After making arrangements for the other children, it was another three and a half years before Henry had his family back together again in Poughkeepsie. Because he was occasionally away on surveying work, it's likely that his mother, who lived next door, was involved with their care. Only after his mother Susannah dies, in May of 1793, does Henry marry again.

Henry later reused this same poem, with minor changes, in the Country Advertiser and Poughkeepsie Journal for the December 6, 1786 death of Gilbert Cortlandt, his 29 year old first cousin, the son of his aunt Joanna and uncle General Pierre Van Cortlandt, the first Lieutenant Governor of New York state. With the large families and huge spans of childbearing, Gilbert Cortlandt was actually 13 years younger than Henry.