For everyone

We use such balms as have no strife, With Nature nor the Laws of Life; With blood our hands we never stain, Nor poison men to ease their pain. The Poughkeepsie Thomsonian [1842] Now mostly forgotten, this motto once represented one of the most prominent health crazes of the 19th century. The poem advertised the Thomsonian (or “Botanic”) system of medicine in which doctors challenged conventional medical practice, instead recommending natural plant-based cures. While largely ineffective, these remedies captivated public attention, something we are all too familiar with in an age of health influencers and digital cures. Dutchess County, particularly Poughkeepsie, had a strong voice in the Thomsonian movement. This philosophy created a vibrant sub-culture within the County’s medical community for more than two decades, receiving state and national attention. Dr. Samuel Thomson (1769-1843), the movements founder, worked as an herbalist and botanist in rural New Hampshire. In the summer of 1790, Thomson’s wife Susanna suffered a life-threatening illness that conventional medicine was unable to cure. Turing to a plant-based remedy, Susanna eventually recovered. The following decades, Thomson developed his new medical system, testing various cures on his neighbors and children. In 1822 he released the New Guide to Health, or, Botanic Family Physician, which outlined natural remedies to common alignments. Above: Portrait of Dr. Samuel Thomson, Founder of the Botanical Health Movement. The image appears in the 1835 edition of his New Guide to Health. Thomson and his followers cultivated a personal system of bodily health in which medicine targeted the root of the problem rather than treat its symptoms. These “cures” ranged from specific activities such as the famous Thomsonian steam bath in which a patient drank a mix of cayenne pepper and laxatives while sitting in a sauna, to common herbal medicines. Ardent Thomsonianists publicly denounced doctors who practiced blood-letting and used harmful or toxic drugs such as Opium, Laudanum, and the mercury solution Calomel. These cures purported to solve illness without invasive procedures. Through natural substances—only compounds easily derived from plants—they promoted a holistic view of the human body, targeting both physical and emotional unwellness. The historic News Paper Collection in the Dutchess County Historical Society’s archive, replete with signs of this system, shows the range of these Thomsonian remedies. One notice, included in an 1836 issue of Poughkeepsie Journal advertised “syrup of Liverwort,” “Cephalic Snuff,” and “Concentrated Syrup of Sarsaparilla” all made in Thomsonian fashion with “medicinal herbs, extracts, and ointments.” Another, published in an 1841 issue of the Poughkeepsie Telegraph, claimed that all-natural vegetable pills sold in every town in Dutchess would cure any fever, “Bilious Cholic, Dypensia, heart burn, and Female Weakness.” These local examples aptly demonstrates both the range of uses and the variety of material claimed by the Thomsonianist. Through cures like this, the movement attempted to empower individual health. Under the Thomsonian system, patients had full control over the administration of treatments. Informally trained practitioners and local Thomsonian publications could recommend cures that could be purchased at Thomsonian stores, but nothing was prescribed. Thus, easily applied and widely applicable cures had the greatest appeal. The movement grew as stories of miraculous cures spread throughout the county. Outside of New England, New York had the largest community of Thomsonianists, and Poughkeepsie functioned as a locus for the state’s Thomsonian movement during its formative years. Indeed, as the Poughkeepsie Eagle noted in 1837, the city was quickly becoming the meeting place of Thomsonian medical conferences and the State’s Thomsonian Medical Society. The most prominent local Thomsonian was Thomas Lapham (b. c.1780). Lapham ran a clinic, store, and school for the new systems treatments on the North end Catherine Street in Poughkeepsie. In May of 1838 Lapham along with local businessman A. H. Platt printed the inaugural issue of the Poughkeepsie Thomsonian a bi-monthly newspaper that detailed, remedies, clinics, and testimonies. Each issue of the Poughkeepsie Thomsonian offered to “Let a knowledge of the healing art be diffused among the people,” a nod to the broader movement’s desire to make medical knowledge public. The publication’s readership rapidly expanded, distributing thousands of papers, reflecting the movement’s success in the county with dozens of practicing offices and several Thomsonian societies. The