"'Tis here the eastern sunbeams gildThe hills which rise on either hand;Till showers of purple mist are spilledIn glittering dewdrops o'er the land."
"'Tis here the eastern sunbeams gildThe hills which rise on either hand;Till showers of purple mist are spilledIn glittering dewdrops o'er the land."
"'Tis here the eastern sunbeams gildThe hills which rise on either hand;Till showers of purple mist are spilledIn glittering dewdrops o'er the land."
"'Tis here the eastern sunbeams gild
The hills which rise on either hand;
Till showers of purple mist are spilled
In glittering dewdrops o'er the land."
THE DUTCH AND THE SHAKERS.
When Hendrick Hudson came up the river he found sand-bars above the Catskills, and anchored his "Half Moon" near Mount Merino, at what is now the head of ship navigation upon the Hudson, one hundred and fifteen miles from New York. Just beyond, a high plateau sloping to the shore is covered by the city of Hudson, having a green island in front,and over opposite the little town of Athens, with a lighthouse in midstream between them. Hudson has ten thousand people, a picturesque city sloping up Prospect Hill, which rises five hundred feet for a noble background, and it once had more ships and commerce than the city of New York. A colony of thrifty Quakers from New England started the settlement, which had many fishermen and whalers, and a large fleet of ships sailing to Europe and the Indies, fifteen loaded vessels having cleared from its wharves in a single day. But Napoleon's wars swept away its fleet and commerce, and the last ship was sold in 1845, so that its commercial greatness is only a tradition; although it has become a seat of considerable manufactures. Its most noted citizen was General Worth, a hero of the Mexican War, whose monument stands on Fifth Avenue, New York. Both sides of the river here are inhabited by the Dutch, and in fact theirs is the universal language of the Hudson from Kingston up to Albany. These Dutch of New York have given the country some notable men, among them General Philip Schuyler, Colonel Van Rensselaer, General Stryker and others of the Revolution, and President Martin Van Buren. They view with pardonable pride the important share they have had in founding and building up the Empire State, and Rev. Dr. Henry A. Van Dyke has poetically and ingeniously described the "Typical Dutchmen" of New York:
"They sailed from the shores of the Zuyder ZeeAcross the stormy ocean,To build for the world a new countryAccording to their notion:A land where thought should be free as airAnd speech be free as water;Where man to man should be just and fair,And Law be Liberty's daughter."When the English fleet sailed up the bay,The small Dutch town was taken;But the Dutchmen there had come to stay;Their hold was never shaken.They could keep right on, and work and waitFor the freedom of the nation;And we claim to-day that New York StateIs built on a Dutch foundation."
"They sailed from the shores of the Zuyder ZeeAcross the stormy ocean,To build for the world a new countryAccording to their notion:A land where thought should be free as airAnd speech be free as water;Where man to man should be just and fair,And Law be Liberty's daughter."When the English fleet sailed up the bay,The small Dutch town was taken;But the Dutchmen there had come to stay;Their hold was never shaken.They could keep right on, and work and waitFor the freedom of the nation;And we claim to-day that New York StateIs built on a Dutch foundation."
"They sailed from the shores of the Zuyder ZeeAcross the stormy ocean,To build for the world a new countryAccording to their notion:A land where thought should be free as airAnd speech be free as water;Where man to man should be just and fair,And Law be Liberty's daughter.
"They sailed from the shores of the Zuyder Zee
Across the stormy ocean,
To build for the world a new country
According to their notion:
A land where thought should be free as air
And speech be free as water;
Where man to man should be just and fair,
And Law be Liberty's daughter.
"When the English fleet sailed up the bay,The small Dutch town was taken;But the Dutchmen there had come to stay;Their hold was never shaken.They could keep right on, and work and waitFor the freedom of the nation;And we claim to-day that New York StateIs built on a Dutch foundation."
"When the English fleet sailed up the bay,
The small Dutch town was taken;
But the Dutchmen there had come to stay;
Their hold was never shaken.
They could keep right on, and work and wait
For the freedom of the nation;
And we claim to-day that New York State
Is built on a Dutch foundation."
From the Taghkanic range of the Berkshire hills, behind Hudson City, a pretty stream comes down in many falls and cascades to the river just northward, whose charming valley was known among the Dutch as "Het Klauver Rack," or the "Clover Reach," modernized since, however, into the Claverack Creek. The Columbia Springs are in this valley, and farther on is Kinderhook Village, while back on the hills at a thousand feet elevation above the river, most picturesquely located, are the Lebanon Springs. Here is the noted Shaker settlement of New Lebanon, founded by "Mother Ann" in the eighteenth century. The sect has been declining in recent years, however. This is the governing Shaker community, and it has been well said, of these celibates, that "by frugalityand industry they give us many useful things, but they do not produce what the Republic most needs—men and women." They cultivate large tracts of land, produce and sell quantities of herbs, seeds and botanic medicines, and make baskets, brooms and sieves. Ann Lee was the wife of a blacksmith in Manchester, England, and had been the mother of several children. She had what she claimed as Divine revelations, and was confined in a lunatic asylum for reviling matrimony. Being released in 1770, she founded the new sect, announcing, "I am Ann, the Word," and to escape further persecution migrated to New York, where she was made its spiritual head. Converting many, she established at New Lebanon the capital of the Shaker world, which has been called "the rural Vatican which claims a more despotic sway over the mind of man than ever the Roman Pontiff assumed." She claimed her Divine revelation to be that she was the female manifestation of Christ upon earth, the male manifestation having been Jesus, and the Deity being considered a duality, composed of both sexes. The Shakers call themselves the "United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing." They have entire community of property, believe idleness to be sinful, and everyone able to work is employed. In worshipping they "exercise both soul and body," singing and dancing, and at times of fervent excitement making, with regularity and perfect rhythm, rapid bodily evolutions.In these they form in circles around a band of singers, to whose music they "go forth in the dances of them that make merry." Since the death of "Mother Ann" the Shaker community has been ruled by what is known as the "Holy Lead," composed of the first and second elders and elderesses. A peculiar tenet is that persons may join the sect after death, and among these posthumous members are Washington, Lafayette, Pocahontas, Napoleon and Tamerlane; and they hold that woman is supreme over mankind. Near the village and among the Berkshire hills, just over the border in Massachusetts, is their "Mount Sinai," where, according to the tradition, the Shakers hunted Satan throughout a long summer night, finally killing and burying him. They tell us that Washington and Lafayette still keep guard over his grave, mounted on white horses, and can be seen on summer nights by any of the truly faithful who may pass that way.
