Poughkeepsie

By Bill Jeffway. A version of this article appears in the July 14, 2021 issue of the Northern/Southern Dutchess News / Beacon Free Press. There was never a more pivotal moment in our country’s history than the moment when the renowned escaped slave, abolitionist, author, publisher and speaker Frederick Douglass galvanized an audience of several thousand people for two hours in Poughkeepsie in August of 1858. There was never a more profound question before our country than the question raised by Frederick Douglass that day. On the one hand, slavery was in decline in the country and the world. New York State had abolished slavery in 1827. Thousands were gathered that beautiful summer day, Monday, August 2, 1858, in the shady woods on the western slope of College Hill known as College Grove, to recognize the August 1, 1834 abolition of slavery by Great Britain, affecting the British West Indies. Celebrations were delayed by a day to avoid competing with Sunday Church services. Read Douglass’ full speech right: On the other hand, 4 million men, women and children remained enslaved in the US south. Debates over the slave status of new states and territories, such as Kansas, had the potential to see slavery expand in the US. Harsher laws, such as the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law, created greater penalties for those in free states, like New York, who did not actively aid in the return of “runaway” slaves. The abolitionist speaker, author, and publisher, Frederick Douglass spoke to a crowd of several thousand at Poughkeepsie’s College Hill in August 1858, injecting himself into the national conversation about slavery. Public speeches became milestones in the national dialogue. In his Poughkeepsie speech, Douglass quoted from the famous speech given two months earlier by the Republican US Senate candidate from Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” Lincoln gave the speech in June of 1858 upon accepting the nomination of his party to run for the US Senate. Lincoln warned that the US would become all free, or all slave, but would not remain divided. Frederick Douglass was not shy about his support for Lincoln, and his contempt for Lincoln’s opponent in the Senate race, Steven A. Douglas. (Frederick Douglass made jokes about the similarities in their names). Like a relay race, a few weeks later in the fourth of the famous Lincoln/Douglas debates in September of 1858, Stephen Douglas confronted Lincoln with Frederick Douglass’s Poughkeepsie words, saying it revealed Lincoln as a supporter of “negro equality and negro citizenship.” Lincoln lost the election November 2. But many believe that the performance of the Republican party in general, and the national attention Lincoln received in 1858 in instances such as Douglass’s speech in Poughkeepsie, allowed for Lincoln to win the US Presidency in 1860. Depiction of the fourth Lincoln/Douglas debate between the Republican and Democratic candidates for the US Senate seat in Illinois in 1858, Abraham Lincoln, standing, and Stephen A. Douglas seated to his left. Mural by Robert Moot, Illinois State Capitol. Like a relay race, a few weeks later in the fourth of the famous Lincoln/Douglas debates in September of 1858, Stephen Douglas confronted Lincoln with Frederick Douglass’s Poughkeepsie words, saying it revealed Lincoln as a supporter of “negro equality and negro citizenship.” Lincoln lost the election November 2. But many believe that the performance of the Republican party in general, and the national attention Lincoln received in 1858 in instances such as Douglass’s speech in Poughkeepsie, allowed for Lincoln to win the US Presidency in 1860. The United States did not see slavery legally abolished until January 1863 with the Emancipation Proclamation. Full abolition was not realized until the June 19, 1865 freeing of slaves in Texas, recently created as the national holiday, Juneteenth. It was the adoption in 1870 of the 15th US Constitutional Amendment that finally guaranteed citizenship to Persons of Color. The day of the speech was reported to be bright, sunny, bustling, and noisy with music and cheers. People came from up and down the Hudson River valley. The sunrise was greeted with the firing of 24 guns. Each gathered in their respective Churches to pay respects at 8 am, church bells rang as steamships approached the docks from north and south, and extra trains and train cars carried people to Poughkeepsie station. A procession of men, women, and children started at the location of the AME Zion Church (then on Catharine Street) and marched to the docks to welcome Douglass, who arrived by steamboat. Everyone parted to make way for his carriage as he headed to College Grove, the western slope  of College Hill that remains wooded today at North Clinton Street. The group dedicated to illuminating the local history and contributions of Africans and their descendants, Celebrating the African Spirit, is hosting a monumental tribute to Douglass’s 1858 speech on Sunday, August 1 at the College Hill hilltop pavilion. The actor, Paul Oakley Stovall, after portraying George Washington in the first national tour of Hamilton: An American Musical by Lin Manuel-Miranda, became fascinated by Frederick Douglass. He has travelled around the country, and recently to Ireland, to study Douglass. Stovall will return to the original site where Douglass spoke in 1858, although the exact location of the performance will be the more accommodating hilltop pavilion, not the grove. Stovall will recite portions of that speech for approximately 30 minutes. The event will open with a rousing procession by Souls United of Hudson Valley, an interfaith gospel choir, and the Center for Creative Education’s Percussion Orchestra of Kingston, a multicultural youth ensemble.

