Katharine Decker Memorial Collection

Collection — Multiple Containers

Identifier: MSS 2020.0001

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

The collection comprises a vast array of materials broken into series by family groups, and sorted roughly by generation in chronological order. The greater share of materials deal directly with four generations of the DuBois/Allen/Stone/Decker family of Catskill. Appearing within are diaries, personal letters, estate documents, literary works in prose and verse, and a considerable selection of landscape sketches and studies by Benjamin Bellows Grant Stone.

A lesser portion of the collection, comprising roughly 1.5 cubic feet, deals with the Meserole Family and allied families of Brooklyn and Bushwick dating from the early 18th century through the death of Adrian Meserole in 1913. Includued within the collection is a vast array of deeds and business papers along with a small but representative selection of personal correspondence and miscellaneous documents of interest. Of particular note is an indenture for land of one William Creed at Jamaica, Queens County, from 1693, being the oldest document in this collection.

Dates

1693 - 1972

Biographical / Historical

The Katharine Decker Memorial Collection is one of the flagship collections of the Greene County Historical Society. Originally accepted into the Society's care in 1972, the papers in this collection comprise the holdings of Katharine DuBois Meserole King Decker as willed to the Greene County Historical Society upon her passing in 1969. The collection was ammassed by two separate family groups: the Meserole Family originally of Brooklyn, Kings County, and the DuBois Family of Catskill, Greene County, all of the State of New York.

Katharine Decker was born to Walter Monfort Meserole and Julia Allen DuBois Meserole of Brooklyn in 1885. Her mother was the daughter of Joseph Allen DuBois, who died on campaign with a Pennsylvania Cavalry Regiment in 1863 in Virginia. Upon his passing two of his three children were sent from their home in Pennsylvania to live with Joseph's sister Mary A. D. Stone and her husband Benjamin B. G. Stone who resided at Catskill in Joseph and Mary's childhood home at 45 Liberty Street. Julia and her brother Frederick were raised as the Stones' own children, and following Julia's tragic passing in 1887 the Stones remained close with her young daughter Katharine, who became something of a granddaughter to them. Upon Mary A. D. Stone's death in 1912 the old DuBois home at 45 Liberty Street was willed to Katharine, and she took up residence there and commenced modernizing the house in 1915. In the home at the time she moved there was the complete collection of her great uncle Benjamin Stone's sketch work as well as all the remaining personal papers of both he and Mary Stone.

Benjamin Stone himself was a minor member of the second generation of artists active in the Hudson River School of Landscape art, and was a friend of Benjamin Champney and Jasper Cropsey as well as a good acquaintance of Sanford Gifford, Winslow Homer, and Frederic Church. Stone was from Massachusetts and visited Catskill as early as 1853 on a sketching trip. Returning frequently, he rented the studio of the late Thomas Cole for a time immediately prior to the Civil War. It was during this period that he met Mary A. DuBois and the two became engaged. Materials of Benjamin Stone within the collection cover virtually from the beginning of his career commencing with sketches of the Catskills done in 1853 right up through his death in 1906. His diaries, correspondence, writings, and some business papers survive to testify to his artistic and literary career.

Mary Stone was the daughter of Samuel DuBois and Sarah Allen, the husband being a son of one of the oldest families in Catskill and a descendant of Benjamin DuBois, grandson of Louis DuBois the Hugenot. The wife was a daughter of Joseph Allen, a sea captain originally from Rhode Island who moved to Catskill around 1812. Mary Stone inherited a considerable collection of papers of her Father's line from Samuel DuBois on his passing in 1862, and these papers relate to Mary's lineage going back to her paternal grandfather Barent DuBois, a Patriot who served in the Revolution and later became master of a freight sloop at Catskill. Mary's brother, S. Barent DuBois, remained unmarried his whole life and upon his passing in 1901 all his papers fell into Mary's Care, passing also to Katharine in 1912. S. Barent was a well respected member of the community at Catskill, and counted many prominent citizens in his social circle. He was called upon in several cases to administer the estates of aquaintances and businessmen, and as such the papers of the insurance office of Charles Pinckney, who passed in 1891, are included as originally part of S. Barent's papers.

Walter Meserole, Katharine's father, was the son of Adrian Meserole of Brooklyn. Walter came to be entrusted with a small selection of the family's legal and personal papers upon the passing of his father in 1913. The Meserole papers on the whole, which cover four generations or more of the Meseroles of Brooklyn, testify broadly to the family's life in that place and include business papers, documents noting the enslaved persons who worked the Meserole farm, deeds, and papers concerning the legal dispute over Wood Point Road. Also included is a remarkable selection of personal correspondence of the siblings of Adrian Meserole with their parents in the 1830s, 40s, and 50s when several of that generation moved to Yates and Steuben Counties in the Finger Lakes region of New York. These letters offer a glimpse into life in that section of the state in the years of economic growth there following the opening of the Erie Canal.

Extent

8.5 Cubic Feet (Fifteen legal size document boxes, four small oversize boxes, five large oversize boxes, two flat file folders. ) : Handrwitten documents, pencil sketches, oil-on-board and oil on panel studies. ; Various