The village of Kinderhook is in the Claverack Valley, and out in front on the Hudson is its port, Stuyvesant Landing, where the testy old Governor, Peter Stuyvesant the "Headstrong," made his landing when he came up the river to attack the great Patroon, Killian Van Rensselaer. Hendrick Hudson is said to have first named Kinderhook, or "Children's Point," because he saw here a crowd of Indian children watching his vessel. On the Lindenwold estate at Kinderhook, embowered in linden trees,lived for many years President Martin Van Buren, a descendant of the early Dutch settlers, and the shrewdest New York politician of his time. Over on the western bank is the Chaney Tinker Lighthouse, mounted on a crag a hundred feet high, and the distant horizon is bounded by the Helderbergs, a long range of peaks, lower, however, than the Catskills. Above, at Schodack Landing on the eastern shore, was the seat of the council-fire of the Mohicans, called by the French theLoupsor Wolves. The word "Is-cho-da" in their language means the "fireplace," and from this has come the name. When Hudson ascended the river, he found the Mohicans occupying its shores for a hundred miles above Rondout Creek, but the race dwindled, until it became the handful to whom the noted Jonathan Edwards ministered in the eighteenth century, at Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Hudson passed a day with them at Schodack, was treated hospitably, and wrote that their land was "the finest for cultivation he ever set foot on." Two centuries later, Cooper lamented theLast of the Mohicans.
THE LAND OF THE PATROONS.
We have now come to the high and rocky Bear or Beeren Island, which in New York's early days was the southern boundary on the river of the domain of the great Patroon, Killian Van Rensselaer. It marks the limit of two counties on either bank, Greene andColumbia below, joining Albany and Rensselaer above. Here stood the proud castle of Rensselaerstein, cannoned and fortified, where the Patroon's agent, the bold and doughty Nicolas Kroon, compelled all the Dutch sloops coming up from New Amsterdam to dip their colors in token of his sovereignty, and pay tribute for the privilege of entering the sacred domain. We are told that all passing craft yielded homage excepting two large whales, which in 1647 swam by and went up to the Mohawk, greatly terrifying the honest Albany burghers. Above the island, the Normanskill and other streams come down from the Helderbergs, making the shoals of the "Overslaugh," which the Government has improved by an extensive dyke system to deepen the river channel up to Albany. There are long and narrow alluvial islands on these flats, among which tows of Erie Canal barges thread their careful way; and ahead, the city of Albany comes into view with its bridges in front, and the grand new Capitol building elevated high on the hill above the town, its red-topped pyramidal roofs seen from afar.
We are now at the domain of the great Patroon, the region around Albany and Troy. When Hudson anchored his ship below the shoals, he came with five of his sailors up to Albany in a row-boat and examined the location. The result was that from his report Albany was actually settled, five years later, in 1614, by the "United Nieu Nederlandts Company,"who built a trading-post, thus making Albany, after Jamestown in Virginia, the oldest European settlement in the original thirteen colonies. The post was located on an island just below the city, near which the Normanskill flowed out through the forest on the western bank—the Indian Tawasentha, or "place of many dead." This island was called the "Kasteel," and in the "castle" a garrison of about a dozen Dutchmen conducted a profitable fur-trade with the Mohicans. Ultimately a freshet drove them to the mainland and they built a fort at the mouth of the Normanskill, and in 1623 a stockade was constructed above, at Albany, named Fort Orange in honor of the Prince of the Netherlands. In 1629 colonists were sent out from Holland, and the patroon system established. The Dutch West India Company made arrangements for extensively colonizing the New Netherlands, and passed a charter of exemptions and privileges to encourage patroons (or patrons) to make settlements. Every patroon establishing a colony was to have there within four years, as permanent residents, at least fifty persons, over fifteen years of age, of whom one-fourth were to arrive the first year. A director of the company, Killian Van Rensselaer, a pearl merchant of Amsterdam, was granted a patroonship, and got the officials at Fort Orange to buy extensive tracts from the Indians. He thus, with three others, acquired a manor extending twenty-four miles along the Hudson, from BeerenIsland up to the Mohawk River, and this manor, which afterwards became the sole property of his family, was subsequently enlarged to extend twenty-four miles back from the Hudson in both directions, and contained over seven hundred thousand acres. The Patroon was a feudal lord, possessing absolute title to the soil, with power to administer civil and criminal justice, and enjoying other rights that reduced his colonists to a condition little better than serfs. His son Johannes inherited this patroonship from Killian, and it went by entail through five generations, when the United States laws barred further succession. The last Patroon, General Stephen Van Rensselaer, died in 1839, and his son Stephen, the sixth of the line, still styled by courtesy "the Patroon," died in 1868, aged eighty years. The original settlement of Fort Orange in the manor of Rensselaerwyck, as it was called, became a centre of the fur-trade, and a town quickly grew around the fort, which the English, upon their occupation in 1664, named Albany.
THE ANTI-RENT WAR.
As population increased on the adjacent lands, they began taking leases from the Patroon, paying rent for their farms, and this produced one of the bitterest conflicts known in American politics, the New York "Anti-Rent War." After the Revolution the inhabitants increased rapidly, and General StephenVan Rensselaer, then the Patroon, leased farms in perpetuity, upon the nominal consideration for eight years of "a peppercorn a year," and at the expiration of this time these leases drew a rent estimated at six per cent. interest on the land value, about $5 per acre, payable in the produce of the soil, fowls, and days' service with wagons and horses, the latter designed to secure road-making. When the old General died in 1839, the entail being abolished, he divided the manor between his two sons, Stephen getting Albany County on the west bank, and William, Rensselaer County on the east bank, including Troy. He had been a lenient landlord, but the tenants became anxious, especially about what was known as the "quarter sales clause" in their leases, giving the landlord the right to claim one-fourth the purchase money whenever the land passed by purchase, this condition being really inserted to prevent alienation, as it did not become operative when the land was sold or descended to one of the original tenant's family. The tenants proposed that the landlord should sell the reservations, releasing them from the rentals and making them owners in fee, but this was declined. The tenants then employed counsel, who advised that the landlord's right was absolute, but suggested, while there was no legal remedy, that it would be good policy to make the rent collections so difficult, the landlord would be willing to come to terms; that they band together and give each othernotice of the approach of bailiffs, so the service of legal process would be troublesome. William H. Seward, Governor of New York, espoused their cause, and to this advice, he being a candidate for re-election in 1840, he added the recommendation that the "anti-renters" should organize and send to the Legislature men who would hold the balance of power between the great parties, thus forcing the passage of laws relieving them.
