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diff --git a/41776-0.txt b/41776-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7747721 --- /dev/null +++ b/41776-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5535 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41776 *** + +Transcriber's Note: + + Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have + been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. + + Italic text is denoted by _underscores_. + + The Table of Contents for this book refers to it as Volume II. The + Title Page and List of Illustrations refer to it as Volume III. + + The Table of Contents for this volume refers to chapters + ultimately published in a subsequent volume. Those chapter + listings are retained, but the page number links are not active. + + + +AMERICA + + + + + [Illustration: _A Cowboy_] + + + + + _EDITION ARTISTIQUE_ + + The World's Famous + Places and Peoples + + AMERICA + + BY + JOEL COOK + + In Six Volumes + Volume III. + + MERRILL AND BAKER + New York London + + + + +THIS EDITION ARTISTIQUE OF THE WORLD'S FAMOUS PLACES AND PEOPLES IS +LIMITED TO ONE THOUSAND NUMBERED AND REGISTERED COPIES, OF WHICH THIS +COPY IS NO. 205 + +Copyright, Henry T. Coates & Co., 1900 + + + + +CONTENTS +VOLUME II + + + PAGE + + VIII. AROUND THE HARBOR OF NEW YORK, 3 + + IX. THE ENVIRONMENT OF LONG ISLAND SOUND, 89 + + X. ASCENDING THE HUDSON RIVER, 129 + + XI. A GLIMPSE OF THE BERKSHIRE HILLS, 241 + + XII. THE ADIRONDACKS AND THEIR ATTENDANT LAKES, 271 + + XIII. CROSSING THE EMPIRE STATE, 329 + + XIV. DESCENDING THE RIVER ST. LAWRENCE, 399 + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS +VOLUME III + + + PAGE + + GRANT'S TOMB, NEW YORK 58 + + WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT AT "CEDARHURST," ROSLYN 94 + + PALISADES OF THE HUDSON 132 + + UP THE HUDSON FROM THE WATER BATTERY, WEST POINT 162 + + STATE CAPITOL, ALBANY, N. Y. 204 + + + + +AROUND THE HARBOR OF NEW YORK. + + + + +AMERICA, +PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. + + + + +VIII. + +AROUND THE HARBOR OF NEW YORK. + + + Hendrick Hudson -- The Ship "Half Moon" -- Manhattan Island -- + New Amsterdam -- Hudson River -- Fire Island -- Navesink + Highlands -- Sandy Hook -- Liberty Statue -- Governor's Island + -- Jersey City -- Hoboken -- Weehawken -- The Kills -- Perth + Amboy -- Staten Island -- New Dorp -- Commodore Vanderbilt -- + Hackensack River -- Passaic River -- Paterson -- Newark -- + Elizabeth -- Rahway -- Raritan River -- New Brunswick -- Battle + of Monmouth -- Molly Pitcher -- Greater New York -- Battery + Park -- Bowling Green -- Broadway -- Trinity Church -- Famous + and Sky-Scraping Buildings -- Wall Street -- National City Bank + -- St. Paul's Church -- City Hall Park -- Chemical Bank -- Dry + Goods District -- Cooper Institute -- Peter Stuyvesant -- Union + Square -- Tammany Hall -- Madison Square -- Fifth Avenue -- + Washington Square -- Little Church Around the Corner -- Murray + Hill -- John Jacob Astor -- Alexander T. Stewart -- Fifth + Avenue Architecture -- The Vanderbilts -- New York Public + Library -- Famous Churches -- Jay Gould -- Metropolitan Museum + -- Central Park -- Museum of Natural History -- Morningside + Park -- Riverside Park -- Spuyten Duyvel Creek -- Battle of + Harlem Heights -- Fort Washington -- Morrisania -- Croton + Aqueducts -- High Bridge -- The Bronx -- Van Cortlandt Park -- + Bronx Park -- Pelham Bay Park -- Hunter's Island -- East River + and its Islands -- Hell Gate -- Brooklyn Bridge -- City of + Churches -- Brooklyn Development -- Fulton Street -- Brooklyn + Heights -- Plymouth Church -- The Beecher Family -- Church of + the Pilgrims -- Pratt Institute -- Greenwood Cemetery -- Its + Famous Tombs -- Ocean Parkway -- Prospect Park -- Coney Island + -- Its Constant Festival -- Brighton and Manhattan Beaches -- + View from the Observatory. + + +HENDRICK HUDSON. + +The redoubtable navigator for the Dutch East India Company, Hendrick +Hudson, after exploring Delaware Bay, sailed along the New Jersey +coast and entered Sandy Hook, discovering, on September 11, 1609, the +Hudson River. There is a vague tradition that the first European who +saw the magnificent harbor of New York was the Florentine, Verrazani, +who came as early as 1524. Hudson was searching for the "Northwest +Passage," and when he steered his little ship, the "Half Moon," into +the great river, with its swelling tide of salt water, was sure he had +found the long-sought route to the Indies. He explored it as far up as +the present site of Albany, creating a sensation among the Indians, +who flocked to the shores to see the "great white bird," as they +called the "Half Moon," because of its wide-spreading sails. He traded +with them for tobacco and furs, finding the Lenni Lenapes on the +western bank and the Mohicans on the eastern side, and to impress them +with his prowess, put them in a great fright by shooting off his +cannon. Upon returning from Albany, the Indians gave him a feast on an +island, breaking their arrows in token that they meant no treachery. +Hudson had a goodly store of seductive "schnapps," and offered them +some in return for their hospitality. They examined it closely, smelt +it, but passed it along without tasting. Finally one, somewhat bolder, +partook, and drinking a good deal, fell in a drunken stupor for +several hours. When finally aroused he said the Dutchmen had the +strongest water he had ever tasted, and the other Indians then became +eager to try the fire-water too, and soon they were all under its +influence, and thus became firm friends of the Dutch. + +The scene of this great carousal is said to have been the island where +is now the city of New York. The Indian word Man-a-tey means "the +island," and from this they named the place Man-a-hat-ta-nink, the +"island of general intoxication." Ticknor, in his guide-book, gravely +tells us that "from the scene of wassail and merriment which followed +the meeting of the sailors and the Indians, the latter called the +island Manhattan, "the place where they all got drunk." Thus, at the +beginning, this noted locality acquired a reputation which many attest +as existing with undiminished lustre in maturer years. By way of +variety in this connection, it may be related that Washington Irving, +in Knickerbocker's veritable history of New York, has this to say: +"The name most current at the present day, and which is likewise +countenanced by the great historian Vander-Donck, is Manhattan, which +is said to have originated in a custom among the squaws, in the early +settlement, of wearing men's hats, as is still done among many tribes. +'Hence,' as we are told by an old Governor, who was somewhat of a wag, +and flourished almost a century since, and had paid a visit to the +wits of Philadelphia, 'hence arose the appellation of man-hat-on, +first given to the Indians, and afterwards to the island'--a stupid +joke, but well enough for a Governor." Irving continues: "There is +another, founded on still more ancient and indisputable authority, +which I particularly delight in, seeing it is at once poetical, +melodious and significant, and this is recorded in the before-mentioned +voyage of the great Hudson, written by Master Juet, who clearly and +correctly calls it Manna-hatta, that is to say, the island of Manna, +or, in other words, 'a land flowing with milk and honey.'" + + +NEW AMSTERDAM AND ITS HARBOR. + +About five years elapsed after Hudson's discovery before a colony was +firmly fixed on Manhattan Island, which, when fairly started in 1614, +was a little palisade fort and four small log houses. The Dutch called +their possessions the Niew Netherlands, named the colony Nieu +Amsterdam, and the land across the East River was known as Nassau, the +earliest name of Long Island. Hudson was so impressed with the +Highlands and the Catskills, which he passed in exploring the river, +that he named it the "River of the Mountains," but this was changed +by the Dutch to Mauritius, in honor of Prince Maurice of Nassau. The +Indians along the banks called the river Shatemuc and Cahohatatea. The +English, shortly after the discovery, began calling it the Hudson +River, but later, it was generally styled the North River to +distinguish it from the Delaware or South River; and North River is +the name now generally used in New York. The Manhattan colony was of +slow growth, and the first Dutch Governor sent out was a Westphalian, +Peter Minuit, a thrifty old fellow, who, by again making good use of +"schnapps," bought the whole of Manhattan Island in 1626 from the +Indians for beads and trinkets valued at sixty guilders, about $25. +There were a thousand people there in 1644, making the original Dutch +aristocracy of the "Knickerbockers," this name being adapted later +from Irving, and they impressed their peculiarities upon the early +city; but their descendants have largely given place to a newer +aristocracy of wealth and an army of immigrants from all races. The +last Dutch Governor, Peter Stuyvesant, arrived in 1647, and for +protection the colonists had then built a fence across the island +along what is now the line of Wall Street. An Indian scare a few years +later caused this to be replaced with a wall of cedar palisades, and +it ultimately developed into the city wall. Thus enclosed, the Mayor +of New Amsterdam was required to walk around the walls every morning +at sunrise, unlock the gates and give the keys to the commander of +the fort down at the Battery. When the Duke of York's English +expedition came over in 1664 and overturned the government of old +Stuyvesant, surnamed "Peter the Headstrong," and his Knickerbockers, +at the same time changing the city's name to New York, it had three +hundred and eighty-four houses, and in 1700 the population had +increased to about six thousand. The first English Governor was Sir +Edmund Andros. + +The remote sources of the Hudson River are in Hamilton and Essex +Counties, in the Adirondacks, in northeastern New York State, the +highest at four thousand feet elevation above the sea, the head +streams being outlets for a large number of highland lakes. The river +flows over three hundred miles to the sea, and has few tributaries, +the largest being the Hoosac and the Mohawk. Its lower course is a +long tidal estuary, the tidal head being at Troy, from whence the fall +in level to the ocean is only about five feet. The estuary below +Manhattan Island expands into the noble New York harbor, enclosed +between Long Island on the east and Staten Island on the west, the +latter being the Indian Aquehonga, meaning the "high sandy banks." The +harbor entrance from the sea, at Sandy Hook, is eighteen miles below +the city. Inside Sandy Hook is the lower bay, of triangular form, +extending nine to twelve miles on each side, the Narrows, a deep +channel about a mile wide at the northeastern angle, opening into the +upper bay, which is an irregular oval, about eight by five miles. This +extends northward into the Hudson River, westward into Newark Bay, and +has the tidal strait of East River leading north to Long Island Sound, +on the eastern side of Manhattan. Within the bays and rivers around +New York there are over a hundred miles of available anchorage ground, +and the Government is now making a channel to the sea through Sandy +Hook bar, forty feet deep at low water. + + +ENTERING NEW YORK HARBOR. + +The approach from the sea to Sandy Hook is first guided for the modern +navigator by the flashing white light on Fire Island, a low sand-strip +on the Long Island Coast; and then there rise in front the Highlands +of the Navesink, on the Jersey Coast south of Sandy Hook, with a pair +of twin lighthouses perched upon their green slopes. The Hook, a long +strip of yellow sand enclosing the harbor, also has another lighthouse +on its northern end. Here are the expanding works of a formidable fort +defending the harbor entrance, and an artillery trial and proving +ground. Behind the Navesink Highlands and the Hook, the Jersey shore +of the lower bay stretches far back westward into Raritan Bay, thrust +up into the land between New Jersey and Staten Island. The green hills +of this island, crowned with villas, make the northwestern boundary +of the bay. To the right hand of the Hook, and north of the entrance, +is the sand strip of Coney Island, with its stretch of hotels and +buildings, the popular seashore resort of New York. Within the Hook is +the lower Quarantine on the west bank of Romer Shoal, and over +opposite is Gravesend Bay, behind Coney Island. The Narrows, where the +Hudson has forced an outlet through a broken-down mountain range, is +partly obstructed by an island reef of rocks. The hill-slopes, +together with the island, are fortified, Forts Hamilton and Tompkins +being on either hand, named after Alexander Hamilton and Daniel D. +Tompkins, the latter having been a Governor of New York and +Vice-President of the United States. On the island is the little red +sandstone Fort Lafayette, where many famous political prisoners were +confined during the Civil War. Within the Narrows the upper bay +spreads out, the high Staten Island hills, covered with noble +mansions, rising on the left hand, while on the right are the hamlets +on the lower shores of Long Island, with the distant tombs of +Greenwood Cemetery behind. The villages of Clifton and Stapleton and +the Quarantine Station are on Staten Island, Stapleton being the +yachting headquarters. Bedloe's and Ellis's Islands are passed, the +latter being the landing-place of arriving emigrants, while on the +former, now called Liberty Island, is the colossal Liberty Statue +presented to the United States by France in commemoration of the +Centenary of the Declaration of Independence in 1876. This statue, +designed by Bartholdi and erected ten years later, is a female figure +holding aloft a torch--"Liberty enlightening the world." It is made of +copper and iron, and weighs two hundred and twenty-five tons. The +statue is one hundred and fifty-one feet high, and stands on a granite +pedestal one hundred and fifty-five feet high. + +Over on the western side, behind these small islands, the Jersey shore +recedes, and the strait making the boundary of Staten Island, which +the Dutch named the Kill von Kull, stretches around behind that island +to Arthur Kill and sundry railway coal-shipping ports on its banks, +where the great coal roads come out from the Pennsylvania mines. Just +in the entrance to East River is Governor's Island, with an +old-fashioned circular stone fort, called Castle William, and the more +modern defensive work, Fort Columbus. On Governor's Island is the +United States Army headquarters. This old Castle William, with another +very similar circular fort, then called Castle Clinton, on the Battery +at the lower end of Manhattan Island, were the defensive works of New +York in the eighteenth century. Castle Clinton is now an aquarium. Red +Hook, the jutting point of Brooklyn, is opposite Governor's Island, +and above it the East River opens, the strait flowing between New York +and Brooklyn, and connecting the harbor with Long Island Sound, +twenty miles distant, beyond the famous "Hell Gate," once the terror +of the mariner, but since improved by costly rock excavations which +have made a deep and safe channel. Through the East River and Hell +Gate flows the greater part of the Hudson River tidal current. Both +the East and North Rivers are lined on either side for miles by piers +crowded with shipping, and the tall towers and ponderous cables of the +Brooklyn Bridge rise high above the East River, while behind the +foliage-covered Battery Park stretches the metropolis, with its many +huge buildings. + + +JERSEY CITY AND STATEN ISLAND. + +Communipaw, the lower end of Jersey City, is opposite the Battery, and +above it the Jersey City front on the Hudson River is occupied for +miles by railway terminals, making a succession of piers, ferry-houses +and grain elevators. Originally Jersey City was the sandy peninsula of +Paulus Hook, a tongue of flat farming land stretching down between the +Hudson River and Newark Bay. The termination of this peninsula is +Communipaw, long a sleepy village, originally granted to a Dutch West +India Company Director--Michael Pauw. He was proud of this domain, of +which he was the patroon, so he called it Pavonia or Communipauw, the +"Commune of Pauw." His Dutch garrison massacred the Indians in the +neighborhood, and soon afterwards, in retaliation, they exterminated +all the Dutch but one family. At Jersey City there come out to the +Hudson River all the great Trunk Line railways from the West, with the +single exception of the New York Central Railroad. In the Revolution, +the site of the present Pennsylvania Railroad Terminal Station was a +British fortification, which was partly stormed and captured, with a +number of prisoners, in 1779, by Major Henry Lee. Jersey City is +entirely a growth of the nineteenth century, at the beginning of which +it had a population of only thirteen persons, living in a single +house. It now has two hundred and fifty thousand, and is replete with +important manufacturing establishments, its expansion having come from +the overflow of New York and the wonderful development of its railway +system. While spreading over much surface, yet it presents little +attraction beyond the enormous railway terminals and factories. The +traveller rarely stops there, but rushes through to get into or out of +New York. To the northward is Hoboken, with sixty thousand people, +including many Germans, and it has large silk factories. Here, in +strange contrast with the commercial aspect of everything around, the +river front rises in a bluff shore, crowned by a grove of trees and +running up into a low mound, whereon is the "Stevens Castle." This was +the home of Edwin A. Stevens one of the projectors of the Camden and +Amboy Railroad. He endowed the Stevens Institute of Technology at +Hoboken, and spent his declining years and much of his railway +fortune in building the "Stevens Battery," a noted warship, for New +York harbor defense, which he bequeathed his native State of New +Jersey, and that Commonwealth shortly afterwards sold it to be broken +up for old iron. Beyond is the village of Weehawken, with the Elysian +Fields, where Aaron Burr killed Alexander Hamilton in the duel of +1804, then a pleasant rural resort, but now largely absorbed by +railway terminals. This duel arose from political quarrels, and at the +first fire Hamilton received a wound from which he died the next day. +Behind Jersey City rises the long rocky ridge of Bergen Hill, through +which all but one of the railways cut their routes by tunnels or deep +fissures, and its outcroppings above Weehawken come forward to the +Hudson River bank in the grand escarpment of the Palisades. These +remarkable columnar formations of trap rock extend for twenty miles +along the western shore of the river, and in part appear to be built +up of basalt. To connect the various railways terminating at Jersey +City with New York, a tunnel is being constructed under the Hudson +River; and two others, and also a gigantic bridge, are projected. + +I have already referred to Staten Island, which is the western border +of New York harbor, where its pleasant hill-slopes add so much to the +scenic beauty. The narrow "Kills," stretching for nearly twenty miles +down to Perth Amboy, make its western boundary, separating the +island, which is the Borough of Richmond in Greater New York, from New +Jersey, to which by right it is said to belong. It covers about sixty +square miles, with its diversified hill-slopes rising in some places +to an elevation of over four hundred feet, and has probably seventy +thousand population. It is shaped something like a leaf, hung, as it +were, upon the long projecting peninsula between Newark Bay and New +York harbor, the Kill von Kull stretching westward to divide it from +this peninsula, which at that part is the town and port of Bayonne, +running off into Bergen Point at the lower end of Bergen Hill. It was +from Bergen Point that General Washington in 1787 was rowed in a barge +to New York, to be inaugurated the first President of the United +States. From Elizabethport, on the western side of Newark Bay, the +Arthur Kill stretches, a narrow strait, far southward, broadening +somewhat into Staten Island Sound, and debouching at Perth Amboy into +the western end of Raritan Bay. Perth Amboy was the terminus of the +original line of the Camden and Amboy Railroad. It was the capital of +the Colonial Province of New Jersey two centuries ago, and its +eligible position at the confluence of Staten Island Sound and the +Raritan River and Bay, the point of union of the various interior +water ways, made it at that early period very ambitious. In fact, +"Perthtown, or Ompoge on Ambo" (the Indian name for the point, which +meant "round and hollow"), then rivalled New York in commercial +importance. Its name came from the Earl of Perth, one of the grantees +of lands in East Jersey. Early travellers flocked thither, praising +its merits; and even William Penn was persuaded to go over and look at +it, oracularly declaring, "I have never seen such before in my life," +whatever that might have meant. But New York, with its great harbor, +ultimately overshadowed Amboy, and it has since dropped out, even as a +way-station on the route between the two leading cities. It has about +fifteen thousand inhabitants, and its trade chiefly consists in +shipping coal and fire-clay, brought out by the railroads. + +The loyal Jerseyman will never forgive New York for having captured +Staten Island. After the English came to New York in 1664, under the +grant of King Charles II. to the Duke of York of all the country from +Canada down to Virginia, the Duke granted to Berkeley and Carteret the +portion lying between the Hudson and Delaware Rivers. This grant +grieved the New Yorkers, for they said it gave away the best lands +around their harbor, so they tried to get it all back, and managed to +capture Staten Island. Some sharp fellow invented the fiction, on +which they resolutely insisted, that the Arthur Kill was really the +Hudson River; and, taking possession, they never gave it up. A legal +contest was fought for over one hundred and fifty years, and it was +not until 1833 that a treaty between the two States declared the +Kills to be their boundary. Staten Island is about sixteen miles long, +and from its eastern slopes has a noble outlook over the Lower New +York Bay towards the ocean. Fine beaches line these coasts, which rise +sharply into hills inland, and most of the eligible sites are crowned +with villas. It was at Stapleton, on Staten Island, that Commodore +Cornelius Vanderbilt, the head of the great family, was born in 1794, +and he laid the foundation of his great fortune, at the age of sixteen +years, by sailing a ferryboat to New York, six miles away. Upon a +plateau in the centre of the island is the village of New Dorp, the +original settlement of the Vanderbilts, a farm of about four hundred +acres. Here the Commodore came in his youth, and here his son, William +H. Vanderbilt, was born and lived for many years, an agricultural +laborer for his father. Here also is a little Moravian church they +attended, and upon a terraced hill behind it, the highest part of the +island, is the spacious gray granite mausoleum, within which rest the +two great millionaires, father and son, with some of their children. +In the old churchyard are the graves of many other Vanderbilts and +their collaterals. At Port Richmond, over on the Kill, the most +considerable town on the island, and formerly the county-seat, is the +house, now a hotel, in which Aaron Burr died in 1836. + + +SOME NEW JERSEY TOWNS. + +Westward from Bergen Hill and the Palisades are the meadows which +stretch down to Newark Bay, and meandering through them to form it are +the Hackensack and Passaic Rivers. The name of Hackensack means, in +the original Indian dialect, the "lowlands," and it was given by them +also to the channel around Bergen Point, by which the waters of Newark +Bay reach New York harbor. This river drains the western slopes of the +Palisades. Passaic means "the valley," and the name seems to have +referred to the country through which that stream flows. The Passaic +River, which is ninety miles long, comes from the mountains of +Northern New Jersey and flows a tortuous course to Paterson, fifteen +miles northwest of Jersey City, where there is an admirable water +power which has created a manufacturing town of over one hundred +thousand people, having extensive silk and cotton mills and locomotive +factories. The river describes a curve, forming the boundary of the +city for more than nine miles, on all sides excepting the south, and +its rapids and falls descend seventy-two feet, the falls being a most +picturesque cataract with fifty feet perpendicular descent. The town +was named after Governor William Paterson of New Jersey, who signed +its incorporation act July 4, 1792, the manufacturing corporation +projecting it having been formed under the auspices of Alexander +Hamilton. + +The Passaic flows onward past Newark nine miles west of Jersey City, +another extensive and prosperous manufacturing city of two hundred and +fifty thousand inhabitants, turning out goods of all kinds with an +annual value of over $100,000,000. This city spreads far across the +flat surface above Newark Bay and adjoining the Passaic, and to the +northward its suburbs run up into the attractive hills of Orange. +Market Street is a fine highway through the business section, while a +large area is covered by comfortable and handsome residences, among +which passes Broad Street, its finest avenue, one hundred and +thirty-two feet wide, shaded by majestic trees, bordered with many +ornamental buildings, and skirting three attractive parks embowered +with elms. Newark is a great iron and steel centre, makes fine +jewelry, good carriages and excellent leather, and also brews much +lager beer. Yet few would suppose it had a strictly Puritan origin. In +1666, hearing the praises of East Jersey, a body of discontented men +of Connecticut, headed by their pastor, Abraham Pierson, journeyed to +the Passaic meadows and bought these lands from the Hackensack Indians +"for one hundred and thirty pounds, twelve blankets and twelve guns." +In early life the pastor had preached at Newark in England, for which +he had quite an affection, and he gave the Jersey settlement its name. +When Philadelphia was founded, the fame of Newark spread down there as +a producer of excellent cider and seductive Jersey apple jack. Its +most famous son of modern times was General Phil Kearney. + +Five miles beyond Newark the diminutive Elizabeth River flows down to +the Kills, and here is the city of Elizabeth, with fifty thousand +people, noted as one of the handsomest of the Jersey towns. Like +Newark and Paterson, it is really an outlying suburb of New York, +providing homes for much of the overflow of population, who rush into +the metropolis for business every morning, and back again every +evening. Under the name of Elizabethport it spreads down to the Arthur +Kill, and over there are most of its factories and extensive +coal-shipping piers. The original settlement dates from 1665, when it +was named in honor of Lady Elizabeth, wife of Sir George Carteret, one +of the grantees of East Jersey. The early inhabitants were largely +Puritans, and its chief establishment is the extensive works of the +Singer Sewing Machine Company. Here was founded the College of New +Jersey, afterwards removed to Princeton, and a tablet marking the +original site was unveiled in 1897. A few miles beyond, another little +river flows down to the Kills, first named after old Rahwack, the +Indian sachem whose tribe owned the land thereabouts, and here is +another thriving town, Rahway, which is noted for its carriages. At +Menlo Park, nearby, the electrical inventor, Thomas A. Edison, +sustained by New York capital, toiled for years in seclusion to +perfect his discoveries, and developed the germ that has grown to +such vast proportions. The "Wizard of Menlo Park" afterwards located +his chief laboratory and his home at Newark. Then, crossing what are +known as the "Short Hills" westward, past many villages, among them +Metuchen, once the domain of Metuching, the Indian "King of the +Rolling Land," we come to the Raritan River, thirty-one miles from +Jersey City. + +Here debouches the Delaware and Raritan Canal at New Brunswick, a city +of twenty-five thousand people. The Raritan flows through the red +shales and sandstones of Central New Jersey, generally a +chocolate-colored stream, and goes off to form Raritan Bay, fifteen +miles below. Factories cluster on the New Brunswick lowlands along the +river and canal, but there is a handsome town built upon the higher +grounds, encircling the lower and older portions like a crescent. The +Dutch came here from the Hudson River early in the eighteenth century +and found a village which had been started by some fishermen from Long +Island. They organized the town, naming it in honor of the Ducal House +of Brunswick. Its most prominent feature is Rutgers College, housed in +red sandstone buildings upon attractive grounds, alongside the +railway, a venerated foundation of the Dutch Reformed Church, +originally chartered by King George III. as "Queen's College," but +afterwards receiving the name of Rutgers from a benefactor in 1826. It +has an important adjunct in the New Jersey Agricultural College. +There is also the Dutch Reformed Theological Seminary, the first +established in America, and dating from 1771, its main building, also +named from its chief benefactor, being Hertzog Hall. An early +traveller, visiting New Brunswick in 1748, described it as "a pretty +little town with four churches;" and these quaint buildings are still +there, the ancient Christ Church being surrounded with the graves of +the first settlers. Eighteen miles to the southeast the Revolutionary +battle of Monmouth was fought in June, 1778, and a monument +commemorates it at Freehold (Monmouth Court-house). Sir Henry Clinton, +having evacuated Philadelphia, was marching towards New Brunswick, +intending to embark on the Raritan for New York. Washington, coming +from Valley Forge in pursuit, gave him battle. The day was very hot, +and the result was an uncertainty, General Charles Lee's misconduct, +for which Washington reprimanded him on the field, preventing a +victory, and at night the British withdrew quietly. Lee was afterwards +court-martialed and suspended from command for a year. Monmouth was +the scene of "Molly Pitcher's" famous exploit. She was Mary Hays of +Carlisle, Pennsylvania, wife of John Hays, a soldier in the First +Pennsylvania Artillery. Molly was with the army, and engaged in +bringing water to the battery, which was behind a hedgerow, her +husband managing one of the cannon. The British made a charge, and a +shot killing him, the officers, having no one to manage the gun, +ordered it withdrawn. Molly saw her husband fall and heard the order; +dropping her bucket, she seized the rammer and served the gun with +skill and dexterity. Next morning General Greene presented her to +General Washington, who conferred upon her the office of Sergeant. She +afterwards lived at Carlisle Barracks, and died there in 1823. + + +GREATER NEW YORK. + +The Dutch city of New Amsterdam, which became New York by the English +conquest in 1664, was of slow growth. It had hardly more than twenty +thousand inhabitants at the time of the Revolution, being less than +either Boston or Philadelphia, and a map made in 1767 shows that the +town scarcely extended beyond Wall Street. At the beginning of the +nineteenth century there were sixty thousand people, and its rapid +growth began through large immigration after the War of 1812, and was +stimulated by the completion of the Erie Canal in 1825, which gave it +greatly increased foreign trade. By the new Charter of "Greater New +York" coming into operation in 1897, the city was made, next to +London, the largest in the world, being expanded beyond Manhattan +Island, so as to include all the outlying cities. It now consists of +five boroughs, Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Richmond, +having an area of three hundred and twenty square miles, and a +population exceeding three and one-half millions. If Jersey City and +the other New Jersey settlements on the west side of the Hudson were +added, the population would be four millions. This great city is about +thirty-five miles long from north to south, and nineteen miles wide. +The long and narrow island of Manhattan stretches thirteen miles, +while it is not much over two miles broad in the widest part, and +sometimes narrows to a few hundred yards, particularly in the northern +portion. The Harlem River and the winding strait of Spuyten Duyvel +separate northern Manhattan from the mainland. The island is very +rocky, excepting the southern part, which is alluvial, and at the +upper end the cliffs rise precipitously from the Hudson over two +hundred and thirty feet into Washington Heights, and the surface +descends sharply on the eastern side to the Harlem flats. It does not +take the visitor long to recognize, however, that the capacious +harbor, the converging rivers and numerous adjacent arms of the sea +combine all the requisites of a great port, and they could not have +been better planned if human hands had fashioned them. There is a vast +wharf-frontage, for over fifty miles of shore-line are available for +shipping, thus accommodating an almost limitless commerce. This has +made the metropolis and continues its wonderful growth. + +At the lower end of Manhattan is the Battery Park, of about twenty +acres, with the elevated railways coming over it from both sides of +the city, and joining at the lower point of the island in a terminal +station at the South Ferry. Here were located the old forts for the +city defense, but the park superseded them after the War of 1812, and +in the earlier years of the nineteenth century this was the +fashionable resort for an airing. The old circular fort, Castle +Garden, now the Aquarium, was formerly a popular place of amusement, +and here, under the auspices of the great manager, Barnum, Jenny Lind +made her first appearance in America in 1850. The Park contains a +statue of John Ericsson. The lower point of the island is Whitehall +Slip, and here is the Government Barge Office, an appanage of the +Custom House. To the northward of the Battery is the Bowling Green, +the space between them having been the site of the original Dutch +palisade fort which guarded New Amsterdam. A row of fine residences +was built here, which afterwards became the favorite locality for +steamship offices, and the new Custom House is now being constructed +on their site. This Bowling Green, a triangular space of about a +half-acre, was in the early days surrounded by the homes of the +proudest Knickerbockers. For seven years during the Revolution, and +until the evacuation, November 25, 1783, this was the British +headquarters. Here lived Cornwallis, Howe and Clinton, Benedict Arnold +occupied No. 5 Broadway, and Washington's headquarters was in No. 1, +on the west side, now occupied by the towering Washington Building, +rising nearly three hundred feet to the top of the cupola. To the +eastward is the spacious Produce Exchange, in Italian Renaissance, +with its huge square tower, part of the ground on which it stands +having been the site of the house where Robert Fulton lived and died. +Talleyrand also once lived on Bowling Green. In the centre is the +statue of Abraham de Peyster, an original Knickerbocker, erected in +1895. There was a leaden statue of King George III. here at the +opening of the Revolution, but it was pulled down when the Declaration +of Independence was promulgated in 1776, carried to Litchfield, +Connecticut, and melted into bullets for the Continental soldiers, so +that it was facetiously said at the time that "King George's troops +will probably have his melted Majesty fired at them." + + +BROADWAY. + +The two smaller streets on either side of the Bowling Green, Whitehall +and State Street, unite to the northward and form Broadway. This is +the chief highway of New York, and one of the most famous in the +world, extending in various forms all the way to Yonkers, a distance +of nineteen miles. The long and narrow formation of Manhattan Island +puts Broadway longitudinally in the centre of the city, and +necessarily throws into it an enormous traffic. One can hardly make +any extended movements in New York without getting into Broadway. +Hence the noted street has its show, always on exhibition, of the +restless rush of life in the modern Babylon. The architecture of its +great buildings, which tower far skyward, excites admiration, and its +perpetual din of traffic, with the moving crowds and jam of vehicles, +is the type of New York activity. This wonderful street is eighty feet +wide between the buildings, and extends of that width from the Bowling +Green five miles to Central Park at Fifty-ninth Street; and from its +upper end, beyond this, the "Grand Boulevard," one hundred and fifty +feet wide, with pretty little parks in the centre, is prolonged +northward. In its course, which inclines somewhat to the westward, +Broadway diagonally crosses Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Avenues, and at +the Central Park boundary intersects Eighth Avenue. Here is the +"Merchant's Gate," entering the Park from Broadway, the opposite +entrance from Fifth Avenue being known as the "Scholar's Gate." The +intermediate entrances at Sixth and Seventh Avenues are the "Artist's +Gate" and the "Artisan's Gate." + +A survey of Broadway gives the best idea of the characteristics of New +York. Its lower course is a succession of wealthy financial and +business establishments and huge office buildings, and the adjacent +streets on either side are similarly occupied. Banks, trusts, +insurance offices, and manufacturers' and merchants' counting-rooms, +railroad and steamship offices are everywhere. But in the midst of all +this display of worldly wealth and grandeur is the quiet graveyard at +the head of Wall Street, wherein stands the famous Trinity Church. Its +chimes, morning and evening, summon the restless brokers and business +men to attend divine service, though few may take heed. It is a +wealthy parish, with over $500,000 annual revenue, maintaining a +magnificent choir and various charities, and owns valuable buildings +all about. The old graveyard stretches along Broadway, and in Church +Street, behind, the elevated railway trains rush by every few minutes. +It is part of the valuable domain of Trinity Church that "the heirs of +Anneke Jans" have long been trying to recover. Anneke Jans Bogardus +was an interesting Dutch lady who died in Albany in 1663, having +outlived two husbands. The first husband owned the whole of the Hudson +River front of New York between Chambers and Canal Streets, with a +wide strip running back to Broadway. Her heirs sold this to the +British Colonial Government, and it was known as the "King's Farm," +being afterwards given as an endowment to Trinity Church. This is what +the present generation of heirs want to recover, but thus far have +gained more notoriety than cash by the effort. + +In 1696 the first Trinity Church was built, being afterwards burnt, +while a second church was built and taken down, to be replaced by the +present fine Gothic brownstone edifice, whose magnificent spire rises +two hundred and eighty-four feet. This church was dedicated in 1846, +and its chancel contains a splendid reredos of marble, glass and +precious stones, the memorial of William B. Astor, while the bronze +doors are a memorial of his father, John Jacob Astor. The churchyard +is chiefly a mass of worn and battered gravestones, resting in the +busiest part of New York, the oldest stone being dated 1681, for it +has been a burial-place more than two centuries. Near its northern +border is the Gothic "Martyrs' Monument," erected over the bones of +the patriots who died in the British prison-ships, moored over on the +Brooklyn shore during the Revolution. There are hints, however, that +it was not so much the reverent memory of these heroes that prompted +the erection of the monument as the desire of the vestry to stop the +proposed opening of a street through the yard. There is also a +remembrance that, while these patriots were in prison dying, among +their relentless foes was the Trinity rector, Dr. Inglis. When General +Washington came into New York in 1776 he desired to worship at the +church, and sent an officer to Dr. Inglis, on Sunday morning, to +request that he omit reading the usual prayers for the king and the +royal family. The rector refused, and afterwards said: "It is in your +power to shut up the churches, but you cannot make the clergy depart +from their duty." Among the noted graves is that of Charlotte Temple, +under a flat stone, having a cavity out of which the inscription +plate has been twice stolen. Her romantic career and miserable end, +resulting in a duel, have been made the basis of a novel. William +Bradford's grave is here, one of Penn's companions in founding +Philadelphia; but he removed to New York, published the first +newspaper there, and for fifty years was the official printer. A +brownstone mausoleum covers the remains of Captain James Lawrence of +the frigate "Chesapeake," killed in action in 1813, when his ship was +taken by the British ship "Shannon," his dying words being, "Don't +give up the ship." Here also are buried Alexander Hamilton, Robert +Fulton, Albert Gallatin and other famous men, almost the latest grave +being that of General Philip Kearney, killed in the Civil War. + + +SOME FAMOUS BUILDINGS. + +The great number of immensely tall office-buildings on lower Broadway, +literally "sky-scrapers," so