the country was very thinly settled. The inhabitants for the most part
took the continental side; but at the battle of Hoosac, a few miles from
Ballston, a man was taken prisoner by the Americans, whose history
exhibits some fine traits of character. He was a plain farmer from this
neighbourhood, named Richard Jackson, and had conscientiously taken the
British side in the contest. Feeling himself bound of course to employ
himself in the service of his sovereign, he no sooner heard that Colonel
Baum was advancing, than he saddled his horse and rode to Hoosac,
intending to attach himself to this corps. Here he was taken, in such
circumstances as proved his intention beyond every reasonable doubt. He
was, besides, too honest to deny it. Accordingly he was transmitted to
Great Barrington, then the shire-town of Berkshire, and placed in the
hands of General Fellows, high sheriff of the county, who immediately
confined him in the county gaol. This building was at that time so
infirm, that without a guard no prisoner could be kept in it who wished
to make his escape. To escape, however, was in no degree consonant with
Richard’s idea of right; and he thought no more seriously of making an
attempt of this nature, than he would have done had he been in his own
house. After he had lain quietly in gaol a few days, he told the sheriff
that he was losing his time, and earning nothing, and wished that he
would permit him to go out and work in the day time, promising to return
regularly at evening to his quarters in the prison. The sheriff had
become acquainted with his character, and readily acceded to his
proposal. Accordingly Richard went out regularly during the remaining
part of the autumn, and the following winter and spring, until the
beginning of May, and every night returned at the proper hour to the
gaol. In this manner he performed a day’s work every day, with scarcely
any exception beside the Sabbath, through the whole period.
In the month of May he was to be tried for high treason. The sheriff
accordingly made preparations to conduct him to Springfield, where his
trial was to be held; but he told the sheriff that it was not worth his
while to take this trouble, for he could just as well go alone, and it
would save both the expense and inconvenience of the sheriff’s journey.
The sheriff, after a little reflection, assented to his proposal, and
Richard commenced his journey; the only one, it is believed, which was
ever undertaken in the same manner for the same object. In the woods of
Tyringham he was overtaken by the Hon. T. Edwards, from whom I had this
story.—“Whither are you going?” said Mr. Edwards. “To Springfield,
Sir,” answered Richard, “to be tried for my life.” Accordingly he
proceeded directly to Springfield, surrendered himself to the sheriff of
Hampshire, was tried, found guilty, and condemned to die.
The council of Massachusets was at this time the supreme executive of
the State. Application was made to this board for a pardon. The facts
were stated, the evidence by which they were supported, and the sentence
grounded on them. The question was then put by the president, “Shall a
pardon be granted to Richard Jackson?” The gentleman who spoke first
observed that the case was perfectly clear; the act alleged against
Jackson was unquestionably high treason; and the proof was complete. If
a pardon should be granted in this case, he saw no reason why it should
not be granted in every other. In the same manner answered those who
followed him. When it came to the turn of Mr. Edwards, he told this
story with those little circumstances of particularity, which, though
they are easily lost from the memory, and have escaped mine, give light
and shade, a living reality, and a picturesque impressiveness, to every
tale which is fitted to enforce conviction, or to touch the heart. At
the same time he recited it without enhancement, without expatiating,
without any attempt to be pathetic. As is always the case, this
simplicity gave the narration its full force. The council began to
hesitate. One of the members at length observed—“Certainly such a man
as this ought not to be sent to the gallows.” To his opinion the members
unanimously assented. A pardon was immediately made out and transmitted
to Springfield, and Richard returned to his family.
Never was a stronger proof exhibited, that honesty is wisdom.
[Illustration]
THE NARROWS, FROM FORT HAMILTON.
* * * * *
Not quite one hundred years after Verrazzano’s discovery of the Bay of
New York, during all which period we have no account of its having been
visited by an European vessel, Hudson made the Capes of Virginia on his
third cruise in search of the north-west passage. Standing still on a
northward course, he arrived in sight of the Narrows, distinguishing
from a great distance the Highlands of Never Sink, which his mate,
Robert Juet, describes in the journal he kept as a “very good land to
fall with, and a pleasant land to see.”
The most interesting peculiarity of our country to a European observer,
is the freshness of its early history, and the strong contrast it
presents of most of the features of a highly civilized land, with the
youth and recent adventure of a newly discovered one. The details of
these first discoveries are becoming every day more interesting: and to
accompany a drawing of the Narrows, or entrance to the Bay of New York,
the most fit illustration is that part of the journal of the great
navigator which relates to his first view of them. The following
extracts describe the Narrows as they were two hundred years ago: the
drawing presents them as they are.
