PAPER CANOE MARIA THERESA. -- THE START. -- THE DESCENT
OF THE HUDSON RIVER. -- CROSSING THE UPPER BAY OF NEW
YORK. -- PASSAGE OF THE KILLS. -- RARITAN RIVER -- THE
CANAL ROUTE FROM NEW BRUNSWICK TO THE DELAWARE
RIVER. -- FROM BORDENTOWN TO PHILADELPHIA.
My canoe of the English "Nautilus" type
was completed by the middle of October;
and on the cold, drizzly morning of the 21st of
the same month I embarked in my little
fifty-eight pound craft from the landing of the
paper-boat manufactory on the river Hudson, two miles
above Troy. Mr. George A. Waters put his
own canoe into the water, and proposed to
escort me a few miles down the river. If I
had any misgivings as to the stability of my
paper canoe upon entering her for the first time,
they were quickly dispelled as I passed the
stately Club-house of the Laureates, which
contained nearly forty shells, all of paper.
The dimensions of the Maria Theresa were:
length, fourteen feet; beam, twenty-eight inches;
depth, amidships, nine inches; height of bow
from horizontal line, twenty-three inches; height
of stern, twenty inches. The canoe was
one-eighth of an inch in thickness, and weighed
fifty-eight pounds. She was fitted with a pair
of steel outriggers, which could be easily
unshipped and stowed away. The oars were of
spruce, seven feet eight inches long, and weighed
three pounds and a quarter each. The double
paddle, which was seven feet six inches in length,
weighed two pounds and a half. The mast
and sail -- which are of no service on such a
miniature vessel, and were soon
discarded -- weighed six pounds. When I took on board at
Philadelphia the canvas deck-cover and the
rubber strap which secured it in position, and the
outfit, -- the cushion, sponge, provision-basket,
and a fifteen-pound case of charts, -- I found that,
with my own weight included (one hundred and
thirty pounds), the boat and her cargo, all told,
provisioned for a long cruise, fell considerably
short of the weight of three Saratoga trunks
containing a very modest wardrobe for a lady's
four weeks' visit at a fashionable watering-place.
<IMG SRC=images/kayak.gif ALT="The Aboriginal Type (Kayak)
- The Improved Type (Maria Theresa)">
The rain ceased, the mists ascended, and the
sunlight broke upon us as we swiftly descended
upon the current of the Hudson to Albany. The
city was reached in an hour and a half. Mr.
Waters, pointing his canoe northward, wished me
bon voyage, and returned to the scene of the
triumphs of his patient labors, while I settled down
to a steady row southward. At Albany, the
capital of the state, which is said to be one
hundred and fifty miles distant from New York city,
there is a tidal rise and fall of one foot.
A feeling of buoyancy and independence came
over me as I glided on the current of this noble
stream, with the consciousness that I now
possessed the right boat for my enterprise. It had
been a dream of my youth to become acquainted
with the charms of this most romantic river of
the American continent. Its sources are in the
clouds of the Adirondacks, among the cold peaks
of the northern wilderness; its ending may be
said to be in the briny waters of the Atlantic,
for its channel-way has been sounded outside
of the sandy beaches of New York harbor in
the bosom of the restless ocean. The highest
types of civilized life are nurtured upon its banks.
Noble edifices, which contain and preserve the
works of genius and of mechanical art, rear their
proud roofs from among these hills on the lofty
sites of the picturesque Hudson. The wealth
of the great city at its mouth, the metropolis of
the young nation, has been lavished upon the
soil of the river's borders to make it even more
beautiful and more fruitful. What river in
America, along the same length of coast-lines
as from Troy to New York (one hundred and
fifty-six miles), can rival in natural beauty
and artificial applications of wealth the lovely
Hudson? "The Hudson River," says its genial
historian, Mr. Lossing, "from its birth among
the mountains to its marriage with the ocean,
measures a distance of full three hundred
miles."
Captain John Smith's friend, the Englishman
Henry Hudson, while in the employ of the
Dutch East India Company, in his vessel of
ninety tons, the Half-Moon, being in search
of a northwest passage south of Virginia, cast
anchor outside of Sandy Hook, September 3,
1609, and on the 11th passed up through the
Narrows into the present bay of New York.