encompass the street as to give it the +appearance of a deep canyon as one gazes along it between them. The +Bowling Green Building out-tops the Washington Building, and there are +the Welles, Standard Oil and Aldrich Court Buildings, the latter +marked by a tablet of the Holland Society, being erected on the site +of "the first habitation of white men on Manhattan Island." Opposite +it is one of the most curious appearing of these tall structures, the +Tower Building, nearly two hundred feet high and only twenty-five +feet wide. Just above, the tall light sandstone building of the +Manhattan Life Company is surmounted by a cupola three hundred and +fifty feet high. The Empire Building rises twenty stories, and the +American Surety Building at the corner of Pine Street, nearly opposite +Trinity churchyard, twenty-three stories, three hundred and six feet, +being surmounted by the various weather-gauging instruments of "Old +Probabilities." Here are also the magnificent buildings of the Union +Trust and the Equitable Life Companies. + +Opposite Trinity Church, Wall Street leads off from Broadway, with +winding course and varying width, down to the East River, following +the line of the ancient Dutch palisade wall which it has replaced. +Here is the financial centre and the domain of the bankers. One block +down, Broad Street enters from the south, and the narrower Nassau +Street goes out to the north. At this corner, on the one hand, is the +white marble Drexel Building, Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan's office, and on +the other the United States Treasury and Assay Office. The huge +Manhattan Trust Building also is there, rising three hundred and +thirty feet, and opposite is the Stock Exchange, while across Broad +Street from the latter is the Mills Building, the home of many bankers +and brokers. In Nassau Street is the magnificent building of the +Mutual Life Insurance Company. These financial structures at Broad +and Wall Streets are regarded as the most valuable real estate in the +world. The Treasury and Assay Office contain most of the gold owned by +the Government, and in the latter the kegs of gold are made up that +are shipped to Europe. It holds millions of gold bars that make annual +excursions in fast steamers across the ocean and back again, to adjust +our varying foreign exchange balances. The Treasury is a white marble +building fronted by an imposing colonnade and a broad flight of steps, +and here is a bronze statue of Washington on the spot where he was +inaugurated the first President of the United States in 1789, the +location being then occupied by the old Federal Hall, where the first +Congress met. Farther down Wall Street, the next corner is William +Street, where there is a massive dark granite building with an +elaborate Ionic colonnade. The interior contains a large rotunda +surmounted by a dome supported by eight immense columns of Italian +marble. This building was originally constructed for the Merchants' +Exchange, and it afterwards became the Custom House. It is hereafter +to be the office of the National City Bank, the largest financial +institution of New York. Wall Street goes on to the river, where there +is a ferry to Brooklyn. Down William Street is the broad, low, granite +building, with a columned portico, of the Farmers' Loan and Trust +Company, another financial institution of renown. + +It is evident, as Broadway is traversed northward between the huge +office-letting structures, reared skyward, and among them the little, +narrow, crooked streets, pouring their traffic into the main stream, +carrying a vast, surging mass of humanity, that the crowded-in New +Yorker, deprived of lateral expansion, thus seeks needed relief by +mounting upward. Fulton Street here stretches across the island from +river to river, the turmoil from its conflicting streams of traffic +showing the full tide of restless development in lower Broadway. Above +is the white marble Park Bank and the enormous St. Paul Building, +rising three hundred and eight feet, twenty-six stories high. Opposite +is the sombre church of St. Paul, with a tall spire, the oldest +church-building in New York, built in 1756, containing the memorial of +General Montgomery, who fell at the storming of Quebec in 1775, and in +the graveyard a monument to Emmet, the Irish patriot. Just beyond is +the triangular City Hall Park, with Park Row diagonally entering +Broadway. Here can be got an idea of the rush and restlessness of New +York, for two enormous streams of traffic pour together into lower +Broadway, at probably the worst street-crossing in the world. + + +THE CITY HALL PARK. + +The New York City Hall Park was the ancient "Commons," or public +pasturage, and it now contains the headquarters of the city +government, and may be regarded as the political and business centre. +It is enclosed by Broadway, Park Row and Chatham Street, a triangular +space, formerly a sort of garden around the City Hall, but now well +occupied by other buildings. At the southern extremity is the +Post-office, which cost $7,000,000, a grand granite structure in Doric +and Renaissance, with a fine dome and tower, which are a landmark for +miles. Around this Park, and in the many streets radiating from it, +are a vast aggregation of corporate institutions and great buildings +devoted to all kinds of business. Here are the offices of newspapers, +banks, trusts, insurance companies, railways, lawyers, politicians, +exchanges, etc., with lunch-rooms and restaurants of every grade, +liberally provided to feed or stimulate the multitude. The famous +hotel of a past generation, the Astor House, rich in historical +associations, stands on the opposite side of Broadway from the +Post-office. Along Park Row are the great newspapers, and here is +Printing House Square, adorned with statues of Benjamin Franklin and +Horace Greeley, appropriate in this region deluged with printer's ink. +Here is the Ivins Syndicate Building, finished in 1898, the loftiest +structure in New York, twenty-nine stories, its towers rising three +hundred and eighty-two feet. The tall and narrow Tribune Building, of +red brick with white facings, has its clock tower reared two hundred +and eighty-five feet, while beyond is the Pulitzer Building, of +brownstone, with a gilded dome, its apex rising three hundred and +seventy-five feet. The building of the American Tract Society on +Nassau Street is twenty-three stories and three hundred and six feet +high, with a restaurant on the top. Park Row runs into Chatham Square, +over which the Brooklyn Bridge terminal comes out, with elevated and +surface railroads all about. This is a location of cheap shops and +concert halls, and is prolonged into the Bowery, an avenue of the +humbler classes, lined with shops, theatres and saloons, generally +crowded, and having four sets of street cars running on the surface, +besides the elevated roads above. The ancient Dutch farms on this part +of the island were known as the "Bauereies," whence came the name of +the street. + +Chambers Street bounds the City Hall Park on the north, and upon it +faces the Court-house, a massive Corinthian building of white marble, +finished in 1867, famous as the structure which the "Tweed Ring" of +that time used to extract about $15,000,000 from the city treasury on +fraudulent bills, or more than five times the actual cost of the work. +It stands on part of the site of an old fort, which in the Revolution +was the British outpost commanding the approach to the city by the +Northern or Bloomingdale Road, now Broadway. The City Hall, to the +southward, is a less pretentious and much older building, constructed +in the Italian style, of white marble with freestone at the back to +the northward, it being supposed at the time of its completion, 1812, +that "no one of importance would ever live to the north of the +building," then a broad expanse of farms. Here is the office of the +Mayor and the meeting-place of the Board of Aldermen, and its chief +apartment is the "Governor's Room," adorned with portraits of various +Governors of New York and Revolutionary patriots, and having among its +treasures Washington's desk and chair which he used when first +President of the United States, and also the chairs of the First +Congress. To the southwest of the City Hall a fine statue of Nathan +Hale, an early victim of the Revolution, executed by the British in +New York in 1776, faces Broadway. + +Near Chambers Street and the northern end of the Park a noted building +stands on the opposite side of Broadway, a modest brownstone structure +without any pretension nor of much height, but containing a famous +bank, whose phenomenal success is everywhere known. This is the +Chemical Bank, originally started as a chemical manufacturing company +with banking privileges. The chemistry seems to have been a failure +and soon abandoned, but the banking talents were so well developed +that the shares of $100 par value have sold for over forty times that +sum. The capital is only $300,000, but it has amassed a surplus over +twenty times the amount, and is the strongest bank in New York. Among +the large shareholders are said to be three New York ladies who +married foreign titles--the Dowager Duchess of Marlborough (who was +Miss Pine, afterwards Mrs. Hamersley, and now Lady Beresford), the +Duchess de Dino (Miss Sampson), and the Comtesse de Trobriand (Miss +Jones). It is here that the noted Mrs. Hetty Green generally conducts +her financing, a lady of immense fortune and peculiar ideas, who has +been one of the greatest money accumulators of New York. Across +Chambers Street, and occupying an entire block, is the building that +originally was "Stewart's Store," where the late Alexander T. Stewart +made most of his success in the dry-goods trade, now converted into a +vast office building for all kinds of business. This was the outpost +of the "Dry Goods District," for Broadway northward for several +blocks, including a wide belt of adjacent streets, now deals with all +kinds of products of the mill and loom, clothing and similar articles. +Here are located the agents and factors for many mills at home and +abroad, and their traffic sometimes exceeds a thousand millions of +dollars a year. The pulse of the American dry-goods trade throbs in +this locality, weakening or strengthening as poor or good crops give +the farmers and working-people a surplus to spend upon dress. Mr. +Stewart once said that if every woman decided to pass a single season +without a new bonnet it would sufficiently diminish trade to bankrupt +this whole district. Canal Street crosses New York through the +northern portion of the district, a broad highway, formerly a water +course draining an extensive swamp across Broadway to the Hudson +River. In this locality, east of Broadway, are two famous regions--the +"Five Points," now, however, much improved, and "Chinatown." The +latter, in Mott Street, has its Joss House, restaurant, theatre and +opium joints, and is picturesque with swinging lights and banners. In +Leonard Street, standing where once was part of the swamp, is the +noted Tombs City Prison, thus named because originally it was a sombre +gray building in the gloomy Egyptian style, but this was recently +replaced by a modern structure. The Criminal Courts adjoining are +connected with it by a bridge. + + +PETER COOPER AND PETER STUYVESANT. + +At Bond Street, in advancing up Broadway, are encountered the +booksellers, this with adjacent streets being the home of much of that +trade. In Lafayette Place is the spacious Astor Library, and in the +wide Astor Place is the handsome new building of the Mercantile +Library. The former is now a part of the New York Public Library. A +half-century ago the site of the Mercantile Library was occupied by +the "Astor Place Opera House," then a leading theatre, and in the +adjacent streets occurred the "Macready riots" in 1849. The rivalries +of Edwin Forrest and Macready resulted in an effort by the partisans +of the former to prevent the latter from playing in the Opera House +on the night of May 10th. The Forrest faction attacked the building +with stones, and the police being unable to control them, troops were +called out, and, firing several volleys along Astor Place, they +suppressed the riot and dispersed the mob, but at a cost of about +sixty killed and wounded. At the end of Astor Place and its junction +with Third Avenue is the Cooper Institute, occupying an entire block, +a large brownstone building with a fine front, founded and endowed in +1857, at a total cost of about $1,000,000, by Peter Cooper, for the +free education of men and women in science and art. His statue stands +in front. It also received in 1900 additional gifts from his executors +and $300,000 from Andrew Carnegie. Peter Cooper was a wealthy +manufacturer and merchant of the broadest philanthropy. At a recent +anniversary of the Institute his son-in-law, Abram S. Hewitt, speaking +of him, said: "Fifty years ago three men, all of whom started in life +as poor boys, got together and talked over various ways by which they +could be of benefit to the public. They were Peter Cooper, Ezra +Cornell and Matthew Vassar. The latter said he would found a school +for girls, and he founded Vassar College. Mr. Cornell said he would +found a school for boys, and he founded Cornell University. Peter +Cooper said he would found a school for both girls and boys, and he +founded Cooper Union. But Mr. Cooper's school differs from the others, +in that here, any boy or girl may receive an education absolutely +free of charge." Opposite the Cooper Institute is an immense red +building, the "Bible House," the home of the American Bible Society, +where the Scriptures are printed by the millions, in all languages, +for distribution throughout the world--over eighty different languages +and dialects being used. + +Diagonally northeast from Astor Place runs Stuyvesant Street, formerly +the country lane leading out to the ancient farmhouse of old Governor +Stuyvesant, surnamed "Peter the Headstrong." Here was built "St. +Mark's Church in the Bowerie" in the last century, then a mile out of +town, and the quaint little Stuyvesant House still stood, at that +time, perched on a high bank near the church, having, with its +odd-looking overhanging upper story, been built of small yellow bricks +brought out from Holland. In the days of New Amsterdam this region was +Governor Stuyvesant's "Bauerie," and to it he retired when compelled +to surrender to the English in 1664. He lived in this secluded spot +for eighteen years, dying in 1682, and his brown gravestone occupies a +place in the wall of the church. He was the last of the Dutch +Governors, energetic, aristocratic and overbearing, and described by +Irving as a man "of such immense activity and decision of mind that he +never sought nor accepted the advice of others;" Irving further saying +that he was a "tough, sturdy, valiant, weather-beaten, mettlesome, +obstinate leather-sided, lion-hearted, generous, spirited old +Governor." + +Returning to Broadway, for a mile or more it, with the adjacent +streets, is the great retail shopping district. Here on the pleasant +afternoons are throngs of shoppers. A short distance above, Broadway +bends to the left, displaying Grace Church, with its rich marble +façade, beautiful spire, and adjoining rectory, chantry and church +house, an unique ecclesiastical group, dating from 1846, when it was +far "up town," but now almost covered-in by the huge surrounding +stores. Fourteenth Street crosses beyond, and here is Union Square, a +pretty oval park of about four acres, adorned by an ornamental +fountain and statues of Washington, Lafayette and Lincoln. Large +buildings and stores surround the square, the chief being Tiffany's +noted jewelry establishment. Fourteenth Street is a wide avenue, with +an extensive shipping trade. To the eastward of Broadway is the +Academy of Music and the noted Tammany Hall. This is the seat of the +"Tammany Society," established in 1789 for benevolent purposes, but +now controlled by the Democratic political organization ruling New +York. The Hall is a capacious brick structure with stone facings, +surmounted by a statue of its presiding genius, the old chief and +warrior of the Lenni Lenapes, St. Tammany, who with outstretched hand +beneficently looks down upon the street. The sturdy Indian, however, +was probably more used to the mild and just methods of William Penn +and his Quakers on the Delaware than to the political schemes on the +Hudson, of which fate seems to have made him a patron saint. + + +MADISON SQUARE. + +Broadway reaches Madison Square at Twenty-third Street, another wide +highway crossing the city, and also intersects Fifth Avenue, which is +the western side of the Square. This junction has a park of about six +acres, surrounded by large hotels and noted buildings, and alongside +the triangular intersection of Broadway and Fifth Avenue is a handsome +granite monument to General Worth, a hero of the War with Mexico. The +plateau on which it stands is usually availed of as the site for the +official reviewing stage for processions. This Square is the great +centre of elaborate civic and military displays, and has, with its +surroundings and the light stone of the adjacent buildings, an air +that is decidedly Parisian, it occupying much the same position for +New York as the Place de la Concorde in Paris, or Trafalgar Square in +London. In Madison Square are statues of Admiral Farragut (the finest +statue in New York), William H. Seward, President Arthur and Roscoe +Conkling. At the northwest corner of the Square was for many years +Delmonico's famous restaurant, since moved farther up town. Its owner, +after feeding wealthy New Yorkers on the choicest viands for several +decades, finally lost his mind, and in a fit of aberration wandered +over into the wilderness in New Jersey, and becoming lost in the +woods, actually died of starvation. The new Appellate Court of New +York is on the eastern side of the Square; at the northeast corner is +the Madison Square Garden, and at the southeast corner the Madison +Square Presbyterian Church, where the great clerical censor of New +York, Rev. Dr. Parkhurst, occupies the pulpit. Madison Square may be +regarded as the social centre of modern New York. Far to the northward +Fifth Avenue stretches, with its rows of palatial brownstone +residences, and towards the north-northwest Broadway extends for two +miles to Central Park, passing many hotels, theatres, and the tall +"French flats" that have been devised for residences in the crowded +city where the land surface is so scarce. It also passes, at the +intersection of Sixth Avenue, the Greeley and Herald Squares, with +statues of Horace Greeley and William E. Dodge, and the _New York +Herald_ Building. A short distance beyond is the Metropolitan Opera +House, the finest theatre in the city, rebuilt after a fire in 1893. +Broadway at Fifty-ninth Street reaches the southwest corner of Central +Park and intersects Eighth Avenue, and here is the Columbus Monument, +a tall shaft surmounted by a marble statue, erected in 1892. Broadway +then becomes the magnificent "Grand Broadway Boulevard," with rows of +trees, prolonged far northward. + + +FIFTH AVENUE. + +Fifth Avenue, one hundred feet wide, is probably the New York street +that is most talked about, for they say the main object of working so +hard to get rich in the metropolis is to be able to live in a fine +mansion on Fifth Avenue. This great highway extends northward almost +in the centre of Manhattan Island, but it has an humble beginning, +starting from the original "Potter's Field," where for many years the +outcast and the unknown were buried and over a hundred thousand +corpses are believed to have been interred. When the city spread +beyond this cemetery it was decided to make the place a park, and thus +was formed Washington Square on Fourth Street, a short distance west +of Broadway, an enclosure of about nine acres. From this Square Fifth +Avenue is laid in a straight line six miles northward, to the Harlem +River. The fine Washington Centennial Memorial Arch spans the avenue +at the southern end, near the Square, marking the Centenary of +Washington's inauguration as President. In the lower portions the +famous avenue has been largely invaded by business establishments, but +above, it is the finest residential street in the world, there being +four or five miles of architectural magnificence, in which for two +miles it borders Central Park. The street displays the best dwelling +and church architecture, the progress northward into the newer +portion showing how the styles have changed. All railways have been +carefully excluded from this street. At the southern end the older +houses are generally of brick, gradually developing into the use of +brownstone facings, and then into almost uniform rows of elaborate +brownstone buildings, with imposing porticos reached by high and broad +flights of steps. The rich yet gloomy brown is somewhat monotonous, +but as Central Park is approached this is broken, as all styles of +designs and materials are used. Fifth Avenue has the great "Methodist +Book Concern" at Twentieth Street, and in this neighborhood are also +several of the leading book houses. The wealthy and exclusive Union +Club is at Twenty-first Street, with the Lotus Club in a more modest +house adjacent. + +Northward from Madison Square the great street stretches up the +aristocratic grade of Murray Hill, with its rows of stately buildings. +Parallel and a short distance eastward is Madison Avenue, also a +street of fashionable residence, and second only to Fifth Avenue in +grandeur. At Twenty-ninth Street is the plain and substantial granite +Dutch Reformed Church, and to the eastward is an odd-looking little +church that has attained a wide reputation. It is a picturesque +aggregation of low brick buildings, set back in a small enclosure +between Fifth and Madison Avenues, and looking like a quaint mediæval +structure. Some years ago a pompous rector, when asked to read the +last prayers over the dead body of an actor, sent the sorrowing +friends to this church, saying he could not thus pray for the ungodly, +but they might be willing to do it at the little church around the +corner. The public quickly caught on, through newspaper aid, and the +result was that this attractive Church of the Transfiguration +performed the last rites in presence of an overflowing congregation, +and its official title has since been overshadowed by the popular one +of "the Little Church Around the Corner." It is much attended by the +theatrical fraternity, and contains a handsome memorial window to +Edwin Booth. + +Mounting the gentle grade of Murray Hill, we come to Thirty-fourth +Street, the locality typifying the two greatest fortunes amassed in +America before the advent of the Vanderbilts. The whole block between +Thirty-third and Thirty-fourth Streets is occupied by the towering +Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, built of brick and sandstone in German +Renaissance, and occupying the land originally the home of the Astors, +while across Thirty-fourth Street is the white marble Stewart palace. +The ancestor of the Astor family, John Jacob Astor, accumulated the +largest fortune known in this country before the Civil War, his +estates representing the early growth of New York, and the wealth +coming from the advancing value of land as the city expanded. He was a +poor German peasant-boy who came from the village of Waldorf, near +Heidelberg, to London, and worked there prior to 1783, making musical +instruments for his brother. In that year, at the age of about twenty, +he sailed for America with $500 worth of instruments, meeting a +furrier on the ship, who suggested that he trade the instruments for +American furs. This he did in New York, and returning to London, sold +the furs at a large profit. Coming back to New York, he established a +fur-trade with England, and built ships for his business. He +prospered, and at the beginning of the nineteenth century was worth +$250,000. Then he began buying land and houses in New York, built many +buildings, and was so shrewd in real-estate investments that they +often increased a hundredfold. He was liberal and charitable, and +dying in 1848, his estate, then the largest in the country, was +estimated at $25,000,000. His chief public benefaction was the Astor +Library, which his son, William B. Astor, also aided, so that besides +the buildings it has an endowment of about $1,800,000. The great Astor +estates, now represented by the fourth generation, are estimated at +over $200,000,000. + +The splendid palace at the northwest corner of Fifth Avenue and +Thirty-fourth Street was built by Alexander T. Stewart when at the +height of his fame as the leading New York merchant. Intended to +eclipse anything then known in New York, he expended $3,000,000 upon +the building and its decoration, so that this house outshone all other +New York residences until the Vanderbilt palaces were erected farther +out Fifth Avenue. Its latest occupant has been the Manhattan Club. +Stewart's fortune was accumulated through the facilities at New York +for successful trading, though much of his wealth was afterwards +invested in large buildings in profitable business localities, and +notably in great hotels. Stewart, like Astor, began his career with +almost nothing, but at a later period. He was born at Belfast, +Ireland, in 1802, studied at Trinity College, Dublin, but before +taking his degree migrated to New York as a teacher in 1818. He got +into the dry-goods trade in a small way near the City Hall Park, and +his business grew until he acquired all the adjacent buildings, and +put up the store at Chambers Street, and afterwards the retail store +farther up Broadway. Enlarging in every direction, his business became +the greatest in the country, with branches in the leading cities. He +was an extensive importer, and owned various factories making the +fabrics he sold. His business methods were profitable but unpopular, +involving the remorseless crushing of rivals, so that he had few +friends and many enemies. Yet he was charitable, sending a shipload of +provisions to relieve the Irish famine in 1846, and he made large +public gifts to aid suffering. When he died he was building on Fourth +Avenue an enormous structure intended as a "Home for Working Girls," +on which $1,400,000 were expended. It was opened soon after his +death, but with such stringent regulations that a rebellion soon arose +among the intended beneficiaries, and it had to be closed. There was a +shrewd suspicion that the difficulty came by design, for the building +was soon reopened as a hotel. Stewart had scarcely moved into his +marble palace when he died, his body being put temporarily into a +vault in the churchyard of old "St. Mark's Church in the Bowerie," +awaiting removal to the magnificent mausoleum preparing for it at +Garden City, Long Island. Then came the horrible news that the corpse +had been stolen to avenge business tyranny. The childless widow lived +in gloomy grandeur in the palace until her death, rarely seeing +visitors, and having watchmen pacing the sidewalk at all hours. +Stewart left no direct descendants, and his great business has gone, +like his estate, to strangers. + + +THE VANDERBILTS. + +The construction of the white marble Stewart palace was the first +serious innovation made upon the rich brownstone fronts of Fifth +Avenue, the possession of which was a necessary adjunct to social +standing in New York before the Civil War. The material, quarried +generally in Connecticut, was in such extensive use that it gave a +distinctive coloring to New York, its sombreness and uniformity of +architecture making most of the residential streets corridors of +gloom. For years, as a local authority described it, "our new houses +and blocks were all turned out from the same moulds, and apparently +congealed from the same coffee-colored liquid." The builders, since +the war, have made large inroads with other materials, thus giving +more individuality to the finer buildings of later construction. To +the eastward, Fourth Avenue is tunnelled for several blocks under +Murray Hill, to carry street railways up to the Grand Central Station +at Forty-second Street, the open spaces above, giving the tunnel light +and air, being surrounded by pleasant little parks, so that the +widened street, called Park Avenue, is an attractive residential +region, the view being closed to the northward by the louvre domes of +the Vanderbilt railway station. + +Continuing out Fifth Avenue, the "Old Brick Church" of the +Presbyterians, built solid and substantial, with a tall spire, stands +about on the most elevated portion of Murray Hill, the congregation +dating from 1767. A short distance beyond, at Thirty-ninth Street, is +the finest club-house in New York, the elaborate brick and brownstone +Union League Club, its spacious windows disclosing the luxurious +apartments within. Just above is the historic Vanderbilt house, where +the old Commodore lived--a wide, brownstone dwelling, having alongside +a carriage entrance into a small courtyard. The Vanderbilt fortunes, +the greatest accumulated, represent the financially expansive +facilities of modern New York as manipulated by corporation +management and the Stock Exchange. Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, +born on Staten Island in 1794, in 1817, at the age of twenty-three, +owned a few small vessels, and estimated his wealth at $9000. He +became a steamboat captain, and went into the transportation business +between New York and Philadelphia, afterwards broadening his +operations, and in 1848 owning most of the profitable steamboat lines +leading from New York. When the California emigration fever began, he +started ocean steamers in connection with the transit across the +Isthmus of Panama. This business grew, and at the height of his +steamship career the Commodore owned sixty-six vessels. The finest, +named the Vanderbilt, which cost him $800,000, he gave the Government +for a war vessel, to chase the rebel privateers. As American +vessel-owning became unprofitable, he determined to abandon it and +devote himself to railway management, having already bought largely of +railway stocks. When he thus changed, he estimated his fortune at +$40,000,000. He got control of various railroads leading east, north +and west from New York, buying the shares at low prices, his excellent +methods improving their earning powers, so that their value greatly +enhanced. The greatest of these corporations was the New York Central +and Hudson River Railroad. When the Commodore died his estate was +estimated at $75,000,000, left almost wholly to his son William H. +Vanderbilt. When the latter died it had reached $200,000,000, +bequeathed chiefly to his two eldest sons, Cornelius, who died in +1899, and William K. Vanderbilt. The family are now housed in a row of +palaces farther out the avenue near Central Park, and there are +fabulous estimates of their colossal fortunes, which are the greatest +in America, and probably in the world. + +Upon the west side of Fifth Avenue the New York Public Library is +being erected on the site of the old Croton Reservoir, which occupied +the summit of Murray Hill, and behind it is the pretty little Bryant +Park, extending to Sixth Avenue. This Library comes from the +consolidation of the Astor and Lenox Libraries, augmented by the +Samuel J. Tilden Trust Fund, amounting to about $2,500,000. North of +this, Forty-second Street crosses the city, having the Grand Central +Station of the Vanderbilt lines opposite Fourth Avenue, the only +railway station in New York, though other roads are expecting to come +in by tunnels under the rivers. At Forty-third Street and Fifth Avenue +is the finest American synagogue, the Jewish Temple Emanu-El, a +magnificent specimen of Saracenic architecture, the interior being +rich in Oriental decoration. Creeping plants tastefully overrun the +lower portions of its two great towers. There are numerous fine +churches on this portion of the avenue, two of which are rather more +famous than the others. When the old Dutch Governor Peter Minuit +bought Manhattan Island from the Indians, he founded an orthodox Dutch +church in 1628. This church is now a costly brownstone structure in +Decorated Gothic at the corner of Forty-eighth Street, having a +crocketed spire two hundred and seventy feet high. Its inscription +tells us it is the "Collegiate Reformed Protestant Dutch Church of the +City of New York, organized under Peter Minuit, Director General of +the New Netherlands, in 1628, chartered by William, King of England, +1696." The present church was built in 1872. Occupying the entire +block at Fiftieth Street is the magnificent white marble Roman +Catholic Cathedral of St. Patrick, in Decorated Gothic, with two +spires rising three hundred and thirty-two feet. This noble church +much resembles the great Cathedral at Cologne, particularly in the +interior. Behind it, fronting on Madison Avenue, is the Archbishop's +white marble residence, and adjacent is the old building of Columbia +College, the original King's College of New York, founded in 1754 by a +fund started from the proceeds of various lotteries, which then raised +$17,215. It now has new buildings elsewhere. + +In the neighborhood of these churches there must not be overlooked, in +this part of Fifth Avenue, the residence of Helen Gould, a +square-built house with an elaborate portico, at the corner of +Fifty-seventh Street. This was originally the home of one of the most +extraordinary men ever developed in New York--Jay Gould. He was an +orphan boy in Northeastern Pennsylvania, who became a clerk in a +country store, a surveyor and map-maker, and finally was employed in a +tannery, and to sell its leather first took him to New York. Finally +he removed there, and soon became a leading Wall Street stock +operator. Nobody ever made such daring ventures; he became the "great +bear" on the market, wrecking, pulling down, ruining; controlling +newspapers, courts, legislatures, and being even accused of trying to +bribe a President. Then, as he acquired wealth, he became an extensive +investor in railways and telegraphs, and died, leaving a fortune +estimated at $80,000,000. He is buried in a magnificent mausoleum, a +miniature of the Pantheon, in Woodlawn Cemetery, in the northern +suburbs, and his daughter Helen is trying, by her beneficent +charities, to make the best use she can of the share of the money she +inherited. Westward from Fifty-first Street are the famous Vanderbilt +palaces where most of the sons and daughters of William H. Vanderbilt +reside, five grand residences which cost $15,000,000 to build and +furnish. Standing among them is the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, +said to be the largest and wealthiest in the world of this +denomination, where the late pastor, Dr. John Hall, is described as +preaching to $250,000,000 every Sunday. This is the most splendid +portion of Fifth Avenue, with grand residences all about, and as +Central Park is approached, there are also enormous apartment-houses +and huge hotels. The avenue reaches the Park at Fifty-ninth Street, +and for two miles its grand buildings face that attractive +pleasure-ground. At Seventieth Street is the Lenox Library, the +benefaction of James Lenox, and at Eighty-second Street the +Metropolitan Museum of Art, containing some of the finest collections +in the world, and patterned largely after the British Museum. Its +treasures of art and science, antiquities and museums, are valued at +$9,000,000, and it has an elaborate building fronting on Fifth Avenue, +within the Park. + + +CENTRAL PARK. + +New York is very proud of its great pleasure-ground, the Central Park, +upon which has been lavished all that art and money could accomplish. +This Park is a parallelogram in the centre of Manhattan Island, a +half-mile wide and two and a half miles long, covering eight hundred +and forty-three acres, though nearly one-fourth of this space is +occupied by the Croton water reservoirs. The original surface was +either marsh or rock, very rough, and with topography generally the +reverse of that needed for a park. It took prodigious labor and an +enormous outlay to overcome the difficulties, but skillful engineering +and landscape gardening have made the most of the unsightly surface, +so that it has become one of the handsomest parks in the world, its +beauties increasing as the growing trees mature. Entering at the +"Scholar's Gate" from Fifth Avenue, the road within the Park leads by +a gently winding course past vista views and pretty lakes to the Mall, +or general promenade. Here, on pleasant days, thousands gather to +listen to the music. To the westward are broad green surfaces giving a +tranquil landscape, and looking northward through the avenue of elms +upon the Mall, a little gray stone tower called the Observatory closes +the view far away over another pretty lake. At the end of the Mall a +terrace is crossed bordering this lake, the ground sloping to its +edges. Here a fountain plashes on one side, and on the other is the +concert ground, overlooked by the Pergola, a shaded Gallery. Across +the lake, on the Observatory side, is the Ramble, a rocky, +forest-covered slope with paths winding through it, and on the highest +point a massive Belvedere. There are a menagerie and an aviary, and +the children have playgrounds and varied amusements. Beyond this +enchanting region the road winds past statues and ever-changing +beauties of garden and landscape, and comes out in a space alongside +the smaller reservoir, where stands Cleopatra's Needle, brought from +Egypt and set up near the Museum of Art. Then the road passes +alongside the larger reservoir, with barely enough room to get through +between it and Fifth Avenue, though both are admirably masked. The +northern portion of the Park has greater natural attractions and less +ornamentation, the land ascending to a fine lookout on the western +side, where there is a grand view over the Harlem River, displaying +the tall arches of the "High Bridge" bringing the Croton Aqueduct +across, and the tower alongside, which makes a high level reservoir. +The expanding city, however, is extending its buildings over large +surfaces north and west of the Park. + +One Hundred and Tenth Street is the northern boundary of Central Park. +Upon the western side of the Park, in Manhattan Square, is being +gradually constructed the American Museum of Natural History, with +elaborate buildings and collections already exceeding $3,000,000 in +value. Near the northwestern corner of the Park, extending to One +Hundred and Twenty-third Street, is the long and narrow Morningside +Park, a high elevation held by massive retaining walls on the +hill-slope, and ascended by flights of steps. Morningside Avenue, its +western boundary, has at One Hundred and Twelfth Street what will be +the largest ecclesiastical edifice in the United States, the new +Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine, of which the corner-stone +was laid in 1892, and building slowly progresses. The splendid St. +Luke's Hospital adjoins to the northward, while to the northwest, on +an elevated site overlooking the Hudson River, are the fine new +buildings of Columbia College in an enclosure of about twenty acres. +This great University has buildings and collections valued at +$7,000,000, an endowment of $12,000,000, and is attended by about two +thousand students. Farther westward, upon the high ground at the edge +of the Hudson River, stretches the stately Riverside Park for about +three miles, making a magnificent drive, along which many handsome +residences are being constructed. Near its northern end is the tomb of +General Grant, a white granite mausoleum ninety feet square and +surmounted by a cupola, which was finished in 1897 and cost $600,000. +The interior arrangement is like Napoleon's tomb in Paris, the body, +contained in a red porphyry sarcophagus, being placed in an open crypt +below the centre of the dome. Beyond Central Park, the broad public +roads known as the Boulevards traverse the island northward, and many +elaborate structures are being erected along them. + + +SPUYTEN DUYVEL AND CROTON. + +The Spuyten Duyvel Creek, the strait connecting the Harlem with the +Hudson, winds through a deeply-cut gorge around the northern end of +Manhattan and makes it an island. Knickerbocker, the veracious +historian of early Dutch New York, tells how it got its name. Old +Governor Stuyvesant, he says, had a wonderful trumpeter, Anthony von +Corlaer, who persisted in swimming across during a violent storm, and +lost his life. Thus of it, Knickerbocker writes: "The wind was high, +the elements were in an uproar, and no Charon could be found to ferry +the adventurous sounder of brass across the water. For a short +time he vapored like an impatient ghost upon the brink, and then, +bethinking himself of the urgency of his errand (to arouse the people +to arms), he took a hearty embrace of his stone bottle, swore most +valorously that he would swim across in spite of the devil--_en spyt +den duyvel_--and daringly plunged into the stream. Luckless Anthony! +Scarcely had he buffeted half-way over when he was observed to +struggle violently, as if battling with the spirit of the waters. +Instinctively he put his trumpet to his mouth, and giving a vehement +blast, sank forever to the bottom. The clangor of his trumpet, like +that of the ivory horn of the renowned Paladin Orlando, when expiring +on the glorious field of Roncesvalles, rang far and wide through the +country, alarming the neighbors around, who hurried in amazement to +the spot. There, an old Dutch burgher, famed for his veracity, and who +had been a witness to the fact, related to them the melancholy affair, +with the fearful addition (to which I am slow in