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diff --git a/6606.txt b/6606.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..60252e3 --- /dev/null +++ b/6606.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2954 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Hudson And Its Hills, by Charles M. Skinner + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Hudson And Its Hills + Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Volume 1. + +Author: Charles M. Skinner + +Release Date: October 22, 2006 [EBook #6606] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HUDSON AND ITS HILLS *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + + + MYTHS AND LEGENDS + OF + OUR OWN LAND + + By + Charles M. Skinner + + Vol. 1. + + + THE HUDSON AND ITS HILLS + + + + +CONTENTS OF ALL VOLUMES: + +THE HUDSON AND ITS HILLS + +Rip Van Winkle +Catskill Gnomes +The Catskill Witch +The Revenge of Shandaken +Condemned to the Noose +Big Indian +The Baker's Dozen +The Devil's Dance-Chamber +The Culprit Fay +Pokepsie +Dunderberg +Anthony's Nose +Moodua Creek +A Trapper's Ghastly Vengeance +The Vanderdecken of Tappan Zee +The Galloping Hessian +Storm Ship on the Hudson +Why Spuyten Duyvil is so Named +The Ramapo Salamander +Chief Croton +The Retreat from Mahopac +Niagara +The Deformed of Zoar +Horseheads +Kayuta and Waneta +The Drop Star +The Prophet of Palmyra +A Villain's Cremation +The Monster Mosquito +The Green Picture +The Nuns of Carthage +The Skull in the Wall +The Haunted Mill +Old Indian Face +The Division of the Saranacs +An Event in Indian Park +The Indian Plume +Birth of the Water-Lily +Rogers's Slide +The Falls at Cohoes +Francis Woolcott's Night-Riders +Polly's Lover +Crosby, the Patriot Spy +The Lost Grave of Paine +The Rising of Gouverneur Morris + + +THE ISLE OF MANHATTOES AND NEARBY + +Dolph Heyliger +The Knell at the Wedding +Roistering Dirck Van Dara +The Party from Gibbet Island +Miss Britton's Poker +The Devil's Stepping-Stones +The Springs of Blood and Water +The Crumbling Silver +The Cortelyou Elopement +Van Wempel's Goose +The Weary Watcher +The Rival Fiddlers +Wyandank +Mark of the Spirit Hand +The First Liberal Church + + +ON AND NEAR THE DELAWARE + +The Phantom Dragoon +Delaware Water Gap +The Phantom Drummer +The Missing Soldier of Valley Forge +The Last Shot at Germantown +A Blow in the Dark +The Tory's Conversion +Lord Percy's Dream +Saved by the Bible +Parricide of the Wissahickon +The Blacksmith at Brandywine +Father and Son +The Envy of Manitou +The Last Revel in Printz Hall +The Two Rings +Flame Scalps of the Chartiers +The Consecration of Washington +Marion + + +TALES OF PURITAN LAND + +Evangeline +The Snoring of Swunksus +The Lewiston Hermit +The Dead Ship of Harpswell +The Schoolmaster had not reached Orrington +Jack Welch's Death Light +Mogg Megone +The Lady Ursula +Father Moody's Black Veil +The Home of Thunder +The Partridge Witch +The Marriage of Mount Katahdin +The Moose of Mount Kineo +The Owl Tree +A Chestnut Log +The Watcher on White Island +Chocorua +Passaconaway's Ride to Heaven +The Ball Game by the Saco +The White Mountains +The Vision on Mount Adams +The Great Carbuncle +Skinner's Cave +Yet they call it Lover's Leap +Salem and other Witchcraft +The Gloucester Leaguers +Satan and his Burial-Place +Peter Rugg, the Missing Man +The Loss of Weetamoo +The Fatal Forget-me-not +The Old Mill at Somerville +Edward Randolph's Portrait +Lady Eleanore's Mantle +Howe's Masquerade +Old Esther Dudley +The Loss of Jacob Hurd +The Hobomak +Berkshire Tories +The Revenge of Josiah Breeze +The May-Pole of Merrymount +The Devil and Tom Walker +The Gray Champion +The Forest Smithy +Wahconah Falls +Knocking at the Tomb +The White Deer of Onota +Wizard's Glen +Balanced Rock +Shonkeek-Moonkeek +The Salem Alchemist +Eliza Wharton +Sale of the Southwicks +The Courtship of Myles Standish +Mother Crewe +Aunt Rachel's Curse +Nix's Mate +The Wild Man of Cape Cod +Newbury's Old Elm +Samuel Sewall's Prophecy +The Shrieking Woman +Agnes Surriage +Skipper Ireson's Ride +Heartbreak Hill +Harry Main: The Treasure and the Cats +The Wessaguscus Hanging +The Unknown Champion +Goody Cole +General Moulton and the Devil +The Skeleton in Armor +Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket +Love and Treason +The Headless Skeleton of Swamptown +The Crow and Cat of Hopkins Hill +The Old Stone Mill +Origin of a Name +Micah Rood Apples +A Dinner and its Consequences +The New Haven Storm Ship +The Windham Frogs +The Lamb of Sacrifice +Moodus Noises +Haddam Enchantments +Block Island and the Palatine +The Buccaneer +Robert Lockwood's Fate +Love and Rum + + + +LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF THE SOUTH + +The Swim at Indian Head +The Moaning Sisters +A Ride for a Bride +Spooks of the Hiawassee +Lake of the Dismal Swamp +The Barge of Defeat +Natural Bridge +The Silence Broken +Siren of the French Broad +The Hunter of Calawassee +Revenge of the Accabee +Toccoa Falls +Two Lives for One +A Ghostly Avenger +The Wraith Ringer of Atlanta +The Swallowing Earthquake +The Last Stand of the Biloxi +The Sacred Fire of Natchez +Pass Christian +The Under Land + + +THE CENTRAL STATES AND GREAT LAKES + +An Averted Peril +The Obstinacy of Saint Clair +The Hundredth Skull +The Crime of Black Swamp +The House Accursed +Marquette's Man-Eater +Michel de Coucy's Troubles +Wallen's Ridge +The Sky Walker of Huron +The Coffin of Snakes +Mackinack +Lake Superior Water Gods +The Witch of Pictured Rocks +The Origin of White Fish +The Spirit of Cloudy +The Sun Fire at Sault Sainte Marie +The Snake God of Belle Isle +Were-Wolves of Detroit +The Escape of Francois Navarre +The Old Lodger +The Nain Rouge +Two Revenges +Hiawatha +The Indian Messiah +The Vision of Rescue +Devil's Lake +The Keusca Elopement +Pipestone +The Virgins' Feast +Falls of St. Anthony +Flying Shadow and Track Maker +Saved by a Lightning-Stroke +The Killing of Cloudy Sky +Providence Hole +The Scare Cure +Twelfth Night at Cahokia +The Spell of Creve Coeur Lake +How the Crime was Revealed +Banshee of the Bad Lands +Standing Rock +The Salt Witch + + +ALONG THE ROCKY RANGE + +Over the Divide +The Phantom Train of Marshall Pass +The River of Lost Souls +Riders of the Desert +The Division of Two Tribes +Besieged by Starvation +A Yellowstone Tragedy +The Broad House +The Death Waltz +The Flood at Santa Fe +Goddess of Salt +The Coming of the Navajos +The Ark on Superstition Mountains +The Pale Faced Lightning +The Weird Sentinel at Squaw Peak +Sacrifice of the Toltecs +Ta-Vwots Conquers the Sun +The Comanche Rider +Horned Toad and Giants +The Spider Tower +The Lost Trail +A Battle in the Air + + +ON THE PACIFIC SLOPE + +The Voyager of the Whulge +Tamanous of Tacoma +The Devil and the Dalles +Cascades of the Columbia +The Death of Umatilla +Hunger Valley +The Wrath of Manitou +The Spook of Misery Hill +The Queen of Death Valley +Bridal Veil Fall +The Governor's Right Eye +The Prisoner in American Shaft + + +AS TO BURIED TREASURE + +Kidd's Treasure +Other Buried Wealth + + +STORIED WATERS, CLIFFS AND MOUNTAINS + + + + + +PREFACE + +It is unthinkingly said and often, that America is not old enough to have +developed a legendary era, for such an era grows backward as a nation +grows forward. No little of the charm of European travel is ascribed to +the glamour that history and fable have flung around old churches, +castles, and the favored haunts of tourists, and the Rhine and Hudson are +frequently compared, to the prejudice of the latter, not because its +scenery lacks in loveliness or grandeur, but that its beauty has not been +humanized by love of chivalry or faerie, as that of the older stream has +been. Yet the record of our country's progress is of deep import, and as +time goes on the figures seen against the morning twilight of our history +will rise to more commanding stature, and the mists of legend will invest +them with a softness or glory that shall make reverence for them +spontaneous and deep. Washington hurling the stone across the Potomac may +live as the Siegfried of some Western saga, and Franklin invoking the +lightnings may be the Loki of our mythology. The bibliography of American +legends is slight, and these tales have been gathered from sources the +most diverse: records, histories, newspapers, magazines, oral +narrative--in every case reconstructed. The pursuit of them has been so +long that a claim may be set forth for some measure of completeness. + +But, whatever the episodes of our four historic centuries may furnish to +the poet, painter, dramatist, or legend-building idealist of the future, +it is certain that we are not devoid of myth and folk-lore. Some +characters, prosaic enough, perhaps, in daily life, have impinged so +lightly on society before and after perpetrating their one or two great +deeds, that they have already become shadowy and their achievements have +acquired a color of the supernatural. It is where myth and history +combine that legend is most interesting and appeals to our fancy or our +sympathy most strongly; and it is not too early for us to begin the +collation of those quaint happenings and those spoken reports that gain +in picturesqueness with each transmission. An attempt has been made in +this instance to assemble only legends, for, doubtful as some historians +profess to find them, certain occurrences, like the story of Captain +Smith and Pocahontas, and the ride of General Putnam down Breakneck +Stairs, are taught as history; while as to folk-lore, that of the Indian +tribes and of the Southern negro is too copious to be recounted in this +work. It will be noted that traditions do not thrive in brick and +brownstone, and that the stories once rife in the colonial cities have +almost as effectually disappeared as the architectural landmarks of last +century. The field entered by the writer is not untrodden. Hawthorne and +Irving have made paths across it, and it is hoped that others may deem +its farther exploration worthy of their efforts. + + + + +THE HUDSON AND ITS HILLS + + + + +RIP VAN WINKLE + +The story of Rip Van Winkle, told by Irving, dramatized by Boucicault, +acted by Jefferson, pictured by Darley, set to music by Bristow, is the +best known of American legends. Rip was a real personage, and the Van +Winkles are a considerable family at this day. An idle, good-natured, +happy-go-lucky fellow, he lived, presumably, in the village of Catskill, +and began his long sleep in 1769. His wife was a shrew, and to escape her +abuse Rip often took his dog and gun and roamed away to the Catskills, +nine miles westward, where he lounged or hunted, as the humor seized him. +It was on a September evening, during a jaunt on South Mountain, that he +met a stubby, silent man, of goodly girth, his round head topped with a +steeple hat, the skirts of his belted coat and flaps of his petticoat +trousers meeting at the tops of heavy boots, and the face--ugh!--green +and ghastly, with unmoving eyes that glimmered in the twilight like +phosphorus. The dwarf carried a keg, and on receiving an intimation, in a +sign, that he would like Rip to relieve him of it, that cheerful vagabond +shouldered it and marched on up the mountain. + +At nightfall they emerged on a little plateau where a score of men in the +garb of long ago, with faces like that of Rip's guide, and equally still +and speechless, were playing bowls with great solemnity, the balls +sometimes rolling over the plateau's edge and rumbling down the rocks +with a boom like thunder. A cloaked and snowy-bearded figure, watching +aloof, turned like the others, and gazed uncomfortably at the visitor who +now came blundering in among them. Rip was at first for making off, but +the sinister glare in the circle of eyes took the run out of his legs, +and he was not displeased when they signed to him to tap the keg and join +in a draught of the ripest schnapps that ever he had tasted,--and he knew +the flavor of every brand in Catskill. While these strange men grew no +more genial with passing of the flagons, Rip was pervaded by a satisfying +glow; then, overcome by sleepiness and resting his head on a stone, he +stretched his tired legs out and fell to dreaming. + +Morning. Sunlight and leaf shadow were dappled over the earth when he +awoke, and rising stiffly from his bed, with compunctions in his bones, +he reached for his gun. The already venerable implement was so far gone +with rot and rust that it fell to pieces in his hand, and looking down at +the fragments of it, he saw that his clothes were dropping from his body +in rags and mould, while a white beard flowed over his breast. Puzzled +and alarmed, shaking his head ruefully as he recalled the carouse of the +silent, he hobbled down the mountain as fast as he might for the grip of +the rheumatism on his knees and elbows, and entered his native village. +What! Was this Catskill? Was this the place that he left yesterday? Had +all these houses sprung up overnight, and these streets been pushed +across the meadows in a day? The people, too: where were his friends? The +children who had romped with him, the rotund topers whom he had left +cooling their hot noses in pewter pots at the tavern door, the dogs that +used to bark a welcome, recognizing in him a kindred spirit of vagrancy: +where were they? + +And his wife, whose athletic arm and agile tongue had half disposed him +to linger in the mountains how happened it that she was not awaiting him +at the gate? But gate there was none in the familiar place: an unfenced +yard of weeds and ruined foundation wall were there. Rip's home was gone. +The idlers jeered at his bent, lean form, his snarl of beard and hair, +his disreputable dress, his look of grieved astonishment. He stopped, +instinctively, at the tavern, for he knew that place in spite of its new +sign: an officer in blue regimentals and a cocked hat replacing the +crimson George III. of his recollection, and labelled "General +Washington." There was a quick gathering of ne'er-do-weels, of +tavern-haunters and gaping 'prentices, about him, and though their faces +were strange and their manners rude, he made bold to ask if they knew +such and such of his friends. + +"Nick Vedder? He's dead and gone these eighteen years." "Brom Dutcher? He +joined the army and was killed at Stony Point." "Van Brummel? He, too, +went to the war, and is in Congress now." + +"And Rip Van Winkle?" + +"Yes, he's here. That's him yonder." + +And to Rip's utter confusion he saw before him a counterpart of himself, +as young, lazy, ragged, and easy-natured as he remembered himself to be, +yesterday--or, was it yesterday? + +"That's young Rip," continued his informer. "His father was Rip Van +Winkle, too, but he went to the mountains twenty years ago and never came +back. He probably fell over a cliff, or was carried off by Indians, or +eaten by bears." + +Twenty years ago! Truly, it was so. Rip had slept for twenty years +without awaking. He had left a peaceful colonial village; he returned to +a bustling republican town. How he eventually found, among the oldest +inhabitants, some who admitted that they knew him; how he found a +comfortable home with his married daughter and the son who took after him +so kindly; how he recovered from the effect of the tidings that his wife +had died of apoplexy, in a quarrel; how he resumed his seat at the tavern +tap and smoked long pipes and told long yarns for the rest of his days, +were matters of record up to the beginning of this century. + +And a strange story Rip had to tell, for he had served as cup-bearer to +the dead crew of the Half Moon. He had quaffed a cup of Hollands with no +other than Henry Hudson himself. Some say that Hudson's spirit has made +its home amid these hills, that it may look into the lovely valley that +he discovered; but others hold that every twenty years he and his men +assemble for a revel in the mountains that so charmed them when first +seen swelling against the western heavens, and the liquor they drink on +this night has the bane of throwing any mortal who lips it into a slumber +whence nothing can arouse him until the day dawns when the crew shall +meet again. As you climb the east front of the mountains by the old +carriage road, you pass, half-way up the height, the stone that Rip Van +Winkle slept on, and may see that it is slightly hollowed by his form. +The ghostly revellers are due in the Catskills in 1909, and let all +tourists who are among the mountains in September of that year beware of +accepting liquor from strangers. + + + + +CATSKILL GNOMES + +Behind the New Grand Hotel, in the Catskills, is an amphitheatre of +mountain that is held to be the place of which the Mohicans spoke when +they told of people there who worked in metals, and had bushy beards and +eyes like pigs. From the smoke of their forges, in autumn, came the haze +of Indian summer; and when the moon was full, it was their custom to +assemble on the edge of a precipice above the hollow and dance and caper +until the night was nigh worn away. They brewed a liquor that had the +effect of shortening the bodies and swelling the heads of all who drank +it, and when Hudson and his crew visited the mountains, the pygmies held +a carouse in his honor and invited him to drink their liquor. The crew +went away, shrunken and distorted by the magic distillation, and thus it +was that Rip Van Winkle found them on the eve of his famous sleep. + + + + +THE CATSKILL WITCH + +When the Dutch gave the name of Katzbergs to the mountains west of the +Hudson, by reason of the wild-cats and panthers that ranged there, they +obliterated the beautiful Indian Ontiora, "mountains of the sky." In one +tradition of the red men these hills were bones of a monster that fed on +human beings until the Great Spirit turned it into stone as it was +floundering toward the ocean to bathe. The two lakes near the summit were +its eyes. These peaks were the home of an Indian witch, who adjusted the +weather for the Hudson Valley with the certainty of a signal service +bureau. It was she who let out the day and night in blessed alternation, +holding back the one when the other was at large, for fear of conflict. +Old moons she cut into stars as soon as she had hung new ones in the sky, +and she was often seen perched on Round Top and North Mountain, spinning +clouds and flinging them to the winds. Woe betide the valley residents if +they showed irreverence, for then the clouds were black and heavy, and +through them she poured floods of rain and launched the lightnings, +causing disastrous freshets in the streams and blasting the wigwams of +the mockers. In a frolic humor she would take the form of a bear or deer +and lead the Indian hunters anything but a merry dance, exposing them to +tire and peril, and vanishing or assuming some terrible shape when they +had overtaken her. Sometimes she would lead them to the cloves and would +leap into the air with a mocking "Ho, ho!" just as they stopped with a +shudder at the brink of an abyss. Garden Rock was a spot where she was +often found, and at its foot a lake once spread. This was held in such +awe that an Indian would never wittingly pursue his quarry there; but +once a hunter lost his way and emerged from the forest at the edge of the +pond. Seeing a number of gourds in crotches of the trees he took one, but +fearing the spirit he turned to leave so quickly that he stumbled and it +fell. As it broke, a spring welled from it in such volume that the +unhappy man was gulfed in its waters, swept to the edge of Kaaterskill +clove and dashed on the rocks two hundred and sixty feet below. Nor did +the water ever cease to run, and in these times the stream born of the +witch's revenge is known as Catskill Creek. + + + + +THE REVENGE OF SHANDAKEN + +On the rock platform where the Catskill Mountain House now stands, +commanding one of the fairest views in the world, old chief Shandaken set +his wigwam,--for it is a mistake to suppose that barbarians are +indifferent to beauty,--and there his daughter, Lotowana, was sought in +marriage by his braves. She, however, kept faith to an early vow +exchanged with a young chief of the Mohawks. A suitor who was +particularly troublesome was Norsereddin, proud, morose, dark-featured, a +stranger to the red man, a descendant, so he claimed, from Egyptian +kings, and who lived by himself on Kaaterskill Creek, appearing among +white settlements but rarely. + +On one of his visits to Catskill, a tavern-lounging Dutchman wagered him +a thousand golden crowns that he could not win Lotowana, and, stung by +avarice as well as inflamed by passion, Norsereddin laid new siege to her +heart. Still the girl refused to listen, and Shandaken counselled him to +be content with the smiles of others, thereby so angering the Egyptian +that he assailed the chief and was driven from the camp with blows; but +on the day of Lotowana's wedding with the Mohawk he returned, and in a +honeyed speech asked leave to give a jewel to the bride to show that he +had stifled jealousy and ill will. The girl took the handsome box he gave +her and drew the cover, when a spring flew forward, driving into her hand +the poisoned tooth of a snake that had been affixed to it. The venom was +strong, and in a few minutes Lotowana lay dead at her husband's feet. + +Though the Egyptian had disappeared into the forest directly on the +acceptance of his treacherous gift, twenty braves set off in pursuit, and +overtaking him on the Kalkberg, they dragged him back to the rock where +father and husband were bewailing the maid's untimely fate. A pile of +fagots was heaped within a few feet of the precipice edge, and tying +their captive on them, they applied the torch, dancing about with cries +of exultation as the shrieks of the wretch echoed from the cliffs. The +dead girl was buried by the mourning tribe, while the ashes of +Norsereddin were left to be blown abroad. On the day of his revenge +Shandaken left his ancient dwelling-place, and his camp-fires never +glimmered afterward on the front of Ontiora. + + + + +CONDEMNED TO THE NOOSE + +Ralph Sutherland, who, early in the last century, occupied a stone house +a mile from Leeds, in the Catskills, was a man of morose and violent +disposition, whose servant, a Scotch girl, was virtually a slave, +inasmuch as she was bound to work for him without pay until she had +refunded to him her passage-money to this country. Becoming weary of +bondage and of the tempers of her master, the girl ran away. The man set +off in a raging chase, and she had not gone far before Sutherland +overtook her, tied her by the wrists to his horse's tail, and began the +homeward journey. Afterward, he swore that the girl stumbled against the +horse's legs, so frightening the animal that it rushed off madly, +pitching him out of the saddle and dashing the servant to death on rocks +and trees; yet, knowing how ugly-tempered he could be, his neighbors were +better inclined to believe that he had driven the horse into a gallop, +intending to drag the girl for a short distance, as a punishment, and to +rein up before he had done serious mischief. On this supposition he was +arrested, tried, and sentenced to die on the scaffold. + +The tricks of circumstantial evidence, together with pleas advanced by +influential relatives of the prisoner, induced the court to delay +sentence until the culprit should be ninety-nine years old, but it was +ordered that, while released on his own recognizance, in the interim, he +should keep a hangman's noose about his neck and show himself before the +judges in Catskill once every year, to prove that he wore his badge of +infamy and kept his crime in mind. This sentence he obeyed, and there +were people living recently who claimed to remember him as he went about +with a silken cord knotted at his throat. He was always alone, he seldom +spoke, his rough, imperious manner had departed. Only when children asked +him what the rope was for were his lips seen to quiver, and then he would +hurry away. After dark his house was avoided, for gossips said that a +shrieking woman passed it nightly, tied at the tail of a giant horse with +fiery eyes and smoking nostrils; that a skeleton in a winding sheet had +been found there; that a curious thing, somewhat like a woman, had been +known to sit on his garden wall, with lights shining from her +finger-tips, uttering unearthly laughter; and that domestic animals +reproached the man by groaning and howling beneath his windows. + +These beliefs he knew, yet he neither grieved, nor scorned, nor answered +when he was told of them. Years sped on. Every year deepened his reserve +and loneliness, and some began to whisper that he would take his own way +out of the world, though others answered that men who were born to be +hanged would never be drowned; but a new republic was created; new laws +were made; new judges sat to minister them; so, on Ralph Sutherland's +ninety-ninth birthday anniversary, there were none who would accuse him +or execute sentence. He lived yet another year, dying in 1801. But was it +from habit, or was it in self-punishment and remorse, that he never took +off the cord? for, when he drew his last breath, though it was in his own +house, his throat was still encircled by the hangman's rope. + + + + +BIG INDIAN + +Intermarriages between white people and red ones in this country were not +uncommon in the days when our ancestors led as rude a life as the +natives, and several places in the Catskills commemorate this fact. Mount +Utsayantha, for example, is named for an Indian woman whose life, with +that of her baby and her white husband, was lost there. For the white men +early found friends among these mountains. As far back as 1663 they +spared Catherine Dubois and her three children, after some rash spirits +had abducted them and carried them to a place on the upper Walkill, to do +them to death; for the captives raised a Huguenot hymn and the hearts of +their captors were softened. + +In Esopus Valley lived Winnisook, whose height was seven feet, and who +was known among the white settlers as "the big Indian." He loved a white +girl of the neighborhood, one Gertrude Molyneux, and had asked for her +hand; but while she was willing, the objections of her family were too +strong to be overcome, and she was teased into marriage with Joseph +Bundy, of her own race, instead. She liked the Indian all the better +after that, however, because Bundy proved to be a bad fellow, and +believing that she could be happier among barbarians than among a people +that approved such marriages, she eloped with Winnisook. For a long time +all trace of the runaway couple was lost, but one day the man having gone +down to the plain to steal cattle, it was alleged, was discovered by some +farmers who knew him, and who gave hot chase, coming up with him at the +place now called Big Indian. + +Foremost in the chase was Bundy. As he came near to the enemy of his +peace he exclaimed, "I think the best way to civilize that yellow serpent +is to let daylight into his heart," and, drawing his rifle to his +shoulder, he fired. Mortally wounded, yet instinctively seeking refuge, +the giant staggered into the hollow of a pine-tree, where the farmers +lost sight of him. There, however, he was found by Gertrude, bolt +upright, yet dead. The unwedded widow brought her dusky children to the +place and spent the remainder of her days near his grave. Until a few +years ago the tree was still pointed out, but a railroad company has now +covered it with an embankment. + + + + +THE BAKER'S DOZEN + +Baas [Boss] Volckert Jan Pietersen Van Amsterdam kept a bake-shop in +Albany, and lives in history as the man who invented New Year cakes and +made gingerbread babies in the likeness of his own fat offspring. Good +churchman though he was, the bane of his life was a fear of being +bewitched, and perhaps it was to keep out evil spirits, who might make +one last effort to gain the mastery over him, ere he turned the customary +leaf with the incoming year, that he had primed himself with an extra +glass of spirits on the last night of 1654. His sales had been brisk, and +as he sat in his little shop, meditating comfortably on the gains he +would make when his harmless rivals--the knikkerbakkers (bakers of +marbles)--sent for their usual supply of olie-koeks and mince-pies on the +morrow, he was startled by a sharp rap, and an ugly old woman entered. +"Give me a dozen New Year's cookies!" she cried, in a shrill voice. + +"Vell, den, you needn' sbeak so loud. I aind teaf, den." + +"A dozen!" she screamed. "Give me a dozen. Here are only twelve." + +"Vell, den, dwalf is a dozen." + +"One more! I want a dozen." + +"Vell, den, if you vant anodder, go to de duyvil and ged it." + +Did the hag take him at his word? She left the shop, and from that time +it seemed as if poor Volckert was bewitched, indeed, for his cakes were +stolen; his bread was so light that it went up the chimney, when it was +not so heavy that it fell through the oven; invisible hands plucked +bricks from that same oven and pelted him until he was blue; his wife +became deaf, his children went unkempt, and his trade went elsewhere. +Thrice the old woman reappeared, and each time was sent anew to the +devil; but at last, in despair, the baker called on Saint Nicolaus to +come and advise him. His call was answered with startling quickness, for, +almost while he was making it, the venerable patron of Dutch feasts stood +before him. The good soul advised the trembling man to be more generous +in his dealings with his fellows, and after a lecture on charity he +vanished, when, lo! the old woman was there in his place. + +She repeated her demand for one more cake, and Volckert Jan Pietersen, +etc., gave it, whereupon she exclaimed, "The spell is broken, and from +this time a dozen is thirteen!" Taking from the counter a gingerbread +effigy of Saint Nicolaus, she made the astonished Dutchman lay his hand +upon it and swear to give more liberal measure in the future. So, until +thirteen new States arose from the ruins of the colonies,--when the +shrewd Yankees restored the original measure,--thirteen made a baker's +dozen. + + + + +THE DEVIL'S DANCE-CHAMBER. + +Most storied of our New World rivers is the Hudson. Historic scenes have +been enacted on its shores, and Indian, Dutchman, Briton, and American +have invested it with romance. It had its source, in the red man's fancy, +in a spring of eternal youth; giants and spirits dwelt in its woods and +hills, and before the river-Shatemuc, king of streams, the red men called +it--had broken through the highlands, those mountains were a pent for +spirits who had rebelled against the Manitou. After the waters had forced +a passage to the sea these evil ones sought shelter in the glens and +valleys that open to right and left along its course, but in time of +tempest, when they hear Manitou riding down the ravine on wings of storm, +dashing thunderbolts against the cliffs, it is the fear that he will +recapture them and force them into lightless caverns to expiate their +revolt, that sends them huddling among the rocks and makes the hills +resound with roars and howls. + +At the Devil's Dance-Chamber, a slight plateau on the west bank, between +Newburg and Crom Elbow, the red men performed semi-religious rites as a +preface to their hunting and fishing trips or ventures on the war-path. +They built a fire, painted themselves, and in that frenzy into which +savages are so readily lashed, and that is so like to the action of mobs +in trousers, they tumbled, leaped, danced, yelled, sang, grimaced, and +gesticulated until the Manitou disclosed himself, either as a harmless +animal or a beast of prey. If he came in the former shape the augury was +favorable, but if he showed himself as a bear or panther, it was a +warning of evil that they seldom dared to disregard. + +The crew of Hudson's ship, the Half Moon, having chanced on one of these +orgies, were so impressed by the fantastic spectacle that they gave the +name Duyvels Dans-Kamer to the spot. Years afterwards, when Stuyvesant +ascended the river, his doughty retainers were horrified, on landing +below the Dans-Kamer, to discover hundreds of painted figures frisking +there in the fire-light. A few surmised that they were but a new +generation of savages holding a powwow, but most of the sailors fancied +that the assemblage was demoniac, and that the figures were spirits of +bad Indians repeating a scalp-dance and revelling in the mysterious +fire-water that they had brought down from the river source in jars and +skins. The spot was at least once profaned with blood, for a young +Dutchman and his wife, of Albany, were captured here by an angry Indian, +and although the young man succeeded in stabbing his captor to death, he +was burned alive on the rock by the friends of the Indian whose wrath he +had provoked. The wife, after being kept in captivity for a time, was +ransomed. + + + + +THE CULPRIT FAY + +The wood-tick's drum convokes the elves at the noon of night on Cro' Nest +top, and, clambering out of their flower-cup beds and hammocks of cobweb, +they fly to the meeting, not to freak about the grass or banquet at the +mushroom table, but to hear sentence passed on the fay who, forgetting +his vestal vow, has loved an earthly maid. From his throne under a canopy +of tulip petals, borne on pillars of shell, the king commands silence, +and with severe eye but softened voice he tells the culprit that while he +has scorned the royal decree he has saved himself from the extreme +penalty, of imprisonment in walnut shells and cobweb dungeons, by loving +a maid who is gentle and pure. So it shall be enough if he will go down +to the Hudson and seize a drop from the bow of mist that a sturgeon +leaves when he makes his leap; and after, to kindle his darkened +flame-wood lamp at a meteor spark. The fairy bows, and without a word +slowly descends the rocky steep, for his wing is soiled and has lost its +power; but once at the river, he tugs amain at a mussel shell till he has +it afloat; then, leaping in, he paddles out with a strong grass blade +till he comes to the spot where the sturgeon swims, though the +watersprites plague him and toss his boat, and