* * *

A sloop, loitering in the distance, dropped slowly

with the tide, her sail hanging loosely against the

mast; and as the reflection of the sky gleamed along

the still water, it seemed as if the vessel was suspended

in the air.

_Washington Irving._

* * *

How strange it seems in these brief years since 1880 to read of

"Trinity Church steeple standing alone above the flood" as the rising

tide of New York skyscrapers has long since overtopped the old

landmark and is sweeping higher and higher day by day.

The Frothingham residence and Frothingham dock are south of the

Burroughs cottage. The late General Butterfield's house immediately to

the north. The old Astor place (once known as Waldorf), is also near

at hand. In our analysis of the Hudson we refer to the hills above and

below Poughkeepsie as "The Picturesque." Any one walking or driving

from Highland Village to West Park will feel that this is a proper

distinction. The Palisades are distinguished for "grandeur" which

might be defined as "horizontal sublimity." The Highlands for

"sublimity" which might be termed "perpendicular grandeur;" the

Catskills for "beauty," with their rounded form and ever changing

hues, but the river scenery about Poughkeepsie abides in our memories

as a series of bright and charming "pictures." North of Waldorf is

Pelham, consisting of 1,200 acres, one of the largest fruit farms in

the world. Passing Esopus Island, which seems like a great stranded

and petrified whale, along whose sides often cluster Lilliputian-like

canoeists, we see Brown's Dock on the west bank at the mouth of Black

Creek, which rises eight miles from Newburgh on the eastern slope of

the Plaaterkill Mountains. Flowing through Black Pond, known by the

Dutch settlers as the "Grote Binnewater," it cascades its way along

the southern slope of the Shaupeneak Mountains to Esopus Village,

a cross-road hamlet, and thence carries to the Hudson its waters

dark-stained by companionship with trees of hemlock and cedar growth.

The Pell property extends on the west bank to Pell's Dock, almost

opposite the Staatsburgh ice houses. Mrs. Livingston's residence will

now be seen on the east bank, and just above this the home of the late

William B. Dinsmore on Dinsmore Point. Passing Vanderberg Cove, cut

off from the river by the tracks of the _New York Central Railroad_,

we see the residence of Jacob Ruppert, and above this the Frinck

mansion known as "Windercliffe," formerly the property of E. R. Jones,

and next beyond the house of Robert Suckly. Passing Ellerslie Dock we

see "Ellerslie," the palatial summer home of ex-Vice-President Levi

P. Morton, an estate of six hundred acres, formerly owned by the Hon.

William Kelly. Along the western bank extend the Esopus meadows, a low

flat, covered by water, the southern end of which is marked by the

Esopus light-house. To the west rises Hussey's Mountain, about one

thousand feet in height, from under whose eastern slope two little

ponds, known as Binnewaters, send another stream to join Black Creek

before it flows into the Hudson. Port Ewen on the west bank, with ice

houses and brick yards, will be seen by steamer passengers below the

mouth of Rondout Creek.

* * *

At dawn the river seems a shade,

A liquid shadow deep as space,

But when the sun the mist has laid

A diamond shower smites its face.

_John Burroughs._

* * *

=Rhinecliff=, 90 miles from New York. The village of Rhinebeck, two

miles east of the landing, is not seen from the river. It was named,

as some contend, by combining two words--Beekman and Rhine. Others say

that the word beck means cliff, and the town was so named from the

resemblance of the cliffs to those of the Rhine. There are many

delightful drives in and about Rhinebeck, "Ellerslie" being only about

eight minutes by carriage from the landing.

_The Philadelphia & Reading Rhinebeck Branch_ meets the Hudson at

Rhinecliff, and makes a pleasant and convenient tourist or business

route between the Hudson and the Connecticut. It passes through a

delightful country and thriving rural villages. Some of the views

along the Roeliffe Jansen's Kill are unrivaled in quiet beauty. The

railroad passes through Rhinebeck, Red Hook, Spring Lake, Ellerslie,

Jackson Corners, Mount Ross, Gallatinville, Ancram, Copake, Boston

Corners, and Mount Riga to State Line Junction, and gives a person a

good idea of the counties of Dutchess and Columbia. At Boston Corners

connection is made with the _Harlem Railroad_.

* * *

Upon thy tessellated surface lie

The wave-glassed splendors of the sunset sky!

_Knickerbocker Magazine._

* * *

From State Line Junction it passes through Ore Hill, Lakeville with

its beautiful lake (an evening view of which is still hung in our

memory gallery of sunset sketches), Salisbury, Chapinville, and Twin

Lakes to Canaan, where the line crosses the _Housatonic Railroad._

This route, therefore, is the easiest and pleasantest for Housatonic

visitors _en route_ to the Catskills. From Canaan the road rises by

easy grade to the summit, at an elevation of 1,400 feet, passing

through the village of Norfolk, with its picturesque New England

church crowning the village hill, and thence to Simsbury and Hartford.

=The City of Kingston.=--Rondout and Kingston gradually grew together

until the bans were performed in 1878, and a "bow-knot" tied at

the top of the hill in the shape of a city hall, making them one

corporation.

The name Rondout had its derivation from a redoubt that was built

on the banks of the creek. The creek took the name of Redoubt Kill,

afterward Rundoubt, and at last Rondout. Kingston was once called

Esopus. (The Indian name for the spot where the city now stands was

At-kar-karton, the great plot or meadow on which they raised corn or

beans.)

Kingston and Rondout were both settled in 1614, and old Kingston,

known by the Dutch as Wiltwyck, was thrice destroyed by the Indians

before the Revolution. In 1777 the State legislature met here and

formed a constitution. In the fall of the same year, after the capture

of Fort Montgomery and Fort Clinton by the British, Vaughan landed at

Rondout, marched to Kingston, and burned the town. While Kingston

was burning, the inhabitants fled to Hurley, where a small force of

Americans hung a messenger who was caught carrying dispatches from

Clinton to Burgoyne.

* * *

What ample bays and branching streams,

What curves abrupt for glad surprise,

And how supreme the artist is

Who paints it all for loving eyes.

_Henry Abbey._

* * *

Rondout is the termination of the Delaware and Hudson Canal (whence

canal boats of coal find their way from the Pennsylvania Mountains

to tidewater), also of the _Ulster and Delaware Railroad_, by which

people find their way from tidewater to the Catskill Mountains, which

have greeted the eye of the tourist for many miles down the Hudson.

Originally all of the country-side in this vicinity was known as

Esopus, supposed to be derived, according to Ruttenber, from the

Indian word "seepus," a river. A "sopus Indian" was a Lowlander, and

the name is intimately connected with a long reach of territory

from Esopus Village, near West Park, to the mouth of the Esopus at

Saugerties. In 1675 the mouth of the Rondout Creek was chosen by the

New Netherland Company as one of the three fortified trading ports

on the Hudson; a stockade was built under the guidance of General

Stuyvesant in 1661 inclosing the site of old Kingston; a charter was

granted in 1658 under the name of Wiltwyck, but changed in 1679 to

Kingston. Few cities are so well off for old-time houses that span the

century, and there is no congregation probably in the United States

that has worshipped so many consecutive years in the same spot as the

Dutch Reformed people of Kingston. Five buildings have succeeded the

log church of 240 years ago. Dr. Van Slyke, in a recent welcome, said:

"This church, which opens her doors to you, claims a distinction which

does not belong even to the Collegiate Dutch Churches of Manhattan

Island, and, by a peculiar history, stands identified more closely

with Holland than any other of the early churches of this country.

When every other church of our communion had for a long time been

associated with an American Synod, this church retained its relations

to the Classis of Amsterdam, and, after a period of independency and

isolation, it finally allied itself with its American sisterhood as

late as the year 1808. We still have three or four members whose life

began before that date."

* * *

Yet there are those who lie beside thy bed

For whom thou once didst rear the bowers that screen

Thy margin, and didst water the green fields;

And now there is no night so still that they

Can hear thy lapse.

_William Cullen Bryant._

* * *

Dominie Blom was the first preacher in Kingston. The church where he

preached and the congregation that gathered to hear him have been

tenderly referred to by the Rev. Dr. Belcher:

"They've journeyed on from touch and tone;

No more their ears shall hear

The war-whoop wild, or sad death moan,

Or words of fervid prayer;

But the deeds they did and plans they planned,

And paths of blood they trod,

Have blessed and brightened all this land

And hallowed it for God."

=The Senate House=, built in 1676 by Wessel Ten Broeck, who would seem

by his name to have stepped bodily out of a chapter of Knickerbocker,

was "burned" but not "down," for its walls stood firm. It was

afterwards repaired, and sheltered many dwellers, among others,

General Armstrong, secretary of war under President Madison. The

Provincial Convention met in the court house at Kingston in 1777 and

the Constitution was formally announced April 22d of that year. The

first court was held here September 9th and the first legislature

September 10th. Adjourning October 7th, they convened again August

18th, 1779, and in 1780, from April 22d to July 2d, also for two

months beginning January 27, 1783.

It was in the yard in front of the court house that the Constitution

of the State was proclaimed by Robert Berrian, the secretary of the

Constitutional Convention, and it was there that George Clinton, the

first Governor of the State, was inaugurated and took the oath of

office. It was in the court house that John Jay, chief justice,

delivered his memorable charge to the grand jury in September, 1777,

and at the opening said: "Gentlemen, it affords me very sensible

pleasure to congratulate you on the dawn of that free, mild, and equal

government which now begins to rise and break from amidst the clouds

of anarchy, confusion and licentiousness, which the arbitrary and

violent domination of the King of Great Britain has spread, in greater

or less degree, throughout this and other American states. And it

gives me particular satisfaction to remark that the first fruits

of our excellent Constitution appear in a part of this State whose

inhabitants have distinguished themselves by having unanimously

endeavored to deserve them." The court house bell was originally

imported from Holland.

* * *

Pinched by famine and menaced by foe

In the cruel winters of long ago,

They worked and prayed and for freedom wrought,

Freedom of speech and freedom of thought.

_Frederica Davis Hatfield._

* * *

The burning of Kingston seemed unnecessarily cruel, and it is said

that Vaughan was wide of the truth when, to justify the same, he

claimed that he had been fired upon from dwellings in the village.

General Sharpe in his address before the Holland Society says: "The

history of this county begins to be interesting at the earliest stages

of American history: Visited by Dutchmen in 1614, and again in 1620,

it was in the very earliest Colonial history, one of the strong places

of the Province of New York. The British museum contains the report

of the Rev. John Miller, written in the year 1695, who, after 'having

been nearly three years resident in the Province of New York, in

America, as chaplain of His Majesty's forces there, and constantly

attending the Governor, had opportunity of observing many things of

considerable consequence in relation to the Christians and Indians,

and had also taken the drafts of all the cities, towns, forts and

churches of any note within the same.' These are his own words, and

he adds that in the Province of New York 'the places of strength are

chiefly three, the city of New York, the city of Albany, and the town

of Kingstone, in Ulster.' The east, north and west fronts ran along

elevations overlooking the lowlands and having a varying altitude

of from twenty to thirty feet. The enclosure comprehended about

twenty-five acres of land. There were salients, or horn works at each

end of the four angles, with a circular projection at the middle

of the westerly side, where the elevation was less than upon the

northerly and easterly sides. The church standing upon the ground

where we now are, was enclosed with a separate stockade, to be used

as the last resort in case of disaster, and, projecting from this

separate fortification, a strong block-house commanded and enfiladed

the approaches to the southerly side, which was a plain. The local

history is of continued and dramatic interest. The Indian wars were

signalized by a great uprising and attack here, which was known as

the war of 1663, when a considerable number of the inhabitants

were killed, a still larger number were taken prisoners, and about

one-fourth of the houses were burned to the ground. Reinforcements

were sent by the governor-general from New Amsterdam, followed by his

personal presence, when the Indians were driven back to the mountains,

and, after a tedious campaign, their fields destroyed and the

prisoners recaptured. When the next great crisis in our history came

Kingston bore a conspicuous part. It was the scene of the formation of

the State Government. The Constitution was here discussed and

adopted. George Clinton was called from the Highlands, where, as a

brigadier-general of the Continental army, he was commanding all the

forces upon the Hudson River, which were opposing the attempts of Sir

Henry Clinton to reach the northern part of the State and relieve

Burgoyne, hemmed in by Gates at Saratoga. He was the ideal war

governor--unbuckling his sword in the court room, that he might take

the oath of office, and returning, immediately after the simple form

of his inauguration, to his command upon the Hudson River.