From the Editor: Welcome to Poughkeepsie Q&A, or PQ&A for short! This oral history program provides longtime City of Poughkeepsie residents the opportunity to tell their story, and the city’s, to the general public. See our “About” page to learn more. Click here for our email address. Poughkeepsie Q&A is made possible through the generosity of the Dutchess County Community Grants Fund of the Community Foundations of the Hudson Valley. Thank you to  The Art Effect for its partnership and to the Dutchess County Historical Society for hosting the program. ~ Jeffrey Kosmacher Published 01/30/2023

The past informs a better future. Future potential inspires us to understand the past. Special thanks to Walkway Over the Hudson for hosting this event. Bill Jeffway, is the Executive Director of the Dutchess County Historical Society. He serves on the research committee of Celebrating the African Spirit, a Poughkeepsie-based group dedicated to ensuring our public spaces in particular recognize an inclusive history. Chris Kroner in a Principal of MASS Design Group. The organization’s stated mission is “to research, build, and advocate for architecture that promotes justice and human dignity.” You are welcome to look at the images from the presentation Use full screen icon at bottom left of screen for best viewing. These images are from a June 6, 2021 presentation hosted by Walkway Over the Hudson, and co-presented by the Dutchess County Historical Society and MASS Design Group. Comments and photos recently shared with us, after the presentation Rob and Sue Doyle are collectors of 19th century Hudson River School paintings, and shared this photo of

By Bill Jeffway.A version of this article appeared in the April 21 edition of the Northern / Southern Dutchess News / Beacon Free Press. The Poughkeepsie Baptist Minister, Charles Van Loon, had only been in the job just over a year when, in February of 1845, he did not mince words. The 27 year old minister had already achieved national fame in what was called the “Second Great Religious Awakening” (the first being in the 1700s). He embodied the hallmarks of this great movement that helped make the Methodists and Baptists the two largest religious denominations in the US at the time. The hallmarks of the movement were evangelical fervor with many people converting and committing to a religious life on the spot at large gatherings; locally it meant passionate anti-slavery and abolitionist demands (Van Loon regularly spoke at rallies with Frederick Douglass); and it meant not just temperate or moderate use of intoxicating spirits, but a call for complete abstinence. Who could possibly disagree with all this energy and fervor advanced in the name of moral values and God? Well…consider Matthew Vassar. In 1839, Matthew Vassar, who would build and endow Vassar College just over two decades later, advanced the $20,000 needed to build a Baptist church and parsonage on a plot of land he donated on what is today Lafayette Place. He did so on the condition that he would put up the full $20,000, deduct his $10,000 gift, and the congregation would pay off the $10,000 balance through a mortgage with interest paid to him. Vassar was both the giver of the mortgage, and its receiver or beneficiary as President of the Church board. Van Loon arrived as Minister in late 1843. One might wonder why the brewer Vassar would be involved in recruiting such a well-known temperance minister. After all, the family fortune was derived from the brewery that was started by Matthew’s father in 1806, greatly enlarged by Matthew, and came to involve Matthew’s brothers’ two children, who came to be immortalized through “Vassar Brothers Hospital.” Van Loon suddenly found himself without a church building or a home. In what Van Loon described as immoral and a conflict of interest, Vassar “in his capacity as mortgagee foreclosed upon himself as trustee…and then directed the sheriff to levy upon the parsonage which is now advertised for sale.” It was in this way Van Loon found himself without a home or a church. What was behind such a move by Vassar? Vassar and Van Loon each accused the other of “starting it,” and “it” burned on the pages of newspapers for months. The Poughkeepsie Journal said they were reluctant to get involved in “paper wars,” but reprinted Van Loon’s attacks on Vassar which had been limited to an Albany abolitionist newspaper, out of “a concern for public education.” Having found the newspaper copies with the reprint flying off the shelves and not meeting demand, the Journal reprinted the article the following week (again, reluctantly, surely) but this time on the front page, and this time with a massive print overrun for sale. Matthew Vassar lamented the “new tactics” of the Evangelical minister, excoriating Van Loon and describing the Evangelical process as misleading people, calling out the “pointed but misdirected zeal” and saying converts were “made the dupes of fanaticism and of folly.” According to Vassar ,Van Loon was making “Christians by machinery” and was “playing upon the nerves of his gathered hearers, like Paganini upon fiddle strings.” Above left to right: The entrance pillars remain, but the home of Matthew Vassar is today replaced with the Cunneen-Hackett Arts Center. The c. 1862 painting of the home by Frederick Rondel. An 1876 map showing how Matthew Vassar was subdividing the original land his father bought and used as the location of a brewery and private home. The entrance to the Baptist Church was just east of the home from Main Street. Matthew Vassar lamented what he saw as bringing the political movement of abolition within the walls of the sacred church. “Political abolition walked through the lecture room of the chapel; political caucuses disgraced the house of God; a political meeting was held and a party abolition ticket for the county was nominated in the church. Fanaticism walked arm in arm with the pastor, who, leading on his raw recruits, commenced a war of extermination in the church.” But the attack on Evangelicalism and abolitionist activities in church were merely acts one and two of a three act play. The third act, the culmination, was Vassar’s full-on accusation supported by a dozen sworn, notarized affidavits fully published in the newspapers, that Van Loon regularly broke his abstinence vow in front of him, and drank Vassar ale, not for medicinal reasons, but as a matter of course. There had been a sober tradition of believing alcohol served medicinal purposes, and even temperate individuals could take alcohol for this reason. This is the same thinking that allowed the medical use of alcohol during national prohibition (1920 to 1933), where whisky and champagne were equally available for a medical doctor to prescribe. In principle, it underlies the distinction some see in the difference between marijuana for medical or for recreational use. Matthew Vassar admitted that when Van Loon was dining at Matthew Vassar’s house, Matthew and his wife strongly lobbied for Van Loon to drink alcohol to treat his cold. Vassar claimed Van Loon not only took ale then, but had it subsequently at the brewery and at his house “when there was no pretense of any malady.” Van Loon was quite capable of returning fire, and described Matthew Vassar’s suffocating grip on the church as “…degrading bondage, [creating] years of shameful impotence and moral disability. The pews were almost tenantless. The church and the brewery were married in the face of Israel in the Sun!” Until his dying day Van Loon insisted he never had a drop. That day, for Van Loon, was sooner rather than later; he died

Collegiate School Building Opened in 1836 Destroyed by fire 1917 City reservoir 1872 View by Bierstadt 19th century views from College Hill 1911 view 1911 view 1911 view