zenith of Dutchess Thomsoniansm can be seen in medical publications where the Thomsonians of Dutchess County gain national attention. In 1840, the editors of the Poughkeepsie Thomsonian—facing harsh criticism over the validity of the medical system—called for the creation of an informative almanac. Originally used as a tool to chart stellar movements and weather, by the 19th century almanacs were full of informative articles that often looked at personal health, farming, and history. Their reputation for credibility made them the most popular serial publication after newspapers. Lapham and Platt called for a national publication based in Poughkeepsie titled the United States Thomsonian Almanac (or Poughkeepsie Thomsonian Almanac). In his appeal, Lapham described almanacs as “powerful auxiliaries [for] advancing the Thomsonian system.” During a meeting of notable practitioners later that year Poughkeepsie’s request was accepted. While several other communities already had established and successful almanacs, Thomsonianists in Poughkeepsie distinguished their book by adding several new cures that existed outside of Thomson’s system. They even provided a detailed history of several. In doing this, they promoted unapproved herbs which they claimed better regulated the body’s blood and had a wider historical use. Left: Title page of the United States Thomson Almanac published in Poughkeepsie, 1840. Image courtesy of Heritage Auctions. The movement’s founder declared the United States Thomsonian Almanac dangerous, claiming the additions would harm any who used them and had no place in the medical system. However, the damage had already been done as Lapham and Platt shipped thousands of copies throughout New York and the country. Amongst practicing Thomsonists the book received high praise. The Botanico-Medical Recorder in Cincinnati, Ohio deemed it “admirably well calculated” and called for all Thomsonians in the West to “exert himself to circulate this almanac.” Despite its success, issues with nonconformity prevented further publications of the almanac. However,

Each June marks the end of another academic year, and students throughout Dutchess County celebrate advancements in their education. A display of pins donated to the Dutchess County Historical Society by Marjorie Mangold in honor of her late husband reminds us that just over a century ago thousands of students shared this excitement through a unique end-of-the-year ceremony: investitures of Health Knighthood. The pins in the Mangold Collection, brought together by Harold Mangold Sr. and Jr. depict intriguing scenes of knights charging into battle or fighting dragons. On the border of each rests the phrase “Modern Health Crusade.” Once proudly worn by student “Crusaders” throughout the county, these pins speak to a complex history of children’s health education. The Modern Health Crusade (MHC) was a youth health education curriculum that began in 1915 to combat the spread of tuberculosis. The program lasted into the early 1930s and was taught in schools across the nation, Europe, and Asia. The Crusade succeeded in America during WWI, with one million students enrolled by 1919. Its popularity grew in the post-war period, climbing to well over three million active participants by 1923. First developed by National Tuberculosis Association (NTA), the HMC sought to cultivate hygienic and moral values. These values, deem by the HMC “health knighthood” or “health chivalry,” intended to mold children into good citizens able contribute to wartime preparedness. The movement’s founder Charles Mills deForest (1878-1947) called this the “Crusade Method of Health Training.” Above Left: Knight Pin; Depicts King Arthur knighting a Health Crusader with Camelot in background. Above is the National Tuberculosis Associations cross, a “K” for “Knight,” and a Health Cross. Above right: Squire Pin; Shows a horse and squire bearing a shield with the cross of the National Tuberculosis Association. Health Cross floats above. DeForest spent his career campaigning for children’s health education; he served as a field secretary for the American Red Cross Seals Division and the NTA. Throughout his work, he regularly noted that children struggled to adapt hygienic practices. DeForest posited that “good health” depended on students’ self-motivation. Therefore, he envisioned a curriculum that appeared as “fantasy game” which engaged children from kindergarten to 8th grade, charting their progress each term. In no less than four years, students moved through different knightly ranks. Beginning as a squire, a student became a Knight, then a Knight Banneret, and finally a Knight Banneret Constant. Advancement