Then began the "anti-rent" conflicts convulsing New York politics for years. They formed an active and powerful political party, and created other organizations, disguised as Indians, who attacked the law officers. These supposed red men killed a man at Grafton in Rensselaer County, and all legal efforts failed to discover the culprits. Other similar manors existed in different parts of New York State where payment of rents of much the same character was resisted, and these regions also were excited. Outbreaks continued several years, until in 1845 Governor Silas Wright issued a proclamation declaring Delaware County, on the western verge of the Catskills, in a state of insurrection. This caused additional trouble, but the "anti-renters" disposed of Wright by defeating him for re-election in 1846, and he died soon afterwards. They elected their own candidate for Governor, John Young, who pardoned out of jail nearly everybody imprisoned for "anti-rent" crimes. The disputes finally got into thecourts, and the Van Rensselaers, fatigued with the controversy, sold all their rights to a Colonel Church. He was sustained by legal decisions, and then adopted a compromising policy, which quieted the agitation. He released the rentals and gave fee-simple titles, so that at least three-fourths of the old manor became without rental. His method of compromise was based on a scale: for a farm of one hundred and sixty acres where the annual rent was twenty-two and one-half bushels of wheat, four fat fowls and one day's service, the value was fixed at $26, being six per cent. interest on $433, and by paying this the tenant got his fee-simple title. Thus the harassing conflict which frequently required troops to be called out at Albany and elsewhere was finally adjusted.
THE CITY OF ALBANY.
Albany, the New York State Capital, has over one hundred thousand people. The city rises from the strip of level land along the river bank, in a series of terraces, to a height of nearly two hundred feet, the top being surmounted by the Capitol Building in a spacious park, back of which the surface extends westward in a sandy, almost level plain. The city spreads broadly along the river, where there are wharves, foundries, railway stations, mills, storehouses and lumber yards. Deep ravines are scarred into the hill behind them, and rows of fine old Knickerbocker houses line the hilly streets, with frequentchurch towers and spires rising above them. The main street, just back from the river, is Broadway, of varying width, but of the first commercial importance. At right angles to it, leading up the hill, is State Street, a noble avenue, one hundred and fifty feet wide, the front approach to the Capitol. This is the finest building in New York State, was thirty years in construction, and has cost $25,000,000. It is a quadrangle three hundred feet wide and four hundred feet deep, with an unfinished central tower, intended to be three hundred feet high, and Louvre pavilion towers at the angles. It is built in the French Renaissance, of a light-colored granite, pleasantly contrasting with the red-tiled roofs. Few of the pretentious buildings of the world occupy a more commanding situation, standing aloft like the Capitol at Washington, and, seen from afar, a complete old-time French chateau. Mr. E. A. Freeman has written of it, "If anyone had come up to me and told me in French, old or new, that the new Capitol was 'Le Chateau de Monseigneur le duc d'Albanie,' I could almost have believed him." Its architecture combines features adapted from the Louvre and Hotel de Ville of Paris and the Lyons Maison de Commerce. It stands in Capitol Square, a park of about eight acres, of which it covers three acres. The finest halls are the Senate and Assembly Chambers, to which grand stairways lead, and the interior is decorated with rich carvings, rare marbles and emblematicfrescoes. The New York State Library, of nearly two hundred thousand volumes, is in the building. Upon the six dormer windows opening in the interior court are emblazoned the heraldic insignia of six noted families distinguished in New York history—Stuyvesant, Schuyler, Livingston, Jay, Clinton and Tompkins.
The State Capitol, Albany, N. Y.
The State Capitol, Albany, N. Y.
Southward from the Capitol Square is the spacious and comfortable Executive Mansion, with an extensive lawn, on Eagle Street. On the same street, to the northeast of the Square, is the City Hall, a fine Gothic building with an elaborate bell tower. Also on Eagle Street is the Albany Medical College, having one of the finest Medical Museums in the country. Among its curios is the embalmed body of Calvin Edson, the "walking skeleton." This curious man came to Albany in 1830, being then forty-two years old and five feet two inches high, yet weighing only sixty pounds. He exhibited himself, and appeared in a play asJeremiah Thin. He had a good appetite, but the more he ate the thinner he grew, until in 1833, the food ceasing to nourish him, he literally starved to death amid plenty, and when the end came, weighed but forty-five pounds. His widow sold his body to the college, and he now stands in a glass case, preserved with the skin on, labelled "No. 1," and excepting discoloration is said to appear not very different from when living. On the northern side of the Square is the Albany Academy, one of thechief city schools, where Professor Joseph Henry was for several years an instructor, and noted as the place where he first demonstrated the theory of the magnetic telegraph by ringing a bell by an electric spark transmitted through a mile of wire strung around the room. The Dudley Astronomical Observatory is a small but imposing building upon an eminence overlooking the Hudson, having a munificent endowment begun by Mrs. Blandina Dudley in memory of her husband, a wealthy Albany merchant. A charming spot is Washington Park, westward from the Capitol, an enclosure of eighty-one acres, surrounded by ornamental villas, with magnificent views and most tastefully arranged. Part of this Park is land given the city by King James II.
INTERESTING BUILDINGS.
The most noted old Albany building is at the northern end of Broadway, in grounds extending to the river, and surrounded by fine trees, the ancient Van Rensselaer Mansion, commonly called the "Patroon's,"—a broad house with porch and wide central hall. This occupies the site of the first mansion, which was covered with a roof of reeds. Over on the opposite side of the river at Greenbush, the "Greene Bosch" or "pine woods" of the original settlers, is the Patroon's other residence, built of bricks from Holland, by the second Patroon Johannes. Port-holes were cut in the walls for the musketeers,it having been a fort in the Indian forays. The family burial-ground adjoins the mansion. State Street, at the corner of Pearl, which is parallel with Broadway, is the most interesting historic locality of ancient Albany. Here stood that elaborate dwelling of the Knickerbockers, regarded as the best specimen of old Dutch architecture in New York State, the "Vanderheyden Palace," an extensive building with two tall gables facing the street. One of the old burghers, Johannes Beekman, built it in 1725, and during the Revolution Jacob Vanderheyden of Troy bought it, and lived there many years in the almost regal state of the Dutch aristocracy. Washington Irving tells of it in the story of Dolph Heyliger, inBracebridge Hall, as the residence of "Herr Anthony Vanderheyden," and when Irving transformed Van Tassel's old farmhouse into his villa at Sunnyside he made a gable in imitation of one of these, and also captured the old weather-vane of the "Palace"—a horse going at full speed—to mount on top of it. Upon the opposite corner was the quaint "Lydius House," the home of Rev. John Lydius, the owner of a great manor at Fort Edward, farther up the Hudson, and in front of it stood the crooked elm, giving the locality the name of the "Old Elm Tree Corner." This tree is said to have been planted by Philip Livingston, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, who lived in an adjoining house. The "Lydius House" had been built as a parsonage forthe clergyman sent out to the old Dutch church, Rev. Gideon Schaats, the bricks, tiles, iron and woodwork, together with the church bell and pulpit, all coming from Holland in 1657, in the same ship. During many years its only occupant was Balthazar Lydius, an eccentric bachelor, a tall, spare, morose and irritable Dutchman, fond of bottle and pipe, and having a round bullet head thinly sprinkled with white hair. He gloried in his celibacy until the infirmities of age came upon him, when it is said he gave a pint of gin for an Indian squaw, called her his wife, and they lived contentedly together until he died. This was the oldest brick building in the United States; its partitions were made of mahogany and the exposed beams were richly carved.
