History of Westchester County, New York, Vol. I
field, Conn., June 30, 1858; Winthrop Sargent, the soldier, statesman and writer, who fought at White Plains; Joseph Mather Smith, M.D., the eminent physician and medical writer, who was a native of New Rochelle; John Savage, the editor and poet, who lives at Fordham ; John Canfield Spencer, LL.D., lawyer and politician, a native of Hudson, who is known to the literary world for having edited the first American edition of De Tocqueville's " Democracy in America," with an original preface and notes ; William Leete Stone, the noted journalist, who, in 1813, edited the Herkimer American and afterwards a political paper at Hudson, becoming finally one of the proprietors of the New York Commercial Advertiser; Peter Van Schaack, LL.D., jurist, loyalist in the Revolutionary War and author, born at Kinderhook, where he died, September 27, 1882; Aaron Ward, lawyer, politician and author, born at Sing Sing, July 5, 1790 ; Robert Watts, M.D., physician and medical writer, born at Fordham in 1812; and Thurlow Weed, the journalist and politician, born at Cairo, N. Y., November 15, 1797, and whose early life was passed as a cabin boy on the Hudson.
Of contemporary writers, the following have been more or less identified with Westchester County :
General Adam Badeau, author of the " History of General U. S. Grant," etc., who lived in North Tarrytown, Mount Pleasant, from boyhood until about 1856 ; Clarence Cook, the art critic, who attended school at Irving Institute, Tarrytown, and lived at Irvington; A. C. Wheeler ("Nym Crinkle"), poet and critic, who also attended school at Irving Institute and lived at North Tarrytown ; Charles A. Brace, author and philanthropist, who lived at Hastings ; Frank Vincent, Jr., author and traveler, who wrote " The Land of the White Elephant," " Through and Through the Tropics" and " Norsk, Lapp and Finn," and whose home is in Tarrytown ; Rev.