farming doesn't pay--would have been better off if he had worked at
days' work all this time. He was cheerful, however, and wholly free
from care; his horses were not matched, one doing all the pulling, the
other all the sojering, and they went their own gait without
interference from him. "Apples! Why apples aren't worth picking this
year." It happened that I fell in with the other kind near Stone Mill.
He made $1,000 from apples alone last year; would not make so much
this season, but they were well worth the gathering; there was money
in the ground for him. The individual seems to count in farming, same
as in everything else.
Just out of Claremont a young fellow was thrown from his runabout, his
horse being frightened at an automobile, and it was only the quickness
of the chauffeur that saved him from being run over. Did he curse the
rich man's machine? Not he! His only idea was to find another and show
his "new animal" who was master! Aside from this irritating feature,
the whole affair was a huge joke on him. He was as handsome and
wholesome looking as good health and an outdoor life could make a
man.
[Sidenote: _LINDENWALD--JESSE MERWIN._]
Some two miles out of Kinderhook stands Lindenwald, to which
Ex-President Van Buren retired. The house was built by Judge William
P. Van Ness, previously mentioned. Washington Irving was a welcome and
frequent guest in the Van Ness household, and it was in this
neighborhood that he became acquainted with Jesse Merwin, school
teacher, prototype of Ichabod Crane in the "Legend of Sleepy Hollow."
The two men were the best of friends, and the caricature does not seem
to have cooled their pleasant relations. The schoolhouse stands on the
roadside, somewhat nearer the village; at least the building pointed
out as such is there, but in a letter to Merwin, Irving regrets that
the old schoolhouse is torn down "where, after my morning's literary
task was over, I used to come and wait for you, occasionally, until
school was dismissed. You would promise to keep back the punishment of
some little tough, broad-bottomed Dutch boy, until I could come, for
my amusement--but never kept your promise."
The following notice of the death of "Ichabod Crane" appeared in the
Westchester Herald for November 30, 1852:
"Jesse Merwin died at Kinderhook on the 8th instant, at the age of
seventy years. Mr. Merwin was well known in this community as an
upright, honorable man, in whom there was no guile. He was for many
years a Justice of the Peace, the duties of which office he discharged
with scrupulous fidelity and conscientious regard to the just claims
of suitors, ever frowning upon those whose vocation it is to "foment
discord and perplex right." At an early period of his life, and while
engaged in school teaching, he passed much of his time in the society
of Washington Irving, then a preceptor in the family of the late Judge
Van Ness, of this town.
"Both were engaged in congenial pursuits and, their residences being
only a short distance apart, the author of the 'Sketch Book'
frequently visited the 'Old Schoolhouse,' in which 'Squire Merwin' was
employed in teaching the young idea how to shoot, and subsequently
immortalized his name by making him the hero of one of his inimitable
tales, 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.'"
[Sidenote: _KATRINA VAN TASSEL HOUSE._]
A step further on, and across the highway, stands the Katrina Van
Tassel house, on whose blooming young mistress the Yankee pedagogue
was wont to cast longing eyes; this is the old Van Allen house, built
in 1717, says one, in 1735 according to another--a plain building
whose Holland bricks are still good, though somewhat the worse for
wear.
Soon the road crosses the Kinderhook Creek into the village by an
ancient covered bridge which has echoed to the thunder of many an old
"stage-wagon." The crossing is rather a long one, resulting in two
bridges with an interval of open between them. Down below the stream
rolls lazily along while the cattle, standing at ease, seem to catch
its indolent spirit. These streams, affording opportunity for water
power, appear to have drawn the settlers away from the banks of the
great river, and thus the towns grew up well inland from its shores.
Between Staatsburg and Greenbush, a matter of fifty-six miles, we find
only five towns on the river's edge, while back, along the Post Road,
or in its immediate vicinity, are some twenty villages both great and
small.
[Sidenote: _KINDERHOOK._]
Kinderhook--Children's Corner--as musical and attractive a name as one
could ask. It is said that a Dutchman once lived hereabouts whose
progeny was so numerous as to attract attention, even in the days of
large families, and so the place came by its name as a matter of
course.
Being a stranger in a strange land, I early sought out the good Dr.
C., who did not at first seem as genial as anticipation had pictured,
but finding, as the purpose of the call was explained, how truly
harmless was the intent, he suggested a tour of the village in his
company, confiding as we reached the outer air that he was so glad it
was not a book agent who had called; that he was delighted to do all
he could, and so it proved, for he could do and did all and more than
most would feel called upon to do for the casual stranger.