The antique pulpit, which came across in the ship with the materials of the "Lydius House," has done duty from then until now in various Dutch churches of Albany. It is of carved oak, octagonal in form. The original church stood in the middle of State Street, a low building with a tall pyramidal roof and little steeple, since removed to widen the street. The church gallery was quite low, while the huge stove warming the building was put upon a platform so high that the sexton had to step on it from the gallery when he wanted to kindle the fire. The astute Albany philosophers of those days believed heat descended from above. The bell-rope hung from the little steeple down into the centre of the church, andhere, at eight o'clock at night, was rung the "suppawn bell," a signal to the obedient people to eat their "suppawn" or hasty pudding, and go to bed. Albany in the olden time had a quaint aspect because of the predominance of steep-roofed houses, with their terraced gables, but many of them have given way for modern improvements. Upon State Street, at the corner of James, lived in one of these the famous Anneke Jans Bogardus, who died there in 1663, the owner of the lands in New York city now partly held by Trinity Church, which her heirs have acquired so much notoriety in trying to recover. A bank now occupies the site. Albany has had some interesting history. In 1754 the Congress met here which was the first colonial organization, and finally developed into the Continental Congress. Seven colonies, north of Maryland, sent twenty-five Commissioners, who made a treaty with the Iroquois, the Indian league of the "Six Nations." Afterwards, under the guidance of Benjamin Franklin, a plan was adopted for a union of the colonies, its provisions being much similar to the United States Constitution of 1787. Thus the germ of the American Union was first developed at Albany. Her influences have been powerful in politics. For many years the "Albany Regency" controlled the old Democratic party, this name having been given by Thurlow Weed, then editor of theAlbany Evening Journal, to a junta of politicians usually assembling there, headed by MartinVan Buren. Subsequently, another combination at Albany was potential in ruling the Whigs and in controlling the Republican party—the political firm of "Seward, Weed and Greeley." Albany manœuvres managed to control the preliminaries that twice made Grover Cleveland President; and in both parties the Albany political "patroons" are still industriously at work.
Among the finest Albany buildings is the magnificent new Episcopal Cathedral of All Saints, an English Gothic structure, as yet incomplete, which will be one of the most beautiful churches in America. In the southern part of the city is the Schuyler Mansion, built in 1760, a brick house with a broad front, having a closed octagonal porch over the doorway and spacious apartments; its lawns in the olden time reaching to the Hudson, where now the city is densely built. Peter Schuyler was the first Mayor of Albany, and his descendant, General Philip Schuyler of the Revolution, occupied a large space in New York history. In this house Alexander Hamilton was married to Elizabeth Schuyler, and a subsequent owner, Mrs. McIntosh, was made the wife of Millard Fillmore, President of the United States. General Schuyler and his family always dispensed a princely hospitality in this mansion. In 1781, towards the close of the Revolution, it was the scene of a stirring event. The British, discovering that Schuyler was at home, tried to capture him. The house was thendistant from the small town and surrounded by forests. A party of Canadians and Indians prowled for several days in the woods, and capturing a laborer, learnt that the General was in the house with a bodyguard of six men. The laborer escaped afterwards and notified the General. Upon a sultry day in August, when three of the guards were asleep in the basement and the other three lying on the grass in front of the house, a servant announced that a stranger at the back gate wished to speak with the General. The errand being apprehended, the doors and windows were barred, the family collected up stairs, and the General hastened to his bedchamber for his arms. From the window he saw the place surrounded by armed men, and fired a pistol to arouse the guards on the grass and alarm the town. At this moment the enemy burst open the doors, when Mrs. Schuyler suddenly discovered she had left her infant in the cradle in the hall below. She rushed to the rescue, but the General stopped her. One of her daughters then quickly ran down stairs, and carried the infant up in safety. An Indian who had entered hurled a tomahawk, as she rushed up the stairs, which cut her dress within a few inches of the baby's head, and striking the hand-rail made a deep scar. As she ran up stairs, the Tory commander, thinking her a servant, called out, "Wench, where is your master?" With great presence of mind she quickly replied, "Gone to alarm the town." General Schuyler heardher, and taking advantage, threw up a window, crying out loudly, as if to a multitude, "Come on, my brave fellows, surround the house and secure the villains!" The marauders, who were then plundering the plate in the dining-room, becoming frightened, beat a hasty retreat, taking prisoners the three guards who were in the house. The brave daughter, who made the gallant rescue, afterwards became the wife of the last Patroon Van Rensselaer, while the infant she saved lived until 1857, and was Schuyler's last surviving child, Mrs. Catharine Cochran of Oswego, New York. General Schuyler is buried in the beautiful Albany Rural Cemetery, north of the city, and nearby is Palmer's famous figure of the "Angel at the Sepulchre." Here is also the tomb of President Chester A. Arthur, who died in 1886.
THE MODERN TROY.
