Poughkeepsie Rural Cemetery

12/15/2025

12/15/2025

09/16/2025

The Honorable Seward Barculo

Sitting on top of a hillside and overlooking the Hudson sits a monument to a man who had faith in his God and in his country’s system of justice. The epitaph inscribed therein gives us a possible glimpse of who he was “In Society an Ornament; In the State, a Judge, fearless, dignified, and incorruptible; In Habit, Simple and Pure. He died young, but mature in usefulness and fame. Adorning Jurisprudence by the clearness of his decisions, and Illustrating Religion by the Strength of his faith!” To this modern writer, that sounds like quite a man, and a character that just doesn’t exist anymore. But who was Seward Barculo anyway? Was he really all of the things that his headstone claims he was?

The pastor of the Dutch Reformed churches in Hopewell and New Hackensack The Reverend George Barculo was overjoyed on September 22nd 1808 when his wife Hannah gave birth to their son, Seward. Though his father thought he would be a farmer, Seward’s uncle Jacobus Swartout couldn’t help but notice that the boy enjoyed reading and learning at an early age, so it was decided that he should receive a proper education. He was sent off to the Academy at Fishkill and then prepped for college before entering Yale in 1828. He studied both at Yale and Rutgers before coming to Poughkeepsie to study law with a local attorney Stephen Cleveland. He was finally admitted to the Bar in 1834, which is also the same year he married Cornelia Tallman. He very quickly discovered a passion for debate and was heard to tell his friends “learn to speak, argue, and debate! Without this you can never make yourself felt.”

Barculo became a partner with Stephen Cleveland and very quickly took over the office at Poughkeepsie and was in high demand with his clients. He became well known for his silent stare in the courtroom, and rising at the appropriate times to deliver well arranged statements with calmness and care. After only serving in the courts for a little over a decade, New York Governor Silas Wright appointed Barculo First Judge of the County Court here in Dutchess. Two years went by before in 1847 when the State’s new constitution went into effect, Barculo was then elected to serve as a Justice of the Supreme Court for the 2nd District. He had also made Poughkeepsie his home with a house near Mansion Square Park.

Perhaps the most infamous case that he proceeded over during this time was in March of 1852, “The People vs. Ann Hoag” in which Mrs. Hoag was put on trial for the poisoning of her husband Nelson Hoag. Barculo, the jury, and hundreds of spectators listened intently as the horrible story of a young woman consumed with greed and lust unfolded before them. Mrs. Hoag had done a rather poor job of covering her tracks in the purchasing of arsenic and then feeding it to her husband in front of his sisters (who she detested as well). She even made the mistake of telling people that her husband would surely die soon (spoiler alert, he did!). Barculo gave a lengthy statement to the jury before sending them off to make their decision

“Gentlemen, you have an important and responsible duty to perform. The crime with which this woman is charged is one of the most diabolical that can enter the human heart. It is one easily perpetrated; it requires neither age, nor strength, nor skill, nor courage. The merest child or feeble woman can by means of poison, destroy a whole family. If this horrible crime has been committed by this prisoner it should be punished. You stand between her and the public, your duty points to both. If she is innocent you must preserve her from the sword of the law which is now suspended over her head. You are not to presume her innocent because she is a woman nor because she has children, nor because of the punishment, but because she is innocent and not proved guilty” She was found guilty and it was Justice Barculo’s job to sentence her to death by hanging. She was the first woman to be executed in the City of Poughkeepsie, right inside the County Courthouse where Barculo had heard her trial. In his six and a half years as a Supreme Court Justice, this case received more attention (for obvious reasons) than any other he had seen.

Besides his love of debate, he was a lover of reading, sailing, and horticulture. He was devoted to his children especially his son Sidney who (strangely enough) followed his father in death just a few months after in September of 1854 when the child was running around the campus of the Dutchess Academy and ran head first into another student. He died several hours later, he was just 13 years old. Justice Barculo had also known good health until the last few months of his life when while traveling abroad, suddenly began to suffer from a horrible case of chronic diarrhea (which if left unchecked,was a very real cause of death in the 19th century). He tried to get back home in time to pass in the peace of his home but died in the residence of his father-in-law in New York City on the 20th of June, 1854. He was only 45. His remains were brought here to Poughkeepsie Rural Cemetery, not far from some other well known judges and lawyers of Poughkeepsie’s past.