* * *

A paradise of beauty in the light

Poured by the sinking sun, the mountain glows

In the soft summer evening.

_Alfred B. Street._

* * *

"The court house, standing opposite to us, and rebuilt upon its old

foundations, and occupying, substantially, the same superficies of

ground with its predecessors, recalls the dramatic scene where,

surrounded by the council of safety, and in a square formed by two

companies of soldiers, he was proclaimed Governor by Egbert Dumond,

the sheriff of the county, reading his proclamation from the top of a

barrel, and closing it with the words 'God save the people,' for the

first time taking the place of 'God save the King.' The only building

in any way connected with the civil foundation of this great State is

still standing, and presents the same appearance that it did at the

time of its erection, prior to the year 1690. It was subsequently

occupied by General Armstrong, who, while residing here for the better

education of his children, in Kingston Academy, was appointed minister

to France. Aaron Burr, then in attendance upon court, spent an evening

with General Armstrong, at his house, and, having observed the merit

of sundry sketches, made inquiry with regard to, and interested

himself in the fate of John Vanderlyn, who afterwards painted the

Landing of Columbus in the Capitol, and Marius upon the Ruins of

Carthage--which attracted the attention of the elder Napoleon, and

established Vanderlyn's fame. There are more than forty blue limestone

houses of the general type found in Holland, still standing to-day,

which were built before the revolutionary period, and many of them

before the year 1700."

* * *

Are there no scenes to touch the poet's soul,

No deeds of arms to wake the lordly stream,

Shall Hudson's billows unregarded roll?

_Joseph Rodman Drake._

* * *

River, oh river! upon thy tide

Gaily the freighted vessels glide.

Would that thou thus couldst bear away

The thoughts that burthen my weary day.

_Charles Fenno Hoffman._

* * *

Coal, cement and blue-stone are the prominent industries of the city.

The cement works yield several million dollars annually and employ

about two thousand men. A million tons of coal enter the Hudson _via_

the Port of Rondout from the Wyoming Valley of Pennsylvania every

year. Blue-stone also meets tide-water at this point, brought in from

quarries throughout the country by rail or by truck. The city of

Kingston, the largest station on the _West Shore_ between Weehawken

and Albany, has admirable railroad facilities connecting with the

_Erie Railway_ at Goshen _via_ the _Wallkill Valley_, and the

Catskills _via_ the _Ulster & Delaware_. All roads centre at the Union

Station and the _Ulster & Delaware_ connects at Kingston Point with

the Hudson River Day Line, also with the _New York Central_ by ferry

from Rhinebeck.

=To the Catskills.=--The two principal routes to the Catskills are

_via_ Kingston and the _Ulster & Delaware Railroad_, and _via_

Catskill Landing, the _Catskill Mountain Railway_ and _Otis Elevating

Railway_ to the summit of the mountains. It has occurred to the writer

to divide the mountain section in two parts:

=The Southern Catskills.=--Kingston Point, where the steamer lands is

indeed a _picturesque portal to a picturesque journey_. The beautiful

park at the landing presents the most beautiful frontage of any

pleasure ground along the river. Artistic pagodas located at effective

points add greatly to the natural landscape effect, and excursionists

_via_ Day Line from Albany have a delightful spot for lunch and

recreation while waiting for the return steamer. In the busy months of

mountain travel it is interesting to note the rush and hurry between

the landing of the steamer and the departure of the train. The "all

aboard" is given, and as we stand on the rear platform a friend points

north to a bluff near Kingston Point and says the Indian name is

"Ponckhockie"--signifying a burial ground. The old redoubts of

Kingston, on the left, were defenses used in early days against the

Indians.

After leaving Kingston Union Depot, the most important station on

the _West Shore Railroad_, and the terminus of the _Wallkill Valley

Railroad_, we pass through Stony Hollow, eight miles from Rondout,

where the traveler will note the stone tracks in the turnpike below,

on the right side of the car, used by quarry wagons. Crossing the

Stony Hollow ravine, we reach West Hurley, nine miles from Rondout and

540 feet above the sea.

=The Overlook= commands an extensive view,--with an area of 30,000

square miles, from the peaks of New Hampshire and the Green Mountains

of Vermont to the hills of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. To the east

the valley reaches away with its towns and villages to the blue hills

of Massachusetts and Connecticut, and, through this beautiful valley,

the Hudson for a hundred miles is reduced to a mere ribbon of light.

Woodstock, at the foot of the Overlook, is popular with summer

visitors, and is a good starting point for the mountain outlook.

* * *

Let me forget the cares I leave behind,

And with an humble spirit bow before

The Maker of these everlasting hills.

_Bayard Taylor._

* * *

=Olive Branch= is the pretty name of the station above West Hurley.

Temple Pond, at the foot of Big Toinge Mountain, covers about one

hundred acres, and affords boating and fishing to those visiting the

foothills of the Southern Catskills.

=Brown's Station= is three miles beyond, and near at hand Winchell's

Falls on the Esopus. The Esopus Creek comes in view near this station

for the first time after leaving Kingston. The route now has pleasant

companionship for twenty miles or more with the winding stream.

=Brodhead's Bridge= is delightfully located on its wooded banks near

the base of High Point, and near at hand is a bright cascade known as

Bridal Veil Falls.

* * *

Then climb the Ontioras to behold

The lordly Hudson marching to the main,

And say what bard in any land of old

Had such a river to inspire his strain.

_Thomas William Parsons._

* * *

=Shokan=, 18 miles from Rondout. Here the road takes a northerly

course and we are advised by Mr. Van Loan's guide to notice on the

left "a group of five mountains forming a crescent; the peaks of

these mountains are four miles distant;" the right-hand one is the

"Wittenberg," and the next "Mount Cornell." Boiceville and Mount

Pleasant, 700 feet above the Hudson, are next reached. We enter the

beautiful Shandaken Valley, and three miles of charming mountain

scenery bring us to--

=Phoenicia=, 29 miles from Rondout and 790 feet above the Hudson.

This is one of the central points of the Catskills which the mountain

streams (nature's engineers), indicated several thousand years ago.

Readers of "Hiawatha" will remember that Gitche Manitou, the mighty,

traced with his finger the way the streams and rivers should run. The

tourist will be apt to think that he used his thumb in marking out

the wild grandeur of Stony Clove. The Tremper House has a picturesque

location in a charming valley, which seems to have been cut to fit,

like a beautiful carpet, and tacked down to the edge of these grand

old mountains. A fifteen minutes' walk up Mount Tremper gives a wide

view, from which the Lake Mohonk House is sometimes seen, forty

miles away. Phoenicia is one of the most important stations on the

line--the southern terminus of the Stony Clove and Catskill Mountain

division of the _Ulster & Delaware_ system. Keeping to the main line

for the present we pass through Allaben, formerly known as Fox Hollow,

and come to--

=Shandaken=, 35 miles from Rondout and 1,060 feet in altitude, an

Indian name signifying "rapid water." Here are large hotels and many

boarding houses and the town is a central point for many mountain

spots and shady retreats in every direction--all of which are well

described in one of the handsomest summer resort guides of the season,

the handbook of the _Ulster & Delaware Railroad_. Three miles beyond

Shandaken we come to a little station whose name reminds one of the

plains: _Big Indian_, 1,209 feet above the river.

* * *

Along the ragged top

Smiles a rich stripe of gold that up still glides

Until it dwindles to a thread and then,

As breath glides from a mirror, melts away.

_Alfred B. Street._

* * *

=Big Indian.=--It is said that about a century ago, a noble red man

dwelt in these parts, who, early in life, turned his attention to

agriculture instead of scalping, and won thereby the respect of the

community. Tradition has it that he was about seven feet in height,

but was overpowered by wolves, and was buried by his brethren not far

from the station, where a "big Indian" was carved out of a tree near

by for his monument. An old and reliable inhabitant stated that he

remembered the rude statue well, and often thought that it ought to be

saved for a relic, as the stream was washing away the roots; but it

was finally carried down by a freshet, and probably found its way to

some fire-place in the Esopus Valley. "So man passes away, as with a

flood." There is another tale, one of love but less romantic, wherein

he was killed by his rival and placed upright in a hollow tree.

Perhaps neither tradition is true, and quite possibly the Big Indian

name grew out of some misunderstanding between the Indians and white

settlers over a hundred years ago. As the train leaves the station it

begins a grade of 150 feet per mile to--

=Pine Hill=, a station perched on the slope of Belle Ayr Mountain.

This is the watershed between the Esopus and the Delaware, and 226

feet above us, around the arcs of a double horseshoe, is the railway

summit, 1,886 feet above the tide.

=Grand Hotel Station.=--The New Grand, the second largest hotel in the

Catskills, with a frontage of 700 feet, stands on a commanding terrace

less than half a mile from the station. The main building faces

southwest and overlooks the hamlet of Pine Hill, down the Shandaken

Valley to Big Indian. The mountains, "grouped like giant kings" in

the distance are Slide Mountain, Panther Mountain, Table and Balsam

Mountains. Panther Mountain, directly over Big Indian Station, with

Atlas-like shoulders, being nearer, seems higher, and is often

mistaken for Slide Mountain. Table Mountain, to the right of the

Slide, is the divide between the east branch of the Neversink and the

Rondout.

Continuing our journey from the summit we pass through Fleischmann's

to--

=Arkville=, railway station for Margaretville, one and a half miles

distant, and Andes twelve miles--connected by stages. Furlough Lake,

the mountain home of George Gould, is seven miles from Arkville. An

artificial cave near Arkville, with hieroglyphics on the inner

walls, attracts many visitors. Passing through Kelly's Corners and

Halcottville, we come to--

=Roxbury= (altitude 1,497 feet), a quaint old village at the upper end

of which is the Gould Memorial Church. Miss Helen Gould spends part of

her summer here and has done much to make beautiful the village of her

father's boyhood. Grand Gorge comes next 1,570 feet above the tide,

where stages are taken for Gilboa three miles, and Prattsville five

miles distant, on the Schoharie Creek. Pratt's Rocks are visited by

hundreds because of the carving in bas-relief of Colonel Pratt and

figures emblematic of his career.

* * *

Softly the mist-mantled mountains arise

Dim in the dawning of opal-hued skies,

Nearer and clearer peaks burst on the view

Lightened by silvery flashes of dew.

_James Kennedy._

* * *

=Stamford= is now at hand, seventy-six miles from the Hudson, about

1,800 feet above the sea, named by settlers from Stamford, Conn. Here

are many large hotels, chief among them The Rexmere and Churchill

Hall. Thirteen miles from Stamford we come to Hobart, four miles

further to South Kortright, and then to--

=Bloomville=, eighty-nine miles from the Hudson, where a stage line of

eight miles takes the traveler to Delhi. Passing through Kortright,

ninety-two miles from the Hudson, 1,868 feet above the tide, East

Meredith, Davenport, West Davenport (where passengers _en route_ for

Cooperstown and Richfield Springs are transferred to the _Cooperstown

and Charlotte Valley R. R._) and four miles bring us to

=Oneonta=, on the Susquehanna division of the _Hudson & Delaware R. R._

Returning to Phoenicia we take train through "Stony Clove Notch,"

passing Chichester, Lanesville, Edgewood and Kaaterskill Junction to--

=Hunter=, terminus of the Stony Clove Road. Resuming the eastward

journey at Kaaterskill Junction we come to--

=Tannersville=, near which are Elka Park, Onteora Park and Schoharie

Manor.