Travelling northward along the Hudson, the broad basin where the Erie Canal comes out to the river is passed, being shielded by a pier eighty feet wide and nearly a mile long. Here is the vast storehouse for Canadian and Adirondack lumber brought by the canals, a leading Albany industry, there being ten miles of dockage within this basin for the lumber barges. The Erie Canal from the west, and also the Champlain Canal from the north, here have their outlets into the Hudson. Both sides of the river are lined with villages between Albany and Troy—therebeing Greenbush, East Albany, Bath, Troy and West Troy, and beyond, Lansingburgh and Waterford at the confluence of the Mohawk. This series of cities and towns stretching for ten miles along the shores, with intervals of farm land, have an aggregate population exceeding three hundred thousand, with large manufactures and commerce. There are extensive iron mills on the river and upon Green Island in front of Troy, where General Gates had the camp for his Revolutionary army which fought Burgoyne at Saratoga. Upon the western bank is the Watervliet Arsenal, where the government manufactures army supplies, an enclosure of over a hundred acres. Troy is a fringe of city extending along the eastern bank and up the steep ridge behind, crowned by the imposing Byzantine buildings and spires of St. Joseph's Theological Seminary. This high ridge, bordering the alluvial flat on which the modern Troy is built, thoroughly carries out the Grecian idea which was adopted to supersede the original Dutch name of Vanderheyden which was given the town. From the northeast Mount Olympus and from the east Mount Ida frown upon Troy, and this modern Mount Ida does not hesitate at times to hurl down Jove's thunderbolts in the form of destructive landslips. Derick Vanderheyden leased this estate from the Patroon in 1720, and it slept in Dutch peacefulness until after the Revolution, when in 1789 it had twelve dwellings and the freeholders adopted thepresent name. Just before this, Jacob Vanderheyden had removed to Albany to occupy his "Palace." The opening of the Erie Canal gave Troy great prosperity. It has fine water-power, and thus became a busy manufacturing centre. Here are the great Albany and Rensselaer Iron Works, which were famous makers of armor plates and cannon in the Civil War, and the Berdan Horseshoe Mill, the largest in the country, which has the biggest water-wheel, eighty feet in diameter, turned by one of the kills coming down from the mountain behind the town. It was here that John Ericsson built the little "Monitor" ironclad which defeated the "Merrimac" at Fortress Monroe in 1862. There are also great textile mills and a vast laundry. Its famous Polytechnic Institute is an endowment of the last Patroon, Stephen Van Rensselaer, who was Troy's steady benefactor.
THE DEFEAT OF BURGOYNE.
The Mohawk, its principal tributary, flows into the Hudson just above Troy, and each, being a mountain torrent, has brought down large alluvial deposits making extensive flats between the hills, so that their junction is marked by fertile islands and low shores, backed by picturesque ridges bordering broad valleys. Here are Green Island, Adam's Island and Van Schaick's Island, making an extensive delta. The Mohawk, after flowing from central New York nearly one hundred and forty miles in a rich agriculturalsection, pours down the falls at Cohoes, and enters the Hudson through four separate channels formed by these islands. The Mohawk Valley is largely a pastoral region, its dairies and cheeses having much fame, and in the lower valley hop-growing and broom-making are important industries, chiefly controlled by the Shakers. At one of their settlements, about six miles northwest of Albany, their foundress, "Mother Ann," who died in 1784, is buried. The Hudson flows to its confluence with the Mohawk, with generally rapid current, bordered by rich plains, as it is ascended to Stillwater, and thirteen miles beyond, to Schuylerville, where Fish Creek comes in, the outlet of Saratoga Lake.
Here is a region of great historic interest, for through it marched Sir John Burgoyne's army in 1777 to disastrous defeat. At and above Stillwater, and Bemis's Heights beyond, was the scene of his closing conflict, while Schuylerville stands upon the site of his camp at the time of his final surrender. General Schuyler, from whom the village is named, was then the owner of the entire domain of Saratoga. Burgoyne had come south from Canada to meet another British force thought to be advancing up the Hudson from New York, the design being to cut the rebellious colonies in two and defeat them in detail. The rebels hung upon Burgoyne's flanks, and at Bennington, Vermont, Stark's bold movement in August captured a large force of Hessians. Schuyler sentArnold up the Mohawk, who cut off another detachment under St. Leger, who had come over from Oswego, intending to make a detour to Albany. In September, Burgoyne came to Saratoga, and had his first contest south of the springs, with the Americans under Gates. Afterwards, each army encamped within cannon-shot of the other until October 7th, Burgoyne all the while hoping for some diversion from the lower Hudson. The British camp was on the river below Schuylerville, and on that day they marched out to give battle, Burgoyne's chief lieutenant, General Fraser, directing the movements. Fraser was in full uniform, mounted upon an iron-gray steed, and became a most conspicuous object. Colonel Morgan, who had a force of Virginia sharpshooters, perceived this, and calling a number of his best men around him, pointed to the British right wing, which was making a victorious advance under Fraser's inspiration, and said: "That gallant officer is General Fraser; I admire and honor him, but it is necessary he should die; victory for the enemy depends on him; take your stations in that clump of bushes and do your duty." Within five minutes afterwards he was mortally wounded. His aid, recognizing that he was a conspicuous mark, had just observed: "Would it not be prudent for you to retire from this place?" and he had scarcely got the reply out of his mouth, "My duty forbids me to fly from danger," when he was shot. He survived throughout the night, andasked to be buried in a redoubt he had built on a hill near the Hudson. He died next day, and at sunset a funeral procession moved towards the redoubt. The Americans saw it, and, ignorant of what it meant, cannonaded, but desisted on learning the mournful object; and then a single cannon, fired at intervals, reverberated along the Hudson; an American minute-gun in memory of a brave soldier.
Fraser's fall caused the British defeat, and they afterwards abandoned guns and baggage trains and retreated north to Schuylerville. Burgoyne's provisions gave out, many auxiliaries deserted him, the camp was incessantly cannonaded, and finally, with his forces reduced below six thousand men, on October 17th, he surrendered. It was said at the time, in the British Parliament, that the campaign thus ended "had left the country stripped of nearly every evidence of civilized occupation," and in its result it was declared to be "one of the fifteen decisive battles of the world." There were six members of Parliament among the captive officers, and Burgoyne gave up forty-two brass cannon. His army was held in captivity nearly five years, till the end of the war, at first near Boston, and later in Virginia. This victory was the turning-point of the Revolution. Among its results were, an appreciation of twenty per cent. in Continental money; the bold stand of Lord Chatham and Edmund Burke in Parliament, denouncing the method of conducting the war; the sending of cheeringwords to the struggling colonies by Spain, Holland, Russia and the Vatican; and the paving of the way for France to acknowledge the independence of the United States—all the result, under Providence, of Fraser's indiscreet devotion to duty. In the neighborhood is the great Methodist camp-meeting ground of Round Lake, and farther on Ballston Spa, where the Kayaderosseras Creek winds through a beautifully shaded valley and flows into Saratoga Lake. In the early part of the nineteenth century this was the greatest watering-place in America, its waters being chemically similar to those of Saratoga. Its Sans Souci Hotel, opened in 1804, was then the grandest in the country, and here were hatched most of the political schemes of the days of Presidents Madison, Monroe and Jackson, the "Albany Regency" in its palmiest days flourishing throughout the summer time on its lawns and porches. But much of Ballston's glory has departed, eclipsed by the newer radiance of its great neighbor, six miles away. The Saratoga Lake is three miles east of Ballston, an oval-shaped lake eight miles long, from which Fish Creek meanders off to the Hudson at Schuylerville. As the fishes thus ascended from the river into the lake, the Indians named it Saraghoga, or "the place of the herrings."