[Sidenote: _MARTIN VAN BUREN._]
Abraham Van Buren, father of Martin, was one of the early tavern
keepers of Kinderhook, and here the son was born and educated to the
law. His dwelling place is pointed out, and it is truly the site but
not the substance, as the old building has fallen victim to the march
of improvement.
Elson says of Martin Van Buren:--
"He was a man of greater individuality and ability than is generally
put to his credit by historians.... In the Cabinet of Jackson he was
by no means a figurehead even there, for it was largely due to his
skill that Jackson made the two brilliant strokes in his foreign
policy.... Van Buren has been pronounced the cleverest political
manager in American history, and no other man has held so many high
political offices. He was small of stature, had a round, red face and
quick, searching eyes. He was subtle, courteous and smooth in
conversation."
[Sidenote: _PARSONAGE-FORT._]
As early as 1670 Hollanders settled here. The first interesting house
one meets on entering the village from the south is the old Dutch
parsonage which, being of brick, was a tower of strength against the
Indians as well as the Devil. The Indians raided this region in 1755
and visited the neighborhood of Kinderhook at a time when the men were
away, but their stout-hearted wives and daughters were equal to the
occasion; for, donning such male attire as they could find and
shouldering the family arms, they made such a brave show in and about
the fort that the Indians retired without attempting its capture. A
short distance east of this stands another old parsonage-fort, but
little or nothing seems to be known concerning its history, though
legend mentions its cellar door as bearing the marks of Indian
tomahawks. It is said to be a fact that the heavy timbers in some of
these old houses were imported from Holland to these heavily wooded
banks of the Hudson.
[Sidenote: _CENTENNIAL MANSION._]
On the pleasantest street of the village stands the Centennial
Mansion, opposite the Dutch Church, erected in 1774 by Daniel Van
Schaack. The house has been the social centre of the town for more
than a hundred years. One of its earliest associations concerns the
visit of General Richard Montgomery, when on his way to take command
of the army against Canada. Henry Van Schaack, a brother of Daniel,
was an intimate friend of the General, they having been thrown
together while in the Seventeenth Regiment in the war of 1755.
In October, 1777, General Burgoyne, a prisoner of war, was quartered
here for a short time, and during the following years a long list of
prominent men passed through its hospitable portals: John Jay,
Alexander Hamilton, Philip Schuyler, Chancellor Kent and others.
After the Van Schaack regime had passed came the Hon. Cornelius P. Van
Ness, who in due time became chief justice of the Supreme Court of
Vermont, then its Governor, and later was minister to Spain.
Washington Irving arouses the ire of the local historian by stating
that the Van Ness ancestors came by their name because they were
"valiant robbers of birds' nests." The next owner was a merry
gentleman whose ghost is said to still haunt the sideboard.
Then came Dr. John P. Beekman, whose first wife was a Van Schaack. He
added the two wings which adorn either end of the building; and again
its doors are opened wide, sharing, with Lindenwald, the honor of
entertaining the nation's notables, many of them introduced by Van
Buren. Such names as Henry Clay, Washington Irving, Thomas H. Benton,
David Wilmot and Charles Sumner head the list. David Wilmot was a
notably corpulent gentleman; his introduction by Van Buren to the lady
of the house is said to have been put thus wise: "Mrs. Beekman, you
have heard of the Wilmot Proviso--Here he is in the body."
The house is now occupied by the widow of Aaron J. Vanderpoel, a Van
Schaack grand-daughter.
From the "Reminiscences" of a Kinderhooker we learn that there were
two or three stage lines whose coaches passed through the village
daily, and that the merits of their various steeds were the cause of
much local controversy around the tavern stove. The drivers "were
mainly farmers' sons, many of them well to do, selected with special
reference to sobriety as well as in handling the ribbons;" and the
heart of every lad in the village was fired with the hope that some
day he might be selected to fill that high office.
Starting again on the Post Road toward the north, we come to the
one-time Kinderhook Academy, celebrated in its day, but its day has
passed, and on the outskirts of the town pass the old cemetery where
Martin Van Buren and Jesse Merwin lie with the forefathers of the
neighborhood.
[Sidenote: _WE LEAVE THE POST ROAD._]
Here we part from the old Post Road, which continues on through
Valatie, Niverville and South Schodack to Schodack Centre, where it
joins company with the Boston Road, and together they travel through
East Greenbush to Greenbush where once was the ferry at Crawlier.