could only be obtained throughout the school year by the completion of “Crusade Chores.” These tasks, listed on a proscribed chart, ranged from hygienic activities such as “I washed my hands before each meal” to more aesthetic ones such as maintaining trimmed nails or hair. Each day the program required parents and teachers to sign off that the child had done these duties. “Chivalrous” students completed seventy-two chores a week, and after a year of living “chivalrously,” they were awarded the next rank. While deForest’s program was rigorous, he truly expected children to enjoy participating. In an article defending his methodology, he noted that, “Every child likes to play… He likes to play that he is grown, and to do something worthy of a grown-up.” Through play, the program reinforced “good health” with a tangible system of growth. “Health chivalry” sought to foster play through material rewards and competitions. This emphasis on recreation distinguished the program’s curriculum from other educational systems at the time. It attempted to alter methods of teaching rather than the information taught. A manual for teachers and nurses published by the NTA outlined how to include fantasy stories, songs, and crusade pageants. These elements culminated in the knighting ceremony, during which successful students moved to subsequent ranks. Dressed in handmade crusading outfits, students would gather singing Health Crusader songs as the teacher knighted students. During these celebrations, pins—like those in DCHS’s collection—were attached to the knight and to be worn during the following school year. Left: 1920 Knight Banneret Pin; Image of a mounted knight, holding the standard of the knight banneret with the letters “K” and “B” on either side of the Health Cross, the horse bears the National Tuberculosis Cross on flank. This appeal to competition was expressed in the schools and communities. The pins intentionally served as a physical sign of students’ position over their peers. As the NTA outlined, this disparity created a “visible daily reminder” of individual accomplishment which should motivate the student body to work harder. The MHC also granted students the opportunity to compete directly in national and inter-city tournaments. Schools in Beacon, Hyde Park, and Rhinebeck were the first in the nation to sign up to participate in the 1919 inaugural National Health Crusade Tournament where students participated in health and physical fitness drills. No Dutchess County school won the coveted pendant that year, but they continued to compete in the following tournaments. Indeed, the Health Crusade found a particularly strong voice in Dutchess County. An article a November 1919 issue of the Miscellany News—Vassar College’s student-run newspaper—noted that on the 25th of October, students from public and private schools in Poughkeepsie met at the Liberty Theater to watch a showing of the “Modern Health Crusade” movie. The children were so stirred by the film that the police present need to uphold “the standards of law and order.” The excitement of the students speaks to the program’s effectiveness. Its national success, in part, was propelled by Vassar College President Henry Noble MacCracken (1880-1970). MacCracken founded the Junior Red Cross of America in 1917. The new organization soon partnered with the NTA, heavily promoting the Modern Health Crusade. Under MacCracken’s leadership, Vassar College became a primary mode of outreach. A notice in the Poughkeepsie Eagle from February of 1919 remarked that Rhinebeck schools received lectures about the Crusade from Vassar’s Four-Minute-Girls, mirroring the wartime Four-Minute-Men whose spoke about war effort. Dutchess’ Collegiate involvement also spread nationally as NTA targeted Vassar seniors for executive positions at their headquarters in Philadelphia and as nurses throughout the country. By 1930 however, deForest and

A talk by DCHS Trustee David Turner How the Automobile Changed the Hudson Valley: a View Through Postcards New in Collections: From the recently acquired Mangold Collection, photographs of commercial trucks in Poughkeepsie ca. 1918.

Within these pages, DCHS, with the broader Dutchess County history community, is looking to develop an understanding of these kinds of questions that will evolve into a permanent online exhibition and educational resource. When have members of your community advocated for liberty and equality? How have people with power responded? How has the process of becoming “a more perfect union” evolved in your community? Can you name contemporary examples of how the dialogue around liberty and equality is being carried out in your community today?

