Fulton married a niece of Livingston's, whose own wife was the daughter of that John Stevens who owned most of the site of Hoboken, and sister of the second John Stevens, the builder of the first oceangoing steamer. The atmosphere in which he lived seems to have been surcharged with the spirit of invention. The origin of the fallacious tradition that the Clermont steamer was built near Tivoli may be found in a story mentioned by Lossing, to the effect that Nesbit, the Englishman whose experiments were encouraged by Livingston in 1797, did build an unsuccessful steamboat in De Koven's Bay, just below Upper Red Hook landing. It was at De Koven's Bay that the British landed when they burned old Clermont. They made a demonstration at the house of John Swift Livingston, another descendant of the original proprietor, but were met with such jovial hospitality that they were pleased to forego the burning. It was a case where the cellar

Saugcrties and its Neighbours 479

sa\'ed the huusc, for, \vc are told, the master pHed his guests with wine and other refreshment till the\- departed in high good humour. At Annandale, nearly midway between Tivoli and Barry town, is another notable spot, once the residence of General Richard Montgomery. His birthplace was Dublin, Ireland; and at Dublin College he was educated, afterwards entering the British army. When his regiment, the 17th, was ordered for service in enforcing the Stamp Act in America, Montgomery, among others, resigned his commission. In 1772, or the early part of 1773, he came to New York, purchasing a farm near Kingsbridge, but that same year he married a daughter of Judge Livingston and removed to Rhinebeck. The letters which passed between Montgomery and his prosiiective father-in-law are in the stilted st\-le of a bygone day.