o continued to be
well versed in the affairs of state.

A short distance from Cold Spring is Garrison's, where many wealthy New
Yorkers have their country seats. Putnam County, in which both
Garrison's and Cold Spring are located, was once a portion of Philipse
Manor. The house in the "Upper Manor," as this tract of land was called,
was The Grange, but over forty years ago it was burned to the ground. It
was originally built by Captain Frederick Philips about 1800, and was
the scene of much festivity. The Philipses were tories during the
Revolution, and it is said that this property would doubtless have been
confiscated by the government but for the fact that Mary Philips, who
was Captain Frederick Philips' only child, was a minor at the close of
the war in 1783. Mary Philips, whose descendants have spelled the name
with a final _e_, married Samuel Gouverneur, and their eldest son,
Frederick Philipse Gouverneur, dropped the name Gouverneur as a surname
and assumed that of Philipse in order to inherit a large landed estate
of which The Grange was a conspicuous part.

When I first visited Garrison's the Philipse family was living at The
Grange in great elegance. Frederick Philipse was then a bachelor and his
maiden sister, Mary Marston Gouverneur, presided over his establishment.
Another sister, Margaret Philipse Gouverneur, married William Moore, a
son of the beloved physician, Dr. William Moore of New York, a nephew of
President Benjamin Moore of Columbia College and a first cousin of
Clement C. Moore who wrote the oft quoted verses, "'Twas the Night
before Christmas," which have delighted the hearts of American children
for so many decades.

Frederick Philipse subsequently married Catharine Wadsworth Post, a
member of a prominent family of New York. It was while Mr. and Mrs.
Philipse were visiting her relatives that The Grange was destroyed by
fire. Miss Mary Marston Gouverneur had ordered the chimneys cleaned, in
the manner then prevalent, by making a fire in the chimney place on the
first floor, in order to burn out the debris. The flames fortunately
broke out on the top story, thus enabling members of the family to save
many valuable heirlooms in the lower apartments. Among the paintings
rescued and now in the possession of Frederick Philipse's daughters, the
Misses Catharine Wadsworth Philipse and Margaret Gouverneur Philipse of
New York, was the portrait of the pretty Mary Philipse, Washington's
first love. Tra