This poem celebrated the marriage of Henry's sister Helen and Jonas Platt.

Jonas Platt was born and raised at the family place on the flats along Wappingers Creek, north of Manchester Bridge, and originally owned by Madam Brett. After finishing preparatory studies at a French academy in Montreal, he entered the law office of Richard Varick in New York City and was admitted to the Bar in 1790, the year of his marriage. He was County Clerk of Herkimer County 1791-98, and of Oneida County (after it was set off from Herkimer), 1798-1802. In 1796, he was a member of the State Assembly in Albany and in 1810-13, he represented his constituents in the State Senate. Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as a Federalist he served throughout the Sixth Congress 1799-1801, and he was an unsuccessful candidate for Governor, in 1810, being defeated for that office by a very small majority by Daniel D. Tompkins, who was running for re-election. He was the first to have proposed a canal from Lake Erie to the Hudson, and his resolution in the Senate was seconded by DeWitt Clinton, whom he had enlisted in the project. In 1814 he became an Associate Justice of the State Supreme Court, with Kent and Spencer as colleagues, and remained in office until the adoption of the Constitution in 1821, of which he was the one of the framers.
(Biog. Cong. Dir. 1934, p. 1416; Platt Lineage, 1891, pp. 117-18).