Barons of Broadway #16
In this sixteenth episode of the Barons of Broadway, we uncover the story of one of the first Barons of Broadway to purchase farmland in Upper Nyack for a summer home. Joseph Hilton, a Confederate general and an extremely wealthy lumber baron, after summering at River Hook for eighteen years, bought the old Williamson Manor in 1902. Hilton expanded the manor house and built two cottages for his daughters. During his tenure, the manor house became known as the Moorings.
Joseph Hilton & the Civil War
Born in England in 1842, Hilton came to America in 1853 with his parents, settling in Darien, Georgia, just north of Brunswick and known as the gateway to the Golden Isles. Before the Civil War, Darien thrived as a port for shipping rice, cotton, and lumber. During the Civil War, Robert Gould Shaw’s troop of black volunteers sacked and burned the town in 1863, as depicted in the movie “Glory.”
Joseph enlisted at the outbreak of the Civil War in the McIntosh Brigade, which later became the 26th Georgia Brigade under Stonewall Jackson’s corps. The regiment saw action in nearly all Virginia battles, starting with the Battle of Gaine’s Mill in June 1862 and continuing through the second Battle of Manassas, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, the Wilderness, and Spotsylvania. The regiment saw limited action at Gettysburg as artillery support. In 1864, the brigade approached Fort Stevens on the outskirts of Washington, DC, before retiring. Hilton served in Virginia during the entire war, receiving several promotions. At the time of the Confederate surrender, Hilton held the position of adjutant general.
Georgia Lumber Business
After the Civil War, Joseph and his brother Thomas Hilton Jr. joined their father’s sawmill and lumber business in Darien, Thomas Hilton & Sons. After his father’s retirement, Joseph Hilton acquired numerous lumber mills in Georgia. In 1889, Hilton merged with the mills owned by Norman W. Dodge, which included 40 mills on Saint Simon’s Island. The company became known as the Hilton & Dodge Lumber Company.
In 1900, Dodge retired from the business. Interestingly, Dodge later purchased Hilton’s summer home in Upper Nyack in 1902 known as River Hook. Dodge likely built the beautiful (and still standing) fieldstone carriage house at River Hook.
Hilton continued to expand his business, acquiring mills in Savannah and Brunswick, Georgia, among other locations. The company incorporated in 1901 and diversified into real estate and naval stores, adding a fleet of barges in 1913.
The Hilton Family
In 1873, Joseph Hilton married Ida Naylor (1851-1934) from a prominent Savannah family. They had seven children, four of whom survived infancy: a son and three daughters. The youngest, Thomas Hilton (1885-1958), became a member of the Hilton-Dodge Lumber Company. His mother intended the Moorings to go to Thomas upon his father’s death, but he preferred the South and a Southern bride. The two oldest daughters married while living at the Moorings. As they figure into the narrative of the two cottages, we will discuss them later. In 1918, the youngest daughter, Lucina “Lucy” G. Hilton (1892-1967), married Jonathan Templeton Strong, a lieutenant in the U.S. Army at the time.
Active in Nyack’s social life, the Hiltons hosted meetings of the Nyack Married Club at their home and joined the Nyack Country Club. Ida Naylor Hilton, later remembered as a charming, cultured, and gifted woman, became famous for founding the Nyack Garden Club, chartered in 1915. As President of the club, Ida Hilton held numerous club meetings at the Moorings and spent much time in the gardens around the property.
Joseph died in 1920 in Nyack. Ida lived at the Moorings for four more years. Later she died in Iceland in 1934. Both have final resting place at the family plot in the Bonaventure Cemetery in Savannah Georgia.
River Hook In Upper Nyack – The Hiltons’ First Summer Home
In 1884, Hilton acquired the former summer home of Judge Edward Owen after his death. Owen purchased the farm in 1871 from Theodore Grünenthal, a long-time grape farmer on the property. Owen purchased the farm, today known as River Hook, in 1871.
The Moorings
In 1902, Hilton acquired the southern half of Williamson Manor from Minetta Hart Townsend, the sixth generation of the Williamson family to live on the farm. The Hiltons expanded the old manor house by adding a large English Tudor-style wing. Hilton added a formidable brick wall along North Broadway that still stands. A large iron gate guards the main entrance.
Close to where Upper Nyack Brook enters the Hudson at Crumbie’s Glen, a beach formed. Deep water made a mooring possible. According to legend, the house became known as the Moorings when one of Hilton’s daughters used the wharf as a mooring for a cabin cruiser. Supposedly, she used to cross the Hudson for weekends away from her hide-bound eastern college.
