Livingston was an Enlightenment gentleman, interested in the potential of science to improve life in his new country. He was a founding member and president of the New York Society for the Promotion of Arts, Agriculture and Manufactures. His enthusiasm about steam navigation is well known. He partnered with Robert Fulton, putting up the money that enabled Fulton to build the first steamboat. His passion for innovation also extended to agriculture. In 1802, he imported four Merino sheep from France and integrated them into his flocks. Although American farmers were skeptical about the mixed-breed Merinos, Livingston continued to develop the breed, bringing more Merinos from France to integrate with his flocks.

In 1810, he held a public shearing showcase at Clermont to prove the quality of his sheep. A contemporary, Elkanah Watson had this to say about the event:

I attended [the Chancellor's] famous sheep-shearing, which attracted much attention and acquired subsequently great newspaper notoriety. . . . The large company was entertained with the most elegant and sumptuous hospitality. . . . Dr. Mitchell gave as a toast, “the modern Argonautic expedition, whereby our Jason [the Chancellor] has enriched his country with the invaluable treasure of the golden fleece.”

The event that took place last weekend at Clermont, two centuries later, had some things in common with the Chancellor’s original showcase: sheep were sheared, and a large company was entertained.

There were sheep and shearing demonstrations. There were sheep dogs—border collies—and herding demonstrations in which the dogs displayed their keen herding skills by marching a trio of ducks around a spacious open lawn on the estate. And there were llamas. The sight of a llama strolling across the lawn in front of the mansion, tethered by a leash to its owner, seemed at first quite out of place. “What would the Chancellor think?” But, of course, the Chancellor was enthralled by innovation and had, since the end of the Revolutionary War, been developing Clermont as a showplace of progressive agriculture. He would very likely have been among the first to recognize the potential of the llama as patient protector of the sheep and valued source of wool.

The modern-day Chancellor’s Sheep & Wool Showcase was a great place for kids and a great place for knitters. Kids got the chance to pet everything—the sheep, the llamas, the dogs, the ducks. Knitters—or anyone who appreciates handcrafted goods—got the opportunity to view and purchase the wares of thirty-one vendors and witness an impressive gathering of spinners and weavers engaged in their craft.

In the performance tent, the David Godding Band entertained with Irish country music and dancing, and near the walled garden, the 1st Ulster County Militia gathered in the shade of a tree. While two women from this living history organization demonstrated 18th-century wool processing, the men answered questions posed by kids and grownups.

Midway through the afternoon, the men of the Militia marched across the lawn to the historic sheep fold south of the mansion, where they demonstrated how to load and fire their Revolutionary era weapons—shattering the tranquility of the warm day and reminding this observer of Clermont's fate during the Revolutionary War. The mansion was burned to the ground in 1777 by a British raiding party—the same that had set fire to Kingston. Only the foundation and the exterior walls remained. While the war continued, Robert's mother, Margaret Beekman Livingston, supervised the rebuilding of her home, on its original foundation and on the same Georgian plan, and by 1782, the house was ready to receive George and Martha Washington.