=Haines Corners= is another busy station, at the head of Kaaterskill

Clove. On the slope of Mt. Lincoln have also been established

"Twilight," "Santa Cruz" and "Sunset" Parks.

=Laurel House Station.=--Here the voice of a waterfall invites the

tourist to one of the most famous spots in the Catskill region and a

mile beyond is

=Kaaterskill Station=, 2,145 feet above the sea, the highest point

reached by any railroad in the State, and half a mile or so further we

alight on a rocky balcony, known for its beautiful view all over the

world.

* * *

From greens and shades where the Kaaterskill leaps,

From cliffs where the wood-flowers cling.

_William Cullen Bryant._

* * *

=Kingston to Catskill.=

=Rhinecliff=, with its historic Beekman stone house, is on the east

bank of the river opposite Kingston. The old mansion, on the hillside,

above the landing, was built before 1700 by William Beekman, first

patroon of this section. It was used as a church and as a fort during

the Indian struggles and still preserves the scar of a cannon ball

from a British ship.

=Ferncliff=, a mile north of the Beekman House, is the home of John

Jacob Astor, formerly the property of William Astor, and above this

=Clifton Point=, once known as the Garretson place, the noted

Methodist preacher whose wife was sister of Chancellor Livingston, and

above this Douglas Merritt's home known as "Leacote." Flatbush landing

lies on the west bank opposite Ferncliff.

One might almost imagine from the names of places and individuals here

grouped on both banks of the river, that this reach of the Hudson

was a bit of old Scotland: Montgomery Place and Annandale with its

Livingstons, Donaldsons and Kidds on the east side, and Glenerie,

Glasgo and Lake Katrine on the west.

* * *

The Catskills to the northward rise

With massive swell and towering crest--

The old-time "mountains of the skies,"

The threshold of eternal rest.

_Wallace Bruce._

* * *

=Barrytown= is just above "Daisy Island," on the east bank, 96 miles

from New York. It is said when General Jackson was President, and this

village wanted a postoffice, that he would not allow it under the name

of Barrytown, from personal dislike to General Barry, and suggested

another name; but the people were loyal to their old friend, and

_went without_ a postoffice until a new administration. The name of

Barrytown, therefore, stands as a monument to pluck. The place was

once known as Lower Red Hook Landing. Passing "Massena," the Aspinwall

property, we see--

=Montgomery Place=, residence of Carleton Hunt and sisters, about

one-half mile north of Barrytown, formerly occupied by Mrs.

Montgomery, wife of General Montgomery and sister of Chancellor

Livingston. The following dramatic incident connected with Montgomery

Place is recorded in Stone's "History of New York City": "In 1818 the

legislature of New York--DeWitt Clinton, Governor--ordered the remains

of General Montgomery to be removed from Canada to New York. This was

in accordance with the wishes of the Continental Congress, which, in

1776, had voted the beautiful cenotaph to his memory that now stands

in the wall of St. Paul's Church, fronting Broadway. When the funeral

cortege reached Whitehall, N. Y., the fleet stationed there received

them with appropriate honors; and on the 4th of July they arrived in

Albany. After lying in state in that city over Sunday, the remains

were taken to New York, and on Wednesday deposited, with military

honors, in their final resting place, at St. Paul's. Governor Clinton

had informed Mrs. Montgomery of the hour when the steamer 'Richmond,'

conveying the body, would pass her home. At her own request, she stood

alone on the portico. It was forty years since she had parted from her

husband, to whom she had been wedded but two years when he fell on the

heights of Quebec; yet she had remained faithful to the memory of her

'soldier,' as she always called him. The steamboat halted before the

mansion; the band played the 'Dead March,' and a salute was fired; and

the ashes of the venerated hero, and the departed husband, passed on.

The attendants of the Spartan widow now appeared, but, overcome by

the tender emotions of the moment, she had swooned and fallen to the

floor."

* * *

The river that he loved so well

Like a full heart is awed to calm,

The winter air that wafts his knell

Is fragrant with autumnal balm.

_Henry T. Tuckerman._

* * *

The Sawkill Creek flows through a beautiful ravine in Montgomery

grounds and above this is the St. Stephen's College and Preparatory

School of the Episcopal Church in the Diocese of New York. Beyond and

above this are Mrs. E. Bartlett's home and Deveaux Park, afterwards

Almonte, the property of Col. Charles Livingston. We are now

approaching--

=Cruger's Island=, with its indented South Bay reaching up toward the

bluff crowned by Montgomery Place. There is an old Indian tradition

that no person ever died on this island, which a resident recently

said still held true. It is remarkable, moreover, in possessing many

antique carved stones from a city of Central America built into the

walls of a temple modeled after the building from which the graven

stones were brought. The "ruin" at the south end of the island is

barely visible from the steamer, hidden as it is by foliage, but it is

distinctly seen by _New York Central_ travelers in the winter season.

Colonel Cruger has spared no expense in the adornment of his grounds,

and a beautiful drive is afforded the visitor. The island is connected

by a roadway across a tongue of land which separates the North from

the South Bay. Above this island east of the steamer's channel across

the railway of the _New York Central_, we see a historic bit of water

known as--

=The North Bay.= It was here that Robert Fulton developed his

steamboat invention, receiving pecuniary aid from Chancellor

Livingston, and it is fitting to give at this place a concise account

of

=Steam Navigation=, which after many attempts and failures on both

sides of the Atlantic was at last crowned with success on the Hudson.

=John Fitch= first entertained his idea of a steamboat in 1785, and

sent to the general assembly of the State of Pennsylvania a model in

1786. New Jersey and Delaware in 1787, gave him exclusive right to

navigate their waters for fourteen years, which, however, was never

undertaken. His steamboat "Perseverance," on the Delaware in 1787, was

eighteen feet in length and six feet beam. The name, however, was a

misnomer, as it was abandoned. These facts appear by papers on file in

the State Library at Albany. After his experiment on the Delaware,

he traveled through France and England, but not meeting with the

encouragement that he expected, became poor and returned home, working

his passage as a common sailor. In 1797 he constructed a little boat

which was propelled by steam in the old Collect Pond, New York, below

Canal Street, between Broadway and the East River.

* * *

Exactly one hundred years separate the first paddle-boat

of Papin from the first steamboat of Fulton.

_Victor Hugo._

* * *

According to records in the State Library, the steam was sufficiently

high to propel the boat once, twice, or thrice around the pond. "When

more water being introduced into the boiler or pot and steam was

generated, she was again ready to start on another expedition." The

boat was a yawl about eighteen feet in length and six feet beam. She

was started at the buoy with a small oar when the propeller was used.

The boiler was a ten or twelve gallon iron pot. This boat with a

portion of the machinery was abandoned by Fitch, and left to decay on

the muddy shore. Shortly after this he died in Kentucky in 1798. Had

he lived, or, had the fortune like Fulton, to find such a patron as

Livingston, his success might have been assured. His visit to Europe

may have inspired Symington's experiment on Dalswinton Loch in 1788,

which made five miles an hour, and another steamboat on the Forth

of Clyde which made seven miles an hour in 1789, and the "Charlotte

Dundas" in 1802, which drew a load of seventy tons over three miles

against a strong gale. Something, however, was wanting and the idea

of successful navigation was abandoned in Britain till after the

invention of Robert Fulton which made steam navigation an assured

fact.

"How necessary it is to succeed," said Kosciusko, at the grave of

Washington, and this is also as true in the story of invention as in

the struggle for freedom: "That they never fail who die in a great

cause though years elapse, and others share as dark a doom. They but

augment the deep and sweeping thoughts which overpower all others and

conduct the world at last to fortune."

It was the writer's privilege in 1891, to deliver the unveiling

address of a monument to Symington at his birthplace, Lead Hills,

Scotland. In the tribute then paid to the genius of the great

Scotchman who had done so much for invention in many directions, he

said the difference between Symington and Fulton was this: "Each

worked diligently at the same idea, but it was the good fortune

of Fulton, so far as the steamboat was considered, to make his

'invention' 'go.'"

* * *

I see the traditions of my fathers are true; I see far,

far away the big bird again floating upon the

waters, so far my warriors that you cannot see it, but ere two

autumns have scattered the leaves upon my grave, the

pale face will claim our hunting grounds.

_Aepgin, King of the Mahicans._

* * *

To quote from a British writer, the "Comet" of Henry Bell on the Clyde

in 1812, was the first example of a steamboat brought into serviceable

use within European waters, and the writer incidentally added that

steam navigation in Britain took practical form almost on the spot

where James Watt, the illustrious improver of the steam engine was

born. The word "improver" is well put. It has much to do with the

story of many inventions. The labor of Fitch was far-reaching in

many directions, and it detracts nothing from Fulton's fame that the

experiments of Fitch and Symington preceded his final triumph.

Rumsey's claim to the idea of application of steam in 1785 does not

seem to hold good. General Washington, to whom he referred as to a

conversation in 1785, replied to a correspondent that the idea of

Rumsey, as he remembered and understood it, was simply the propelling

of a boat by a machine, the power of which was to be merely manual

labor.

=Robert Fulton= was born in 1765, and at the time of Symington's

experiment in Scotland, was twenty-three years of age. He was then an

artist student of Benjamin West, in London, but, after several years

of study, felt that he was better adapted for engineering, and soon

thereafter wrote a work on canal navigation. In 1797 he went to Paris.

He resided there seven years and built a small steamboat on the Seine,

which worked well, but made very slow progress.

It is remarkable that the two most practical achievements of our

century have been consummated by artists,--the telegraph by Morse

after a score of "invented" failures, and the successful application

of steam to navigation by Fulton.

* * *

I was glad to think that among the last memorable

beauties which have glided past us were pictures traced

by no common hand, not easily to grow old or fade beneath

the dust of time--the Kaatskill Mountains, Sleepy

Hollow and the Tappan Zee.

_Charles Dickens._

* * *

Soon after his return to New York he brought his idea to successful

completion. His reputation was now assured, and his invention of

"torpedoes" gave him additional fame. Congress not only purchased

these instruments of warfare, but also set apart $320,000 for a steam

frigate to be constructed under his supervision.

Through Livingston's influence the legislature passed an act granting

to Fulton the exclusive privilege of navigating the waters of the

State by means of steam power. The only conditions imposed were that

he should, within a year, construct a boat of not less than "twenty

tons burthen," which should navigate the Hudson at a speed not less

than four miles an hour, and that one such boat should not fail of

running regularly between New York and Albany for the space of one

year.

="The Clermont,"= named after the ancestral home of the Livingstons,

was built for "Livingston and Fulton," by Charles Brownne in New York.

The machinery came from the works of Watt and Bolton, England. She

left the wharf of Corlear's Hook and the newspapers published with

pride that she made in speed from four to five miles an hour. She was

100 feet in length and boasted of "three elegant cabins, one for the

ladies and two for the gentlemen, with kitchen, library, and every

convenience." She averaged 100 passengers up or down the river. Every

passenger paid $7, for which he had dinner, tea and bed, breakfast and

dinner, with the liberty to carry 200 pounds of baggage.

* * *

The stars are on the running stream,

And fling, as its ripples gently flow,

A burnished length of wavy-beam

In an eel-like, spiral line below.

_Joseph Rodman Drake._

* * *

An original letter from Robert Fulton to the minister of Bavaria at

the court of France, written in 1809, upon the question of putting

steamboats on the Danube, is of interest at the present day: "The

distance from New York to Albany is 160 miles; the tide rises as far

as Albany; its velocity is on an average 1½ miles an hour.

