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Still further, and opposite a schoolhouse, a road strikes off toward the south, and here is the entrance to Wildercliff. The Rev. Freeborn Garrettson, being invited to Rhinebeck to preach, met Catherine Livingston while there, and in 1793 they were married.
Garrettson was educated in the Church of England, but left it to become a Methodist; a man of strong personality, he soon rose to a prominent place in the church. Being a native of Maryland, he was naturally a slave owner, but becoming convinced that slavery was bad, he set his blacks free. Wildercliff was the most noted gathering place in the country for Methodists, and the house was always full.
Six years later they purchased a place on the banks of the Hudson, calling it Wildercliff Wilder Klipp, a Dutch word meaning wild man's cliff, from the fact that early settlers found on a smooth rock on the river shore a rough tracing of two Indians with tomahawk and calumet.
Returning toward the Post Road the highway passes through the Camp Meeting Woods, where the Rev. Mr. Garrettson inaugurated those camp meetings which have made this spot as sacred to the Methodist heart as is Wildercliff itself. In the angle formed by the return road and the Post Road is an extensive estate Grasmere which was planned and begun by Gen.
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