To add confusion, another house in Nyack named The Moorings existed around the same time that the Williamson Manor became known as the Moorings. W.W. Crosby leased a home owned by J. Charlton known as the Moorings. Crosby moored several this yachts near the house, located at the foot of Depew Avenue, hence the name Moorings.
The South Cottage
Hilton built what became known as the South Cottage as a summer cottage for his daughter Ida sometime before she married John Barton Seymour in 1911. One of Nyack’s most beautiful homes, the Tudor-style South Cottage overlooks the waterfalls of Crumbie’s Glen to the south and abuts a small spring-fed stream on the north that runs from the front of the Moorings to the river. The actual river mooring was located here at one time. A retaining wall holds the cottage above the river. A large porch offers stunning views of the Hudson River, Sleepy Hollow, and the Rockefeller estates along with fresh river breezes.
The lot became separated from the main house in 1962. An opening was made in the brick wall for a driveway with a circular loop in front of the cottage. The cottage has been expanded somewhat over time. The living room was once a greenhouse. Several families occupied the cottage after Bernard. Since 1985, the house has been owned by the Katzenstein family. Florence Katzenstein is the founder of the Historical Society of the Nyacks. Her gardens, including the Japanese garden, are well known to the Nyack Garden Club. A gate from the garden leads down to the cove.
The North Cottage
Hilton built the Tudor-style North Cottage for his daughter Ruth shortly after she married Edmond B. Walker of New York City in 1904. Ruth liked the design as well as the architect, Hugh Tallant. When her husband died in 1924, she married Tallant around the time Anne Vanderbilt purchased the Moorings. Tallant, a Harvard graduate, WWI veteran, and amateur tennis champion, designed with his partner, Henry Herts, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Brooklyn Hospital, and many Manhattan theaters. He practiced in Brooklyn, Atlanta, and London. Tallant and Ruth lived in New York City after the wedding.
The cottage sits atop a steep ledge created by quarrying in the early 1800s, affording fabulous river views. The cottage overlooks a spring-fed pond in part of the old quarry. After 1962, a long driveway from a cut in the brick wall leads to the house. In recent times, the Altman family lived in the home, and until her death in 2022, their daughter, artist Liza Altman, resided there. The Altmans planted over 50 Japanese maples, flower beds, and shrubs. The original leaded-glass windows have been preserved, with storm windows added on the inside to winterize the home.
The Gardener’s Cottage
The Gardener’s Cottage sat atop a retaining wall near the river. Little is recorded about the cottage. Two photographs from the 1935 book, “Life at the Clarkstown Country Club” (available from HSN), depict a Tudor-style building, indicating it was probably built by Hilton.
New Owners
Mrs. Ida Hilton sold the estate in 1924 to Anne Vanderbilt as a home for her daughter Barbara Rutherford Hatch. The next episode of Barons of Broadway tells the story of Vanderbilt and her gift of the estate to Pierre Bernard, founder of the Clarkstown Country Club.
Barons of Broadway Series
#1 The Magnificent Saga Of Larchdell
#2 Revisiting Underclyffe–A Lost, Gilded Age Mansion
#3 The Adriance Era At Underclyffe Manor
#4 The Flying Dutchman Lands at Underclyffe Manor
#5 The Saga of Rivercliff”s Storied Residents
#6 The Winding Saga of River Hook
#8 The Legacy of Belle Crest: From Clockmakers to Tennis Champions
#11 The Dynamite Baron- Wilson P. Foss Legacy at Under Elms
#12 Atlas Acres – The Botanist in Under Elms’ Garage
#13 The Baroness of Shadowcliff
#14 The Peace Room at Shadowcliff – The Story of the Fellowship of Reconciliation
#15 The Troubled Legacy of Williamson Manor
Mike Hays lived in the Nyacks for 38-years. He worked for McGraw-Hill Education in New York City for many years. Hays serves as President of the Historical Society of the Nyacks, and Vice-President of the Edward Hopper House Museum & Study Center. Married to Bernie Richey, he enjoys cycling and winters in Florida. You can follow him on Instagram as UpperNyackMike.
Editor’s note: This article is sponsored by Sun River Health. Sun River Health is a network of 43 Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) providing primary, dental, pediatric, OB-GYN, and behavioral health care to over 245,000 patients annually.
