ring the following years a long list of
prominent men passed through its hospitable portals: John Jay,
Alexander Hamilton, Philip Schuyler, Chancellor Kent and others.

After the Van Schaack regime had passed came the Hon. Cornelius P. Van
Ness, who in due time became chief justice of the Supreme Court of
Vermont, then its Governor, and later was minister to Spain.
Washington Irving arouses the ire of the local historian by stating
that the Van Ness ancestors came by their name because they were
"valiant robbers of birds' nests." The next owner was a merry
gentleman whose ghost is said to still haunt the sideboard.

Then came Dr. John P. Beekman, whose first wife was a Van Schaack. He
added the two wings which adorn either end of the building; and again
its doors are opened wide, sharing, with Lindenwald, the honor of
entertaining the nation's notables, many of them introduced by Van
Buren. Such names as Henry Clay, Washington Irving, Thomas H. Benton,
David Wilmot and Charles Sumner head the list. David Wilmot was a
notably corpulent gentleman; his introduction by Van Buren to the lady
of the house is said to have been put thus wise: "Mrs. Beekman, you
have heard of the Wilmot Proviso--Here he is in the body."

The house is now occupied by the widow of Aaron J. Vanderpoel, a Van
Schaack grand-daughter.

From the "Reminiscences" of a Kinderhooker we learn that there were
two or three stage lines whose coaches passed through the village
daily, and that the merits of their various steeds were the cause of
much local controversy around the tavern stove. The drivers "were
mainly farmers' sons, many of them well to do, selected with special
reference to sobriety as well as in handling the ribbons;" and the
heart of every lad in the village was fired with the hope that some
day he might be selected to fill that high office.

Starting again on the Post Road toward the north, we come to the
one-time Kinderhook Academy, celebrated in its day, but its day has
passed, and on the outskirts of the town pass the old cemetery where
Martin Van Buren and Jesse Merwin lie with the forefathers of the
neighborhood.

[Sidenote: _WE LEAVE THE POST ROAD._]

Here we part from the old Post Road, which continues on through
Valatie, Niverville and South Schodack to Schodack Centre, where it
joins company with the Boston Road, and together they travel through
East Greenbush to Greenbush where once was the ferry at Crawlier.

The way I to