"We thus have the tide half the time in favor of the boat and half the

time against her. The boat is 100 feet long, 16 feet wide and 7 feet

deep; the steam engine is of the power of 20 horses; she runs 4½

miles an hour in still water. Consequently when the tide is 1½

miles an hour in her favor she runs 5¾ miles an hour. When the

tide is against her she runs 2¾ miles an hour. Thus in theory her

average velocity is 4¼ miles an hour, but in practice we take

advantage of the currents. When they are against us we keep near shore

in the eddies, where the current is weak or the eddy in our favor;

when the tide is in our favor we take the centre of the stream and

draw every advantage from it. In this way our average speed is 5 miles

an hour, and we run to Albany, 160 miles, in about 32 hours." Previous

to the invention of the steamboat there were two modes of conveyance.

One was by the common sloops; they charged 42 francs, and were on the

average four days in making the passage--they have sometimes been as

long as eight days. The dread of such tedious voyages prevented great

numbers of persons from going in sloops. The second mode of conveyance

was the mail, or stage. They charged $8, or 44 francs, and the

expenses on the road were about $5, or 30 francs, so that expenses

amounted to $13. The time required was 48 hours. The steamboat has

rendered the communication between New York and Albany so cheap and

certain that the number of passengers are rapidly increasing. Persons

who live 150 miles beyond Albany know the hour she will leave that

city, and making their calculations to arrive at York, stay two

days to transact business, return with the boat, and are with their

families in one week. The facility has rendered the boat a great

favorite with the public.

* * *

Through many a blooming wild and woodland green

The Hudson's sleeping waters winding stray.

_Margaretta V. Faugeres._

* * *

A telegram from Exeter, N. H., in 1886, recorded the death of Dr.

William Perry, the oldest person in Exeter and the oldest graduate of

Harvard College, at the age of ninety-eight years. He was the sole

survivor of the passengers on Fulton's first steamboat on its first

trip down the Hudson, and the connecting link of three generations of

progress. He was born in 1788, was a member of 1811 in Harvard, and

grandfather of Sarah Orne Jewett, the authoress.

The writer remembers his grandfather telling him of going to Hudson as

a boy to see the "steamboat" make its first trip, and how it had been

talked of for a long time as "Fulton's Folly." One thing is sure

it was a small cradle wherein to rock the "baby-giant" of a great

century. How Fulton would wonder if he could visit to-day the great

steamships born of his invention--successors of the "Clermont" of

"Twenty tons burthen." How he would marvel, standing on the deck of

the "Hendrick Hudson," to see the water fall away from the prow cut by

a rainbow scimitar of spray! at the great engines of polished steel,

working almost noiselessly, and wonder at the way the pilot lands at

the docks, even as a driver brings his buggy to a horse-block; for in

his day, and long afterwards, passengers were "slued" ashore in little

boats, as it was not regarded feasible to land a steamboat against a

wharf. It would surely be an "experience" for us to see the passengers

at West Point, Newburgh, or Poughkeepsie "slued ashore" to-day in

little rowboats.

=Tivoli=, above North Bay took its name from a pre-revolutionary

"Chateau," home of the late Colonel DePeyster. The "Callender Place"

to the southeast, was formerly the property of Johnston Livingston.

Two miles from the river is the home of Mr. J. N. Lewis, a morning view

from whose veranda is still remembered, and it is to him that the

writer is indebted for a pleasant trip to the ruins on Cruger's

Island. The residence of the late J. Watts DePeyster stands on a

commanding bluff north of the railway station and it was beside his

open fireside many years ago that he told the writer how his house was

saved from Vaughan's cannon. "Rose Hill," was mistaken for "Clermont,"

but a well-stocked cellar mollified the British captain.

* * *

O! stream of the mountains if answer of thine

Could rise from thy waters to questions of mine,

Methinks through the din of thy thronged banks a moan

Of sorrow would come for the days that are gone.

_Legends of the Hudson._

* * *

It grew like one of the old English family houses, with the increase

of the family, until, in strange but picturesque outline--the

prevailing style being Italian, somewhat in the shape of a cross--it

is now 114 feet long by 87 feet deep. The tower in the rear, devoted

to library purposes, rises to the height of about sixty feet. This

library, first and last, has contained between twenty and thirty

thousand volumes. Such indefinite language is used, because the owner

donated over half this number to the New York Historical Society, the

New York Society Library, and a number of other similar organizations

in different parts of the United States. As a working library, replete

with dictionaries and cyclopædias, in many tongues and on almost

every subject, it is a marvel. It is likewise very valuable for its

collections on military and several other special topics. From it was

selected and given to the New York Historical Society, one of the

finest possible collections on the History of Holland, from the

earliest period down to the present time. "Rose Hill" was left in his

will to the Leake and Watts Orphan Home.

A ferry from Tivoli to Saugerties affords communication between the

two villages. Glasco Landing, on the west bank, lies between the

residences of Henry Corse, on the south, and Mrs. Vanderpool (sister

of the late President Martin Van Buren), on the north.

In locating the residences along the river and dealing so often in the

words "north" and "south," we are reminded of a good story of Martin

Van Buren. It is said that it was as difficult to get a direct answer

from him as from Bismarck or Gladstone. Two friends were going up with

him one day on a river boat and one made a wager with the other that

a direct answer could not be secured on any question from the astute

statesman. They approached the ex-president and one of them said, "Mr.

Van Buren, my friend and I have had a little discussion; will you

tell us, does or does not the sun rise in the east?" The ex-president

calmly drew up a chair, and said, "You must remember that the east

and west are merely relative terms." "That settles it," said the

questioner, "I'll pay the bet."

* * *

How grateful is the sudden change

From arid pavements to the grass,

From narrow streets that thousands range

To meadows where June zephyrs pass.

_Henry T. Tuckerman._

* * *

It is a drop for the old Hudson, and a merry time it

has until it gets down off the mountains. I have thought

how long it would be before that very water which was

made for the wilderness will be under the bottom of a

vessel and tossing in the salt sea.

_James Fenimore Cooper._

* * *

=Saugerties=, 101 miles from New York. From its location (being the

nearest of the river towns to the Catskills), it naturally hoped to

secure a large share of tourist travel, but Kingston and Catskill

presented easier and better facilities of access and materially

shortened the hours of arrival at the summit. Plaaterkill Clove,

wilder and grander than Kaaterskill Clove, about nine miles west of

the village, has Plaaterkill Mountain, Indian Head, Twin Mountains and

Sugar Loaf on the south, and High Peak and Round Top on the north. Its

eighteen waterfalls not only give great variety to a pedestrian trip,

but also ample field for the artist's brush. The Esopus, meeting

the Hudson at Saugerties, supplies unfailing waterpower for its

manufacturing industries, prominent among which are the Sheffield

Paper Company, the Barkley Fibre Company (wood pulp), the Martin

Company (card board) and a white lead factory. There are also large

shipments of blue stone, evidences of which are seen in many places

near at hand along the western bank. Many attractive strolls near

Saugerties invite the visitor, notably the walk to Barkley Heights

south of the Esopus. An extensive view is obtained from the _West

Shore Railroad_ station west of the village and the drive thereto.

North of Saugerties will be seen the docks and hamlets of Malden,

Evesport and West Camp, also the residences of J. G. Myers to the

northwest of the Rock islet, and of H. T. Coswell, near which the

steamer passes to the west of Livingston Flats. The west shore at West

Camp was settled by exiles from the Palatinate, about 1710, and one of

the old churches still stands a short distance inland. We are now in

the midst of--

=The Livingston Country=, whose names and memories dot the landscape

and adorn the history of the Hudson Valley. Dutchess and Columbia

Counties meet on the east bank opposite that part of Saugerties where

Sawyer's Creek flows into the Hudson. "Idele" was originally called

the Chancellor Place. "Clermont" is about half a mile to the north,

the home of Clermont Livingston, an early manor house built by Robert

R. Livingston, who, next to Hamilton, was the greatest New York

statesman during our revolutionary period. The manor church, not seen

from the river, is at the old village of Clermont, about five miles

due west from the mansion. The Livingstons are of Scotch ancestry and

have an illustrious lineage. Mary Livingston, one of the "four Marys"

who attended Mary Queen of Scots during her childhood and education in

France, was of the same family. Robert Livingston, born in 1654, came

to the Hudson Valley with his father, and in 1686 purchased from the

Indians a tract of country reaching east twenty-two miles to the

boundary of Massachusetts with a river frontage of twelve miles. This

purchase was created, "the Lordship and Manor of Livingston," by

Governor Thomas Dongan. In 1692 Robert built the manor house, but did

not reside in it for twenty years. He was a friend of Captain Kidd and

a powerful promoter of his enterprises. The manor consisted of 260,000

acres. The estate of 13,000 acres, given to his second son Robert, was

called Clermont. Philip, his first son, inherited 247,000 acres, by

old-time primogeniture succession. From each of these two families

sprang a line of vigorous and resolute men. Robert R. Livingston,

our revolutionary hero, descended from the smaller estate, owned

"Clermont" at the time it was burned by the British. It was soon

rebuilt and Lafayette was a guest at the mansion during his visit to

the United States in 1824.

* * *

Let us not then neglect to improve the advantages we

possess; let us avail ourselves of the present moment to

fix lasting peace upon the broad basis of natural union;

let us while it is still in our power lay the foundation of

our long happiness and the happiness of our posterity.

_Robert R. Livingston._

* * *

Above West Camp landing on the west side, is the boundary line between

Ulster and Greene Counties; Ulster having kept us company all the way

from Hampton Point opposite New Hamburgh. Throughout this long stretch

of the river one industry must not be overlooked, well described by

John Burroughs:

=The Shad Industry.=--"When the chill of the ice is out of the river

and the snow and frost out of the air, the fishermen along the shore

are on the lookout for the first arrival of shad. A few days of warm

south wind the latter part of April will soon blow them up; it is

true also, that a cold north wind will as quickly blow them back.

Preparations have been making for them all winter. In many a

farm-house or other humble dwelling along the river, the ancient

occupation of knitting of fish-nets has been plied through the long

winter evenings, perhaps every grown member of the household, the

mother and her daughters as well as the father and his sons, lending

a hand. The ordinary gill or drift-net used for shad fishing in the

Hudson is from a half to three-quarters of a mile long, and thirty

feet wide, containing about fifty or sixty pounds of fine linen twine,

and it is a labor of many months to knit one. Formerly the fish were

taken mainly by immense seines, hauled by a large number of men; but

now all the deeper part of the river is fished with the long, delicate

gill-nets that drift to and fro with the tide, and are managed by two

men in a boat. The net is of fine linen thread, and is practically

invisible to the shad in the obscure river current: it hangs suspended

perpendicularly in the water, kept in position by buoys at the top and

by weights at the bottom; the buoys are attached by cords twelve or

fifteen feet long, which allow the net to sink out of the reach of

the keels of passing vessels. The net is thrown out on the ebb tide,

stretching nearly across the river, and drifts down and then back on

the flood, the fish being snared behind the gills in their efforts to

pass through the meshes. I envy fishermen their intimate acquaintance

with the river. They know it by night as well as by day, and learn all

its moods and phases. The net is a delicate instrument that reveals

all the hidden currents and by-ways, as well as all the sunken snags

and wrecks at the bottom. By day the fisherman notes the shape and

position of his net by means of the line or buoys; by night he marks

the far end of it with a lantern fastened upon a board or block. The

night tides he finds differ from the day--the flood at night being

much stronger than at other times, as if some pressure had been

removed with the sun, and the freed currents found less hindrance. The

fishermen have terms and phrases of their own. The wooden tray upon

which the net is coiled, and which sits in the stern of the boat, is

called a 'cuddy.' The net is divided into 'shots.' If a passing sloop

or schooner catches it with her centre-board or her anchor, it gives

way where two or three shoots meet, and thus the whole net is not

torn. The top cord or line of the net is called a 'cimline.' One

fisherman 'plugs' another when he puts out from the shore and casts

in ahead of him, instead of going to the general starting place, and

taking his turn. This always makes bad blood. The luck of the born

fisherman is about as conspicuous with the gill-net as with the rod

and line, some boats being noted for their great catches the season

through. No doubt the secret is mainly through application to the

business in hand, but that is about all that distinguishes the

successful angler. The shad campaign is one that requires pluck and

endurance; no regular sleep, no regular meals; wet and cold, heat

and wind and tempest, and no great gains at last. But the sturgeon

fishers, who come later and are seen the whole summer through, have

an indolent, lazy time of it. They fish around the 'slack-water,'

catching the last of the ebb and the first of the flow, and hence

drift but little either way. To a casual observer they appear as if

anchored and asleep. But they wake up when they have a 'strike,' which

may be every day, or not once a week. The fishermen keep their eye on

the line of buoys, and when two or more of them are hauled under, he

knows his game has run foul of the net, and he hastens to the point.

