This handwritten antique document among our collection was digitally photographed by me in 2007.
I know neither the date it was created nor the author who wrote it, and would greatly appreciate further information for cataloging this item.
We invite your participation in creating an online library of like material and invite your submissions. It’s a wonderful way to preserve our heritage. For further particulars on the contents inside, contact us.
IMS Malloy
During the 2008 visit a girlhood friend accompanied me, making all of our travel arrangements. In New York City at La Guardian airport she rented a car at her own expense and drove me upstate to Hyde Park. On our return she insisted I make stops at points of interest in an effort to collect new photographs for our website. I had balked at this suggestion, concerned we’d become lost or mugged or worse as you read in the newspapers or see in the movies when you take a wrong turn. Fortunately, I was overruled and for this persistence on her part we have much for which she should be thanked.
One stop was at Town Hall where I inquired about the crest, or seal, of Hyde Park, a marvelous mosaic created by local students. The crest is a “marriage” between the Roosevelt and Stoutenburgh family crests. The helpful receptionist indicated it could be found in the conference room, where a morning exercise class was in session. She peeked her head in and asked if the ladies would mind if I crept in to click off some photos.
The morning group was very friendly and recognized our family name. It was a unique experience. I was so overcome that I forgot to retrieve my purse from among the collection of articles on the table holding the ladies’ belongings. I wasn’t too far down the road when I realized my return flight ticket wasn’t among my possessions and we hastened back to recover it.
The ladies in the exercise group laughed, and I laughed and waved to the staff as I took my second exit. Nearly to the rental car, I heard a voice from behind calling “Miss Stoutenburgh! Miss Stoutenburgh!” I turned to find the receptionist waving a small sheaf of papers, trotting along in her nicely heeled feet. “I found this in a file. You may have a copy.”
I thanked the helpful lady and realized had I not forgotten my purse I’d have missed the town’s contribution to our family’s history. Thank you to the Town of Hyde Park for your acknowledgements and contributions.
Numerous articles about our family have been published by the Poughkeepsie Journal over the years. Please do not overlook these resources in your search to learn more about our heritage.
Attributed to Peter Van Der Lyn
There are claims this is the artist/painter who created the portraits of William and Marguerite, duplicates of which hang in the William Stoutenburgh House in Hyde Park, New York.
The original pair are in the The Museum of the City of New York. We seek any and all information regarding this alleged connection.
Tile bearing Stoutenburg Coat of Arms
We publish an annual newsletter for our members which features an "Action Sheet" setting forth the various means of donations for the support of our work to maintain and preserve the William Stoutenburgh Historic Homesite and the Stoutenburgh-Teller Family Burying Ground.
If you would like to learn more about how to contribute to our efforts–perhaps by donating toward one of these tiles–please contact us.
Handwritten Note to FDR by Maud Stoutenburgh Eliot
Maud Stoutenburgh Eliot was one of our original founding members of the Stoutenburgh-Teller Family Association. She wrote the note shown here to President Roosevelt on August 29, 1940 and sent it along with the gift of the old brass knocker from the door of the Blackwell house. The note said “I am sending you this old knocker with my love and great respect. May it ever bring brightness to your door.” It was accompanied also by a short, typed manuscript seen in this image in the background underlying the note. The following was transcribed from that typed page:
Col. Walter Graeme Eliot was for many years connected with the Topographical Bureau of Queens. Chief Engineer, he was appointed by Mayor Gaynor as first Park Commissioner of that borough. He was greatly interested in the preservation of old landmarks. Among others he worked to save the fine old Barclay house, but the Board of Estimate refused to appropriate funds for the preservation of old buildings. A house, the old Blackwell house on the Island, had many years previously been modernized, I am told. The old front door which originally had the brass knocker had been removed and replaced by a new door. Col. Eliot found the discarded door in a junk pile and purchased the knocker from the junk dealer and saw to it that the door was cared for. When the Museum of the City of New York was opened at Gracie House, we lent the knocker to the Museum until it moved to Fifth Avenue when it was returned to me by Mr. Scholle (…1,2,3). The old door had upon it the mark of sabre cuts made in the Revolution by the British–an accolade of distinction.
When the Fair came to Flushing, Mr. Madison Blackwell asked me to lend the knocker so it, together with the door, could be exhibited. I did grudgingly say “yes” but when I heard he was not the owner of the door, I suggested that insurance be put upon it. Truth to tell, I felt we owed a civility to the British who were at the Fair at our invitation. The knocker was not exhibited.