 Black Voices in Freedom’s Pursuit: America’s Revolutionary War   “What to the slave is the 4th of July?” At the heart of Frederick Douglass’s pointed question was the unmistakable irony that the country based on the 1776 premise that all are created equal, by the time of its 1788 Constitution had created the so-called three-fifths compromise, literally defining inequality.     2024 SEPTEMBER 16, 2024200th Anniversary of the Arrival of the Nation's Guest, the Marquis de Lafayette. 1824 Visit of Lafayette: NYS Was a Slave State As the nation’s guest, the American Revolutionary War hero from France, the Marquis de Lafayette, stepped onto the dock at the foot of Main Street, Poughkeepsie in the early morning of September 16, 1824. Newspapers reported it was the largest gathering of men, women, and children — civilian and military — in the village’s history.  We know that among the cheering public would have been persons of color, many of whom were enslaved as NY State would not abolish slavery until July 4, 1827. Three years earlier, in 1821, New York instituted a property requirement for a man to be eligible to vote that applied only to men of color.  They would have been aware of Lafayette’s outspoken advocacy of the abolition of slavery, his collaboration with a former enslaved man who became a spy and American war hero, and his specific actions freeing the enslaved. The emerging program, DCHS Horizons: the Marquis de Lafayette, will culminate in at event on the 200th anniversary at Revel 32, Cannon Street, Poughkeepsie on the morning of Monday, September 16, 2024. More on that in time. CLICK FOR DCHS HORIZONS: LAFAYETTE 1824 TO 2024 2025 DECEMBER 31, 2025250th Anniversary of the Death of General Montgomery 1775 Death of Montgomery: Whose Freedom? The tragic December 31, 1775 death of Rhinebeck’s General Montgomery in the Revolutionary War is captured in this iconic painting by Trumbull. The event came to symbolize the profound personal sacrifices made by all levels of society during the war, on behalf of freedom. But whose freedom was being secured? In the 1940 Rhinebeck Post Office murals painted by local artist Olin Dows, we see a depiction of an enslaved man making bricks for Montgomery’s estate, Grasmere, which stands today. Also shown here, the Rhinebeck census for 1820 indicating that the widowed Janet Livingston Montgomery, who never remarried, had 12 enslaved men, women and children at her home in Red Hook, Montgomery Place. CLICK FOR DCHS HORIZONS: REV 250 2026 JULY 4, 2026The premise and promise that all are created equal began a series of smaller revolutions continue today. 1776 Premise "All Created Equal" The great abolitionist leader, author, and speaker, the former slave Frederick Douglass, famously penned a critique entitled, “What to the slave is your 4th of July?” The 1776 premise that “all are created equal” was followed by the adoption of a US Constitution that literally defined inequality, stating that slave states like New York, could have 3/5ths of the Black population counted toward Congressional representation and the Electoral College for electing the US President. Poughkeepsie, of course, was host to the New York Convention in July of 1788, at the site of the current court house, when New York State, with the smallest margin of any state, agreed to join the United State. 2027 July 4th, 2027200th Anniveersary of the end of slavery in New York State. 1827 NYS Abolition & the Deadly Period of the Divided House The relief of the end of slavery in New York State was greatly tempered by the purely racially motivated voting restrictions requiring property ownership, and the fact that the United States was entering a period of decades of what Abraham Lincoln correctly described as a divided house that could not stand.  With a “free north” and a “slave south,” Dutchess County became and important route on the Underground Railroad, with an inland route of Quaker homes, and a river-oriented route that relied more on the Black community that worked in the transportation industry as chambermaids at hotels, like the Exchange Hotel, shown here, or men w boatsmen and waiters on steamboats. 2028 April 7, 2028180 years of New York State's Women's property act. 2028 Above image: The Town of Milan 1873 property tax log reflects the fact that Almira Jackson owned 108 acres of farmland independent of her husband was only possible because of the the NY State law passed 25 years earlier that allowed such a situation. Prior to this, a married woman could not own real estate with independent rights, they were transferred to the husband. The home shown is that of Sally Lawson who came to own the largest lot on Oak Street Rhinebeck (three lots wide) in the decades in the run-up to Civil War.

