have her daughter nearer to her home at Clermont, helped her to buy a farm of more than two hundred acres on the east bank of the Hudson River at the mouth of the Sawkill about twenty miles above Poughkeepsie. Here Mrs. Montgomery built and completed in 1804 her home, a rectangular fourchimneyed Colonial house, about 40 x 60 , with stuccoed stone walls more than two feet thick and having the kitchens and service quarters in the basement, dining and drawing rooms, library and one bedroom in the high ceilinged first floor, bedrooms on the second, and maids quarters in the dormer windowed top floor under the steep sloping roof.
Into this house, with its many great windows and white painted woodwork carved and moulded
gomery’s invitation and remained there as her guest for many months. Finally, after announcing his own approaching sudden death because, as he said, he had heard the family banshee cry that night, Jones was found dead in his room the following morning.
Mrs. Montgomery died in this house in 1828. She left Montgomery Place, as it had come to be called, to her brother, the Honorable Edward Livingston, who had always taken great pleasure in it. He made improvements to the house, added to the portraits there and took there some furniture brought back from France with him in 1835. After his death there in 1836, the house came to his widow, the accomplished and beautiful Louise Davezac. She added to the house the eastern portico
NORTH ELEVATION
according to the American Colonial fashion of the time, Mrs. Montgomery moved the furniture from her small home at Grasmere, and this not being enough her celebrated brothers, Chancellor Robert R. Livingston and the Honorable Edward Livingston, gave her fine American furniture and also sent her furniture and ornaments from France.
Many celebrated men were guests at this house. Her brother, Edward Livingston, spent much of his time there in summer when not required by his work to be in Washington or New Orleans. Lafayette, an old friend of her family, stayed there in 1824, and President Van Buren, also a friend of her brothers, sometimes stopped there for the night on his journeys along the Hudson. William Jones, brother of the Earl of Ranelagh, who had married General Montgomery’s sister, came at Mrs. Mont
and the north porch and south wing and much of the detail ornament, combining and harmonizing the whole with such skill that it seemed to be the creation of one mind. She also added to the estate, purchasing the beautiful woodland to the north of the house from her late husband s brother-in-law, General John Armstrong.
After her death there in October, 1860, her daughter, Coralie Livingston, wife of Thomas Penant Barton, continued to improve the grounds. It was before this time that Andrew Jackson Downing, the greatest of our early landscape gardeners, in Rural Essays written in 1847, described Montgomery Place in these words:
“If we have not sooner spoken at large of
Montgomery Place, second as it is to no seat in
Into this house, with its many great windows and white painted woodwork carved and moulded
gomery’s invitation and remained there as her guest for many months. Finally, after announcing his own approaching sudden death because, as he said, he had heard the family banshee cry that night, Jones was found dead in his room the following morning.
Mrs. Montgomery died in this house in 1828. She left Montgomery Place, as it had come to be called, to her brother, the Honorable Edward Livingston, who had always taken great pleasure in it. He made improvements to the house, added to the portraits there and took there some furniture brought back from France with him in 1835. After his death there in 1836, the house came to his widow, the accomplished and beautiful Louise Davezac. She added to the house the eastern portico
NORTH ELEVATION
according to the American Colonial fashion of the time, Mrs. Montgomery moved the furniture from her small home at Grasmere, and this not being enough her celebrated brothers, Chancellor Robert R. Livingston and the Honorable Edward Livingston, gave her fine American furniture and also sent her furniture and ornaments from France.
Many celebrated men were guests at this house. Her brother, Edward Livingston, spent much of his time there in summer when not required by his work to be in Washington or New Orleans. Lafayette, an old friend of her family, stayed there in 1824, and President Van Buren, also a friend of her brothers, sometimes stopped there for the night on his journeys along the Hudson. William Jones, brother of the Earl of Ranelagh, who had married General Montgomery’s sister, came at Mrs. Mont
and the north porch and south wing and much of the detail ornament, combining and harmonizing the whole with such skill that it seemed to be the creation of one mind. She also added to the estate, purchasing the beautiful woodland to the north of the house from her late husband s brother-in-law, General John Armstrong.
After her death there in October, 1860, her daughter, Coralie Livingston, wife of Thomas Penant Barton, continued to improve the grounds. It was before this time that Andrew Jackson Downing, the greatest of our early landscape gardeners, in Rural Essays written in 1847, described Montgomery Place in these words:
“If we have not sooner spoken at large of
Montgomery Place, second as it is to no seat in