May you be able to use the knocker at your Dream House (…1), or at your library at Hyde Park and may those who knock at your door be ever the bearers of glad tidings and joyous greetings!
Most sincerely your friend,
Maud Stoutenburgh Eliot
520 East 87th Street
A Personal Journey:
View from Wilderstein
As a child I knew little of my father except that he gave me the name Stoutenburg.
When this name was announced at roll call on the first day of school, the other children would look around to see who would answer, and I always claimed it proudly with a wave–”Here!”
I felt it was the best thing I owned.
After my children were born I became melancholy, mourning the grandfather who had passed on. He would never bounce them on his knee or sing them an old cowboy song. I could remember him lifting three of us children onto the back of the old sorrel horse Pal, and then leading us through the golden wheat of upstate Washington. Stuck in the middle, my bare feet tickled by the kerneled heads, I’d lift my face to the hot sun and squeeze my eyes shut, never wanting it to end. Daddy wasn’t home much. Missing him terribly, I realized how little I knew about him. Like many World War II veterans, he never entirely returned home.
Then, suddenly, the question sprang: Where were his family?
Believe it or not, I picked up the kitchen telephone and dialed 4-1-1. At the operator’s query I answered “Give me the Stoutenburgs, please.” To my amazement she did. That day I learned of two uncles living, and with some trepidation my shaking finger dialed the number in California.
The voice that answered “Hello?” caused me to drop the telephone, for it seemed my father, nearly eight years gone, surely was on the other end of this line.
Trembling, I recovered the receiver. “Daddy?” my strangled voice asked.
“Who is this?” a beloved voice spoke again, this time with a slightly different timbre.
Hesitantly, I began to explain to the suspicious man that I was looking for my father’s family. I was interrupted by a hearty, booming exclamation: “The lost kids!” I had found my father’s biggest fan, his youngest brother. An excited commotion in the background celebrated our reunion.
This was the beginning of the path that led me to Hyde Park, New York where our Family Association has its roots.
Between the West Coast and the East Coast lies more than distance–it is a vastly different culture.
California is edgy, on the brink of it all, still very much a frontier-prodding, risk-taking adventurer, probably stamped upon us by the vision of “Gold!” in our history. We are still new and eager, as though to say “By God, we’ll make it so!” and “Don’t tell me I can’t!”
In 2007, I had my first visual feast upon the Hudson Valley during our Wilderstein visit. My eyes roved over the rolling green miles toward Hyde Park and I felt what rich is. Rich is the land with the pride of centuries. Rich is the preservation of what has come before with its sense of establishment. It is the determination to hold on, as we realize we are connected to our past and our future, and our children’s future. Rich is the bond with community, with its desire for peace and prosperity. Rich is the active pursuit of happiness in activity by taking hold of it with the work of our hands.
Rich were my eyes that glorious October day overlooking the Hudson River from Wilderstein.
There is a world wide with history between northern California’s rugged mountains–wearing grand forests cut by plunging torrents ridden by kayaking mountain men (yes, they really exist)–and upstate New York’s lush fields contentedly grazed by flocks of sheep, its street markets ripe with harvests, brought to bear by gentile folk and farmers living in pre-Revolutionary mansions.
As I traveled Route 9 last October 2008 in a procession toward our family meeting with my distant cousins, I had a sense of my family line, and it brought home the passage of progress since 1609 as though superimposed in time over these past four hundred years.
Really, Henry Hudson had found the right place to grow a nation.
IMS Malloy
Family Historian
We had mentioned here in a previous post that a Stoutenburgh descendant, Judge John Howland Wood, Jr., was the first federal judge assassinated in the United States. It seems appropriate that we should provide more information about Judge Wood. John Howland Wood, a grandson of Maria Stoutenburgh and Richard DeCantillon, went off to Texas in 1835 to fight for the Texas Republic. It was his great, great grandson, Judge John Howland Wood, "Maximum John," that was assassinated. Strangely, I can only find pictures of his killer and the man who paid for the killing but not the judge himself.
Read the rest of this entry »For any of you that may have wondered about the Stoutenburgh-Teller Family Association (STFA), here's quick history by Betsy Neal (STFA President) telling how it came to be and a little of what it's about:
Read the rest of this entry »