by Shannon Butler
Everyone in the Hudson Valley has heard the name George Clinton (and no, I am not talking about the King of funk, sorry.) I mean the longest serving Governor of the State of New York (serving just under 21 years) and the Vice President of the United States under Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. I mean the Revolutionary War General and one of the true Founding Fathers of our State and Nation. This George Clinton lived right here in Poughkeepsie, though there still seems to be some confusion over where his house actually was.
Clinton was born on July 26, 1739, just across the river in Little Britain, what is now part of Orange County. By the time he was 18 he found himself doing a bit of privateering during the French and Indian War and later became a surveyor. In 1759 he became the County Clerk for Ulster County while studying law in New York City. By the 1760s he was learning the ropes of the General Assembly but also listening to the whispers of anti-Crown propaganda as many of his countrymen were growing tired of the King’s burdens on the colonies. After marrying Cornelia Tappen, he found himself with wealth and more connections into the Livingston family and more like minded political friends.
His new connections along with his interests in defending his land from royal invasion found him a place in the Continental Congress in 1776. Here, he grew close with George Washington and the two worked out military plans together. But it was Clinton’s interest in the local militia and his appointment as General of the Militia that prevented him from signing the Declaration of Independence. No doubt, if he had signed it, his name would be more widely known. During the war Clinton worked to defend the Highlands above the Hudson, keep the militia together, and continue to aid Washington and his army in any way he could. On top of his war endeavors he found himself being elected as the first Governor of the State of New York just as the New York State Constitution was being ratified in Kingston NY.
After the war, he found himself being encouraged by the Anti-Federalists to try for the Vice Presidency in the first U.S. Presidential election. He lost to John Adams. But he later served under Thomas Jefferson and again under James Madison, though by 1809, Clinton had very little interest in continuing to serve as Vice-President. In 1810, his beloved daughter Cornelia died and he never fully recovered from the loss. He died two years later in 1812. His remains were originally buried in Washington but in 1908 he was brought back to the Hudson Valley and he is now buried right down the street from where he swore in as Governor, in Old Dutch Church burial ground in Kingston NY (oddly, the guys who dug him up also decided to photograph him and study what was left of his decaying brains, making him the only Revolutionary War General to be photographed, yuck.)
In 1805 he had built a house along the Casper Creek in the Town of Poughkeepsie. The area has become known as Clinton’s Point (see maps and image to the right). He lived there until his death in 1812. After his death, James Tallmadge, Clinton’s private secretary, bought the estate and later Tallmadge left it to his daughter, Mrs. Philip S. Van Rensselaer who owned it until 1871. The house sadly burned down in 1874. The separate house on Main Street in Poughkeepsie which is known as the Clinton House, was actually never George Clinton’s home. It is named in honor of him as local historian Helen Wilkinson Reynolds discovered in the 1920s. The Clinton house was actually the home of the Van Kleeck family and today serves as the Dutchess County Historical Society.
Resources:
George Clinton: Yeoman Politician of the New Republic by John P. Kaminski
His Excellency George Clinton by Ernest Wilder Spaulding
Dutchess County Yearbook – 1926
Portrait of Governor George Clinton, reproduction of painting in Washington’s Headquarters, Newburgh.
