We find ourselves in what may be known as the land of the Livingstons. Mr. Ellis H. Roberts points out that

in the assembly of 1759, consisting of twenty-seven members, no less than four Livingstons sat: Philip for New York, WiUiam for the Manor, and Robert and Henry for Dutchess. By alHance by marriage with the Schuylers and the Jays, and by its wealth, the Livingston family held a pre-eminence rarely equalled in this country.

To write fidly the local history of Tivoli, Hyde Park, and the neighbouring region would be to undertake the extensive chronicle of that prominent family. The

Saugerties and its Neighbours 477

name of Livingston is intimately eonnccted with the story of New York State and ])artieularh' with its great river. Robert Livingston, the immediate progenitor of the American branch of the family, was of Scotch parentage. He settled first in Albany, where he was emplo}'ed as secretary b>^ the Commissioners of Indian Affairs, acquiring several lots of land from the Indians. In 1710, he had his various purchases and grants consolidated into an estate of something more than a hundred and fift\' thousand acres, which w^as seciu-ed by a patent that was burdened w4th the stipulation that for the enjoyment of this wilderness he should pa\' an annual rent amounting in value to about three and a half dollars. Nothing now remains of the old manor-house which he erected at the mouth of

Roeleff Jansen's Kill, or Ancram Creek. Six thousand acres of Robert Livingston's land was bought the same year that the grant w^as dated by the government for the use of the unfortunate Palatines. Early in the eighteenth century, the tenants of the Livingston Manor w^ere allow^ed one representative, elected by the freeholders, in the colonial Legislature, and in 17 16 the lord of the Manor was chosen for that office.