giving belief) that +he saw the Duyvel, in the shape of a huge moss-bunker (a species of +inferior fish), seize the sturdy Anthony by the leg and drag him +beneath the waves. Certain it is, the place, with the adjoining +promontory which projects into the Hudson, has been called _Spyt den +Duyvel_ ever since." + + [Illustration: _Grant's Tomb, New York_] + +The narrow and elevated northern prolongation of Manhattan is the +picturesque district of Washington Heights. Here is the attractive +Trinity Church Cemetery, laid out on the battlefield of Harlem +Heights, a hotly contested Revolutionary conflict, fought on September +16, 1776, and some distance northward, on the highest point of the +island, elevated two hundred and sixty feet above the Hudson River, +there are still seen the remains of Fort Washington, which was bravely +but unsuccessfully defended against British attacks in the following +November, and had to be abandoned. Across the Harlem River is the +ancient suburb of Morrisania. Here was Washington's headquarters +during those conflicts, and here lived Lewis Morris, one of the +signers of the Declaration of Independence, and his half-brother, +Gouverneur Morris, a noted New York statesman, who bore a striking +resemblance to General Washington. The historic old house at +Morrisania was afterwards acquired by Madame Jumel, and when Aaron +Burr, in his old age and poverty, met this wealthy widow, he courted +and married her in 1833, he being then seventy-eight years old. Here +they lived for a brief period "during the days of his octogenarian +love," as the annalist has it, but soon quarrelled and separated. The +house is now preserved as a Revolutionary Museum. Not far away was the +Grange, the home of Alexander Hamilton, who planted there a group of +thirteen trees named after the thirteen original States of the Union, +in which all flourished, as we are credibly informed, excepting the +"South Carolina tree," which persisted in growing up very crooked. +Upon the top of Washington Heights and the precipitous slopes of the +Spuyten Duyvel and Harlem there are many fine villas, and down in the +bottom of the gorge the New York Central Railroad seeks its route out +to the Hudson River bank. The historic old King's Bridge spans the +Harlem, deep down in the valley, while all along the river is the fine +new drive, the "Speedway," upon which the New Yorkers display the +qualities of their fastest horses. + +The splendid Washington Bridge, built of steel at a cost of +$2,700,000, carries one of the Boulevards across the Harlem at a +height of one hundred and fifty feet; but the great landmark is the +High Bridge which brings the Croton Aqueduct over, its tall granite +piers and graceful arches displaying singular beauty from every point +of view. This aqueduct is forty miles long, and has been well +described as "a structure worthy of the Roman Empire." It originally +cost $12,500,000, subsequent improvements absorbing millions more. The +Croton River, coming down through Westchester County, falls into the +Hudson about twenty-five miles above the city, and its headwaters are +dammed, making artificial lakes gathering the supply. The Aqueduct was +finished in 1842, and, going through tunnels and rock-cuttings, has a +cross-section of about fifty-four feet and an inclination of one foot +to the mile, or thirty-three feet in the distance to the Harlem River. +About one hundred and fifteen millions of gallons go through it daily, +moving at the rate of a mile and a half per hour. Three huge pipes +carry the water across the High Bridge at one hundred and sixteen feet +elevation. There are eight arches in the river crossing, their +openings being eighty feet wide and one hundred feet high, to allow +the passage of vessels, and seven narrower arches of fifty feet span +on the banks. At the New York end of this picturesque bridge is the +tall tower, rising two hundred and sixty-five feet, which has water +pumped into its surmounting tank to supply the highest parts of the +island. New York, however, long since outgrew the capacity of this +famous aqueduct, so that a new one of much greater size was tunnelled +underground and finished in 1890, which is fourteen feet high, and +bored at an average depth of one hundred and fifty feet below the +surface, and is carried three hundred feet under the Harlem River bed, +its estimated daily capacity being three hundred millions of gallons. +The receiving reservoirs in Central Park hold over a thousand millions +of gallons. An imposing gate-house at One Hundred and Thirty-fifth +Street admits this supply into the northern city mains. The great +Quaker Bridge dam across the Croton is two hundred and seventy-seven +feet high and thirteen hundred and fifty feet long, making the most +enormous artificial reservoir in the world, holding forty thousand +millions of gallons. It has cost New York over $70,000,000 to thus +insure an ample water supply, free of all risk from drought. + + +THE BRONX AND THE NEW PARKS. + +Across Harlem River, to the north and east, is the attractive region +of the Bronx, much of the surface being yet in its primitive condition +as maintained in the old estates that have come down from the early +days of the Knickerbockers. Here are being laid out several new and +large parks. Van Cortlandt Park, near the Hudson, about four miles +north of the High Bridge, covers about eleven hundred acres, Pelham +Bay Park, on the shore of Long Island Sound, nine miles from the +Harlem, seventeen hundred and fifty acres, and the Bronx Park, between +them, six hundred and fifty acres. These three great pleasure-grounds +are being gradually developed, and the plan is to connect them with +magnificent tree-lined avenues six hundred feet wide. The western +verge of Van Cortlandt Park finely overlooks the Hudson, and it is +intended largely for military uses, with parade-grounds and +rifle-ranges. It has an attractive lake; and the quaint old mansion +where lived the Van Cortlandts, whose successive generations owned the +estate, built in 1748, is preserved as a Museum of Colonial Relics. To +the eastward, a shallow and almost aimless little stream, flowing +from above White Plains down to Long Island Sound, with many pools +and rapids, and occasionally broadening into mirror-like lakes, was +long the eastern boundary of New York City. This is the Bronx River, +coming through a green, well-watered and shaded valley, a half to +three-quarters of a mile wide, and a considerable part of this +bewitching region makes the Bronx Park, + + "Where gentle Bronx, clear, winding, flows + The shadowy banks between; + Where blossomed bell or wilding rose + Adorns the brightest green." + +The wildness and seclusion of this place, its natural charms and +romantic character, make one almost believe that New York cannot +possibly be near such an attractive wilderness. Nature seems to have +especially designed it for a park, and art cannot improve it. Huge +rocks and giant trees flourish here, among them the Delancey pine, one +hundred and fifty feet high and straight as an arrow, standing in a +prominent position and having a huge branch reaching upward upon one +side, with interlacing boughs, making it appear not unlike a gigantic +harp. The Delanceys once owned the place. A "balanced boulder" is +nearby, weighing hundreds of tons, yet very easily rocked. The Bronx +in one portion flows deep down between high, rocky walls, where the +thin-armed white birches wave their slender limbs a hundred feet above +the water. Here was an early home of the Lorillards, now a Museum and +large Botanical Garden. Here are also the grounds of the New York +Zoological Society, the animals roaming in extensive enclosures, where +they are placed, as far as possible, in their native surroundings. + +The peninsula of Throgg's Neck is the northern headland at the +entrance of East River into Long Island Sound. Beyond this, the waters +deeply indent the New York shore, and there is thrust out the green +peninsula of Pelham Neck. This is some distance beyond the Bronx. +Eastchester Bay is on the southern side of the neck; Pelham Bay beyond +it; and immediately in front City Island, reached by a long +drawbridge. To the north is Hunter's Island, connected by another +bridge. Hunter's Island and more than two square miles of the hills +and meadows adjacent on the mainland make the new park of Pelham Bay. +Various old mansions scattered over this domain were the homes of the +Hunters, Lorillards and other prominent families. The island belonged +to many generations of Hunters, and near the bridge a large gateway +has "Hunter's Island" carved on one of the marble gate-posts. Years +ago another wealthy man bought the island, and these words offending +him, he brought a marble-mason out from New York, who chiselled them +off, and carved instead the words "Higgins's Island." But after +Higgins had his day and was gathered unto his fathers, the next owner, +revering rather the antiquity of the place, had "Higgins" eliminated +and "Hunter's Island" restored, though the gate-post became quite thin +under this treatment. On the western edge of Pelham Bay Park is +Hutchinson's River, flowing down into Eastchester Bay, and recalling +the days of the Salem witchcraft. Poor Anne Hutchinson fled here to +escape burning as a witch, and on City Island built a hut on a little +cape still called Anne Hook. She lived there peacefully for a year, +harming nobody and declining every invitation to stir from her humble +abode. One day a young girl went to visit Anne, but found the hut in +ashes, and before the door lay the poor woman, where she had been +tomahawked and scalped by the Indians. No one has built a house on +Anne Hook since, and many have been the tales told of ghostly Indian +revels on bleak and rainy nights around the site of the burning hut. +On the mainland were Indian villages, and here have been found relics, +and in 1899 there was exhumed the skeleton of an Indian warrior. + + +EAST RIVER AND HELL GATE. + +The Harlem River, flowing into the East River, divides Manhattan from +Ward's Island, and this, with Randall's Island to the north and +Blackwell's Island to the south, forms the group of "East River +Islands" upon which are the penal and charitable institutions of the +great city. The chief of these are on Blackwell's Island, a long, +narrow strip stretching nearly two miles in the centre of East River, +and barely more than two hundred yards wide. It covers one hundred and +twenty acres, and has the penitentiary, almshouses, workhouses and +hospitals, the spacious buildings being of granite quarried there by +the convicts. Over on the New York City shore is the extensive +Bellevue Hospital. In cases of vagrancy and minor crimes, the offender +is said to be "sent up to the Island." Ward's Island has a surface of +two hundred acres, and here are the Lunatic Asylum and Emigrant +Hospital. Randall's Island has the institutions for children and +idiots, while upon Hart's Island, out in Long Island Sound, are +industrial schools and the pauper cemetery. The buildings are all upon +a most elaborate scale, and it costs over $2,000,000 for their annual +maintenance. A steamboat ride along East River, with these extensive +establishments and their well-kept grounds passing in review, is a +most interesting suburban excursion. + +The Long Island shore to the southward of Ward's Island is thrust out +in a way that curves and contracts the East River passage, which, +turning eastward just below where the Harlem River comes in, goes +through the famous Hell Gate to reach the Sound. Formerly, the swift +tidal currents boiled and eddied through this dangerous pass, +Hallett's Point, jutting out from Long Island, narrowing the channel, +and Pot Rock, Flood Rock, the Gridiron and other reefs making +navigation perilous. Many were the wrecks here, and frequent +ineffective efforts were made to improve the passage. The Government +finally undertook the work in 1866 under a comprehensive plan +projected by General Newton. His first task was the removal of the +Hallett's Point reef, a mass of rock projecting three hundred feet +into the stream and throwing the whole tidal current coming in from +the Sound against the great opposing rock called the Gridiron. He +first sunk a shaft upon the Point and excavated the inland side so +that it made a perpendicular wall which was curved around, and +designed for the future edge of the river. From the shaft, tunnels +were bored into the reef under the river in radiating directions, +being connected by concentric galleries. The design was to remove as +much rock as possible without letting the water in from overhead, and +then to blow the rocky roof and supporting columns into fragments and +remove them at leisure. This work began in 1869, the shaft being sunk +thirty-two feet below mean low water and the tunnels drilled out, +inclining downward under the river. In 1876 the task was finished, and +thousands of separate dynamite blasts had been placed in the roof and +supporting columns, ready for the explosion on Sunday, September 24th. +This being the greatest artificial explosion ever attempted, there was +much trepidation shown in New York for fear of the shock, while +everywhere the keenest interest was taken in the result. The blast was +entirely successful, being discharged by General Newton's little +child, who touched the electric key. The calculation had been so +accurately made that the great reef was pulverized, and the fragments +fell into the spaces excavated beneath without causing more than a +slight tremor in the adjacent region. By a similar system and more +extensive work, Flood Rock was afterwards removed from mid-channel, +the second great blast reducing it to fragments, being discharged in +October, 1885. The terrors of Hell Gate are gone, though the tide +still flows swiftly through the strait. + + +THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE. + +The growth of population on Long Island has caused various new bridges +and tunnels to be projected for crossing East River. One new bridge is +to cross at Blackwell's Island, with a pier on the island. Another now +nearly completed, and estimated to cost $10,000,000, crosses from +Grand Street to Broadway in Brooklyn. The Long Island Railroad is +arranging to bore a tunnel under East River, to be operated by +electricity, to bring its trains into New York. The East River being +the locality for most of the foreign shipping, the bridges are at high +elevations, the great Brooklyn Bridge, which crosses from City Hall +Park, being one hundred and thirty-five feet above the water. Its +massive piers are among the tallest structures about New York, rising +two hundred and sixty-eight feet. This, the largest suspension bridge +in the world, was begun in 1870 and opened for traffic in 1885. The +piers stand upon caissons sunk into the rocky bed of the river, which +is forty-five feet below the surface on the Brooklyn side and ninety +feet below on the New York side. Their towers carry four sixteen-inch +wire cables that sustain the bridge, which is built eighty-five feet +wide, giving ample accommodation for two railways, two wagon roads +also carrying electric cars, and a wide raised footway in the centre. +The bridge cost nearly $15,000,000, the distance between the piers is +about sixteen hundred feet, and its entire length between the +anchorages of the cables is three thousand four hundred and +seventy-five feet. The cable anchorages are enormous masses, each +containing about thirty-five thousand cubic yards of solid masonry. +The whole length of the bridge and its elaborate approaches is +considerably over a mile. Its projector was John A. Roebling, who died +during the early work, and its builder, his son Washington Roebling, +who caught the dreaded "caisson disease" while superintending labor +under water, and for years afterward an invalid, watched the progress +of the later work from his chamber window on Brooklyn Heights nearby. +The bridge has carried an enormous traffic, taxing its capacity to the +utmost, and its passengers average over a million a week. The view +from its raised footway is one of the most superb sights of New York, +disclosing both cities, and the extensive wharves and commerce of +East River, the Navy Yard just above, and for miles over the +surrounding region and down through the harbor to the distant blue +hills of Staten Island. + + +THE CITY OF CHURCHES. + +The Borough of Brooklyn, which has grown from the overflow of New +York, whose people are said to go over there "chiefly to sleep or be +buried," is popularly known as the "City of Churches." A large portion +of the working population of the metropolis, as well as the merchants +and business men, make it their home and dormitory, while there are +beautiful cemeteries in the suburbs peopled largely by dead New +Yorkers. Greenwood, overlooking New York harbor from Gowanus Heights +in South Brooklyn, is regarded as one of the finest American +cemeteries. In no other city can be found such an aggregation of +churches, developed in a past generation, and under the ministry of a +regiment of distinguished clergymen, then led by Beecher and Storrs, +so that the popular title was well bestowed. Brooklyn is entirely the +growth of the nineteenth century, a growth due to the inability of New +York to spread, excepting far northward. It stretches several miles +along East River and three or four miles inland, and grows rapidly. +When the century began, however, it was hard work to find three +thousand people there, and, strangely enough, they had to cross over +to New York to go to church. Just about the time old Peter Minuit was +buying Manhattan from the Indians, a band of Walloons first settled in +Brooklyn. Their descendants drove cows across East River to Governor's +Island to graze, the Buttermilk Channel between them being then +shallow enough for fording, though it is now scoured out deep enough +to float the largest vessels, the docks located where the cows then +crossed now accommodating an enormous commerce. At first a little +ferry from Fulton Street to Peck Slip, New York, accommodated the +straggling village, and it has grown into more than a dozen steam +ferries of the largest capacity, which (besides the bridge) will carry +daily a half-million people across at one cent apiece, this fleet of +packet-boats being the greatest transporters of humanity in the world. + +The Indians called the region around Wallabout Bay, and Gowanus +Mercychawick, meaning "the sandy place." When the Walloons came along, +they began settling on the shores of the bay, which they called +Waal-bogt, afterwards gradually changed to its present name of +Wallabout. In 1646 the town was organized by Governor Kieft as +Breuckelen, he appointing Jan Eversen Bout and Huyck Aertsen as +"schepens" or superintendents to preserve the peace and regulate the +community. During the Revolution the British prison-ships were moored +in the Wallabout, and it is estimated that eleven thousand five +hundred Americans, chiefly seamen, died upon them, the shores of the +bay being full of dead men's bones, which the tides for many years +washed out from the sand. In 1808 these bones were finally collected +and put in a vault near the Navy Yard, which had been established on +the bay. This is the chief naval station of the United States, +covering about eighty-eight acres, including all the available space. +There is attached a large naval hospital, while between the two is the +immense Wallabout Market, covering forty-five acres, the largest in +Brooklyn, its buildings being brick structures in the old Dutch style. + +Fulton Street is the chief highway of Brooklyn, beginning almost under +the shadow of the great Bridge. It is a broad and attractive street, +stretching six miles to the eastern edge of the city, and about one +mile from the river it passes the various city buildings, including +the Post-office, Court-house and Borough Hall, all handsome +structures. In front of the Borough Hall is a fine statue of +Brooklyn's most famous clergyman, Henry Ward Beecher. From Fulton +Street radiate several of the highways leading into the fashionable +residential quarter,--Brooklyn or Columbia Heights,--overlooking East +River, where the tree-bordered streets are lined with costly and +attractive dwellings. Here in Orange Street, in a very quiet spot, is +Brooklyn's most noted edifice, a plain, wide, unornamented brick +building, with the inscription, "Plymouth Church, 1849." Here preached +for nearly forty years, until he died in 1887, Beecher, the great +Puritan, whose family was so noted. His father, Lyman Beecher, like +the son, fought slavery and intemperance in Boston, Litchfield and +Cincinnati, and was an impressive pulpit orator. The old man was +eccentric, however, and after being wrought up by the excitement of +preaching, is said to have gone home and let himself down by playing +on the fiddle and dancing a double-shuffle in the parlor. He had +thirteen children, nearly all famous, and has been described as "the +father of more brains than any other man in America." Four sons were +clergymen and two daughters noted authoresses. Henry Ward, who ruled +Brooklyn, and Harriet, who wrote _Uncle Tom's Cabin_, were among the +great leaders of the anti-slavery movement. + +Clinton Street leaves Fulton a little beyond Orange, and passes +southward through Brooklyn Heights, being the chief street of the +fashionable district. Embowered in trees, handsome churches and +residences border it, and Pierrepont, Remsen, Montague and other noted +streets extend at right angles from it to the edge of the bluff, where +the Heights fall sharply off to the river. Here, at seventy feet +elevation, and overlooking the lower level of buildings and piers at +the water's edge, are the terraces where the finest residences are +located, having a magnificent outlook upon the harbor and New York +City beyond. The ships land their cargoes within almost a stone's +throw of the palaces. In this district there are several large +apartment-houses and various clubs, a statue of Alexander Hamilton +adorning the front of the Hamilton Club at Remsen and Clinton Streets. +Upon Remsen Street is another noted building, the Congregational +"Church of the Pilgrims," a spacious graystone edifice with towers, +its most prominent tower and spire being a commanding landmark for +vessels sailing up New York Bay. There is let into the outer wall of +this church, about six feet above the pavement, a small piece of the +original "Plymouth Rock" whereon the Pilgrims in 1620 landed in +Massachusetts Bay--a dark, rough-hewn fragment, projecting with +irregular surface a few inches from the wall. As an author, lecturer +and preacher, the veteran pastor for over a half-century, Dr. Richard +Salter Storrs, acquired wide renown. Upon Clinton Street is the +elegant Pointed Gothic brownstone St. Ann's Episcopal Church, famous +for its choir, and on Montague Street the Holy Trinity Church, its +spire rising two hundred and seventy-five feet. But almost everywhere +are churches, there being about five hundred in Brooklyn. The noted +Pratt Institute is one of the best known charities of the city, +founded and endowed by Charles Pratt, an oil prince, as a technical +school, its spacious and well-equipped buildings caring for +thirty-four hundred students. The object of this noble institution is +"to promote manual and industrial education, and to inculcate habits +of industry and thrift." + + +GREENWOOD CEMETERY AND PROSPECT PARK. + +A border of tombs almost surrounds Brooklyn, for in the suburbs are +the great cemeteries which are the burial-places of both cities. In +lovely situations upon the surrounding hills are Greenwood, Cypress +Hills, Evergreen, Holy Cross, Calvary, Mount Olivet, The Citizens' +Union, Washington and other cemeteries, occupying many hundreds of +acres. Of these, the noted Greenwood is the chief, covering some four +hundred acres on Gowanus Heights, south of the city. This is a high +ridge dividing Brooklyn from the lowlands on the south side of Long +Island, and it has elevations giving charming views. The route to it +crosses various railroads leading to Coney Island, which is the +ultimate objective point of most Brooklyn lines of transit. A neat +lawn-bordered road leads up to the magnificent cemetery entrance on +Fifth Avenue, an elaborate and much ornamental brownstone structure +rising into a central pinnacle over a hundred feet high. This entrance +covers two fine gateways, with representations of Gospel scenes, the +principal being the Raising of Lazarus and the Resurrection. The +grounds display great beauty, the ridgy, rounded hills spreading in +all directions, the surface being an alternation of hills and vales, +vaults terracing the hillsides, with elaborate mausoleums above and +frequent little lakes nestling in the pleasant valleys. Vast sums have +been expended on some of the grander tombs, which are upon a scale of +great magnificence. The attractive rural names of the walks and +avenues, the delicious flowers and foliage, the balmy air, the lakes, +valleys and points of beautiful outlook giving grand views over New +York Bay and the surrounding country, make Greenwood a park as well as +a cemetery, and it is generally admitted to be without a peer. Many +costly pantheons and chapels cover the remains of well-known people, +and one mausoleum is a large marble church. A three-sided monument of +peculiar construction standing on a knoll marks the resting-place of +Samuel F. B. Morse, the telegrapher. Horace Greeley's tomb has his +bust in bronze on a pedestal. A colossal statue surmounts the grave of +the great De Witt Clinton, the Governor of New York who built the Erie +Canal and thus secured the commercial supremacy of the city. The +romantic career of Lola Montez ended in Greenwood. Commodore Garrison, +who was at one time Vanderbilt's rival in steamship management, is +interred in a mosque. The tomb of the Steinways is a large granite +building. A magnificent marble canopy crowns the Scribner tomb, having +beneath it an angel of mercy. There is an appropriate monument to +Roger Williams. Here are also buried Elias Howe, the inventor of the +sewing-machine, Peter Cooper, Henry Ward Beecher, James Gordon +Bennett, Henry George and others of fame. The Firemen, the Pilots and +the New York Volunteers all have grand monuments, the statue sentinels +of the latter overlooking the bay. Among these magnificent sepulchres, +probably the most magnificent is that of Charlotte Canda, an heiress, +who died in early youth, her fortune being expended upon her tomb. + +There is a high lookout upon the eastern border of this attractive +place, where the flat land at the base of the ridge spreads for miles +away to the sea. The Coney Island hotels, by the ocean side, are dim +in the distance, and far over the water the Navesink Highlands close +the view beyond Sandy Hook. The many railroads leading to Coney Island +can be traced out, as on a map, across the level land. Over on the +western side of the cemetery is another lookout, having a broad view +of Brooklyn and the harbor, extending to the hills of Staten Island +and the distant Jersey lowlands beyond. This is the verge of Gowanus +Heights, with the busy commerce of the port spread at its base. It is +this magnificent scene which the marble sentinels overlook who are +guarding the Volunteers' Monument erected by the city of New York. + +Between Greenwood Cemetery and Prospect Park there are various +railways, all going to Coney Island, and also the Ocean Parkway, +leading thither, a splendid boulevard, two hundred feet wide, and +planted with six rows of trees, being flanked on either side by a +broad cycle-path. It is laid in a straight line from the southwestern +corner of the Park for three miles to the great seaside resort. +Prospect Park covers nearly a square mile on an elevated ridge on the +edge of Brooklyn, and it has great natural attractions which did not +need much change to improve the landscape, while the fine old trees +that have been there for centuries are in magnificent maturity. Its +woods and meadows, winding roads, lakes and views, combine many +charms. On Lookout Hill, rising two hundred feet, the most commanding +point, with a view almost entirely around the compass, there is a +monument on the slope in memory of the Maryland troops who fell in the +Revolutionary battle of Long Island, fought in August, 1776, on these +heights. The Park is ornamented with several statues, including one of +Abraham Lincoln, and there is a bust of John Howard Payne, the author +of _Home, Sweet Home_. It has an extensive lake, a deer preserve, +children's playgrounds, and a concert grove and promenade. The main +entrance is a fine elliptical plaza with a splendid fountain, and +adorned by a Memorial Arch to the Soldiers and Sailors of the Civil +War, and a statue of James Stranahan, a venerable citizen of Brooklyn, +foremost in all its good works, who died in 1898. The Brooklyn +Institute, an academy of art and science with a large membership, has +a large building in the Park. + + +CONEY ISLAND. + +Pretty much all routes through Brooklyn, as already indicated, lead to +Coney Island, the barren strip of white sand, clinging to the southern +edge of Long Island, about ten miles from New York, which is the +objective point of the populace when in sweltering summer weather they +crave a breath of sea air. The antiquarians of the island insist that +it was the earliest portion of these adjacent coasts discovered, and +tell how Verrazani came along about 1529 and found this sand-strip, +and how Hudson, nearly a century later, held conferences with the +Indians on the island. But however that may be, its wonderful +development as a summer resort has only come since the Civil War. It +has a hard and gently-sloping beach facing the Atlantic, and can be so +easily and cheaply reached, by so many routes on land and water, that +it is no wonder, on hot afternoons and holidays, the people of New +York and Brooklyn go down there by the hundreds of thousands. Coney +Island is about five miles long, and from a quarter-mile to a mile in +width, being separated from the adjacent low-lying mainland only by a +little crooked creek and some lagoons. It has two bays deeply indented +behind it, Gravesend Bay on the west and Sheepshead Bay on the east. +The name is derived from Cooney Island, meaning the "Rabbit Island," +rabbits having been the chief inhabitants in earlier days. The Coney +Island season of about a hundred days, from June until September, is +an almost uninterrupted festival, and nothing can exceed the jollity +on these beaches, when a hot summer sun drives the people down to the +shore to seek relief and have a good time. They spread over the miles +of sand-strip, with scores of bands of music of varying merit in full +blast, minstrel shows, miniature theatres, Punch and Judy, +merry-go-rounds and carrousels, big snakes, fat women, giant, dwarf, +midget and pugilistic exhibitions, shooting-galleries, concerts, +circuses, fortune-tellers, swings, toboggan slides, scenic railways, +and myriads of other attractions; lakes of beer on tap, with ample +liquids of greater strength; and everywhere a good-humoured crowd, +sight-seeing and enjoying themselves, eating, drinking, and very +numerously consuming the great Coney Island delicacy, "clam-chowder." +To the clam, which is universal and popular, the visitors pay special +tribute. This famous bivalve is the _Mya Arenaria_ of the New England +coast, said to have been for years the chief food of the Pilgrim +fathers. Being found in abundance in all the neighboring waters, it is +served in every style, according to taste. As the Coney Island "Song +of the Clam" has it: + + "Who better than I? in chowder or pie, + Baked, roasted, raw or fried? + I hold the key to society, + And am always welcome inside." + +The long and narrow Coney Island sand-strip may be divided into four +distinctive sections--a succession of villages chiefly composed of +restaurants, lodging-houses and hotels, built along the edge of the +beach, and usually on a single road behind it. In the past generation +the rougher classes best knew its western end or Norton's Point, a +resort of long standing. The middle of the island is a locality of +higher grade--West Brighton Beach. Here great iron piers project into +the ocean, being availed of for steamboat landings, restaurants and +amusement places, while beneath are bathing establishments. +Electricity and fireworks are used extensively to add to the +attractions, and there is also a tall Observatory. The broad Ocean +Parkway, coming down from Prospect Park and Brooklyn, terminates at +West Brighton Beach. East of this is a partially vacant, semi-marshy +space, beyond which is Brighton Beach, there being a roadway and +elevated railroad connecting them. Brighton is the third section, and +about a half-mile farther east is the fourth and most exclusive +section--Manhattan Beach. Here are the more elaborate and costly Coney +Island hotels. In all this district the power of the ocean is shown in +the effect of great storms, which wash away roads, railways and +buildings, and shift enormous amounts of the sands from one locality, +piling them up in front of another. Huge hotels have had to be moved, +in some cases bodily, a thousand feet back inland from the ocean +front, to save them, and immense bulkheads constructed for protection; +but sometimes the waves play havoc with these. Very much of the money +spent by the visitors has to be devoted to saving the place and +preventing the wreck of the great buildings. But this does not worry +the visitors so much as it does the landlords. On a hot day the vast +crowds arriving on the trains are poured into the hotels, and swarm +out upon the grounds fronting them, where the bands play. Here the +orchestras give concerts to enormous audiences. The piazzas are filled +with supper-parties, the music amphitheatres are crowded, and +thousands saunter over the lawns. As evening advances, the blaze of +electric illumination and brilliancy of fireworks are added, and the +music, bustling crowds and general hilarity give the air of a splendid +festival. The bathing establishments are crowded, and many go into the +surf under the brilliant illumination. Not a tree will grow, so that +the view over the sea is unobstructed, and out in front is the pathway +of ocean commerce into New York harbor, with the twinkling, guiding +lights of Sandy Hook and its attendant lightships beyond. What a +guardian to the mariner is the lighthouse: + + "'Tis like a patient, faithful soul + That, having reached its saintly goal, + And seeing others far astray + In storms of darkness and dismay, + Shines out o'er life's tempestuous sea, + A beacon to some sheltered lee,-- + The haven of eternity." + +The tall Observatory, on its airy steel framework, rises three hundred +feet to overlook the wonderful scene. When the top is reached, the +first impression made is by the dissonant clangor of the many bands of +music below, heard with singular clearness and much more intensity of +sound than on the ground. This discord ascends from all sorts of +structures, generally having flat pitch-and-gravel roofs, forming a +variegated carpet far below. Coney Island stretches along the ocean's +edge, with the lines of foaming surf slowly rolling in. To the +eastward, at Brighton and Manhattan Beaches, it bends backward like a +bow, with semicircular indentations where the sea has made its +inroads. To the westward, the curve of the beach is reversed, and the +extreme point of the island ends in a knob having a distinctive hook +bent back on the northern side. Behind the long and narrow strip of +sand there are patches of grass, and much marsh and meadow, spreading +away to the northward, and meandering through the marsh can be traced +the crooked little tidal creek and series of lagoons separating Coney +from the mainland. Far away northward runs the broad tree-bordered +Ocean Parkway, with the hills of Prospect Park and the tombs and +foliage of Greenwood Cemetery hiding Brooklyn, and closing the view at +the distant horizon. Various railways stretch in the same direction, +some crossing the bogs on extended trestle-bridges. Many carriages are +moving and thousands of people walking about in the streets and open +spaces beneath us, while upon the ocean side the piers extend out in +front, with their steamboats sailing to or from the Narrows to the +northward, around the knob and hook at Norton's Point. Far south over +the water are the distant Navesink Highlands behind Sandy Hook and the +low adjacent New Jersey Coast, gradually blending into the Staten +Island hills to the westward. Around from the south to the east is the +broad and limitless expanse of ocean, where, in the words of Heinrich +Heine: + + "The cloudlets are lazily sailing + O'er the blue Atlantic sea." + +Far to the eastward, seen across the broad Jamaica Bay, are more low +sandy beaches, each with its popular resort, though all pale before +the crowning glories of Coney Island. There is Rockaway, with its iron +pier and railway connecting with the mainland to the northeast, also +Arverne and Edgemere, the distant cottage-studded Long Beach, and the +hazy sand-beaches of Far Rockaway. And as we gaze over this wondrous +scene down by the water side, the freshening wind gives a pleasant +foretaste of old ocean, and recalls the invocation of Barry Cornwall: + + "The sea! the sea! the open sea! + The blue, the fresh, the ever free! + Without a mark, without a bound, + It runneth the earth's wide regions round. + + "I'm on the sea! I'm on the sea! + I am where I would ever be, + With the blue above, and the blue below, + And silence wheresoe'er I go. + + "I never was on the dull tame shore, + But I loved the great sea more and more." + + + + +THE ENVIRONMENT OF LONG ISLAND SOUND. + + + + +IX. + +THE ENVIRONMENT OF LONG ISLAND SOUND. + + The Isle of Nassau -- Captain Adraien Blok -- Roodt Eylandt -- + Block Island -- Great South Bay -- Great South Beach -- Jamaica + Bay -- Hempstead Bay -- Fire Island and its Lighthouse -- + Shinnecock -- Quogue-East Hampton -- Lyman Beecher -- John + Howard Payne -- Garden City -- Jericho -- Elias Hicks -- + Flushing Bay -- Throgg's Neck -- Willett's Point -- Little Neck + Bay -- Great Neck -- Sands Point -- Harbor Hill -- William + Cullen Bryant -- Oyster Bay -- Lloyds' Neck -- Nathan Hale -- + Ronkonkoma Lake -- The Wampum Makers -- Mamaroneck -- Byram + River -- The Wooden-Nutmeg State -- Brother Jonathan -- + Greenwich -- Old Put's Hill -- Stamford -- Colonel Abraham + Davenport -- The Dark Day -- Norwalk -- Sasco Swamp -- + Fairfield -- Pequannock River -- Bridgeport -- Phineas T. + Barnum -- Joyce Heth -- General Tom Thumb -- Jenny Lind -- Old + Stratford -- Milford -- New Haven -- Quinnepiack -- John + Davenport -- Yale College -- Killingworth -- Elihu Yale -- + Steamboat Fulton -- East and West Rocks -- The Regicides -- + Wallingford -- James Hillhouse -- Savin Rock -- Saybrook Point + -- Guilford -- Connecticut River -- The Sachem's Head -- + Thimble Islands -- Saybrook Platform -- Old Saybrook -- Thames + River -- New London -- Groton -- Silas Deane -- Fort Hill -- + Pequot Hill -- Defeat of the Pequots -- Pawcatuck -- Stonington + -- Watch Hill Point -- Westerly -- Orient Point -- Plum Island + -- Plum Gut -- Shelter Island -- The Gull Islands -- The Horse + Race -- Fisher's Island -- Gardiner's Island -- Lyon Gardiner + -- Captain Kidd and his Buried Treasures -- Sag Harbor -- + Montauk Indians -- Money Pond -- Fort Pond Bay -- Montauk Point + and its Lighthouse -- Ultima Thule -- Isle of Manisees -- Block + Islanders -- Whittier -- Palatine Wreck. + + +THE ISLE OF NASSAU. + +The first white man who sailed upon Long Island Sound was the bluff +old Dutch navigator, Captain Adraien Blok. Desirous of adventure and +spoil, he built upon the shore of the Battery, in 1614, the first ship +ever constructed at New York, a blunt-pointed Dutch sloop-yacht of +sixteen tons, which he named the "Onrest." The four little huts he had +upon the shore to house his builders and crew were among the first +structures of the early Manhattan colony. Fitting her out, he braved +the terrors of the Hell Gate passage and started on a voyage of +discovery on Long Island Sound, which he explored throughout. He found +the mouth of the principal river of New England, the Connecticut, and +coasting around Point Judith, entered Narragansett Bay, and cast +anchor before an island with such conspicuously red-clay shores that +he called it Roodt Eylandt, or the Red Island, on which Newport now +stands. Then he ventured out to sea and found the bluff shores of +Block Island, to which he gave his own name. Sated with exploration +and loaded with spoil exchanged with the Indians, he then returned to +New York and told of his wonderful adventures. His was the first +vessel, manned by white men, known to have sailed upon the +"Mediterranean of America," as Long Island Sound is popularly called. +This grand inland sea is generally from twenty to thirty miles wide, +and is enclosed by Long Island, the ancient Isle of Nassau of the +Dutch, stretching for one hundred and thirty miles eastward from New +York harbor, and being likened to a fish lying upon the water. It has +a generally bluff northern shore along the Sound, and the southern +coast, which is low and level almost to the eastern extremity, lies +nearly due east and west, the island finally breaking into a chain of +narrow peninsulas and islands facing the rising sun. The southern +border is a continuous line of broad lagoons, separated from the +Atlantic by long and narrow sand-bars. The chief lagoon is the Great +South Bay, eighty miles long, fronted by the curious formation of the +Great South Beach, stretching its entire length, and from one to five +miles wide. Upon the outer beaches, and within the lagoons, are a +succession of noted seashore