Croton Historical ArchiveCroton-on-Hudson, New York

Home / Lossing, Benson John. The Hudson, from the Wilderness to the Sea. New York: Virtue & Yorston, 1866. Internet Archive identifier: hudsonfromwilder00lossi. Illustrated travel-history of the Hudson River valley by the writer and artist Benson J. Lossing, whose chapter on Teller's / Croton Point is a primary source for Senasqua place-name etymology, Sarah Teller's 1682 purchase, and the Underhill vineyard. / Passage

The Hudson, from the Wilderness to the Sea

Lossing, Benson John. The Hudson, from the Wilderness to the Sea. New York: Virtue & Yorston, 1866. Internet Archive identifier: hudsonfromwilder00lossi. Illustrated travel-history of the Hudson River valley by the writer and artist Benson J. Lossing, whose chapter on Teller's / Croton Point is a primary source for Senasqua place-name etymology, Sarah Teller's 1682 purchase, and the Underhill vineyard. 250 words

The main, or older portion of the building, was erected, I believe, by the elder Dr. Post,

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CLAEEMONT.

early in the present century, as a summer residence, and named by him Claremont. It still belongs to the Post family,. It was an elegant country mansion, upon a most desirable spot, overlooking many leagues of the Hudson. There, more than fifty years ago, lived Yiscount Courtenay, afterwards Earl of Devon. He left England, it was reported, because of political troubles. "When the war of 1812 broke out, he

THE HUDSON.

returned thither, leaving his furniture and plate, which were sold at auction. The latter is preserved with care by the family of the purchaser. Courtenay was a great "lion" in New York, for he was a handsome bachelor, with title, fortune, and reputation -- a combination of excellences calculated to captivate the heart-desires of the opposite sex.

Claremont was the residence, for awhile, of Joseph Buonaparte, ex-king of Spain, when he first took refuge in the United States, after the battle of "Waterloo and the downfall of the Napoleon dynasty. Here, too, Francis James Jackson, the successor of Mr. Erskine, the British minister at Washington at the opening of the war of 1812, resided a short time. He was familiarly known as *' Copenhagen Jackson," because of his then recent participation in measures for the seizure of the Danish fleet by the British at Copenhagen. He was politically and socially unpopular, and presented a strong contrast to the polished Courtenay.

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