Gulian Crommelin Verplanck was born in Wall street, in the city of New York, on the 6th of August, 1786. The house in which he was born was a large yellow mansion, standing on the spot on which the Assay Office has since been built. A little beyond this street, a few rods only, lay the island of New York in all its original beauty, so that it was but a step from Wall street to the country. His father, Daniel Crommelin Verplanck, was a respectable citizen of the old stock of colonists from Holland, who for several terms was a member of Congress, and whom I remember as a short, stout old gentleman, commonly called Judge Verplanck, from having been in the latter years of his life a Judge of the County Court of Dutchess. Here he resided in the latter years of his life on the patrimonial estate, where the son, ever since I knew him, was always in the habit of passing a part of the summer. It had been in the family of the Verplancks ever since their ancestor Gulian Verplanck with Francis Rombout, in 1683, purchased it, with other lands, of the Wappinger Indians for a certain amount of money and merchandize, specified in a deed signed by the Sachem Sakoraghuck and other chiefs, the spelling of whose names seems to defy pronunciation. The two purchasers afterwards divided this domain, and to the Verplancks was assigned a tract which they have ever since held. This fine old estate has a long western border on the Hudson, and extends easterly for four or five miles to the village of Fishkill. About half a mile from the great river stands the family mansion, among its ancient groves, a large stone building of one story when I saw it; with a sharp roof and dormer windows, beside its old fashioned and well stocked garden. A winding path leads down to the river's edge, through an ancient forest which has stood there ever since Hendrick Hudson navigated the river bearing his name, and centuries before. This mansion was the country retreat of Mr. Verplanck ever since I knew him, and here it was that his grandfather on the paternal side, Samuel Verplanck, passed much of his time during our revolutionary war, in which, although he took no share in political measures, his inclinations were on the side of the mother country. This Samuel Verplanck, by a custom which seems not to have become obsolete in his time, was betrothed when but seven years old to his cousin Judith Crommelin, the daughter of a wealthy banker of the Huguenot stock in Amsterdam. When the young gentleman was of the proper age he was sent to make the tour of Europe, and bring home his bride. He was married in the banker's great stone house, standing beside a fair Dutch garden, with a wide marble entrance hall, the counting room on one side of it, and the drawing room, bright with gilding, on the other. When the grandson, in after years, visited Amsterdam, the mansion which had often been described to him by his grandmother, had to him quite a familiar aspect.