Beyond Teller's Point is another broadened expanse of the Hudson,
Haverstraw Bay, spreading in parts five miles wide, its western shore
lined with brickmaking establishments, lime-kilns and the factories
which break up the stone quarried in the neighboring hills into
Belgian blocks for New York street paving. Far in front, over the
spacious bay, looms up the distant range of Hudson River Highlands, an
outcrop of the great Kittatinny ridge, stretching broadly across the
country, a part of the same deep blue-gray mountain wall we have
already penetrated farther south. Its changing hues and appearance, as
approached, remind of Campbell's couplet in the _Pleasures of Hope_:
"'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view,
And robes the mountain in its azure hue."
High Torn, just behind the bank below Haverstraw, rises over eight
hundred feet, while above is Stony Point, the outcrop of a long line
of limestone hills stretching into the river. Between it and the town,
standing on a little eminence not far from the shore, was the frame
house of Smith the Tory, known as the "Treason House," where André and
Arnold had their clandestine meeting to arrange the surrender of West
Point, this eminence now being known as "Treason Hill." Across the
ferry to Verplanck's Point, on the opposite shore, André went when the
meeting was over, and started on his fateful journey down to
Tarrytown. The two Points suddenly narrow the Hudson, above Treason
Hill, to a half-mile width, and they make the northern boundary of
Haverstraw Bay. This is a region filled with Revolutionary memories.
These Points commanded the southern river entrance to the Highlands,
and behind them, back of the western shore, rises the buttress of the
Kittatinny and the outpost of the pass, the massive Donderberg
Mountain, eleven hundred feet high. The eastern Point was part of the
Van Cortlandt manor, whose heiress, Gertrude, married Philip
Verplanck, for whom it was named. Forts were built on both Points to
control the river, and the British surprised and captured both of them
in June, 1779, giving Washington much annoyance; but General Wayne, in
July, by one of the most brilliant movements of the war, surprised and
recaptured Stony Point. On the site of the old fort, and built of some
of its materials, is now a little lighthouse guiding the river
navigation. Over on the opposite shore, behind Verplanck's Point,
Baron Steuben drilled the Revolutionary soldiers. This region now is
chiefly devoted to the peaceful occupations of burning lime and making
bricks.
The Hudson bends towards the northeast along the base of the towering
Donderberg,--the Thunder Mountain,--the limestone quarries cut into
its cliffs looking much like an old-time fortress. The narrow river
contracted in the pass always has gusty winds blowing over it, and
this was a weird region in the ancient Dutch _régime_, many a tale of
woe and wonder being told by the skippers who sailed that way. Irving
records how they used to "talk of a little bulbous-bottomed Dutch
goblin in trunk-hose and sugar-loaf hat, with a speaking-trumpet in
his hand, which they say keeps the Donder-Berg." He declares "they
have heard him in stormy weather, in the midst of the turmoil, giving
orders in Low Dutch for the piping up of a fresh gust of wind, or the
rattling off of another thunder-clap; that sometimes he had been seen
surrounded by a crew of little imps, in broad breeches and short
doublets, tumbling head over heels in the rack and mist, and playing a
thousand gambols in the air, or buzzing like a swarm of flies about
Anthony's Nose; and that at such times the hurry-scurry of the storm
was always greatest." The genial historian supports this statement by
testimony. "Skipper Daniel Ouslesticker of Fish Kill, who was never
known to tell a lie," declared that in a severe squall he saw the
goblin "seated astride of his bowsprit, riding the sloop ashore full
butt against Anthony's Nose," but that he was happily exorcised by
"Dominie Van Geisen of Esopus, who happened to be on board, and who
sang the song of Saint Nicholas, whereupon the goblin threw himself up
in the air like a ball, and went off in a whirlwind, carrying away
with him the nightcap of the Dominie's wife, which was discovered the
next Sunday morning hanging on the weathercock of Esopus Church
steeple, at least forty miles off." Such misadventures occurring, the
skippers for a long time did not venture past the Donderberg without
lowering their peaks in homage, "and it was observed that all such as
paid this tribute of respect were suffered to pass unmolested."
The Hudson River Highlands in some peaks rise nearly sixteen hundred
feet. The river, coming from the north, breaks through them in a
series of short bends, making narrow reaches, and in the fifteen miles
required for the passage presents some of the most attractive American
scenery. Beyond Verplanck's Point is the town of Peekskill, with the
mountain range trending far away to the northeast, the river flowing
along its base, and from the view ahead seeming to come from the
lowlands beyond Peekskill. It was not strange, therefore, that in the
early seventeenth century one of the Dutch skippers who braved the
goblin of the Donderberg, in his explorations should have sailed his
sloop up there, got into a shallow creek, and run aground. This was
the misfortune of the honest Dutch mariner Jan Peek; but he made the
best of it, and seeing that the soil of the valley was fertile,
settled there, and the creek became Peek's Kill, and thus named the
town. The rich Canopus Valley is to the northeastward, and the
mountains blend so well that the sharp right-angled bend the river
makes into the Highlands is completely hidden.