SARATOGA.
The famous watering-place, Saratoga, is a comparatively small town upon a level and somewhat barrenplateau. A short distance north of Saratoga Lake, with a boulevard and electric road connecting them, is the shallow valley wherein are the famous mineral springs. Their virtues were long known to the Iroquois, and when the renowned French explorer Jacques Cartier ascended the St. Lawrence in 1535, searching for the "northwest passage," the Indians on the river bank told him about these springs and their wonderful cures. The Mohawks, who had these waters in their special keeping, regarded them with veneration. In August, 1767, their great English friend and adopted sachem, Sir William Johnson, who is said to have been the father of a hundred children, was suffering from re-opened wounds received in battle, and the tribe held a solemn council and determined to take him to this "medicine spring of the Great Spirit." They carried him on a litter many miles to the "High Rock Spring," and he was the first white man who saw it. His strength was regained in four days, and he wrote General Schuyler, "I have just returned from a most amazing spring which almost effected my cure." This spring, coming out of its conical rock reservoir, much like a diminutive geyser, and then called the "Round Rock Spring," was the first one known. There were occasional visitors during the Revolution, and the cutting of a road some time afterwards from the Mohawk through the forests to reach it, opened the place to the public. To-day, Saratoga is an aggregationof some of the greatest hotels in the world, with many smaller ones and numerous cottages. There is a permanent population of about twelve thousand, often swollen to fifty thousand in August and September, the "season." A shallow valley contains most of the springs, around which the town clusters, with extensive suburbs of wooden houses, groves and gardens. The valley is crossed by the chief street, Broadway, a magnificent avenue, one hundred and fifty feet wide, with spacious sidewalks shaded by rows of grand old elms and, in the centre of the settlement, bordered by enormous hotels. The greatest of these is the famous Grand Union, a vast structure of iron and brick, fronting eight hundred feet on Broadway, and having over two thousand beds, the largest watering-place hotel in the world. A garden and park are enclosed by its spacious wings, and here fountains plash and bands play, while the visitors promenade or sit and gossip upon the extensive piazzas. Its front piazza, spreading along Broadway, is eight hundred feet long and three stories high. Its dining-hall is two hundred and seventy-five feet long and sixty feet wide, the largest in existence, and seats seventeen hundred people at table. The United States Hotel, north of the Grand Union, and Congress Hall, across Broadway, are also enormous caravansaries, and in busy times these three hotels will accommodate over six thousand guests, the cost of running each of them forone day being $7500 to $10,000. Everything in these gigantic hotels is arranged upon a scale of splendor and immensity almost requiring a railway train to take the visitor about them.
Many of the twenty-eight mineral springs of Saratoga border Broadway or are near it, and the most noted, the "Congress" and the "Hathorn," are on either side of Congress Hall, thus being easy of access. The geologists say these springs rise from a line of "fault," which brings the slaty formations of the Hudson River against the sandstones and limestones that are above. They are generally muriated saline springs of about 50° temperature, the Congress Spring having about the strength of Kissingen Racoczy, but a milder taste, while the Hathorn Spring, its great rival, contains more chloride of sodium and iron. Some of the springs are chalybeate, others sulphurous or iodinous, and all are highly charged with carbonic acid gas. The Saratoga Seltzer resembles the seltzer of Germany, and the Geyser Spring is so highly charged that when drawn from a faucet it foams like soda water. The waters are both tonic and cathartic. The "High Rock Spring" bubbles up through an aperture in a conical rock composed of calcareous tufa, which has been formed by the deposits from the waters. This rock is four feet high, with a rounded top, in the centre of which is a circular opening a foot in diameter. The depth of the spring from the present topof the rock is thirty-two feet. The waters used to overflow occasionally and increase the size of the rock by the deposits, but a tree was blown down and cracked the rock, since which the waters will only rise to about six inches below the top. A pagoda covers it, beneath which water is ladled out to the thirsty. The Congress Spring is in a tasteful park, having this and the Columbian Spring under an elaborate pavilion. This Congress Spring was found by a hunting party who went through the valley in 1792, and named it in honor of a member of Congress who was with them. To this park go the crowds in the morning before breakfast to drink the waters, which are freely furnished either cold or hot, and music plays while the people drink glass after glass. Each pint of Congress water contains about seventy-five grains of mineral constituents and forty-nine cubic inches of carbonic acid gas. It is cathartic and alterative. The Columbian Spring has much more iron, and is a tonic and diuretic. The Hathorn Spring is in a large building adjoining Broadway, and was found when digging for the foundations of a new house. It is a powerful cathartic, containing nearly ninety-four grains of mineral constituents and forty-seven cubic inches of carbonic acid gas in each pint, and it is also a tonic and diuretic. The chief medicinal rivalries of Saratoga have been based upon the respective merits of the Congress and Hathorn waters, and great controversy has at times been thus inspired.
There are other noted springs—the Hamilton, a mild cathartic; the Putnam, chalybeate, and having a bathing establishment; the Pavilion, a cathartic; the United States, a mild, agreeable tonic; and the Seltzer, rising through a tube several feet high, over the rim of which it flows, a sparkling and invigorating drink. The Empire closely resembles Congress water; the Red Spring is charged with much iron; and the Saratoga "A" Spring is a mild cathartic. Then there are the Saratoga Vichy, Saratoga Kissingen, Carlsbad, Magnetic, Imperial, Royal, Star, Excelsior, Eureka, White Sulphur and Geyser Springs, most of them in the outskirts. The Geyser spouts twenty-five feet high, is deliciously cold, and exhilarates like champagne. The Glacier Spring nearby was found by sinking an artesian well three hundred feet; its waters spout high above the tube, and are powerfully cathartic. There are six spouting springs, the Geyser being the best known; but of all the springs of Saratoga, the waters of barely a half-dozen are much used. The Congress, Empire and Hathorn Springs send their bottled waters all over the world. The springs are all wonderfully clear and sparkling, most of the waters pleasant to drink, and it is such a Saratoga fashion to go about imbibing and tasting these waters of rival virtues, that the visitors sometimes get into a plethoric condition that becomes uncomfortable if not dangerous. But the springs are not the chief attraction of Saratoga, and in fact the veteranvisitors do not partake of them at all, but freely confess that they come not to drink the waters, but to see the life and be "in the swim," for in the season the crowd at Saratoga, unlike anywhere else, includes the leaders of all sets. The proximity of the Adirondacks gives the bracing ozone of mountain air, and in the cosmopolitan throng is generally included the best the country can show of fashion and wealth. It is a great place for holding all kinds of conventions, and many are the political, corporation and stock-jobbing schemes hatched on the great hotel piazzas. It is also famous for dresses and diamonds, and wonderful is the elaborateness of millinery, gowns and jewels. The glitter of diamonds dazzles at every turn as they sparkle under the brilliant electric lights illuminating the evening scene. It was said not long ago, in a description of Saratoga, that if the Grand Union Hotel should ever perish in the height of the season, with all it contains, the future explorer who might delve in its ruins would come upon the rarest diamond mine the world ever knew.