Under the firm conviction that he was on his
way to the long-sought Cathay, a day later he
entered the Hudson River, where now stands
the proud metropolis of America. As the Half-Moon
ascended the river the water lost its
saltness, and by the time they were anchored where
the city of Albany now stands all hopes of Cathay
faded from the heart of the mariner. Englishmen
called this river in honor of its discoverer, but the
Dutch gave it the name of North River,
the Delaware had been discovered and named
South River. Thus, while in 1609 Samuel
Champlain was exploring the lake which bears
his name, Hudson was ascending his river upon
the southern water-shed. The historian tells us
that these bold explorers penetrated the
wilderness, one from the north and the other from the
south, to within one hundred miles of each other.
The same historian (Dr. Lossing) says: "The
most remote source of the extreme western
branch of our noble river is Hendricks Spring,
so named in honor of Hendricks Hudson. We
found Hendricks Spring in the edge of a swamp,
cold, shallow, about five feet in diameter,
shaded by trees, shrubbery, and vines, and fringed
with the delicate brake and fern. Its waters,
rising within half a mile of Long Lake, and upon
the same summit-level, flow southward to the
Atlantic more than three hundred miles; while
those of the latter flow to the St. Lawrence, and
reach the same Atlantic a thousand miles away
to the far northeast."
Since Dr. Lossing visited the western head of
the Hudson River, the true and highest source
of the stream has probably been settled by a
gentleman possessing scientific acquirements and
inflexible purpose. On the plateau south of
Mount Marcy, State-Surveyor Colvin found
the little Lake Tear-of-the-Clouds to be the
loftiest sheet of water in the state, -- four
thousand three hundred and twenty-six feet above
the sea, -- and proved it to be the lake-head of
the great river Hudson. A second little pond in
a marsh on a high plateau, at the foot of Mount
Redfield, was also discovered, -- "margined and
embanked with luxuriant and deep sphagnous
moss," -- which was named by the party Moss
Lake. It was found to flow into the Hudson.
A beautiful little bivalve shell, three-sixteenths
of an inch in diameter, of an undescribed species,
was found in the pellucid water, and thus a new
shell was handed over to conchology, and a new
river source to geography, in the same hour.
This pool is four thousand three hundred and
twelve feet above tide-water, and only a few feet
lower than its sister, Tear-of-the-Clouds -- the
highest source of the Hudson.
Should the state of New York adopt Mr.
Colvin's suggestion, to reserve six hundred square
miles of the Adirondack region for a public park,
the pool Tear-of-the-Clouds will be within the
reservation. The waters of these baby
fountains are swollen by contributions from the
streams, ponds, and lakes of the Adirondack
wilderness, until along the banks of Fishing
Brook, a tributary of the Hudson, the water is
utilized at the first saw-mill. A few miles lower
down the forests are vexed by the axe of the
lumbermen, and logs are floated down the river
one hundred miles to Glens Falls, where the
State Dam and Great Boom are located. Half
a million logs have been gathered there in a
single spring.
It was upon the Hudson that the first
successful steamboat, built by Robert Fulton, made
its voyage to Albany, the engine having been
built by Watt & Bolton, in England.
From Mr. Lossing we obtain the following.
"The Clermont was one hundred feet long,
twelve feet wide, and seven feet deep. The
following advertisement appeared in the Albany
Gazette on the 1st of September, 1807:
"The North River steamboat will leave Paulus Hook (Jersey
City) on Friday, the 4th of September, at 9 in the morning, and
arrive at Albany on Saturday at 9 in the afternoon. Provisions,
good berths, and accommodations are provided. The charge to
each passenger is as follows:
To Newburgh, . . . . 3 Dollars. . . Time, 14 hours.
" Poughkeepsie, . . 4 " . . . . " 17 "
" Esopus, . . . . 5 " . . . . " 20 "
" Hudson, . . . . 5-1/2" . . . . " 30 "
" Albany, . . . . 7 " . . . . " 36 " ."
