THE GOLDSMITHS. 



ALDEN GOLDSMITH 



A man he was to all the country dear. — Goldsmith. 



In 1724, when Queen Anne, the last of the Stuart 

 sovereigns, was on the throne of England, a man 

 named Goldsmith was granted a deed to a plot of land 

 near what is now known as Washingtonville, in 

 Orange County, New York. He became a farmer and 

 stock raiser (although his name would indicate that 

 his ancestors had followed a very different calling), 

 the produce of his farm and the adjoining ones being 

 shipped to New York, which was then, as it is now, 

 the market for everything produced in Orange County, 

 from eggs to race horses. The property included in 

 the original deed passed from generation to genera- 

 tion, through the oldest son, the dark days of the 

 Revolution being passed without a change being made 

 in the ownership of the place, which, at a very early 

 date, became known as Walnut Grove Farm. The 

 home of the Goldsmiths was an old-fashioned farm 

 house, standing on a terrace surrounded by hickories 

 of over a century's growth, and whose shadows flut- 

 tered on a lawn sloping to the Otterkill. In this home 

 Alden Goldsmith and his two sons, James and John, 

 were born, two of them died there, and all of them 

 were borne from its portals to the grave. 