resorts. Eastward, beyond Jamaica Bay and +Rockaway, is Long Beach, and behind it Hempstead Bay. Then come Jones' +Beach and Oak Island, with Massapequa, Amityville and Lindenhurst +behind them. Then we are at Babylon and Bayshore, with the Great South +Bay fronted by Fire Island, and beyond it the long sand-strip of the +Great South Beach. The famous lighthouse of Fire Island, the guiding +beacon to New York, one hundred and sixty-eight feet high, is flanked +by summer hotels, and its flashing electric light of twenty-three +million candlepower is the most powerful on the Atlantic Coast. The +Great South Bay spreads far eastward past Patchogue to Moriches, and +then comes Quogue and the Hamptons, where the level land rises into +the Shinnecock hills. At the eastern extremity are Amagansett and +Montauk. It is a long coast, fringed with lights to point the +mariner's way into New York harbor. + +They tell us that when the "Onrest" came into the Sound there were +thirteen tribes of Indians on Long Island, and that it was the mint +for the aborigines, these tribes being the great makers of wampum, the +Indian money, for which its beaches and bays furnished the materials. +The Montauks, on the eastern end, were the most formidable, and were +usually carrying on wars with the Pequots, across the Sound in New +England. Out on Shinnecock Neck is the reservation where live the +small remnant of the Shinnecock tribe, there being barely a hundred of +them, each family in a little house on a little farm it tills. Around +Jamaica Bay once lived the Jameko tribe, all now disappeared. At +quaintly named Quogue, Daniel Webster used to go fishing and bathing. +The hill tops of the Hamptons have perched upon them the picturesque +old Dutch windmills which are so attractive to the artists, and at +East Hampton still stands the venerable gabled house where lived Lyman +Beecher in his earlier ministry, and where his elder children, +Catharine and Edward Beecher, were born. Here also passed his boyhood, +before he began wandering over the earth, the author of _Home, Sweet +Home_, John Howard Payne, his father being the village schoolmaster. +Payne's quaint little shingled cottage is East Hampton's most sacred +memorial. The inhabitants of East Hampton are so much in love with +their healthy home, which dates from 1648, that on its two hundred and +fiftieth anniversary, celebrated in 1898, the announcement was made +that they "like East Hampton in a thick fog better than any other +place in full sunshine." Eastward from Jamaica, in the western centre +of Long Island, are Creedmoor, the noted rifle range, Hempstead, where +the New York troops were mobilized in 1898 for the Spanish War, and +Garden City, the model suburban town laid out by Alexander T. Stewart, +containing a handsome Episcopal Cathedral. Not far away is Hicksville, +and to the northward the ancient town of Jericho. This was a tract +bought from the Indians by Robert, the brother of Roger Williams, in +1650, which afterwards became a place of Quaker settlement, and here +lived and preached for sixty years the famous Elias Hicks, the founder +of one of the Quaker sects. He was an opponent of war and of slavery, +and rode all over the country as a missionary preacher. + + +THE NORTHERN LONG ISLAND SHORE. + +The steamboat entering Long Island Sound from New York, after passing +Hell Gate and crossing Flushing Bay, emerges from the strait of East +River between Throgg's Neck and Whitestone. Upon the end of Throgg's +Neck, the jutting point has the graystone ramparts and surmounting +earthworks of its ancient guardian, Fort Schuyler. Thrust forward from +the Long Island shore, as if to meet it, is the protruding headland of +Willett's Point, the Government torpedo station. Here also is an old +stone fort down by the waterside, with the extensive ramparts of a +modern fort on the bluff above. These are the defensive works +commanding the approach to New York from Long Island Sound. In the +neighboring havens are favorite anchorages for yachts. Beyond are the +expansive waters of the Sound, and far off southward, thrust into the +land, are the deep recesses of Little Neck Bay, made famous by its +clams, and protected to the eastward by the curiously bifurcated +peninsula of Great Neck. The northern Long Island shore is very +irregular, and rises into hills. Bold peninsulas and deep bays form +it, the surface being corrugated into hillocks and valleys, and +penetrated by narrow, shallow harbors. The waves of the Sound have +eroded the shores into steep and often precipitous bluffs of gravel, +sometimes rising a hundred feet above the water, where narrow beaches, +strewn with boulders, border them. At Sands Point is a great peninsula +protruding in high sandy bluffs, and behind it is the highest mountain +on Long Island, Harbor Hill, rising three hundred and fifty feet above +the village of Roslyn, at the head of the deeply indented +Hempstead Harbor, where lived at his home of Cedarmere, for many +years, William Cullen Bryant, who now sleeps in the little cemetery. + + [Illustration: _William Cullen Bryant at "Cedarhurst," Roslyn_] + +Oyster Bay is deeply indented into the land to the eastward, +surrounded by villas and attractive homes, and beyond protrudes the +broad, high headland of Lloyds' Neck. This was strongly fortified by +the British in the Revolution, and King William IV., then the youthful +Duke of Clarence, was at one time an officer of the garrison. It was +attacked and captured by the Americans who came over from Connecticut +in 1779, the garrison being taken prisoners. Subsequently the British +again took possession, and the French from Newport attacked them in +1781, but were repulsed. The hero of Oyster Bay is Captain Nathan Hale +of Connecticut, whose statue stands in New York City Hall Park. He had +been sent by Washington in 1776, across the Sound, to examine the +British defenses of Brooklyn, and, returning, was captured by some +Tories at Oyster Bay, and the next day hanged in New York as a spy. +Though but twenty-one years old, he met his fate bravely, saying: "I +only regret that I have but one life to give for my country." The +British destroyed his farewell letters, the provost-marshal saying +"that the rebels should not know they had a man in their army who +could die with so much firmness." Oyster Bay was bought in 1653 from +the Matinecock Indians by a Pilgrim colony from Sandwich, +Massachusetts, and a treaty made at Hartford established it as the +boundary between the Dutch of New York and the English of New England. +To the eastward are Huntingdon, Setauket and Port Jefferson, popular +resorts, and inland are Jerusalem and Islip, the latter settled and +named in the seventeenth century by emigrants from old Islip, +Oxfordshire, England. Here is the famous Ronkonkoma Lake, so named by +the Indians from the white sand of its shores. It is a pretty sheet of +fresh water among the forests, about a mile in diameter, of great +depth, and has neither inlet nor outlet, though its surface level +regularly rises and falls every four years. Here lived the chief +wampum makers, the Secatogue and Patchogue tribes. Their wampum mainly +consisted of the thick blue part of clam shells, ground into the form +of bugle beads, and strung upon cards a foot long. + + +ENTERING NEW ENGLAND. + +Coming out of New York on the northern shore of Long Island Sound, the +land is found to be profusely sprinkled with outcropping rocks, a +development so universal that to one place the Indians gave the name +of Mamaroneck, meaning "the place of rolling-stones." These rocks are +gathered into piles for fences, which cross the surface in all +directions, and it requires serious effort to till the stony land. +About twenty-five miles from New York is the Byram River, the +Connecticut boundary, the old saying being that New England stretches +"from Quoddy Head to Byram River." This original Yankee land, though +the smallest section of the United States, has made the deepest +impress upon the American character. They have not enjoyed the +agricultural advantages of other sections, the bleak climate, poor +soil and lavish distribution of rocks and sterility making farming +hard work with meagre results, so that the chief Yankee energy has +been devoted to the development of manufactures, literature, commerce +and the fisheries; this wonderful race who have had to practically +live by their wits having admirably succeeded. Crossing Byram River +brings us into the "Land of Steady Habits," Connecticut, the +"Wooden-Nutmeg State," the special home of "Yankee Notions," which +gave the country the original personation of "Brother Jonathan" in +Governor Jonathan Trumbull, who was so useful to General Washington. +Consulting him in many emergencies, Washington was wont to remark, +"Let us hear what Brother Jonathan says," a phrase finally popularly +adopted by making him the national impersonation. + +Connecticut has the great Puritan College of the country--Yale--ruled +by the Congregationalists. It has varied manufactures, to which its +abundant water-powers contribute, and in which nearly all its people +are engaged, its methods being largely the inventions of its own +sons, of whom three are prominent--Eli Whitney of the cotton-gin, +Samuel Colt of the revolver, and Charles Goodyear of india-rubber +fame. When De Tocqueville was in America, he was much impressed by the +development of the inventive genius, education and political force of +the State, which he described as a little yellow spot on the map, and +at a dinner he proposed a toast, saying, in his quaint, broken +English: "And now for my grand sentiment: Connect-de-coot--de leetle +yellow spot dat make de clock-peddler, de school-master and de +Senator; de first give you time, de second tell you what to do with +him, and de third make your law and civilization." Connecticut gets +more patents proportionately than any other State, one to eight +hundred inhabitants being annually granted; it makes clocks for all +the world, and leads in india-rubber and elastic goods, in hardware +and myriads of "Yankee notions," besides being well in the front for +sewing-machines, arms and war material. It is named after the chief +New England river, and its rugged surface is diversified by long +ridges of hills and deep valleys, running generally from north to +south, being the prolongation of mountain ranges and intervales that +are beyond the northern border. The picturesque Housatonic comes from +the Massachusetts Berkshire hills down through the western counties; +the centre is crossed by the Connecticut Valley, which has great +fertility and beautiful scenery, while in the eastern section the +Quinnebaug River makes a deep valley, and, flowing into the Thames, +seeks the Sound at New London. These many hills make many streams, all +having water-powers, around which cluster numerous busy factories. + +The southwestern town of Connecticut is Greenwich, and in front +Greenwich Point is thrust out into the Sound, while, as the Yankee +land is entered by railway, on a high hill stands the Puritan outpost, +seen from afar--a stately graystone Congregational Church with its +tall spire. The ancient Greenwich village was built on the hillside at +Horse Neck, and it was here, in 1779, that General Putnam swiftly +galloped down the rude rocky stairway leading from the old church, to +get away from the British dragoons, on what has since been known as +"Old Put's Hill," and they were too much astonished either to chase or +shoot him. Beyond is Stamford, a busy factory town, where lived in the +eighteenth century Colonel Abraham Davenport, described as "a man of +stern integrity and generous benevolence." He was a legislator, and +when, on May 19, 1780, the memorable "Dark Day" came in New England, +some one, fearing it was the day of judgment, proposed that the House +adjourn. Davenport opposed it, saying, "The day of judgment is either +approaching, or it is not; if it is, I choose to be found doing my +duty; I wish therefore that candles may be brought." This scene has +been immortalized by Whittier. The town of Norwalk is beyond, another +nest of busy mills, spreading upward on the hill-slopes from the +Sound. The original settlers bought from the Indians in 1640 a tract +extending "one day's north walk" from the Sound, and hence the name. +Fine oysters are gathered in the spacious bay, and the people make +shoes and hats, locks and door-knobs. On the lowlands to the eastward +the Pequot Indian nation, once ruling all this part of New England, +the name meaning "the destroyers," was finally overpowered in 1637 by +the Colonial troops in the Sasco Swamp, now a cultivated farm, with +almost the only highly fertile land seen in the immediate region. Most +of the Pequots were captured and sold as slaves in the West Indies. +Beyond is tranquil Fairfield, embowered in trees and introduced by a +rubber-factory, its green-bordered streets lined with cottages, and +church-spires rising among the groves, while along the shore it has +the finest beach on Long Island Sound. + + +BRIDGEPORT, OLD STRATFORD AND MILFORD. + +Pequannock, the "dark river" of the Indians, flows out of the hills to +an inlet of the Sound, where the enormous mills of the active city of +Bridgeport have gathered a population of over fifty thousand people, +in a hive containing some of the world's greatest establishments for +constructing sewing-machines and firearms, building carriages, and +making cutlery, corsets and soaps, while other goods also occupy +attention. The grand Seaside Park esplanade overlooks the harbor, and +towards the north the city stretches up the slopes into Golden Hill, +named from its glittering mica deposits, where magnificent streets +display splendid buildings. When the Pequots were exterminated in +1637, colonists founded this town, gradually crowding the Paugusset +Indians, who owned the land, into a small reservation on Golden Hill. +The great establishments to-day are the Wheeler and Wilson and Howe +Sewing-Machine Works, Sharp's Rifle Factory and the Union Metallic +Cartridge Company; and Bridgeport is also the headquarters of the +chief American circus. The stately and high-towered mansion of +Waldemere fronts the park, and was the home of Bridgeport's best-known +townsman, the veteran showman, Phineas T. Barnum. Born in Connecticut, +at Bethel, in 1810, he died at Bridgeport in 1891. He first developed +the financial advantages of amusing the public, and possibly +humbugging them on a grand scale, and by working upon his oft-quoted +theory that "the people liked to be humbugged," twice amassed a large +fortune. In early life he wandered over the country earning a +precarious livelihood in various occupations, and in Philadelphia in +1834 began his career as a showman. He bought for $1000 a colored +slave-woman, Joyce Heth, represented to be the nurse of George +Washington and one hundred and sixty-one years old. From her +exhibition his receipts reached $1500 a week, and she died the next +year. In 1842 he began exhibiting Charles S. Stratton, "General Tom +Thumb," a native of Bridgeport, born in 1832, whose size and growth +were as usual until his seventh month, when he had a stature of +twenty-eight inches, and ceased to grow. Barnum exhibited him in the +United States, France and England, and attracted world-wide notoriety. +Barnum started the American fashion of paying extravagant sums to +opera-singers, in 1849 engaging Jenny Lind to sing at one hundred and +fifty concerts in America for $1000 a night, the gross receipts of a +nine months' tour being $712,000. He subsequently had his fortune +swept away through endorsing $1,000,000 notes for a manufacturing +establishment that went down in the panic of 1857. His fortunes were +revived, however; he had museums in the leading cities, and in his +later life had the "Greatest Show on Earth," which set out every +spring from Bridgeport. Tom Thumb in 1863 married Lavinia Warren of +Middleboro', Massachusetts, a dwarf like himself, and he died in 1882. + +To the eastward a short distance, and in sharp contrast with active +Bridgeport, is quiet old Stratford, with Stratford Point protruding in +front into the Sound, at the entrance of the stately and placid +Housatonic, which comes down through the meadowland just beyond the +village. Here there are neither watering-place hotel nor busy factory +to disturb the ancient order of things, encumber the greensward, or +encroach upon the sleepy and comfortable houses, where one may dream +away in the twilight, under the shade of grand trees that are even +older than the town. Stratford is much the same now as when settled by +a Puritan colony from Massachusetts in 1639, the leader and pastor +being Adam Blackman, whom Cotton Mather called "a Nazarite purer than +snow and whiter than milk." Across the patches of marshland, adjoining +the Housatonic, is Milford, its half-mile-long stretch of village +green neatly enclosed, and its houses upon the bank of the silvery +Wap-o-wang, back of which spread the wide streets lined by rows of +overarching elms. A colony from Milford in England settled here in +1639 and soon crowded the Indians off the land, establishing the +primitive church, which was the usual beginning of New England +settlements. Then, true to the American instinct, they proceeded to +hold a convention, the result being the adoption of the following +platform: + +_Voted_, That the earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof. + +_Voted_, That the earth is given to the saints. + +_Voted_, That we are the saints. + +They had a good deal of trouble afterwards, both with the Dutch from +New York and the Indians, but the saints ultimately possessed the +earth in peace, and their successors are now making straw hats for +the country. + + +THE CITY OF ELMS. + +The city of New Haven, the most populous in Connecticut, having a +hundred thousand people, is built upon a plain, surrounded by hills, +at the head of a deep bay extending several miles northward from Long +Island Sound. The magnificent elms, arching over the streets and the +Public Green, and grandly rising in stately rows, make the earliest +and the deepest impression upon the visitor. In one of his most +eloquent passages, Henry Ward Beecher said that the elms of New +England are as much a part of her beauty as the columns of the +Parthenon were the glory of its architecture. The grand foliage-arched +avenues of New Haven are unsurpassed elsewhere, so that they are the +crowning glory as well as the constant care of the townsfolk. Among +the finest is the avenue separating the Yale College grounds from the +Public Green--a magnificent Gothic aisle of the richest +foliage-covered interlacing boughs. The Indian name for the region +round about New Haven was Quinnepiack, and the placid Quinnepiack +River, coming from the northward, flows through a deep valley past the +towering East Rock into the harbor. Old John Davenport was the leader +and first pastor of the infant colony that settled here. He was a +powerful Anglican parish pastor of London who had joined the Puritans, +and in 1637 was forced to leave for New England with many of his +people. They spent a year in Boston, but in April, 1638, sailed around +Cape Cod to the Sound, and landed at Quinnepiack, where they laid out +a town plan with nine squares for buildings, surrounding a large +central square, the Public Green. At the foundation, Davenport +delivered a most impressive sermon from the text, "Wisdom hath builded +her house; she hath hewn out her seven pillars;" and from this came +the original scheme of government for the colony by the seven leading +church members, who were known as the "seven pillars." The colony got +on well with the Indians, who revered Davenport, calling him "so big +study man." They bought the whole tract of one hundred and thirty +square miles from the Indians for thirteen coats. At first, however, +they did not prosper, their trading ventures proving unfortunate, and +they determined to abandon the place and remove elsewhere, selecting +Jamaica, and afterwards Galloway in Ireland. The ship carrying their +prospectors to Ireland sailed in January, 1647, but was never heard +from afterwards, save when, as the legend has it, "the spectre of the +ship sailed into the harbor in the teeth of a head-wind, and when in +full view of the anxious people, it slowly melted into thin air and +vanished." Then they decided to remain, and getting on better, in 1665 +united their plantation with that of Connecticut at Hartford, under +the condition that each should be a capital, a compact observed until +1874, when Hartford was made the sole capital. The British in July, +1779, attacked and partly burnt and plundered the town, the Americans +galling them by desultory attacks as they passed through the streets. +They captured Rev. Naphtali Daggett, President of Yale College, musket +in hand, and with repeated bayonet-thrusts forced him to guide them. +When he was wearied and sore from wounds they asked, "Will you fight +again?" He sturdily answered, "I rather believe I shall if I have an +opportunity." Being forced to pray for the King, he did it thus: "O +Lord, bless thy servant King George, and grant him wisdom, for thou +knowest, O Lord, he needs it." + +The great fame of New Haven comes from Yale College, having two +hundred and fifty instructors and over twenty-five hundred students, +the orthodox Congregational University of New England, which for two +centuries has exerted a most advantageous and widely diffused +influence upon the American intellectual character, and around it and +its multitude of buildings of every kind clusters the town. In the +year 1700 ten clergymen planned to have a college in the colony of +Connecticut, and for the purpose contributed as many books as they +could spare for its library. In 1701 it was chartered, and began in a +very small way at Saybrook, at the mouth of Connecticut River, during +the first year having only one student. The pastor of the adjacent +village of Killingworth was placed in charge, and for several years +the students went there to him, though the commencements were held at +Saybrook, and in 1707 the college was located at Saybrook. +Subsequently, for a more convenient location, it was removed to New +Haven, the first commencement being held there in 1718, and its first +building being named Yale College, in honor of Elihu Yale, a native of +the town, born in 1648, who went abroad, and afterwards became +Governor of the East India Company. He made at different times gifts +of books and money amounting to about five hundred pounds sterling, +the benefactions being of greater value because of their timeliness. +His name was afterwards adopted in the incorporation of the +university. Timothy Dwight and Theodore D. Woolsey were perhaps the +greatest Presidents of Yale, and among its graduates were Jonathan +Edwards, Eli Whitney, Samuel F. B. Morse, Benjamin Silliman, Noah +Webster, John C. Calhoun, J. Fenimore Cooper, James Kent, William M. +Evarts, John Pierpont and Samuel J. Tilden. The College buildings are +of various ages and styles of architecture, the original ones being +the plain "Old Brick Row" on College Street, northwest of the Public +Green, behind which what was formerly a large open space has been +gradually covered with more modern structures. The line of ancient +buildings facing the Green has a venerable and scholarly aspect, +stretching broadly across the greensward, fronted by noble elms +arranged in quadruple lines along the street. One of these houses, +Connecticut Hall, was built with money raised by a lottery, and from +the proceeds of a French prize-ship in the colonial wars, when +Connecticut aided the King by equipping a frigate. There are on the +campus statues of the first rector, Abraham Pierson, President Woolsey +and Professor Silliman. Various elaborate buildings are also upon +adjacent grounds, such as the Peabody Museum, the Sheffield Scientific +School, of four halls; the Divinity Halls, Observatory, Laboratory and +Gymnasium, while the entrance to the campus from the Public Green is +by an imposing tower-gateway known as Phelps Hall. The Peabody Museum +has one of the best natural-history collections in the country, and +the College Library approximates three hundred thousand volumes. +Besides the Academic Department, Yale has schools of Science, Law, +Medicine, Theology and the Fine Arts, and its properties and +endowments exceed $10,000,000, the grounds occupying nine acres. + + +NEW HAVEN ATTRACTIONS. + +But New Haven is much more than Yale College. It is a great hive of +industry, manufacturing all kinds of "Yankee notions," with +agricultural machinery, corsets, scales, organs, pianos, carriages, +hardware and other things, and it has a large commerce along the +coast and with the West Indies. It was to New Haven that the first +steamboat navigating Long Island Sound went from New York in March, +1815, the Fulton, which occupied eleven hours in going there, and +fifteen hours in returning two days later, being delayed by fog, +subsequently, however, making the trip in less time. This boat was +constructed by Robert Fulton, and carried a figure-head of him on her +bow. She was one hundred and thirty-four feet long, and of three +hundred and twenty-seven tons, built with a keel like a ship, having a +sloop bow, and being rigged with one mast and sails to accelerate her +speed. She was managed by Elihu S. Bunker, and her ability to pass +through Hell Gate against a tide running six miles an hour was +regarded as one of the marvels of that time. The New York _Evening +Post_ of March 25, 1815, describing her, said, "We have been assured +that this establishment has cost $90,000, and we believe it may with +truth be affirmed that there is not in the whole world such +accommodations afloat as the Fulton affords. Indeed, it is hardly +possible to conceive that anything of the kind can exceed her in +elegance and convenience." Many were the races she had with the +"packet-sloops" that plied on the Sound and often beat her, when the +wind was fair. + +There are tastefully adorned suburbs surrounding New Haven, where the +hills afford charming prospects. The two great attractions, however, +are the bold and impressive promontories known as the East and West +Rocks, which are high buttresses of trap rock, lifting themselves from +the plain on each side of the town in magnificent opposition, and +rising four hundred feet. The geologists say they were driven up +through the other strata, and some people think these grim precipices +in remote ages may have sentinelled the outflow of the Connecticut +River, between their broad and solid bases, to the Sound. Each +tremendous cliff is the termination of a long mountain range coming +down from the far North. The Green Mountain prolongation, stretching +through ridges southward from Vermont, is represented in the West +Rock, while the East Rock terminates the Mount Tom range, through +which the Connecticut River breaks its passage in Massachusetts, and +part of which rises a thousand feet in the "Blue Hills of +Southington," which are the most elevated portion of Connecticut. Thus +projected out upon the plain, almost to Long Island Sound, the summits +of these two huge rocks afford grand views. In the Judge's Cave, a +small cleft in a group of boulders on the West Rock, the three +regicides, Goffe, Whalley and Dixwell were in hiding for some time in +1661, and the three streets leading out to this rock from the city are +named after them. It is recorded that a man living about a mile away +took them food until one night a catamount looked in on them, and +"blazed his eyes in such a frightful manner as greatly to terrify +them." Dixwell's bones repose upon the Public Green at the back of the +"Centre Church," which stands in the row of three churches occupying +the middle of the Green that was the graveyard of colonial New Haven, +and Whalley is buried nearby. + +There is a grand approach to the East Rock, which is elevated high +above the marshy valley of Mill River, winding about its base, and +upon the topmost crag is a noble monument reared to the soldiers who +fell in the Civil War. The whole surface of the East Rock is a park, +and upon the face of the cliff the perpendicular strata of +reddish-brown trap stand bolt upright. From this elevated outpost +there is a charming view over the town spreading upon the flat plain, +and the little harbor stretching down to the Sound; and beyond, across +the silvery waters, can be traced the hazy hills of Long Island, +twenty-five miles away. Two little crooked rivers come out of the deep +valleys on either side of the great rock, winding through the town to +the harbor, while all about, the country is dotted with flourishing +villages. Among them is Wallingford, to which the railway leads +northeast amid meadows and brickyards until it reaches the high hill, +whose church-towers watch over the population, largely composed of +plated-ware makers. When this town was founded, John Davenport came +out from New Haven and preached the initial sermon from the +appropriate text, "My beloved hath a vineyard on a very fruitful +hill." + +Hillhouse Avenue, a broad and beautiful elm-shaded street bordered by +fine mansions, leads out to the "Sachem's Wood," which was the home of +the Hillhouses, of whom James Hillhouse was the great Connecticut +Senator after the Revolution. His remains repose in the old Grove +Street Burying-Ground, where rest many other famous men of the +Academic City, among them Timothy Dwight, Lyman Beecher, Samuel F. B. +Morse, Benjamin Silliman, Elbridge Gerry, Roger Sherman, of whom +Jefferson wrote that he "never said a foolish thing in his life," Eli +Whitney, and Noah Webster, who, before he compiled his famous +dictionary, had published the "Elementary Spelling Book," which had a +sale of fifty millions of copies. The New Haven City Hall, fronting +the Green, is one of the finest municipal buildings in New England. +The three churches occupying the centre of the Green are the North, +the Centre, and Trinity churches, the first two Congregationalist and +the last Episcopal, the row presenting a curiously quaint and ancient +appearance. The favorite resort of the people of New Haven is Savin +Rock, a promontory four miles away, pushing a rocky front to the Sound +at the end of a long sandy beach, and having a good view, being +located westward from the harbor entrance. + + +OLD SAYBROOK. + +The Connecticut River flows into Long Island Sound thirty-three miles +east of New Haven at Saybrook Point. Between is the venerable village +of Guilford, where Fitz Greene Halleck was born, and where the three +regicides were also for some time hidden. Out in front is the bold and +picturesque Sachem's Head, which got its name from a tragedy of the +Pequot War in 1637. The Mohican chief Uncas pursued a Pequot warrior +out on this point, and shooting him, put his head in the fork of an +oak tree, where it remained many years. The group of Thimble Islands +are off shore, having been repeatedly dug over by deluded individuals +searching for the buried treasures of Captain Kidd. Saybrook Point was +the place of earliest settlement in Connecticut. The first English +patent for lands on these coasts was granted to Lord Saye and Seal and +Lord Brooke, and the colony was given their double name. The original +settlement was planned with great care, as it was expected to become +the home of noted men, and a fort was built on an isolated hill at the +river's mouth. According to the British historian, it was to Saybrook +that Cromwell, Pym, Hampden and Haselrig, with their party of +malcontents, intended to emigrate when they were stopped by the order +of King Charles I. Had this migration been made, it might have greatly +changed the subsequent momentous events in England ending with the +execution of that king. A little westward of the old colonial fort +guarding the river entrance, a public square was laid out, where, +according to the town plan, their houses were to have been built. The +first Yale College at Saybrook was a narrow one-story house eighty +feet long, and looking much like a ropewalk, which was afterwards +removed, with the college, to New Haven. Its founders were pious men, +who in 1708 drew up the celebrated "Saybrook Platform," with a +declaration that "the churches must have a public profession of faith, +agreeable to which the instruction of the college shall be conducted." + +The ancient fort at Saybrook, built by Plymouth people in 1635, stood +upon a steep and solitary knoll near the Connecticut River, which in +1872 was carried off bodily by a railroad to make embankments across +the adjacent lowlands. The earliest governor of the colony came out in +1636, Colonel Fenwick, afterwards one of the regicide judges. Old +Saybrook is now a quiet village, chiefly spread along one handsome +wide street, canopied over by the arching branches of its stately +elms, under which the distant vista view looks almost like a scene +through a veritable foliage tunnel. The broad Connecticut flows in +front, back and forth with the tide from the Sound, its restfulness in +keeping with the ancient town, as yet uninvaded by business bustle or +manufacturing energy. The Saybrook fort repelled the Pequots in 1637; +and afterwards, in the Connecticut boundary disputes with the Dutch at +New York, the latter, according to the veracious chronicler, marched +against it "brimful of wrath and cabbage," but seeing it would be +stoutly defended, he adds that "they thought best to desist before +attacking." The British captured it in 1814, and ascending the river +in a sudden raid, destroyed a large number of vessels. + + +THE THAMES TO THE PAWCATUCK. + +The river Thames, coming down out of the hills and receiving the +Quinnebaug, flows into the Sound twenty miles east of the Connecticut, +and here is the pleasant city of New London, with about fifteen +thousand people. Thus the early settlers renewed in the New England +colony the names of old London and Father Thames, replacing the +original Indian titles of Pequot for the town and Mohegan for the +river. New London is built on a hillside, famous for comfortable old +mansions and noble trees on the hilly streets, running down the +declivity to the harbor, in the upper part of which is a navy yard. On +either side of the harbor entrance are the gray walls and grassy +mounds of the ancient defensive works, Forts Griswold and Trumbull, +which got their chief scars during the Revolution. The most sacred New +London memory is of Nathan Hale, who lived there, his little house +being preserved as a relic. The Thames is a fine estuary, and upon it +are sailed the great Yale and Harvard boat-races. New London was the +headquarters of the Connecticut navy during the Revolution, a fleet of +twenty-six vessels. After Arnold's treason, he came in September, +1780, with ships and a large force of troops, captured Fort Trumbull +and burnt the town. Afterwards they attacked Fort Griswold across the +river, losing large numbers in storming it, and when the garrison had +surrendered they were massacred. A fine granite Obelisk contains the +names of the slain, and bears the inscription: "Zebulon and Naphtali +were a people that jeoparded their lives till death in the high places +of the Lord." The people of New London go down to the Sound for +recreation and clam-bakes, the wide-spreading beaches having numerous +hotels and summer cottages. All this region in the early times was the +home of the Niantic Indians, a clan of the Narragansetts, their sachem +being Ninigret, the brother of Canonicus and uncle of Miantonomoh, +whose names are preserved in powerful American warships. + +Beyond the Thames is Groton, known as the home of Silas Deane, the +early American diplomatist, a hilly township, with little good soil. +On its verge are Fort Hill, where Sassacus, the sachem of the Pequots, +had his royal fortress, and Mystic, with the popular resort of Mystic +Island just off shore. To the northward of Mystic is Pequot Hill, +where Colonel Mason attacked that tribe in May, 1637. He had marched +out of Rhode Island with ninety English and over four hundred Mohicans +and Narragansetts under the sachems Uncas and Miantonomoh, but when +they arrived at the Pequot stronghold, the Indian allies were afraid +to attack and drew off. Nothing daunted, Mason and his colonial +soldiers prepared to do the work alone, and as a preliminary knelt +down in prayer. At the sight of this, another sachem, Wequash, who had +been their guide, was amazed and asked an explanation, and when he +understood it, became so impressed that he was converted, afterwards +preaching throughout New England. Mason and his men assaulted the +stronghold in the darkness, and got inside the palisades, but being +overwhelmed by the superior numbers, fell back after setting fire to +the wigwams. The fire compelled the Pequots to flee, and then the +English and friendly Indians surrounded the hill and shot down the +fugitives, there being six hundred Pequots shot or burnt, this being +the death-blow to the tribe. Old Cotton Mather, who recorded it, +wrote: "It was a fearful sight to see them frying in the fire, and the +streams of blood quenching the same, and horrible was the stink and +scent thereof; but the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice, and they gave +the praise thereof to God." Sassacus, from Fort Hill, sent +reinforcements, but they were too late, although they harassed Mason's +retreat, and Sassacus was soon forced also to flee, the remnant of the +Pequot tribe being killed or captured in Sasco Swamp. + +This region was Pawcatuck, and its chief town now is Stonington, built +on a fine harbor, near the Rhode Island boundary, which is protected +by the protruding arm of Watch Hill Point, the whole coast thereabout +being filled with summer hotels and cottages. Stonington is on a +narrow rocky peninsula, and of this town, in the early part of the +nineteenth century, President Dwight of Yale College wrote, referring +to its reputation, that "Stonington and all its vicinity suffers in +religion from the nearness of Rhode Island." The place was bombarded +for three days, in 1814, by a British fleet, but all attempts to land +were successfully repulsed. Watch Hill Point is a high bold +promontory, with sand beaches stretching both ways and hooking around +westward so as to enclose Stonington harbor. To the eastward is +Westerly on the Pawcatuck River, noted for its fine granite quarries +and textile factories. + + +EASTERN LONG ISLAND. + +From the Long Island shore, opposite the mouth of Connecticut River, +there protrudes northeastward an elongated and almost bisected +peninsula, ending in Orient Point. The eastern end of Long Island +divides into two arms, this being the northern one, having at its +outer extremity Plum Island, the passage between being the famous +"Plum Gut," a short cut occasionally taken by cunning yachtsmen racing +around Long Island. Orient Point was originally the "Oyster Pond +Point," its name having been modernized, and Plum Island, covering +more than a square mile, is said to have been bought from the Indians +by the first colonists in 1667 for a hundred fish-hooks and a barrel +of biscuit. A succession of islands stretches out from it over +northeastward towards the Rhode Island shore, and these guard the +entrance to the Sound. The southern arm of Long Island extends much +farther eastward than the northern one, and ends in Montauk Point. +Enclosed between these branching peninsulas is Shelter Island, thus +appropriately named from its well protected harbors. It is a delicious +island, about four by six miles in extent, picturesque and irregular +in outline, having cliffs and promontories dropping off into tiny +coves and bays with little beaches, their shores rich with the +attractions that shells and sea mosses give. In the interior are +rolling hills and fresh-water ponds. Out in front on either hand are +the blue waters of Peconic and Gardiner's Bays, with the broad +Atlantic beyond. This island was the home of the Manhasset Indians, +and that was its early name. To its hospitable shores fled some of the +persecuted Quakers of New England, when driven out by the Puritans, +the settlement being made as early as 1652. The records tell that in +the eighteenth century George Whitefield came and preached here with +such fervor and success that he was constrained to ask, "And is +Shelter Island become a Patmos?" It is in a delightful location, and +from the breezy hill-tops which have a grand outlook over the azure +waters there can be seen a vision + + "----of islands that together lie + As quietly as spots of sky + Amongst the evening clouds." + +The array of islands guarding the entrance to the Sound beyond Plum +Island begins with Great Gull and Little Gull Islands, the latter +marking the edge of the "Horse Race," as the rapid tidal current in +and out of the Sound between Little Gull and Fisher's Island is +called. This Race is off the mouth of the Thames River, beyond which +is Fisher's Island, nearer the Connecticut shore, an island nine miles +long, and forming a sort of barrier protecting the Thames entrance +from the ocean storms. This elongated island, covering about twelve +square miles, was originally "Ye Governour's Farme of Fyscher's +Island," owned by Governor John Winthrop of Connecticut, to whom it +was granted in 1668, remaining in his family for two centuries, when a +wealthy New Yorker bought it for a stock-farm. The adjacent waters are +now a favorite locality for United States naval evolutions. To the +eastward of Shelter Island, and lying in front of Gardiner's Bay, is +Gardiner's Island, covering about six square miles, and having a long +protruding northern point stretching up towards Plum Island. This +island was the Indian Monchonock, and Lyon Gardiner, the first +Englishman who settled anywhere in the State of New York, came along +in 1639, and bought it from