Poughkeepsie

Our online story about the extraordinary Sadie Peterson Delaney caught the attention of a big fan in England: Natty Mark Samuels, head of the African School in England. He was prompted to write a ballad dedicated to her, which is here performed by Poughkeepsie’s Angela Henry. The profile of Mrs. Delaney is below as well. The Ballad of Sadie Delaney By Natty Mark Samuels, head of the African School in England. Read by (Grace) Angela Henry (13 minutes). Full program. Poughkeepsie’s Sadie Delaney: Healing the Trauma of War Through Reading This is an extract from an article published in the Northern/Southern Dutchess News on February 12, 2020, under the heading, African American Women’s Voices & Talents of a Century Ago by Bill Jeffway. Sadie (Johnson) Peterson Delaney (1889 to 1958) was both ambitious and successful in expanding a field of health and healing driven by books, called Bibliotherapy. We know from The Quill, the Parish newsletter of the the Smith Metropolitan AME Zion Church, that she was a prolific poet, and involved in many Church groups. From the October 21, 1915 issue: Mrs Peterson is one of Zion’s staunch supporters. She possesses considerable literary ability, is a willing worker, a splendid young woman and of a congenial personality. She is a born poet. Her productions are practically all spontaneous efforts and yet she has but few equals in the amateur poetic world. Each of her poems grip with a peculiar fascination, being clothed in beautiful language, the pathos so tender and the whole so original, varied and novel that one is carried along as in a delightful dream of admiration. Mrs. Peterson is serving our church as President of the J. W. Hood Literary Society, President of the General Claims Auxiliary No. 2, Leader of the Children’s Class, Sabbath School Teacher, and member of the Busy Bee Sewing Circle. She is one of the daughters of Zion of whom we are proud. New York State was having a referendum in the year 1915 on the question of women’s suffrage, of course only among male voters who were the only ones who could vote at the time. The question the ballot was whether the NY State constitution should be amended to allow women to vote. In an effort to drum up support among African-Americans the Equal Suffrage League of Poughkeepsie, led by Laura Wiley of Vassar College, held a meeting at the Smith AME Zion Church, the African-American Church on Smith Street in Poughkeepsie in 1914, a year before the referendum. Among the women of that Church who stepped up and spoke in support of women’s suffrage was Sadie Johnson Peterson. Interested in writing at the time, she read an original poem called, “A Suffrage Call.” Unfortunately we do not know exactly what she said. Peterson had moved to Poughkeepsie as a child in 1899 when her father took the job of Sexton at St Paul’s Episcopal Church. Sadie Peterson, 1915, Poughkeepsie. Dr. Delaney. She attended Poughkeepsie High School, and Miss McGovern’s School of Social Work, abley pivoting out of a difficult first marriage to focus on studying to become a librarian. She was 30 years old when she left Poughkeepsie to study at the 135th Street Branch of the New York City library system, now New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem. She was active there when the intellectual, musical and artistic activities of the Harlem Renaissance took place. Today, that library branch houses a collection of her letters, clippings and photographs. In 1924, the remarried Sadie Peterson Delaney took a position as librarian at Tuskegee Veterans Administration hospital. There she developed and evolved the practice of Bibliotherapy, working with doctors to use books to heal both mental and physical wounds. Imagine, a time before television, before the pervasive TV screen appeared in our hospital rooms to distract us, Bibliotherapy was a deeply thoughtful concept that looked at a very holistic approach to healing. Eleanor Roosevelt in her column “My Day” wrote in January 1957 applauding Mrs. Delaney and her practice of bibliotherapy. Roosevelt explained that Mrs. Delaney served 1,000 patients. She had added a library binding service to give patients vocational experience. She started a department for the blind, and classes in braille. At the Family Partnership building on North Hamilton Street you will find Poughkeepsie Public Library’s Sadie Peterson Delaney African Roots Library.

This Page is in Draft Form / Under Construction Freemasonry is the world’s first and largest fraternal organization. Poughkeepsie has had two Masonic Lodges. Since the 18th century locally, Masons have been men of achievement and influence. The first Lodge was Solomon’s Lodge No. 1, but the anti-masonic political movement in the 1820s ensured its demise. A second Lodge, No. 266, was created in 1852. DCHS is fortunate to have the responsibility to archive and preserve important early documents, as well as items from a number of collections where individuals were Masons. This 1780 certificate for Major Nicholas Fish shows the extraordinary pedigrees of the men involved in Solomon’s Lodge No. 1 at the time. Fish is the ancestor to the generations of public servants named Hamilton Fish, and the document is signed by Capt. James Livingston, Capt. Abraham Swartwout, and Andrew Billings. DCHS Collections. February 22 is not only the anniversary of the birth of George Washington, but the anniversary of the opening of the Masonic Temple on Poughkeepsie’s Cannon Street in 1895. DCHS Collections. Among the souvenirs from that event is a medal commemorating an important visit of George Washington to Poughkeepsie, who was an active Mason. On December 27, 1782, Washington was formally received at the home of Lewis Dubois, who was Grand Master of the Poughkeepsie Masonic Lodge. His home was located on Market Street just north of where the Bardavon is today, and was used for Masonic meetings. The man responsible for the design and gift of the coin to the Masons, Helmus Barratt, was born October 25, 1846 in DCHS’s home, Clinton House on Main Street. He was a founder and life-long Director of the First National Bank and an active Mason and patriotic American. A Methodist Episcopal Church was built on Cannon Street in 1854. On February 22, 1895, opening ceremonies revealed an enlarged and remodeled building as the new Masonic Temple, keeping the columns and general appearance of the front. DCHS Collections. Master Mason certificate from Lodge 226, successor to Solomon’s Lodge, dated November 28, 1860 for Joseph Wright. Wright operated a successful dry goods store on Main Street for many years and was perhaps best known as the Colonel of the 400-strong Twenty-first Regiment which was based locally. Above: Master Mason certificate from Lodge 226, successor to Solomon’s Lodge, dated November 28, 1860 for Joseph Wright. Wright operated a successful dry goods store on Main Street for many years and was perhaps best known as the Colonel of the 400-strong Twenty-first Regiment which was based locally. DCHS Collections. Click below right for full screen view of 1968 history of Lodge No. 266 by George Ress. Above: Jewel presented in 1851 “as a token of respect” to A. M. Sweet, first master of the newly created Lodge No. 266. DCHS Collections. We are continuing to build a permanent, online exhibition about local Masons, please check back over time, or email us with suggestions. ~ Bill Jeffway