The sturgeon is a pig, without the pig's obstinacy. He spends much of

the time rooting and feeding in the mud at the bottom, and encounters

the net, coarse and strong, when he goes abroad. He strikes, and is

presently hopelessly entangled, when he comes to the top and is pulled

into the boat, like a great sleepy sucker. For so dull and lubbery

a fish, the sturgeon is capable of some very lively antics; as, for

instance, his habit of leaping full length into the air and coming

down with a great splash. He has thus been known to leap unwittingly

into a passing boat, to his own great surprise, and to the alarm and

consternation of the inmates."

* * *

The swelling river, into his green gulfs,

Unshadowed save by passing sails above,

Takes the redundant glory, and enjoys

The summer in his chilly bed.

_William Cullen Bryant._

* * *

I heard the plaintiff note of the Whip-poor-will from the

mountain-side, or was startled now and then by the

sudden leap and heavy splash of the sturgeon.

_Washington Irving._

* * *

=Germantown.=--Germantown Station is now seen on the east bank,

and between this and Germantown Dock, three miles to the north, is

obtained the best view of the "Man in the Mountain," readily traced by

the following outline: The peak to the south is the knee, the next to

the north is the breast, and two or three above this the chin, the

nose and the forehead. How often from the slope of Hillsdale, forty

miles away on the western trend of the Berkshires, when a boy, playing

by the fountain-heads of the Kinderhook and the Roeliffe Jansen's

Creek, have I looked out upon this mountain range aglow in the sunset,

and at even-tide heard my grandfather tell of his far-off journeys to

Towanda, Pennsylvania, when he drove through the great Cloves of the

Catskills, where twice he met "a bear" which retreated at the sound

of his old flint-lock, and then when I went to sleep at night how I

pulled the coverlet closer about my head, all on account of those two

bears that had been dead for more than forty years.

[Illustration: THE MAN IN THE MOUNTAIN.]

* * *

And, sister, now my children come

To find the water just as cool,

To play about our grandsire's home,

To see our pictures in the pool.

_Wallace Bruce._

* * *

Alps of the Hudson, whose bold summits rise

Into the upper ether of the skies,

Cleaving with calm content

The cloudless crystal of the firmament.

_Joel Benton._

* * *

The Catskills were called by the Indians On-ti-o-ras, or mountains of

the sky, as they sometimes seem like clouds along the horizon. This

range of mountains was supposed by the Indians to have been originally

a monster who devoured all the children of the red men, until the

great spirit touched him when he was going down to the salt lake to

bathe, and here he remains. "Two little lakes upon the summit were

regarded the eyes of the monster, and these are open all the summer;

but in the winter they are covered with a thick crust or heavy film;

but whether sleeping or waking tears always trickle down his cheeks.

In these mountains, according to Indian belief, was kept the great

treasury of storm and sunshine, presided over by an old squaw spirit

who dwelt on the highest peak of the mountains. She kept day and

night shut up in her wigwam, letting out only one at a time. She

manufactured new moons every month, cutting up the old ones into

stars," and, like the old Æolus of mythology, shut the winds up in the

caverns of the hills:--

Where Manitou once lived and reigned,

Great Spirit of a race gone by,

And Ontiora lies enchained

With face uplifted to the sky.

The Catskill Mountains are now something more than a realm of romance

and poetry or a mountain range of beauty along our western horizon,

for, from this time forth the old squaw spirit will be kept busy with

her "Treasury of Tear Clouds," as the water supply of New York is to

come from these mountain sources.

=The Catskill Water Supply.=--The cost of this great undertaking is

estimated at $162,000,000. Four creeks: The Esopus, Rondout, Schoharie

and Catskill will constitute the main source of supply. The total area

of the entire watershed is over nine hundred square miles, and the

supply will exceed 800,000,000 gallons daily. The work projected will

bring to the city 500,000,000 gallons per day.

The Ashoken Reservoir, 12 miles long and two miles wide, will hold

120,000,000,000 gallons. The Catskill Aqueduct supply from Ashoken

Reservoir will deliver the water without pumping to Hill View

Reservoir in Yonkers high enough for gravity distribution. It will

take from ten to fifteen years to complete the work, which is begun

none too early, as the population of Greater New York will be over

5,000,000 in 1915, and its water consumption 1,000,000,000 gallons. In

1930 the population will be 7,000,000 and will call for a consumption

of 100,000,000,000 gallons daily. We are indeed "ancients of the earth

and in the morning of our times." From the far limits of the gathering

grounds some of the water will flow 130 miles to reach the city hall,

and 20 miles further to the southern extremity of Staten Island.

* * *

The majestic Hudson is on my left,

The Catskills rise in my dream;

The cataracts leap from the mountain cleft

And the brooks in the sunlight gleam.

_Minot F. Savage._

* * *

Between Old Cro' Nest and Cold Spring the water will be syphoned under

the Hudson through a concrete tube six hundred feet below the surface

of the river.

The Croton Water Works, at a cost of about $14,000,000, completed in

1842, were regarded the greatest undertaking since the Roman Aqueduct.

Many improvements to meet increased demand have been made since that

time. Fifty years from now it is quite possible that the Catskill

System will seem like the Croton of to-day, as a small matter, and our

next step will be "An Adirondack System," making the successive steps

of our water supply the Croton, the Catskills and the Adirondacks.

It is fortunate that our city destined to be the world's emporium, has

everything at hand needed for comfort and safety.

John Bigelow, the literary and political link of the century, born at

Malden-on-the-Hudson, in 1817, was present at the inauguration of the

work at Cold Spring, June, 1907. It was the writer's privilege to meet

him often on the Hudson River steamers in the decade of 1870, and

to receive from him many graphic descriptions of the early life and

customs of the Hudson. What memories must have thronged upon him as he

contrasted the life of three generations!

=The Clover Reach.=--We are now in what is known as The Clover Reach

of the Hudson which extends to the Backerack near Athens. One mile

above Germantown Dock stood Nine Mile Tree, a landmark among old river

pilots so named on account of its marking a point nine miles from

Hudson. Above this the Roeliffe Jansen's Kill flows into the river,

known by the Indians as Saupenak, rising in Hillsdale within a few

feet of Greenriver Creek, immortal in Bryant's verse. The Greenriver

flows east into the Housatonic, the Jansen south into Dutchess County,

whence it takes a northerly course until it joins the Hudson. The

Burden iron furnaces above the mouth of the stream form an ugly

feature in the landscape. This is the southern boundary of the Herman

Livingston estate, whose house is one mile and a half further up the

river, near Livingston Dock, beneath Oak Hill. Greenville station is

now seen on the east bank, directly opposite Catskill Landing, which

the steamer is now approaching.

* * *

The fields and waters seem to us this Sabbath morning

from the summit of the Catskills, no more truly

property than the skies that shine upon them.

_Harriet Martineau._

* * *

=Catskill=, 111 miles from New York, was founded in 1678 by the

purchase of several square miles from the Indians. The landing is

immediately above the mouth of the Catskill or Kaaterskill Creek. It

is said that the creek and mountains derive their name as follows: It

is known that each tribe had a _totemic_ emblem, or rude banner; the

Mahicans had the wolf as their emblem, and some say that the word

Mahican means an enchanted wolf. (The Lenni Lenapes, or Delawares, had

the turkey as their totem.) Catskill was the southern boundary of the

Mahicans on the west bank, and here they set up their emblem. It is

said from this fact the stream took the name of Kaaterskill. The

large cat or wolf, similar in appearance, forms the mark of King

Aepgin on his deed to Van Rensselaer. Perhaps, however, the mountains

at one time abounded in these animals, and the name may be only a

coincidence. The old village, with its main street, lies along the

valley of the Catskill Creek, not quite a mile from the Catskill

Landing, and preserves some of the features of the days when

_Knickerbocker_ was accustomed to pay it an annual visit. The location

seems to have been chosen as a place of security--out of sight to one

voyaging up the river. The northern slope now reveals fine residences,

all of which command extensive views. Just out of the village proper,

on a beautiful outlook, stands the charming Prospect Park Hotel. The

drives and pedestrian routes in the vicinity of Catskill are well

condensed by Walton Van Loan, a resident of the village, whose guide

to the Catskills is the best on this region and will be of great

service to all who would like to understand thoroughly the mountain

district.

=The Northern Catskills.=--The northern and southern divisions have

been indicated not so much as mountain divisions, but in order to

better emphasize the two routes, which converge from Kingston

and Catskill toward each other, drawn by two principal points of

attraction, the Catskill Mountain House and the Hotel Kaaterskill.

* * *

Ah! how often when I have been abroad on the mountains

has my heart risen in grateful praise to God that

it was not my destiny to waste and pine among those

noisome congregations of the city.

_John James Audubon._

* * *

=The Catskill Mountain House= has been widely known for almost a

century. The original proprietor had the choice of location in 1823,

when the entire range was a vast mountain wilderness, and he made

excellent selection for its site. It seems as if the rocky balcony

was especially reared two thousand feet above the valley for a grand

outlook and restful resort. "What can you see," exclaimed Natty

Bumppo, one of Cooper's favorite characters. "Why, all the world;" and

this is the feeling to-day of everyone looking down from this point

upon the Hudson Valley.

The Mountain House Park has a valley frontage of over three miles in

extent, and consists of 2,780 acres of magnificent forest and farming

lands, traversed in all directions by many miles of carriage roads

and paths, leading to various noted places of interest. The Crest,

Newman's Ledge, Bear's Den, Prospect Rock on North Mountain, and

Eagle Rock and Palenville Overlook on South Mountain, from which

the grandest views of the region are obtained, are contained in the

property. It also includes within its boundaries North and South

Lakes, both plentifully stocked with various kind of fish and well

supplied with boats and canoes. The atmosphere is delightful,

invigorating and pure; the great elevation and surrounding forest

render it free from malaria. The temperature is fifteen to twenty

degrees lower than at Catskill Village, New York City or Philadelphia.

* * *

Cooper's "Leatherstocking" is the one melodious synopsis

of man and nature.

_Thomas Carlyle._

* * *

The =_Otis Elevating Railway_=, made possible by the enterprise of

the late Commodore Van Santvoord, extends from Otis Junction on the

_Catskill Mountain Railway_ to Otis Summit, a noble altitude of the

Catskill Range. The incline railway, 7,000 feet in length, ascends

1,600 feet and attains an elevation of 2,200 feet above the Hudson

River. "In length, elevation, overcome and carrying capacity it

exceeds any other incline railway in the world. It is operated by

powerful stationary engines and huge steel wire cables, and the method

employed is similar to that used by the Otis Elevator Company for

elevators in buildings. Every safeguard has been provided, so that an

accident of any kind is practically impossible. Should the machinery

break, the cables snap or track spread, an ingenious automatic device

would stop the cars at once. A passenger car and baggage car are

attached to each end of double cables which pass around immense drums

located at the top of the incline. While one train rises the other

descends, passing each other midway. By this arrangement trains

carrying from seventy-five to one hundred passengers can be run in

each direction every fifteen minutes when necessary, the time required

for a trip being only ten minutes. This is a vast improvement over the

old way of making the ascent of the mountains by stage, as it reduces

the time fully one and a half hours, besides adding greatly to the

pleasure of the trip. The ride up the mountains on the incline railway

is a novel and delightful experience, and is alone worth a visit to

the Catskills. As the train ascends, the magnificent panorama of the

valley of the Hudson, extending for miles and miles, is gradually

unfolded; while the river itself, like a ribbon of silver glistening

in the sun, and the Berkshire Hills in the distance seem to rise to

the view of the passenger. At the summit of the incline passengers for

the Laurel House, Haines Corners, Ontiora, Sunset, Twilight, Santa

Cruz, Elka Park, and Tannersville, take the trains of the _Kaaterskill

Railroad_, which connect with the _Otis Elevating Railway_."

