For thousands of years, indigenous peoples had lived in this area. The historic
Mohican Native American tribe was living in the area now known as Tivoli at the time Dutch colonists arrived in the 1600s. The Mohican derive from Lenni
Lenape people who moved North from the coastal areas and settled in today’s Hudson Valley. They lived along the Hudson River which they named
Mahicannituck. They originally called themselves the Muh-he-con-neok (The People of the Waters That Are Never Still). Based on their location, they were often referred to as the River Indians. Their name evolved in spelling over the years, including the name “Mahikan”, until it became today’s Mohican. A deed to land purchased by
Robert Livingston from several Mahican Indians in July 1683, is the strongest evidence that the
Roeliff Jansen Kill is considered to mark the downriver boundary of Mahican territory on the East side of the Hudson Valley. This land purchased would form the majority of the manor and lordship of Livingston. Historical accounts state that the settled land of Tivoli was purchased from Native American communities “legitimately” by Colonel David Schuyler on June 2, 1688, although no records of this transaction exist today. There is speculation as to whether or not the Mohican Tribe “fully understood European notions of land ownership." This transaction would have been a trade of goods in exchange for land. This deal was part of the
Schuyler Patent, a June 1688 patent defining some of the towns and villages in Dutchess County and the Poughkeepsie regional area. The patent was obtained for land in the far North-West corner of Dutchess County, lying to the East of Magdalen Island (present-day Cruger Island). The North boundary of the patent abutted the Livingston Purchase of 1683. The village was formerly known as "Upper Red Hook Landing". An adjacent community, "Madalin", was contiguous to Upper Red Hook Landing. Peter Delabegarre – also known as Pierre de la Bigarre – purchased land along the
Hudson River in the 1790s south of Chancellor
Robert R. Livingston's estate
Clermont, in order to build a village he called "Tivoli"; the name was taken from the location of the
Roman resort. His planned settlement was never built as he conceived it before he went bankrupt, but the name of Tivoli remained attached to the area. The village of Tivoli was incorporated in 1872, consolidating Madalin and Upper Red Hook Landing. The population at the time was 1,081.
Rose Hill Rose Hill, located on Rose Hill Lane off Woods Road in Tivoli, New York, is an estate with a villa built in the Tuscan style in 1843 by
John Watts de Peyster. The name Rose Hill comes from
the summer home in Upper Manhattan of de Peyster's grandfather, Watts, which in turn was named after the grandfather's estate near Edinburgh. After his death, it became the
Leake and Watts Orphan House. The estate was bought in 1964 by
Dorothy Day of the
Catholic Worker Movement, which operated it as a farm until 1978. As of 2017, it was the home of painters
Brice and
Helen Marden, owners of the Hotel Tivoli.
John Cranch's sister spent a much-enjoyed summer at Rose Hill. ==Geography==