Navigate
Henry's father might have been having trouble keeping up his farm and his job as Clerk for Dutchess County. In 1770, Henry's brother John writes to Henry, in NYC for the winter with their Uncle Henry Beekman, that their father is leasing out land to xx. In 1771, Henry receives a large part of the southern part of his father's farm. The value of Henry's new farm will eventually come out of his part of his father's estate. In 1773, Henry decides that the farmer needs a wife, and he finds for his wife "the beautiful Sally Welles," daughter of the revolutionary Congregational minister of Stamford CT, Rev. Dr. Noah Welles. When Don Foster looked for the first publication of Happy Christmas from "A Visit From St. Nicholas," he finds that it is in the first publication of that very poem in 1823. And yet here is Henry, fifty years earlier, wishing a Happy Christmas to his dear Sally Welles.