“At three of the clock in the afternoone we came to three great rivers.
So we stood along to the northernmost, thinking to have gone into it,
but we found it to have a very shoald barre before it, for we had but
ten foot water. Then we cast about to the southward, and found two
fathoms, three fathoms, and three and a quarter, till we came to the
souther side of them, then we had five or six fathoms, and anchored. So
we sent in our boat to sound, and they found no less water than foure,
five, six, and seven fathoms, and returned in an hour and a halfe. So we
weighed and went in, and rode in five fathoms, ose ground, and saw many
salmons, and mullets, and rayes very great.
“The fourth, in the morning, as soone as the day was light, we saw that
it was good riding farther up. So we sent our boate to sound, and found
that it was a very good harbour; then we weighed and went in with our
ship. Then our boat went on land with our net to fish, and caught ten
great mullets, of a foot and a half long apeece, and a ray as great as
foure men could hale into the ship. So we trimmed our boat, and rode
still all day. At night the wind blew hard at the north-west, and our
anchor came home, and we drove on shore, but took no hurt, thanked bee
God, for the ground is soft sand and ose. This day the people of the
country came aboard of us, seeming very glad of our comming, and brought
greene tobacco, and gave us of it for knives and beads. They go in deere
skins loose, well dressed. They have yellow copper. They desire
cloathes, and are very civill. They have great store of maise, or Indian
wheate, whereof they make good bread. The country is full of great and
tall oaks.
“The fifth, in the morning, as soone as the day was light, the wind
ceased; so we sent our boate in to sound the bay. Our men went on land
there and saw great store of men, women, and children, who gave them
tobacco at their coming on land. So they went up into the woods, and saw
great store of very goodly oakes, and some currants.
“The sixth, in the morning, was faire weather, and our master sent John
Colman with foure other men in our boate over to the north side, to
sound the other river,” (the Narrows.) “They found very good riding for
ships, and a narrow river to the westward,” (probably what is now called
the Kells, or the passage between Bergen-Neck and Staten Island,)
“between two islands. The lands, they told us, were as pleasant, with
grasse and flowers, and goodly trees, as ever they had seen, and very
sweet smells came from them. So they went in two leagues and saw an open
sea, and returned; and as they came backe they were set upon by two
canoes, the one having twelve, the other fourteen men. The night came
on, and it began to raine, so that their match went out; and they had
one man slain in the fight, which was an Englishman, named John Colman,
with an arrow shot into his throat, and two more hurt. It grew so dark
that they could not find the shippe that night, but laboured to and fro
on their oares.
“The seventh was fair, and they returned aboard the ship, and brought
our dead man with them, whom we carried on land and buried.”
On the eighth, Hudson lay still, to be more sure of the disposition of
the natives before venturing farther in. Several came on board, but no
disturbance occurred, and on the ninth he got under weigh, passed the
Narrows, and proceeded by slow degrees up the river destined to bear his
name.
[Illustration]
THE NOTCH HOUSE—WHITE MOUNTAINS.
* * * * *
A considerable tract of land in New Hampshire was granted to two
individuals of the names of Nash and Sawyer, for the discovery of “the
Notch.” This pass, the only one by which the inhabitants of a large
extent of country, north-westward of these mountains, can, without a
great circuit, make their way to the eastern shore, was known to the
savages, who used to conduct their prisoners, taken on the coast,
through this gap to Canada. By the people of New Hampshire, it was
either unknown, or had been forgotten. Nash discovered it; but Sawyer
persuaded Nash to admit him to an equal share of the benefits resulting
from the discovery. It was, however, little advantage to either. They
were both hunters, and with the thoughtlessness of men devoted to that
employment, squandered the property soon after it was granted.
The Notch-house is inhabited by a family of the name of Crawford, who
have the reputation, given them by travellers to the Notch, of being
giants in size and strength. Ethan, one of the brothers living a mile or
two further up, is called the “Keeper of the Mountains.” A manuscript
journal of a pedestrian excursion to Mount Washington lies before us, in
which the writer (a friend of ours, who is a small Titan himself, and
whose estimate of thewe and sinew is to be taken with a grain of
allowance) rather sneers at the proportions of the mountain-keeper.