the fish and the leeches +bunt and drag; but, suddenly, the sturgeon shoots from the water, and ere +the arch of mist that he tracks through the air has vanished, the sprite +has caught a drop of the spray in a tiny blossom, and in this he washes +clean his wings. + +The water-goblins torment him no longer. They push his boat to the shore, +where, alighting, he kisses his hand, then, even as a bubble, he flies +back to the mountain top, dons his acorn helmet, his corselet of +bee-hide, his shield of lady-bug shell, and grasping his lance, tipped +with wasp sting, he bestrides his fire-fly steed and off he goes like a +flash. The world spreads out and then grows small, but he flies straight +on. The ice-ghosts leer from the topmost clouds, and the mists surge +round, but he shakes his lance and pipes his call, and at last he comes +to the Milky Way, where the sky-sylphs lead him to their queen, who lies +couched in a palace ceiled with stars, its dome held up by northern +lights and the curtains made of the morning's flush. Her mantle is +twilight purple, tied with threads of gold from the eastern dawn, and her +face is as fair as the silver moon. + +She begs the fay to stay with her and taste forever the joys of heaven, +but the knightly elf keeps down the beating of his heart, for he +remembers a face on earth that is fairer than hers, and he begs to go. +With a sigh she fits him a car of cloud, with the fire-fly steed chained +on behind, and he hurries away to the northern sky whence the meteor +comes, with roar and whirl, and as it passes it bursts to flame. He +lights his lamp at a glowing spark, then wheels away to the fairy-land. +His king and his brothers hail him stoutly, with song and shout, and +feast and dance, and the revel is kept till the eastern sky has a ruddy +streak. Then the cock crows shrill and the fays are gone. + + + + +POKEPSIE + +The name of this town has forty-two spellings in old records, and with +singular pertinacity in ill-doing, the inhabitants have fastened on it +the longest and clumsiest of all. It comes from the Mohegan words +Apo-keep-sink, meaning a safe, pleasant harbor. Harbor it might be for +canoes, but for nothing bigger, for it was only the little cove that was +so called between Call Rock and Adder Cliff,--the former indicating where +settlers awaiting passage hailed the masters of vessels from its top, and +the latter taking its name from the snakes that abounded there. + +Hither came a band of Delawares with Pequot captives, among them a young +chief to whom had been offered not only life but leadership if he would +renounce his tribe, receive the mark of the turtle on his breast, and +become a Delaware. On his refusal, he was bound to a tree, and was about +to undergo the torture, when a girl among the listeners sprang to his +side. She, too, was a Pequot, but the turtle totem was on her bosom, and +when she begged his life, because they had been betrothed, the captors +paused to talk of it. She had chosen well the time to interfere, for a +band of Hurons was approaching, and even as the talk went on their yell +was heard in the wood. Instant measures for defence were taken, and in +the fight that followed both chief and maiden were forgotten; but though +she cut the cords that bound him, they were separated in the confusion, +he disappearing, she falling captive to the Hurons, who, sated with +blood, retired from the field. In the fantastic disguise of a wizard the +young Pequot entered their camp soon after, and on being asked to try his +enchantments for the cure of a young woman, he entered her tent, showing +no surprise at finding her to be the maiden of his choice, who was +suffering from nothing worse than nerves, due to the excitement of the +battle. Left alone with his patient, he disclosed his identity, and +planned a way of escape that proved effective on that very night, for, +though pursued by the angry Hurons, the couple reached "safe harbor," +thence making a way to their own country in the east, where they were +married. + + + + +DUNDERBERG + +Dunderberg, "Thunder Mountain," at the southern gate of the Hudson +Highlands, is a wooded eminence, chiefly populated by a crew of imps of +stout circumference, whose leader, the Heer, is a bulbous goblin clad in +the dress worn by Dutch colonists two centuries ago, and carrying a +speaking-trumpet, through which he bawls his orders for the blowing of +winds and the touching off of lightnings. These orders are given in Low +Dutch, and are put into execution by the imps aforesaid, who troop into +the air and tumble about in the mist, sometimes smiting the flag or +topsail of a ship to ribbons, or laying the vessel over before the wind +until she is in peril of going on beam ends. At one time a sloop passing +the Dunderberg had nearly foundered, when the crew discovered the +sugar-loaf hat of the Heer at the mast-head. None dared to climb for it, +and it was not until she had driven past Pollopel's Island--the limit of +the Heer's jurisdiction--that she righted. As she did so the little hat +spun into the air like a top, creating a vortex that drew up the +storm-clouds, and the sloop kept her way prosperously for the rest of the +voyage. The captain had nailed a horse-shoe to the mast. The "Hat Rogue" +of the Devil's Bridge in Switzerland must be a relative of this gamesome +sprite, for his mischief is usually of a harmless sort; but, to be on the +safe side, the Dutchmen who plied along the river lowered their peaks in +homage to the keeper of the mountain, and for years this was a common +practice. Mariners who paid this courtesy to the Heer of the Donder Berg +were never molested by his imps, though skipper Ouselsticker, of +Fishkill,--for all he had a parson on board,--was once beset by a heavy +squall, and the goblin came out of the mist and sat astraddle of his +bowsprit, seeming to guide his schooner straight toward the rocks. The +dominie chanted the song of Saint Nicolaus, and the goblin, unable to +endure either its spiritual potency or the worthy parson's singing, shot +upward like a ball and rode off on the gale, carrying with him the +nightcap of the parson's wife, which he hung on the weathercock of Esopus +steeple, forty miles away. + + + + +ANTHONY'S NOSE + +The Hudson Highlands are suggestively named Bear Mountain, Sugar Loaf, +Cro' Nest, Storm King, called by the Dutch Boterberg, or Butter Hill, +from its likeness to a pat of butter; Beacon Hill, where the fires blazed +to tell the country that the Revolutionary war was over; Dunderberg, +Mount Taurus, so called because a wild bull that had terrorized the +Highlands was chased out of his haunts on this height, and was killed by +falling from a cliff on an eminence to the northward, known, in +consequence, as Breakneck Hill. These, with Anthony's Nose, are the +principal points of interest in the lovely and impressive panorama that +unfolds before the view as the boats fly onward. + +Concerning the last-named elevation, the aquiline promontory that abuts +on the Hudson opposite Dunderberg, it takes title from no resemblance to +the human feature, but is so named because Anthony Van Corlaer, the +trumpeter, who afterwards left a reason for calling the upper boundary of +Manhattan Island Spuyten Duyvil Creek, killed the first sturgeon ever +eaten at the foot of this mountain. It happened in this wise: By +assiduous devotion to keg and flagon Anthony had begotten a nose that was +the wonder and admiration of all who knew it, for its size was +prodigious; in color it rivalled the carbuncle, and it shone like +polished copper. As Anthony was lounging over the quarter of Peter +Stuyvesant's galley one summer morning this nose caught a ray from the +sun and reflected it hissing into the water, where it killed a sturgeon +that was rising beside the vessel. The fish was pulled aboard, eaten, and +declared good, though the singed place savored of brimstone, and in +commemoration of the event Stuyvesant dubbed the mountain that rose above +his vessel Anthony's Nose. + + + + +MOODUA CREEK + +Moodua is an evolution, through Murdy's and Moodna, from Murderer's +Creek, its present inexpressive name having been given to it by N. P. +Willis. One Murdock lived on its shore with his wife, two sons, and a +daughter; and often in the evening Naoman, a warrior of a neighboring +tribe, came to the cabin, caressed the children, and shared the woodman's +hospitality. One day the little girl found in the forest an arrow wrapped +in snake-skin and tipped with crow's feather; then the boy found a +hatchet hanging by a hair from a bough above the door; then a glare of +evil eyes was caught for an instant in a thicket. Naoman, when he came, +was reserved and stern, finding voice only to warn the family to fly that +night; so, when all was still, the threatened family made its way softly, +but quickly, to the Hudson shore, and embarked for Fisher's Kill, across +the river. + +The wind lagged and their boat drew heavily, and when, from the shade of +Pollopel's Island, a canoe swept out, propelled by twelve men, the hearts +of the people in the boat sank in despair. The wife was about to leap +over, but Murdock drew her back; then, loading and firing as fast as +possible, he laid six of his pursuers low; but the canoe was savagely +urged forward, and in another minute every member of the family was a +helpless captive. When the skiff had been dragged back, the prisoners +were marched through the wood to an open spot where the principal members +of the tribe sat in council. + +The sachem arose, twisted his hands in the woman's golden hair, bared his +knife, and cried, "Tell us what Indian warned you and betrayed his tribe, +or you shall see husband and children bleed before your eyes." The woman +answered never a word, but after a little Naoman arose and said, "'Twas +I;" then drew his blanket about him and knelt for execution. An axe cleft +his skull. Drunk with the sight of blood, the Indians rushed upon the +captives and slew them, one by one. The prisoners neither shrank nor +cried for mercy, but met their end with hymns upon their lips, and, +seeing that they could so meet death, one member of the band let fall his +arm and straight became a Christian. The cabin was burned, the bodies +flung into the stream, and the stain of blood was seen for many a year in +Murderer's Creek. + + + + +A TRAPPER'S GHASTLY VENGEANCE + +About a mile back from the Hudson, at Coxsackie, stood the cabin of Nick +Wolsey, who, in the last century, was known to the river settlements as a +hunter and trapper of correct aim, shrewdness, endurance, and taciturn +habit. For many years he lived in this cabin alone, except for the +company of his dog; but while visiting a camp of Indians in the +wilderness he was struck with the engaging manner of one of the girls of +the tribe; he repeated the visit; he found cause to go to the camp +frequently; he made presents to the father of the maid, and at length won +her consent to be his wife. The simple marriage ceremony of the tribe was +performed, and Wolsey led Minamee to his home; but the wedding was +interrupted in an almost tragic manner, for a surly fellow who had loved +the girl, yet who never had found courage to declare himself, was wrought +to such a jealous fury at the discovery of Wolsey's good fortune that he +sprang at him with a knife, and would have despatched him on the spot had +not the white man's faithful hound leaped at his throat and borne him to +the ground. + +Wolsey disarmed the fellow and kicked and cuffed him to the edge of the +wood, while the whole company shouted with laughter at this ignominious +punishment, and approved it. A year or more passed. Wolsey and his Indian +wife were happy in their free and simple life; happy, too, in their +little babe. Wolsey was seldom absent from his cabin for any considerable +length of time, and usually returned to it before the night set in. One +evening he noticed that the grass and twigs were bent near his house by +some passing foot that, with the keen eye of the woodman, he saw was not +his wife's. + +"Some hunter," he said, "saw the house when he passed here, and as, +belike, he never saw one before, he stopped to look in." For the trail +led to his window, and diverged thence to the forest again. A few days +later, as he was returning, he came on the footprints that were freshly +made, and a shadow crossed his face. On nearing the door he stumbled on +the body of his dog, lying rigid on the ground. "How did this happen, +Minamee?" he cried, as he flung open the door. The wife answered, in a +low voice, "O Hush! you'll wake the child." + +Nick Wolsey entered the cabin and stood as one turned to marble. Minamee, +his wife, sat on the gold hearth, her face and hands cut and blackened, +her dress torn, her eyes glassy, a meaningless smile on her lips. In her +arms she pressed the body of her infant, its dress soaked with blood, and +the head of the little creature lay on the floor beside her. She crooned +softly over the cold clay as if hushing it to sleep, and when Wolsey at +length found words, she only whispered, "Hush! you will wake him." The +night went heavily on; day dawned, and the crooning became lower and +lower; still, through all that day the bereft woman rocked to and fro +upon the floor, and the agonized husband hung about her, trying in vain +to give comfort, to bind her wounds, to get some explanation of the +mystery that confronted him. The second night set in, and it was evident +that it would be the last for Minamee. Her strength failed until she +allowed herself to be placed on a couch of skins, while the body of her +child was gently lifted from her arms. Then, for a few brief minutes, her +reason was restored, and she found words to tell her husband how the +Indian whose murderous attack he had thwarted at the wedding had come to +the cabin, shot the dog that had rushed out to defend the place, beat the +woman back from the door, tore the baby from its bed, slashed its head +off with a knife, and, flinging the little body into her lap, departed +with the words, "This is my revenge. I am satisfied." Before the sun was +in the east again Minamee was with her baby. + +Wolsey sat for hours in the ruin of his happiness, his breathing alone +proving that he was alive, and when at last he arose and went out of the +house, there were neither tears nor outcry; he saddled his horse and rode +off to the westward. At nightfall he came to the Indian village where he +had won his wife, and relating to the assembled tribe what had happened, +he demanded that the murderer be given up to him. His demand was readily +granted, whereupon the white man advanced on the cowering wretch, who had +confidently expected the protection of his people, and with the quick +fling and jerk of a raw-hide rope bound his arms to his side. Then +casting a noose about his neck and tying the end of it to his saddle-bow, +he set off for the Hudson. All that night he rode, the Indian walking and +running at the horse's heels, and next day he reached his cabin. Tying +his prisoner to a tree, the trapper cut a quantity of young willows, from +which he fashioned a large cradle-like receptacle; in this he placed the +culprit, face upward, and tied so stoutly that he could not move a +finger; then going into his house, he emerged with the body of Minamee, +and laid it, face downward, on the wretch, who could not repress a groan +of horror as the awful burden sank on his breast. Wolsey bound together +the living and the dead, and with a swing of his powerful arms he flung +them on his horse's back, securing them there with so many turns of rope +that nothing could displace them. Now he began to lash his horse until +the poor beast trembled with anger and pain, when, flinging off the +halter, he gave it a final lash, and the animal plunged, foaming and +snorting, into the wilderness. When it had vanished and the hoof-beats +were no longer heard, Nick Wolsey took his rifle on his arm and left his +home forever. And tradition says that the horse never stopped in its mad +career, but that on still nights it can be heard sweeping through the +woods along the Hudson and along the Mohawk like a whirlwind, and that as +the sound goes by a smothered voice breaks out in cursing, in appeal, +then in harsh and dreadful laughter. + + + + +THE VANDERDECKEN OF TAPPAN ZEE + +It is Saturday night; the swell of the Hudson lazily heaves against the +shores of Tappan Zee, the cliff above Tarrytown where the white lady +cries on winter nights is pale in starlight, and crickets chirp in the +boskage. It is so still that the lap of oars can be heard coming across +the water at least a mile away. Some small boat, evidently, but of heavy +build, for it takes a vigorous hand to propel it, and now there is a +grinding of oars on thole-pins. Strange that it is not yet seen, for the +sound is near. Look! Is that a shadow crossing that wrinkle of starlight +in the water? The oars have stopped, and there is no wind to make that +sound of a sigh. + +Ho, Rambout Van Dam! Is it you? Are you still expiating your oath to pull +from Kakiat