The trip, which was made against a strong
head wind, was entirely successful. The large
steamers can now make the trip from New York
to Albany in about ten hours.
As I pulled easily along the banks of the river,
my eyes feasted upon the gorgeous coloring of
the autumnal foliage, which formed a scene of
beauty never to be forgotten. The rapid
absorption of oxygen by the leaves in the fall months
produces, in northern America, these vivid tints
which give to the country the appearance of a
land covered with a varied and brilliant garment,
"a coat of many colors." A soft hazy light
pervaded the atmosphere, while at the same time
the October air was gently exhilarating to the
nervous system. At six o'clock P. M. the canoe
arrived at Hudson City, which is on the east
bank of the river, and I completed a row of
thirty-eight statute miles, according to local
authority; but in reality forty-nine miles by the
correct charts of the United States Coast Survey.
After storing the Maria Theresa in a shed, I
repaired to a dismal hotel for the night.
At seven o'clock the next morning the river
was mantled in a dense fog, but I pushed off and
guided myself by the sounds of the running
trains on the Hudson River Railroad. This
corporation does such an immense amount of
freighting that, if their freight trains were
connected, a continuous line of eighty miles would
be constructed, of which sixteen miles are
always in transit day and night. Steamboats
and tugs with canal-boats in tow were groping
about the river in the misty darkness, blowing
whistles every few minutes to let people know
that the pilot was not sleeping at the wheel.
There was a grand clearing up at noon; and as
the sun broke through the mist, the beautiful
shores came into view like a vivid flame of
scarlet, yellow, brown, and green. It was the
death-song of summer, and her dying notes the
tinted leaves, each one giving to the wind a sad
strain as it softly dropped to the earth, or was
quickly hurled into space.
A few miles south of Hudson City, on the
west bank, the Catskill stream enters the river.
From this point the traveller may penetrate the
picturesque country of the Appalachian range,
where its wild elevations were called Onti Ora,
or "mountains of the sky," by the aborigines.
Roundout, on the right bank of the Hudson,
is the terminus of the Delaware and Hudson
Canal, which connects it with Port Jervis on the
Delaware, a distance of fifty-four miles. This
town, the outlet of the coal regions, I passed
after meridian. As I left Hudson on the first of
the flood-tide, I had to combat it for several
hours; but I easily reached Hyde Park Landing
(which is on the left bank of the stream and, by
local authority, thirty-five miles from Hudson
City) at five o'clock P. M. The wharf-house
sheltered the canoe, and a hotel in the village,
half a mile distant on the high plains, its owner.
I was upon the river by seven o'clock the next
morning. The day was varied by strong gusts
of wind succeeded by calms. Six miles south
of Hyde Park is the beautiful city of
Poughkeepsie with its eighteen thousand inhabitants,
and the celebrated Vassar Female College. Eight
miles down the river, and on the same side, is a
small village called New Hamburg. The rocky
promontory at the foot of which the town is
built is covered with the finest arbor vitae forest
probably in existence. Six miles below, on
west bank, is the important city of Newburg,
one of the termini of the New York and Erie
Railroad. Four miles below, the river narrows
and presents a grand view of the north entrance
of the Highlands, with the Storm King Mountain
rising fully one thousand five hundred feet above
the tide. The early Dutch navigators gave to
this peak the name of Boter-burg (Butter-Hill),
but it was rechristened Storm King by the
author N. P. Willis, whose late residence, Idlewild,
commands a fine view of Newburg Bay.
When past the Storm King, the Crow-Nest and
the almost perpendicular front of Kidd's Plug
Cliff tower aloft, and mark the spot where Kidd
(as usual) was supposed to have buried a
portion of that immense sum of money with which
popular belief invests hundreds of localities
along the watercourses of the continent. Now
the Narrows above West Point were entered
and the current against a head-wind made the
passage unusually exciting. The paper canoe
danced over the boiling expanse of water, and
neared the west shore about a mile above the
United States Military Academy, when a shell,
from a gun on the grounds of that institution
burst in the water within a few feet of the boat.
I now observed a target set upon a little flat at
the foot of a gravelly hill close to the beach.