After walking from thirty to thirty-four miles a day, mostly up hill,
our friend and his companion arrive at the Notch-house.
“About one o’clock,” says the journal, “we reached the house of T. G.
Crawford, where we must remain till we can ascend Mount Washington.
These Crawfords are not such giants as I had been led to suppose. We
have not, however, seen Ethan, the most celebrated of the race.
“Last night we had a thunder shower, with sharp lightning. The thunder
sounds heavy, and rumbles or echoes among the mountains with a very
impressive effect. Just at evening we visited a beautiful cataract
called the _Flume_, about half a mile from the house, and took the
finest shower-bath I ever enjoyed. To-day the weather is doubtful, and
we shall not attempt the ascent till to-morrow. There is enough in this
immediate neighbourhood to occupy a week. The variety and magnificence
of the scenery in every direction would satisfy the most ardent lover of
the picturesque. Crawford is a fine fellow: his house is excellent, his
trout delicious, and his _neighbours perfectly quiet_! The album kept
here is an amusing _omniana_ of nonsense and astonishment, sentiment and
piety.
“After dinner walked over to Ethan Crawford’s, and saw the celebrated
‘Keeper of the White Mountains.’ Expected to find him a giant, but were
disappointed: he is a large man, and strong in muscle, but I have seen
fifty larger and stronger in my own town. There is nothing remarkable in
his manners or conversation. His voice is stentorian, and his style is
marked by a rude bluntness and an apparent consciousness that something
original is expected of him. On our return had a fine view of Mount
Washington and his fellow-peaks. The monarch’s head was capp’d with
clouds, while all the others stood bare, as if uncovered for respect.”
Another traveller thus speaks of the scenery of this spot:—“We rode six
miles farther, and came to a farm occupied by a man named Crawford. Here
the mountains assumed the form of an immense amphitheatre, elliptical in
its figure, from twelve to fifteen miles in length, from two to four in
breadth, and crowned with summits of vast height and amazing grandeur.
Compared with this scene all human works of this nature, that of Titus
particularly, so splendidly described by Gibbon, are diminished into
toys and gewgaws. Here more millions could sit than hundreds there;
every one of whom could look down with a full view on the valley
beneath.
“The south-eastern extremity of this form was, some years since, the
scene of a melancholy circumstance. A young woman, who had been employed
at Jefferson, in the service of Colonel Whipple, had fallen deeply in
love with a young man in the service of the same gentleman. At the close
of autumn they agreed to go together to Portsmouth. On some occasion or
other she was induced, before the time fixed for their departure, to go
over to Lancaster. When she returned, she found him unexpectedly gone,
and determined to follow him. December was already advanced, the snow
had fallen deep, and there was not a house for thirty miles on the road.
She set out on foot, and walked twenty-three miles from the house she
had left, and then, overcome probably with fatigue, wrapped herself in
her cloak, and lay down under a bush, where she was found a month
afterwards, stiffened with frost.”
[Illustration]
WILKESBARRE—VALE OF WYOMING.
* * * * *
This beautiful town is situated on the eastern bank of the Susquehanna,
opposite the village of Wyoming, celebrated in the “Gertrude” of
Campbell. Like all the towns in this picturesque valley, it possesses
fine points of picturesque beauty, and exhibits the thrift and
agricultural prosperity which, all over the United States, contrast so
strongly with the recent and unforgotten tales of the primitive
wilderness.
There is a book, of which many copies do not now exist, entitled,
“Observations made by John Bartram, in his Travels through Pennsylvania
to the Lake Ontario,” which presents a very wild picture of this part of
the country in 1743. His companions were Mr. Weisar, a Mr. Evans, and a
Delaware chief, called _Shickalamy_, and the object of their journey was
to reconcile some differences between the English and the different
Indian nations on that frontier. The dignity of their character as
envoys from the English procured for them a kind reception, and the
sight of many ceremonies not commonly seen by travellers. On their
arrival on the banks of the Susquehanna, they were entertained by a
hunting party of Indians, who served them up a roasted bear. _Apropos_
to this, he describes the following superstition:—
“As soon as the bear is killed, the hunter places the small end of his
pipe in its mouth, and, by blowing in the bowl, fills the mouth and
throat full of smoke. He then conjures the departed spirit of the bear
not to resent the injury done his body, nor to thwart his future sport
in hunting. As he receives no answer to this, in order to know if his
prayers have prevailed, he cuts the ligament under the bear’s tongue. If
these ligaments contract and shrivel up when cast into the fire, which
is done with invocations and great solemnity, then it is esteemed a
certain mark that the _manes_ are appeased.”