References:
Poughkeepsie Journal: Mar 20 1852, Nov 24, 1855, Sept 9, 1854
Brooklyn Eagle: Jun 16, 1854
“The Life and Confessions of Lucy Ann Hoag” 1852 - NYS Archives
Seward Barculo - Ancestry.com - https://www.ancestry.com/genealogy/records/seward-barculo-24-6g4m9k

05/13/2025

POUGHKEEPSIE – The Poughkeepsie Rural Cemetery is accredited through the ArbNet Arboretum Accreditation Program and The Morton Arboretum for achieving particular standards of professional practices deemed important for arboreta and botanic gardens. The cemetery between Route 9 and the Hudson River...

09/23/2024

Join us in honoring our Veterans: please help us Remember, Honor, and Teach by sponsoring a wreath, volunteering, or inviting friends to help. Click the link for more information and to sponsor a wreath at Poughkeepsie Rural Cemetery:
https://hubs.li/Q02Blz9s0

09/11/2024

William Wilson - Poughkeepsie’s Forgotten Poet

Are there any poetry fans out there? Have you heard of the work of William Wilson? It's quite likely that you haven’t, as he published much of his work anonymously. In fact, he was known locally more so for his work as a bookseller than for his verse. So we thought we would take the time to share with you the story of his life and some of the works of William Wilson.

Born in Scotland near the village of Crieff on Christmas Day, 1801, William Wilson was the son of a merchant. Sadly his father died when he was five and his mother was forced to rely on her skills as a spinner to keep her family a float. Wilson didn’t attend school, but his mother taught him to read before the age of six. As a boy, he took on work at a nearby farm before venturing with his mother into Glasco to find more gainful employment. He managed to work his way into the world of writing and publishing by working for Dundee Review. It was during his time in Glasco when he met and married his first wife, Jane McKenzie. They had four children together but sadly she died in 1826, less than seven years after their wedding day.

After a few years of mourning and producing some lovely poetry to honor his beloved wife, he fell in love again and married Jane Sibbald in 1830. By 1833, the couple packed up their lives and came to America where they eventually settled in Poughkeepsie living at #313 Mill Street. Wilson operated a bookstore and Circulating Library at 295 Main Street from the time he arrived in Poughkeepsie until his death on August 25, 1860. He mostly ran the shop on his own with the exception of a few years when he partnered with local publisher Paraclete Potter and later with his own son Archibald.

It would be his son Archibald, along with local historian Benson Lossing, who would eventually publish some of Wilson’s poems 8 years after his passing. Lossing also wrote a small biography about Wilson in which he proclaimed that he was “True, just, and honorable in all his dealings” and was a “warm and active friend of the deserving, and liberal to those in need.” Wilson’s widow died in 1865 and is buried alongside him here, as well as some of their children. Three of his sons served during the Civil War, James became a brevet brigadier general, George died at Fredericksburg in 1863, and Walter Wilson, the youngest, also signed up to serve.

WANING LIFE AND WEARY. - By William Wilson

Waning life and weary,
Fainting heart and limb,
Darkening road and dreary,
Flashing eyes grow dim ;
All betokening nightfall near,
Day is done and rest is dear.
Slowly stealing shadows
Westward lengthening still
O’er the dark brown meadows,
O’er the sunlit hill.

Gleams of golden glory
From the opening sky,
Gild those temples hoary—
Kiss that closing eye :
Now drops the curtain on all wrong—
Throes of sorrow, grief and song.
But saw ye not the dying
Ere life passed away,
Faintly smiled while eying
Yonder setting day :

And, his pale hand signing
Man’s redemption sign—
Cried, with forehead shining,
Father, I am thine !
And so to rest he quietly hath passed,
And sleeps in Christ, the Comforter, at last.

07/31/2024

Death on the Henry Clay

It has been 172 years since the horrible wreck of the steamboat Henry Clay which resulted in the loss of many lives from our area. Even though this cemetery did not open until a year after the tragedy, we do have one of its victims buried here, though exactly where she had been buried originally is still a mystery. When Poughkeepsie Rural opened in November of 1853, many of the first burials here were actually reinterments from other locations, and it wasn’t until December 4, 1853 when the first recently diseased individual would be laid to rest here. Sadly, we don’t always know why people decided to move their loved ones here, but that doesn’t change the fact that their stories are still intriguing.

The steamboat Henry Clay began sailing down the Hudson River from Albany on the morning of July 28, 1852. Right from the beginning of the journey, Captain John Tillman decided to race against another steamer, The Armenia. The racing of steamboats was not uncommon in the early 19th century, the faster the boat, the more bragging rights you had. The problem with this new sport was that in order to get your steamboat up to its top speed, you needed to keep the ship’s boilers going nonstop which could lead to fires and the occasional explosion. As a result of this reckless behavior in shipowners and captains “fires on these boats were common: between January and July of 1852 alone, there were 19 fires and wrecks, resulting in over 350 deaths – all before the destruction of the Henry Clay.” Passengers recalled that by the time the boat had made its way past the Livingston estate (Clermont, in Columbia County) the engine room was so hot that nobody dared to walk near it. One passenger even recalled seeing hot embers falling onto parts of the desk.

Mrs. Emily Vedder Bartlett stepped onboard the Henry Clay when it stopped in Poughkeepsie, which was one of its many stops along the way. In fact the boat actually skipped some of its scheduled stops in order to stay ahead in the race (this was common and many complaints were made by would-be passengers). However, Poughkeepsie was one of the biggest ports along the river, and not to be missed as nearly 100 people paid to board the ship. Mrs. Bartlett was the wife of Charles Bartlett, the principal of the Poughkeepsie Collegiate School. The school was located on College Hill and Mr. and Mrs Bartlett lived at the school with their students. The two were married sometime before 1834, though the exact date is unknown. Mrs. Bartlett would have been about 44 years old when she walked the decks of the Henry Clay on that fateful day.

Around 3:00pm, and just south of Yonkers, a fire broke out right at the center of the ship, which caused a panic and the pilot of the ship, Mr. Edward Hubbard, to turn the boat’s wheel and steered it towards the eastern shore of the river. When the boat hit land, anyone who was standing near the bow could jump onto dry ground. However, anyone who was left at the mid-section or the stern, had to make the decision to stay and burn, or jump into the deep waters of the Hudson River. Unfortunately for Mrs. Bartlett, she must have made the decision to jump, as her body was recovered (unscorched) by another boat passing by, The James Madison. Even the strongest of swimmers would have had difficulty with the current, the stress and confusion of the situation, and of course the heavy and constricting clothing that a woman of Mrs. Bartlett’s status would have worn. It was believed at first that her gold watch had been stolen, as indeed many valuables were stolen from corpses in the river by nearby boaters searching for loot. However, it was removed from her body for safekeeping and eventually returned to the family.

The fact that Emily Bartlett died in this terrible disaster is well documented. What remains a mystery to us is where her body went after all was said and done. One educated guess would be that her remains were sent back to Poughkeepsie and would have been buried in the Presbyterian Graveyard that once stood at the corner of Main Street and Corlies Avenue (as Mr. Bartlett was a member of that church). When Mr. Barlett died in 1857, his remains were brought right to the Poughkeepsie Rural Cemetery and it wasn’t until December of 1862 that Emily’s remains would be reinterred here as well (along with three other family members at that same time). Her monument is difficult to read but it says “Drowned in Hudson River on the 28th July 1852 She was one of many who perished by the burning of the Steamer Henry Clay”

References:
Butler, Shannon, “A dark gloomy day for Pokepsie” – The Destruction of the Henry Clay. Feb 4, 2022 https://poklib.org/a-dark-gloomy-day-for-pokepsie-the-destruction-of-the-henry-clay/
Hansen, Kris A. “Death Passage on the Hudson: The wreck of the Henry Clay”
New York Times, Aug 3, 1852
Poughkeepsie Eagle, July 31, 1852

05/13/2024

“Was I not born for other things than this?” - Joel Elias Spingarn

Those words in this article’s title come from a poem written by Joel Elias Spingarn who is buried here in the Poughkeepsie Rural Cemetery. The poem was actually about love but as it turns out Spingarn was born for many things and appeared to be a master of whatever he attempted. Though he is not from Poughkeepsie, he clearly had an appreciation for a great landscape like the one we have and wished to be amongst friends who were already buried here as he wrote in a letter to the cemetery’s superintendent in 1938.

Joel Elias Spingarn was born in New York on May 17, 1875 to parents of Jewish descent, Elias Spingarn of Austria and Sara Barnett of England. His father had come to America like many other immigrants with the hopes of establishing wealth and managed to be successful in the wholesale to***co trade. This good fortune allowed Joel and his brothers to be able to attend good colleges; he first studied at the City College of New York before heading to Columbia University where he focused on literature. He decided to spend a year at Harvard in graduate studies before returning to Columbia for his doctorate, which he earned at the age of 24. Soon after, he became a professor of comparative literature at Columbia and began publishing his work.

