(Garrison)
In the fields below Sugar Loaf Mountain in Garrison stood a great house owned by Beverly Robinson. The mansion is described in The History of St. Philip's Church by E. Clowes Chorley as "a wooden house lined with brick". Robinson was one of the most prominent citizens in the Highlands, his land extended to 60,000 acres covering parts of what is now Garrison, Philipstown, Putnam Valley, Kent and Patterson. He was the first Church Warden and principal benefactor of St. Philip's Chapel. He had married Susannah Philipse, daughter of Frederick Philipse who was a nephew and heir to Adolph Philipse, the holder of the original land grant from William III.
Later in 1780 when Benedict Arnold was given command of West Point in New York by General Washington, he lived in the Robinson house which was known as "Beverly"
The boat house marks the place where Harry Garrison established his chartered ferry service between Garrison and West Point in 1821. In the book Garrison's Landing by Jean Saunders, she says that one ferryman had told her there had been a ferry between West Point and Garrison fifty years before the Revolution. Those visiting West Point would often cross the river because the accommodations were better on the east side. Jacob Mandeville's house about a mile from the ferry was used to billet officers during the Revolution. That house still stands and is maintained as an historical site. Jean Saunders wrote that Joseph Mead who married Garrison's daughter Phebe built a dock, residence and store at that site in 1825.
Henry White Belcher, ancestor to the late Taylor Belcher of Garrison, was a retired wholesale grocer who built seven buildings at the landing between 1849 and 1859. Taylor Belcher's father Colonel Belcher ran the Garrison and West Point Ferry Company and the Garrison Coal Company located at the landing and lived in the "ferry house" which may have dated from 1787. The "ferry house" was owned by the Belcher family until 1997.
If anyone has any information on this Henry Belcher, his father Taylor Belcher and his grandfather Colonel Belcher let us know.