to Spuyten Duyvil before the dawn of Sabbath, if it takes you +a month of Sundays? Better for you had you passed the night with your +roistering friends at Kakiat, or started homeward earlier, for +Sabbath-breaking is no sin now, and you, poor ghost, will find little +sympathy for your plight. Grant that your month of Sundays, or your cycle +of months of Sundays, be soon up, for it is sad to be reminded that we +may be punished for offences many years forgotten. When the sun is high +to-morrow a score of barges will vex the sea of Tappan, each crowded with +men and maids from New Amsterdam, jigging to profane music and refreshing +themselves with such liquors as you, Rambout, never even smelled--be +thankful for that much. If your shade sits blinking at them from the +wooded buttresses of the Palisades, you must repine, indeed, at the +hardness of your fate. + + + + +THE GALLOPING HESSIAN + +In the flower-gemmed cemetery of Tarrytown, where gentle Irving sleeps, a +Hessian soldier was interred after sustaining misfortune in the loss of +his head in one of the Revolutionary battles. For a long time after he +was buried it was the habit of this gentleman to crawl from his grave at +unseemly hours and gallop about the country, sending shivers through the +frames of many worthy people, who shrank under their blankets when they +heard the rush of hoofs along the unlighted roads. + +In later times there lived in Tarrytown--so named because of the tarrying +habits of Dutch gossips on market days, though some hard-minded people +insist that Tarwe-town means Wheat-towna gaunt schoolmaster, one Ichabod +Crane, who cherished sweet sentiments for Katrina Van Tassell, the buxom +daughter of a farmer, also a famous maker of pies and doughnuts. Ichabod +had been calling late one evening, and, his way home being long, +Katrina's father lent him a horse to make the journey; but even with this +advantage the youth set out with misgivings, for he had to pass the +graveyard. + +As it was near the hour when the Hessian was to ride, he whistled feebly +to keep his courage up, but when he came to the dreaded spot the whistle +died in a gasp, for he heard the tread of a horse. On looking around, his +hair bristled and his heart came up like a plug in his throat to hinder +his breathing, for he saw a headless horseman coming over the ridge +behind him, blackly defined against the starry sky. Setting spurs to his +nag with a hope of being first to reach Sleepy Hollow bridge, which the +spectre never passed, the unhappy man made the best possible time in that +direction, for his follower was surely overtaking him. Another minute and +the bridge would be reached; but, to Ichabod's horror, the Hessian dashed +alongside and, rising in his stirrups, flung his head full at the +fugitive's back. With a squeal of fright the schoolmaster rolled into a +mass of weeds by the wayside, and for some minutes he remained there, +knowing and remembering nothing. + +Next morning farmer Van Tassell's horse was found grazing in a field near +Sleepy Hollow, and a man who lived some miles southward reported that he +had seen Mr. Crane striding as rapidly along the road to New York as his +lean legs could take him, and wearing a pale and serious face as he kept +his march. There were yellow stains on the back of his coat, and the man +who restored the horse found a smashed pumpkin in the broken bushes +beside the road. Ichabod never returned to Tarrytown, and when Brom +Bones, a stout young ploughman and taphaunter, married Katrina, people +made bold to say that he knew more about the galloping Hessian than any +one else, though they believed that he never had reason to be jealous of +Ichabod Crane. + + + + +STORM SHIP OF THE HUDSON + +It was noised about New Amsterdam, two hundred years ago, that a round +and bulky ship flying Dutch colors from her lofty quarter was careering +up the harbor in the teeth of a north wind, through the swift waters of +an ebbing tide, and making for the Hudson. A signal from the Battery to +heave to and account for herself being disregarded, a cannon was trained +upon her, and a ball went whistling through her cloudy and imponderable +mass, for timbers she had none. Some of the sailor-folk talked of mirages +that rose into the air of northern coasts and seas, but the wise ones put +their fingers beside their noses and called to memory the Flying +Dutchman, that wanderer of the seas whose captain, having sworn that he +would round Cape Horn in spite of heaven and hell, has been beating to +and fro along the bleak Fuegian coast and elsewhere for centuries, being +allowed to land but once in seven years, when he can break the curse if +he finds a girl who will love him. Perhaps Captain Vanderdecken found +this maiden of his hopes in some Dutch settlement on the Hudson, or +perhaps he expiated his rashness by prayer and penitence; howbeit, he +never came down again, unless he slipped away to sea in snow or fog so +dense that watchers and boatmen saw nothing of his passing. A few old +settlers declared the vessel to be the Half Moon, and there were some who +testified to seeing that identical ship with Hudson and his spectre crew +on board making for the Catskills to hold carouse. + +This fleeting vision has been confounded with the storm ship that lurks +about the foot of the Palisades and Point-no-Point, cruising through +Tappan Zee at night when a gale is coming up. The Hudson is four miles +wide at Tappan, and squalls have space enough to gather force; hence, +when old skippers saw the misty form of a ship steal out from the shadows +of the western hills, then fly like a gull from shore to shore, catching +the moonlight on her topsails, but showing no lanterns, they made to +windward and dropped anchor, unless their craft were stanch and their +pilot's brains unvexed with liquor. On summer nights, when falls that +curious silence which is ominous of tempest, the storm ship is not only +seen spinning across the mirror surface of the river, but the voices of +the crew are heard as they chant at the braces and halyards in words +devoid of meaning to the listeners. + + + + +WHY SPUYTEN DUYVIL IS SO NAMED + +The tide-water creek that forms the upper boundary of Manhattan Island is +known to dwellers in tenements round about as "Spittin' Divvle." The +proper name of it is Spuyten Duyvil, and this, in turn, is the +compression of a celebrated boast by Anthony Van Corlaer. This +redoubtable gentleman, famous for fat, long wind, and long whiskers, was +trumpeter for the garrison at New Amsterdam, which his countrymen had +just bought for twenty-four dollars, and he sounded the brass so sturdily +that in the fight between the Dutch and Indians at the Dey Street peach +orchard his blasts struck more terror into the red men's hearts than did +the matchlocks of his comrades. William the Testy vowed that Anthony and +his trumpet were garrison enough for all Manhattan Island, for he argued +that no regiment of Yankees would approach near enough to be struck with +lasting deafness, as must have happened if they came when Anthony was +awake. + +Peter Stuyvesant-Peter the Headstrong--showed his appreciation of +Anthony's worth by making him his esquire, and when he got news of an +English expedition on its way to seize his unoffending colony, he at once +ordered Anthony to rouse the villages along the Hudson with a trumpet +call to war. The esquire took a hurried leave of six or eight ladies, +each of whom delighted to believe that his affections were lavished on +her alone, and bravely started northward, his trumpet hanging on one +side, a stone bottle, much heavier, depending from the other. It was a +stormy evening when he arrived at the upper end of the island, and there +was no ferryman in sight, so, after fuming up and down the shore, he +swallowed a mighty draught of Dutch courage,--for he was as accomplished +a performer on the horn as on the trumpet,--and swore with ornate and +voluminous oaths that he would swim the stream "in spite of the devil" +[En spuyt den Duyvil]. + +He plunged in, and had gone half-way across when the Evil One, not to be +spited, appeared as a huge moss-bunker, vomiting boiling water and +lashing a fiery tail. This dreadful fish seized Anthony by the leg; but +the trumpeter was game, for, raising his instrument to his lips, he +exhaled his last breath through it in a defiant blast that rang through +the woods for miles and made the devil himself let go for a moment. Then +he was dragged below, his nose shining through the water more and more +faintly, until, at last, all sight of him was lost. The failure of his +mission resulted in the downfall of the Dutch in America, for, soon +after, the English won a bloodless victory, and St. George's cross +flaunted from the ramparts where Anthony had so often saluted the setting +sun. But it was years, even then, before he was hushed, for in stormy +weather it was claimed that the shrill of his trumpet could be heard near +the creek that he had named, sounding above the deeper roar of the blast. + + + + +THE RAMAPO SALAMANDER + +A curious tale of the Rosicrucians runs to the effect that more than two +centuries ago a band of German colonists entered the Ramapo valley and +put up houses of stone, like those they had left in the Hartz Mountains, +and when the Indians saw how they made knives and other wonderful things +out of metal, which they extracted from the rocks by fire, they believed +them to be manitous and went away, not wishing to resist their possession +of the land. There was treasure here, for High Tor, or Torn Mountain, had +been the home of Amasis, youngest of the magi who had followed the star +of Bethlehem. He had found his way, through Asia and Alaska, to this +country, had taken to wife a native woman, by whom he had a child, and +here on the summit he had built a temple. Having refused the sun worship, +when the Indians demanded that he should take their faith, he was set +upon, and would have been killed had not an earthquake torn the ground at +his feet, opening a new channel for the Hudson and precipitating into it +every one but the magus and his daughter. To him had been revealed in +magic vision the secrets of wealth in the rocks. + +The leader in the German colony, one Hugo, was a man of noble origin, who +had a wife and two children: a boy, named after himself; a girl,--Mary. +Though it had been the custom in the other country to let out the forge +fires once in seven years, Hugo opposed that practice in the forge he had +built as needless. But his men murmured and talked of the salamander that +once in seven years attains its growth in unquenched flame and goes forth +doing mischief. On the day when that period was ended the master entered +his works and saw the men gazing into the furnace at a pale form that +seemed made from flame, that was nodding and turning in the fire, +occasionally darting its tongue at them or allowing its tail to fall out +and lie along the stone floor. As he came to the door he, too, was +transfixed, and the fire seemed burning his vitals, until he felt water +sprinkled on his face, and saw that his wife, whom he had left at home +too ill to move, stood behind him and was casting holy water into the +furnace, speaking an incantation as she did so. At that moment a storm +arose, and a rain fell that put out the fire; but as the last glow faded +the lady fell dead. + +When her children were to be consecrated, seven years later, those who +stood outside of the church during the ceremony saw a vivid flash, and +the nurse turned from the boy in her fright. She took her hands from her +eyes. The child was gone. Twice seven years had passed and the daughter +remained unspotted by the world, for, on the night when her father had +led her to the top of High Torn Mountain and shown her what Amasis had +seen,--the earth spirits in their caves heaping jewels and offering to +give them if Hugo would speak the word that binds the free to the earth +forces and bars his future for a thousand years,--it was her prayer that +brought him to his senses and made the scene below grow dim, though the +baleful light of the salamander clinging to the rocks at the bottom of +the cave sent a glow into the sky. + +Many nights after that the glow was seen on the height and Hugo was +missing from his home, but for lack of a pure soul to stand as +interpreter he failed to read the words that burned in the triangle on +the salamander's back, and returned in rage and jealousy. A knightly man +had of late appeared in the settlement, and between him and Mary a tender +feeling had arisen, that, however, was unexpressed until, after saving +her from the attack of a panther, he had allowed her to fall into his +arms. She would willingly then have declared her love for him, but he +placed her gently and regretfully from him and said, "When you slept I +came to you and put a crown of gems on your head: that was because I was +in the power of the earth spirit. Then I had power only over the element +of fire, that either consumes or hardens to stone; but now water and life +are mine. Behold! Wear these, for thou art worthy." And touching the +tears that had fallen from her eyes, they turned into lilies in his +hands, and he put them on her brow. + +"Shall we meet again?" asked the girl. + +"I do not know," said he. "I tread the darkness of the universe alone, +and I peril my redemption by yielding to this love of earth. Thou art +redeemed already, but I must make my way back to God through obedience +tested in trial. Know that I am one of those that left heaven for love of +man. We were of that subtle element which is flame, burning and glowing +with love,--and when thy mother came to me with the power of purity to +cast me out of the furnace, I lost my shape of fire and took that of a +human being,--a child. I have been with thee often, and was rushing to +annihilation, because I could not withstand the ordeal of the senses. Had +I yielded, or found thee other than thou art, I should have become again +an earth spirit. I have been led away by wish for power, such as I have +in my grasp, and forgot the mission to the suffering. I became a wanderer +over the earth until I reached this land, the land that you call new. +Here was to be my last trial and here I am to pass the gate of fire." + +As he spoke voices arose from the settlement. + +"They are coming," said he. The stout form of Hugo was in advance. With a +fierce oath he sprang on the young man. "He has ruined my household," he +cried. "Fling him into the furnace!" The young man stood waiting, but his +brow was serene. He was seized, and in a few moments had disappeared +through the mouth of the burning pit. But Mary, looking up, saw a shape +in robes of silvery light, and it drifted upward until it vanished in the +darkness. The look of horror on her face died away, and a peace came to +it that endured until the end. + + + + +CHIEF CROTON + +Between the island of Manhattoes and the Catskills the Hudson shores were +plagued with spooks, and even as late as the nineteenth century Hans +Anderson, a man who tilled a farm back of Peekskill, was worried into his +grave by the leaden-face likeness of a British spy whom he had hanged on +General Putnam's orders. "Old Put" doubtless enjoyed immunity from this +vexatious creature, because he was born with few nerves. A region +especially afflicted was the confluence of the Croton and the Hudson, for +the Kitchawan burying-ground was here, and the red people being disturbed +by the tramping of white men over their graves, "the walking sachems of +Teller's Point" were nightly to be met on their errands of protest. + +These Indians had built a palisade on Croton Point, and here they made +their last stand against their enemies from the north. Throughout the +fight old chief Croton stood on the wall with arrows showering around +him, and directed the resistance with the utmost calm. Not until every +one of his men was dead and the fort was going up in flame about him did +he confess defeat. Then standing amid the charring timbers, he used his +last breath in calling down the curse of the Great Spirit against the +foe. As the victorious enemy rushed into the enclosure to secure the +scalps of the dead he fell lifeless into the fire, and their jubilant +yell was lost upon his ears. Yet, he could not rest nor bear to leave his +ancient home, even after death, and often his form, in musing attitude, +was seen moving through the woods. When a manor was built on the ruins of +his fort, he appeared to the master of it, to urge him into the +Continental army, and having seen this behest obeyed and laid a solemn +injointure to keep the freedom of the land forever, he vanished, and +never appeared again. + + + + +THE RETREAT FROM MAHOPAC + +After the English had secured the city of New Amsterdam and had begun to +extend their settlements along the Hudson, the Indians congregated in +large numbers about Lake Mahopac, and rejected all overtures for the +purchase of that region. In their resolution they were sustained by their +young chief Omoyao, who refused to abandon