Upon Saratoga Lake is the famous restaurant where "Saratoga chips" were invented and are served, this route being a favorite drive for the people who attend the numerous conventions, for whose use an elaborate Convention Hall has been erected on Broadway, seating five thousand persons. On the western shore of the lake, just where the Kayaderosseras River flows in from Ballston, is pointed out thebattlefield on which the legend says that in the days of the warlike Mohawks and fierce Mohicans they had a deadly combat, a thousand warriors being engaged, when suddenly the Great Spirit sent a miraculous white dove over the lake and battlefield, having such an effect that the conflict ceased, their tomahawks fell useless at their feet, and they smoked the calumet of peace. To the northward of Saratoga is the extensive Woodlawn Park, the home of the late Judge Henry Hilton. Ten miles northward is Mount McGregor, rising twelve hundred feet and giving a magnificent view. It was here that General Grant was taken in his last illness in 1885, and the cottage in which he died is now the property of New York State and open to the public.
FORT EDWARD.
The upper Hudson River has various falls providing good water-power, which are largely availed of by paper-mills. The famous Fort Edward, one of these noted paper-making towns, is but a short distance from Saratoga. The railroad, leading from Saratoga and the south to Lake Champlain and the north, here crosses the Hudson in a region of great historic interest. This was the beginning of the portage in early times between the river and the lake, the railway route following the ancient Indian trail. The two waters are actually connected by the Champlain Canal, and, curiously enough, this makesNew England an island, thus realizing the belief of the original explorers. Rev. Robert Cushman, who preached the first sermon before the Massachusetts Pilgrims at Plymouth in 1621, afterwards published it with an introduction describing New England, in which he says: "So far as we can find, it is an island, and near about the quantity of England, being cut out from the mainland in America, as England is from the main of Europe, by a great arm of the sea (Hudson's River) which entereth in forty degrees and runneth up northwest and by west, and goeth out either into the South Sea (Pacific Ocean) or else into the Bay of Canada (Gulf of St. Lawrence)." There can still be seen at Fort Edward traces of the ramparts of the old fort commanding the portage, which was held and fought for in the eighteenth century. Originally a noble domain around it of one thousand square miles was granted to "our loving subject, the Reverend Godfridius Dellius, Minister of the Gospell att our city of Albany," for "the annual rent of one Raccoon Skin." The old gentleman, however, fell from grace, and the domain was taken away from him and the New York Legislature suspended him from the ministry for "deluding the Mohawk Indians, and illegal and surreptitious obtaining of said grant." Then it went to his successor, Rev. John Lydius, who lived in the quaint "Lydius House" in Albany. The first fort was built soon after Lydius took possession, and in 1744 he establisheda fur-trading station. A military road was then constructed from Saratoga to Whitehall on Lake Champlain, here crossing the river, and it was commanded by three forts, one at this crossing. The French destroyed the first fort, but Sir William Johnson made a successful expedition into the Lake Champlain district in 1755, and built here the strong post of Fort Edward. It was an important work during the whole French and Indian War, lasting seven years, and it was here that Lord Amherst organized the army which conquered Canada in 1759.
At Fort Edward first appeared as a British soldier one of the greatest heroes of the Revolution, Israel Putnam. He had joined Sir William Johnson's expedition as captain in a Connecticut regiment. He performed here a daring exploit; the wooden barracks had caught fire and the garrison vainly tried to subdue the flames, which approached the powder magazine, and the danger was frightful. The water-gate was opened, and the soldiers in line passed buckets of water up from the river, when Putnam mounted the roof of the next building to the magazine and threw the water on the fire. The commander, fearing for his life, ordered him to desist, but he would not leave until he felt the roof giving away. Then he got alongside the magazine, its timbers already charred, and hurled bucket after bucket upon it, with final success, the magazine being saved and an explosion prevented. The fire was quenched, butthe burnt and blistered hero was for a month a sufferer in the hospital. Putnam had an adventure at the rapids a few miles below Fort Edward, where he was out with a scouting party, and being alongside the bank alone in his boat, was surprised by the Indians. He could not cross the river above the rapids quickly enough to elude their muskets, and the only escape was down the cataract. Without hesitation, to the astonishment of the savages, his boat shot directly down the foaming, whirling current, amid eddies and over rugged rocks, and in a few moments he had escaped them, and was floating on the tranquil river below. Believing him to be protected by the Great Spirit, they dared not follow. Shortly afterwards, returning from a scout on Lake Champlain, Putnam's party was surprised, and the Indians captured and bound him to a tree. While thus situated, a battle between his friends and the enemy raged for an hour around the tree, he being under the hottest fire, but he was unscathed. The Indians were beaten and had to retreat, but they took their captive along, determined to have vengeance by roasting him alive. He was again tied to a tree, and the fire had been kindled and was blazing when the French commander, Molang, discovered and rescued him. Thus was Putnam seasoned for his great work in the Revolution.
