the war of 1812, and as soon as hostilities were actually declared sailed for England, leaving his furniture and costly plate to be sold at auction. He has been of late credited with having built the little monument standing entirely alone under the trees on the river bank near by, but as he had not taken up his abode at Claremont until after the date of the child's death, the pretty well-told story needs revision. The inscription on one side of the lone monument reads: "Erected to the memory of an amiable child,

St. Clair Pollock, died July 15, 1797, in the 5th year of his age." And on the other side is a familiar quotation.* The British Minister, Francis James Jackson, the successor of Mr. Erskine, resided at Claremont also for a

* Nine families of Pollocks resided in New York at that time; five merchants bearing the name were actively engaged in business in the lower part of the city, two of whom owned property along the Hudson. Carlile Pollock in 1792, and for a few subsequent years, is known to have held a joint interest in the handsome Cyrus Clark estate on Riverside Park at Ninetieth street; and he is believed to have owned landed property in the vicinity of the tomb. He met with reverses, and the records tell us that in 1799 Carlile Pollock and Sophia his wife mortgaged several lots at Greenwich and "other points on the river" to Cornelius Ray, Gabriel Furman, and John McVickar; and these lots were advertised to be sold at auction February 17, 1800.

time. He was known as "Copenhagen Jackson" because of his participation in measures for the seizure of the Danish fleet by the British at Copenhagen, and was politically and socially extremely unpopular, singularly in contrast with the polished and accomplished Courtenay. The next consequential inhabitant of Claremont was Joseph Bonaparte, ex-King of Spain, the eldest brother of Napoleon I. He occupied the house when he first reached the United States in 1815, after the downfall of the Emperor. He had displayed considerable ability in the course of his peculiar career; he negotiated the treaty of Lunéville with Austria in 1801, and that of Amiens with England in 1802; he ascended the throne of Naples in 1806, and was transferred to the throne of Spain in 1808. Yet he never seemed ambitious of public honors. He was a gentlemanly, well-educated man, fond of books, art, and society, and to all outward appearances contented in opulent retirement. He subsequently resided in Bordentown, New Jersey, under the name of Count de Survilliers.

About the same time that Doctor Post was improving Claremont, Alexander Hamilton was building a country seat about a mile to the north of it on Harlem Heights, which he called "The Grange," from the ancestral seat of his grandfather in Scotland. It was a square frame dwelling of two stories, with large, roomy basement, ornamental balustrades, and iminense chimney-stacks. Its apartments were large and numerous, and all its workmanship substantial. One quaint feature was its drawing-room doors, which were old-fashioned mirrors. He removed with his family to this home in 1802, embellished the grounds with flowers and shrubbery, and planted the thirteen gum trees-represented in the sketch-naming them respectively after the thirteen original States of the Union. A short time prior to this, Judge Brockholst Livingston, the son of Governor William Livingston of New Jersey, the famous war governor of the Revolution, built a country seat about the same distance below Claremont, on the bank of the Hudson at Ninetieth street. It was a large, square, roomy mansion with broad verandas, the eastern and western fronts, like the Apthorpe House, being exactly alike. Judge Livingston was the brother-in-law of Chief Justice John Jay, who was a familiar visitor, adding another to the illustrious company who have contributed towards making Riverside Park historic ground. This house has been preserved with generous care, and all its antique interior ornamentation remains intact. The property has been for many years owned and occupied by Mr. Cyrus Clark. It was a part of the Apthorpe domain, in the Revolutionary period, which extended from his house to the river's edge. Two immense double tulip-trees, known to be at least one hundred and fifty years old-historic trees, planted here

before the war-spread their branches over the smooth lawn between the house and Riverside drive in a picturesque fashion, while shade trees of many varieties hover in groups elsewhere, rendering the place one of the choicest relics of the olden period to be found in the vicinity.

This site formed also a part of the great De Lancey estate prior to the Revolution. Oliver De Lancey was an intimate friend of Mr. Apthorpe, and one of the twelve counselors to the royal governor, appointed by the king. He was a brother of Lieutenant-Governor James De Lancey, the

acting governor of New York for many years, and one of the most brilliant and popular men who ever administered the affairs of the colony under the crown. His property adjoined that of Mr. Apthorpe, and, in like manner, extended to the river's edge. The house was an irregular, roomy old structure-dating back to the time when New York gentlemen, in going to dinners or theaters in full dress, carried their hats in their hands, in order not to disturb their curls-and it stood on an elevation at about Eightysixth street and Riverside drive. Its appointments were elegant; rare pictures graced its walls, costly glass and silver filled its sideboards, and black servants in livery, with colors and shoulder-knots, seemed countless about the premises. It was a courtly home, the resort socially of the refinement and wealth of the city, and the scene of many a festive gathering of lordly personages from over the water.

When the war of the Revolution broke out, De Lancey entered the British army as a brigadier-general. Near the close of that terrible year of battles, 1777, on a cold night late in November, a party of Americans, in retaliation for some of the atrocities perpetrated by the British soldiers in their forays into the country about New York, came down the Hudson in a whale-boat at midnight, surprised and captured the small guard at the landing at the foot of the ravine, climbed the steep bank with silent tread, and applied the torch to the De Lancey mansion, burning it to the ground with all it contained. The ladies of the family fled in their night-clothing. Mrs. De Lancey being too feeble to run very far, concealed herself in a stone dog-kennel. Her daughter Charlotte, a girl of sixteen, afterward the wife of Sir David Dundas, K.C.B., and her guest, Miss Elizabeth Floyd, of about the same age-afterward the wife of John Peter De Lancey and mother of Bishop De Lancey-escaped into a swamp, where they concealed themselves among the thickest bushes they could find until morning, with no covering for head or feet, or wrap of any sort to protect them from the biting cold. Miss De Lancey seized her brother's infant in her flight, holding it safely in her arms the whole night. They were discovered in the morning and taken to Mr. Apthorpe's house and tenderly nursed. Oliver De Lancey's eldest daughter, Mrs. John Harris Cruger, ran in another direction, and losing herself in the woods, wandered about continually through the night, finding herself when morning dawned nearly seven miles away and near a farm-house, where she was received and treated kindly. The De Lancey house was never rebuilt, and the princely estate was confiscated at the close of the war. Thus when peace came, a new chapter in property ownership commenced, as we have seen, on these flowery heights. Upon the map of the street commissioners of 1811 we obtain a better idea

of the residents of the villas at Bloomingdale in the beginning of this century than in pages of elaborate description. Among these are the Clarksons, Van Horns, Woolseys, Beekmans, De Peysters, Lawrences, and Livingstons. The old Somerindyke house, near Seventy-fifth street, was long an object of interest through its association with the romantic history of the gentle, unassuming, but eloquent and accomplished Louis Philippe in this country, who taught school in it. He subsequently wore the crown of France for eighteen years. While dwelling under this modest roof he was joined by his two brothers, Duke de Montpensier and the

Count de Beaujolais, and was visited by Lord Lyndhurst, afterwards Lord Chancellor of England, and by the Duke of Kent, son of George III. and father of Queen Victoria-who was in New York at the time. At a frugal dinner given by Louis Philippe on one occasion, he apologized to his guests for seating a part of them on the side of a bed, remarking that he "had himself occupied less comfortable places without the consolation of agreeable company." According to tradition, the three exile princes were accustomed to ramble every afternoon up the shady Bloomingdale road to