On the next day’s journey, still following the winding bank of the east
branch of the Susquehanna, they arrived at an Indian village, where the
natives welcomed them by beating a rude drum. Assisting them to unsaddle
their horses, they invited them into the principal wigwam, and cut long
grass, and laid it on the floor for them to sit upon. The chiefs then
came in with their pipes, (one of which, he says, was six feet long,
with a stone head and a reed stem;) and immediately after they were
regaled with roast venison, of which the morsel of honour was the neck,
given to them for their share, to Mr. Bartram’s great dissatisfaction. A
superstitious ceremony took place here, the description of which is
rather curious.
“They cut a parcel of poles, which they stick in the ground in a circle
of about five feet diameter, and then bring them together at the top,
and tie them in the form of an oven. In this the conjuror placeth
himself, and his assistants cover his cage over with blankets. To make
it still more suffocating, hot stones are rolled in. The conjuror then
cries aloud, and agitates his body in the most violent manner; and when
nature has lost almost all her faculties, the stubborn spirit becomes
visible to him, generally in the shape of some bird. There is usually a
stake driven into the ground about four feet high, and painted, for the
airy visitant to perch upon while he reveals what the invocant wisheth
to know. Sometimes there is a bowl of water, into which they often look
when nearly exhausted, to see whether the spirit is ready to answer
their demands.”
The next day he encounters another superstition:—“On our left, as we
journeyed, we perceived a hill, where the Indians told us that corn,
tobacco, and squashes were found on the following occasion. An Indian of
a distant tribe, whose wife had eloped, came hither to hunt, intending,
with his skins, to purchase another wife. Coming to this hill, he espied
a young squaw, sitting alone. Going to her and inquiring whence she
came, she answered that she came from heaven to provide sustenance for
poor Indians, and if he came to that place twelve months after, he
should find food there. He came accordingly and found corn, squashes,
and tobacco, which were propagated from thence, and spread through the
country; and this silly story is religiously held for truth among them.”
He kept on up the valley of the Susquehanna, through woods, where, as he
describes it, “the tops of the trees for miles together were so close to
one another that there is no seeing which way the clouds drive, nor
knowing which way the wind sets; and it seems as if the sun had never
shone on the ground beneath since the creation.” It is a description of
a complete wilderness, till he reaches the borders of Lake Ontario—a
tract of country that, in ninety years from the time he wrote, is seamed
with rail-roads and canals, and teeming with towns, improvement and
speculation.
[Illustration]
SQUAWM LAKE.
* * * * *
The Indianesque, but not very pretty name, in which this lovely body of
waters rejoices, has been once or twice changed, but the force of usage
has uniformly triumphed. Dr. Dwight called it Sullivan’s Lake, after
Major-General Sullivan, formerly governor of the State; and the
adjoining waters of Winipiseogee, he named Lake Wentworth, after another
governor; but both have fallen into disuse, and the original names have
reverted.
The great defect in American Lakes, generally, is the vast, unrelieved
expanse of water, without islands and promontories, producing a fatigue
on the eye similar to that of the sea. Squawm and Winipiseogee Lakes are
exceptions to this observation. They are connected by so narrow an
isthmus that five hundred dollars, it is said, would pay the expense of
uniting them: and their islands together amount, it is said also, to
exactly three hundred and sixty-five. As this singular coincidence has
been remarked of several other lakes, however, the assertion seems
rather apocryphal.
Some of the very loveliest scenery in the world lies about these two
lakes, yet they are seldom visited. The country around is fertile, and
sufficiently cultivated to soften the appearance of wilderness, which it
might receive from the prevalency of forest, and the luxuriance of
vegetation; but the mountains, which form its back-ground from every
point, shutting it in like an amphitheatre, seem to seclude it from the
flow of population.