The tragic murder of poor Jenny McCrea is also associated with Fort Edward. This post in the Revolution was held in 1777 by an American garrison,who retired before the advance of Burgoyne's army southward. Jenny McCrea, the graceful and winning daughter of a Presbyterian clergyman, who was betrothed to an officer in Burgoyne's army, was visiting a widow lady at Fort Edward. In order to secure Indian co-operation, Burgoyne had offered bounties for prisoners and scalps, at the same time forbidding the killing of unarmed persons. He found it difficult, however, to restrain the savages, who went about in small bodies seeking captives, and one of these parties, prowling around Fort Edward, entered the house where Jenny was staying and carried off Jenny and her friend. An alarm was given, and troops sent after them. The Indians had caught two horses, on one of which Jenny was mounted, when the pursuers assailed them with a volley of bullets. The Indians were unhurt, but the fair captive was mortally wounded and fell, and, as tradition relates, expired at the foot of a huge pine tree, which remained a memorial of the tragedy for nearly a century. The savages thus lost their prisoner, but they quickly scalped her, and taking her long black tresses, bathed in blood, to Burgoyne's camp, they claimed reward. They were accused of her murder, but denied it, and the horrid tale, magnified by repetition, caused the greatest indignation. General Gates issued an address, charging Burgoyne with hiring savages to scalp Europeans and their descendants, and describing Jenny as having been "dressed tomeet her promised husband, but met her murderers." For this crime, it was added, Burgoyne had "paid the price of blood." Poor Jenny's murder, with Burgoyne's defeat, was employed most effectively by the opposition in the British House of Commons, Chatham and Burke eloquently denouncing the barbarity and merciless cruelties of his unfortunate campaign. Her lover declined longer to stay in Burgoyne's army, but retired to Canada, living there till old age. Jenny's remains are interred in the beautiful cemetery overlooking the Hudson above Fort Edward, marked by a monument recording her murder by a band of Indians at the age of seventeen, and reciting that the memorial was erected "To record one of the most thrilling incidents in the annals of the American Revolution; to do justice to the fame of the gallant British officer to whom she was affianced; and as a simple tribute to the memory of the departed." This gentle maiden's sacrifice was of priceless value in producing the revulsion of sentiment in Europe that had so much to do with the final success of the Revolution.
BAKER'S FALLS AND GLEN'S FALLS.
In coming to Fort Edward, the Hudson River sweeps around a grand curve from the west towards the south, much of its course over cascades and down rapids that are lined with mills. In a mile it descends eighty feet, these rapids being known as Baker's Falls, and just above is the village of SandyHill, having in its centre a pleasant elm-shaded green. Here was enacted a tragedy, in some respects rivalling the tale of Pocahontas. A party of sixteen, carrying supplies to Lake George, was surprised and captured by Indians, and taken to the trunk of a fallen tree on the spot where is now the village green, bound by hickory withes and seated in a row. The savages then began at the end of the row and tomahawked them one after another until only two remained, Lieutenant McGinnis commanding the party and a young teamster named Quackenboss. The tomahawk was brandished over the former, when he threw himself backward and tried to break his bonds. A dozen tomahawks instantly gleamed over him, and lying on his back he defended himself with his heels, but he was soon hacked to death. Quackenboss alone remained, and the deadly hatchet was raised over his head, when suddenly the arm of the savage was seized by a squaw, who cried, "You shall not kill him; he no fighter; he my dog." They spared him to become a beast of burden. Staggering under a pack of plunder almost too heavy to carry, they marched him towards Canada, the Indians bearing his companions' scalps as trophies. They sailed along Lake Champlain in canoes, and at the first Indian village at which they halted he was compelled to "run the gauntlet." He ran between rows of savages armed with heavy clubs, who beat him, an ordeal in which he was severely injured. The Indian woman,however, took him to her wigwam, bound up his wounds, and carefully nursed him until he recovered. He was ultimately ransomed, obtaining employment in Montreal. Finally returning to his home, he lived to a ripe old age, telling of his adventures until he died in 1820.
Following the curving Hudson River bank around to the westward, another series of rapids and cascades is ascended to the thriving manufacturing town of Glen's Falls. This magnificent cataract pours through a wild ravine having over seventy feet descent, the water flowing upon rough masses of black marble composing the rocky terraces the stream has broken down. The Mohicans had significant names for this famous cataract. One was Kayandorossa, meaning the "long deep hole," applied to the ravine; and another, Che-pon-tuc, or "hard climbing; a difficult place to get around." Along the north side of the ravine, upon a beautiful plain, is the manufacturing settlement of about ten thousand people, who use the admirable water-power and get the black marble out of adjacent quarries. Vast numbers of logs coming down the Hudson are gathered in a boom above the town, and sawmills cut them into lumber. Paper-mills cluster about the falls, and marble-saws work up the black rocks. In the centre of the ravine, above the falls, a cavern is hewn where a rocky islet makes a rude abutment for a bridge pier. Father Jogues, who came over from Lake George in 1645, was thefirst white man who saw this attractive region, and he wrote that the Indians then called the Hudson "Oi-o-gue" or "the beautiful river," while the Hollanders, settled on it farther down, had named it the "river Van Maurice." When the Dutch made their first explorations they found that the lower Mohawk and the upper valley of the Hudson, with the country northward extending into the Adirondacks, was the home of the Mohicans, an Algonquin tribe, and always at war with the Mohawks, their western neighbors higher up that valley. It was thought probable that with a view of securing assistance in this inveterate feud, the Mohicans received the Dutch settlers so amicably and gave them lands.
James Fenimore Cooper located around Glen's Falls the scene of his novel, theLast of the Mohicans, in whichHawkeye, looking out of the cavern in the ravine, gives his admirable description of the cataract as it appeared in the French and Indian War, before the millwright had come along to disturb the scenery. "Ay," he said, "there are the falls on two sides of us, and the river above and below. If you had daylight it would be worth the trouble to step up on the height of this rock and look at the perversity of the water. It falls by no rule at all; sometimes it leaps, sometimes it tumbles; there it skips; here it shoots; in one place 'tis as white as snow, and in another 'tis as green as grass; hereabouts it pitches into deep hollows that rumble and quake the 'arth, and thereawayit ripples and sings like a brook, fashioning whirlpools and gullies in the old stone as if 'twere no harder than trodden clay. The whole design of the river seems disconnected. First it runs smoothly as if meaning to go down the descent as things were ordered; then it angles about and faces the shores; nor are there places wanting where it looks backward, as if unwilling to leave the wilderness to mingle with the salt!"
SOURCES OF THE HUDSON.
The noble Hudson River, which we have ascended to Glen's Falls, flows out of the great Adirondack wilderness of Northern New York, the headwaters draining its extensive southern declivity. Among these virgin Adirondack woods and mountains, near the Long Lake, is the remote source of the western branch of the Hudson, the "Hendrick Spring." Surrounded by forest and swamp, this cool and shallow pool, about five feet in diameter, fringed by delicate ferns, and overhung with vines and shrubbery, is the beginning of the great river, and named in honor of its discoverer and first explorer: