The Cincinnati daily star. [volume] ([Cincinnati, Ohio]) 1875-1880, 1879-09-22
A COUNTRY ChURCHxARD.
History Cleaned from the Tomb
stones Amid Which Young Matsl.
rim Livingston Was Buried.

| l4NOW iOik NuTiu OOrTtnpOuu6nt.J
HYDE PARK, Sept. 15.-At o'clock
this afternoon the sexton unlocked the
door of st. James Church at Hyde Park
and set the bell tolling. 1t is beautiful
little church this church of St. James,
ivy-grown without and rich in carved oak
and stained glass within. 1t stands back
little from the old York and Albany
post road, which time has shaded here
abouts with splendid old trees, and is ap-
preached across velvet lawn by mar
row gravel path.
Just opposite the church, fronting on
the west side of the historical pike, the
broad acres of Mr.. Walter B. Langdon, a
grandson of Mr.. John Jacob Astor, stretch
away to the north and south and west
ward to the Hudson River. Back of the
church in other acres the narrower estates
OF gentry which is dead and gone crowd
upon one another. The marble slabs and
monuments which record the names of
the dwellers here have in many instances
grown yellow from age, but the names
they bear are names still known and hon
ored in the county.
At the first stroke of the church bell
yesterday the door of the little brown
painted rectory, which nestles in clump
OF trees just where the tombstones end
and shares the clean green lawn in COM
mon with the church, opened and DR..
Philander Cady, the rector of St. James,
clad in his surplice, with a prayer-book
in his hand, crossed the lawn, and enter
ing the church door took his place at the
chancel. A little funeral procession,
only four carriages long, presently halted
at the church-yard gate, and coffin
followed by dozen mourners was
borne up the gravel path and in at the
open door.
The body of young Maturin Living
ston, whose sudden death occurred in
this city last week, was to be laid at rest
in soil which for more than generation
has been the property Of the family to
which he belonged and whose name he
bore. For more than two generations the
Livingstons have been landholders on the
east bank of the Hudson, and from Rob-
ert Livingston, who at the age of twenty
came out to America from Rotterdam in
1914, they have peopled this portion of
the State so thickly that not a gray
headed oracle in either Columbia or
Dutchess Counties-of whom there are a
great many-can without the aid Of dc,,.-
uments extricate the branches Of their
genealogical tree from the tangle into
which time and persistent ipternarrv-
ing and remarrying has woven them.
Although Robert Livingston came
from Holland, the Livingston family is
not Of Dutch descent. Very shortly
after it was established in this country, it
became grated into the old Dutch stock,
but Robert Livingston, the founder, was
Scotchman. He was the son of the
Rev. John Livingston, a Scotch Non
Conformist, who was a member of the
Parliamentary Commission that negotia-
ted for the restoration of Charles III to
cne unrone. When the restored mon
archy ungratefully prosecuted Non-Con-
formity the Rev. John Livingston moved
to Holland. And so it was that his son
Robert chanced to be an emigrant with
the Dutch.
Robert emigrated with Rev. Nicholas
Van RENSSELAER,, and when few years
later the Rev. Nicholas Van Rensselaer,
died, Robert Livingston married his
widow. The widow of the Rev. Nicholas
Van Rensselaer, had been Miss Aida
Schuyler, daughter of Philip Peter
Schuyler. This is going back to the
opening chapter of the history of the
Livingston family in America. The
church from which young Maturin Liv.
ingston was day before yesterday buried,
and the graveyard adjoining, do not, on
their white tablets and moss-grown tomb
stones, record this ancient history of the
honored house to be sure, but they furn-
ish to any one who seeks it a record of
one of its most distinguished branches.
When the rector had finished the read
ing of the Episcopal service for the burial
Of the dead, and the body had been de-
posted in little plot at the back of the
church, the" small following drove away
as it had come down the shaded road.
Mr.. William Lowndes and Mrs. Rowland
Lowndes, of Staatsburg, with her two
daughters (Mrs. Chase and Mrs. March),
Mrs. Robert Livingston, of Hyde Park;
Did Mr.. Lewis Livingston, of Rhinebeck,
with his two sons, Lewis and James B.,
md few others of the family, were all
who gathered in the little church and
'aw the body laid in its grave. When
hese were gone | wandered with the
yrave-digger over the grass-grown church
7ard, reading the faces of the tombstones.
Upon marble tablet in the church |
lad read an inscrip ption "To the memory
If Major-General Morgan Lewis" who
vas the youngest son of Francis Lewis, a
igner of the Declaration of Independ-
nee. And further, as the inscription re-
orded, General Morgan Lewis enlisted
n Boston as volunteer in 1775, and sub
conducted the retreat at
and led the advance at
Stone Arabia. In 1872 he was made a
and subsequently became
Chief Justice and at last the Governor
f his State. Just to the left of the tab
ct which recorded these honors was in
cribed on another marble on the church
poU UCaorod IN tho Ynnp,nrx of Moroo