The Babyfaced 18th Century
What do all these men have in common, except of course being related in one way or another? That’s right. There is not one mustache, beard, goatee, van dyke, soul patch or even a serious pair of sideburns among the lot of them. Throughout most of the 18th century facial hair was almost unheard of. …
Clermont State Historic Site 