John Watts de Peyster

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General de Peyster was known as the largest developer in the village of Tivoli, New York, where he resided at his family home. In 1892 he replaced a wooden Methodist church with a brick structure that stands today. He also refurbished an old school into an industrial school for girls. An authority on fire fighting, in 1895 de Peyster erected a huge state-of-the-art brick building for the local department. A portrait of him resides there in present day, and it was used as a firehouse until 1986. The high Victorian structure also contained a courtroom, a jail and a large meeting room for the local government. The General eventually had a conflict with the village Mayor (his own son, Johnston de Peyster), and de Peyster barred him from entering the building. The village government was forced to move to another building and remained there until the Firehouse was restored in 1994, returning the local government to de Peyster's building.

His writing strongly advocated Dan Sickles and his role at the Battle of Gettysburg. Some of his works including detailing Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker's influences on the Army of the Potomac leading up to the battle, both positive and negative. He also issued a damning portrayal of the performance of the Union XI Corps at the Battle of Chancellorsville. His writing also spoke of the brilliant accomplishments of Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas and led to his modern consideration as one of the finest commanders of the war. In the New York Times and scholarly journals, he correctly predicted the Franco-Austrian War in 1866 and the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. He made significant contributions to historical journal publications under the pseudonym "Anchor" which extolled the services of Sickles and Buford, and in separate publications praised the men of the New York City Fire Department.

De Peyster wrote extensive military histories about the Battle of Saratoga and in 1887 donated a memorial called the Boot Monument, which commemorates Benedict Arnold's heroic wounding at the battle (although Arnold is not mentioned by name and the memorial only depicts his boot). In 1905, De Peyster purchased first baronial mansion of Sir William Johnson, known since 1755 as Fort Johnson, and donated it to the Montgomery County Historical Society, of Amsterdam, New York.

In 1901, he donated several thousand books and maps to the Smithsonian Institution, along with a Moorish Yataghan he collected on his travels in 1851. De Peyster's biographer devotes six chapters to his benefactions, but does not mention his ethnological collections. Another philanthropic contribution included building the first library at Franklin & Marshall College, and donating one of the largest and most distinct rare book collections about European military history, the 1,890 volume Watts de Peyster: Napoleon Buonaparte. He collected many of the monographs while traveling in Europe conducting research for his own biography of Napoleon, entitled Napoleone di Buonaparte (1896). The monument to Abraham de Peyster, a founder of New Amsterdam, sculpted by George Edwin Bissell, was commissioned by General de Peyster in Bowling Green, the old town square of New York City. John Watts de Peyster was also a Vice President of the American Numismatic Society, and the namesake of Post #71 of the New York G.A.R. in Tivoli, New York. De Peyster died in 1907 of natural causes at a family residence in Manhattan. He willed his Tivoli manor Rose Hill to a local Children's Home.

He was the author of Life of Field Marshal Torstenson (1855), The Dutch at the North Pole (1857), Caurausius, the Dutch Augustus (1858), Life of Baron Cohorn (1860), The Decisive Conflicts of the Late Civil War, or Slaveholder's Rebellion (1867), Personal and Military History of General Philip Kearny (1869), The Life and Misfortunes and the Military Career of Brig.-Gen. Sir John Johnson (1882), and Gypsies: Some Curious Investigations, Collected, Translated, Or Reprinted from Various Sources (1887), and contributor to numerous other books, biographies, publications, and articles.

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