Wednesday, June 05, 2002
Springtime troubles in Columbia County
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
After creating Heaven and Earth, God rested in Columbia County, enjoying the beautiful green Spring season. Later in the Summer, when it became mercilessly hot, God moved to Amagansett, swimming daily in the Atlantic Ocean. At least that’s what I would do if I had the godlike attributes of wisdom, power and mercy.
The belated Spring has been troublesome, with cold spells and downpours worrying such early flower plantings as we dared to set out, up here in the Taghkanic foothills, 110 miles north of Manhattan. One tray of tomato seedlings was lost to a late May snowfall. I had waited to plant the replacements, until May 25, the safe Memorial Day weekend. Mother Nature cooperated, but there are other perils.
Waking up early, the first week of June , I walked over to the window to note a young deer investigating the garden gate. Browsing for a delivery of fresh vegetables, I assumed, hurrying downstairs, ready to negotiate terms, but the doe had decided to vacate the field.
Unlike some of our gun-toting neighbors, we are ready to concede the rights of the original inhabitants of the country. I happen to have handy the deed and tax bills authenticating our rights to the nearly two acres, since 1980, with backup documentation available that carries back the fee simple rights to the time in 1684 when the Catholic King James II’s governor Robert Dongan conferred the property to Robert Livingston, subsequently the Lord of the Livingston Manor. There had been some disputesof title - the feisty Dutchmen who had settled the county (then part of the jurisdiction of Beverwijck, now known as Albany), such as Kiliaen van Rensselaer and Major Abraham Staats, also had rights there, having bought some of the land from the Mohican Indians in 1649 and 1657. Nevertheless, the wily bi-lingual Scot (whose great-grandson Philip Livingston is remembered as a Signer of the Declaration of Independence, not too happily, while another, Chancellor Robert R., swore in George Washington as the first President of this country) hung onto it, by marrying Alida Schuyler, Nicholas Van Rensselaer’s widow, and claiming her heritage.
The Livingston title might have been under some question during the Glorious Revolution (1688-89), when Parliament overthrew the Catholic King and invited William and Mary of Orange (Netherlands) to rule over what was to become the British Empire. Militia captain Jacob Leisler headed the revolution in New York, better known as the Leisler Rebellion. His confrere Jacob Milborne led a contingent to Albany to overturn what they called the Papist Albany Convention. Despite help from Staats and other Dutch sympathizers who were greatly gratified by their coreligionist taking over the rule in Great Britain , the Convention held on, with Mohawk support. When King Charles II found refuge in France, and his benefactors the French started flexing their arms in a war, the Leisler faction planned military action to deal with the threat of French Canada, with the aid of the Dutchmen of Beverwijck But there was factional strife within the New York rebellion, and when a new Governor, Henry Sloughter, arrived in New York with royal troops in 1691, Leisler’s attempt to hold on to his rule proved fatal. He and Milborne were captured, tried, convicted of treason and "hung ‘til halfe dead," then beheaded, while his Beverwijck allies went to jail. But they survived, the Columbia County phone book is full of the names of their progeny .The Parliament in 1695 reversed the conviction, and released the prisoners.
Meanwhile, the politically astute Lord Livingston (1654-1728), who had consolidated two small properties into a 160,000 acre manor, ruled the land. His progeny spread (a nephew, Robert Livingston Jr, 1663-1725, imported to help manage the interests, also married a Schuyler and had many children ) were both Tories and American revolutionaries, assuring the manor’s survival under any political regime . They were hard landlords, the tenants rebelled and did some barnburning and the like, dressed as Indians, and in 1840s the Anti-Rent Movement challenged the manorial system. Samuel Tilden, the brilliant lawyer and legislator, New York’s governor and presidential candidate, the most illustrious resident of Gramercy Park ever, wrote the legislation that broke up the manorial system and made it possible for me to acquire title, a hundred plus years later.