As a second, and finally a third shell exploded
near me, I rowed into the rough water, much
disgusted with cadet-practice and military etiquette.
After dark the canoe was landed on the deck of
a schooner which was discharging slag or cinder
at Fort Montgomery Landing. I scrambled up
the hill to the only shelter that could be found, a
small country store owned by a Captain Conk
who kept entertainment for the traveller. Rough
fellows and old crones came in to talk about the
spooks that had been seen in the neighboring
hills. It was veritable "Sleepy Hollow" talk.
The physician of the place, they said, had been
"skert clean off a bridge the other night."
Embarking the following morning from this
weird and hilly country, that prominent natural
feature, Anthony's Nose, which was located on
the opposite shore, strongly appealed to my
imagination and somewhat excited my mirth. One
needs a powerful imagination, I thought, to live
in these regions where the native element, the
hill-folk, dwell so fondly and earnestly upon the
ghostly and mysterious. Three miles down the
river, Dunderberg, "the thundering mountain,"
on the west bank, with the town of Peekskill on
the opposite shore, was passed, and I entered
Haverstraw Bay, the widest part of the river.
"Here," says the historian, "the fresh and salt
water usually contend, most equally, for the
mastery; and here the porpoise is often seen in
large numbers sporting in the summer sun. Here
in the spring vast numbers of shad are caught
while on their way to spawning-beds in
freshwater coves." Haverstraw Bay was crossed, and
Tarrytown passed, when I came to the
picturesque little cottage of a great man now gone
from among us. Many pleasant memories of
his tales rose in my mind as I looked upon
Sunnyside, the home of Washington Irving,
nestled in the grove of living green, its white
stuccoed walls glistening in the bright sunlight,
and its background of grand villas looming up on
every side. At Irvington Landing, a little further
down the river, I went ashore to pass Sunday
with friends; and on the Monday following, in a
dense fog, proceeded on my route to New York.
Below Irvington the far-famed "Palisades,"
bold-faced precipices of trap-rock, offer their
grandest appearance on the west side of the
Hudson. These singular bluffs, near Hoboken,
present a perpendicular front of three hundred or
four hundred feet in height. Piles of broken rock
rest against their base: the contribution of the
cliffs above from the effects of frost and sun.
While approaching the great city of New
York, strong squalls of wind, blowing against
the ebb-tide, sent swashy waves into my open
canoe, the sides of which, amidships, were only
five or six inches above water; but the great
buoyancy of the light craft and its very smooth
exterior created but little friction in the water
and made her very seaworthy, when carefully
watched and handled, even without a deck of
canvas or wood. While the canoe forged ahead
through the troubled waters, and the breezes
loaded with the saltness of the sea now near at
hand struck my back, I confess that a longing to
reach Philadelphia, where I could complete my
outfit and increase the safety of my little craft,
gave renewed vigor to my stroke as I exchanged
the quiet atmosphere of the country for the
smoke and noise of the city. Every instinct was
now challenged, and every muscle brought into
action, as I dodged tug-boats, steamers, yachts,
and vessels, while running the thoroughfare
along the crowded wharves between New York
on one side and Jersey City on the other. I
found the slips between the piers most excellent
ports of refuge at times, when the ferry-boats,
following each other in quick succession, made
the river with its angry tide boil like a vortex.
The task soon ended, and I left the Hudson at
Castle Garden and entered the upper bay of New
York harbor. As it was dark, I would gladly
have gone ashore for the night, but a great city
offers no inducement for a canoeist to land as a
stranger at its wharves.
A much more pleasant reception awaited me
down on Staten Island, a gentleman having
notified me by mail that he would welcome the
canoe and its owner. The ebb had ceased, and
the incoming tide was being already felt close
in shore; so with tide and wind against me,
and the darkness of night settling down gloomily
upon the wide bay, I pulled a strong oar for five
miles to the entrance of Kill Van Kull Strait,
which separates Staten Island from New Jersey
and connects the upper bay with Raritan Bay.