them for some rum and blankets, a gun and +a large black dog, and his descendants have since been the owners. He +was a veteran of Cromwell's wars, and always had the confidence of the +Indians. Gardiner's Island was a favorite resort of the noted +freebooter Captain Kidd, and while thousands of people at many places +have at various times searched for his buried treasures, this is the +only place that anything was ever found. Kidd was the son of a +Scottish clergyman, became a mariner, and was sent from New York in an +armed vessel to chase the pirates off the coast. Succeeding admirably, +he was placed at the head of a new ship, the "Adventure," with one +hundred and fifty men, and sent to chastise the freebooters in the +East Indies. But after rounding the Cape of Good Hope and entering the +Indian Ocean he turned pirate himself, crossing the Indian and Pacific +Oceans, rounding Cape Horn, sailing up the Atlantic, and sweeping the +West Indies. In two years he circumnavigated the world, became the +most famous pirate in history, and landed at Gardiner's Island, +burying his treasures. He was afterwards captured in Boston and sent +to London, where he was hanged in 1701 on a charge of murder. The Earl +of Bellamont, Governor of Massachusetts, took from Kidd part of his +plunder, and learning the hiding-place on Gardiner's Island, had the +locality dug up, recovering gold, silver, jewels and merchandise, +valued at $70,000. Kidd's exploits are commemorated in a song which is +of world-wide renown, thus beginning: + + "I'll sing you a song that you'll wonder to hear, + Of a freebooter, lucky and bold-- + Of old Captain Kidd--of the man without fear, + How himself to the devil he sold. + + "His ship was a trim one as ever did swim, + His comrades were hearty and brave,-- + Twelve pistols he carried, that freebooter grim, + And he fearlessly ploughed the wild wave." + +To the southward of Shelter Island, on the southern peninsula of Long +Island, is the well-protected roadstead of Sag Harbor, formerly a +famous whaling port, but most of its maritime glory has departed. +Massachusetts fishermen first settled the place, and it had at one +time a fleet of over forty whale ships, earning $1,000,000 a year; but +the California gold-hunting fever in 1849-50 is said to have diverted +its mariners and began the paralysis of this industry, which +subsequently died out almost everywhere. It has about two thousand +people, and its admirable situation has made it an attractive summer +resort, while it is also developing some manufactures. On the +peninsula to the southward are perched various old-time windmills, +with their broad gyrating sails, in the wide-spreading land of the +Hamptons. Far to the eastward the peninsula stretches out to Montauk +Point, the end of Long Island. Here is the reservation of the remnant +of the Montauk Indians, their name meaning the "Fort Country," as they +were the most powerful tribe on the island, and made some defenses in +their hilly region. The Sachem Wyandance who was at their head when +the white men came, in the seventeenth century, was wise and +sagacious, and became their firm ally, fighting the Pequots and their +other enemies. In all the adjacent waters vast numbers of menhaden are +caught. Here was located the camp, in 1898, where the American troops +returning from the torrid heats and malaria of the Cuban-Spanish war +recuperated, over thirty thousand men being cared for previously to +discharge. Captain Kidd was at one time around here also, and is +supposed to have sunk bags of treasure in one of the little lakes, +which has since been called Money Pond, but none was ever found there. +Fort Pond Bay, a spacious harbor on the northern side of Montauk +Point, has been often suggested as a haven for transatlantic steamers, +being safe and commodious. The plan suggested is to bring the +passengers by fast railway trains from New York. Out on the eastern +rocky buttress of Montauk Point is the tall white lighthouse tower, +containing a most powerful Fresnel light, the gift of the French +Government, visible for twenty miles at sea, its intense white light +varied by occasional flashes. This is the guiding beacon of the +eastern extremity of Long Island, and the solid buttress on which it +stands Mrs Sigourney calls-- + + "Ultima Thule of this ancient isle, + Against whose breast the everlasting surge, + Long travelling on and ominous of wrath, + Forever beats." + + +THE ISLE OF MANISEES. + +Fifteen miles northeast of Montauk Point, out in the ocean, is Block +Island, lying midway between the extremity of Long Island and Point +Judith, on the western side of the entrance to Narragansett Bay. It is +about eight miles long, with a prominent white light for a beacon on +each end, north and south, and is a curious isolated place amid the +rolling waves of the Atlantic. Its balmy climate and equable +temperature have made it a favorite summer resort, being popularly +called the "Bermuda of the North," while some of its admirers say it +is destined to become the American Isle of Wight. It was known to the +Indians as Manisees, the "Isle of the Little God," and when the whites +first came, its aboriginal people were great wampum makers. The +Puritans campaigned on the island, defeating the Indians, and in 1638 +they sent sixty feet of wampum to Boston for tribute, but the English +did not permanently settle there till 1661. It is an elongated island, +with high bold shores, abrupt hills, narrow valleys and sundry ponds, +one, the "Great Salt Pond," near its centre, being of considerable +size. The surface, however, is entirely destitute of trees, and the +only harbor is behind the protecting refuge of a breakwater, built +some time ago by the Government. As the ocean waves are always +buffeting and washing away the shores, its ultimate total +disappearance is predicted, but this impending fate is said not to +seriously alarm the inhabitants, who are, by the way, almost all +Baptists. Until recently, so little was actually known of these Block +Island folk, who were nearly all born there, and relatives, that a +strong belief was prevalent on the adjacent mainland that the genuine +native Block Islanders had only one eye apiece. They are strange and +antiquated, and many of the old people have never been off the island. +Some of them recall as a wonderful journey taken years ago, in early +youth, how they ventured so far away from home as to sail "across to +the Continent," as they call the remainder of the United States. They +gather sea-weed, which brings them quite a revenue, and dig peat, +which is largely used for fuel. Their little stone-walled fields, +ancient windmills and lily-strewn ponds are picturesque, and their +ancestors are buried in the ancient burying-ground, which visitors +find interesting, and then climb Beacon Hill to get a view that is +unique in being an almost complete circle of the sea. This attractive +place, swept by ocean breezes, is the eastern outpost of Long Island, +and no better idea of it has ever been given than by Whittier's poem +on the Palatine wreck, opening by describing Block Island: + + "Leagues north, as fly the gull and auk, + Point Judith watches with eye of hawk; + Leagues south, thy beacon flames, Montauk! + + "Lonely and wind-shorn, wood-forsaken, + With never a tree for Spring to waken, + For tryst of lovers or farewells taken, + + "Circled by waters that never freeze, + Beaten by billow and swept by breeze, + Lieth the island of Manisees, + + "Set at the mouth of the Sound to hold + The coast lights up on its turret old, + Yellow with moss and sea-fog mould. + + "Dreary the land when gust and sleet + At its doors and windows howl and beat, + And Winter laughs at its fires of peat! + + "But in summer-time, when pool and pond, + Held in the laps of valleys fond, + Are blue as the glimpses of sea beyond; + + "When the hills are sweet with brier-rose, + And, hid in the warm, soft dells, unclose + Flowers the mainland rarely knows; + + "When boats to their morning fishing go, + And, held to the wind and slanting low, + Whitening and darkening, the small sails show,-- + + "Then is that lonely island fair; + And the pale health-seeker findeth there + The wine of life in its pleasant air. + + "No greener valleys the sun invite, + On smoother beaches no sea-birds light, + No blue waves shatter to foam more white!" + + + + +ASCENDING THE HUDSON RIVER. + + + + +X. + +ASCENDING THE HUDSON RIVER. + + Hudson River Scenery -- Fort Washington -- Fort Lee -- The + Palisades -- Piermont -- Greenwood Lake -- Tuxedo Lake -- Font + Hill -- Yonkers -- Philipse Manor -- Mary Philipse -- Hastings + -- Dobbs's Ferry -- Tappan Zee -- The Flying Dutchman -- + Tarrytown -- André and Arnold -- Tappan -- Irvington -- + Sunnyside -- Washington Irving -- The Sleepy Hollow -- Ichabod + Crane -- Point-no-Point -- Rockland Lake -- Sing-Sing -- Croton + Point -- Haverstraw Bay -- Stony Point -- Treason Hill -- + Verplanck's Point -- The Highlands -- The Donderberg and its + Goblin -- Peekskill -- Anthony's Nose -- Iona Island -- West + Point -- Forts Clinton and Montgomery -- Sugar Loaf Mountain -- + Buttermilk Falls -- Constitution Island -- Susan Warner -- + General Kosciusko -- Beverly House -- Arnold's Treason -- Old + Cro' Nest -- Flirtation Walk -- The Storm King -- Mount Taurus + -- Joseph Rodman Drake -- The Culprit Fay -- Cornwall -- + Fishkill -- Newburg Bay -- Newburg and Washington's + Headquarters -- Ural Knapp -- The Tower of Victory -- Enoch + Crosby, the Spy -- The Devil's Dance Chamber -- The Long Reach + -- Poughkeepsie -- Lakes Mohonk and Minnewaska -- Vassar + College -- Crom Elbow -- Rondout -- Kingston -- Esopus -- + Rhinebeck and Rhinecliff -- Ellerslie -- Rokeby -- Wilderscliff + -- Montgomery Place -- Plattekill Clove -- Saugerties -- + Livingston Manor -- Clermont -- Chancellor Livingston -- + Fulton's First Steamboat -- Catskill Mountains -- Natty Bumppo + -- Rip Van Winkle -- Slide Mountain -- Kaaterskill Clove -- + Kaaterskill Falls -- Haines's Falls -- The Big Indian -- City + of Hudson -- The Dutch -- New Lebanon -- The Shakers -- Mother + Ann Lee -- Kinderhook -- Stuyvesant Landing -- Martin Van Buren + -- Schodack -- The Mohicans -- Beeren Island -- The Overslaugh + -- The Patroons -- The Van Rensselaers -- The Anti-Rent War -- + Albany -- New York State Capitol -- Albany Medical College -- + Calvin Edson -- Albany Academy -- Prof. Joseph Henry -- Dudley + Observatory -- Van Rensselaer Mansion -- Vanderheyden Palace -- + Lydius House -- Balthazar Lydius -- Anneke Jans Bogardus -- + Albany Regency -- Schuyler Mansion -- Erie Canal Basin -- Troy + -- The Monitor -- Mohawk River -- Stillwater -- Schuylerville + -- Burgoyne's Defeat -- General Fraser's Death -- Round Lake -- + Ballston Spa -- Saratoga Lake and Town -- High Rock Spring -- + Sir William Johnson -- Saratoga Hotels -- Saratoga Springs -- + Congress Spring -- Hathorn Spring -- Mount McGregor -- Fort + Edward -- Israel Putnam -- Jenny McCrea -- Baker's Falls -- + Sandy Hill -- Quackenboss' Adventure -- Glen's Falls -- Last of + the Mohicans -- Hawkeye -- Sources of the Hudson -- The + Adirondack Wilderness -- Hendrick Spring -- The Tear of the + Clouds -- Indian Pass -- Tahawas, the Sky-Piercer -- Schroon + Lake -- The Battenkill. + + +THE HUDSON RIVER SCENERY. + +The noble Hudson is one of the most admired of American rivers. It +does not possess the vine-clad slopes and ruined castles and quaint +old towns of the Rhine, but it is a greater river in its breadth and +volume and the commerce it carries. It has scenery fully as attractive +in the Palisades and Highlands, the Helderbergs and Catskills, and on +a scale of far more grandeur, while the infinite variety of its shores +and villas and the many flourishing river towns are to most observers +more pleasing. A journey along the Hudson presents ever varying +pictures of rural beauty, in mountain, landscape, field and village; +at times almost indescribably grand, and again entrancing in the +autumn's gorgeous coloring of the forest-clad slopes, and the +brilliant picture under our clear American skies. George William +Curtis, voicing the opinion of most of our countrymen, is +enthusiastic about the Hudson, saying: "The Danube has in part +glimpses of such grandeur, the Elbe sometimes has such delicately +pencilled effects, but no European river is so lordly in its bearing, +none flows in such state to the sea. Of all our rivers that I know, +the Hudson with this grandeur has the most exquisite episodes. Its +morning and evening reaches are like the lakes of a dream." The Hudson +may not have as many weird and elfish legends as so many historic +centuries and the mythical preceding era have gathered upon the annals +of the Rhine, but its beauties, tragedies and folklore have been a +favorite theme, and the romantic and poetic fancies of Irving, Drake +and Cooper, with many others, have given it plenty of fascinating +literature and picturesque incident. Oliver Wendell Holmes thus sings +the praises of the Hudson: + + "I wandered afar from the land of my birth, + I saw the old rivers renowned upon Earth; + But fancy still painted that wide-flowing stream, + With the many-hued pencil of infancy's dream. + + "I saw the green banks of the castle-crowned Rhine, + Where the grapes drink the moonlight and change into wine, + I stood by the Avon, whose waves, as they glide, + Still whisper his glory who sleeps by their side. + + "But my heart would still yearn for the sound of the waves, + That sing as they flow by my forefathers' graves; + If manhood yet honors my cheek with a tear, + I care not who sees it--nor blush for it here. + + "In love to the deep-bosomed stream of the West, + I fling this loose blossom to float on its breast; + Nor let the dear love of its children grow cold, + Till the channel is dry where its waters have rolled." + + +THE PALISADES. + +In ascending the Hudson from New York, there are passed on either hand +the heights which were covered in early Revolutionary days with the +defenses of New York, Fort Washington and Fort Lee, but beyond the +names no trace of either fort remains. The British captured both in +the latter part of 1776, and afterwards held them. Fort Lee is now a +favorite picnic ground. Above it rises the great wall of the +Palisades, the wonderful formation built up of columned trap rock that +extends along the western river bank for twenty miles up to Piermont, +this rocky buttress making the northern limit of New Jersey on the +Hudson River. Occasionally a patch of trees grows upon the tops or +sides of the Palisades, while the broken rocks and _débris_ that have +fallen down make a sloping surface from about half-way up their height +to the water's edge. These columns rise in varying heights from three +to five hundred feet. This grand escarpment of the Palisades is a +giant wall along the river bank, sometimes cut down by deep and narrow +ravines, through which the people behind them get brief peeps at the +picturesque stream far below. Their general surface makes a sort of +long and narrow table-land, barely a half-mile to a mile wide, +dividing the Hudson from the valley of the Hackensack to the westward, +the top being usually quite level, and in most cases having a growth +of trees. These desolate-looking Palisades are a barrier dividing two +sections of country seeming in sharp contrast. To the westward, the +inhabitants lead simple pastoral lives in a region of farm land and +dairies. To the eastward, the opposite shore of the Hudson is a +succession of villas and fashionable summer resorts, whither the New +York people come out, seeking a little rest and freshness after the +season's dissipation. From the tops of the Palisades are admirable +views both east and west, displaying some of the finest sunrises and +sunsets seen along the great river. Extensive blasting operations, to +get the building-stone and paving material for which they form +valuable quarries, are marring the beauty of the Palisades, but legal +arrangements are maturing for their preservation. Their highest +elevation, the Indian Head, not far above Fort Lee, rising five +hundred and ten feet, has been ruined by these blasts, which at times +will break off many thousand tons of rock at a single explosion. + + [Illustration: _Palisades of the Hudson_] + +The rocky buttress of Piermont, the termination of the Palisades on +the Hudson, gets its name from a pier, a mile long, which is extended +from the shore at the foot of the mountain out to deep water, and a +branch of the Erie railway terminates here. This line runs inland +northwestward through a fine country. Over there is Greenwood Lake, +known as the "miniature Lake George," a beautiful river-like body of +water, ten miles long and a mile wide, almost entirely enclosed in the +mountains, and presenting extremely picturesque scenery. This lake is +at a thousand feet elevation, with clear and deep spring water, and in +the neighborhood are the smaller but as charming Lakes Wawayanda, +Macopin and Sterling. The long look over mountain and vale causing an +expression of surprise in broken English from an Indian gazing upon +the attractive prospect, is said to have named the first of these +pretty little lakes;--"Away, way, yonder," he said, but it sounded +like "Wa-wa-yanda," and the name has since clung to it. Not far away, +among these mountains, is Tuxedo Lake, the fashionable resort of the +Tuxedo Park Association, also reached by the Erie railway. This club +of wealthy New Yorkers has made a paradise among the Allegheny +foothills, with game-preserves, golf-links, club-house, and many +cottages for the members. + +Above Spuyten Duyvel Creek the western Hudson River shore presents the +monotonous front of these Palisades, stretching for miles apparently +without a sign of active life; but the eastern bank is a far different +picture of undulating hills, with gentle slopes to the water's edge, +and covered in every eligible position with an endless variety of +villas, presenting every phase of artistic taste and the development +of abundant wealth. These summer homes upon the Hudson are among the +crowning glories of the ever-changing river scene. Here is the famous +Font Hill, now the Convent of Mount St. Vincent. In 1850 the tragedian +Edwin Forrest built it for his home, a mediæval graystone castle, with +moat and drawbridge and six battlemented towers; but he held it only a +few years, when he quarrelled with his wife, and sold the estate for +$100,000 to the Sisters of Charity of the Order of St. Vincent de Paul +for their Mother House, which had to remove from the site of Central +Park in New York. The cross now surmounts the tallest castle tower, +and it is surrounded by noble trees which have grown higher than the +turrets, while on the hill behind, and almost overshadowing the little +castle, is a huge red-brick convent building. Lawns slope down to the +shore, and there are superb river views, with the grand wall of the +Palisades rising high in front. + +Yonkers is seventeen miles above New York, a galaxy of castellated and +ornamental mansions fringing the town about, upon the amphitheatre of +hills surrounding the flat depression on which it is mainly built. The +little Neperhan or Sawmill River pours down a series of rapids through +it before reaching the Hudson, with factories bordering the banks, +while the great Vanderbilt railway, the New York Central, with a +half-dozen sets of rails, runs along the front of the town. Here are +now forty thousand people, in sharp contrast with the time when +Hendrick Hudson, exploring the river, anchored in front of the little +Indian village of Napperhamok, or the "Rapid Water." Curiosity brought +them out in canoes to examine his ship, the "Half Moon," and he bought +oysters and beans, saying he found them "a loving people who attained +great age." The Dutch early bought land from these Indians for a +settlement, and it became the domain of Patroon Vanderdonck, who set +the town going under the name of Yonk-heer, or the "young master," +meaning the heir of the family. Then the English came along and it +became the "Philipse Manor," the old stone manor house built in 1682 +being the antiquarian attraction, and used now as a sort of City Hall, +a Soldiers' Monument standing in front. This was a manor of +twenty-four thousand acres stretching along the river from Spuyten +Duyvel up to the Croton. The third of the English lords of the manor +was Fredericke Philipse, who was a shrewd aristocrat, and during the +Revolution tried the difficult political game of a neutral, desirous +of keeping on the winning side. But neither party trusted him, and +although Washington had been his guest in the famous old manor house, +yet he was attainted of treason by the State of New York, his great +manor confiscated, cut up into small tracts and sold. The romance of +Yonkers is the love story of his daughter, Mary Philipse, the "belle +of the Hudson Valley." Tradition tells of her as the first love of +Washington, but he wooed in vain, and she married another. Cooper made +her the heroine of his novel _The Spy_. + +The lands of this manor are among the most prized locations on the +Hudson. Magnificent estates cover the sloping eastern bank, with +hundreds of villas of all kinds and styles, fortunes being expended +upon their elaborate decoration. Highly ornamental grounds upon the +hillsides and terraces surround costly houses, built to reproduce +palaces, churches, castles, baronial halls and old manors, with some +sombre buildings not unlike tombs. There is every conceivable +structure the florid imagination of an architect can fashion into a +dwelling, some being of great size. They show up prettily among the +trees, and some are thrust out upon crags almost overhanging the +river, others nestle far back in clefts, and still others are set high +upon the slopes. Amid the grand display is the villa-environed and +exclusive town of Hastings-on-the-Hudson; and a mile above, and still +in the gilded colony, is the village of Dobbs's Ferry. It got its name +from the venerable John Dobbs, a Swede, who came over from the +Delaware River to run the ferry during the Revolution. Not long ago +some of the modern aristocrats of the place got ashamed of their old +Dobbs heritage and sought to change the name to Paulding. Then came a +sharp controversy, fanned into fever heat by the sensational warriors +of the New York newspapers. Soon, however, the Pauldingites +surrendered, old Dobbs was vindicated, and Dobbs's Ferry the place +remains. It was here in the Livingston Mansion, in 1783, that Generals +Washington, Carleton and Clinton met to finally settle the terms of +English recognition of American independence. Two miles above is +Irvington, with more elaborate villas. This favored region of the +Hudson is the choicest abiding-place of the New York multi-millionaires, +and a newspaper scribe on one occasion counted in the space of six +miles above Hastings the rural homes of sixty-three men whose +aggregate wealth was estimated at more than $500,000,000. The single +million fellow no longer cuts a figure in such a galaxy. On an +eminence near Irvington stood the country house of the wealthiest of +them, loftily situated, a white stone building with a tall tower, +having very attractive surroundings. This was the Paulding Manor of +Lyndehurst, the home of Jay Gould. + + +THE TAPPEN ZEE. + +Over opposite, the grand terminating buttress of the Palisades, +Piermont, compresses the river channel, the rocks then receding, so +that to the northward it broadens into the beautiful lake of the +Tappan Zee. Here is the boundary dividing New Jersey from New York, +and the long ridge, retiring from the river, stretches inland some +miles, encircles the town of Nyack, and comes back to the river some +distance above in an abrupt elevated cliff known as Point-no-Point. +This lake is over four miles wide, and is the scene of the legend of +"The Flying Dutchman of the Tappan Zee." Irving tells us that often in +the still twilight of a summer evening, when the sea would be as +glass, and the opposite hills threw their shadows half across it, a +low sound would be heard, as of the steady vigorous pull of oars, +though no boat could be seen. Some said it was a whale-boat of the +ancient water-guard, sunk by the British ships during the war, but now +permitted to haunt its old cruising-grounds. But the prevalent opinion +connected it with the awful fate of "Rambout Van Dam of graceless +memory." He was a roystering Dutchman of Spuyten Duyvel, who in a time +long past navigated his boat alone one Saturday the whole length of +the Tappan Zee to attend a quilting-party at Kakiat, on the western +shore. Here he danced until midnight, when he started home. He was +warned it was the verge of Sunday morning, but he went off, swearing +he would not land until he reached Spuyten Duyvel, if it took him a +month of Sundays. He was never seen afterwards, but may still be +heard, plying his oars, being "the Flying Dutchman of the Tappan Zee, +doomed to ply between Kakiat and Spuyten Duyvel until the day of +judgment." There is also another legend of a stout, round, Dutch-built +vessel of the olden time, with high bow and stern, sailing up New York +harbor in the teeth of wind and tide. She never returned down the +Hudson, but the Dutch skippers plying the river often saw her, +sometimes along the Palisades, or off Croton Point, or in the +Highlands, but never above them. Sometimes it was by the lightning +flashes of a storm upon a pitchy night, and giving glimpses of her +careering across the Tappan Zee or the wide waste of Haverstraw Bay. +Sometimes on quiet moonlight nights she would lie under a high bluff +in the Highlands, all in deep shadow, excepting her topsails +glittering in the moonbeams. She appeared always just before or after +or during unruly weather, and all the skippers knew her as the "Storm +Ship." Some maintained this phantom was the "Flying Dutchman," come +from the Cape of Good Hope into more tranquil waters. Others held it +to be Hendrick Hudson and the shadowy crew of the "Half Moon" sailing +to their revels in the Catskills. We are told by Irving that "she +still haunts the Highlands and cruises about Point-no-Point. People +living along the river insist they sometimes see her in summer +moonlight, and that in a deep still midnight they have heard the chant +of her crew as if heaving the lead." + +Tappan Village, naming the Tappan Zee, is some distance back from +Piermont. Over on the eastern bank, nearly opposite Nyack, is +Tarrytown, the "Torwen-Dorp" or "Wheat-Town" of the ancient Dutch, +which has gradually changed to the present name. The genial Irving, +never at a loss for a reason for the names of places along the river, +tells how the good housewives named it Tarrytown because of their +spouses' propensity to linger in the village tavern on market days. It +is now one of the most elegant places on the Hudson, notable for its +splendid villas. The attractive region about the Tappan Zee is full of +Revolutionary memories, and particularly of the great historic tragedy +made by the treason of Arnold and the capture of André. Major John +André, at the age of twenty-nine, in 1780, was Adjutant General of the +British Army, then commanded by Sir Henry Clinton in New York. On +September 20th André came to Dobbs's Ferry to meet Arnold, with whom +he had been in secret correspondence in reference to the surrender of +West Point, where Arnold commanded. The next night he met Arnold at +Stony Point, just below the Highlands, and started back with Arnold's +passport and documents enabling the British to so direct an attack +upon West Point as to capture it. These papers were in Arnold's +handwriting, and at his suggestion André concealed them between the +soles of his feet and his stockings. André tried to make his way down +the eastern side of the Hudson to New York in disguise, taking the +Tarrytown road, through what was then known as the "neutral ground," +which was overrun by marauders from both armies. When within a +half-mile of Tarrytown, at a little stream since called André's +Brook, he was captured by Paulding, Williams and Van Wert, three +American scouts, whom he mistook for his own partisans, and they +searched him and found the treasonable papers. Rejecting all bribes, +they took him across the Hudson to Tappan, then the American army +headquarters, where he was condemned and hanged as a spy on October +2d. The old house wherein he was imprisoned still stands in Tappan, +and his remains were interred there until 1821, when they were +conveyed to Westminster Abbey, London. + + +THE HOME OF WASHINGTON IRVING. + +Near Irvington is Sunnyside, long the home of the famous and genial +Washington Irving. In the early days this house was built by a cynical +Dutch councillor named Wolfert Acker, who inscribed over the door, +"Lust in Rust,"--meaning "pleasure in quiet,"--whence the English +called it "Wolfert's Roost." As the Spanish Escurial had been modelled +after the famous gridiron of the blessed Saint Lawrence, so this loyal +councillor is said to have modelled his house after the cocked hat of +the doughty Dutch Governor, Peter the Headstrong. The old house with +its quaint Dutch gables became in time the castle of Baltus Van +Tassel, and being held by Jacob Van Tassel, an active American +partisan during the Revolution, the British sacked and burned it. The +eastern front is overrun by ivy given Irving by Sir Walter Scott at +Abbotsford, and originally from Melrose Abbey. The great author lived +here from 1846 until his death in 1859, and his pen has immortalized +the neighborhood. Nearby is the sequestered vale of Slaeperigh Haven, +famed in the "Legend of the Sleepy Hollow." Not far from Tarrytown, he +writes, there is a little valley, or rather a lap of land among high +hills, one of the quietest places in the whole world. A small brook +glides through it with just murmur enough to lull one to repose; and +the occasional whistle of a quail or tapping of a woodpecker is almost +the only sound that ever breaks in upon the uniform tranquility. At +the opening of this hollow, by the side of a winding lane, stands the +ancient Dutch church, which is the oldest religious house in New York +State. It is a curious little building with a diminutive spire +enclosing a bell with the inscription, "Si . Deus . Pro . Nobis . +Contra . Nos . 1685"--If God for us, who against us. It was built of +bricks brought out from Holland, and in the ancient and mossy +graveyard, almost under the shadow of the old church, Irving is +buried. He lies upon a beautiful sunny slope, whence one can look into +the Sleepy Hollow, and also far over the lovely Tappan Zee and its +pleasant surroundings, a spot he selected for his tomb. Longfellow +thus sweetly sings of this modest grave: + + "Here lies the gentle humorist, who died + In the bright Indian Summer of his fame + A simple stone, with but a date and name, + Marks his secluded resting place, beside + The river that he loved and glorified. + Here in the autumn of his days he came, + But the dry leaves of his life were all aflame + With tints that brightened and were multiplied. + How sweet a life was his; how sweet a death! + Living, to wing with mirth the weary hours, + Or with romantic tales the heart to cheer; + Dying, to leave a memory like the breath + Of summer, full of sunshine and of showers, + A grief and gladness in the atmosphere." + +Only a short distance from the church is the old bridge made famous in +the legend describing the escapade of the schoolmaster, Ichabod Crane, +with his "soft and foolish heart toward the sex." In his love he had a +rival in the stalwart and muscular Brom Bones. The legend tells us +that Ichabod taught the Dutch urchins of these parts, and at the same +time paid court to old farmer Van Tassel's daughter, the fair Katrina. +Brom Bones, otherwise Brom Van Brunt, determined to drive him away. +One dismal night Ichabod left the Van Tassel mansion in very low +spirits. In the hush of midnight he could hear the watchdog bark, +distant and vague, from the far opposite shore of the Hudson. Irving +tells us a belief existed in a spectre--the Headless Horseman of +Sleepy Hollow--supposed to be the spirit of a Hessian trooper whose +head had been carried off by a cannon-ball. Nearing the old church, +this horrid ghost appeared in pursuit of Ichabod, who was bestride an +inflexible old horse called Gunpowder. The terrified schoolmaster made +all haste to reach the bridge, having passed which, he would be beyond +the power of his pursuer. He spurred Gunpowder forward, but looking +back, beheld the spectre close behind him, and in the very act of +hurling its horrid head at him. The crash came; Ichabod rolled to the +ground; the spectre and Gunpowder rushed past him in a whirlwind. Next +day, we are told, a shattered pumpkin was found in the road, and not +long afterwards Brom Bones led Katrina to the altar, but the luckless +Ichabod was never heard of again. + +In the hills behind Point-no-Point, on the western verge of the Tappan +Zee, at one hundred and sixty feet elevation, is Rockland Lake, a +crystal sheet of water which gives New York much of its ice supply, +the blocks being sent from the top of the hill on a long slide to the +barges that carry it down the river. As they glide along, they look in +the distance, under the sunlight, like a string of diamonds. Hook +Mountain, separating the lake from the river, is over six hundred feet +high, and out of the lake flows the Hackensack River behind the +Palisades, through the Jersey meadows to Newark Bay. Just above +Tarrytown, on the eastern shore, is Sing-Sing Village, on a pretty +slope, the name coming from the Indian Ossining, meaning "a stony +place." Here, just back from the shore, is the famous Sing-Sing +Prison, the long, low tiers of white stone buildings having the +railway tunnelled through them, and the pleasant village rising on the +hillside behind. The convicts built their own prison many years ago, +with stone hewn out of an adjacent marble ridge, called Mount +Pleasant. Just above, the long forest-covered projection of Teller's +or Croton Point, thrust for two miles, or more than half-way across +the broad river, from the eastern bank, makes the northern boundary of +the Tappan Zee. The West Shore railway, which has come up through the +Hackensack Valley from Jersey City, emerges high on the western hills +and runs gradually down to the river bank, so that the Hudson above +has a railway on either shore. Alongside the Point, the Croton River +flows in, the Reservoir being about six miles up that stream. It was +off Teller's Point the British sloop "Vulture" anchored, when she +brought André up from New York for his interview with Arnold. + + +ENTERING THE HIGHLANDS. + +Beyond Teller's Point is another broadened expanse of the Hudson, +Haverstraw Bay, spreading in parts five miles wide, its western shore +lined with brickmaking establishments, lime-kilns and the factories +which break up the stone quarried in the neighboring hills into +Belgian blocks for New York street paving. Far in front, over the +spacious bay, looms up the distant range of Hudson River Highlands, an +outcrop of the great Kittatinny ridge, stretching broadly across the +country, a part of the same deep blue-gray mountain wall we have +already penetrated farther south. Its changing hues and appearance, as +approached, remind of Campbell's couplet in the _Pleasures of Hope_: + + "'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view, + And robes the mountain in its azure hue." + +High Torn, just behind the bank below Haverstraw, rises over eight +hundred feet, while above is Stony Point, the outcrop of a long line +of limestone hills stretching into the river. Between it and the town, +standing on a little eminence not far from the shore, was the frame +house of Smith the Tory, known as the "Treason House," where André and +Arnold had their clandestine meeting to arrange the surrender of West +Point, this eminence now being known as "Treason Hill." Across the +ferry to Verplanck's Point, on the opposite shore, André went when the +meeting was over, and started on his fateful journey down to +Tarrytown. The two Points suddenly narrow the Hudson, above Treason +Hill, to a half-mile width, and they make the northern boundary of +Haverstraw Bay. This is a region filled with Revolutionary memories. +These Points commanded the southern river entrance to the Highlands, +and behind them, back of the western shore, rises the buttress of the +Kittatinny and the outpost of the pass, the massive Donderberg +Mountain, eleven hundred feet high. The eastern Point was part of the +Van Cortlandt manor, whose heiress, Gertrude, married Philip +Verplanck, for whom it was named. Forts were built on both Points to +control the river, and the British surprised and captured both of them +in June, 1779, giving Washington much annoyance; but General Wayne, in +July, by one of the most brilliant movements of the war, surprised and +recaptured Stony Point. On the site of the old fort, and built of some +of its materials, is now a little lighthouse guiding the river +navigation. Over on the opposite shore, behind Verplanck's Point, +Baron Steuben drilled the Revolutionary soldiers. This region now is +chiefly devoted to the peaceful occupations of burning lime and making +bricks. + +The Hudson bends towards the northeast along the base of the towering +Donderberg,--the Thunder Mountain,--the limestone quarries cut into +its cliffs looking much like an old-time fortress. The narrow river +contracted in the pass always has gusty winds blowing over it, and +this was a weird region in the ancient Dutch _régime_, many a tale of +woe and wonder being told by the skippers who sailed that way. Irving +records how they used to "talk of a little bulbous-bottomed Dutch +goblin in trunk-hose and sugar-loaf hat, with a speaking-trumpet in +his hand, which they say keeps the Donder-Berg." He declares "they +have heard him in stormy weather, in the midst of the turmoil, giving +orders in Low Dutch for the piping up of a fresh gust of wind, or the +rattling off of another thunder-clap; that sometimes he had been seen +surrounded by a crew of little imps, in broad breeches and short +doublets, tumbling head over heels in the rack and mist, and playing a +thousand gambols in the air, or buzzing like a swarm of flies about +Anthony's Nose; and that at such times the hurry-scurry of the storm +was always greatest." The genial historian supports this statement by +testimony. "Skipper Daniel Ouslesticker of Fish Kill, who was never +known to tell a lie," declared that in a severe squall he saw the +goblin "seated astride of his bowsprit, riding the sloop ashore full +butt against Anthony's Nose," but that he was happily exorcised by +"Dominie Van Geisen of Esopus, who happened to be on board, and who +sang the song of Saint Nicholas, whereupon the goblin threw himself up +in the air like a ball, and went off in a whirlwind, carrying away +with him the nightcap of the Dominie's wife, which was discovered the +next Sunday morning hanging on the weathercock of Esopus Church +steeple, at least forty miles off." Such misadventures occurring, the +skippers for a long time did not venture past the Donderberg without +lowering their peaks in homage, "and it was observed that all such as +paid this tribute of respect were suffered to pass unmolested." + +The Hudson River Highlands in some peaks rise nearly sixteen hundred +feet. The river, coming from the north, breaks through them in a +series of short bends, making narrow reaches, and in the fifteen miles +required for the passage presents some of the most attractive American +scenery. Beyond Verplanck's Point is the town of Peekskill, with the +mountain range trending far away to the northeast, the river flowing +along its base, and from the view ahead seeming to come from the +lowlands beyond Peekskill. It was not strange, therefore, that in the +early seventeenth century one of the Dutch skippers who braved the +goblin of the Donderberg, in his explorations should have sailed his +sloop up there, got into a shallow creek, and run aground. This was +the misfortune of the honest Dutch mariner Jan Peek; but he made the +best of it, and seeing that the soil of the valley was fertile, +settled there, and the creek became Peek's Kill, and thus named the +town. The rich Canopus Valley is to the northeastward, and the +mountains blend so well that the sharp right-angled bend the river +makes into the Highlands is completely hidden. + + +ANTHONY'S NOSE. + +Thus rise, high over the valley, "the rough turrets of the Highland +towers." The Indians believed this mountain region was created by the +mighty spirit Manetho, to protect his favorite abodes from the +unhallowed eyes of mortals. Their tradition was that the vast +mountains of rock were raised before the Hudson poured its waters +through them, and within them was a prison where the omnipotent +Manetho confined rebellious spirits. Here, bound by adamantine chains, +jammed in rifted pines, or crushed under ponderous crags, they groaned +for ages. At length the mighty Hudson burst open their prison-house, +rolling its overwhelming tide triumphantly through the stupendous +ruins. Entering the pass, it really seems as if the Hudson River +channel ought to run up where Jan Peek went, but instead it goes +sharply around the ponderous base of the Donderberg Mountain. This is +a very narrow gateway, where the swift tidal current makes the "Race," +and in an instant the contracted passage is opened between the +Donderberg on the left and Anthony's Nose on the right, entering this +beautiful Highland district, which Chateaubriand has likened to "a +large bouquet tied at its base with azure ribbon." As the narrow +strait is traversed, Iona Island, tree-clad and attractive, appears +ahead, and the winds usually blow a lively gale, buffeted from one +mountain side to the other. The tide