* * *

The din of toil comes faintly swelling up

From green fields far below, and all around

The forest sea sends up its ceaseless roar

Like the ocean's everlasting chime.

_Bayard Taylor._

* * *

Two miles from the summit landing are the Kaaterskill Falls. The upper

fall 175 feet, lower fall 85 feet. The amphitheatre behind the cascade

is the scene of one of Bryant's finest poems:

"From greens and shades where the Kaaterskill leaps

From cliffs where the wood flowers cling;"

and we recall the lines which express so beautifully the well-nigh

fatal dream

"Of that dreaming one

By the base of that icy steep,

When over his stiffening limbs begun

The deadly slumber of frost to creep."

About half-way up the old mountain carriage road, is the place said to

be the dreamland of Rip Van Winkle--the greatest character of American

mythology, more real than the heroes of Homer or the massive gods

of Olympus. The railway, however, has rather dispensed with Rip Van

Winkle's resting-place. The old stage drivers had so long pointed out

the identical spot where he slept that they had come to believe in it,

but his spirit still haunts the entire locality, and we can get along

without his "open air bed chamber." It will not be necessary to quote

from a recent guide-book that "no intelligent person probably believes

that such a character ever really existed or had such an experience."

The explanation is almost as humorous as the legend.

=The Hotel Kaaterskill=, whose name and fame went over a continent

even before it was fairly completed, is located on the summit of the

Kaaterskill Mountain, three miles by carriage or one by path from the

Catskill Mountain House. It is the largest mountain hotel at this

time in the world, accommodating 1,200 guests, and the Catskills have

reason to feel proud of this distinction. They have for many years had

the best-known legend--the wonderful and immortal Rip Van Winkle. They

have always enjoyed the finest valley views of any mountain outlook,

and they have a right to the best hotels.

* * *

There is a fall in the hills, where the water of two

little ponds runs over the rocks into the valley. The

first pitch is nigh two hundred feet and the water looks

like flakes of driven snow before it touches the bottom.

_James Fenimore Cooper._

* * *

It may seem antiquated and old-fashioned in the midst of elevated

railroads to speak of mountain driveways, but that to Palenville, as

we last saw it, was a beautiful piece of engineering--as smooth as a

floor and securely built. It looks as if it were intended to last for

a century, the stone work is so thoroughly finished. The views from

this road are superior to anything we have seen in the Catskills, and

the great sweep of the mountain clove recalls a Sierra Nevada trip on

the way to the Yosemite.

The writer will never forget another Catskill drive fully twenty

years ago. Starting one morning with a pair of mustang ponies from

Phoenicia, we called at the Kaaterskill, the Catskill Mountain

House, and the Laurel House, took supper at Catskill Village, and

reached New York that evening at eleven o'clock. It is unnecessary to

say that we were on business--our book was on the press--and we went

as if one of the printers' best-known companions was on our trail.

Irving's description of his first voyage up the river brings us more

delicately and gracefully down from these mountains to the Hudson--the

level highway to the sea. "Of all the scenery of the Hudson, the

Kaatskill Mountains had the most witching effect on my boyish

imagination. Never shall I forget the effect upon me of my first view

of them, predominating over a wide extent of country--part wild, woody

and rugged; part softened away into all the graces of cultivation. As

we slowly floated along, I lay on the deck and watched them through a

long summer's day, undergoing a thousand mutations under the magical

effects of atmosphere; sometimes seeming to approach; at other times

to recede; now almost melting into hazy distance, now burnished by the

setting sun, until in the evening they printed themselves against the

glowing sky in the deep purple of an Italian landscape."

* * *

Limned upon the fair horizon,

West from central Hudson's tide,

The fair form of Ontiora

Throughout ages shall abide.

_Jared Barhete._

* * *

=Catskill to Hudson.=

Leaving Catskill dock, the Prospect Park Hotel looks down upon us from

a commanding point on the west bank, while north of this can be seen

Cole's Grove, where Thomas Cole, the artist, lived, who painted the

well-known series, the Voyage of Life. On the east side is Rodger's

Island, where it is said the last battle was fought between the

Mahicans and Mohawks; and it is narrated that "as the old king of the

Mahicans was dying, after the conflict, he commanded his regalia to be

taken off and his successor put into the kingship while his eyes were

yet clear to behold him. Over forty years had he worn it, from the

time he received it in London from Queen Anne. He asked him to kneel

at his couch, and, putting his withered hand across his brow, placed

the feathery crown upon his head, and gave him the silver-mounted

tomahawk--symbols of power to rule and power to execute. Then, looking

up to the heavens, he said, as if in despair for his race, 'The hills

are our pillows, and the broad plains to the west our hunting-grounds;

our brothers are called into the bright wigwam of the Everlasting, and

our bones lie upon the fields of many battles; but the wisdom of the

dead is given to the living.'"

On the east bank of the Hudson, above this historic island, is the

residence of Frederick E. Church, whose glowing canvas has linked the

Niagara with the Hudson. It commands a wide view of the Berkshire

Hills to the eastward, and westward to the Catskills. The hill above

Rodgers' Island, on the east bank, is known as Mount Merino, one of

the first places to which Merino sheep were brought in this country.

=Hudson=, 115 miles from New York, was founded in the year 1784, by

thirty persons from Providence, R. I., and incorporated as a city in

1785. The city is situated on a sloping promontory, bounded by the

North and South Bays. Its main streets, Warren, Union and Allen, run

east and west a little more than a mile in length, crossed by Front

Street, First, Second, Third, etc. Main Street reaches from Promenade

Park to Prospect Hill. The park is on the bluff just above the

steamboat landing; we believe this city is the only one on the Hudson

that has a promenade ground overlooking the river. It commands a fine

view of the Catskill Mountains, Mount Merino, and miles of the river

scenery. The city has always enjoyed the reputation of hospitality.

It is the western terminus of the Hudson and Chatham division of the

_Boston & Albany Railroad_, and also of the _Kinderhook & Hudson

Railway_.

* * *

White fleecy clouds move slowly by.

How cool their shadows fall to-day!

A moment on the hills they lie

And then like spirits glide away.

_Henry T. Tuckerman._

* * *

From an old-time English history we read that Hudson grew more rapidly

than any other town in America except Baltimore. Standing at the head

of ship navigation it would naturally have become a great port had it

not been for the railway and the steamboat which made New York the

emporium not only of the Hudson, but also of the continent.

Hudson had also a good sprinkling of Nantucket blood, and visitors

from that quaint old town recognize in portico, stoop and window a

familiar architecture.

=Columbia Springs=, an old-time resort with pleasant grove and white

sulphur water, is four miles northeast of Hudson. Its medicinal

qualities are attested by scores of physicians, and by hundreds who

have been benefited and cured. The drive is pleasant and the return

can be made through--

=Claverack=, three and a half miles east of Hudson, a restful

old-fashioned village situated at the crossing of the Old Post Road

and the Columbia turnpike and county seat of Columbia in Knickerbocker

days. The court house on its well-shaded street was for many years the

home of the late Peter Hoffman. The Dutch Reformed Church, built of

bricks brought from Holland, wears on its brow wrinkles of antiquity,

emphasized by the date 1767 on its walls. It is said that General

Washington encamped here, but there is no historical data to confirm

the tradition. Claverack Falls is well worth a visit, which can easily

be made in an afternoon stroll. Copake Lake, to the southeast, can be

reached by a drive of about twelve miles, a fine sheet of water ten

miles in circumference, with a picturesque island connected to the

main land by a causeway. Forty years ago a romantic ruin of a stone

mansion still stood on this island, where the writer, when a boy, used

to wander around the deserted rooms looking for ghosts, but the walls

were torn down July 4, 1866, as the place was frequented every summer

by a remnant of the old Stockbridge tribe. The neighbors thought the

best way of getting rid of the "noble red men" was to burn up the

hive. The mansion was built by a Miss Livingston, but she soon

exchanged her island home for Florence and the classic associations

of Italy. Bash-Bish, one mile from Copake Station on the _Harlem

Railroad_, one of the most romantic glens in our country, has been

visited and eulogized by Henry Ward Beecher, Bayard Taylor and many

distinguished writers and travelers. Soon after leaving Copake Station

a beautiful carriage road, but extremely narrow, strikes the left bank

of this mountain stream, and for a long distance follows its rocky

channel. On the right a thickly wooded hill rises abruptly more than a

thousand feet--a perfect wall of foliage from base to summit. A mile

brings one to the lower falls; the upper falls are about a quarter of

a mile farther up the gorge. The height of the falls, with the rapids

between, is about 300 feet above the little rustic bridge at the foot

of the lower falls. The glen between is a place of wild beauty, with

rocks and huge boulders "in random ruin piled."

* * *

I saw the green banks of the castle-crowned Rhine,

Where the grapes drink the moonlight and change into wine,

But my heart would still yearn for the sound of the waves

That sing as they flow by my forefather's graves.

_Oliver Wendell Holmes._

* * *

=Hillsdale Village= has a beautiful location and affords a good

central point for visiting Mount Everett, with its wide prospect

(altitude 2,624 feet), Copake Lake six miles to the west, Bash-Bish

Falls six miles south, and Po-ka-no five miles to the northeast,

sometimes known as White's Hill. The Po-ka-no, Columbia County's

noblest outlook, 1,713 feet, commands the Hudson Valley for eighty

miles; and the owner says that he saw the fireworks from there the

night of the Newburgh centennial in 1883. From the summit can be seen

"Monument Mountain" and the Green Mountains of Vermont. At its base

glides the "Green River Creek," which flows into the Housatonic near

Great Barrington. From this point the drive can be continued to North

Egremont, South Egremont, Great Barrington and Monument Mountain.

Before the days of railroads the Columbia turnpike was the great trade

artery of the city of Hudson. It was interesting to hear William

Cullen Bryant recount his experiences in driving from his home in

Great Barrington over the well-known highway on his way to New York.

The _Housatonic_ and _Harlem Railroads_ tapped its life and have left

many a sleepy village along the route, once astir in staging days. The

stone for Girard College was drawn from Massachusetts quarries over

this route and shipped to Philadelphia from Hudson. The Lebanon

Valley, in the northeastern part of the county, is considered one of

the most beautiful in the State, and said by Sir Henry Vincent, the

English orator, to resemble the far-famed valley of Llangollen, in

Wales. The Wy-a-mon-ack Creek flows through the valley, joining its

waters with the Kinderhook. Quechee Lake is near at hand, where Miss

Warner was born, author of "Queechee" and the "Wide Wide World."

* * *

Welcome ye pleasant dales and hills,

Where dream-like passed my early days!

Ye cliffs and glens and laughing rills

That sing unconscious hymns of praise!

_Wallace Bruce._

* * *

=Lindenwald=, a solid and substantial residence, home of President

Martin Van Buren, where he died in 1862, is two miles from the

pleasant village of Kinderhook. Columbia County just missed the proud

distinction of rearing two presidents, as Samuel J. Tilden was born in

the town of Lebanon. Elisha Williams, John Van Buren and many others

have given lustre to her legal annals.

* * *

Ever fonder, ever dearer

Seems our youth that hastened by,

And we love to live in memory

When our fond hopes fade and die.