As his work “The New Criticism” was being published, Spingarn was in the process of battling it out with Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, the president of Columbia University. The two men had differing ideas on the school’s administration as well as methods of teaching. Spingarn was very public with his thoughts on Butler and as a result of his ideas, he was fired. Though he could have easily found a job as a professor at any prestigious university, he chose to end his career as a teacher and focus more on writing both criticism and poetry. The fact that he was financially independent due to his father’s wealth, certainly aided in this decision.

Spingarn’s progressive ideals included his strong support for the Women’s suffrage movement and his interest for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), of which he would serve on the board for many years and as president from 1930 until his death in 1939. He had been inspired when he read the story of Steve Greene, a black man from Arkansas who had killed his landlord in self-defense and had escaped to Chicago. When Spingarn learned of what the local Sheriff had planned on doing to Greene (essentially burn him) he immediately felt compelled to support Green’s cause. By November of 1910, Spingarn became one of the first Jewish leaders of the NAACP and would go on to create the Spingarn Medal which is awarded every year to “a person of African descent and American citizenship who shall have made the highest achievement during the preceding year or years in any honorable field.” Later, Spingarn organized and hosted two conferences on racial problems at his home in Amenia. Known as the Amenia Conferences, these were intimate gatherings where leading minds of the day laid out their principles on educational and political freedoms for all Black Americans. He and his wife Amy Einstein had purchased the old Troutbeck estate in Amenia New York in 1910, where they hosted great minds and writers like Sinclair Lewis, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Lewis Mumford.

Spingarn had expressed a profound interest in the area’s history and served as a Vice President of the Dutchess County Historical Society on behalf of Amenia. Even in the midst of all of his work, he felt duty bound to serve his country during World War I and left in 1915 to attend an officers training camp. He would serve in France during the war and was discharged as a lieutenant colonel. When he returned home, he continued his focus on the work of the NAACP as well as his passion for clematis plants, for which he had collected over 250 varieties of at Troutbeck, surpassing the collections of all existing botanical societies! He died on July 26, 1939 after being ill for many months, he was 65 years old. He is buried here alone, with a plain slab of stone that reads “Rest in Peace our friend and adopted Dutchess County Son.”

References:
Ross, B. Joyce. “J.E. Spingarn and the Rise of the NAACP”, 1972.
Poughkeepsie Journal, July 27, 1939

04/25/2024

TOWN OF POUGHKEEPSIE – The national tree-planting day, known as Arbor Day is a source of Pride for the Poughkeepsie Rural Cemetery, between the Hudson River and Route 9. The cemetery has been accredited through the ArbNet Arboretum Accreditation Program and The Morton Arboretum, for achieving part...

04/25/2024

We are Proud to announce that the Poughkeepsie Rural Cemetery has been accredited through the ArbNet Arboretum Accreditation Program and The Morton Arboretum as a Leve1 Arboretum.

TOWN OF POUGHKEEPSIE – The national tree-planting day, known as Arbor Day is a source of Pride for the Poughkeepsie Rural Cemetery, between the Hudson River and Route 9. The cemetery has been accredited through the ArbNet Arboretum Accreditation Program and The Morton Arboretum, for achieving part...

03/30/2024

Judge Jane Bolin - A First of Many

Here in the Poughkeepsie Rural Cemtery, we have several permanent inhabitants who were true trail blazers in history. These were people who broke barriers and changed the world. When you walk the grounds you are walking amongst everyone from doctors, to politicians, musicians, to writers, and lawmakers. A few of these characters managed to be both fearless and the first in their fields. Jane Matilda Bolin came from a family of firsts and she was embedded with the belief that she could accomplish anything no matter the hardship; and she did.

The Bolin family had been a part of Dutchess County for many years before Jane was born on April 11, 1908. He grandfather Abram had been a farmer in Dover and her father Gaius was the first black graduate of Williams College. He had made a name for himself as a local attorney, a career he would excel at for over 50 years. Jane was the daughter of an in*******al marriage which was consider quite controversal at the time. Gaius had married Matilda Every in 1899, who was originally from Northern Ireland and came to Poughkeepsie when she was very young. Together they had four children, two of which, Gaius Jr. and Jane, would go on to practice law.

When Jane was growing up in Poughkeepsie she attended local schools but had trouble fitting in due to her mixed heritage, she was even refused a hair cut at a local salon simply because of the color of her skin. In later interviews with Gaius, Gaius Jr., and Jane, the Bolin family expressed mixed emotions when it came to Poughkeepsie and their neighbors. On the one hand, they sometimes faced rasism and discrimination in Poughkeepsie, which was blatantly here, however they were also respected by many prominent white members of their community. In 1944 Jane had come back to Poughkeepsie and spoke opening about what she had faced saying, “When I am asked why I ever left such a beautiful town as Poughkeepsie I am forced to answer: ‘Yes, it is physically beautiful, but I hate fascism whether it is practiced by Germans, Japanese, or by Americans and Poughkeepsie is fascist to the extent of deluding itself that there is superiority among human beings by reason solely of color or race or religion.’”