The way I took through Muitzeskill and Castleton to Greenbush, is
marked with New York and Albany guide posts, but none of the old
mile-stones adorn its path.
Ever since Rhinebeck the Catskills have been marching along the
western horizon, and while generally the river is too far away to be a
part of the picture, the country, the beautiful country, makes one
continually wonder, not that the painters of a past generation grew to
love the region and to revel in its seductive delights, but rather
that they could ever stop its delineation. The effect of the changing
light and shade and varying atmospheric conditions lend the same
enchantment that lies in the ever-changing sea.
[Sidenote: _THE DISTANT HILLS._]
About where that mystery, the county line, crosses the road, one
stands on a gentle ridge that extends the view both east and west.
Toward the latter, on this Indian Summer day were the ghosts of
mountains that in brighter times are the Catskills, while to the east
are the low-lying hills of the Taghkanic range, whose far slopes roll
down to meet the advances of the Berkshires. Beautiful undulating farm
lands lead the eye up to the distant hills on either hand, fields of
every warm tint with sentinel oaks or walnuts, and here and there the
wood-lot of the farmer. The soft browns and greens of the distant corn
stubble, or the winter barley fields with the blaze of the Frost
King's robes mellowed by the golden sun complete a picture common
enough in this wonderful valley of the Hudson, but always a
well-spring of delight for the traveler.
[Sidenote: _MUITZESKILL._]
After crossing into Rensselaer County the first village one comes in
contact with is Muitzeskill, whose burial ground is old enough to be
interesting to the searcher for curious epitaphs. All country places
have their odd characters, and this region is no exception. Among the
elegant extracts quoted as dropping from the lips of its citizens is
the remark of a certain Michael Younghans, hotel keeper, who
declaiming about certain improvements he was thinking of, said that he
was "A-going to get carpenters to impair his house, firiquelly it in
front, open pizarro all round, up-an-dicular posts on a new
destruction." What was to happen after that no man knoweth.
[Sidenote: _FIREPLACE OF THE NATION._]
This rolling country was once the council seat of the Mohicans, this
fact being commemorated in the name of Schodack, a Dutch rendering of
the Indian word Esquatak, "the fireplace of the nation." The Mohicans
had been pretty thoroughly "pacified" by the Mohawks about the time
that Hudson ascended the river, and this region is full of legends of
fights and ambuscades.
It seems that Burgoyne's captured army was marched south over this
road, and some three miles out of Castleton, so the story goes, one
Jacob Jahn, a Hessian prisoner, escaped to the woods and later,
building a log house on the exact spot where he effected his escape,
he settled down, after taking unto himself a wife, and became a good
citizen.
The road follows the level table land almost to the Hudson, when it
dips down a steep incline, crosses the Muitzes Kill and joins the
river road. Once upon a time, as history records, as an excitable
Dutch vrouw was wending her way along the banks of this brook, a
sudden gust of wind caught up her cap, the pride of her heart, and
whisked it into the water beyond reach, whereupon she set up an
outcry, "Die muts is in die kill! Die muts is in die kill!" and so it
is even unto this day. What kind of a name the stream might now be
murmuring under, had this adventure befallen her good man is fearful
to think on.
[Sidenote: _CASTLETON._]
It is Castleton because the Indians once had a castle on the crest of
the hill back of the village. The town is comparatively new, having
been incorporated as late as 1827, and appears to have taken no
important or interesting part in the days when history was making; but
there was a ship yard here, and home-built sloops competed for the New
York trade before the railroad changed things.
It is told of a certain foolish citizen, a passenger on one of the
village sloops anchored for the night somewhere in the Highlands,
that, being requested by the wag of the party to steer the stationary
boat while the others took needed rest, he faithfully performed his
task until relieved the next morning. When asked by his shipmates how
they had got on during the night he replied that they had got along a
good ways by the water, but not far by the land.
Castleton is one long street which wanders out into the open country
at either end, and lonely country it is if one proceeds north as the
early twilight of a cool November evening is closing around. The
wayfarer, if he be of a fearful temperament and has read the story of
the Murder Place, is apt to quicken his steps as he passes into the
shadows of the trees that gloom the crossing of the stream marking
the northern boundary of the village, and known as the Hell Hole. On
the right are abrupt little hills, wooded and awesome, while off
toward the west stretch the flats left by the river, with now and then
a silent pool to reflect the dying embers of the burned-out day. No
light gleams from a friendly window, only the shadowy form of a hay
rake left out by some farmer suggests human companionship. With eight
miles of such traveling ahead, it is small wonder if the wayfarer
hastens.