I was ready to bring all this to the attention of the native deer population and their advocates, conceding their right to trespass and forage on unimproved land but vigorously objecting to their browsing in proprietary vegetable gardens and chewing up the branches of evergreen trees, imported from Massachusetts and planted at some considerable documented cost. I have all the paperwork on hand, recently used in protesting the tax reassessments imposed by local authority, in an event locally known as "grievance day." But, unlike the government, the deer would not stay still, relying for their survival on hit and run tactics rather than negotiated settlement. This microcosm is strangely reminiscent of the international political disturbances that upset our sleep. .
Speaking of political disturbances, herewith a message from Dr. Paranoia:
Would not expect about nuclear war between India and Pakistan, as long as Musharraf retains domestic power, but there are knotty items to worry about. The conflict is an al-Qaeda creation, finely thought out chess game steps in the resurgence of al-Qaeda and its Taliban asylum providers.
It started with terrorists inducing their Kashmiri separatist clients to outrage the Indian government by attacking and killing 30 civilians, more effective than the killing of 12 legislators in December 2001. The harsh Indian response has already helped al-Qaeda, by pulling away the Pakistani military forces from the Afghanistan border If the escalating conflict produces a nuclear conflagration, al-Qaeda may win Pakistan.
Musharraf has to keep the warlike rhetoric going (rocket tests, sympathy for Kashmiris) for domestic patriot consumption. US cannot admit to the al-Qaeda action in Kashmir; if it does, it will have to attack it, siding with India, as part of the US war on terrorism. That would bring on Musharraf’s enmity, and increase the potential of war. If Musharraf caves in, he may lose power to a terrorist sympathizer government in Pakistan, with nuclear weapons. Best US can do is threaten both India and Pakistan to cool it, with a huge public opinion campaign, explaining the immense losses and economic aftereffects of a nuclear war, a difficult task when much of the public cannot read. To the governments a better poit is to stress economic losses: even a conventional war will create problems, since US industrialists do not like to invest in troubled and rambunctious countries.
Wally Dobelis thanks Dr. David William Voorhees and the Columbia County Historical Society.
After creating Heaven and Earth, God rested in Columbia County, enjoying the beautiful green Spring season. Later in the Summer, when it became mercilessly hot, God moved to Amagansett, swimming daily in the Atlantic Ocean. At least that’s what I would do if I had the godlike attributes of wisdom, power and mercy.
The belated Spring has been troublesome, with cold spells and downpours worrying such early flower plantings as we dared to set out, up here in the Taghkanic foothills, 110 miles north of Manhattan. One tray of tomato seedlings was lost to a late May snowfall. I had waited to plant the replacements, until May 25, the safe Memorial Day weekend. Mother Nature cooperated, but there are other perils.
Waking up early, the first week of June , I walked over to the window to note a young deer investigating the garden gate. Browsing for a delivery of fresh vegetables, I assumed, hurrying downstairs, ready to negotiate terms, but the doe had decided to vacate the field.
Unlike some of our gun-toting neighbors, we are ready to concede the rights of the original inhabitants of the country. I happen to have handy the deed and tax bills authenticating our rights to the nearly two acres, since 1980, with backup documentation available that carries back the fee simple rights to the time in 1684 when the Catholic King James II’s governor Robert Dongan conferred the property to Robert Livingston, subsequently the Lord of the Livingston Manor. There had been some disputesof title - the feisty Dutchmen who had settled the county (then part of the jurisdiction of Beverwijck, now known as Albany), such as Kiliaen van Rensselaer and Major Abraham Staats, also had rights there, having bought some of the land from the Mohican Indians in 1649 and 1657. Nevertheless, the wily bi-lingual Scot (whose great-grandson Philip Livingston is remembered as a Signer of the Declaration of Independence, not too happily, while another, Chancellor Robert R., swore in George Washington as the first President of this country) hung onto it, by marrying Alida Schuyler, Nicholas Van Rensselaer’s widow, and claiming her heritage.