The bright beams from the light-house on
Robbin's Reef, which is one mile and a quarter
off the entrance of the strait, guided me on my
course. The head-sea, in little, splashy waves,
began to fill my canoe. The water soon reached
the foot-rest; but there was no time to stop to
bale out the boat, for a friendly current was near,
and if once reached, my little craft would enter
smoother waters. The flood which poured into
the mouth of Kill Van Kull soon caught my
boat, and the head-tide was changed to a favorable
current which carried me in its strong arms
far into the salt-water strait, and I reached West
New Brighton, along the high banks of which I
found my haven of rest. Against the sky I
traced the outlines of my land-mark, three
poplars, standing sentinel-like before the house of
the gentleman who had so kindly offered me his
hospitality. The canoe was emptied of its
shifting liquid ballast and carefully sponged dry.
My host and his son carried it into the main hall
of the mansion and placed it upon the floor,
where the entire household gathered, an
admiring group. Proud, indeed, might my dainty
craft have been of the appreciation of so lovely
a company. her master fully appreciated the
generous board of his kind host, and in present
comfort soon forgot past trials and his wet pull
across the upper bay of New York harbor.
My work for the next day, October 27th, was
the navigation of the interesting strait of the old
Dutch settlers and the Raritan River, of New
Jersey, as far as New Brunswick. The average
width of Kill Van Kull is three-eighths of a mile.
From its entrance, at Constable's Point, to the
mouth of Newark Bay, which enters it on the
Jersey side, it is three miles, and nearly two
miles across the bay to Elizabethport. Bergen
Point is on the east and Elizabethport on the west
entrance of the bay, while on Staten Island, New
Brighton, Factoryville, and North Shore, furnish
homes for many New York business men.
At Elizabethport the strait narrows to one
eighth of a mile, and as the mouth of the
Rahway is approached it widens. It now runs
through marshes for most of the way, a distance
of twelve miles to Raritan Bay, which is an arm
of the lower bay of New York harbor. The
strait, from Elizabethport to its mouth, is called
Arthur Kill; the whole distance through the
Kills, from Constable's Point to Raritan Bay, is
about seventeen statute miles. At the mouth of
Arthur Kill the Raritan River opens to the bay,
and the city of Perth Amboy rests on the point
of high land between the river and the strait.
Roseville and Tottenville are on the Staten
Island shores of Arthur Kill, the former six
miles, the latter ten miles from Elizabethport.
The tide runs swiftly through the Kills.
Leaving Mr. Campbell's residence at nine A. M., with
a tide in my favor as far as Newark Bay, I soon
had the tide against me from the other Kill until
I passed the Rahway River, when it commenced
to ebb towards Raritan Bay. The marshy shores
of the Kills were submerged in places by the
high tide, but their monotony was relieved by
the farms upon the hills back of the flats.
At one o'clock my canoe rounded the heights
upon which Perth Amboy is perched, with its
snug cottages, the homes of many oystermen
whose fleet of boats was anchored in front of the
town. Curious yard-like pens constructed of
poles rose out of the water, in which boats could
find shelter from the rough sea.
The entrance to the Raritan River is wide,
and above its mouth it is crossed by a long
railroad bridge. The pull up the crooked river
(sixteen miles) against a strong ebb-tide, through
extensive reedy marshes, was uninteresting. I
came upon the entrance of the canal which connects
the rivers Raritan and Delaware after six
o'clock P. M., which at this season of the year
was after dark. Hiding the canoe in a secure
place I went to visit an old friend, Professor
George Cook, of the New Jersey State Geological
Survey, who resides at New Brunswick. In the
morning the professor kindly assisted me, and
we climbed the high bank of the canal with the
canoe upon our shoulders, putting it into the
water below the first two locks. I now
commenced an unexciting row of forty-two miles to
Bordentown, on the Delaware, where this
artificial watercourse ends.