runs swiftly around the base of +Anthony's Nose, and the romantic Brocken Kill pours down his sloping +side, while through the jutting point of the Nose the railway has +pierced a tunnel, making on either side a veritable nostril. The huge +tree-covered mountain rises grandly to the clouds, while just over the +tunnel at the point, a mass of protruding rocks and timber makes a +first-class pimple to ornament the Nose. This is one of the prominent +Highland peaks, rising over twelve hundred feet, and is said by some +to have been named from a fancied resemblance to the nose of the great +St. Anthony, the Egyptian monk of the third century. + +Irving, however, has given us the more popular tradition that it was +named in memory of luckless Anthony the Trumpeter, who met his fate at +Spuyten Duyvel. The veracious historian Knickerbocker writes: "It must +be known that the nose of Anthony the Trumpeter was of a very lusty +size, strutting boldly from his countenance like a mountain of +Golconda, being sumptuously bedecked with rubies and other precious +stones--the true regalia of a king of good fellows--which jolly +Bacchus grants to all who bouse it heartily at the flagon. Now, thus +it happened, that bright and early in the morning the good Anthony, +having washed his burly visage, was leaning over the quarter railing +of the galley, contemplating it in the glossy wave below. Just at this +moment, the illustrious sun, breaking in all his splendor from behind +a high bluff of the Highlands, did dart one of his most potent beams +full upon the nose of the sounder of brass, the reflection of which +shot straightway down hissing hot into the water and killed a mighty +sturgeon that was sporting beside the vessel. This huge monster, being +with infinite labor hoisted on board, furnished a luxurious repast to +all the crew, being accounted of excellent flavor, except about the +wound, where it smacked a little of brimstone, and this, on my +veracity, was the first time that ever sturgeon was eaten in these +parts by Christian people. When this astonishing miracle became known +to Peter Stuyvesant, and he tasted of the unknown fish, he, as may +well be supposed, marvelled exceedingly, and as a monument thereof, he +gave the name of 'Anthony's Nose' to a stout promontory in the +neighborhood, and it has continued to be called 'Anthony's Nose' ever +since that time." + + +WEST POINT. + +The most famous locality in the Highlands is West Point. "In this +beautiful place," wrote Charles Dickens, "the fairest among the fair +and lovely Highlands of the North River; shut in by deep green heights +and ruined forts, and looking down upon the distant town of Newburg, +along a glittering path of sunlit water, with here and there a skiff, +whose white sail often bends on some new tack as sudden flaws of wind +come down upon her from the gullies in the hills, hemmed in besides, +all around, with memories of Washington and events of the +Revolutionary war: is the Military School of America." Opposite +Anthony's Nose, Montgomery Creek flows in, its mouth broadened into a +little bay. Upon the high rocks at the entrance, on either side, stood +the great defenders of the lower Highlands during the early +Revolution, Forts Clinton and Montgomery, considered impregnable +then, and to bar the river passage a ponderous iron chain on timber +floats was stretched across the channel to Anthony's Nose. The +Continental Congress spent $250,000 on these obstructions, but the +British in 1777 surprised and captured the forts, destroyed the chain +and burnt the gunboats guarding it. This was a great victory, but +barren of results, for Burgoyne's surrender soon afterwards compelled +them to abandon this region and retire down towards New York. There +are traces of the forts, and a flagstaff on the hill north of the +creek marks the site of Fort Montgomery. Just above, on the eastern +bank, is the charming and symmetrical cone of the Sugar Loaf Mountain, +with several smaller companions, and the vista views along the river, +and through some of the deep valleys between these mountains, are +magnificent. The little town of Garrison's fringes the shore, the +school of the Sisters of St. Francis, formerly a popular hotel, is +perched high on the cliff on the western bank; while in front the dome +of the West Point Library and the barracks rise in view upon the Point +itself, which stretches completely across the view, its extremity +hidden by the jutting headlands of the eastern bank. Here comes down +in rainy weather the frothy current of the beautiful Buttermilk Falls, +for a hundred feet over the rocks into the river, and the West Shore +Railroad, winding along the edge of the cliffs, cuts or goes through +their extended points, and finally darts into a long tunnel bored +right under the West Point Academy. + +The Hudson River, some distance above, bends sharply around the little +lighthouse on the end of West Point, its extremity being a moderately +sloping rock covered with cedars, the reef going deep down into the +water, while on its highest part is a monument to General Kosciusko, +who had much to do with constructing the original military works. The +flat and elevated surface, some distance inland, plainly visible both +from up and down the river, is the Parade Ground, the Academic +buildings being constructed around it, while behind them on higher +ground is the dome-crowned library. The surface of West Point is not +so high as the surrounding mountains, but its advanced position +completely commands the river approach both ways, and hence its +military importance. Along the water's edge at the Point the rocks are +worn smooth, it is said, by so many cadets sitting there in the summer +time. Just above is the cove, where they swim and practice at +pontoon-bridge building, and back of this cove is the artillery +ground, the guns being fired at the huge side of old Cro' Nest +Mountain to the northward. Gee's Point is also above, and from its +extremity was extended the second big chain across to Constitution +Island, used during the later years of the Revolution, to obstruct the +passage, also buoyed on timber floats; some of its huge links being +still preserved. Constitution Island was long the home of Susan +Warner, the authoress, who died in 1885, and her grave is in West +Point Cemetery. Her _Hills of the Shatemuc_ is full of Hudson River +scenes, but her best-known book was _The Wide, Wide World_, published +in 1850. + +The military post and academy of West Point is about fifty miles north +of New York, the Government domain covering twenty-four hundred acres. +The buildings stand on a plain of one hundred and sixty acres, +elevated one hundred and fifty-seven feet above the river, with +mountains all around, rising in some cases fifteen hundred feet, the +highest being old Cro' Nest. South of the Academy, on a commanding +hill six hundred feet high, are the ruins of Fort Putnam, the chief +work during the Revolution. When that war began in 1775 it was ordered +that the passes of the Hudson through the Highlands should be +fortified, and Fort Constitution was built on the opposite island. As +the higher adjacent hills commanded it, this work was soon abandoned, +and three years later West Point was selected and fortified, with Fort +Clinton at the Point, and several other formidable works, becoming the +"American Gibraltar," the second massive chain being then extended +across to the island as an additional protection. It was considered +the most important post in the country, and at the time of Arnold's +treason in September, 1780, was garrisoned by over three thousand men, +and had one hundred and eighteen cannon in the various works. After +peace came, the military defenses fell into ruin; but Washington +repeatedly recommended that a military school be established at West +Point, and in 1802 it was authorized by Congress, going into operation +in 1812. The earthworks of the original Fort Clinton on the point, +built by the youthful engineer Thaddeus Kosciusko in 1778, have been +restored, and are carefully preserved. This young officer, descended +from a noble Polish family, had not completed his studies in the +military school of Warsaw when he eloped with a girl of high rank. The +enraged father pursued and captured them, and the youthful lover was +compelled either to slay the father or abandon the daughter. He chose +the latter, and going to Paris met Dr. Franklin, who soon filled him +with a desire to help the struggling Americans, and he came over and +entered the army as an engineer in 1776. He served with distinction +throughout the war, was made a General, and publicly thanked by +Congress. He fought afterwards in the Polish Revolution, and retiring +to Switzerland, died in 1817. He is buried in the Cathedral Church of +Cracow, and near that city a mound one hundred and fifty feet high has +been raised to his memory, earth being brought from every battlefield +in Poland. The Kosciusko monument of marble was erected in memory of +the noble Pole in an angle of Fort Clinton at West Point in 1829. + + +ARNOLD'S TREASON. + +West Point itself saw no fighting, the great event of its early +history being Benedict Arnold's treason. Across the river from the +Point, and under the shadow of Sugar Loaf Mountain, is Beverly Cove, +with a little wharf, where then stood Beverly House, previously the +home of a prominent loyalist, Colonel Beverly Robinson of Virginia. +Dr. Dwight, afterwards President of Yale College, was Chaplain of a +Connecticut regiment at West Point in 1778, and he then climbed the +Sugar Loaf, describing its view over the Highlands as "majestic, +solemn, wild and melancholy." Arnold, when he plotted for the +surrender of the post with André at Treason Hill, below the Highlands, +agreed to the treason for $50,000 gold and a Brigadier General's +commission in the British army. Believing the plot was working +prosperously, Arnold, after the interview, had crossed from the Point +over to Beverly House, his headquarters, and three days afterwards +breakfasted there on September 24, 1780. Hamilton and Lafayette +arrived early that morning and met him, announcing that Washington was +at the ferry below and would soon join them. While at the table, +Arnold received a letter from an officer down the river with the +startling intelligence, "Major André of the British army is a prisoner +in my custody." Arnold is said to have acted with wonderful coolness +in the presence of his distinguished company, and although evidence +of his own guilt might at any moment have arrived, he thoroughly +concealed his emotions. Ordering a horse prepared, on the plea that +his presence was needed "over the river," he left the table and went +up stairs to his wife. He briefly told her they must part, perhaps +forever, as his life depended on speedily reaching the British lines. +The poor young wife, a bride of less than two years, was +horror-stricken, and swooning, sank senseless upon the floor. Arnold +dare not summon assistance, but kissed their sleeping infant, and +mounting his horse galloped down to the wharf. Here he jumped into his +six-oared barge, ordering them to row him swiftly down the Hudson, +strengthening their energies by a promised reward of two gallons of +rum. The oarsmen worked with a will, not knowing where they were +going, and were astonished when he got below the Highlands to find him +guiding them to the British sloop "Vulture." They were kept aboard as +prisoners by Arnold's orders, and saw him greeted as a friend by their +enemies. Even Sir Henry Clinton, when they arrived in New York, +despised this meanness and ordered their liberation. + +Washington arrived at Beverly House soon after Arnold had left, being +anxious to see him, but could not find him. The General took a hasty +breakfast and crossed over the river to West Point seeking him, but +having no suspicions. He was disappointed at not finding Arnold +there, and talking to Colonel Lamb, commanding Fort Clinton, the +latter told him he had not heard from Arnold for two days. +Washington's suspicions began to awaken, and crossing back to Beverly +House, he was met by Hamilton, with the papers found upon André, +revealing Arnold's guilt. He summoned Lafayette and Knox for counsel, +and the deepest sorrow evidently stirred Washington's bosom as he +asked them the memorable question, "Whom can we trust now?" But soon +the condition of the deserted wife, who was frantic with grief and +apprehension, aroused his liveliest sympathy. Describing the scene, +Hamilton wrote: "The General went up to see her. She upbraided him +with being in a plot to murder her child, for she was quite beside +herself. One moment she raved; another she melted into tears. +Sometimes she pressed her infant to her bosom and lamented its fate, +occasioned by the imprudence of its father, in a manner that would +have moved insensibility itself." Washington did all in his power to +soothe her, believing her innocent of previous knowledge of her +husband's guilt. After Arnold had got safely aboard the "Vulture," he +wrote to Washington, imploring protection for his wife and child, +saying: "She is as good and innocent as an angel, and as incapable of +doing wrong." Ample protection was afforded, and they were sent safely +to her friends. She was Miss Shippen of Philadelphia, and only +eighteen years old when Arnold, then the Military Governor of +Philadelphia, married her in 1778, his second wife. The infant, James +Robertson Arnold, afterwards became a distinguished officer in the +British army, serving with credit in different parts of the world, and +rising to the rank of Lieutenant General, dying in London in 1854. +Benedict Arnold was made a Major General by the British, and was given +a considerable sum of money; but his life was unhappy, as he was +shunned and often insulted, and sinking into obscurity, he died in +London in 1801. His treason was deliberately plotted, investigation +showing he had been over a year in correspondence with the enemy, and +had sought the command at West Point, given him in August, 1780, in +order to compass its surrender. + + +OLD CRO' NEST AND THE STORM KING. + +The dark pile of old Cro' Nest, guarding the northern side of West +Point, rises fourteen hundred and eighteen feet, one of the noblest +mountains of the Highlands. Beyond it, the Storm King and Mount Taurus +are the northern portals of the pass, with Pollopell's Island, rocky +and tree-clad, lying in the river between, and farther on the distant +hazy shores enclosing Newburg Bay. These buttresses of the northern +entrance solidly rise as protectors of the pass into the valley: + + "Mountains that like giants stand + To sentinel enchanted land." + +On the northern side of the promontory making the Point, upon a little +level plain above the cliffs, overlooking the river, and almost under +the shadow of old Cro' Nest, is the West Point Cemetery. Here is +buried General Winfield Scott. Upon the Parade Ground is the Battle +Monument, erected in 1894, a column seventy-eight feet high, +surmounted by a statue of Victory. Down along the most beautiful part +of the shore at the Point, and leading to Kosciusko's Garden, a +favorite resort of the Polish officer, is the secluded path which +generations of impulsive young cadets have known as the "Flirtation +Walk." Beginning at the roadway, high on the bluff, overlooking the +river, it winds with devious turns down the declivity, and after +curving around the promontory near the water's edge, sweeps grandly up +the incline again. This trysting-path leads under a lacework of +foliage, giving it pleasant and meditative gloom even when the sun +shines brightly. Over across the river is the village of Cold Spring, +having both above and below the shores rising steeply, and hung upon +the edge is the pretty Church of St. Mary's, with its columned portico +and surmounting belfry. Nearby the railway running along the shore +pierces a tunnel through a rugged protruding rock. Here is the Cold +Spring foundry that makes cannon for the army. Almost under the Parade +Ground on the northern side is the Siege Battery, where the guns in +time of artillery practice carry on a noisy and reverberating +warfare across the Cove against the dark and towering side of old Cro' +Nest. This grand mountain, the target for the youthful gunners, +inspired the muse of George P. Morris, the lyric poet of the +Highlands, whose delightful home was at Undercliff, across the river +above, at the foot of Mount Taurus. His eyes perpetually feasted upon +the view of this peak, and thus he described it: + + "Where Hudson's wave o'er silvery sands + Winds through the hills afar, + Old Cro' Nest like a monarch stands + Crowned with a single star." + + [Illustration: _Up the Hudson from the Water Battery, West Point_] + +The northern portal of the Highlands is guarded on either hand by the +Storm King, rising fifteen hundred and twenty-nine feet, and Mount +Taurus, fifteen hundred and eighty-six feet. There are also a galaxy +of attendant peaks. Beyond Mount Taurus is Breakneck Hill, rising +nearly twelve hundred feet, with a chain of mountains stretching far +to the northeast, among them the Old Beacon and the towering Grand +Sachem, sixteen hundred and eighty feet high. The Storm King was the +old Boter-Berg of the early Dutch, thus named because, to their +matter-of-fact minds, the mountain resembled nothing so much as a huge +lump of butter. Similarly, the eastern portal of the pass was Bull +Mountain originally, but has since been more classically transformed +into Mount Taurus. The ancient Knickerbocker legend records how the +primitive inhabitants chased a wild bull around this mountain to the +peak beyond it, where he fell and broke his neck, thus naming both of +them, though Breakneck Hill yet awaits a more classic transformation. + +The geologists tell us that in early ages, like the Minisink of the +Delaware, the region north of the Highlands adjacent to the Hudson +Valley was a vast lake, extending back to Lake Champlain, which still +remains as a fragment of the inland sea, following the melting of the +great glacier. To get a southern outlet, the river broke through the +mountain barrier and formed the winding and romantic Highland Pass. +There is a grand outlook from the summit of the Storm King over this +valley to the northward. The river expands into the beautiful Newburg +Bay, its most perfect land-locked harbor, and its course can be traced +through the "Long Reach" for more than twenty miles, a broad, straight +stream between the pleasant banks, up to Crom Elbow, the "Krom +Elleboge" of the original Dutch colonists. Villages dot the shores, +and fertile fields stretch up on either hand, while hung in mid air, +far away across the water, is the distant, slender, spider-like span +of the high railway bridge at Poughkeepsie, the route by the "back +door" into New England, which has gone through such serious throes of +reconstruction. Upon the left hand the Catskills, and upon the right +hand the Berkshire Hills of Western Massachusetts, bound the distant +horizon. Behind, and to the southward, the river can be traced as it +winds through the Highlands down to Anthony's Nose, while nearer, one +can look into the depression on top of the adjoining mountain, within +a surrounding amphitheatre of peaks that makes the striking +resemblance giving the significant name to the old Cro' Nest. + + +THE CULPRIT FAY. + +Between the Storm King and old Cro' Nest is the deep and beautiful +Vale of Tempe, with wild ravines furrowed through it, forming channels +for clear mountain streams, and the trees conceal many a delicious +dell. In this picturesque nook among the mountains is laid the scene +of Joseph Rodman Drake's charming poem of "The Culprit Fay": + + "'Tis the middle watch of a summer's night, + The earth is dark but the heavens are bright; + Naught is seen in the vault on high + But the moon and the stars and the cloudless sky, + And the flood which rolls its milky hue, + A river of light on the welkin blue. + The moon looks down on old Cro' Nest, + She mellows the shades on his shaggy breast, + And seems his huge gray form to throw + In a silver cone on the wave below; + His sides are broken by spots of shade, + By the walnut bough and the cedar made, + And through their clustering branches dark + Glimmers and dies the fire-fly's spark, + Like starry twinkles that momently break + Through the rifts of the gathering tempest's rack." + +The story is told that Drake, then about twenty-one years of age, and +James Fenimore Cooper and Fitz-Greene Halleck, who were his close +friends, in August, 1816, were strolling through these Highlands. His +companions got into a discussion, holding that our American rivers +gave no such rare opportunities for poetic fancy as the streams of +older lands. Drake disputed this, and, to prove the contrary, composed +within three days this exquisite poem, which has largely made his +fame. It is a simple yet interesting story. The fairies living in this +beautiful valley are called together at midnight to punish one who has +broken his vow, and they sentence him to a difficult penance, with all +the evil spirits of air and water opposing. The genius of the poet +interweaves the poem with every natural attraction the locality +affords. Thus are the fairies summoned to the dance: + + "Ouphe and goblin! imp and sprite! + Elf of eve and starry fay! + Ye that love the moon's soft light, + Hither, hither, wend your way. + Twine ye in a jocund ring; + Sing and trip it merrily; + Hand to hand and wing to wing, + Round the wild witch-hazel tree." + +These Cro' Nest fairies are a dainty race. Owlet's eyes are their +lanterns; they repose in cobweb hammocks swung on tufted spears of +grass and rocked by midsummer night zephyrs; some lie on beds of +lichen, with pillows of the breast-plumes of the humming-bird; others +nestle in the purple shade of the four-o'clock, or in rock-niches +lined with dazzling mica. Velvet-like mushrooms are their tables, +where they quaff the dew from the buttercup. Their king's throne is of +spicewood and sassafras, supported on tortoise-shell pillars and +draped with crimson tulip-leaves. The "culprit" himself, however, in +his beautiful outfit and quaint adventures, gives the best imagery of +the poem. At the opening of his journey, chagrined and fatigued, he +captures a spotted toad for a steed, and bridles her with silk-weed +twist, spurring her onward with an osier whip. Arriving at the water's +edge, he plunges in, but leeches, fish and other watery foes drive him +back with bruised limbs. The use of cobweb lint and the balsam dews of +sorrel and henbane relieve his wounds, and being refreshed by the +juices of calamus, he embarks in a mussel-shell boat, painted +brilliantly without and tinged with pearl within. He gathers a +colen-bell for a cup, and sculls into the middle of the stream, +laughing at the foes who chatter and grin in the water. There he sits +in the moonlight, until a sturgeon, coming by, leaps glistening into +the silvery light; and then, like a liliputian Mercury, balancing upon +one foot, he lifts the flowery cup and catches the sparkling drop that +washes the stain from his wing. He returns to the shore, having sweet +nymphs grasping the sides of the boat with their tiny hands and +urging it onward. The next enterprise of the "culprit" is more +knightly. He is arrayed as a fairy cavalier, in acorn helmet, plumed +with thistle-down, corselet made of a bee's nest, and cloak of +butterfly wings. His shield is a lady-bug's shell; his lance a +wasp-sting; his spurs of cockle-seed; his bow of vine-twig strung with +corn-silk; and his arrows, nettle-shafts. He mounts a fire-fly steed, +and waving a blade of blue grass, speeds upward to catch a flying +meteor's spark. Again the spirits of evil are let loose, those of air +being as bad as those of water. A sylphid queen tries to enchant him +with her beauty and kindness; she toys with the butterfly cloak as he +tells the dangers he has passed. But he never forgets the object of +his pilgrimage, and triumphing over the foes of air, he is escorted +with honor by the sylph's lovely retinue; his career is resumed, his +flame-wood lamp rekindled, and before a streak of dawn is proclaimed +in the eastern sky by the sentry elf, the "Culprit Fay" has made his +full penance and been welcomed back to all his original glory. Drake +died at the early age of twenty-five, a victim of consumption, and his +grave is beside the little river Bronx in New York. To his memory his +friend Halleck wrote the noted poem, thus beginning: + + "Green be the turf above thee, + Friend of my better days! + None knew thee but to love thee, + Nor named thee but to praise." + + +NEWBURG BAY. + +Emerging from the Highlands, the gentle slopes of the town of Cornwall +are under the shadow of the Storm King, while the mountain range +stretches off to the northeast, with Fishkill village in front, and +the Revolutionary signal station of the Old Beacon standing up +prominently behind. These mountains were the Indian Matteawan, the +"Council of Good Fur." The same name was given the stream draining +their sides until the Dutch called it Vis Kill, or Fish Creek, and +hence its present name and that of the village. The shores of Newburg +Bay seem low, as they are dwarfed by the mountains, and on the western +slope an elevated bench of table-land in terraces stretches back to +the distant hills. The town of Newburg, which has about twenty-five +thousand people, spreads up these terraces, and in front there are +storehouses, mills and railway terminals. When Hendrick Hudson sailed +his ship "Half Moon" through the Highlands, he was attracted by the +site of Newburg, and wrote: "It is as beautiful a land as one can +tread upon; a very pleasant place to build a town on." A tribe of the +Minsis who had a village known as the Quassaic, meaning "the Place of +the Rock," then occupied it, and would not for a half-century permit a +settlement. They were driven away, however, and a colony of Lutherans +from the Palatinate came here and founded the "Palatine Parish of +Quassaic." They did not flourish, and ultimately some Scots arrived +from the Tay, and seeing quite a resemblance to their old home, named +the place Newborough. Its most distinguished citizen has probably been +General John E. Wool, born here in 1788. At the southern end of this +pleasant town, a short distance back from the river, is its chief +celebrity, a low, old-fashioned graystone building, appearing to be +almost all roof, from which tall chimneys rise. There is a broad lawn +and flagstaff in front, and a grove for the background. This is the +historic house, maintained by New York State as a relic, which was +General Washington's headquarters during the closing campaign of the +Revolution. It was built by Jonathan Hasbrouck, a Huguenot, in 1750, +and is also known as the Hasbrouck House. In its centre is a large +hall, having a huge fireplace on one side, and containing seven doors, +but only one window. This was Washington's reception hall, and here he +dined with his guests. At the foot of the flagstaff on the lawn is +buried the last survivor of Washington's Life Guard, Ural Knapp, who +died in 1856 at the age of ninety-seven. This Guard, organized in +Boston in 1776, continued as his bodyguard throughout the war, and was +selected from all the regiments of the army. Knapp was its sergeant, +and at his last public appearance at a banquet in Newburg, the old man +made a brief address, concluding with an invitation to the entire +company to attend his funeral; four months later they did so. + +The "Tower of Victory" is a fine monument, built on the grounds by the +Government, and surmounted by a statue of Washington in the act of +sheathing his sword. A bronze tablet with the figure of Peace +announces that it was erected "in commemoration of the disbandment, +under proclamation of the Continental Congress of October 18, 1783, of +the armies by whose patriotic and military virtue our National +independence and sovereignty was established." It was at Newburg that +Washington was offered the title of King by the officers of the army, +but declined it. Over at Fishkill is the old Verplanck House, with its +quaint dormer windows, which was the headquarters of Baron Steuben, +and here, upon the disbandment of the army, was held the meeting of +the officers at which was formed the Society of the Cincinnati, +Washington being its first president. The mountainous region east and +south and the "neutral ground" were the haunts of Enoch Crosby of +Massachusetts, the American spy of the Revolution, whose exploits all +about this locality Fenimore Cooper wove into his novel _The Spy, a +Tale of the Neutral Ground_, which made the novelist's earliest fame. +The ancient Wheaton House, around which much of the tale centred, is +still there. The Murderer's Creek comes down to the Hudson through +Newburg,--an attractive stream which deserved a better name, but did +not get it until N. P. Willis, who lived at Cornwall, and who +converted the Dutch "Butter Hill" into the Storm King, and "Bull Hill" +into Mount Taurus, tried his persuasive powers at Newburg and got this +stream softened into the pleasant Indian name of Moodna. The +neighborhood of Newburg is famous from a scientific standpoint for the +finding of the remains of mastodons. One was unearthed there in 1899, +making the eleventh found in Orange County, New York, during the past +century, some of them being among the finest specimens extant. + +At the head of Newburg Bay, on the western shore, is a rocky platform +down by the waterside, known as the "Devil's Dance Chamber." When the +"Half Moon" came up the river and anchored for the night, this broad +flat rock, now almost hidden by cedars, was the scene of a wild +midnight revel of the Indians, with all the accessories of song and +dance, fire and war-paint, at which the Dutch sailors marvelled +exceedingly, calling it the "Duyvel's Dans-Kamer." Here the warlike +Minsis of the Quassaic, before going on hunting expeditions or the +warpath, would paint themselves grotesquely and dance around a fire +with horrible contortions, singing and yelling under direction of the +soothsayers or "medicine men." They believed, if this was kept up long +enough, the evil spirit would appear, either as a wild beast or a +harmless animal; if the former, it foreboded ill-fortune and the +expedition was abandoned, while the latter was a good omen. These +hideous performances afterwards scared old Governor Peter Stuyvesant, +according to the veracious Knickerbocker, when he sailed up the river, +for the historian says, "Even now I have it on the point of my pen to +relate how his crew was most horribly frightened, on going on shore +above the Highlands, by a gang of merry, roystering devils, frisking +and curvetting on a huge flat rock projecting into the river, and +which is called the Duyvel's Dans-Kamer to this very day." + + +POUGHKEEPSIE AND VASSAR. + +The Hudson River's "Long Reach" stretches many miles almost due +northward, and on it is Poughkeepsie, with thirty thousand population, +midway between New York and Albany. Near here lived stout Theophilus +Anthony the blacksmith, who forged the great chains stretched across +the Hudson in the Highlands, for which the British burnt his house and +carried him a captive down to the New York prison-ships. Here, at +Locust Grove, a foliage-covered rocky point protruding into the river, +was long the home of Professor Samuel F. B. Morse, the inventor of the +electric telegraph. Poughkeepsie spreads broadly upon its group of +gentle hills, with the great railway-bridge crossing high overhead, +elevated two hundred feet above the water, and nearly a mile and a +half long. The Poughkeepsie streets, lined with fine elms, maples and +acacias, rise upon the sloping banks to a height above the bridge +level, the town being environed by rocky buttresses. The Indians named +the place Apo-keep-sinck, or the "pleasant and safe harbor," and in it +they housed their canoes. From this was gradually evolved the present +name, through a variety of spellings, of which no less than forty-two +different styles are found in the old records of the town. The "safe +harbor" of the Indians was between two protruding rocky bluffs, and is +now filled with wharves. The rapid Winnakee Brook leaps into it, a +stream which the Dutch called the Fall Kill. The northern bordering +bluff was their Slange Klippe, or the "Adder Cliff," infested with +venomous serpents, and the other is the "Call Rock." Tradition tells +that once a band of Mohican warriors who had made a foray into New +England brought here some Pequot captives, among them a young chief +who was tied to a tree for a sacrifice, when a shriek startled them, +and a girl, leaping from the thicket, implored his life. She also was +a captive Pequot and his affianced. As the captors debated, the +warwhoop was suddenly sounded by hostile Hurons, and they seized their +arms for defense. The maiden released her lover, but in the conflict +they were separated, and a Huron carried her off. The young chief was +almost inconsolable, but he pursued them beyond the river, and +conceived a daring plan for rescue. He entered the Huron camp +disguised as a wizard, found the maiden ill, and her Huron captor +implored the wizard to save her life. This he essayed to do, she +recognized him, and eluding the Huron vigilance, they escaped at +nightfall. They made their way to the Hudson, paddled over in a canoe, +and though pursued, he brought her into the "safe harbor," concealed +her, and then, by the aid of the friendly Indians he found there, beat +off the Hurons. + +The Dutch often sailed by, and cast longing eyes upon this spot, so +favorable for a settlement, but it was nearly a century after Hudson's +exploration when the venerable yet venturesome Baltus Van Kleek +concluded it was about time to take possession. He landed in the +harbor, became the lord of the manor, and in 1705 built near the +Winnakee Brook a stout fortress-dwelling, which stood until recently. +It was loop-holed for musketry, and in it the New York Legislature met +for two sessions during the Revolution. Out in front was the "Call +Rock," where old Baltus and his friends used to stand and hail the +passing Dutch sloops when they wanted to get the news or journey upon +the river. The New York State Convention met at Poughkeepsie in 1788, +and ratified the Federal Constitution by the small majority of three, +after a protracted debate. From its many elevations, this leading city +of the Hudson Valley has a superb outlook, only limited by the +Catskills far to the northwest, the Highlands down the river, and the +dark-blue Shawangunk ridge off to the westward, where the attractive +lakes Mohonk and Minnewaska, the former at twelve hundred and the +latter at eighteen hundred feet elevation, nestle high among the +mountain peaks, overshadowed by the bold summits of Paltz Point and +Sky Top. Here flows deep in the valley the pretty Wallkill, out to the +Rondout and the Hudson, giving the railroad a route into the mountain +fastness. + +About two miles back from the river, and behind the city, is Vassar +College, the foremost educational institution for women in the world. +The splendid buildings stand in grounds covering two hundred acres, +attractively laid out, and the main building, modelled after the +Tuileries, with high surmounting dome, is five hundred feet long. From +Sunset Hill, their highest eminence, there is a panorama of the Hudson +for forty miles. This college was the gift of Matthew Vassar, a +wealthy Poughkeepsie merchant and brewer, of English birth, who +desired to make it the most complete foundation of its kind, and gave +and bequeathed $1,000,000 besides the land, there being over $400,000 +expended upon the buildings. His nephews have since made large +additional gifts. Here is provided a complete mathematical, classical +and English education for several hundred female students. Its main +building is the chief structure of Poughkeepsie. There are art +galleries, a museum, library and observatory. The museum of American +birds is the most complete existing, there is a fine gallery of +water-colors, and a collection of ancient weapons and armor, including +the halberd of King Francis I. The founder, having an ample fortune +and no children, devoted the closing years of his life to this +beneficent work, the college being begun in 1861 and opened in 1865. +He labored assiduously at its development and died at his post of +duty. Three years after the opening, when attending the annual meeting +of the trustees, while reading his address, he was suddenly stricken +with death. + + +CROM ELBOW TO KINGSTON. + +Upon the Hudson River's "Long Reach" is the favorite locality of the +winter "ice-boat races," this exhilarating sport in boats on runners +speeding over the ice, before the wind, being much enjoyed. A few +miles above Poughkeepsie the reach comes to an abrupt termination, in +the bent and narrow pass, where the cliffs compress the channel and +form the crooked strait known as the Crom Elbow, the Dutch and English +words having the same meaning. Above, the western shore for a long +distance is lined with apple orchards and vineyards, while the eastern +bank for over thirty miles is a succession of villas interspersed with +hamlets. Moving northward, the noble Catskill range comes into full +view, gradually changing from distant gray to nearer blue, and then to +green with the closer approach. Along the river for many miles, where +these magnificent mountains give such a grand front outlook, there are +a series of old Knickerbocker estates, many occupied by the +descendants of the early settlers. Here was the princely home of the +late William B. Dinsmore of Adams Express Company, a business begun in +1840 with two men, a wheelbarrow and a boy, Dinsmore being one of the +men and the late John Hoey of Long Branch the boy. Dinsmore built his +gorgeous palace on the Hudson--and died. On the western shore is +Pell's great apple orchard, shipping the fruit from twenty-five +thousand trees all over the world. Some distance above, the Rondout +Creek comes out through a deep gorge, having the twin cities of +Rondout and Kingston nestling among its bordering hills. They have +together over twenty-five thousand people. This was the outlet of the +abandoned Delaware and Hudson Canal. Kingston Point, the mouth of the +creek, was the place of earliest Dutch settlement in this part of New +York, where they called it Wittwyck, or the "Wild Indian Town," and +for defense built a redoubt, whence come the name of Rondout. + +The historic city of Kingston spreads back to Esopus Creek, a short +distance inland, and was the Esopus town of colonial times, the name +coming from the Indian dwellers here, meaning "the river." The old +"Senate House" of Kingston, built in 1676, was the first meeting-place +of the New York Legislature, and it now contains a collection of Dutch +and other relics. The Esopus Indians broke up the original +settlements with a terrible massacre, but Huguenot refugees came and +re-peopled the place, and during the Revolution Esopus was such a +"nest of rebels" that when the British came along in 1777 they burnt +it. This punishment was inflicted because it was made the capital and +the first New York State Constitution had been framed here during the +preceding February. The tale is told that the British landing to burn +the town scared a party of Dutch laborers, who briskly scampered off. +One of them stepped on a hay-rake, and the handle flying up gave him a +sharp rap on the head. Being frightened more than hurt, and sure that +a Britisher closely pursued him, he fell on his knees, and imploringly +exclaimed, "Mein Gott, I give up; hooray for King Shorge!" Kingston is +a great producer of flagstones and manufactory of Rosendale cements, +made from a fine-grained, hard, dark-blue stone, which is broken, +burnt in kilns with coal, ground, and then prepared for market. Mixed +with clean sharp sand, this cement becomes in time entirely impervious +to water, and has all the strength of the best natural building +stones. + + +GREAT HISTORIC ESTATES. + +The solid old German burgher William Beckman came over from his native +Rhine in 1647, and went sailing up the Hudson, his Fatherland memories +being delighted at the sight of a noble hill on the eastern bank, +opposite Rondout Creek. He settled there, building a house, and behind +the hill started the town of Rhinebeck, a combination of his own name +and that of his native river. This well-known Rhinecliff stands up +alongside the Hudson, much like a vine-clad slope bordering the great +German river, and is adorned with the ancient Beckman House, a stone +structure built for a fort and dwelling. Famous estates surround +Rhinebeck. Here is Ellerslie, the summer home of Levi P. Morton, +formerly Vice-President, fronting the river for a long distance. The +Astor estate of Rokeby, which was the home of William B. Astor and his +son William Astor, is north of Rhinebeck, the house, surmounted by a +tower, standing in a spacious park about a mile back from the river. +Rokeby was a noted place in Revolutionary days, the home of General +Armstrong, whose daughter married the elder Astor. Here is the +Fleetwood estate, with its old house, built in 1700, having the +"cannon-room" in front, with a port-hole facing the river. Here are +Wilderstein and Grasmere, the home of the Livingston descendants, also +Wildercliff, built by Rev. Freeborn Garrettson, one of the founders of +the Methodist Church in America, its name signifying the "wild +Indian's cliff." Garrettson was educated in Maryland for the Church of +England. As a matter of conscience he afterwards espoused the cause of +the Methodists, then in their infancy, entered their ministry, freed +his slaves, and preached the gospel of Methodism everywhere, +declaring his firm faith in a special Providence, and