The Livingston title might have been under some question during the Glorious Revolution (1688-89), when Parliament overthrew the Catholic King and invited William and Mary of Orange (Netherlands) to rule over what was to become the British Empire. Militia captain Jacob Leisler headed the revolution in New York, better known as the Leisler Rebellion. His confrere Jacob Milborne led a contingent to Albany to overturn what they called the Papist Albany Convention. Despite help from Staats and other Dutch sympathizers who were greatly gratified by their coreligionist taking over the rule in Great Britain , the Convention held on, with Mohawk support. When King Charles II found refuge in France, and his benefactors the French started flexing their arms in a war, the Leisler faction planned military action to deal with the threat of French Canada, with the aid of the Dutchmen of Beverwijck But there was factional strife within the New York rebellion, and when a new Governor, Henry Sloughter, arrived in New York with royal troops in 1691, Leisler’s attempt to hold on to his rule proved fatal. He and Milborne were captured, tried, convicted of treason and "hung ‘til halfe dead," then beheaded, while his Beverwijck allies went to jail. But they survived, the Columbia County phone book is full of the names of their progeny .The Parliament in 1695 reversed the conviction, and released the prisoners.
Meanwhile, the politically astute Lord Livingston (1654-1728), who had consolidated two small properties into a 160,000 acre manor, ruled the land. His progeny spread (a nephew, Robert Livingston Jr, 1663-1725, imported to help manage the interests, also married a Schuyler and had many children ) were both Tories and American revolutionaries, assuring the manor’s survival under any political regime . They were hard landlords, the tenants rebelled and did some barnburning and the like, dressed as Indians, and in 1840s the Anti-Rent Movement challenged the manorial system. Samuel Tilden, the brilliant lawyer and legislator, New York’s governor and presidential candidate, the most illustrious resident of Gramercy Park ever, wrote the legislation that broke up the manorial system and made it possible for me to acquire title, a hundred plus years later.
I was ready to bring all this to the attention of the native deer population and their advocates, conceding their right to trespass and forage on unimproved land but vigorously objecting to their browsing in proprietary vegetable gardens and chewing up the branches of evergreen trees, imported from Massachusetts and planted at some considerable documented cost. I have all the paperwork on hand, recently used in protesting the tax reassessments imposed by local authority, in an event locally known as "grievance day." But, unlike the government, the deer would not stay still, relying for their survival on hit and run tactics rather than negotiated settlement. This microcosm is strangely reminiscent of the international political disturbances that upset our sleep. .
Speaking of political disturbances, herewith a message from Dr. Paranoia:
Would not expect about nuclear war between India and Pakistan, as long as Musharraf retains domestic power, but there are knotty items to worry about. The conflict is an al-Qaeda creation, finely thought out chess game steps in the resurgence of al-Qaeda and its Taliban asylum providers.
It started with terrorists inducing their Kashmiri separatist clients to outrage the Indian government by attacking and killing 30 civilians, more effective than the killing of 12 legislators in December 2001. The harsh Indian response has already helped al-Qaeda, by pulling away the Pakistani military forces from the Afghanistan border If the escalating conflict produces a nuclear conflagration, al-Qaeda may win Pakistan.
Musharraf has to keep the warlike rhetoric going (rocket tests, sympathy for Kashmiris) for domestic patriot consumption. US cannot admit to the al-Qaeda action in Kashmir; if it does, it will have to attack it, siding with India, as part of the US war on terrorism. That would bring on Musharraf’s enmity, and increase the potential of war. If Musharraf caves in, he may lose power to a terrorist sympathizer government in Pakistan, with nuclear weapons. Best US can do is threaten both India and Pakistan to cool it, with a huge public opinion campaign, explaining the immense losses and economic aftereffects of a nuclear war, a difficult task when much of the public cannot read. To the governments a better poit is to stress economic losses: even a conventional war will create problems, since US industrialists do not like to invest in troubled and rambunctious countries.
Wally Dobelis thanks Dr. David William Voorhees and the Columbia County Historical Society.
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 5:25 PM 