Despite all of this, Jane was able to excel just as her father had and graduated from Poughkeepsie High School in 1924. She went on to Wellesley College and graduated near the top of her class before becoming the first black woman to graduate from the Yale Law School in 1931. None of this was easy, as even at Yale she faced hatred from both students and professors alike. By 1932 Bolin had passed the New York State Bar examination and began practicing along side her father in his office in Poughkeepsie.

While studying at Yale, she met her first husband, Ralph Mizelle. The couple practiced together in New York City for five years, when Bolin went on to work in the City’s legal department, the first black woman to do so. Over the course of the next decade she would find herself doing everything from running for office in the State Assembly to being appointed Judge of the Domestic Relations Court in 1939, at the young age of 31. She was the first, and for a time the only black female judge in the country. During the course of her many years at the bar she was able to make great changes with regard to race and gender, including changing probation officer assignments to cases without regard for faith or race, and making sure that private child-care agencies funded by the public must accept children of any ethnicity.

Bolin reluctantly retired at the age of 70 in 1978 and spent her many remaining years as a reading instructor and constantly interested in education here in New York. She passed away at the age of 98 in 2007 and is buried along side her father and mother in the Bolin family plot, lot 161, section 19.

Images:
Photo of Jane Bolin from the Poughkeepsie High School yearbook, 1924.
Photo of Jane Bolin in NYC, 1942.

02/29/2024

James P. Williams - The Notorious Chicken Thief

Just because you don’t see a headstone, doesn’t mean that there is nobody there. In fact there are lots of blank spaces in the cemetery with graves underneath them, but it does make you wonder why they never received a marker. Most of the time, it's a matter of finances. Sure, perhaps your family left you a plot to be buried in, but they never left any plans for a memorial. Or perhaps the city paid for your burial, but didn’t find it necessary to add the extra cash that it would take to make sure your name was remembered. In the case of Mr. James P. Williams, it was quite likely that the city wanted to forget his name entirely for all of the trouble that he caused.

We don’t know exactly when James P. Williams was born but based on a census record and his claims, he was born in Pleasant Valley. During the Civil War he enlisted for a brief time in 1864. Perhaps it was during that time that something in him snapped, because when he came home he turned to a life of crime. Beginning in 1869 he was involved with a major robbery and sent to Sing Sing but was eventually sent to Clinton prison where he said he did “easy time” and was let out on good behavior in 1879. In a newspaper article from that year he claimed that he was trying to win his pension from his time in the service and that if he succeeded, he would “start a little shoe store of his own and will endeavor by honesty and industry to make full amends for the past.”

Did he succeed? Well, sort of. We do find him in the city directories in the 1880s listed as a shoemaker but, in 1883 he was arrested again and indicted for conspiracy to obtain money by false pretenses. As a result of this charge, he was sent to Albany Penitentiary for 6 months. In 1890, he decided to move into the business of poultry, but not the legal kind, as he was charged with stealing chickens and again was sent to Albany Penitentiary for another 6 months. Somehow in the midst of all of these trips to prison, shoe making, and chicken stealing, James married. However, that doesn’t appear to have worked out because in July of 1891 both James and his wife were arrested for drunkenness and vagrancy and James was referred to as a “first-class fraud.” He made a scene when he was brought into the recorder’s office that got him another trip to the penitentiary.

In 1893 James was once again accused of stealing chickens and once again was sent to the Penitentiary for 6 months. He never seemed to stay out of jail long enough to accomplish anything of note. That being said, all of the mentions of him in the newspapers, and there are many, are all of him committing crimes. When he finally landed in the City Almshouse in December of 1901, he was 59 years old and claimed to be ill. The person who checked him in wrote down in the notes “This man is a chicken thief and has served much of his time in the past 15 years in jail or penitentiary.” He died in the almshouse on February 17, 1902 and is buried here in single Grave #1969 in an Old Singles Section west of Section T. It does make you wonder, how would James feel if he knew that he was only remembered as a chicken thief. How would you want to be remembered?

References:
Poughkeepsie Eagle News - 1869, 1879, 1883, 1890, 1891, 1893
Poughkeepsie City Directories - 1880s
Poughkeepsie Almshouse Ledger - LH Collections, Poughkeepsie Public Library