_Wallace Bruce._

* * *

=Hudson to Albany.=

=Athens.=--Directly opposite Hudson, and connected with it by ferry,

is the classically named village of Athens. An old Mahican settlement

known as Potick was located a little back from the river. We are now

in the midst of the great

="Ice Industry,"= which reaches from below Staatsburgh to Castleton

and Albany, well described by John Burroughs in his article on the

Hudson: "No man sows, yet many men reap a harvest from the Hudson. Not

the least important is the ice harvest, which is eagerly looked for,

and counted upon by hundreds, yes, thousands of laboring men along its

course. Ice or no ice sometimes means bread or no bread to scores of

families, and it means added or diminished comforts to many more. It

is a crop that takes two or three weeks of rugged winter weather to

grow, and, if the water is very roily or brackish, even longer. It is

seldom worked till it presents seven or eight inches of clear water

ice. Men go out from time to time and examine it, as the farmer goes

out and examines his grain or grass, to see when it will do to cut. If

there comes a deep fall of snow the ice is 'pricked' so as to let the

water up through and form snow ice. A band of fifteen or twenty men,

about a yard apart, each armed with a chisel-bar, and marching in

line, puncture the ice at each step, with a single sharp thrust. To

and fro they go, leaving a belt behind them that presently becomes

saturated with water. But ice, to be of first quality, must grow from

beneath, not from above. It is a crop quite as uncertain as any other.

A good yield every two or three years, as they say of wheat out west,

is about all that can be counted upon. When there is an abundant

harvest, after the ice houses are filled, they stack great quantities

of it, as the farmer stacks his surplus hay. Such a fruitful winter

was that of '74-5, when the ice formed twenty inches thick. The stacks

are given only a temporary covering of boards, and are the first ice

removed in the season. The cutting and gathering of the ice enlivens

these broad, white, desolate fields amazingly. My house happens to

stand where I look down upon the busy scene, as from a hill-top upon

a river meadow in haying time, only here figures stand out much

more sharply than they do from a summer meadow. There is the broad,

straight, blue-black canal emerging into view, and running nearly

across the river; this is the highway that lays open the farm. On

either side lie the fields, or ice meadows, each marked out by cedar

or hemlock boughs. The farther one is cut first, and when cleared,

shows a large, long, black parallelogram in the midst of the plain

of snow. Then the next one is cut, leaving a strip or tongue of ice

between the two for the horses to move and turn upon. Sometimes nearly

two hundred men and boys, with numerous horses, are at work at once,

marking, plowing, planing, scraping, sawing, hauling, chiseling; some

floating down the pond on great square islands towed by a horse, or

their fellow workmen; others distributed along the canal, bending to

their ice-hooks; others upon the bridges separating the blocks with

their chisel bars; others feeding the elevators; while knots and

straggling lines of idlers here and there look on in cold discontent,

unable to get a job. The best crop of ice is an early crop. Late in

the season or after January, the ice is apt to get 'sun-struck,' when

it becomes 'shaky,' like a piece of poor timber. The sun, when he

sets about destroying the ice, does not simply melt it from the

surface--that were a slow process; but he sends his shafts into it and

separates it into spikes and needles--in short, makes kindling-wood of

it, so as to consume it the quicker. One of the prettiest sights about

the ice harvesting is the elevator in operation. When all works well,

there is an unbroken procession of the great crystal blocks slowly

ascending this incline. They go up in couples, arm in arm, as it were,

like friends up a stairway, glowing and changing in the sun, and

recalling the precious stones that adorned the walls of the celestial

city. When they reach the platform where they leave the elevator, they

seem to step off like things of life and volition; they are still in

pairs and separate only as they enter upon the 'runs.' But here they

have an ordeal to pass through, for they are subjected to a rapid

inspection and the black sheep are separated from the flock; every

square with a trace of sediment or earth-stain in it, whose texture

is not perfect and unclouded crystal, is rejected and sent hurling

down into the abyss; a man with a sharp eye in his head and a sharp

ice-hook in his hand picks out the impure and fragmentary ones as they

come along and sends them quickly overboard. Those that pass the

examination glide into the building along the gentle incline, and are

switched off here and there upon branch runs, and distributed to all

parts of the immense interior."

* * *

But when in the forest bare and old

The blast of December calls,

He builds in the starlight clear and cold

A palace of ice where his torrent falls.

_William Cullen Bryant._

* * *

Where the frost trees shoot with leaf and spray

And frost gems scatter a silver ray.

_William Cullen Bryant._

* * *

How fair the thronging pictures run,

What joy the vision fills--

The star-glow and the setting sun

Amid the northern hills.

_Benjamin F. Leggett._

* * *

Passing west of the Hudson Flats we see North Bay, crossed by the _New

York Central Railroad_. Kinderhook Creek meets the river about three

miles north of Hudson, directly above which is Stockport Station for

Columbiaville. Four Mile Light-house is now seen on the opposite bank.

Nutten Hook, or Coxsackie Station, is four miles above Stockport.

Opposite this point, and connected by a ferry, is the village of--

=Coxsackie= (name derived from Kaak-aki, or place of wild geese, "aki"

in Indian signifies place and it is singular to find the Indian word

"Kaak" so near to the English "cackle"). Two miles north Stuyvesant

Landing is seen on the east bank, the nearest station on the _New

York Central & Hudson River Railroad_, by carriage, to Valatie and

Kinderhook. The name Kinderhook is said to have had its origin from a

point on the Hudson prolific in children; as the children were always

out of doors to see the passing craft, it was known as Kinderhook, or

"children's point." Passing Bronk's Island, due west of which empties

Coxsackie Creek, we see Stuyvesant Light-house on our right, and

approach New Baltimore, a pleasant village on the west bank, with

sloop and barge industry. About a mile above the landing is the

meeting point of four counties: Greene and Albany on the west,

Columbia and Rensselaer on the east. Beeren Island, connected with

Coeyman's Landing by small steamer, now a picnic resort, lies near the

west bank, where it will be remembered the first white child was born

on the Hudson. Here was the Castle of Rensselaertein, before which

Antony Van Corlear read again and again the proclamation of Peter

Stuyvesant, and from which he returned with a diplomatic reply,

forming one of the most humorous chapters in Irving's "Knickerbocker."

Threading our way through low-lying islands and river flats, and

"slowing down" occasionally on meeting canal boats or other river

craft, we pass Coeyman's on our left and Lower Schodack Island on

our right, due east of which is the station of Schodack Landing. The

writer of this handbook remembers distinctly a winter's evening walk

from Schodack Landing, crossing the frozen Hudson and snow-covered

island on an ill-defined trail. He was on his way to deliver his first

lecture, February, 1868, and his subject was "The Legends and Poetry

of the Hudson." Since that time he has written and re-written many

guides to the river, so that the present handbook is not a thing of

yesterday. The next morning, on his return to Schodack, he had for

his companion a young man from twenty or thirty miles inland, who had

never seen a train of cars except in the distance. On reaching the

railway, one of the New York expresses swept by, and as he caught the

motion of the bell cord he turned and said: "Do they drive it with

that little string?" Lower Schodack Island, Mills Plaat (also an

island) and Upper Schodack Island reach almost to--

=Castleton=, a pleasant village on the eastern bank, with main street

lying close to the river. The cliffs, a few miles to the north, were

known to the Indians as Scoti-ack, or place of the ever-burning

council-fire, which gave the name of Schodack to the township, where

King Aepgin, on the 8th of April, 1680, sold to Van Rensselaer "all

that tract of country on the west side of the Hudson, extending from

Beeren Island up to Smack's Island, and in breadth two days' journey."

* * *

No spot in all the world where poetry and romance

are so closely blended with the heroic in history as

along the banks of our Hudson.

_Wallace Bruce._

* * *

THE MAHICAN TRIBE originally occupied all the east bank of the Hudson

north of Roeliffe Jansen's Kill, near Germantown, to the head waters

of the Hudson; and on the west bank, from Cohoes to Catskill. The town

of Schodack was central, and a signal displayed from the hills near

Castleton could be seen for thirty miles in every direction. After the

Mahicans left the Hudson, they went to Westenhook, or Housatonic,

to the hills south of Stockbridge; and then, on invitation of the

Oneidas, removed to Oneida County, in 1785, where they lived until

1821, when, with other Indians of New York, they purchased a tract of

land near Fox River, Minnesota.

Domestic clans or families of the Mahicans lingered around their

ancient seats for some years after the close of the Revolution, but

of them, one after another, it is written, "They disappeared in the

night." In the language of Tamerund at the death of Uncas, "The

pale-faces are masters of the earth, and the time of the red men has

not yet come again. My day has been too long. In the morning I saw the

sons of Unami happy and strong; and yet before the night has come,

have I lived to see the last warrior of the race of the Mahicans."

* * *

Autumn had given uniformity of coloring to the woods.

It varied now between copper and gold, and shone like

an infinitely rich golden embroidery on the Indian veil

of mist which rested upon the heights along the Hudson.

_Harriet Martineau._

* * *

According to Ruttenber, the names and location of the Indian tribes

were not ascertained with clearness by the early Dutch settlers, but

through documents, treaties and information, subsequently obtained,

it is now settled that the Mahicans held possession "under sub-tribal

organizations" of the east bank of the river from an undefined point

north of Albany to the sea, including Long Island; that their dominion

extended east to the Connecticut, where they joined kindred tribes;

that on the west bank of the Hudson they ran down as far as Catskill,

and west to Schenectady; that they were met on the west by the

territory of the Mohawks, and on the south by tribes of the Lenni

Lenapes or Delawares, whose territory extended thence to the sea, and

west to and beyond the Delaware River. The Mahicans had a castle at

Catskill and at Cohoes Falls. The western side of the Hudson, above

Cohoes, belonged to the Mohawks, a branch of the Iroquois. Therefore,

as early as 1630, three great nations were represented on the Hudson--

=The Mahicans, the Delawares and the Iroquois.= The early French

missionaries refer to the "nine nations of Manhinyans, gathered

between Manhattan and the environs of Quebec." These several nations

have never been accurately designated, although certain general

divisions appear under the titles of Mohegan, Wappinger, Sequins,

etc. "The government of the Mahicans was a democracy. The office was

hereditary by the lineage of the wife; that is, the selection of a

successor on the death of the chief, was confined to the female branch

of the family." According to Ruttenber, the precise relation between

the Mahicans of the Hudson and the Mohegans under Uncas, the Pequot

chief, is not known. In a foot-note to this statement, he says: "The

identity of name between the Mahicans and Mohegans, induces the belief

that all these tribes belonged to the same stock,--although they

differed in dialect, in territory, and in their alliances." The two

words, therefore, must not be confounded.

* * *

Round about the Indian village

Spread the meadows and the cornfields,

Stood the groves of singing pine trees,

And beyond them stood the forest,

_Henry W. Longfellow._

* * *

It is also pleasant to remember that the Mahicans as a tribe were true

and faithful to us during the war of the Revolution, and when the six

nations met in council at Oswego, at the request of Guy Johnson and

other officers of the British army, "to eat the flesh and drink the

blood of a Bostonian," Hendrick, the Mahican, made the pledge for his

tribe at Albany, almost in the eloquent words of Ruth to Naomi, "Thy

people shall be our people, and whither thou goest we will be at your

side."

=The Mourdener's Kill=, with its sad story of a girl tied by Indians

to a horse and dragged through the valley, flows into the Hudson above

Castleton. Two miles above this near the steamer channel will be seen

Staats Island on the east, with an old stone house, said to be next in

antiquity to the old Van Rensselaer House, opposite Albany. It is also

a fact that this property passed directly to the ancestors of the

present family, the only property in this vicinity never owned by the

lord of the manor. Opposite the old stone house, the point on the west

bank is known as Parda Hook, where it is said a horse was once drowned

in a horse-race on the ice, and hence the name Parda, for the old

Hollanders along the Hudson seemed to have had a musical ear, and

delighted in accumulating syllables. (The word pard is used in Spenser

for spotted horse, and still survives in the word leopard.)

