Down by the River

Down by the River. . Some 12,000 years ago, after the glaciers receded and melt waters carved out water courses, a forested river valley formed here. In 1609 Henry Hudson sailed up the Muhheakantuk ("The River that Flows Two Ways") and met the local Algonquian-speaking Mohican people. Dutch settlers later named the waterway Hudson's River. In 1693, Captain Henry Pawling, an English army officer, purchased Eaquaquanessinck from the Mohicans; that 4,000-acre tract included Hopeland., Hopeland on the Hudson , In 1859 Major Rawlins Lowndes and his wife Gertrude (Livingston) purchased the property that became their Staatsburg estate. They hired prominent English architect Calvert Vaux to design their home in the early 1860s. During the Civil War the Lowndeses moved from South Carolina to the country retreat they called Hopeland. , Calvert Vaux visited the Lowndeses in Staatsburg in 1860. Their house was completed a few years later and was illustrated in the 1864 edition of Vaux's book, Villas and Cottages., In 1907 architect Robert Palmer Huntington and his wife Helen Dinsmore Huntington purchased the former Lowndes estate and enlarged the original house with large flanking wings. Two years later they moved into their Tudor Revival style mansion, which they also called Hopeland. In the early 1950s, Hopeland House was demolished by their daughter, Helen Huntington Hull.