This canal is much travelled by steam tugs
towing schooners of two hundred tons, and by
barges and canal-boats of all sizes drawing not
above seven feet and a half of water. The
boats are drawn through the locks by stationary
steam-engines, the use of which is discontinued
when the business becomes slack; then the
boatmen use their mules for the same purpose. To
tow an average-sized canal-boat, loaded, requires
four mules, while an empty one is easily drawn
by two. It proved most expeditious as well as
convenient not to trouble the lock-master to open
the gates, but to secure his assistance in carrying
the canoe along the tow-path to the end of the
lock, which service occupied less than five
minutes. In this way the canoe was carried around
seven locks the first day, and when dusk
approached she was sheltered beside a paper shell
in the boat-house of Princeton College Club,
which is located on the banks of the canal about
one mile and a half from the city of Princeton.
In this narrow watercourse these
indefatigable collegians, under great disadvantages, drill
their crews for the annual intercollegiate struggle
for championship. One Noah Reed provided
entertainment for man and beast at his country
inn half a mile from the boat-house, and thither
I repaired for the night.
This day's row of twenty-six miles and a
half had been through a hilly country,
abounding in rich farm lands which were well
cultivated. The next morning an officer of the
Princeton Bank awaited my coming on the banks
of the sluggish canal. He had taken an early
walk from the town to see the canoe. At
Baker's Basin the bridge-tender, a one-legged man,
pressed me to tarry till he could summon the
Methodist minister, who had charged him to
notify him of the approach of a paper canoe.
Through all my boat journeys I have remarked
that professional men take more interest in canoe
journeys than professional oarsmen; and nearly
all the canoeists of my acquaintance are
ministers of the gospel. It is an innocent way of
obtaining relaxation; and opportunities thus offered
the weary clergyman of studying nature in her
ever-changing but always restful moods, must
indeed be grateful after being for months in daily
contact with the world, the flesh, and the devil.
The tendency of the present age to liberal ideas
permits clergymen in large towns and cities to
drive fast horses, and spend an hour of each day
at a harmless game of billiards, without giving
rise to remarks from his own congregation, but
let the overworked rector of a country village
seek in his friendly canoe that relief which nature
offers to the tired brain, let him go into the
wilderness and live close to his Creator by studying
his works, and a whole community vex him on
his return with "the appearance of the thing."
These self-constituted critics, who are generally
ignorant of the laws which God has made to
secure health and give contentment to his creatures,
would poison the sick man's body with drugs and
nostrums when he might have the delightful and
generally successful services of Dr. Camp Cure
without the after dose of a bill. These
hardworked and miserably paid country clergymen,
who are rarely, nowadays, treated as the head
of the congregation or the shepherd of the flock
they are supposed to lead, but rather as victims
of the whims of influential members of the
church, tell me that to own a canoe is indeed a
cross, and that if they spend a vacation in the
grand old forests of the Adirondacks, the
brethren are sorely exercised over the time wasted in
such unusual and unministerial conduct.
Everywhere along the route the peculiar
character of the paper canoe attracted many remarks
from the bystanders. The first impression given
was that I had engaged in this rowing enterprise
under the stimulus of a bet; and when the
curious were informed that it was a voyage of
study, the next question was "How much are you
going to make out of it?" Upon learning that
there was neither a bet nor money in it, a shade
of disappointment and incredulity rested upon
the features of the bystanders, and the canoeist
was often rated as a "blockhead" for risking his
life without being paid for it.
At Trenton the canal passes through the city
and here it was necessary to carry the boat
around two locks. At noon the canoe ended
her voyage of forty-two miles by reaching the
last lock, on the Delaware River, at Bordentown,
New Jersey, where friendly arms received the
Maria Theresa and placed her on the trestles
which had supported her sister craft, the Mayeta,
in the shop of the builder, Mr. J. S. Lamson,
situated under the high cliffs along the crests of
which an ex-king of Spain, in times gone by,
was wont to walk and sadly ponder on his exile
from la belle France.
The Rev. John H. Barkeley, proprietor as well
as principal of the Bordentown Female
Seminary, took me to his ancient mansion, where
Thomas Paine, of old Revolutionary war times,
had lodged. Not the least attraction in the
home of my friend was the group of fifty young
ladies, who were kind enough to gather upon a
high bluff when I left the town, and wave
graceful farewell to the paper canoe as she
entered the tidal current of the river Delaware en
route for the Quaker city.
During my short stay in Bordentown Mr.