[Sidenote: _"CITIZEN" GENET._]
About half-way, where one passes a schoolhouse overlooking the flats
and the guide board says 3-1/2 miles to Castleton, once lived
"Citizen" Genet, and his house still stands a quarter of a mile back
on Prospect Hill, facing the cross road to East Greenbush. Edmond
Charles Genet was sent out to this country in the Spring of 1793 by
the new French Republic. Things moved rapidly in France in those days,
and Genet's friends were soon removed and he, fearing the guillotine,
became an American citizen, "a scientific farmer and an ornament to
New York society." In 1810 he moved to Greenbush, where he died in
1834. His tombstone in the burial ground of the Dutch Church in East
Greenbush tells us that "His heart was love and friendship's sun."
His house was once the home of Gen. Hendrick K. Van Rensselaer, whose
bravery at Fort Ann saved the American army in 1777.
Part of the flat lands we have been skirting go to make up the long
island of Paps Knee, which was early selected as a place of refuge.
Here a fort was built and farms were laid out, but in 1666 a flood
swept away houses and cattle, and since then the farmers have lived on
the higher main land; only one brick house, the fort, escaped and that
still stands, bearing its two hundred and seventy-five years with the
grace of long practice.
Where the road works down to meet the river comes Douw's Point, once
the head of steamboat navigation; passengers for Albany and beyond
going forward in stages after crossing the river in a horse ferryboat.
It is whispered that a few rods below the point Captain Kidd buried
treasures. Old Volkert P. Douw was so staunch a patriot that he
refused to hold office under the English, and gave his money and his
time to the American cause.
[Sidenote: _FORT CRALO._]
[Sidenote: _YANKEE DOODLE._]
In the lower edge of the village of Greenbush and on the River Road
which we are following stands the most interesting building of the
region, old Fort Cralo, built in 1642 for protection against the
Indians. Its white oak beams are said to be eighteen inches square
and its walls two to three feet thick. Some of its portholes still
remain as reminders of the times of the war whoop and scalp dance. It
is said there were once secret passages to the river, which is just
across the road. During the last of the French and Indian wars
Major-General James Abercrombie had his headquarters here--1758; and
it was here that Yankee Doodle came into being. Among the Colonial
regiments which joined the regulars at this point were some from
Connecticut whose appearance became a by-word among the well-kept
British troops. The song was composed by a surgeon attached to the
army, as a satire on these ragged provincials; less than twenty years
later the captured soldiers of Burgoyne marched between the lines of
the victorious Yankees to the same tune.
It is but a step to the trolley, and in a brief five minutes we are
across "The Great River of the Mountains" as Hudson called it, and at
our journey's end.
[Sidenote: _SCHUYLER--VAN RENSSELAER._]
The man who can rise superior to feelings of personal grievance, or
even just anger, is the man we all admire. Such, history says, was
Gen. Philip Schuyler who, when Burgoyne had wantonly burned his
country seat near Saratoga, entertained that same Burgoyne after his
capture in his town house, which still stands at the head of Schuyler
Street, Albany, in so hospitable a fashion that the British General,
struck with the American's generosity, said to him: "You show me great
kindness though I have done you much injury," whereupon Schuyler
returned: "That was the fate of war; let us say no more about it."
This house was erected about 1765, and General Schuyler lived here
with his family for nearly forty years, dispensing such notable
hospitality as to call down the blessings of many a traveler to and
from Canada or the West.
The Van Rensselaer Manor House stood on the river bank, but nothing is
now left of it but the little old brick office, which stands
disconsolate along the street, watching through half-closed blinds the
great woodworking plant which occupies the site of the old home of the
Patroon.
One other reminder of the days gone by still survives in the Peter
Schuyler house in the northern limits of Albany, at the Flats. Lossing
says of this: "It is famous in Colonial history as the residence of
Col. Peter Schuyler, of the Flats, the first mayor of Albany, and who,
as Indian Commissioner in after years took four kings or sachems of
the Mohawks to England and presented them at the court of Queen
Anne."
[Sidenote: _IT IS FINISHED._]
And now we have finished, and there is naught to do but return home,
and various are the ways of doing it. If time is of no moment there is
the west bank of the Hudson to explore all the way down to Paulus
Hook, from whence the ferry will easily land one once more on the
Island of Manhattan. If time counts, the night boat is a simple
solution of the problem.
[Illustration]