on on any terms the country +where his fathers had solong hunted, fished, and built their lodges. A +half-breed, one Joliper, a member of this tribe, was secretly in the pay +of the English, but the allurements and insinuations that he put forth on +their behalf were as futile as the breathing of wind in the leaves. At +last the white men grew angry. Have the land they would, by evil course +if good ways were refused, and commissioning Joliper to act for them in a +decisive manner, they guaranteed to supply him with forces if his +negotiations fell through. This man never thought it needful to +negotiate. He knew the temper of his tribe and he was too jealous of his +chief to go to him for favors, because he loved Maya, the chosen one of +Omoyao. + +At the door of Maya's tent he entreated her to go with him to the white +settlements, and on her refusal he broke into angry threats, declaring, +in the self-forgetfulness of passion, that he would kill her lover and +lead the English against the tribe. Unknown to both Omoyao had overheard +this interview, and he immediately sent runners to tell all warriors of +his people to meet him at once on the island in the lake. Though the +runners were cautioned to keep their errand secret, it is probable that +Joliper suspected that the alarm had gone forth, and he resolved to +strike at once; so he summoned his renegades, stole into camp next +evening and made toward Maya's wigwam, intending to take her to a place +of safety. Seeing the chief at the door, he shot an arrow at him, but the +shaft went wide and slew the girl's father. Realizing, upon this assault, +that he was outwitted and that his people were outnumbered, the chief +called to Maya to meet him at the island, and plunged into the brush, +after seeing that she had taken flight in an opposite direction. The +vengeful Joliper was close behind him with his renegades, and the chief +was captured; then, that he might not communicate with his people or +delay the operations against them, it was resolved to put him to death. + +He was tied to a tree, the surrounding wood was set on fire, and he was +abandoned to his fate, his enemies leaving him to destruction in their +haste to reach the place of the council and slay or capture all who were +there. Hardly were they out of hearing ere the plash of a paddle sounded +through the roar of flame and Maya sprang upon the bank, cut her lover's +bonds, and with him made toward the island, which they reached by a +protected way before the assailants had arrived. They told the story of +Joliper's cruelty and treason, and when his boats were seen coming in to +shore they had eyes and hands only for Joliper. He was the first to land. +Hardly had he touched the strand before he was surrounded by a frenzied +crowd and had fallen bleeding from a hundred gashes. + +The Indians were overpowered after a brief and bloody resistance. They +took safety in flight. Omoyao and Maya, climbing upon the rock above +their "council chamber," found that while most of their people had +escaped their own retreat was cut off, and that it would be impossible to +reach any of the canoes. They preferred death to torture and captivity, +so, hand in hand, they leaped together down the cliff, and the English +claimed the land next day. + + + + +NIAGARA + +The cataract of Niagara (properly pronounced Nee-ah-gah-rah), or +Oniahgarah, is as fatal as it is fascinating, beautiful, sublime, and the +casualties occurring there justify the tradition that "the Thundering +Water asks two victims every year." It was reputed, before white men +looked for the first time on these falls--and what thumping yarns they +told about them!--that two lives were lost here annually, and this +average has been kept up by men and women who fall into the flood through +accident, recklessness or despair, while bloody battles have been fought +on the shores, and vessels have been hurled over the brink, to be dashed +to splinters on the rocks. + +The sound of the cataract was declared to be the voice of a mighty spirit +that dwelt in the waters, and in former centuries the Indians offered to +it a yearly sacrifice. This sacrifice was a maiden of the tribe, who was +sent over in a white canoe, decorated with fruit and flowers, and the +girls contended for this honor, for the brides of Manitou were objects of +a special grace in the happy hunting-grounds. The last recorded sacrifice +was in 1679, when Lelawala, the daughter of chief Eagle Eye, was chosen, +in spite of the urgings and protests of the chevalier La Salle, who had +been trying to restrain the people from their idolatries by an exposition +of the Christian dogma. To his protests he received the unexpected +answer, "Your words witness against you. Christ, you say, set us an +example. We will follow it. Why should one death be great, while our +sacrifice is horrible?" So the tribe gathered at the bank to watch the +sailing of the white canoe. The chief watched the embarkation with the +stoicism usual to the Indian when he is observed by others, but when the +little bark swung out into the current his affection mastered him, and he +leaped into his own canoe and tried to overtake his daughter. In a moment +both were beyond the power of rescue. After their death they were changed +into spirits of pure strength and goodness, and live in a crystal heaven +so far beneath the fall that its roaring is a music to them: she, the +maid of the mist; he, the ruler of the cataract. Another version of the +legend makes a lover and his mistress the chief actors. Some years later +a patriarch of the tribe and all his sons went over the fall when the +white men had seized their lands, preferring death to flight or war. + +In about the year 200 the Stone Giants waded across the river below the +falls on their northward march. These beings were descended from an +ancient family, and being separated from their stock in the year 150 by +the breaking of a vine bridge across the Mississippi, they left that +region. Indian Pass, in the Adirondacks, bore the names of Otneyarheh, +Stony Giants; Ganosgwah, Giants Clothed in Stone; and Dayohjegago, Place +Where the Storm Clouds Fight the Great Serpent. Giants and serpents were +held to be harmful inventions of the Evil Spirit, and the Lightning god, +catching up clouds as he stood on the crags, broke them open, tore their +lightnings out and hurled them against the monsters. These cannibals had +almost exterminated the Iroquois, for they were of immense size and had +made themselves almost invincible by rolling daily in the sand until +their flesh was like stone. The Holder of the Heavens, viewing their evil +actions from on high, came down disguised as one of their number--he used +often to meditate on Manitou Rock, at the Whirlpool--and leading them to +a valley near Onondaga, on pretence of guiding them to a fairer country, +he stood on a hill above them and hurled rocks upon their heads until +all, save one, who fled into the north, were dead. Yet, in the fulness of +time, new children of the Stone Giants (mail-clad Europeans?) entered the +region again and were destroyed by the Great Spirit,--oddly enough where +the famous fraud known as the Cardiff giant was alleged to have been +found. The Onondagas believed this statue to be one of their ancient +foes. + + + + +THE DEFORMED OF ZOAR + +The valley of Zoar, in western New York, is so surrounded by hills that +its discoverers--a religious people, who gave it a name from Scripture +said, "This is Zoar; it is impregnable. From her we will never go." And +truly, for lack of roads, they found it so hard to get out, having got +in, that they did not leave it. Among the early settlers here were people +of a family named Wright, whose house became a sort of inn for the +infrequent traveller, inasmuch as they were not troubled with piety, and +had no scruples against the selling of drink and the playing of cards at +late hours. A peddler passed through the valley on his way to Buffalo and +stopped at the Wright house for a lodging, but before he went to bed he +incautiously showed a number of golden trinkets from his pack and drew a +considerable quantity of money out of his pocket when he paid the fee for +his lodging. Hardly had he fallen asleep before his greedy hosts were in +the room, searching for his money. Their lack of caution caused him to +awake, and as he found them rifling his pockets and his pack he sprang up +and showed fight. + +A blow sent him to the bottom of the stairs, where his attempt to escape +was intercepted, and the family closed around him and bound his arms and +legs. They showed him the money they had taken and asked where he had +concealed the rest. He vowed that it was all he had. They insisted that +he had more, and seizing a knife from the table the elder Wright slashed +off one of his toes "to make him confess." No result came from this, and +six toes were cut off,--three from each foot; then, in disgust, the +unhappy peddler was knocked on the head and flung through a trap-door +into a shallow cellar. Presently he arose and tried to draw himself out, +but with hatchet and knife they chopped away his fingers and he fell +back. Even the women shared in this work, and leaned forward to gaze into +the cellar to see if he might yet be dead. While listening, they heard +the man invoke the curse of heaven on them: he asked that they should +wear the mark of crime even to the fourth generation, by coming into the +world deformed and mutilated as he was then. And it was so. The next +child born in that house had round, hoof-like feet, with only two toes, +and hands that tapered from the wrist into a single long finger. And in +time there were twenty people so deformed in the valley: The "crab-clawed +Zoarites" they were called. + + + + +HORSEHEADS + +The feeling recently created by an attempt to fasten the stupid names of +Fairport or of North Elmira on the village in central New York that, off +and on for fifty years, had been called Horseheads, caused an inquiry as +to how that singular name chanced to be adopted for a settlement. In +1779, when General Sullivan was retiring toward the base of his supplies +after a destructive campaign against the Indians in Genesee County, he +stopped near this place and rested his troops. The country was then rude, +unbroken, and still beset with enemies, however, and when the march was +resumed it was thought best to gain time over a part of the way by +descending the Chemung River on rafts. + +As there were no appliances for building large floats, and the depth of +the water was not known, the general ordered a destruction of all +impedimenta that could be got rid of, and commanded that the poor and +superfluous horses should be killed. His order was obeyed. As soon as the +troops had gone, the wolves, that were then abundant, came forth and +devoured the carcasses of the steeds, so that the clean-picked bones were +strewn widely over the camp-ground. When the Indians ventured back into +this region, some of them piled the skulls of the horses into heaps, and +these curious monuments were found by white settlers who came into the +valley some years later, and who named their village Horseheads, in +commemoration of these relics. The Indians were especially loth to leave +this region, for their tradition was that it had been the land of the +Senecas from immemorial time, the tribe being descended from a couple +that had a home on a hill near Horseheads. + + + + +KAYUTA AND WANETA + +The Indians loved our lakes. They had eyes for their beauty, and to them +they were abodes of gracious spirits. They used to say of Oneida Lake, +that when the Great Spirit formed the world "his smile rested on its +waters and Frenchman's Island rose to greet it; he laughed and Lotus +Island came up to listen." So they built lodges on their shores and +skimmed their waters in canoes. Much of their history relates to them, +and this is a tale of the Senecas that was revived a few years ago by the +discovery of a deer-skin near Lakes Waneta and Keuka, New York, on which +some facts of the history were rudely drawn, for all Indians are artists. + +Waneta, daughter of a chief, had plighted her troth to Kayuta, a hunter +of a neighboring tribe with which her people were at war. Their tryst was +held at twilight on the farther shore of the lake from her village, and +it was her gayety and happiness, after these meetings had taken place, +that roused the suspicion and jealousy of Weutha, who had marked her for +his bride against the time when he should have won her father's consent +by some act of bravery. Shadowing the girl as she stole into the forest +one evening, he saw her enter her canoe and row to a densely wooded spot; +he heard a call like the note of a quail, then an answer; then Kayuta +emerged on the shore, lifted the maiden from her little bark, and the +twain sat down beside the water to listen to the lap of its waves and +watch the stars come out. + +Hurrying back to camp, the spy reported that an enemy was near them, and +although Waneta had regained her wigwam by another route before the +company of warriors had reached the lake, Kayuta was seen, pursued, and +only escaped with difficulty. Next evening, not knowing what had happened +after her homeward departure on the previous night--for the braves deemed +it best to keep the knowledge of their military operations from the +women--the girl crept away to the lake again and rowed to the accustomed +place, but while waiting for the quail call a twig dropped on the water +beside her. With a quick instinct that civilization has spoiled she +realized this to be a warning, and remaining perfectly still, she allowed +her boat to drift toward shore, presently discovering that her lover was +standing waist-deep in the water. In a whisper he told her that they were +watched, and bade her row to a dead pine that towered at the foot of the +lake, where he would soon meet her. At that instant an arrow grazed his +side and flew quivering into the canoe. + +Pushing the boat on its course and telling her to hasten, Kayuta sprang +ashore, sounded the warwhoop, and as Weutha rose into sight he clove his +skull with a tomahawk. Two other braves now leaped forward, but, after a +struggle, Kayuta left them dead or senseless, too. He would have stayed +to tear their scalps off had he not heard his name uttered in a shriek of +agony from the end of the lake, and, tired and bleeding though he was, he +bounded along its margin like a deer, for the voice that he heard was +Waneta's. He reached the blasted pine, gave one look, and sank to the +earth. Presently other Indians came, who had heard the noise of fighting, +and burst upon him with yells and brandished weapons, but something in +his look restrained them from a close advance. His eyes were fixed on a +string of beads that lay on the bottom of the lake, just off shore, and +when the meaning of it came to them, the savages thought no more of +killing, but moaned their grief; for Waneta, in stepping from her canoe +to wade ashore, had been caught and swallowed by a quagmire. All night +and all next day Kayuta sat there like a man of stone. Then, just as the +hour fell when he was used to meet his love, his heart broke, and he +joined her in the spiritland. + + + + +THE DROP STAR + +A little maid of three years was missing from her home on the Genesee. +She had gone to gather water-lilies and did not return. Her mother, +almost crazed with grief, searched for days, weeks, months, before she +could resign herself to the thought that her little one--Kayutah, the +Drop Star, the Indians called her--had indeed been drowned. Years went +by. The woman's home was secure against pillage, for it was no longer the +one house of a white family in that region, and the Indians had retired +farther and farther into the wilderness. One day a hunter came to the +woman and said, "I have seen old Skenandoh,--the last of his tribe, thank +God! who bade me say this to you: that the ice is broken, and he knows of +a hill of snow where a red berry grows that shall be yours if you will +claim it." When the meaning of this message came upon her the woman +fainted, but on recovering speech she despatched her nephew to the hut of +the aged chief and passed that night in prayer. + +The young man set off at sunset, and by hard riding, over dim trails, +with only stars for light, he came in the gray of dawn to an upright +timber, colored red and hung with scalps, that had been cut from white +men's heads at the massacre of Wyoming. The place they still call Painted +Post. Without drawing rein he sped along the hills that hem Lake Seneca, +then, striking deeper into the wilds, he reached a smaller lake, and +almost fell from his saddle before a rude tent near the shore. A new +grave had been dug close by, and he shuddered to think that perhaps he +had come too late, but a wrinkled Indian stepped forth at that moment and +waited his word. + +"I come," cried the youth,--"to see the berry that springs from snow." + +"You come in time," answered Skenandoh. "No, 'tis not in that grave. It +is my own