Kimberlee Breden of Poughkeepsie was not sure what to expect when she found a letter in her mailbox in November with a return address of New York State Governor Kathy Hochul and Erik Kulleseid, the Commissioner of the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. The letter advised Breden that she was a recipient of the 2022 New York State Historic Preservation Award for Excellence in Historic Building Rehabilitation. The recognition was for the work she had done restoring her home at 57 Montgomery Street, Poughkeepsie, just east of the historic Memorial Fountain and Eastman Park. Referring to the house as the “F. R. Bain house,” the name of its original owner in 1888, the letter went on to say, “Your diligent efforts to restore your historic Victorian home exemplify the power of harnessing the Historic Homeownership Rehabilitation Credit and the finished product is an inspiring example in the City of Poughkeepsie. The delight is in the details and your work is bound to get other homeowners thinking about potential projects for their historic buildings.” Breden attended a ceremony in Albany in December, being one of ten award recipients. Let’s examine what makes this particular “adaptive re-use” particularly noteworthy. Bain House, 57 Montgomery Street, Poughkeepsie.Left to right: 1891, 2018 and 2022. Some owners of historic homes worry that designations and recognition can limit what they can do for their home, or that they might lose control of certain decisions. But Breden feels that the entire process has enabled her to have exactly the home she had dreamed of owning and living in. Such a project takes a combination of vision, and a deep commitment to ensuring that those qualities that can only come from historic homes are made a priority, and persistence in the face of obstacles. Breden feels that the financial incentives through tax credits took a good deal of careful navigation but made the difference in allowing her to restore the home to the degree that she did. Doing a good deal of work herself, “and returning bottles to get the five-cent deposit” all added up to making the project economically feasible. Where did this depth of commitment come from for Breden? It started early. “My earliest memories relate to my father’s grandparents who were from Germany. They owned a delicatessen in Mount Vernon in a beautiful old Victorian house. It was a couple stories. The retail was on the ground floor and they lived above. It had pocket doors, a club foot bathtub like my third floor has, it had a beautiful mahogany staircase and wainscoting. I was a little girl and I remember, I remember the way it smelled, everything.” Breden thinks this was one of the reasons that when she first saw 57 Montgomery Street in 2007, in spite of its state of disrepair, “it felt like home.” Attempts to purchase the house in 2007 and 2008 were not successful. That’s where serendipity, or the sense that “this was meant to be” comes into play. At 1:30 in the morning on September 23, 2009, something prompted Breden to do an online search for the property, wondering what had become of it. To her great surprise, she found that the house was being auctioned just a few hours later at 9:00 am. Breden made sure she was at the auction, and although it became a protracted process, she succeeded in securing the property from the bid she made that morning She moved into the house in 2010. Above all, Breden credits her father’s wisdom for the depth of commitment she has to the house, explaining, “My father would say he had three things that he stood by. He said, ‘You do the right thing because it is the right thing to do. You only do a job you would be proud to put your name on. And you leave a place better than when you found it.’ And that’s exactly what I feel about here.” The project has dimensions that involve scale, “I needed 1,177 shingles that were six inches wide, with a curved bottom,” Breden said. “I made 1,200 of them.” Equally, the project has dimensions that involve great detail. Breden says she is able to restore a third floor window’s colored glass with original colors because of the shards of broken glass she discovered buried in the backyard. Breden also credits great partnership, in particular Poughkeepsie Design Historian, Holly Wahlberg. And Toni Mauro, a member of the City of Poughkeepsie Historic District and Landmarks Preservation Commission at the time of Breden’s application for City, then State and National designation. Having secured City historic designation, in March of 2015 Wahlberg wrote a 21-page statement of significance in support of the application for both State and National historic designation, both of which were successful in 2016. Wahlberg explains the importance of the statement of significance saying, “Saving vulnerable houses requires a mixture of passion, knowledge and fearless determination. But the process begins with extensive research and writing. A National Register nomination must articulate not just the history of a house, but also what that history reveals about our nation and ourselves.”

Silversmiths of Poughkeepsie, 1945 DCHS Yearbook entry.