Nature is a capricious beauty, and, like most other beauties, has her
best looks, and her favourable times, to be seen to advantage. Beautiful
as she is at Squawm Lake in the first plenitude of spring, she is more
beautiful in the first flush over her face of the bright colours of
autumn. The autumnal tints of our forests are peculiar to America, but
there are some parts of the country where, for various reasons, this
phenomenon is much more beautiful than at others. The moisture of the
land about these lakes, the extreme luxuriance of the sap in
consequence, and the liability of the whole of this region to sudden
changes of temperature, contribute to its brilliancy. The sharp frost of
a single night effects a change very often that seems almost miraculous,
and the multiplication of these gawdy colours in the mirror of the
surrounding waters, the bright golden, crimson, and purple islands, and
the gorgeous hill-sides, all reflected and redoubled, make it a scene
which the imagination never could pre-conceive. From a late publication
we extract a description of this phenomenon, made from observation, and
finished with some care.
“The first severe frost had come, and the miraculous change had passed
upon the leaves which is known only in America. The blood-red sugar
maple, with a leaf brighter and more delicate than a Circassian lip,
stood here and there in the forest like the sultan’s standard in a
host—the solitary and far-seen aristocrat of the wilderness; the birch,
with its spirit-like and amber leaves, ghosts of the departed summer,
turned out along the edges of the woods like a lining of the palest
gold; the broad sycamore and the fan-like catalpa flaunted their saffron
foliage in the sun, spotted with gold like the wings of a lady-bird; the
kingly oak, with its summit shaken bare, still hid its majestic trunk in
a drapery of sumptuous dyes, like a stricken monarch, gathering his
robes of state about him, to die royally in his purple; the tall poplar,
with its minaret of silver leaves, stood blanched like a coward in the
dying forest, burthening every breeze with its complainings; the hickory
paled through its enduring green; the bright berries of the
mountain-ash, flushed with a more sanguine glory in the unobstructed
sun; the gaudy tulip-tree, the sybarite of vegetation, stripped of its
golden cups, still drank the intoxicating light of noon-day in leaves
than which the lip of an Indian shell was never more delicately tinted;
the still deeper-dyed vines of the lavish wilderness, perishing with the
noble things whose summer they had shared, outshone them in their
decline, as woman in her death is heavenlier than the being on whom in
life she leaned; and alone and unsympathizing in this universal decay,
outlaws from nature, stood the fir and the hemlock; their frowning and
sombre heads darker and less lovely than ever, in contrast with the
death-struck glory of their companions.
“The dull colours of English autumnal foliage give you no conception of
this marvellous phenomenon. The change here is gradual; in America it is
the work of a night—of a single frost!
“Oh, to have seen the sun set on hills bright in the still green and
lingering summer, and to awake in the morning to a spectacle like this!
“It is as if a myriad of rainbows were laced through the tree-tops—as
if the sunsets of a summer—gold, purple, and crimson—had been fused in
the alembic of the west, and poured back in a new deluge of light and
colour over the wilderness. It is as if every leaf in these countless
trees had been painted to outflush the tulip—as if, by some electric
miracle, the dyes of the earth’s heart had struck upward, and her
crystals and ores, her sapphires, hyacinths, and rubies, had let forth
their imprisoned colours to mount through the roots of the forests, and,
like the angels that in olden time entered the bodies of the dying,
re-animate the perishing leaves, and revel an hour in their bravery.”
[Illustration]
SABBATH-DAY POINT, LAKE GEORGE.
* * * * *
The lovely waters of Lake George are known to the Catholics by the
prettier and more appropriate name of Lake Sacrament. Its singular
transparency, surpassing that of all other lakes in the world, probably
suggested some tradition of its sacredness; and its water was carried to
great distances to supply the consecrated fonts. The singular seclusion
of its position, far aside from the general current of population, has
assisted to preserve its character.
Loch Katrine, at the Trosachs, is a miniature-likeness of Lake George.
It is the only lake in Europe that has at all the same style or degree
of beauty. The small green islands, with their abrupt shores,—the
emerald depths of the water, overshadowed and tinted by the tenderest
moss and foliage,—the lofty mountains in the back-ground,—and the
tranquil character of the lake, over which the wind is arrested and
rendered powerless by the peaks of the hills and the lofty
island-summits,—are all points of singular resemblance. Loch Katrine
can scarce be called picturesque, except at the Trosachs, however; while
Lake George, throughout all the mazes of its three hundred and
sixty-five islands (there are said to be just this number), preserves
the same wild and racy character of beauty. Varying in size, from a mile
in length to the circumference of a tea-table, these little islets
present the most multiplied changes of surface and aspect—upon some
only moss and flowers, upon others a miniature forest, with its outer
trees leaning over to the pellucid bosom of the lake, as if drawn
downwards by the reflection of their own luxuriant beauty.