The Castleton Bar or "overslaugh," as it was known by the river

pilots, impeded for years navigation in low water. Commodore Van

Santvoord and other prominent citizens brought the subject before the

State legislature, and work was commenced in 1863. In 1868 the United

States Government very properly (as their jurisdiction extends over

tide-water), assumed the completing of the dykes, which now stretch

for miles along the banks and islands of the upper Hudson. Here and

there along our route between Coxsackie and Albany will be seen great

dredges deepening and widening the river channel. The plan provides

for a system of longitudinal dykes to confine the current sufficiently

to allow the ebb and flow of the tidal-current to keep the channel

clear. These dykes are to be gradually brought nearer together from

New Baltimore toward Troy, so as to assist the entrance of the

flood-current and increase its height.

* * *

Where Hudson winds his silver way

And murmurs at the tardy stay,

Impatient at delay.

_William Crow._

* * *

The engineers report that the greater part of the material carried in

suspension in the Hudson river above Albany is believed to come from

the Mohawk river, and its tributary the Schoharie river, while the

sands and gravel that form the heavy and obstinate bars near Albany

and chiefly between Albany and Troy, come from the upper Hudson.

The discharge of the Hudson between Troy and Albany at its lowest

stage may be taken at about 3,000 cubic feet per second. The river

supply, therefore, during that stage is inadequate in the upper part

of the river for navigation, independent of tidal flow.

The greatest number of bars is between Albany and Troy, where the

channel is narrow, and at least six obstructing bars, composed of fine

and coarse gravel and coarse and fine sand, are in existence. In many

places between Albany and Troy the navigable depth is reduced to 7½

feet by the presence of these bars.

From Albany to New Baltimore the depths are variable, the prevailing

depth being 10 feet and over, with pools of greater depth separated by

long cross-over bars, over which the greatest depth does not exceed

9 or 10 feet. Passing many delightful homes on the west bank and the

mouth of the Norman's Kill (Indian name Ta-wa-sentha, place of many

dead) and the Convent of the Sacred Heart, we see Dow's Point on the

east and above this the--

=Van Rensselaer Place=, with its port holes on either side of the door

facing the river, showing that it was built in troublesome times.

It is the oldest of the Patroon manor houses, built in 1640 or

thereabouts. It has been said that the adaptation of the old tune now

known as "Yankee Doodle" was made near the well in the grounds of the

Van Rensselaer Place by Dr. Richard Shuckberg, who was connected with

the British army when the Colonial troops from New England marched

into camp at Albany to join the British regulars on their way to fight

the French. The tune was known in New England before the Revolution as

"Lydia Fisher's Jig," a name derived from a famous lady who lived

in the reign of Charles II, and which has been perpetuated in the

following rhyme:

Lucy Locket lost her pocket,

Lydia Fisher found it;

Not a bit of money in it,

Only binding 'round it.

The appearance of the troops called down the derision of the British

officers, the hit of the doctor became known throughout the army, and

the song was used as a method of showing contempt for the Colonials

until after Lexington and Concord.

* * *

When life is old

And many a scene forgot the heart will hold

Its memory of this.

_Fitz-Greene Halleck._

* * *

=Rensselaer=, on the east bank of the river, was incorporated in 1896

by the union of Greenbush and East Albany. The old name of Greenbush,

which still survives in East Greenbush, four miles distant, was given

to it by the old Dutch settlers, and it was probably a "green-bushed"

place in early days. Now pleasant residences and villas look out upon

the river from the near bank and distant hillsides. Two railroad

bridges and a carriage bridge cross the Hudson at this point. During

the French war in 1775, Greenbush was a military rendezvous, and in

1812 the United States Government established extensive barracks,

whence troops were forwarded to Canada.

=Albany=, 144 miles from New York. (_New York Central & Hudson River

Railroad_, _Boston & Albany_, _West Shore_, _Delaware and Hudson_, the

_Hudson River Day Line_ and _People's Line_.) Its site was called by

the Indians Shaunaugh-ta-da (Schenectady), or the Pine Plains. It

was next known by the early Dutch settlers as "Beverwyck," "William

Stadt," and "New Orange." The seat of the State Government was

transferred from New York to Albany in 1798. In 1714, when 100 years

old, it had a population of about 3,000, one-sixth of whom were

slaves. In 1786 it increased to about 10,000. In 1676, the city

comprised within the limits of Pearl, Beaver and Steuben streets, was

surrounded by wooden walls with six gates. They were 13 feet high,

made of timber a foot square. It is said that a portion of these walls

were remaining in 1812. The first railroad in the State and the second

in the United States was opened from Albany to Schenectady in 1831.

The pictures of these old coaches are very amusing, and the rate of

speed was only a slight improvement on a well-organized stage line.

From an old book in the State Library we condense the following

description, presenting quite a contrast to the city of to-day:

"Albany lay stretched along the banks of the Hudson, on one very wide

and long street, parallel to the Hudson. The space between the street

and the river bank was occupied by gardens. A small but steep hill

rose above the centre of the town, on which stood a fort. The wide

street leading to the fort (now State street) had a Market-Place,

Guard-House, Town Hall, and an English and Dutch Church, in the

centre."

* * *

I wandered afar from the land of my birth,

I saw the old rivers renowned upon earth,

But fancy still painted that wide-flowing stream

With the many-hued pencil of infancy's dream.

_Oliver Wendell Holmes._

* * *

Tourists and others will be amply repaid in visiting the new Capitol

building, at the head of State Street. It is open from nine in the

morning until six in the evening. It is said to be larger than the

Capitol at Washington, and cost more than any other structure on the

American continent. The staircases, the wide corridors, the Senate

chamber, the Assembly chamber, and the Court of Appeals room, attest

the wealth and greatness of the Empire State. The visitor up State

Street will note the beautiful and commanding spire of "St. Paul." The

Cathedral is also a grand structure. The population of Albany is now

100,000, and its growth is due to three causes: First, the Capitol

was removed from New York to Albany in 1798. Then followed two great

enterprises, ridiculed at the time by every one as the _Fulton Folly

and Clinton's Ditch_--in other words, steam navigation, 1807, and the

Erie Canal, 1825. Its name was given in honor of the Duke of Albany,

although it is still claimed by some of the oldest inhabitants that,

in the golden age of those far-off times, when the good old burghers

used to ask the welfare of their neighbors, the answer was "All

bonnie," and hence the name of the hill-crowned city.

* * *

Canals, long winding, ope a watery flight,

And distant streams and seas and lakes unite;

From fair Albania toward the fading sun,

Back through the midland lengthening channels run.

_Joel Barlow._

* * *

To condense from H. P. Phelps's careful handbook of "Albany and the

Capitol:" in 1614 a stockaded trading-house was erected on an island

below the city, well defended for trading with the Indians. In 1617

another was built on the hill, near Norman's Kill. The West Indian

Company erected a fort in 1623 near the present landing of the Day

Line. In 1664 the province fell into the hands of the English and the

name was changed to Albany. In 1686 it was incorporated into a city.

It was the meeting place of the Constitutional Congress 1754,

the proposed Constitution of which, however, was never ratified.

Washington visited it in 1783. The Erie Canal was opened in 1825,

a railroad to Schenectady in 1832, the _Hudson River_ in 1851, a

consolidated road to Buffalo in 1853, and the _Susquehanna Railroad_

to Binghamton in 1869. State Street at one time was said to be the

widest city thoroughfare in the country, after Pennsylvania Avenue in

Washington. The English and Dutch Churches and other public buildings,

once in the midst of it, but long since removed, account for its

extra width. The State Capitol has a commanding site. The old Capitol

building was completed in 1808. The corner-stone of the present

building was laid June 24, 1871, and it has been occupied since

January 7, 1879. According to Phelps, "the size of the structure

impresses the beholder at once. It is 300 feet north and south by 400

feet east and west, and with the porticoes will cover three acres and

seven square feet. The walls are 108 feet high from the water-table,

and all this worked out of solid granite brought, most of it, from

Hallowell, Me."

The impression produced varies with various persons. One accomplished

writer finds it "not unlike that made by the photographs of those

gigantic structures in the northern and eastern parts of India, which

are seen in full series on the walls of the South Kensington, and by

their barbaric profusion of ornamentation and true magnificence of

design give the stay-at-home Briton some faint inkling of the empire

which has invested his queen with another and more high-sounding

title. Yet when close at hand the building does not bear out this

connection with Indian architecture of the grand style; it might be

mere chance that at a distance there is a similarity; or it may be

that the smallness of size in the decorations as compared to the

structure itself explains fully why there is a tendency to confuse the

eye by the number of projections, arches, pillars, shallow recesses,

and what-not, which variegate the different facades. The confusion is

not entirely displeasing; it gives a sense of unstinted riches, and

represents the spirit that has reared the pile."

* * *

Nor let the dear love of its children grow cold

Till the channel is dry where its waters have rolled.

_Oliver Wendell Holmes._

* * *

The Governor's room, the golden corridor, the Senate staircase, the

Senate chamber, the Assembly chamber, and the Court of Appeals room

are interesting alike for their architectural stone work, decorations

and general finish. The State Library, dating from 1818, contains

about 150,000 volumes. The Clinton papers, including Andre's documents

captured at Tarrytown, are the most interesting of many valuable

manuscripts. Here also are a sword and pistol once belonging to

General Washington. The Museum of Military Records and Relics contains

over 800 battle flags of State regiments, with several ensigns

captured from the enemy. Near the Capitol are the State Hall and City

Hall, and on the right, descending State Street, the Geological Hall,

well worthy an extended visit. The present St. Peter's Episcopal

Church, third upon the site, is of Schenectady blue stone with brown

trimmings. Its tower contains "a chime of eleven bells and another

bell marked 1751, which is used only to ring in the new year."

Washington Park, consisting of eighty acres and procured at a cost

of one million dollars, reached by a pleasant drive or by electric

railway, is a delightful resort. It is noted for its grand trees,

artistic walks and floral culture. Several fine statues are also

worthy of mention, notably that of Robert Burns (Charles Calverley,

sculptor), erected by money left for this purpose by Mrs. McPherson,

under the careful and tasteful supervision of one of Albany's

best-known citizens, Mr. Peter Kinnear. A view from Washington Park

takes in the Catskills and the Helderberg Mountains.

* * *

No wonder that his countrymen today, led by the

Congress of this great Republic, celebrate the transaction

and the scene where Washington refused to accept

a crown.

_William M. Evarts._

* * *

And now, while waiting to "throw out the plank," which puts a period

to our Hudson River division, we feel like congratulating ourselves

that the various goblins which once infested the river have become

civilized, that the winds and tides have been conquered, and that

the nine-day voyage of Hendrick Hudson and the "Half Moon" has been

reduced to the _nine-hour system_ of the Hudson River Day Line.

Those who have traveled over Europe will certainly appreciate the

quiet luxury of an American steamer; and this first introduction to

American scenery will always charm the tourist from other lands. No

single day's journey in any land or on any stream can present such

variety, interest, and beauty, as the trip of one hundred and

forty-four miles from New York to Albany. The Hudson is indeed a

goodly volume, with its broad covers of green _lying open_ on either

side; and it might in truth be called a _condensed_ history, for there

is no other place in our country where poetry and romance are so

strangely blended with the heroic and the historic,--no river where

the waves of different civilizations have left so many waifs upon the

banks. It is classic ground, from the "wilderness to the sea," and

will always be the poets' corner of our country: the home of Irving,

Willis, and Morris,--of Fulton, Morse, and Field,--of Cole, Audubon,

and Church,--and of scores besides, whose names are household words.

* * *

The Hudson's cable-tow of yore

Bound gallant sire and sturdy son

With hearty grasp from shore to shore

For Robert Burns and Washington.

_Wallace Bruce._

* * *