Isaac Gabel kindly acted as my guide and we
explored the Bonaparte Park, which is on the
outskirts of the town. The grounds are
beautifully laid out. Some of the old houses of the
ex-king's friends and attendants still remain in a
fair state of preservation. The elegant residence
of Joseph Bonaparte, or the Count de
Surveilliers, which was always open to American
visitors of all classes, was torn down by Mr. Hairy
Beckon, an Englishman in the diplomatic
service of the British government, who purchased
this property some years after the Count returned
to Europe, and erected a more elaborate
mansion near the old site. The old citizens of
Bordentown hold in grateful remembrance the
favors showered upon them by Joseph Bonaparte
and his family, who seem to have lived a
democratic life in the grand old park. The Count
returned to France in 1838, and never visited
the United States again. New Jersey had
welcomed the exiled monarch, and had given him
certain legal privileges in property rights which
New York had refused him; so he settled upon
the lovely shores of the fair Delaware, and
lavished his wealth upon the people of the state
that had so kindly received him. The citizens
of neighboring states becoming somewhat
jealous of the good luck that had befallen New
Jersey in her capture of the Spanish king, applied
to the state the cognomen of "New Spain,"
and called the inhabitants thereof "Spaniards."
The Delaware River, the Makeriskitton of the
savage, upon whose noble waters my paper
canoe was now to carry me southward, has its
sources in the western declivity of the Catskill
Mountains, in the state of New York. It is fed
by two tributary streams, the Oquago (or
Coquago) and the Popacton, which unite their
waters at the boundary line of Pennsylvania, at
the northeast end of the state, from which it
flows southward seventy miles, separating the
Empire and Keystone states. When near Port
Jervis, which town is connected with Rondout
on the Hudson River, by the Hudson and
Delaware Canal, the Delaware turns sharply to the
southwest, and becomes the boundary line
between the states of New Jersey and
Pennsylvania. Below Easton the river again takes a
Southeasterly course, and flowing past Trenton,
Bristol, Bordentown, Burlington, Philadelphia,
Camden, Newcastle, and Delaware City, empties
its waters into Delaware Bay about forty miles
below Philadelphia.
This river has about the same length as the
Hudson -- three hundred miles. The tide
reaches one hundred and thirty-two miles from
the sea at Cape May and Cape Henlopen.
Philadelphia is the head of navigation for vessels of
the heaviest tonnage; Trenton for light-draught
steamboats. At Bordentown the river is less
than half a mile wide; at Philadelphia it is
three-fourths of a mile in width; while at
Delaware City it widens to two miles and a half.
Delaware Bay is twenty-six miles across in the
widest part, which is some miles within the
entrance of the Capes.
October 31st was cool and gusty. The river
route to Philadelphia is twenty-nine statute miles.
The passage was made against a strong head-wind,
with swashy waves, which made me again regret
that I did not have my canoe-decking made at
Troy, instead of at Philadelphia. The
highly cultivated farms and beautiful country-seats along
both the Pennsylvania and New Jersey sides
of the river spoke highly of the rich character
of the soil and the thrift of the inhabitants.
These river counties of two states may be called
a land of plenty, blessed with bountiful
harvests.
Quaker industry and wise economy in
managing the agricultural affairs of this section in
the early epochs of our country's settlement
have borne good fruit. All praise to the
memory of William Penn of Pennsylvania and his
worthy descendants. The old towns of
Bristol on the right, and Burlington on the left
bank, embowered in vernal shades, have a most
comfortable and home-like appearance.
At five o'clock P. M. I arrived at the city pier
opposite the warehouse of Messrs. C. P. Knight
& Brother, No. 114 South Delaware Avenue,
where, after a struggle with wind and wave for
eight hours, the canoe was landed and deposited
with the above firm, the gentlemen of which
kindly offered to care for it while I tarried in
the "City of Brotherly Love."
Among the many interesting spots hallowed
by memories of the past in which Philadelphia
abounds, and which are rarely sought out by
visitors, two especially claim the attention of
the naturalist. One is the old home of
William Bartram, on the banks of the Schuylkill at
Grey's Ferry; the other, the grave of Alexander
Wilson, friends and co-laborers in nature's
extended field; -- the first a botanist, the second the
father of American ornithology.