Recognizing American Indian Heritage Month By Bill Jeffway A version of this article appeared in the November 15, 2023 Northern/Southern Dutchess News / Beacon Free Press. While not in a position to explain the full history of local Indigenous Peoples (see recommendations at the end of this article for that), as a way to recognize American Indian Heritage Month, we will introduce you to some of the Indigenous Peoples who lived here locally in the nineteenth century. We are cautioned in the 2010 book, “Firsting & Lasting, Writing Indians Out of Existence in New England” by Jean M. O’Brien, that the myth of the disappearance of the American Indian and the claim of Europeans to be the “first” to do things, like discover the Hudson, are based on an erasure of fact-based historical record. This began with James Fenimore Cooper’s 1826 book, The Last of the Mohicans, and remains a popular storyline, although not accurate. This provides short profiles of Indigenous People’s encountered in the documentation of our local history. Daniel Nimham Daniel Nimham (ca. 1724–1778) remains the most prominent American Indian associated with New York’s Hudson Valley and the American Revolutionary War. In addition to military service, he argued in courts for the return of land fraudulently taken by the Philipse family, part of Westchester County today. He traveled to England to argue his case to British authorities but was not successful. He died in service to the United States August 31, 1778 and is memorialized in the Town of Fishkill (see image). “Thick set Indian boy” We don’t know his name, but in DCHS Collections there is a copy of the New-York Journal of November 22, 1779, “Run away, on Saturday the 13th in Dover.. a thick set Indian boy with long black hair, about 13 years of age.” James Morehouse of Dover offered fifty dollars reward. The boy could have been enlsaved or indentured. Hannah Coshire In Frank Hasbrouck’s 1909 history of Dutchess County, he describes Hannah Coshire as the daughter of Jonah and Lydia Coshire and sister of Steve Choshire, owning a small piece of rocky land in the town of LaGrange. Hannah Coshire ied October 18, 1877 and is buried with her family in Moore’s Mills. In the 1860s and 1870s she was living with the Skidmore family as a servant in LaGrange. She was portrayed as the “last of her race” in her obituary. Henry Catskill Again in Hasbrouck’s history, Henry Catskill is described as being of the Wappinger who married and settled with local Blacks in the Fishkill hamlet of Baxtertown. Hasbrouck describes him by saying he was entirely Native in appearance, “a well-built, handsome man, with straight hair.” Susan May In Isaac Huntting’s 1897 history of Pine Plains he describes the May family as “pure Mohican Shekomeko.” From DCHS Collections we have the marriage record of Susan May to Andrew Frazier, Jr., son of a mixed-race African and European heritage. Prince Manessah or Minisee Again we rely on Huntting who explains that Manessah sometimes Minisee is an “Indian name.” “Prince Quack Minisee” is enshrined in a 1935 New York State historical marker saying he was an Indian medicine man. Research shows he may have been Black, in part or in whole, the name Quacko a relatively common name from Africa meaning “born on Wednesday.” He went on to Michigan with his sons in the late 19th century, and there the family became a widely-known and highly regarded frontier farming Black family, the Minisee family with descendants we’ve contacted and spoken to recently. “Louisa” Given her age and Florida birth, It seems very likely that Louisa was brought back from her native Florida by Nathan Darling of Rhinebeck. She shows up as sixteen years old and living in the Darling household as a servant. Darling was a Captain in the 2nd Dragoons during the Seminole Indian wars in the 1820s and 1830s.. He appears to have returned from Florida with a teenage Louisa who went on to marry a Black man, son of former slaves, and lived on Rhinebeck’s Oak Street. John Wannuaucon Quinney From DCHS Collections we have the hotel book register of the Poughkeepsie hotel and find that the John Quinney (1797-1855) who registered as a visitor there was none other than the most notable of Mohican leaders of the 19th century. He is registered as from Wisconsin which is where his people were “relocated to” from the area of the Hudson Valley. His visit may relate to the fact that then US Senator Nathaniel P. Tallmadge was from Poughkeepsie, as Tallmadge’s

Below: The story of Andrew Frazier, the ancestor. The only Black family with a large plot. Adjacent to and facing, but not technically within, “Colored Section E.” Below: Images and profiles.

