26 Staten Island Association of -Arts and Sciences 



It was in the year 1807 that the Clermont made her successful 

 trip to Albany at the rate of nearly five miles an hour. The 

 legislature confirmed a grant to Livingston and Fulton of the 

 monopoly of navigation in the waters of the State of New York 

 by steam-propelled vessels. It was believed that transportation 

 was revolutionized, and that thereafter the steamboat would afford 

 a cheaper and more comfortable means of conveyance than the 

 stage. The development of the railroad was not foreseen. 



The war of 1812 necessitated the strengthening of the defences 

 of New York. Some of the old revolutionary redoubts were 

 restored and new forts were erected on Staten Island, under the 

 personal supervision of Governor Tompkins. 



Attracted by the beauty of the landscape and convinced of the 

 accessibility of the north and east shores of Staten Island from 

 New York by the new means of transit, Governor Tompkins in 

 1814 bought the Van Buskirk farm, the farm which had been 

 conveyed by Amerman's heirs to Abraham Crocheron, and part 

 of the Vreeland farm. (G Deeds 393, 382.) 



In the same year a law was passed permitting St. Andrew's to 

 sell the Glebe, the act reciting " that the reason of the distant 

 situation of the said glebe from the church, it is not convenient 

 to the minister and incumbent of said church, to occupy and im- 

 prove the same himself, by reason whereof the said glebe hath got 

 out of repair, and the wood and timber thereof has been carried 

 off or destroyed, in consequence of which the same cannot be 

 leased to great advantage * * *." (Chapter 15 Laws of 1814.) 



Pursuant to this act the Church in 181 5 conveyed to Daniel D. 

 Tompkins all of the Glebe now lying north of the Richmond Turn- 

 pike (G Deeds 443), and a large portion of that lying south of 

 the Turnpike. (G Deeds 396; see H Deeds 64.) 



On the high hill near the middle of the Van Buskirk farm 

 stood the redoubt which, as I have been informed by Edward C. 

 Bridgeman, Esq., son-in-law of the late Daniel Low, a former 

 owner of part of the property, bore the name of Fort Knyphausen. 

 In relation to this it is important to notice that the spring in the 

 valley below is still called the Hessian Spring. Governor Tomp- 



