27 wealth. Not far from the original location of Boscobel in Montrose, Cortlandt, Dykeman oversaw a large yard on Verplanck’s Point. As a merchant he also operated a dry goods store in the village off West Street, where Timoney would reside (Figure 7). After three years of working as a standard laborer, Dykeman promoted Timoney to foreman in 1855, and after the passage of two years granted him more control. He allowed for Timoney to take his own shares of the brickyard, “furnishing the plant, horses, carts, and implements, and Mr. Timoney supplying the labor and feeding the horses.” In 1859, he purchased a half interest in Dykeman’s business, and in 1863 attained complete control, though still operating under the Dykeman name. During his period as a foreman, Timoney had met and married Margaret Reed on July 6, 1855, the daughter of John Reed and Margaret McKillup. Margaret had arrived in America a year before her husband, but both were prepared to raise their children as dignified Irish Catholics and resist assimilation amidst the region’s Protestant faith varieties. Francis and Margaret were the parents of eleven children. Seven survived into adulthood; they were raised in the family’s modest home on Sixth Street. Their lost siblings, among them Joseph, “Joe” (1880–1886) and Margaret, were memorialized in Old St. Patrick’s Churchyard on Verplanck’s Point. The “pet of almost everyone in the village,” it is unclear where exactly Joe Timoney’s premature death occurred, but it most certainly did not inform his father’s decision to purchase a new house. 38 If the Timoneys had moved to Fishkill prior to their son’s death on August 30, 1886, he would be the first person known to have died in the house. A burial twenty miles south of their new home is indicative not only of the cemetery’s importance to the family, but also their new neighborhood’s isolation. On Verplanck’s Point, Timoney’s total of three yards produced a combined 125,000 bricks daily. 39 He would need to spend $50,000–$75,000 ($2,339,790.66 adjusted inflation) in bringing the old C. H. Van Amburgh & Co. yard up to his