often proving it +in his own person. Once a mob seized him and was taking him to jail, +when a sudden and overpowering flash of lightning dispersed them, and +he was left unmolested. In 1788 he came to New York in missionary +work, and was made Presiding Elder of the district between Long Island +Sound and Lake Champlain. Coming to Clermont, among his converts was +the sister of Chancellor Livingston, and he married her in 1793, +shortly afterwards building his house at Wildercliff. This was long a +home for Methodist clergymen, his daughter continuing his hospitality. +Another historic estate, just above Rokeby, is Montgomery Place, the +home of another Livingston, the widow of General Montgomery, who was +in the colonial attack upon Quebec, by Wolfe, and afterwards, in the +early days of the Revolution, led a forlorn hope against Quebec, and +perished as Wolfe had before him. His young widow lived here a +half-century, and her brother's descendants now possess it. + +Krueger's Island, on the eastern shore, discloses in a grove a +picturesque ruin, with broken arches, specially imported from Italy by +a former owner of the island to give it a flavor of antiquity. The +Catskills now rise in grander view, the Plattekill Clove comes down +out of them, and Esopus Creek from the south flows into the Hudson. +The Dutch called this Zaeger's Kill, which time corrupted into +Saugerties, a pleasant factory village built behind the flats at the +creek's mouth, and having the Catskills for a splendid background. +Opposite, on the eastern bank, is Tivoli, and near here is located the +parent estate of these historic homes. Robert Livingston came from +Scotland to America in 1672 and married a member of the Schuyler +family, who was the widow of a Van Rensselaer. He was a patrician of +high degree, of the family of the Earls of Linlithgow, and seeking a +home in the American wilderness, settled on the Hudson. He first lived +at Albany, and being Secretary to the Indian Commissioners, he +acquired extensive tracts of land fronting the river, which afterwards +became the basis of great wealth. In 1710 these lands were +consolidated under one English patent, giving him a princely domain of +one hundred and sixty-two thousand acres for an "annual rent of +twenty-eight shillings, lawful money of New York," equalling about +$3.50. This "Livingston Manor" gave him a seat in the Colonial +Legislature, and he built his manor-house upon a grassy point along +the Hudson River bank, at the mouth of "Roeleffe Jansen's Kill," +flowing in a few miles north of Tivoli. The greater part of the manor +descended to his son Robert, who built a finer mansion there, known as +"Old Clermont," which the British burnt during the Revolution. In this +house was born the grandson, the famous Chancellor of New York, Robert +R. Livingston, who had so much to do with guiding the course of the +State in that momentous era. He built the present Clermont mansion on +the river bank above Tivoli. It is on a bluff shore, a grand estate +surrounding it, and sloping gradually up to the hill-tops stretching +to the horizon behind. This estate extended back originally to the +Berkshire hills. The full glory of the Catskills is spread out in +panorama before this noted mansion, with the distant hotels perched on +the mountain tops. + +Chancellor Livingston was sent Minister to France, and when he +returned he brought over merino sheep, introducing them into this +country. His great honor as a man of science comes from his connection +with Fulton's steamboat experiments. He met Fulton in Paris, and was +closely connected with the first steamboat on the Hudson, which in +fact could not have been built without his aid. By the help of +Livingston's money, Fulton in 1807 built this steamboat in New York, +naming her the "Clermont" in his honor. The experiment was publicly +derided as "Fulton's Folly," but he persevered and succeeded. The +"Clermont" was one hundred feet long, twelve feet beam and seven feet +depth. In September, 1807, she made the first successful experimental +trip from New York to Albany in thirty-six hours, charging the +passengers $7.50 fare. She afterwards made regular trips, and on +October 5, 1807, the _Albany Gazette_ announced: "Mr. Fulton's new +steamboat left New York on the 2d, at ten o'clock A.M., against a +strong tide, very rough water, and a violent gale from the north. She +made a headway against the most sanguine expectations and without +being rocked by the waves." Chancellor Livingston in Jefferson's +Administration negotiated the cession of Louisiana by France to the +United States, and ripe with honors, he died at Clermont in 1813. + + +THE CATSKILL MOUNTAINS. + +Opposite these great estates, the Catskill Mountains rise in all their +glory, spreading across the western horizon at a distance of eight to +ten miles from the Hudson River. They stretch for about fifteen miles, +and the range covers some five hundred square miles. The most +prominent peaks in the view are Round Top and the High Peak, rising +thirty-seven hundred and thirty-eight hundred feet, and in front of +them, on lower elevations, are the summer hotels that have such superb +views over the Hudson River valley. The town of Catskill on the +river--a flourishing settlement of five thousand people--is the usual +point of entrance, and from it a railway extends back to the bases of +the mountains. An inclined plane railway over a mile long then ascends +the face of the range, sixteen hundred feet high, to the hotels. This +"Otis Elevating Railway," which accomplishes its journey in about ten +minutes, is said to be the greatest inclined road in the world. The +Indians knew these grand peaks as the Onti Ora, or "Mountains of the +Sky," thus named because in some conditions of the atmosphere they +appear like a heavy cumulus cloud hanging above the horizon. The weird +Indian tradition was that among these mountains was held the treasury +of storms and sunshine for the Hudson, presided over by the spirit of +an old Indian squaw who dwelt within the range. She kept the day and +the night imprisoned, letting out one at a time, and made new moons +every month and hung them up in the sky, for they first appeared among +these mountains, and then she cut up the old moons into stars. The +great Manitou also employed her to manufacture thunder and clouds for +the valley. Sometimes she wove the clouds out of cobwebs, gossamers +and morning dew, and sent them off, flake by flake, floating in the +air, to give light summer showers. Sometimes she would blow up black +thunder-storms and send down drenching rains to swell the streams and +sweep everything away. All these storms coming from the west appeared +to originate in the mountains. The Indians also told of the imps that +haunted their dells, luring the hunters to places of peril. When the +Dutch colonists came along, they sent expeditions into the mountains, +searching for gold and silver, but chiefly found wildcats, causing +them to be named the Kaatsbergs, and from this their present title has +come to be, in time, the Kaatskills or the Catskills. + +These attractive mountains are a group of the Alleghenies, having +spurs extending northwest and west, at right angles to the general +trend of the range, thus giving them quite a different form from that +usual in the Allegheny ridges. They assume also more of the abrupt and +rocky character of the Alpine peaks, and instead of the usual folds or +fragments of arches commonly seen elsewhere, the Catskill crags are +masses of piled-up strata in the original horizontal position. They +have a most precipitous declivity facing the east towards the river +valley. Deep ravines, which the Dutch called "Cloves," are cut into +them by the mountain torrents, descending in places in beautiful +cascades, sometimes for hundreds of feet. This aggregation of rocky +cliffs and rounded peaks, and the intersecting gorges and smiling +verdant valleys, have become a great resort for the summer +pleasure-seeker, with myriads of hotels and boarding-places, where it +is said that eighty to a hundred thousand people will go in the +season. Their eastern verge is drained by the Hudson, while the many +brooks and kills flowing out to the westward are gathered into the two +branches that form the Delaware River. + +From their eastern front, where the huge hotels, built at twenty-four +hundred feet elevation, are anchored by ponderous chain cables to keep +them from being overthrown by the wind, there is an unrivalled view +over the valley. The Hudson River stretches a silvery streak across +the picture, and can be traced nearly a hundred miles from West Point +up to Albany. Its distant diminutive steamboats slowly move, and like +a shining thread, as the western sun strikes the car-windows and is +reflected, a railway train glides along the bank ten miles away, seen +so well, and yet so small. The perpendicular mountain wall brings the +valley almost beneath one's feet, the buildings looking like +children's toy houses, the trees like dwarfed bushes, and the fields, +with their alternating green and brown colors, contrasting as the +spaces on a chess-board. Wagons crawl like little ants upon the narrow +mud-colored lines representing roads. The broad valley, though its +surface is rugged and has high hills surmounted by patches of +woodland, is so far below that it appears from above as a flat floor. +Thus it stretches off to the river, with a sparkling pond here and +there, and extending beyond to the eastern horizon the view is +enclosed by the dark-blue Berkshire hills in Massachusetts, forty +miles away. Behind them, on favored days, rise like a misty haze, off +to the northeast, the White Mountains of New Hampshire. It was in this +region that James Fenimore Cooper located the "Leather Stocking +Tales," for his home at Cooperstown was on the Catskills' western +verge. Natty Bumppo climbed up the mountain to get this wonderful +view. "What see you when you get there?" asked Edward. "Creation," +said Natty, sweeping one hand around him in a circle, "all creation, +lad," and then he continued, "If being the best part of a mile in the +air, and having men's farms at your feet, with rivers looking like +ribands, and mountains bigger than the 'Vision' seeming to be +haystacks of green grass under you, give any satisfaction to a man, I +can recommend the spot." + + +RIP VAN WINKLE AND THE KAATERSKILL. + +These Catskill Mountains were purchased from the Indians on July 8, +1678, by a company of Dutch and English gentlemen, who took their +title at a solemn conclave held at the Stadt Huis in Albany, where the +Indian chief Mahak-Neminea attended with six representatives of his +tribe. The Indians seem to have soon disappeared, and the region for a +century or more remained mythical and almost unexplored, thus +contributing to the many fairy tales that have got mixed up with its +history. It was among these wonderful mountains that Washington Irving +was thus enabled to discover Rip Van Winkle. Down on the mountain +side, upon the margin of a deep dark glen leading up from Catskill +Village, stands Rip Van Winkle's ancient little cabin. It is within +the vast amphitheatre where Hendrick Hudson's ghostly crew held their +revels and beguiled him to drink from the flagon which put him into +his sleep of twenty years. It was a curious revel, for with the +gravest faces, and in mysterious silence, they rolled their nine-pin +balls, which echoed along the mountains like rumbling peals of +thunder. The huge cliffs overhanging the dark glen were evidently put +there for just such a ghostly scene, and even now the old denizens of +the Catskills are said to never hear a summer thunder-storm +reverberating among these mountains without concluding that the Dutch +ship's company from the "Half Moon" are again playing at their game of +nine-pins. There is still pointed out the slab of rock on which Rip +took his long sleep, and until recently there is said to have lived in +the old cabin an alleged "Van Winkle" who made a pretence to be a +descendant of the original Rip, and dispensed to the weary traveller +liquids fully as sulphurous as those in the flagon of the ghostly +crew. Among these mountains originated many of the quaint Dutch +legends that have got so interwoven into the early history of New York +that it is hard to separate the fact from the fiction. + +It was not until 1823 that the first summer hotel was built in the +Catskills, a rude little structure standing where is now the Mountain +House, near the summit of the inclined plane railway. The highest peak +of the range is Slide Mountain, in the western Catskills, at the head +of the Big Indian Valley, rising forty-two hundred and five feet. A +large portion of this mountain, including the crest, is a New York +State reservation, and from its top six States are in view. These +Catskill peaks are built up of huge and jagged piles of crags and +broken stone, through which the torrents have carved the "Cloves." The +stratified rocks are easily split into layers, and they furnish the +towns along the Hudson with much of the flagging used for footwalks. +Enormous boulders, some as big as a house, are liberally strewn about, +where they were dropped by the great glacier. Among the grandest of +the gorges, which the torrents have cleft, is the Kaaterskill Clove, +its stream, after various windings, finally flowing eastward towards +the Hudson. As the name Kaatskill comes from the cat, so the +Kaaterskill is regarded as derived from an animal of most complete +feline development, the "gentleman cat." The steep borders of this +Kaaterskill Clove, a wonderful canyon, down in the bottom of which ice +and snow remain during the summer, furnish many points of remarkable +outlook, giving a startling realization of the vast scale of these +mountains. The stream bubbles far below, heard but not seen, and the +mountain peaks above are occasionally obscured by passing clouds. +Adjoining this canyon is an immense gorge carved out of the hills, +into which pours the majestic Kaaterskill Falls, plunging down an +abyss of two hundred and sixty feet in two leaps, respectively of one +hundred and eighty and eighty feet. The stream is dammed above the +cataract, so that in times of drouth the water may be retained and the +falls thus be exhibited at intervals by turning on the water, as is +the case with various cataracts in Switzerland. Few waterfalls have +had more praises sung than this ribbon of spray, which was a favorite +both of Cooper and Bryant. An inscription on the rock at the foot +preserves the memory of a faithful dog, who once jumped down to follow +a stone, because he thought it his master's bidding. + +The unique description of the Kaaterskill Falls by Cooper's Leather +Stocking is interesting. He says, "The water comes crooking and +winding among the rocks, first so slow that a trout might swim in it, +and then starting and running just like any creature that wanted to +make a far spring, till it gets to where the mountain divides like the +cleft hoof of a deer, leaving a deep hollow for the brook to tumble +into. The first pitch is nigh two hundred feet, and the water looks +like flakes of driven snow afore it touches the bottom; and then the +stream gathers itself together again for a new start, and may be +flutters over fifty feet of flat rock before it falls for another +hundred, where it jumps about from shelf to shelf, first turning this +a-way, and then turning that a-way, striving to get out of the hollow, +till it finally comes to the plain. To my judgment, it's the best +piece of work I've met with in the woods, and none know how often the +hand of God is seen in the wilderness but them that rove it for a +man's life." William Cullen Bryant thus sings the praises of the +Kaaterskill Falls: + + "'Midst greens and shades the Kaaterskill leaps + From cliffs where the wood-flower clings; + All summer he moistens his verdant steeps + With the sweet, light spray of the mountain springs; + And he shakes the woods on the mountain side, + When they drip with the rains of autumn tide. + + "But when in the forest bare and old, + The blast of December calls, + He builds, in the star-light clear and cold, + A palace of ice where his torrent falls, + With turret, and arch, and fret-work fair, + And pillars blue as the summer air." + +At the head of the Kaaterskill Clove are Haines's Falls in a +picturesque environment, the stream making two main leaps of one +hundred and fifty and eighty feet, and other plunges lower down, +descending in all four hundred and seventy-five feet, within the +distance of a quarter of a mile. The water here is also dammed to make +a better exhibition. A main railway route into the Catskills is from +Kingston up the valley of Esopus Creek, gradually ascending to its +sources in the southwestern part of the range. This leads past the +highest peak, Slide Mountain, past Shandaken or "the rapid water," and +up the Big Indian Valley, at the head of which the summit is crossed +between the waters of the Hudson and the Delaware. The "Big Indian" +whose memory is thus preserved was Winnisook, a savage seven feet +high. He fell in love with a white maiden of the lowlands, who, +however, married one Joe Bundy instead, but got along so unhappily +that she finally ran away to her dusky lover. Winnisook on one +occasion came down to the lowlands with his tribe on a cattle-stealing +expedition, and Joe Bundy shot and mortally wounded him, saying, "The +best way to civilize the yellow serpent is to let daylight into his +black heart." The Big Indian was afterwards found dead standing +upright in the hollow of a large pine tree. The inconsolable maiden, +overwhelmed with grief, is said to have spent the rest of her life +near Winnisook's grave, while the stump of the pine was preserved +until the railroad came along and covered it with an embankment. The +whole Catskill region is full of charming places, and the vast summer +crowds who visit it never tire of the bracing atmosphere, and the +magnificent and ever-changing panorama of cloud and sunshine and +diversified landscape, exhibited from its magnificent mountain tops. + + "'Tis here the eastern sunbeams gild + The hills which rise on either hand; + Till showers of purple mist are spilled + In glittering dewdrops o'er the land." + + +THE DUTCH AND THE SHAKERS. + +When Hendrick Hudson came up the river he found sand-bars above the +Catskills, and anchored his "Half Moon" near Mount Merino, at what is +now the head of ship navigation upon the Hudson, one hundred and +fifteen miles from New York. Just beyond, a high plateau sloping to +the shore is covered by the city of Hudson, having a green island in +front, and over opposite the little town of Athens, with a lighthouse +in midstream between them. Hudson has ten thousand people, a +picturesque city sloping up Prospect Hill, which rises five hundred +feet for a noble background, and it once had more ships and commerce +than the city of New York. A colony of thrifty Quakers from New +England started the settlement, which had many fishermen and whalers, +and a large fleet of ships sailing to Europe and the Indies, fifteen +loaded vessels having cleared from its wharves in a single day. But +Napoleon's wars swept away its fleet and commerce, and the last ship +was sold in 1845, so that its commercial greatness is only a +tradition; although it has become a seat of considerable manufactures. +Its most noted citizen was General Worth, a hero of the Mexican War, +whose monument stands on Fifth Avenue, New York. Both sides of the +river here are inhabited by the Dutch, and in fact theirs is the +universal language of the Hudson from Kingston up to Albany. These +Dutch of New York have given the country some notable men, among them +General Philip Schuyler, Colonel Van Rensselaer, General Stryker and +others of the Revolution, and President Martin Van Buren. They view +with pardonable pride the important share they have had in founding +and building up the Empire State, and Rev. Dr. Henry A. Van Dyke has +poetically and ingeniously described the "Typical Dutchmen" of New +York: + + "They sailed from the shores of the Zuyder Zee + Across the stormy ocean, + To build for the world a new country + According to their notion: + A land where thought should be free as air + And speech be free as water; + Where man to man should be just and fair, + And Law be Liberty's daughter. + + "When the English fleet sailed up the bay, + The small Dutch town was taken; + But the Dutchmen there had come to stay; + Their hold was never shaken. + They could keep right on, and work and wait + For the freedom of the nation; + And we claim to-day that New York State + Is built on a Dutch foundation." + +From the Taghkanic range of the Berkshire hills, behind Hudson City, a +pretty stream comes down in many falls and cascades to the river just +northward, whose charming valley was known among the Dutch as "Het +Klauver Rack," or the "Clover Reach," modernized since, however, into +the Claverack Creek. The Columbia Springs are in this valley, and +farther on is Kinderhook Village, while back on the hills at a +thousand feet elevation above the river, most picturesquely located, +are the Lebanon Springs. Here is the noted Shaker settlement of New +Lebanon, founded by "Mother Ann" in the eighteenth century. The sect +has been declining in recent years, however. This is the governing +Shaker community, and it has been well said, of these celibates, that +"by frugality and industry they give us many useful things, but they +do not produce what the Republic most needs--men and women." They +cultivate large tracts of land, produce and sell quantities of herbs, +seeds and botanic medicines, and make baskets, brooms and sieves. Ann +Lee was the wife of a blacksmith in Manchester, England, and had been +the mother of several children. She had what she claimed as Divine +revelations, and was confined in a lunatic asylum for reviling +matrimony. Being released in 1770, she founded the new sect, +announcing, "I am Ann, the Word," and to escape further persecution +migrated to New York, where she was made its spiritual head. +Converting many, she established at New Lebanon the capital of the +Shaker world, which has been called "the rural Vatican which claims a +more despotic sway over the mind of man than ever the Roman Pontiff +assumed." She claimed her Divine revelation to be that she was the +female manifestation of Christ upon earth, the male manifestation +having been Jesus, and the Deity being considered a duality, composed +of both sexes. The Shakers call themselves the "United Society of +Believers in Christ's Second Appearing." They have entire community of +property, believe idleness to be sinful, and everyone able to work is +employed. In worshipping they "exercise both soul and body," singing +and dancing, and at times of fervent excitement making, with +regularity and perfect rhythm, rapid bodily evolutions. In these they +form in circles around a band of singers, to whose music they "go +forth in the dances of them that make merry." Since the death of +"Mother Ann" the Shaker community has been ruled by what is known as +the "Holy Lead," composed of the first and second elders and +elderesses. A peculiar tenet is that persons may join the sect after +death, and among these posthumous members are Washington, Lafayette, +Pocahontas, Napoleon and Tamerlane; and they hold that woman is +supreme over mankind. Near the village and among the Berkshire hills, +just over the border in Massachusetts, is their "Mount Sinai," where, +according to the tradition, the Shakers hunted Satan throughout a long +summer night, finally killing and burying him. They tell us that +Washington and Lafayette still keep guard over his grave, mounted on +white horses, and can be seen on summer nights by any of the truly +faithful who may pass that way. + +The village of Kinderhook is in the Claverack Valley, and out in front +on the Hudson is its port, Stuyvesant Landing, where the testy old +Governor, Peter Stuyvesant the "Headstrong," made his landing when he +came up the river to attack the great Patroon, Killian Van Rensselaer. +Hendrick Hudson is said to have first named Kinderhook, or "Children's +Point," because he saw here a crowd of Indian children watching his +vessel. On the Lindenwold estate at Kinderhook, embowered in linden +trees, lived for many years President Martin Van Buren, a descendant +of the early Dutch settlers, and the shrewdest New York politician of +his time. Over on the western bank is the Chaney Tinker Lighthouse, +mounted on a crag a hundred feet high, and the distant horizon is +bounded by the Helderbergs, a long range of peaks, lower, however, +than the Catskills. Above, at Schodack Landing on the eastern shore, +was the seat of the council-fire of the Mohicans, called by the French +the _Loups_ or Wolves. The word "Is-cho-da" in their language means +the "fireplace," and from this has come the name. When Hudson ascended +the river, he found the Mohicans occupying its shores for a hundred +miles above Rondout Creek, but the race dwindled, until it became the +handful to whom the noted Jonathan Edwards ministered in the +eighteenth century, at Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Hudson passed a day +with them at Schodack, was treated hospitably, and wrote that their +land was "the finest for cultivation he ever set foot on." Two +centuries later, Cooper lamented the _Last of the Mohicans_. + + +THE LAND OF THE PATROONS. + +We have now come to the high and rocky Bear or Beeren Island, which in +New York's early days was the southern boundary on the river of the +domain of the great Patroon, Killian Van Rensselaer. It marks the +limit of two counties on either bank, Greene and Columbia below, +joining Albany and Rensselaer above. Here stood the proud castle of +Rensselaerstein, cannoned and fortified, where the Patroon's agent, +the bold and doughty Nicolas Kroon, compelled all the Dutch sloops +coming up from New Amsterdam to dip their colors in token of his +sovereignty, and pay tribute for the privilege of entering the sacred +domain. We are told that all passing craft yielded homage excepting +two large whales, which in 1647 swam by and went up to the Mohawk, +greatly terrifying the honest Albany burghers. Above the island, the +Normanskill and other streams come down from the Helderbergs, making +the shoals of the "Overslaugh," which the Government has improved by +an extensive dyke system to deepen the river channel up to Albany. +There are long and narrow alluvial islands on these flats, among which +tows of Erie Canal barges thread their careful way; and ahead, the +city of Albany comes into view with its bridges in front, and the +grand new Capitol building elevated high on the hill above the town, +its red-topped pyramidal roofs seen from afar. + +We are now at the domain of the great Patroon, the region around +Albany and Troy. When Hudson anchored his ship below the shoals, he +came with five of his sailors up to Albany in a row-boat and examined +the location. The result was that from his report Albany was actually +settled, five years later, in 1614, by the "United Nieu Nederlandts +Company," who built a trading-post, thus making Albany, after +Jamestown in Virginia, the oldest European settlement in the original +thirteen colonies. The post was located on an island just below the +city, near which the Normanskill flowed out through the forest on the +western bank--the Indian Tawasentha, or "place of many dead." This +island was called the "Kasteel," and in the "castle" a garrison of +about a dozen Dutchmen conducted a profitable fur-trade with the +Mohicans. Ultimately a freshet drove them to the mainland and they +built a fort at the mouth of the Normanskill, and in 1623 a stockade +was constructed above, at Albany, named Fort Orange in honor of the +Prince of the Netherlands. In 1629 colonists were sent out from +Holland, and the patroon system established. The Dutch West India +Company made arrangements for extensively colonizing the New +Netherlands, and passed a charter of exemptions and privileges to +encourage patroons (or patrons) to make settlements. Every patroon +establishing a colony was to have there within four years, as +permanent residents, at least fifty persons, over fifteen years of +age, of whom one-fourth were to arrive the first year. A director of +the company, Killian Van Rensselaer, a pearl merchant of Amsterdam, +was granted a patroonship, and got the officials at Fort Orange to buy +extensive tracts from the Indians. He thus, with three others, +acquired a manor extending twenty-four miles along the Hudson, from +Beeren Island up to the Mohawk River, and this manor, which +afterwards became the sole property of his family, was subsequently +enlarged to extend twenty-four miles back from the Hudson in both +directions, and contained over seven hundred thousand acres. The +Patroon was a feudal lord, possessing absolute title to the soil, with +power to administer civil and criminal justice, and enjoying other +rights that reduced his colonists to a condition little better than +serfs. His son Johannes inherited this patroonship from Killian, and +it went by entail through five generations, when the United States +laws barred further succession. The last Patroon, General Stephen Van +Rensselaer, died in 1839, and his son Stephen, the sixth of the line, +still styled by courtesy "the Patroon," died in 1868, aged eighty +years. The original settlement of Fort Orange in the manor of +Rensselaerwyck, as it was called, became a centre of the fur-trade, +and a town quickly grew around the fort, which the English, upon their +occupation in 1664, named Albany. + + +THE ANTI-RENT WAR. + +As population increased on the adjacent lands, they began taking +leases from the Patroon, paying rent for their farms, and this +produced one of the bitterest conflicts known in American politics, +the New York "Anti-Rent War." After the Revolution the inhabitants +increased rapidly, and General Stephen Van Rensselaer, then the +Patroon, leased farms in perpetuity, upon the nominal consideration +for eight years of "a peppercorn a year," and at the expiration of +this time these leases drew a rent estimated at six per cent. interest +on the land value, about $5 per acre, payable in the produce of the +soil, fowls, and days' service with wagons and horses, the latter +designed to secure road-making. When the old General died in 1839, the +entail being abolished, he divided the manor between his two sons, +Stephen getting Albany County on the west bank, and William, +Rensselaer County on the east bank, including Troy. He had been a +lenient landlord, but the tenants became anxious, especially about +what was known as the "quarter sales clause" in their leases, giving +the landlord the right to claim one-fourth the purchase money whenever +the land passed by purchase, this condition being really inserted to +prevent alienation, as it did not become operative when the land was +sold or descended to one of the original tenant's family. The tenants +proposed that the landlord should sell the reservations, releasing +them from the rentals and making them owners in fee, but this was +declined. The tenants then employed counsel, who advised that the +landlord's right was absolute, but suggested, while there was no legal +remedy, that it would be good policy to make the rent collections so +difficult, the landlord would be willing to come to terms; that they +band together and give each other notice of the approach of bailiffs, +so the service of legal process would be troublesome. William H. +Seward, Governor of New York, espoused their cause, and to this +advice, he being a candidate for re-election in 1840, he added the +recommendation that the "anti-renters" should organize and send to the +Legislature men who would hold the balance of power between the great +parties, thus forcing the passage of laws relieving them. + +Then began the "anti-rent" conflicts convulsing New York politics for +years. They formed an active and powerful political party, and created +other organizations, disguised as Indians, who attacked the law +officers. These supposed red men killed a man at Grafton in Rensselaer +County, and all legal efforts failed to discover the culprits. Other +similar manors existed in different parts of New York State where +payment of rents of much the same character was resisted, and these +regions also were excited. Outbreaks continued several years, until in +1845 Governor Silas Wright issued a proclamation declaring Delaware +County, on the western verge of the Catskills, in a state of +insurrection. This caused additional trouble, but the "anti-renters" +disposed of Wright by defeating him for re-election in 1846, and he +died soon afterwards. They elected their own candidate for Governor, +John Young, who pardoned out of jail nearly everybody imprisoned for +"anti-rent" crimes. The disputes finally got into the courts, and the +Van Rensselaers, fatigued with the controversy, sold all their rights +to a Colonel Church. He was sustained by legal decisions, and then +adopted a compromising policy, which quieted the agitation. He +released the rentals and gave fee-simple titles, so that at least +three-fourths of the old manor became without rental. His method of +compromise was based on a scale: for a farm of one hundred and sixty +acres where the annual rent was twenty-two and one-half bushels of +wheat, four fat fowls and one day's service, the value was fixed at +$26, being six per cent. interest on $433, and by paying this the +tenant got his fee-simple title. Thus the harassing conflict which +frequently required troops to be called out at Albany and elsewhere +was finally adjusted. + + +THE CITY OF ALBANY. + +Albany, the New York State Capital, has over one hundred thousand +people. The city rises from the strip of level land along the river +bank, in a series of terraces, to a height of nearly two hundred feet, +the top being surmounted by the Capitol Building in a spacious park, +back of which the surface extends westward in a sandy, almost level +plain. The city spreads broadly along the river, where there are +wharves, foundries, railway stations, mills, storehouses and lumber +yards. Deep ravines are scarred into the hill behind them, and rows of +fine old Knickerbocker houses line the hilly streets, with +frequent church towers and spires rising above them. The main +street, just back from the river, is Broadway, of varying width, but +of the first commercial importance. At right angles to it, leading up +the hill, is State Street, a noble avenue, one hundred and fifty feet +wide, the front approach to the Capitol. This is the finest building +in New York State, was thirty years in construction, and has cost +$25,000,000. It is a quadrangle three hundred feet wide and four +hundred feet deep, with an unfinished central tower, intended to be +three hundred feet high, and Louvre pavilion towers at the angles. It +is built in the French Renaissance, of a light-colored granite, +pleasantly contrasting with the red-tiled roofs. Few of the +pretentious buildings of the world occupy a more commanding situation, +standing aloft like the Capitol at Washington, and, seen from afar, a +complete old-time French chateau. Mr. E. A. Freeman has written of it, +"If anyone had come up to me and told me in French, old or new, that +the new Capitol was 'Le Chateau de Monseigneur le duc d'Albanie,' I +could almost have believed him." Its architecture combines features +adapted from the Louvre and Hotel de Ville of Paris and the Lyons +Maison de Commerce. It stands in Capitol Square, a park of about eight +acres, of which it covers three acres. The finest halls are the Senate +and Assembly Chambers, to which grand stairways lead, and the interior +is decorated with rich carvings, rare marbles and emblematic +frescoes. The New York State Library, of nearly two hundred thousand +volumes, is in the building. Upon the six dormer windows opening in +the interior court are emblazoned the heraldic insignia of six noted +families distinguished in New York history--Stuyvesant, Schuyler, +Livingston, Jay, Clinton and Tompkins. + + [Illustration: _The State Capitol, Albany, N. Y._] + +Southward from the Capitol Square is the spacious and comfortable +Executive Mansion, with an extensive lawn, on Eagle Street. On the +same street, to the northeast of the Square, is the City Hall, a fine +Gothic building with an elaborate bell tower. Also on Eagle Street is +the Albany Medical College, having one of the finest Medical Museums +in the country. Among its curios is the embalmed body of Calvin Edson, +the "walking skeleton." This curious man came to Albany in 1830, being +then forty-two years old and five feet two inches high, yet weighing +only sixty pounds. He exhibited himself, and appeared in a play as +_Jeremiah Thin_. He had a good appetite, but the more he ate the +thinner he grew, until in 1833, the food ceasing to nourish him, he +literally starved to death amid plenty, and when the end came, weighed +but forty-five pounds. His widow sold his body to the college, and he +now stands in a glass case, preserved with the skin on, labelled "No. +1," and excepting discoloration is said to appear not very different +from when living. On the northern side of the Square is the Albany +Academy, one of the chief city schools, where Professor Joseph Henry +was for several years an instructor, and noted as the place where he +first demonstrated the theory of the magnetic telegraph by ringing a +bell by an electric spark transmitted through a mile of wire strung +around the room. The Dudley Astronomical Observatory is a small but +imposing building upon an eminence overlooking the Hudson, having a +munificent endowment begun by Mrs. Blandina Dudley in memory of her +husband, a wealthy Albany merchant. A charming spot is Washington +Park, westward from the Capitol, an enclosure of eighty-one acres, +surrounded by ornamental villas, with magnificent views and most +tastefully arranged. Part of this Park is land given the city by King +James II. + + +INTERESTING BUILDINGS. + +The most noted old Albany building is at the northern end of Broadway, +in grounds extending to the river, and surrounded by fine trees, the +ancient Van Rensselaer Mansion, commonly called the "Patroon's,"--a +broad house with porch and wide central hall. This occupies the site +of the first mansion, which was covered with a roof of reeds. Over on +the opposite side of the river at Greenbush, the "Greene Bosch" or +"pine woods" of the original settlers, is the Patroon's other +residence, built of bricks from Holland, by the second Patroon +Johannes. Port-holes were cut in the walls for the musketeers, it +having been a fort in the Indian forays. The family burial-ground +adjoins the mansion. State Street, at the corner of Pearl, which is +parallel with Broadway, is the most interesting historic locality of +ancient Albany. Here stood that elaborate dwelling of the +Knickerbockers, regarded as the best specimen of old Dutch +architecture in New York State, the "Vanderheyden Palace," an +extensive building with two tall gables facing the street. One of the +old burghers, Johannes Beekman, built it in 1725, and during the +Revolution Jacob Vanderheyden of Troy bought it, and lived there many +years in the almost regal state of the Dutch aristocracy. Washington +Irving tells of it in the story of Dolph Heyliger, in _Bracebridge +Hall_, as the residence of "Herr Anthony Vanderheyden," and when +Irving transformed Van Tassel's old farmhouse into his villa at +Sunnyside he made a gable in imitation of one of these, and also +captured the old weather-vane of the "Palace"--a horse going at full +speed--to mount on top of it. Upon the opposite corner was the quaint +"Lydius House," the home of Rev. John Lydius, the owner of a great +manor at Fort Edward, farther up the Hudson, and in front of it stood +the crooked elm, giving the locality the name of the "Old Elm Tree +Corner." This tree is said to have been planted by Philip Livingston, +a signer of the Declaration of Independence, who lived in an adjoining +house. The "Lydius House" had been built as a parsonage for the +clergyman sent out to the old Dutch church, Rev. Gideon Schaats, the +bricks, tiles, iron and woodwork, together with the church bell and +pulpit, all coming from Holland in 1657, in the same ship. During many +years its only occupant was Balthazar Lydius, an eccentric bachelor, a +tall, spare, morose and irritable Dutchman, fond of bottle and pipe, +and having a round bullet head thinly sprinkled with white hair. He +gloried in his celibacy until the infirmities of age came upon him, +when it is said he gave a pint of gin for an Indian squaw, called her +his wife, and they lived contentedly together until he died. This was +the oldest brick building in the United States; its partitions were +made of mahogany and the exposed beams were richly carved. + +The antique pulpit, which came across in the ship with the materials +of the "Lydius House," has done duty from then until now in various +Dutch churches of Albany. It is of carved oak, octagonal in form. The +original church stood in the middle of State Street, a low building +with a tall pyramidal roof and little steeple, since removed to widen +the street. The church gallery was quite low, while the huge stove +warming the building was put upon a platform so high that the sexton +had to step on it from the gallery when he wanted to kindle the fire. +The astute Albany philosophers of those days believed heat descended +from above. The bell-rope hung from the little steeple down into the +centre of the church, and here, at eight o'clock at night, was rung +the "suppawn bell," a signal to the obedient people to eat their +"suppawn" or hasty pudding, and go to bed. Albany in the olden time +had a quaint aspect because of the predominance of steep-roofed +houses, with their terraced