This is the story of ongoing work to confirm details of an oral tradition in Fishkill’s Brinckerhoff family of nearly 200 years. The tradition holds that Lafayette gave this desk as a gift during his 1824 tour. Recently discovered evidence tends to confirm that oral tradition. In 2013, with the 200th anniversary of Lafayette’s 1824 local visit approaching, the Fishill Historical Society and Dutchess County Historical Society collaborated to dig a little deeper to better understand what might have happened. Sandy Levy of Jenkinstown Antiques of South New Paltz provided the answer. He identified the piece as Haines & Holmes in New York City, circa 1825. Lafayette gave fine gifts, made and purchased locally, to important friends We know from the start of Lafayette’s arrival in New York in August of 1824, he was inclined to purchase a locally made item as a gift. Under the heading, “An Elegant Present” the newspaper reports, “General Lafayette, on Tuesday evening, very affectionately took leave of Captain Allvn, at his room, City Hotel, and at the same time presented him with a superb writing desk, (made by N. Smith Prentiss, of this city,) replete with everything necessary for a gentleman’s toilet, bearing this inscription, “General Lafayette to his excellent friend Captain Allyn, August 15th, 1824.” He also sent kind remembrances to such of the officers and crew of the Cadmus as remained on board, presenting to the chief mate, Mr. Daniel Chadwick, a beautiful case of mathematical instruments mounted in silver. The Cadmus sailed on Wednesday, for Havre.” The story as told by Fishkill Historical Society in 2003 From Fishkill Historical Society June 2023 NewsletterThe Van Wyck DispatchPresident’s Message  Above: Patti and John “Brinckerhoff” Haslett – Lafayette Bureau Donors On May 18th, 2023, Patti and John “Brinckerhoff” Haslett stopped by the Homestead for a “Personalized Guided Tour.”    Ten years ago, they generously donated the Lafayette Dresser to our Fishkill Historical Society.  John “Brinckerhoff” Haslett is the nephew of Beverly & Todd Brinckerhoff who were long-time members of our Fishkill Historical Society, and owned the Brinckerhoff Homestead – the big white house up on the hill overlooking the junction of Routes 52 and 82.   When they died in 2012, the house was sold – and is now the Brinckerhoff Inn Bed & Breakfast, and all of the furnishings in the home were sold at a local Auction in February 2013. Since Patti & John live in Virginia, he called me up a couple of days before the Auction, and said:  “Don’t BID on the ‘Lafayette Dresser’ I’m going to buy it and DONATE IT to the Fishkill Historical Society in Memory of Beverly & Todd Brinckerhoff”, and, that’s exactly what he did.  Now, ten years later, they were on vacation and stayed overnight at the Brinckerhoff Inn – his Aunt and Uncle’s historic house – (where Lafayette was very sick and convalesced for many weeks in October 1778) & then came to our Van Wyck Homestead: Historical Info:  In September 1824, when Marquis de Lafayette came back to America for his “Grand Tour” of the United States, his ship docked at Newburgh on September 13th, while heading north, and then on September 19th, while heading south – back to New York City, his ship stopped at Fishkill Landing.    At one of these stops, Lafayette had his personal Three-Drawer Dresser off-loaded and delivered to the Brinckerhoff Family here in Fishkill as a “Thank You” that their Parents / Grandparents had saved his life almost 50 years ago.  It was an HEIRLOOM in the Brinckerhoff Home for 190 years, and Patti & John “Brinckerhoff” Haslett generously purchased it at the Auction & Donated IT to our Society!  Steve Lynch, FHS President    Fishkill’s Brinckerhoff House today. Above left: Steve Lynch, 2023. Above right: Steve Lynch and Joey Cavaccinni, 2003.

