When the British burned Kingston he prorogued the Legislature to Poughkeepsie, which still served as a "safe harbour." As the Revolution progressed, the Tory faction was weakened, either by suppression or surrender. It was in the Poughkeepsie Court House that, by one vote, after a Homeric l)attle, the colony of New York consented to become a part of the American Republic, which consent was practically necessary to its existence. . . . Poughkeepsie honoured, in May, 1824, the arrival of Lafayette. . . . Daniel Webster has spoken in her Court House; and Henry Clay, in 1844, when a presidential candidate, stopped for a reception. And it is said that, by a mere accident, she just missed contributing a name to the list of Presidents of tlie United States. The omitted candidate was Nathaniel P. Talmadge. He could have had the Vice-Presidency, so the story goes, in 1840; but would not take it. If he had accepted it he would have gone into history, not merely as United States Senator from New York and afterwards Governor of Wisconsin Territorv, but as President in John Tyler's place. In 1S44, the New York State fair was held here, somewhere east of what is now Hooker Avenue. It was an occasion thought important enough then to be pictured and reported in the London Illustrated Xacs. Two years after, the telegraph wires were put up in this city, before they had yet reached the city of New York. Considering the fact that Professor S. F. B. Morse, the telegraph inventor, had his residence here, this incident was not wholly inappropriate.