child that is buried there. She was as a sister to the one you +seek, and she bade me restore the Drop Star to her mother,--the squaw +that we know as the New Moon's Light." + +Stepping into the wigwam, he emerged again, clasping the wrist of a girl +of eighteen, whose robe he tore asunder at the throat, showing the white +breast, and on it a red birth-mark; then, leading her to the young man, +he said,--"And now I must go to the setting sun." He slung a pouch about +him, loaded, not with arms and food, but stones, stepped into his canoe, +and paddled out upon the water, singing as he went a melancholy +chant--his deathsong. On gaining the middle of the lake he swung his +tomahawk and clove the bottom of the frail boat, so that it filled in a +moment and the chief sank from sight. The young man took his cousin to +her overjoyed mother, helped to win her back to the ways of civilized +life, and eventually married her. She took her Christian name again, but +left to the lake on whose banks she had lived so long her Indian name of +Drop Star--Kayutah. + + + + +THE PROPHET OF PALMYRA + +It was at Palmyra, New York, that the principles of Mormonism were first +enunciated by Joseph Smith, who claimed to have found the golden plates +of the Book of Mormon in a hill-side in neighboring Manchester,--the +"Hill of Cumorah,"--to which he was led by angels. The plates were +written in characters similar to the masonic cabala, and he translated +them by divine aid, giving to the world the result of his discovery. The +Hebrew prophet Mormon was the alleged author of the record, and his son +Moroni buried it. The basis of Mormonism was, however, an unpublished +novel, called "The Manuscript Found," that was read to Sidney Rigdon +(afterwards a Mormon elder) by its author, a clergyman, and that +formulated a creed for a hypothetical church. Smith had a slight local +celebrity, for he and his father were operators with the divining-rod, +and when he appropriated this creed a harmless and beneficent one, for +polygamy was a later "inspiration" of Brigham Young--and began to preach +it, in 1844, it gained many converts. His arrogation of the presidency of +the "Church of Latter Day Saints" and other rash performances won for him +the enmity of the Gentiles, who imprisoned and killed him at Carthage, +Missouri, leaving Brigham Young to lead the people across the deserts to +Salt Lake, where they prospered through thrift and industry. + +It was claimed that in the van of this army, on the march to Utah, was +often seen a venerable man with silver beard, who never spoke, but who +would point the way whenever the pilgrims were faint or discouraged. When +they reached the spot where the temple was afterwards built, he struck +his staff into the earth and vanished. + +At Hydesville, near Palmyra, spiritualism, as it is commonly called, came +into being on March 31, 1849, when certain of the departed announced +themselves by thumping on doors and tables in the house of the Fox +family, the survivors of which confessed the fraud nearly forty years +after. It is of interest to note that the ground whence these new +religions sprang was peopled by the Onondagas, the sacerdotal class of +the Algonquin tribe, who have preserved the ancient religious rites of +that great family until this day. + + + + +A VILLAIN'S CREMATION + +Bramley's Mountain, near the present village of Bloomfield, New York, on +the edge of the Catskill group, was the home of a young couple that had +married with rejoicing and had taken up the duties and pleasures of +housekeeping with enthusiasm. To be sure, in those days housekeeping was +not a thing to be much afraid of, and the servant question had not come +up for discussion. The housewives did the work themselves, and the +husband had no valets. The domicile of this particular pair was merely a +tent of skins stretched around a frame of poles, and their furniture +consisted principally of furs strewn over the earth floor; but they loved +each other truly. The girl was thankful to be taken from her home to +live, because, up to the time of her marriage, she had been persecuted by +a morose and ill-looking fellow of her tribe, who laid siege to her +affection with such vehemence that the more he pleaded the greater was +her dislike; and now she hoped that she had seen the last of him. But +that was not to be. He lurked about the wigwam of the pair, torturing +himself with the sight of their felicity, and awaiting his chance to +prove his hate. This chance came when the husband had gone to Lake +Delaware to fish, for he rowed after and gave battle in the middle of the +pond. Taken by surprise, and being insufficiently armed, the husband was +killed and his body flung into the water. Then, casting an affectionate +leer at the wife who had watched this act of treachery and malice with +speechless horror from the mountain-side, he drove his canoe ashore and +set off in pursuit of her. She retreated so slowly as to allow him to +keep her in sight, and when she entered a cave he pressed forward +eagerly, believing that now her escape was impossible; but she had +purposely trapped him there, for she had already explored a tortuous +passage that led to the upper air, and by this she had left the cavern in +safety while he was groping and calling in the dark. Returning to the +entrance, she loosened, by a jar, a ledge that overhung it, so that the +door was almost blocked; then, gathering light wood from the dry trees +around her, she made a fire and hurled the burning sticks into the prison +where the wretch was howling, until he was dead in smoke and flame. When +his yells and curses had been silenced she told a friend what she had +done, then going back to the lake, she sang her death-song and cast +herself into the water, hoping thus to rejoin her husband. + + + + +THE MONSTER MOSQUITOE + +They have some pretty big mosquitoes in New Jersey and on Long Island, +but, if report of their ancestry is true, they have degenerated in size +and voracity; for the grandfather of all mosquitoes used to live in the +neighborhood of Fort Onondaga, New York, and sallying out whenever he was +hungry, would eat an Indian or two and pick his teeth with their ribs. +The red men had no arms that could prevail against it, but at last the +Holder of the Heavens, hearing their cry for aid, came down and attacked +the insect. Finding that it had met its match, the mosquito flew away so +rapidly that its assailant could hardly keep it in sight. It flew around +the great lake, then turned eastward again. It sought help vainly of the +witches that brooded in the sink-holes, or Green Lakes (near Janesville, +New York), and had reached the salt lake of Onondaga when its pursuer +came up and killed it, the creature piling the sand into hills in its +dying struggles. + +As its blood poured upon the earth it became small mosquitoes, that +gathered about the Holder of the Heavens and stung him so sorely that he +half repented the service that he had done to men. The Tuscaroras say +that this was one of two monsters that stood on opposite banks of the +Seneca River and slew all men that passed. Hiawatha killed the other one. +On their reservation is a stone, marked by the form of the Sky Holder, +that shows where he rested during the chase, while his tracks were until +lately seen south of Syracuse, alternating with footprints of the +mosquito, which were shaped like those of a bird, and twenty inches long. +At Brighton, New York, where these marks appeared, they were +reverentially renewed by the Indians for many years. + + + + +THE GREEN PICTURE + +In a cellar in Green Street, Schenectady, there appeared, some years ago, +the silhouette of a human form, painted on the floor in mould. It was +swept and scrubbed away, but presently it was there again, and month by +month, after each removal, it returned: a mass of fluffy mould, always in +the shape of a recumbent man. When it was found that the house stood on +the site of the old Dutch burial ground, the gossips fitted this and that +together and concluded that the mould was planted by a spirit whose +mortal part was put to rest a century and more ago, on the spot covered +by the house, and that the spirit took this way of apprising people that +they were trespassing on its grave. Others held that foul play had been +done, and that a corpse, hastily and shallowly buried, was yielding +itself back to the damp cellar in vegetable form, before its resolution +into simpler elements. But a darker meaning was that it was the outline +of a vampire that vainly strove to leave its grave, and could not because +a virtuous spell had been worked about the place. + +A vampire is a dead man who walks about seeking for those whose blood he +can suck, for only by supplying new life to its cold limbs can he keep +the privilege of moving about the earth. He fights his way from his +coffin, and those who meet his gray and stiffened shape, with fishy eyes +and blackened mouth, lurking by open windows, biding his time to steal in +and drink up a human life, fly from him in terror and disgust. In +northern Rhode Island those who die of consumption are believed to be +victims of vampires who work by charm, draining the blood by slow +draughts as they lie in their graves. To lay this monster he must be +taken up and burned; at least, his heart must be; and he must be +disinterred in the daytime when he is asleep and unaware. If he died with +blood in his heart he has this power of nightly resurrection. As late as +1892 the ceremony of heart-burning was performed at Exeter, Rhode Island, +to save the family of a dead woman that was threatened with the same +disease that removed her, namely, consumption. But the Schenectady +vampire has yielded up all his substance, and the green picture is no +more. + + + + +THE NUNS OF CARTHAGE + +At Carthage, New York, where the Black River bends gracefully about a +point, there was a stanch old house, built in the colonial fashion and +designed for the occupancy of some family of hospitality and wealth, but +the family died out or moved away, and for some years it remained +deserted. During the war of 1812 the village gossips were excited by the +appearance of carpenters, painters and upholsterers, and it was evident +that the place was to be restored to its manorial dignities; but their +curiosity was deepened instead of satisfied when, after the house had +been put in order and high walls built around it, the occupants presented +themselves as four young women in the garb of nuns. Were they daughters +of the family? Were they English sympathizers in disguise, seeking asylum +in the days of trouble? Had they registered a vow of celibacy until their +lovers should return from the war? Were they on a secret and diplomatic +errand? None ever knew, at least in Carthage. The nuns lived in great +privacy, but in a luxury before unequalled in that part of the country. +They kept a gardener, they received from New York wines and delicacies +that others could not afford, and when they took the air, still veiled, +it was behind a splendid pair of bays. + +One afternoon, just after the close of the war, a couple of young +American officers went to the convent, and, contrary to all precedent, +were admitted. They remained within all that day, and no one saw them +leave, but a sound of wheels passed through the street that evening. Next +day there were no signs of life about the place, nor the day following, +nor the next. The savage dog was quiet and the garden walks had gone +unswept. Some neighbors climbed over the wall and reported that the place +had been deserted. Why and by whom no one ever knew, but a cloud remained +upon its title until a recent day, for it was thought that at some time +the nuns might return. + + + + +THE SKULL IN THE WALL + +A skull is built into the wall above the door of the court-house at +Goshen, New York. It was taken from a coffin unearthed in 1842, when the +foundation of the building was laid. People said there was no doubt about +it, only Claudius Smith could have worn that skull, and he deserved to be +publicly pilloried in that manner. Before the Revolutionary war Smith was +a farmer in Monroe, New York, and being prosperous enough to feel the +king's taxes no burden, to say nothing of his jealousy of the advantage +that an independent government would be to the hopes of his poorer +neighbors, he declared for the king. After the declaration of +independence had been published, his sympathies were illustrated in an +unpleasantly practical manner by gathering a troop of other Tories about +him, and, emboldened by the absence of most of the men of his vicinage in +the colonial army, he began to harass the country as grievously in foray +as the red-coats were doing in open field. + +He pillaged houses and barns, then burned them; he insulted women, he +drove away cattle and horses, he killed several persons who had +undertaken to defend their property. His "campaigns" were managed with +such secrecy that nobody knew when or whence to look for him. His murder +of Major Nathaniel Strong, of Blooming Grove, roused indignation to such +a point that a united effort was made to catch him, a money reward for +success acting as a stimulus to the vigilance of the hunters, and at last +he was captured on Long Island. He was sent back to Goshen, tried, +convicted, and on January 22, 1779, was hanged, with five of his band. +The bodies of the culprits were buried in the jail-yard, on the spot +where the court-house stands, and old residents identified Smith's +skeleton, when it was accidentally exhumed, by its uncommon size. A +farmer from an adjacent town made off with a thigh bone, and a mason +clapped mortar into the empty skull and cemented it into the wall, where +it long remained. + + + + +THE HAUNTED MILL + +Among the settlers in the Adirondacks, forty or fifty years ago, was +Henry Clymer, from Brooklyn, who went up to Little Black Creek and tried +to make a farm out of the gnarly, stumpy land; but being a green hand at +that sort of thing, he soon gave it up and put up the place near +Northwood, that is locally referred to as the haunted mill. When the +first slab was cut, a big party was on hand to cheer and eat pie in honor +of the Clymers, for Mr. Clymer, who was a dark, hearty, handsome fellow, +and his bright young wife had been liberal in their hospitality. The +couple had made some talk, they were so loving before folks--too loving +to last; and, besides, it was evident that Mrs. Clymer was used to a +better station in life than her husband. It was while the crowd was +laughing and chattering at the picnic-table of new boards from the mill +that Mrs. Clymer stole away to her modest little house, and a neighbor +who had followed her was an accidental witness to a singular episode. +Mrs. Clymer was kneeling beside her bed, crying over the picture of a +child, when Clymer entered unexpectedly and attempted to take the picture +from her. + +She faced him defiantly. "You kept that because it looked like him, I +reckon," he said. "You might run back to him. You know what he'd call you +and where you'd stand with your aristocracy." + +The woman pointed to the door, and the man left without another word, and +so did the listener. Next morning the body of Mrs. Clymer was found +hanging to a beam in the mill. At the inquest the husband owned that he +had "had a few words" with her on the previous day, and thought that she +must have suddenly become insane. The jury took this view. News of the +suicide was printed in some of the city papers, and soon after that the +gossips had another sensation, for a fair-haired man, also from Brooklyn, +arrived at the place and asked where the woman was buried. When he found +the grave he sat beside it for some time, his head resting on his hand; +then he inquired for Clymer, but Clymer, deadly pale, had gone into the +woods as soon as he heard that a stranger had arrived. The new-comer went +to Trenton, where he ordered a gravestone bearing the single word +"Estella" to be placed where the woman's body had been interred. Clymer +quickly sold out and disappeared. The mill never prospered, and has long +been in a ruinous condition. People of the neighborhood think that the +ghost of Mrs. Clymer--was that her name?