Why have so many admired Lafayette for so long? The Dutchess County Historical Society was honored to speak at this important Fishkill commemoration of Lafayette. We can learn so much about why he remains important by looking through the lens of local history. Lafayette earned the admiration of George Washington, and was honored by established, foundational orders like the Freemasons and Society of Cincinnati. But the historic, record turnout of crowds to welcome him during his 1824 to 1825 tour reflect the wide admiration held by a diverse group of American people, who placed their various hopes and dreams in him. Among them: working class Protestants, free and enslaved Blacks, Indigenous Peoples, women and American soldiers, generals and Congressmen across the 18th, 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. Understanding what they saw in Lafayette may suggest what we might want to understand as well. Bill Jeffway, August 2023Executive Director, Dutchess County Historical SocietyBicentennial Committee, American Friends of Lafayette A ceremony to honor the Marquis de Lafayette: celebrating 125 years of the Lafayette Monument in Fishkill On Sunday, August 27, 2023 at 11:00 a.m. a ceremony to honor of the Marquis de Lafayette, celebrating 125 years of the Lafayette Monument in Fishkill, took place at Rombout Rural Cemetery, 1571 Route 52, Fishkill, NY. The ceremony was hosted by the Town of Fishkill in partnership with the Rombout Rural Cemetery and the Melzingah Chapter, National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution, featuring special guest M. Damien Laban, French Deputy Consul General in New York. Bill Jeffway’s remarks of August 27, 2023 begin here. September 19th of 2024 will mark the 200th anniversary of Revolutionary War Major General Lafayette’s visit to Fishkill, part of a late-in-life farewell tour that lasted 13 months and included all 24 States. The question is: should we recognize next year’s anniversary, and if so, why? Consider an answer, through the lens of local history…where we find that admiration for Lafayette transcends not just centuries, but social and economic class, faith, gender and race. He inspired not only George Washington, but Indigenous Peoples, free and enslaved Blacks, the working class, women, defenders of Irish Catholics, US soldiers, generals…and US Congressmen. Let me explain. In the nearby image of Daniel Nimham you have the face of Indigenous Peoples who fought for the American cause. Lafayette was known for earning the trust and engaging the Oneida during the war. They called him, great warrior, in their native language, as a sign of respect. In 1783 Fishkill’s Captain Comfort Ludington and wife Elizabeth named their newborn son, deLafayette Ludington. Forty-four years later, in 1827, Thomas and Jane Williams, a free Black couple in Union Vale named their newborn son Lafayette Williams. Lafayette Williams grew to serve, and die, in the Civil War in 1865, in the US Colored Troops. He is buried at the national cemetery in City Point, Virginia. In 1854, two decades after Lafayette’s death, Lafayette’s name was invoked by voices against, and in defense of — Catholic immigrant voices, when the well known historian, Jared Sparks with Hyde Park family ties, strongly asserted in national press that he knew from personal observation having lived with him for some time at his home, Lagrange, in France, that Lafayette was tolerant of all faiths. In 1914, Red Hook’s Victor Chapman joined what came to be called the Lafayette Escadrille, serving as a pilot in the early and emerging practice of armed airplanes at the outbreak of World War One. His untimely death in battle over Germany led to a eulogy at Lafayette’s grave in Paris on July 4th, 1916 – where Chapman’s name was specifically linked to Lafayette as representative of the “good feeling between the sister republics.” One year later – again at Lafayette’s grave in Paris – on July 4th, 1917 – US General Pershing and American troops rallied an American public skeptical of the recent US declaration of war on Germany –  with the call that became the dominant theme in the war: “Lafayette we are here!” Poughkeepsie’s American Legion Post is today called the Lafayette Post, founded and named by C. Fred Close upon his return from service in France in World War One. In September of 1918, women seeking a national right to vote assembled at Lafayette’s statue in Lafayette Square across from the White House and got national attention saying, “Lafayette, we are here! We, the women of the United States, denied the liberty which you helped to gain, and for which we have asked in vain for sixty years, turn to you to plead for us. Speak, Lafayette!” … By 1920 the amendment was adopted. In 1958, local Congressman Hamilton Fish created and led the Order of Lafayette, to recognize those who served as officers in France – in either the First or Second World War. For all the big plays on the global stage, as a man of two worlds, of both the American and French revolutions, I believe what makes Lafayette distinct is his lifelong, persistent, intimate gestures: a tip of a hat, a bow of respect, a hand shake, penning a letter of support, a gift as remembrance. He kissed the hand of Marie Antoinette and calmed an angry crowd, at least for a time. Lewis Hayden credits his transition from enslaved Kentucky boy – to becoming a leading national abolitionist – to the recognition Lafayette bestowed on Hayden during his national tour. Here in Fishkill, we find among the most beautiful examples of these intimate gestures, the desk Lafayette gave to the Brinkerhoff family during his 1824 visit, to thank them for nursing him from near death in October of 1778. You can see it exhibited at the Van Wyck Homestead and Museum on weekends. I highly recommend it. I am recently involved with the American Friends of Lafayette, a historical and patriotic organization dedicated to the memory of Lafayette in the United States and France, and we are in the beginning stages of developing plans for the bicentennial. Please