gables, but many of them have given way +for modern improvements. Upon State Street, at the corner of James, +lived in one of these the famous Anneke Jans Bogardus, who died there +in 1663, the owner of the lands in New York city now partly held by +Trinity Church, which her heirs have acquired so much notoriety in +trying to recover. A bank now occupies the site. Albany has had some +interesting history. In 1754 the Congress met here which was the first +colonial organization, and finally developed into the Continental +Congress. Seven colonies, north of Maryland, sent twenty-five +Commissioners, who made a treaty with the Iroquois, the Indian league +of the "Six Nations." Afterwards, under the guidance of Benjamin +Franklin, a plan was adopted for a union of the colonies, its +provisions being much similar to the United States Constitution of +1787. Thus the germ of the American Union was first developed at +Albany. Her influences have been powerful in politics. For many years +the "Albany Regency" controlled the old Democratic party, this name +having been given by Thurlow Weed, then editor of the _Albany Evening +Journal_, to a junta of politicians usually assembling there, headed +by Martin Van Buren. Subsequently, another combination at Albany was +potential in ruling the Whigs and in controlling the Republican +party--the political firm of "Seward, Weed and Greeley." Albany +manoeuvres managed to control the preliminaries that twice made +Grover Cleveland President; and in both parties the Albany political +"patroons" are still industriously at work. + +Among the finest Albany buildings is the magnificent new Episcopal +Cathedral of All Saints, an English Gothic structure, as yet +incomplete, which will be one of the most beautiful churches in +America. In the southern part of the city is the Schuyler Mansion, +built in 1760, a brick house with a broad front, having a closed +octagonal porch over the doorway and spacious apartments; its lawns in +the olden time reaching to the Hudson, where now the city is densely +built. Peter Schuyler was the first Mayor of Albany, and his +descendant, General Philip Schuyler of the Revolution, occupied a +large space in New York history. In this house Alexander Hamilton was +married to Elizabeth Schuyler, and a subsequent owner, Mrs. McIntosh, +was made the wife of Millard Fillmore, President of the United States. +General Schuyler and his family always dispensed a princely +hospitality in this mansion. In 1781, towards the close of the +Revolution, it was the scene of a stirring event. The British, +discovering that Schuyler was at home, tried to capture him. The house +was then distant from the small town and surrounded by forests. A +party of Canadians and Indians prowled for several days in the woods, +and capturing a laborer, learnt that the General was in the house with +a bodyguard of six men. The laborer escaped afterwards and notified +the General. Upon a sultry day in August, when three of the guards +were asleep in the basement and the other three lying on the grass in +front of the house, a servant announced that a stranger at the back +gate wished to speak with the General. The errand being apprehended, +the doors and windows were barred, the family collected up stairs, and +the General hastened to his bedchamber for his arms. From the window +he saw the place surrounded by armed men, and fired a pistol to arouse +the guards on the grass and alarm the town. At this moment the enemy +burst open the doors, when Mrs. Schuyler suddenly discovered she had +left her infant in the cradle in the hall below. She rushed to the +rescue, but the General stopped her. One of her daughters then quickly +ran down stairs, and carried the infant up in safety. An Indian who +had entered hurled a tomahawk, as she rushed up the stairs, which cut +her dress within a few inches of the baby's head, and striking the +hand-rail made a deep scar. As she ran up stairs, the Tory commander, +thinking her a servant, called out, "Wench, where is your master?" +With great presence of mind she quickly replied, "Gone to alarm the +town." General Schuyler heard her, and taking advantage, threw up a +window, crying out loudly, as if to a multitude, "Come on, my brave +fellows, surround the house and secure the villains!" The marauders, +who were then plundering the plate in the dining-room, becoming +frightened, beat a hasty retreat, taking prisoners the three guards +who were in the house. The brave daughter, who made the gallant +rescue, afterwards became the wife of the last Patroon Van Rensselaer, +while the infant she saved lived until 1857, and was Schuyler's last +surviving child, Mrs. Catharine Cochran of Oswego, New York. General +Schuyler is buried in the beautiful Albany Rural Cemetery, north of +the city, and nearby is Palmer's famous figure of the "Angel at the +Sepulchre." Here is also the tomb of President Chester A. Arthur, who +died in 1886. + + +THE MODERN TROY. + +Travelling northward along the Hudson, the broad basin where the Erie +Canal comes out to the river is passed, being shielded by a pier +eighty feet wide and nearly a mile long. Here is the vast storehouse +for Canadian and Adirondack lumber brought by the canals, a leading +Albany industry, there being ten miles of dockage within this basin +for the lumber barges. The Erie Canal from the west, and also the +Champlain Canal from the north, here have their outlets into the +Hudson. Both sides of the river are lined with villages between Albany +and Troy--there being Greenbush, East Albany, Bath, Troy and West +Troy, and beyond, Lansingburgh and Waterford at the confluence of the +Mohawk. This series of cities and towns stretching for ten miles along +the shores, with intervals of farm land, have an aggregate population +exceeding three hundred thousand, with large manufactures and +commerce. There are extensive iron mills on the river and upon Green +Island in front of Troy, where General Gates had the camp for his +Revolutionary army which fought Burgoyne at Saratoga. Upon the western +bank is the Watervliet Arsenal, where the government manufactures army +supplies, an enclosure of over a hundred acres. Troy is a fringe of +city extending along the eastern bank and up the steep ridge behind, +crowned by the imposing Byzantine buildings and spires of St. Joseph's +Theological Seminary. This high ridge, bordering the alluvial flat on +which the modern Troy is built, thoroughly carries out the Grecian +idea which was adopted to supersede the original Dutch name of +Vanderheyden which was given the town. From the northeast Mount +Olympus and from the east Mount Ida frown upon Troy, and this modern +Mount Ida does not hesitate at times to hurl down Jove's thunderbolts +in the form of destructive landslips. Derick Vanderheyden leased this +estate from the Patroon in 1720, and it slept in Dutch peacefulness +until after the Revolution, when in 1789 it had twelve dwellings and +the freeholders adopted the present name. Just before this, Jacob +Vanderheyden had removed to Albany to occupy his "Palace." The opening +of the Erie Canal gave Troy great prosperity. It has fine water-power, +and thus became a busy manufacturing centre. Here are the great Albany +and Rensselaer Iron Works, which were famous makers of armor plates +and cannon in the Civil War, and the Berdan Horseshoe Mill, the +largest in the country, which has the biggest water-wheel, eighty feet +in diameter, turned by one of the kills coming down from the mountain +behind the town. It was here that John Ericsson built the little +"Monitor" ironclad which defeated the "Merrimac" at Fortress Monroe in +1862. There are also great textile mills and a vast laundry. Its +famous Polytechnic Institute is an endowment of the last Patroon, +Stephen Van Rensselaer, who was Troy's steady benefactor. + + +THE DEFEAT OF BURGOYNE. + +The Mohawk, its principal tributary, flows into the Hudson just above +Troy, and each, being a mountain torrent, has brought down large +alluvial deposits making extensive flats between the hills, so that +their junction is marked by fertile islands and low shores, backed by +picturesque ridges bordering broad valleys. Here are Green Island, +Adam's Island and Van Schaick's Island, making an extensive delta. The +Mohawk, after flowing from central New York nearly one hundred and +forty miles in a rich agricultural section, pours down the falls at +Cohoes, and enters the Hudson through four separate channels formed by +these islands. The Mohawk Valley is largely a pastoral region, its +dairies and cheeses having much fame, and in the lower valley +hop-growing and broom-making are important industries, chiefly +controlled by the Shakers. At one of their settlements, about six +miles northwest of Albany, their foundress, "Mother Ann," who died in +1784, is buried. The Hudson flows to its confluence with the Mohawk, +with generally rapid current, bordered by rich plains, as it is +ascended to Stillwater, and thirteen miles beyond, to Schuylerville, +where Fish Creek comes in, the outlet of Saratoga Lake. + +Here is a region of great historic interest, for through it marched +Sir John Burgoyne's army in 1777 to disastrous defeat. At and above +Stillwater, and Bemis's Heights beyond, was the scene of his closing +conflict, while Schuylerville stands upon the site of his camp at the +time of his final surrender. General Schuyler, from whom the village +is named, was then the owner of the entire domain of Saratoga. +Burgoyne had come south from Canada to meet another British force +thought to be advancing up the Hudson from New York, the design being +to cut the rebellious colonies in two and defeat them in detail. The +rebels hung upon Burgoyne's flanks, and at Bennington, Vermont, +Stark's bold movement in August captured a large force of Hessians. +Schuyler sent Arnold up the Mohawk, who cut off another detachment +under St. Leger, who had come over from Oswego, intending to make a +detour to Albany. In September, Burgoyne came to Saratoga, and had his +first contest south of the springs, with the Americans under Gates. +Afterwards, each army encamped within cannon-shot of the other until +October 7th, Burgoyne all the while hoping for some diversion from the +lower Hudson. The British camp was on the river below Schuylerville, +and on that day they marched out to give battle, Burgoyne's chief +lieutenant, General Fraser, directing the movements. Fraser was in +full uniform, mounted upon an iron-gray steed, and became a most +conspicuous object. Colonel Morgan, who had a force of Virginia +sharpshooters, perceived this, and calling a number of his best men +around him, pointed to the British right wing, which was making a +victorious advance under Fraser's inspiration, and said: "That gallant +officer is General Fraser; I admire and honor him, but it is necessary +he should die; victory for the enemy depends on him; take your +stations in that clump of bushes and do your duty." Within five +minutes afterwards he was mortally wounded. His aid, recognizing that +he was a conspicuous mark, had just observed: "Would it not be prudent +for you to retire from this place?" and he had scarcely got the reply +out of his mouth, "My duty forbids me to fly from danger," when he was +shot. He survived throughout the night, and asked to be buried in a +redoubt he had built on a hill near the Hudson. He died next day, and +at sunset a funeral procession moved towards the redoubt. The +Americans saw it, and, ignorant of what it meant, cannonaded, but +desisted on learning the mournful object; and then a single cannon, +fired at intervals, reverberated along the Hudson; an American +minute-gun in memory of a brave soldier. + +Fraser's fall caused the British defeat, and they afterwards abandoned +guns and baggage trains and retreated north to Schuylerville. +Burgoyne's provisions gave out, many auxiliaries deserted him, the +camp was incessantly cannonaded, and finally, with his forces reduced +below six thousand men, on October 17th, he surrendered. It was said +at the time, in the British Parliament, that the campaign thus ended +"had left the country stripped of nearly every evidence of civilized +occupation," and in its result it was declared to be "one of the +fifteen decisive battles of the world." There were six members of +Parliament among the captive officers, and Burgoyne gave up forty-two +brass cannon. His army was held in captivity nearly five years, till +the end of the war, at first near Boston, and later in Virginia. This +victory was the turning-point of the Revolution. Among its results +were, an appreciation of twenty per cent. in Continental money; the +bold stand of Lord Chatham and Edmund Burke in Parliament, denouncing +the method of conducting the war; the sending of cheering words to +the struggling colonies by Spain, Holland, Russia and the Vatican; and +the paving of the way for France to acknowledge the independence of +the United States--all the result, under Providence, of Fraser's +indiscreet devotion to duty. In the neighborhood is the great +Methodist camp-meeting ground of Round Lake, and farther on Ballston +Spa, where the Kayaderosseras Creek winds through a beautifully shaded +valley and flows into Saratoga Lake. In the early part of the +nineteenth century this was the greatest watering-place in America, +its waters being chemically similar to those of Saratoga. Its Sans +Souci Hotel, opened in 1804, was then the grandest in the country, and +here were hatched most of the political schemes of the days of +Presidents Madison, Monroe and Jackson, the "Albany Regency" in its +palmiest days flourishing throughout the summer time on its lawns and +porches. But much of Ballston's glory has departed, eclipsed by the +newer radiance of its great neighbor, six miles away. The Saratoga +Lake is three miles east of Ballston, an oval-shaped lake eight miles +long, from which Fish Creek meanders off to the Hudson at +Schuylerville. As the fishes thus ascended from the river into the +lake, the Indians named it Saraghoga, or "the place of the herrings." + + +SARATOGA. + +The famous watering-place, Saratoga, is a comparatively small town +upon a level and somewhat barren plateau. A short distance north of +Saratoga Lake, with a boulevard and electric road connecting them, is +the shallow valley wherein are the famous mineral springs. Their +virtues were long known to the Iroquois, and when the renowned French +explorer Jacques Cartier ascended the St. Lawrence in 1535, searching +for the "northwest passage," the Indians on the river bank told him +about these springs and their wonderful cures. The Mohawks, who had +these waters in their special keeping, regarded them with veneration. +In August, 1767, their great English friend and adopted sachem, Sir +William Johnson, who is said to have been the father of a hundred +children, was suffering from re-opened wounds received in battle, and +the tribe held a solemn council and determined to take him to this +"medicine spring of the Great Spirit." They carried him on a litter +many miles to the "High Rock Spring," and he was the first white man +who saw it. His strength was regained in four days, and he wrote +General Schuyler, "I have just returned from a most amazing spring +which almost effected my cure." This spring, coming out of its conical +rock reservoir, much like a diminutive geyser, and then called the +"Round Rock Spring," was the first one known. There were occasional +visitors during the Revolution, and the cutting of a road some time +afterwards from the Mohawk through the forests to reach it, opened the +place to the public. To-day, Saratoga is an aggregation of some of +the greatest hotels in the world, with many smaller ones and numerous +cottages. There is a permanent population of about twelve thousand, +often swollen to fifty thousand in August and September, the "season." +A shallow valley contains most of the springs, around which the town +clusters, with extensive suburbs of wooden houses, groves and gardens. +The valley is crossed by the chief street, Broadway, a magnificent +avenue, one hundred and fifty feet wide, with spacious sidewalks +shaded by rows of grand old elms and, in the centre of the settlement, +bordered by enormous hotels. The greatest of these is the famous Grand +Union, a vast structure of iron and brick, fronting eight hundred feet +on Broadway, and having over two thousand beds, the largest +watering-place hotel in the world. A garden and park are enclosed by +its spacious wings, and here fountains plash and bands play, while the +visitors promenade or sit and gossip upon the extensive piazzas. Its +front piazza, spreading along Broadway, is eight hundred feet long and +three stories high. Its dining-hall is two hundred and seventy-five +feet long and sixty feet wide, the largest in existence, and seats +seventeen hundred people at table. The United States Hotel, north of +the Grand Union, and Congress Hall, across Broadway, are also enormous +caravansaries, and in busy times these three hotels will accommodate +over six thousand guests, the cost of running each of them for one +day being $7500 to $10,000. Everything in these gigantic hotels is +arranged upon a scale of splendor and immensity almost requiring a +railway train to take the visitor about them. + +Many of the twenty-eight mineral springs of Saratoga border Broadway +or are near it, and the most noted, the "Congress" and the "Hathorn," +are on either side of Congress Hall, thus being easy of access. The +geologists say these springs rise from a line of "fault," which brings +the slaty formations of the Hudson River against the sandstones and +limestones that are above. They are generally muriated saline springs +of about 50° temperature, the Congress Spring having about the +strength of Kissingen Racoczy, but a milder taste, while the Hathorn +Spring, its great rival, contains more chloride of sodium and iron. +Some of the springs are chalybeate, others sulphurous or iodinous, and +all are highly charged with carbonic acid gas. The Saratoga Seltzer +resembles the seltzer of Germany, and the Geyser Spring is so highly +charged that when drawn from a faucet it foams like soda water. The +waters are both tonic and cathartic. The "High Rock Spring" bubbles up +through an aperture in a conical rock composed of calcareous tufa, +which has been formed by the deposits from the waters. This rock is +four feet high, with a rounded top, in the centre of which is a +circular opening a foot in diameter. The depth of the spring from the +present top of the rock is thirty-two feet. The waters used to +overflow occasionally and increase the size of the rock by the +deposits, but a tree was blown down and cracked the rock, since which +the waters will only rise to about six inches below the top. A pagoda +covers it, beneath which water is ladled out to the thirsty. The +Congress Spring is in a tasteful park, having this and the Columbian +Spring under an elaborate pavilion. This Congress Spring was found by +a hunting party who went through the valley in 1792, and named it in +honor of a member of Congress who was with them. To this park go the +crowds in the morning before breakfast to drink the waters, which are +freely furnished either cold or hot, and music plays while the people +drink glass after glass. Each pint of Congress water contains about +seventy-five grains of mineral constituents and forty-nine cubic +inches of carbonic acid gas. It is cathartic and alterative. The +Columbian Spring has much more iron, and is a tonic and diuretic. The +Hathorn Spring is in a large building adjoining Broadway, and was +found when digging for the foundations of a new house. It is a +powerful cathartic, containing nearly ninety-four grains of mineral +constituents and forty-seven cubic inches of carbonic acid gas in each +pint, and it is also a tonic and diuretic. The chief medicinal +rivalries of Saratoga have been based upon the respective merits of +the Congress and Hathorn waters, and great controversy has at times +been thus inspired. + +There are other noted springs--the Hamilton, a mild cathartic; the +Putnam, chalybeate, and having a bathing establishment; the Pavilion, +a cathartic; the United States, a mild, agreeable tonic; and the +Seltzer, rising through a tube several feet high, over the rim of +which it flows, a sparkling and invigorating drink. The Empire closely +resembles Congress water; the Red Spring is charged with much iron; +and the Saratoga "A" Spring is a mild cathartic. Then there are the +Saratoga Vichy, Saratoga Kissingen, Carlsbad, Magnetic, Imperial, +Royal, Star, Excelsior, Eureka, White Sulphur and Geyser Springs, most +of them in the outskirts. The Geyser spouts twenty-five feet high, is +deliciously cold, and exhilarates like champagne. The Glacier Spring +nearby was found by sinking an artesian well three hundred feet; its +waters spout high above the tube, and are powerfully cathartic. There +are six spouting springs, the Geyser being the best known; but of all +the springs of Saratoga, the waters of barely a half-dozen are much +used. The Congress, Empire and Hathorn Springs send their bottled +waters all over the world. The springs are all wonderfully clear and +sparkling, most of the waters pleasant to drink, and it is such a +Saratoga fashion to go about imbibing and tasting these waters of +rival virtues, that the visitors sometimes get into a plethoric +condition that becomes uncomfortable if not dangerous. But the springs +are not the chief attraction of Saratoga, and in fact the veteran +visitors do not partake of them at all, but freely confess that they +come not to drink the waters, but to see the life and be "in the +swim," for in the season the crowd at Saratoga, unlike anywhere else, +includes the leaders of all sets. The proximity of the Adirondacks +gives the bracing ozone of mountain air, and in the cosmopolitan +throng is generally included the best the country can show of fashion +and wealth. It is a great place for holding all kinds of conventions, +and many are the political, corporation and stock-jobbing schemes +hatched on the great hotel piazzas. It is also famous for dresses and +diamonds, and wonderful is the elaborateness of millinery, gowns and +jewels. The glitter of diamonds dazzles at every turn as they sparkle +under the brilliant electric lights illuminating the evening scene. It +was said not long ago, in a description of Saratoga, that if the Grand +Union Hotel should ever perish in the height of the season, with all +it contains, the future explorer who might delve in its ruins would +come upon the rarest diamond mine the world ever knew. + +Upon Saratoga Lake is the famous restaurant where "Saratoga chips" +were invented and are served, this route being a favorite drive for +the people who attend the numerous conventions, for whose use an +elaborate Convention Hall has been erected on Broadway, seating five +thousand persons. On the western shore of the lake, just where the +Kayaderosseras River flows in from Ballston, is pointed out the +battlefield on which the legend says that in the days of the warlike +Mohawks and fierce Mohicans they had a deadly combat, a thousand +warriors being engaged, when suddenly the Great Spirit sent a +miraculous white dove over the lake and battlefield, having such an +effect that the conflict ceased, their tomahawks fell useless at their +feet, and they smoked the calumet of peace. To the northward of +Saratoga is the extensive Woodlawn Park, the home of the late Judge +Henry Hilton. Ten miles northward is Mount McGregor, rising twelve +hundred feet and giving a magnificent view. It was here that General +Grant was taken in his last illness in 1885, and the cottage in which +he died is now the property of New York State and open to the public. + + +FORT EDWARD. + +The upper Hudson River has various falls providing good water-power, +which are largely availed of by paper-mills. The famous Fort Edward, +one of these noted paper-making towns, is but a short distance from +Saratoga. The railroad, leading from Saratoga and the south to Lake +Champlain and the north, here crosses the Hudson in a region of great +historic interest. This was the beginning of the portage in early +times between the river and the lake, the railway route following the +ancient Indian trail. The two waters are actually connected by the +Champlain Canal, and, curiously enough, this makes New England an +island, thus realizing the belief of the original explorers. Rev. +Robert Cushman, who preached the first sermon before the Massachusetts +Pilgrims at Plymouth in 1621, afterwards published it with an +introduction describing New England, in which he says: "So far as we +can find, it is an island, and near about the quantity of England, +being cut out from the mainland in America, as England is from the +main of Europe, by a great arm of the sea (Hudson's River) which +entereth in forty degrees and runneth up northwest and by west, and +goeth out either into the South Sea (Pacific Ocean) or else into the +Bay of Canada (Gulf of St. Lawrence)." There can still be seen at Fort +Edward traces of the ramparts of the old fort commanding the portage, +which was held and fought for in the eighteenth century. Originally a +noble domain around it of one thousand square miles was granted to +"our loving subject, the Reverend Godfridius Dellius, Minister of the +Gospell att our city of Albany," for "the annual rent of one Raccoon +Skin." The old gentleman, however, fell from grace, and the domain was +taken away from him and the New York Legislature suspended him from +the ministry for "deluding the Mohawk Indians, and illegal and +surreptitious obtaining of said grant." Then it went to his successor, +Rev. John Lydius, who lived in the quaint "Lydius House" in Albany. +The first fort was built soon after Lydius took possession, and in +1744 he established a fur-trading station. A military road was then +constructed from Saratoga to Whitehall on Lake Champlain, here +crossing the river, and it was commanded by three forts, one at this +crossing. The French destroyed the first fort, but Sir William Johnson +made a successful expedition into the Lake Champlain district in 1755, +and built here the strong post of Fort Edward. It was an important +work during the whole French and Indian War, lasting seven years, and +it was here that Lord Amherst organized the army which conquered +Canada in 1759. + +At Fort Edward first appeared as a British soldier one of the greatest +heroes of the Revolution, Israel Putnam. He had joined Sir William +Johnson's expedition as captain in a Connecticut regiment. He +performed here a daring exploit; the wooden barracks had caught fire +and the garrison vainly tried to subdue the flames, which approached +the powder magazine, and the danger was frightful. The water-gate was +opened, and the soldiers in line passed buckets of water up from the +river, when Putnam mounted the roof of the next building to the +magazine and threw the water on the fire. The commander, fearing for +his life, ordered him to desist, but he would not leave until he felt +the roof giving away. Then he got alongside the magazine, its timbers +already charred, and hurled bucket after bucket upon it, with final +success, the magazine being saved and an explosion prevented. The fire +was quenched, but the burnt and blistered hero was for a month a +sufferer in the hospital. Putnam had an adventure at the rapids a few +miles below Fort Edward, where he was out with a scouting party, and +being alongside the bank alone in his boat, was surprised by the +Indians. He could not cross the river above the rapids quickly enough +to elude their muskets, and the only escape was down the cataract. +Without hesitation, to the astonishment of the savages, his boat shot +directly down the foaming, whirling current, amid eddies and over +rugged rocks, and in a few moments he had escaped them, and was +floating on the tranquil river below. Believing him to be protected by +the Great Spirit, they dared not follow. Shortly afterwards, returning +from a scout on Lake Champlain, Putnam's party was surprised, and the +Indians captured and bound him to a tree. While thus situated, a +battle between his friends and the enemy raged for an hour around the +tree, he being under the hottest fire, but he was unscathed. The +Indians were beaten and had to retreat, but they took their captive +along, determined to have vengeance by roasting him alive. He was +again tied to a tree, and the fire had been kindled and was blazing +when the French commander, Molang, discovered and rescued him. Thus +was Putnam seasoned for his great work in the Revolution. + +The tragic murder of poor Jenny McCrea is also associated with Fort +Edward. This post in the Revolution was held in 1777 by an American +garrison, who retired before the advance of Burgoyne's army +southward. Jenny McCrea, the graceful and winning daughter of a +Presbyterian clergyman, who was betrothed to an officer in Burgoyne's +army, was visiting a widow lady at Fort Edward. In order to secure +Indian co-operation, Burgoyne had offered bounties for prisoners and +scalps, at the same time forbidding the killing of unarmed persons. He +found it difficult, however, to restrain the savages, who went about +in small bodies seeking captives, and one of these parties, prowling +around Fort Edward, entered the house where Jenny was staying and +carried off Jenny and her friend. An alarm was given, and troops sent +after them. The Indians had caught two horses, on one of which Jenny +was mounted, when the pursuers assailed them with a volley of bullets. +The Indians were unhurt, but the fair captive was mortally wounded and +fell, and, as tradition relates, expired at the foot of a huge pine +tree, which remained a memorial of the tragedy for nearly a century. +The savages thus lost their prisoner, but they quickly scalped her, +and taking her long black tresses, bathed in blood, to Burgoyne's +camp, they claimed reward. They were accused of her murder, but denied +it, and the horrid tale, magnified by repetition, caused the greatest +indignation. General Gates issued an address, charging Burgoyne with +hiring savages to scalp Europeans and their descendants, and +describing Jenny as having been "dressed to meet her promised +husband, but met her murderers." For this crime, it was added, +Burgoyne had "paid the price of blood." Poor Jenny's murder, with +Burgoyne's defeat, was employed most effectively by the opposition in +the British House of Commons, Chatham and Burke eloquently denouncing +the barbarity and merciless cruelties of his unfortunate campaign. Her +lover declined longer to stay in Burgoyne's army, but retired to +Canada, living there till old age. Jenny's remains are interred in the +beautiful cemetery overlooking the Hudson above Fort Edward, marked by +a monument recording her murder by a band of Indians at the age of +seventeen, and reciting that the memorial was erected "To record one +of the most thrilling incidents in the annals of the American +Revolution; to do justice to the fame of the gallant British officer +to whom she was affianced; and as a simple tribute to the memory of +the departed." This gentle maiden's sacrifice was of priceless value +in producing the revulsion of sentiment in Europe that had so much to +do with the final success of the Revolution. + + +BAKER'S FALLS AND GLEN'S FALLS. + +In coming to Fort Edward, the Hudson River sweeps around a grand curve +from the west towards the south, much of its course over cascades and +down rapids that are lined with mills. In a mile it descends eighty +feet, these rapids being known as Baker's Falls, and just above is the +village of Sandy Hill, having in its centre a pleasant elm-shaded +green. Here was enacted a tragedy, in some respects rivalling the tale +of Pocahontas. A party of sixteen, carrying supplies to Lake George, +was surprised and captured by Indians, and taken to the trunk of a +fallen tree on the spot where is now the village green, bound by +hickory withes and seated in a row. The savages then began at the end +of the row and tomahawked them one after another until only two +remained, Lieutenant McGinnis commanding the party and a young +teamster named Quackenboss. The tomahawk was brandished over the +former, when he threw himself backward and tried to break his bonds. A +dozen tomahawks instantly gleamed over him, and lying on his back he +defended himself with his heels, but he was soon hacked to death. +Quackenboss alone remained, and the deadly hatchet was raised over his +head, when suddenly the arm of the savage was seized by a squaw, who +cried, "You shall not kill him; he no fighter; he my dog." They spared +him to become a beast of burden. Staggering under a pack of plunder +almost too heavy to carry, they marched him towards Canada, the +Indians bearing his companions' scalps as trophies. They sailed along +Lake Champlain in canoes, and at the first Indian village at which +they halted he was compelled to "run the gauntlet." He ran between +rows of savages armed with heavy clubs, who beat him, an ordeal in +which he was severely injured. The Indian woman, however, took him to +her wigwam, bound up his wounds, and carefully nursed him until he +recovered. He was ultimately ransomed, obtaining employment in +Montreal. Finally returning to his home, he lived to a ripe old age, +telling of his adventures until he died in 1820. + +Following the curving Hudson River bank around to the westward, +another series of rapids and cascades is ascended to the thriving +manufacturing town of Glen's Falls. This magnificent cataract pours +through a wild ravine having over seventy feet descent, the water +flowing upon rough masses of black marble composing the rocky terraces +the stream has broken down. The Mohicans had significant names for +this famous cataract. One was Kayandorossa, meaning the "long deep +hole," applied to the ravine; and another, Che-pon-tuc, or "hard +climbing; a difficult place to get around." Along the north side of +the ravine, upon a beautiful plain, is the manufacturing settlement of +about ten thousand people, who use the admirable water-power and get +the black marble out of adjacent quarries. Vast numbers of logs coming +down the Hudson are gathered in a boom above the town, and sawmills +cut them into lumber. Paper-mills cluster about the falls, and +marble-saws work up the black rocks. In the centre of the ravine, +above the falls, a cavern is hewn where a rocky islet makes a rude +abutment for a bridge pier. Father Jogues, who came over from Lake +George in 1645, was the first white man who saw this attractive +region, and he wrote that the Indians then called the Hudson +"Oi-o-gue" or "the beautiful river," while the Hollanders, settled on +it farther down, had named it the "river Van Maurice." When the Dutch +made their first explorations they found that the lower Mohawk and the +upper valley of the Hudson, with the country northward extending into +the Adirondacks, was the home of the Mohicans, an Algonquin tribe, and +always at war with the Mohawks, their western neighbors higher up that +valley. It was thought probable that with a view of securing +assistance in this inveterate feud, the Mohicans received the Dutch +settlers so amicably and gave them lands. + +James Fenimore Cooper located around Glen's Falls the scene of his +novel, the _Last of the Mohicans_, in which _Hawkeye_, looking out of +the cavern in the ravine, gives his admirable description of the +cataract as it appeared in the French and Indian War, before the +millwright had come along to disturb the scenery. "Ay," he said, +"there are the falls on two sides of us, and the river above and +below. If you had daylight it would be worth the trouble to step up on +the height of this rock and look at the perversity of the water. It +falls by no rule at all; sometimes it leaps, sometimes it tumbles; +there it skips; here it shoots; in one place 'tis as white as snow, +and in another 'tis as green as grass; hereabouts it pitches into deep +hollows that rumble and quake the 'arth, and thereaway it ripples and +sings like a brook, fashioning whirlpools and gullies in the old stone +as if 'twere no harder than trodden clay. The whole design of the +river seems disconnected. First it runs smoothly as if meaning to go +down the descent as things were ordered; then it angles about and +faces the shores; nor are there places wanting where it looks +backward, as if unwilling to leave the wilderness to mingle with the +salt!" + + +SOURCES OF THE HUDSON. + +The noble Hudson River, which we have ascended to Glen's Falls, flows +out of the great Adirondack wilderness of Northern New York, the +headwaters draining its extensive southern declivity. Among these +virgin Adirondack woods and mountains, near the Long Lake, is the +remote source of the western branch of the Hudson, the "Hendrick +Spring." Surrounded by forest and swamp, this cool and shallow pool, +about five feet in diameter, fringed by delicate ferns, and overhung +with vines and shrubbery, is the beginning of the great river, and +named in honor of its discoverer and first explorer: + + "Far up in the dim mountain glade, + Wrapped in the myst'ry of its shade, + On a cold rock, a dewdrop fell, + And slumbered in its stony shell, + Till brewed within its rocky bed, + There trickled out a silver thread, + A little, shy, lost waterling, + That marks the cradled mountain spring." + +The Hendrick Spring is within a half-mile of Long Lake and upon the +same summit, the latter discharging its waters northward into the St. +Lawrence. The little stream from this source gathers force, and flows +through a chain of brooks and ponds to the lovely Catlin Lake. High +peaks environ them, and their swelling waters make much of the river +on coming to the confluence with the northern branch of the Hudson at +the outlet of Harris Lake. Here there blooms, all about, the splendid +cardinal plant, its showy flower glowing like a flame. + +The most elevated fountain head of the Hudson is upon the northern +branch. Within the inmost recesses of the mountain wilderness, in a +ravine between two of the highest peaks, the river has its spring +nearest the sky, known as "The Tear of the Clouds," a lofty pool, +adjacent to one of the noted Adirondack portages, the Indian Pass, at +about forty-three hundred feet elevation above the sea. From this pool +the water flows out through the Feldspar Brook into the Opalescent +River, which does not go far before it tumbles down the picturesque +cascade of the Hanging Spear, leaping fifty feet into a narrow abyss +between perpendicular walls, and emerging among a mass of huge +boulders. All these rocks, like the greater part of the Aganus-chion, +or Black Mountains, as the Indians often called the Adirondacks, are +composed largely of the labradorite or opalescent feldspar, which +fills the stream-bed with beautiful pebbles of blue or green or gold, +many of them having all the colors. Thus glittering with the splendors +of its rich coloring under the sunlight, the Opalescent River falls +into Sandford Lake. A visitor to the Indian Pass says the explorers +entered the rocky gorge between the steep slopes of Mount McIntyre and +the cliffs of Wallface Mountain to the westward. Clambering high above +the bottom of the canyon, they could see the famous Indian Pass +between these mountains in all its wild grandeur. Before them rose a +perpendicular cliff nearly twelve hundred feet from base to summit, +its face being apparently as raw as if only just cleft. Above sloped +Mount McIntyre, still more lofty than the cliff of Wallface, and in +the gorge between lay piles of rocks, grand in dimensions and awful in +aspect, as if hurled there by some terrible convulsion. Through these +came the little stream going to the Hudson, bubbling along from its +source close by a fountain of the Ausable. In spring freshets their +waters commingle, part finding their way to the ocean at New York and +part at Newfoundland. + +Still another spring of clear cold water is a source of the Hudson, +sending down the mountain side a vigorous rivulet, falling into the +Opalescent. This fountain bubbles from a mass of loose rocks, some +weighing a thousand tons apiece, about a hundred feet from the summit +of the noble Mount Marcy, which the Indians called Tahawus, the +"Sky-piercer." From these sources among the Adirondacks flows the +most important river of New York, uniting the waters of myriads of +lakes and springs to form the noble stream which is picturesque and +attractive throughout the whole of its course of three hundred miles +to the sea. The main branches of the upper Hudson unite almost under +the shadow of Tahawus, and flowing a tortuous course, it receives the +outlet of Schroon Lake, the largest in the Adirondacks, covering about +twenty square miles, the junction-point being but a short distance +west of Lake George. Then flowing southward and turning eastward, it +emerges from the mountain wilderness, and in about a hundred miles +reaches its great cataract at Glen's Falls. Sweeping around the grand +bend below, and tumbling down Baker's Falls, past Fort Edward and the +rapids of Fort Miller, it receives the largest tributary from the +eastward, the Battenkill, a rapid shallow stream flowing from the +Green Mountains of Vermont. Thence its course is southward, every mile +from the wilderness to the sea being replete with historic and scenic +attractions: + + "Queen of all lovely rivers, lustrous queen + Of flowing waters in our sweet new lands, + Rippling through sunlight to the ocean sands, + Within a smiling valley, and between + Romantic shores of silvery summer green; + Memorial of wild days and savage bands, + Singing the patient deeds of patriot hands, + Crooning of golden glorious years foreseen." + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of America, Volume III (of 6), by Joel Cook + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41776 *** |