[J. Thomas Scharf (1886)] Main Street, with their grounds adjoining each other, are the elegant mansions of Henry Ward Beecher, the noted clergyman of Brooklyn, and of Moses S. Beach, son of the founder of the New York Smi and at one time its principal owner. Near by are the handsome residences of Benjamin Kittredge, a dealer in fire-arms in New York City and Cincinnati, of John B. Hobby, for many years a successful flour dealer in New York, and of Lyman B. Carhart, an official in the Custom-House in New York City. The father of Peter Cooper, the eminent New York manufacturer and philanthropist, moved to Peekskill from New York about the beginning of the century and established a hat factory and country.store on or very near the site now occupied by the Peekskill Savings Bank. Peter was at that time three years old. It is related that the father's sojourn in the vil-lage was full of trouble. The farmers bought from him on credit and then forgot to pay. He was visited frequently by the traveling Methodist preachers, who tarried long at his hospitable board, but made little or no pecuniary return. It is said he was the builder of the Methodist Church on South Street. He finally grew discouraged with his business and engaged in brewing ale, which young Peter delivered in kegs to 392 HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY. customers. He succeeded no better and finally ' moved to Catskill with his family and there tried hat and brick-making, but with the same poor results as had attended his labors in Peekskill.