Prendergast's Rent War today -1

For the next few days, my sister Bette and I will be visiting sites that played key roles in William Prendergast's Rent Rebellion. So this and coming installments of the blog about my 5x great grandfather and his wife Mehitable will be heavy on photos and light on text.

The artist's rendering above of Prendergast's 1766 trial in the Dutchess County Courthouse came from a book I bought today, "Hidden History of the Mid-Hudson Valley - Stories from the Albany Post Road" by Carney and Tatiana Rhinevault.

That courthouse dated from 1720 (see painting of the old courthouse) and was replaced on that same site in downtown Poughkeepsie, NY by two later courthouses. I photographed the current Dutchess County Courthouse which is about 110 years old, below.

Current Dutchess County Courthouse, Poughkeepsie, NY



That site was also where William was imprisoned for six months while waiting for a hoped-for royal pardon from England. After passing the courthouse, my sister and I had lunch with Vassar College history professor James Merrell who is researching a book on the Prendergast Rent Rebellion.

From left: Bette Prendergast, her brother Ken Prendergast and Vassar College history professor James Merrell.

Prendergast's trial was succeeded by Mehitable's famous 80-mile ride south to New York City to plead with the governor for her husband's life. My sister and I followed her route down the Albany Post Road.

Since that incredible trek to Fort George at The Battery took her about 36 hours of near-continuous riding, my sister and I also spread our travel over two days, but with an overnight stopover at the Tarrytown House along the way. Mehitable got no such rest.

Bette and I got a small sample of her route as about a half-dozen miles of the original, unimproved Albany Post Road remains today just north of Peekskill. It is narrow, unpaved and incredibly isolated from the surrounding bustle and 20 million people of the New York metropolitan area.

Imagine a young woman with six young children and a husband on death row, and riding a horse alone through remote, rugged settings like these for 80 miles each way on no sleep for four days and nights. My sister and I couldn't imagine how she did it. Here's a few glimpses of the unimproved stretch of the Albany Post Road...

Most of the rural stretches of the Albany Post Road looks like this today:

The road took Bette and I (and Mehitable, of course!) past several estates of the enemy lords of the manor against whom William and 500+ man army rebelled. This is one of the best preserved thanks to donations by Cleveland's John D. Rockefeller -- the Phillipse Manor-Upper Mills in Sleepy Hollow, NY:

Phillipse Manor Upper Mills,
Sleepy Hollow, NY

The following day, Bette and I visited the larger, Lower Mills manor house of the Phillipse family in Yonkers. And we continued south, roughly following Mehitable's route to where Fort George stood at The Battery.

I don't know how Mehitable survived. Had she failed, her husband would have died. Had she fallen in the dark along the dark, unpopulated road, her children would have been orphaned. I have a newfound respect for her.

Phillipse Manor House (Lower Mills) at Yonkers, NY. It was
built in three stages, from left to right and from 1682 to 1755.
Today, this is home to a museum about slavery as Frederick
Phillipse I was a notorious slave trader and fence for pirates'
goods stolen in the Caribbean Sea and Indian Ocean.

Coming down the length of Manhattan on
the Bowery where it ended at Broad Way at
The Commons, Mehitable was met in 1766
by the brand-new St. Paul's Chapel, a massive
structure on the outskirts of New York City.

Customs House built on the site of Fort George (1626-1790) and
next to the 400-year-old Bowling Green in Lower Manhattan.
My 5x great grandfather William Prendergast was imprisoned
here briefly in late July 1766. A week later, his wife Mehitable
Wing rode solo here from Poughkeepsie to secure a stay of exe-
cution for her husband from Governor Sir Henry Moore.

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