--still troubles it, and they +pass the place with quickened steps. + + + + +OLD INDIAN FACE + +On Lower Ausable Pond is a large, ruddy rock showing a huge profile, with +another, resembling a pappoose, below it. When the Tahawi ruled this +region their sachem lived here at "the Dark Cup," as they called this +lake, a man renowned for virtue and remarkable, in his age, for +gentleness. When his children had died and his manly grandson, who was +the old man's hope, had followed them to the land of the cloud mountains, +Adota's heart withered within him, and standing beneath this rock, he +addressed his people, recounting what he had done for them, how he had +swept their enemies from the Lakes of the Clustered Stars (the Lower +Saranac) and Silver Sky (Upper Saranac) to the Lake of Wandah, gaining a +land where they might hunt and fish in peace. The little one, the Star, +had been ravished away to crown the brow of the thunder god, who, even +now, was advancing across the peaks, bending the woods and lighting the +valleys with his jagged torches. + +Life was nothing to him longer; he resigned it. + +As he spoke these words he fell back, and the breath passed out of him. +Then came the thunder god, and with an appalling burst of fire sent the +people cowering. The roar that followed seemed to shake the earth, but +the medicine-man of the tribe stood still, listening to the speech of the +god in the clouds. "Tribe of the Tahawi," he translated, "Adota treads +the star-path to the happy hunting-grounds, and the sun is shining on his +heart. He will never walk among you again, but the god loves both him and +you, and he will set his face on the mountains. Look!" And, raising their +eyes, they beheld the likeness of Adota and of his beloved child, the +Star, graven by lightning-stroke on the cliff. There they buried the body +of Adota and held their solemn festivals until the white men drove them +out of the country. + + + + +THE DIVISION OF THE SARANACS + +In the middle of the last century a large body of Saranac Indians +occupied the forests of the Upper Saranac through which ran the Indian +carrying-place, called by them the Eagle Nest Trail. Whenever they raided +the Tahawi on the slopes of Mount Tahawus (Sky-splitter), there was a +pleasing rivalry between two young athletes, called the Wolf and the +Eagle, as to which would carry off the more scalps, and the tribe was +divided in admiration of them. There was one who did not share this +liking: an old sachem, one of the wizards who had escaped when the Great +Spirit locked these workers of evil in the hollow trees that stood beside +the trail. In their struggles to escape the less fortunate ones thrust +their arms through the closing bark, and they are seen there, as withered +trunks and branches, to this day. Oquarah had not been softened by this +exhibition of danger nor the qualification of mercy that allowed him +still to exist. Rather he was more bitter when he saw, as he fancied, +that the tribe thought more of the daring and powerful warriors than it +did of the bent and malignant-minded counsellor. + +It was in the moon of green leaves that the two young men set off to hunt +the moose, and on the next day the Wolf returned alone. He explained that +in the hunt they had been separated; he had called for hours for his +friend, and had searched so long that he concluded he must have returned +ahead of him. But he was not at the camp. Up rose the sachem with visage +dark. "I hear a forked tongue," he cried. "The Wolf was jealous of the +Eagle and his teeth have cut into his heart." + +"The Wolf cannot lie," answered the young man. + +"Where is the Eagle?" angrily shouted the sachem, clutching his hatchet. + +"The Wolf has said," replied the other. + +The old sachem advanced upon him, but as he raised his axe to strike, the +wife of the Wolf threw herself before her husband, and the steel sank +into her brain. The sachem fell an instant later with the Wolf's knife in +his heart, and instantly the camp was in turmoil. Before the day had +passed it had been broken up, and the people were divided into factions, +for it was no longer possible to hold it together in peace. The Wolf, +with half of the people, went down the Sounding River to new +hunting-grounds, and the earth that separated the families was reddened +whenever one side met the other. + +Years had passed when, one morning, the upper tribe saw a canoe advancing +across the Lake of the Silver Sky. An old man stepped from it: he was the +Eagle. After the Wolf had left him he had fallen into a cleft in a rock, +and had lain helpless until found by hunters who were on their way to +Canada. He had joined the British against the French, had married a +northern squaw, but had returned to die among the people of his early +love. Deep was his sorrow that his friend should have been accused of +doing him an injury, and that the once happy tribe should have been +divided by that allegation. The warriors and sachems of both branches +were summoned to a council, and in his presence they swore a peace, so +that in the fulness of time he was able to die content. That peace was +always kept. + + + + +AN EVENT IN INDIAN PARK + +It was during the years when the Saranacs were divided that Howling Wind, +one of the young men of Indian Carry, saw and fell in love with a girl of +the family on Tupper Lake. He quickly found a way to tell his liking, and +the couple met often in the woods and on the shore. He made bold to row +her around the quieter bays, and one moonlight evening he took her to +Devil's Rock, or Devil's Pulpit, where he told her the story of the +place. This was to the effect that the fiend had paddled, on timbers, by +means of his tail, to that rock, and had assembled fish and game about +him in large numbers by telling them that he was going to preach to them, +instead of which moral procedure he pounced upon and ate all that were +within his grasp. + +As so often happened in Indian history, the return of these lovers was +seen by a disappointed rival, who had hurried back to camp and secured +the aid of half a dozen men to arrest the favored one as soon as he +should land. The capture was made after a struggle, and Howling Wind was +dragged to the chief's tent for sentence. That sentence was death, and +with a refinement of cruelty that was rare even among the Indians, the +girl was ordered to execute it. She begged and wept to no avail. An axe +was put into her hands, and she was ordered to despatch the prisoner. She +took the weapon; her face grew stern and the tears dried on her cheeks; +her lover, bound to a tree, gazed at her in amazement; his rival watched, +almost in glee. Slowly the girl crossed the open space to her lover. She +raised the tomahawk and at a blow severed the thongs that held him, then, +like a flash, she leaped upon his rival, who had sprung forward to +interfere, and clove his skull with a single stroke. The lovers fled as +only those can fly who run for life. Happily for them, they met a party +from the Carry coming to rescue Howling Wind from the danger to which his +courtship had exposed him, and it was even said that this party entered +the village and by presenting knives and arrows at the breast of the +chief obtained his now superfluous consent to the union of the fugitives. +The pair reached the Carry in safety and lived a long and happy life +together. + + + + +THE INDIAN PLUME + +Brightest flower that grows beside the brooks is the scarlet blossom of +the Indian plume: the blood of Lenawee. Hundreds of years ago she lived +happily among her brother and sister Saranacs beside Stony Creek, the +Stream of the Snake, and was soon to marry the comely youth who, for the +speed of his foot, was called the Arrow. But one summer the Quick Death +came on the people, and as the viewless devil stalked through the village +young and old fell before him. The Arrow was the first to die. In vain +the Prophet smoked the Great Calumet: its smoke ascending took no shape +that he could read. In vain was the white dog killed to take aloft the +people's sins. But at last the Great Spirit himself came down to the +mountain called the Storm Darer, splendid in lightning, awful in his +thunder voice and robe of cloud. "My wrath is against you for your sins," +he cried, "and naught but human blood will appease it." + +In the morning the Prophet told his message, and all sat silent for a +time. Then Lenawee entered the circle. "Lenawee is a blighted flower," +she sobbed. "Let her blood flow for her people." And catching a knife +from the Prophet's belt, she ran with it to the stream on which she and +the Arrow had so often floated in their canoe. In another moment her +blood had bedewed the earth. "Lay me with the Arrow," she murmured, and, +smiling in their sad faces, breathed her last. The demon of the quick +death shrank from the spot, and the Great Spirit smiled once more on the +tribe that could produce such heroism. Lenawee's body was placed beside +her lover's, and next morning, where her blood had spilt, the ground was +pure, and on it grew in slender spires a new flower,--the Indian plume: +the transformed blood of sacrifice. The people loved that flower in all +years after. They decked their hair and dresses with it and made a feast +in its honor. When parents taught their children the beauty of +unselfishness they used as its emblem a stalk of Indian plume. + + + + +BIRTH OF THE WATER-LILY + +Back from his war against the Tahawi comes the Sun, chief of the Lower +Saranacs,--back to the Lake of the Clustered Stars, afterward called, by +dullards, Tupper's Lake. Tall and invincible he comes among his people, +boasting of his victories, Indian fashion, and stirring the scalps that +hang at his breast. "The Eagle screams," he cries. "He greets the chief, +the Blazing Sun. Wayotah has made the Tahawi tremble. They fly from him. +Hooh, hooh! He is the chief." Standing apart with wistful glance stands +Oseetah, the Bird. She loves the strong young chief, but she knows that +another has his promise, and she dares not hope; yet the chief loves her, +and when the feasting is over he follows her footprints to the shore, +where he sees her canoe turning the point of an island. He silently +pursues and comes upon her as she sits waving and moaning. He tries to +embrace her, but she draws apart. He asks her to sing to him; she bids +him begone. + +He takes a more imperious tone and orders her to listen to her chief. She +moves away. He darts toward her. Turning on him a face of sorrow, she +runs to the edge of a steep rock and waves him back. He hastens after. +Then she springs and disappears in the deep water. The Sun plunges after +her and swims with mad strength here and there. He calls. There is no +answer. Slowly he returns to the village and tells the people what has +happened. The Bird's parents are stricken and the Sun moans in his sleep. +At noon a hunter comes in with strange tidings: flowers are growing on +the water! The people go to their canoes and row to the Island of Elms. +There, in a cove, the still water is enamelled with flowers, some as +white as snow, filling the air with perfume, others strong and yellow, +like the lake at sunset. + +"Explain to us," they cry, turning to the old Medicine of his tribe, "for +this was not so yesterday." + +"It is our daughter," he answered. "These flowers are the form she +takes. The white is her purity, the yellow her love. You shall see that +her heart will close when the sun sets, and will reopen at his coming." +And the young chief went apart and bowed his head. + + + + +ROGERS'S SLIDE + +The shores of Lakes George and Champlain were ravaged by war. Up and down +those lovely waters swept the barges of French and English, and the green +hills rang to the shrill of bugles, the boom of cannon, and the yell of +savages. Fiction and history have been weft across the woods and the +memory of deeds still echoes among the heights. It was at Glen's Falls, +in the cave on the rock in the middle of the river, that the brave Uncas +held the watch with Hawkeye. Bloody Defile and Bloody Pond, between there +and Lake George, take their names from the "Bloody morning scout" sent +out by Sir William Johnson on a September day in 1755 to check Dieskau +until Fort William Henry could be completed. In the action that ensued, +Colonel Williams, founder of Williams College, and Captain Grant, of the +Connecticut line, great-grandfather of the President who bore that name, +were killed. The victims, dead and wounded alike, having been flung into +Bloody Pond, it was thick and red for days, and tradition said that in +after years it resumed its hue of crimson at sunset and held it until +dawn. The captured, who were delivered to the Indians, had little to +hope, for their white allies could not stay their savagery. Blind Rock +was so called because the Indians brought a white man there, and tearing +his eyes out, flung them into embers at the foot of the stone. Captives +were habitually tortured, blazing splinters of pine being thrust into +their flesh, their nails torn out, and their bodies slashed with knives +before they went to the stake. An English prisoner was allowed to run the +gauntlet here. They had already begun to strike at him as he sped between +the lines, when he seized a pappoose, flung it on a fire, and, in the +instant of confusion that followed, snatched an axe, cut the bonds of a +comrade who had been doomed to die, and both escaped. + +But the best-known history of this region is that of Rogers's Rock, or +Rogers's Slide, a lofty precipice at the lower end of Lake George. Major +Rogers did not toboggan down this rock in leather trousers, but his +escape was no less remarkable than if he had. On March 13, 1758, while +reconnoitring near Ticonderoga with two hundred rangers, he was surprised +by a force of French and Indians. But seventeen of his men escaped death +or capture, and he was pursued nearly to the brink of this cliff. During +a brief delay among the red men, arising from the loss of his trail, he +had time to throw his pack down the slide, reverse his snow-shoes, and go +back over his own track to the head of a ravine before they emerged from +the woods, and, seeing that his shoe-marks led to the rock, while none +pointed back, they concluded that he had flung himself off and committed +suicide to avoid capture. Great was their disappointment when they saw +the major on the frozen surface of the lake beneath going at a lively +rate toward Fort William Henry. He had gained the ice by way of the cleft +in the rocks, but the savages, believing that he had leaped over the +precipice, attributed his preservation to the Great Spirit and forbore to +fire on him. Unconsciously, he had chosen the best possible place to +disappear from, for the Indians held it in superstitious regard, +believing that spirits haunted the wood and hurled bad souls down the +cliff, drowning them in the lake, instead of allowing them to go to the +happy hunting grounds. The major reached his quarters in safety, and +lived to take up arms against the land of his birth when the colonies +revolted, seventeen years later. + + + + +THE FALLS AT COHOES + +When Occuna, a young Seneca, fell in love with a girl whose cabin was +near the present town of Cohoes, he behaved very much as Americans of a +later date have done. He picked wild flowers for her; he played on the +bone pipe and sang sentimental songs in the twilight; he roamed the hills +with her, gathering the loose quartz crystals that the Indians believed +to be the tears of stricken deer, save on Diamond Rock, in Lansingburgh, +where they are the tears of Moneta, a bereaved mother and wife; and in +fine weather they went boating on the Mohawk above the rapids. They liked +to drift idly on the current, because it gave them time to gaze into each +other's eyes, and to build air castles that they would live in in the +future. They were suddenly called to a realization of danger one evening, +for the stream had been subtly drawing them on and on until it had them +in its power. The stroke of the paddle failed and the air castles fell in +dismal ruin. Sitting erect they began their death-song in this wise: + +Occuna: "Daughter of a mighty warrior, the Manitou calls me hence. I hear +the roaring of his voice; I see the lightning of his glance along the +river; he walks in clouds and spray upon the waters." + +The Maiden: "Thou art thyself a warrior, O Occuna. Hath not thine axe +been often bathed in blood? Hath the deer ever escaped thine arrow or the +beaver avoided thy chase? Thou wilt not fear to go into the presence of +Manitou." + +Occuna: "Manitou, indeed, respects the strong. When I chose thee from the +women of our tribe I promised that we should live and die together. The +Thunderer calls us now. Welcome, O ghost of Oriska, chief of the +invincible Senecas! A warrior and the daughter of a warrior come to join +you in the feast of the blessed!" + +The boat leaped over the falls, and Occuna, striking on the rocks below, +was killed at once; but, as by a miracle, the girl fell clear of them and +was whirled on the seething current to shoal water, where she made her +escape. For his strength and his virtues the dead man was canonized. His +tribe raised him above the regions of the moon, whence he looked down on +the scenes of his youth with pleasure, and in times of war gave pleasant +dreams and promises to his friends, while he confused the enemy with evil +omens. Whenever his tribe passed the falls they halted and with brief +ceremonials commemorated the death of Occuna. + + + + +FRANCIS WOOLCOTT'S NIGHT-RIDERS + +In Copake, New York, among the Berkshire Hills, less than a century ago, +lived Francis Woolcott, a dark, tall man, with protruding teeth, whose +sinister laugh used to give his neighbors a creep along their spines. He +had no obvious trade or calling, but the farmers feared him so that he +had no trouble