William Bartram, son of the John Bartram
who was the founder of the Botanic Garden on
the west bank of the Schuylkill, was born at
that interesting spot in 1739. All botanists are
familiar with the results of his patient labors and
his pioneer travels in those early days, through
the wilderness of what now constitutes the
southeastern states. One who visited him at his
home says: "Arrived at the botanist's garden,
we approached an old man who, with a rake in
his hand, was breaking the clods of earth in a
tulip-bed. His hat was old, and flapped over
his Etee; his coarse shirt was seen near his neck,
as he wore no cravat nor kerchief; his waistcoat
and breeches were both of leather, and his shoes
were tied with leather strings. We approached
and accosted him. He ceased his work, and
entered into conversation with the ease and
politeness of nature's nobleman. His
countenance was expressive of benignity and
happiness. This was the botanist, traveller and
philosopher we had come to see."
William Bartram gave important assistance
and encouragement to the friendless Scotch
pedagogue, Alexander Wilson, while the latter was
preparing his American Ornithology for the
press. This industrious and peaceable botanist
died within the walls of his dearly-loved home
a few minutes after he had penned a description
of a plant. He died in 1823, in the eighty-fifth
year of his age. The old house of John and
William Bartram remains nearly the same as
when the last Bartram died, but the grounds
have been occupied and improved by the present
proprietor, whose fine mansion is near the old
residence of the two botanists.
Without ample funds to enable him to carry
out his bold design, Alexander Wilson labored
and suffered in body and mind for several years,
until his patient and persistent efforts achieved
the success they so richly merited. All but the
last volume of his American Ornithology were
completed when the overworked naturalist died.
The old Swedes' Church is the most ancient
religious edifice in Philadelphia, and is located
near the wharves in the vicinity of Christian and
Swanson streets, in the old district of
Southwark. The Swedes had settlements on the
Delaware before Penn visited America. They built
a wooden edifice for worship in 1677, on the
spot where the brick "Swedes' Church" now
stands, and which was erected in 1700.
Threading narrow streets, with the stenographic
reporter of the courts, Mr. R. A. West, for my
guide, we came into a quiet locality where the
ancient landmark reared its steeple, like the
finger of faith pointing heavenward. Few indeed
must be the fashionable Christians who worship
under its unpretentious roof, but there is an air
of antiquity surrounding it which interests every
visitor who enters its venerable doorway.
The church-yard is very contracted in area
yet there is room for trees to grow within its
sacred precincts, and birds sometimes rest there
while pursuing their flight from the Schuylkill
to the Delaware. Among the crowded graves
is a square brick structure, covered with an
horizontal slab of white marble, upon which I read:
"THIS MONUMENT COVER5 THE REMAINS OF
ALEXANDER WILSON,
AUTHOR OF THE AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY.
HE WAS BORN IN RENFREWSHIRE, SCOTLAND, ON THE 6 JULY, 1766;
EMIGRATED TO THE UNITED STATES IN THE YEAR 1794;
AND DIED IN PHILADELPHIA, OF THE DYSENTERY,
ON THE 23 AUGUST, 1813, AGED 47.
Ingenio stat sine morte decus."
Philadelphia has been called the, "city of
homes," and well does she merit that
comfortably sounding title, for it is not a misnomer.
Unlike some other large American cities, the
artisan and laborer can here own a home by
becoming a member of a building association
and paying the moderate periodical dues. Miles
upon miles of these cosy little houses, of five or
six rooms each, may be found, the inmates of
which are a good and useful class of citizens,
adding strength to the city's discipline and
government.
The grand park of three thousand acres, one
of, if not the largest in the world, is near at
hand, where the poor as well as the rich can
resort at pleasure. I took leave of the beautiful
and well laid-out city with a pang of regret not
usual with canoeists, who find it best for their
comfort and peace of mind to keep with their
dainty crafts away from the heterogeneous and
not over-civil population which gathers along
the water-fronts of a port.