in making levies: pork, flour, meal, cider, he could have +what he chose for the asking, for had he not halted horses at the plow so +that neither blows nor commands could move them for two hours? Had he not +set farmer Raught's pigs to walking on their hind legs and trying to +talk? When he shouted "Hup! hup! hup!" to farmer Williams's children, had +they not leaped to the moulding of the parlor wainscot,--a yard above the +floor and only an inch wide,--and walked around it, afterward skipping +like birds from chair-back to chair-back, while the furniture stood as if +nailed to the floor? And was he not the chief of thirteen night-riders, +whose faces no man had seen, nor wanted to see, and whom he sent about +the country on errands of mischief every night when the moon was growing +old? As to moons, had he not found a mystic message from our satellite on +Mount Riga, graven on a meteor? + +Horses' tails were tied, hogs foamed at the mouth and walked like men, +cows gave blood for milk. These night-riders met Woolcott in a grove of +ash and chestnut trees, each furnished with a stolen bundle of oat straw, +and these bundles Woolcott changed to black horses when the night had +grown dark enough not to let the way of the change be seen. These horses +could not cross streams of water, and on the stroke of midnight they fell +to pieces and were oaten sheaves once more, but during their time of +action they rushed through woods, bearing their riders safely, and tore +like hurricanes across the fields, leaping bushes, fences, even trees, +without effort. Never could traces be found of them the next day. At last +the devil came to claim his own. Woolcott, who was ninety years old, lay +sick and helpless in his cabin. Clergymen refused to see him, but two or +three of his neighbors stifled their fears and went to the wizard's house +to soothe his dying moments. With the night came storm, and with its +outbreak the old man's face took on such a strange and horrible look that +the watchers fell back in alarm. There was a burst of purple flame at the +window, a frightful peal, a smell of sulphur, and Woolcott was dead. When +the watchers went out the roads were dry, and none in the village had +heard wind, rain, or thunder. It was the coming of the fiend. + + + + +POLLY'S LOVER + +In about the middle of this century a withered woman of ninety was buried +from a now deserted house in White Plains, New York, Polly Carter the +name of her, but "Crazy Polly" was what the neighbors called her, for she +was eccentric and not fond of company. Among the belongings of her house +was a tall clock, such as relic hunters prize, that ticked solemnly in a +landing on the stairs. + +For a time, during the Revolution, the house stood within the British +lines, and as her father was a colonel in Washington's army she was left +almost alone in it. The British officers respected her sex, but they had +an unpleasant way of running in unannounced and demanding entertainment, +in the king's name, which she felt forced to grant. One rainy afternoon +the door was flung open, then locked on the inside, and she found herself +in the arms of a stalwart, handsome lieutenant, who wore the blue. It was +her cousin and fiance. Their glad talk had not been going long when there +came a rousing summons at the door. Three English officers were awaiting +admittance. + +Perhaps they had seen Lawrence Carter go into the house, and if caught he +would be killed as a spy. He must be hidden, but in some place where they +would not think of looking. The clock! That was the place. With a laugh +and a kiss the young man submitted to be shut in this narrow quarter, and +throwing his coat and hat behind some furniture the girl admitted the +officers, who were wet and surly and demanded dinner. They tramped about +the best room in their muddy boots, talking loudly, and in order to break +the effect of the chill weather they passed the brandy bottle freely. +Polly served them with a dinner as quickly as possible, for she wanted to +get them out of the house, but they were in no mood to go, and the bottle +passed so often that before the dinner was over they were noisy and tipsy +and were using language that drove Polly from the room. + +At last, to her relief, she heard them preparing to leave the house, but +as they were about to go the senior officer, looking up at the landing, +now dim in the paling light, said to one of the others, "See what time it +is." The officer addressed, who happened to be the drunkest of the party, +staggered up the stair and exclaimed, "The d---d thing's stopped." Then, +as if he thought it a good joke, he added, "It'll never go again." +Drawing his sabre he gave the clock a careless cut and ran the blade +through the panel of the door; after this the three passed out. When +their voices had died in distant brawling, Polly ran to release her +lover. Something thick and dark was creeping from beneath the clock-case. +With trembling fingers she pulled open the door, and Lawrence, her lover, +fell heavily forward into her arms, dead. The officer was right: the +clock never went again. + + + + +CROSBY, THE PATRIOT SPY + +It was at the Jay house, in Westchester, New York, that Enoch Crosby met +Washington and offered his services to the patriot army. Crosby was a +cobbler, and not a very thriving one, but after the outbreak of +hostilities he took a peddler's outfit on his back and, as a +non-combatant, of Tory sympathies, he obtained admission through the +British lines. After his first visit to head quarters it is certain that +he always carried Sir Henry Clinton's passport in the middle of his pack, +and so sure were his neighbors that he was in the service of the British +that they captured him and took him to General Washington, but while his +case was up for debate he managed to slip his handcuffs, which were not +secure, and made off. Clinton, on the other hand, was puzzled by the +unaccountable foresight of the Americans, for every blow that he prepared +to strike was met, and he lost time and chance and temper. As if the +suspicion of both armies and the hatred of his neighbors were not enough +to contend against, Crosby now became an object of interest to the +Skinners and Cowboys, who were convinced that he was making money, +somehow, and resolved to have it. + +The Skinners were camp-followers of the American troops and the Cowboys a +band of Tories and renegade British. Both factions were employed, +ostensibly, in foraging for their respective armies, but, in reality, for +themselves, and the farmers and citizens occupying the neutral belt north +of Manhattan Island had reason to curse them both impartially. While +these fellows were daring thieves, they occasionally got the worst of it, +even in the encounters with the farmers, as on the Neperan, near +Tarrytown, where the Cowboys chased a woman to death, but were afterward +cut to pieces by the enraged neighbors. Hers is but one of the many +ghosts that haunt the neutral ground, and the croaking of the birds of +ill luck that nest at Raven rock is blended with the cries of her dim +figure. Still, graceless as these fellows were, they affected a loyalty +to their respective sides, and were usually willing to fight each other +when they met, especially for the plunder that was to be got by fighting. + +In October, 1780, Claudius Smith, "king of the Cowboys," and three +scalawag sons came to the conclusion that it was time for Crosby's money +to revert to the crown, and they set off toward his little house one +evening, sure of finding him in, for his father was seriously ill. The +Smiths arrived there to find that the Skinners had preceded them on the +same errand, and they recognized through the windows, in the leader of +the band, a noted brigand on whose head a price was laid. He was +searching every crack and cranny of the room, while Crosby, stripped to +shirt and trousers, stood before the empty fireplace and begged for that +night to be left alone with his dying father. + +"To hell with the old man!" roared the Skinner. "Give up your gold, or +we'll put you to the torture," and he significantly whirled the end of a +rope that he carried about his waist. At that moment the faint voice of +the old man was heard calling from another room. + +"Take all that I have and let me go!" cried Crosby, and turning up a +brick in the fire-place he disclosed a handful of gold, his life savings. +The leader still tried to oppose his exit, but Crosby flung him to the +floor and rushed away to his father, while the brigand, deeming it well +to delay rising, dug his fingers into the hollow and began to extract the +sovereigns. At that instant four muskets were discharged from without: +there was a crash of glass, a yell of pain, and four of the Skinners +rolled bleeding on the floor; two others ran into the darkness and +escaped; their leader, trying to follow, was met at the threshold by the +Smiths, who clutched the gold out of his hand and pinioned his elbows in +a twinkling. + +"I thought ye'd like to know who's got ye," said old Smith, peering into +the face of the astonished and crestfallen robber, "for I've told ye many +a time to keep out of my way, and now ye've got to swing for getting into +it." + +Within five minutes of the time that he had got his clutch on Crosby's +money the bandit was choking to death at the end of his own rope, hung +from the limb of an apple-tree, and, having secured the gold, the Cowboys +went their way into the darkness. Crosby soon made his appearance in the +ranks of the Continentals, and, though they looked askant at him for a +time, they soon discovered the truth and hailed him as a hero, for the +information he had carried to Washington from Clinton's camp had often +saved them from disaster. He had survived attack in his own house through +the falling out of rogues, and he survived the work and hazard of war +through luck and a sturdy frame. Congress afterwards gave him a sum of +money larger than had been taken from him, for his chief had commended +him in these lines: "Circumstances of political importance, which +involved the lives and fortunes of many, have hitherto kept secret what +this paper now reveals. Enoch Crosby has for years been a faithful and +unrequited servant of his country. Though man does not, God may reward +him for his conduct. GEORGE WASHINGTON." + +Associated with Crosby in his work of getting information from the enemy +was a man named Gainos, who kept an inn on the neutral ground, that was +often raided. Being assailed by Cowboys once, Gainos, with his tenant and +stable-boys, fired at the bandits together, just as the latter had forced +his front door, then stepping quickly forward he slashed off the head of +the leader with a cutlass. The retreating crew dumped the body into a +well on the premises, and there it sits on the crumbling curb o' nights +looking disconsolately for its head. + +It may also be mentioned that the Skinners had a chance to revenge +themselves on the Cowboys for their defeat at the Crosby house. They fell +upon the latter at the tent-shaped cave in Yonkers,--it is called +Washington's Cave, because the general napped there on bivouac,--and not +only routed them, but secured so much of their treasure that they were +able to be honest for several years after. + + + + +THE LOST GRAVE OF PAINE + +Failure to mark the resting-places of great men and to indicate the +scenes of their deeds has led to misunderstanding and confusion among +those who discover a regard for history and tradition in this practical +age. Robert Fulton, who made steam navigation possible, lies in an +unmarked tomb in the yard of Trinity Church--the richest church in +America. The stone erected to show where Andre was hanged was destroyed +by a cheap patriot, who thought it represented a compliment to the spy. +The spot where Alexander Hamilton was shot in the duel by Aaron Burr is +known to few and will soon be forgotten. It was not until a century of +obloquy had been heaped on the memory of Thomas Paine that his once +enemies were brought to know him as a statesman of integrity, a +philanthropist, and philosopher. His deistic religion, proclaimed in "The +Age of Reason," is unfortunately no whit more independent than is +preached in dozens of pulpits to-day. He died ripe in honors, despite his +want of creed, and his mortal part was buried in New Rochelle, New York, +under a large walnut-tree in a hay-field. Some years later his friends +removed the body to a new grave in higher ground, and placed over it a +monument that the opponents of his principles quickly hacked to pieces. +Around the original grave there still remains a part of the old +inclosure, and it was proposed to erect a suitable memorial--the Hudson +and its Hills the spot, but the owner of the tract would neither give nor +sell an inch of his land for the purpose of doing honor to the man. Some +doubt has already been expressed as to whether the grave is beneath the +monument or in the inclosure; and it is also asserted that Paine's ghost +appears at intervals, hovering in the air between the two burial-places, +or flitting back and forth from one to the other, lamenting the +forgetfulness of men and wailing, "Where is my grave? I have lost my +grave!" + + + + +THE RISING OF GOUVERNEUR MORRIS + +Gouverneur Morris, American minister to the court of Louis XVI, was +considerably enriched, at the close of the reign of terror, by plate, +jewels, furniture, paintings, coaches, and so on, left in his charge by +members of the French nobility, that they might not be confiscated in the +sack of the city by the _sans culottes_; for so many of the aristocracy +were killed and so many went into exile or disguised their names, that it +was impossible to find heirs or owners for these effects. Some of the +people who found France a good country to be out of came to America, +where adventurers had found prosperity and refugees found peace so many +times before. Marshal Ney and Bernadotte are alleged to have served in +the American army during the Revolution, and at Hogansburg, New York, the +Reverend Eleazer Williams, an Episcopal missionary, who lies buried in +the church-yard there, was declared to be the missing son of Louis XVI. +The question, "Have we a Bourbon among us?" was frequently canvassed; but +he avoided publicity and went quietly on with his pastoral work. + +All property left in Mr. Morris's hands that had not been claimed was +removed to his mansion at Port Morris, when he returned from his +ministry, and he gained in the esteem and envy of his neighbors when the +extent of these riches was seen. Once, at the wine, he touched glasses +with his wife, and said that if she bore a male child that son should be +heir to his wealth. Two relatives who sat at the table exchanged looks at +this and cast a glance of no gentle regard on his lady. A year went by. +The son was born, but Gouverneur Morris was dead. + +It is the first night of the year 1817, the servants are asleep, and the +widow sits late before the fire, her baby in her arms, listening betimes +to the wind in the chimney, the beat of hail on the shutters, the +brawling of the Bronx and the clash of moving ice upon it; yet thinking +of her husband and the sinister look his promise had brought to the faces +of his cousins, when a tramp of horses is heard without, and anon a +summons at the door. The panels are beaten by loaded riding-whips, and a +man's voice cries, "Anne Morris, fetch us our cousin's will, or we'll +break into the house and take it." The woman clutches the infant to her +breast, but makes no answer. Again the clatter of the whips; but now a +mist is gathering in the room, and a strange enchantment comes over her, +for are not the lions breathing on the coat of arms above the door, and +are not the portraits stirring in their frames? + +They are, indeed. There is a rustle of robes and clink of steel and one +old warrior leaps down, his armor sounding as he alights, and striking +thrice his sword and shield together he calls on Gouverneur Morris to +come forth. Somebody moves in the room where Morris died; there is a +measured footfall in the corridor, with the clank of a scabbard keeping +time; the door is opened, and on the blast that enters the widow hears a +cry, then a double gallop, passing swiftly into distance. As she gazes, +her husband appears, apparelled as in life, and with a smile he takes a +candelabrum from the mantel and, beckoning her to follow, moves from room +to room. Then, for the first time, the widow knows to what wealth her +baby has been born, for the ghost discloses secret drawers in escritoires +where money, title deeds, and gems are hidden, turns pictures and +wainscots on unsuspected hinges, revealing shelves heaped with fabrics, +plate, and lace; then, returning to the fireside, he stoops as if to kiss +his wife and boy, but a bell strikes the first hour of morning and he +vanishes into his portrait on the wall. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Hudson And Its Hills, by Charles M. 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