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 pa.s.s always has gusty winds blowing over it, and this was a weird region in the ancient Dutch _regime_, 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 ash.o.r.e full b.u.t.t 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 weatherc.o.c.k 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 pa.s.s 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 pa.s.sage 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.
ANTHONY"S NOSE.
Thus rise, high over the valley, "the rough turrets of the Highland towers." The Indians believed this mountain region was created by the mighty spirit Manetho, to protect his favorite abodes from the unhallowed eyes of mortals. Their tradition was that the vast mountains of rock were raised before the Hudson poured its waters through them, and within them was a prison where the omnipotent Manetho confined rebellious spirits. Here, bound by adamantine chains, jammed in rifted pines, or crushed under ponderous crags, they groaned for ages. At length the mighty Hudson burst open their prison-house, rolling its overwhelming tide triumphantly through the stupendous ruins. Entering the pa.s.s, it really seems as if the Hudson River channel ought to run up where Jan Peek went, but instead it goes sharply around the ponderous base of the Donderberg Mountain. This is a very narrow gateway, where the swift tidal current makes the "Race,"
and in an instant the contracted pa.s.sage is opened between the Donderberg on the left and Anthony"s Nose on the right, entering this beautiful Highland district, which Chateaubriand has likened to "a large bouquet tied at its base with azure ribbon." As the narrow strait is traversed, Iona Island, tree-clad and attractive, appears ahead, and the winds usually blow a lively gale, buffeted from one mountain side to the other. The tide runs swiftly around the base of Anthony"s Nose, and the romantic Brocken Kill pours down his sloping side, while through the jutting point of the Nose the railway has pierced a tunnel, making on either side a veritable nostril. The huge tree-covered mountain rises grandly to the clouds, while just over the tunnel at the point, a ma.s.s of protruding rocks and timber makes a first-cla.s.s pimple to ornament the Nose. This is one of the prominent Highland peaks, rising over twelve hundred feet, and is said by some to have been named from a fancied resemblance to the nose of the great St. Anthony, the Egyptian monk of the third century.
Irving, however, has given us the more popular tradition that it was named in memory of luckless Anthony the Trumpeter, who met his fate at Spuyten Duyvel. The veracious historian Knickerbocker writes: "It must be known that the nose of Anthony the Trumpeter was of a very l.u.s.ty size, strutting boldly from his countenance like a mountain of Golconda, being sumptuously bedecked with rubies and other precious stones--the true regalia of a king of good fellows--which jolly Bacchus grants to all who bouse it heartily at the flagon. Now, thus it happened, that bright and early in the morning the good Anthony, having washed his burly visage, was leaning over the quarter railing of the galley, contemplating it in the glossy wave below. Just at this moment, the ill.u.s.trious sun, breaking in all his splendor from behind a high bluff of the Highlands, did dart one of his most potent beams full upon the nose of the sounder of bra.s.s, the reflection of which shot straightway down hissing hot into the water and killed a mighty sturgeon that was sporting beside the vessel. This huge monster, being with infinite labor hoisted on board, furnished a luxurious repast to all the crew, being accounted of excellent flavor, except about the wound, where it smacked a little of brimstone, and this, on my veracity, was the first time that ever sturgeon was eaten in these parts by Christian people. When this astonishing miracle became known to Peter Stuyvesant, and he tasted of the unknown fish, he, as may well be supposed, marvelled exceedingly, and as a monument thereof, he gave the name of "Anthony"s Nose" to a stout promontory in the neighborhood, and it has continued to be called "Anthony"s Nose" ever since that time."
WEST POINT.
The most famous locality in the Highlands is West Point. "In this beautiful place," wrote Charles d.i.c.kens, "the fairest among the fair and lovely Highlands of the North River; shut in by deep green heights and ruined forts, and looking down upon the distant town of Newburg, along a glittering path of sunlit water, with here and there a skiff, whose white sail often bends on some new tack as sudden flaws of wind come down upon her from the gullies in the hills, hemmed in besides, all around, with memories of Washington and events of the Revolutionary war: is the Military School of America." Opposite Anthony"s Nose, Montgomery Creek flows in, its mouth broadened into a little bay. Upon the high rocks at the entrance, on either side, stood the great defenders of the lower Highlands during the early Revolution, Forts Clinton and Montgomery, considered impregnable then, and to bar the river pa.s.sage a ponderous iron chain on timber floats was stretched across the channel to Anthony"s Nose. The Continental Congress spent $250,000 on these obstructions, but the British in 1777 surprised and captured the forts, destroyed the chain and burnt the gunboats guarding it. This was a great victory, but barren of results, for Burgoyne"s surrender soon afterwards compelled them to abandon this region and retire down towards New York. There are traces of the forts, and a flagstaff on the hill north of the creek marks the site of Fort Montgomery. Just above, on the eastern bank, is the charming and symmetrical cone of the Sugar Loaf Mountain, with several smaller companions, and the vista views along the river, and through some of the deep valleys between these mountains, are magnificent. The little town of Garrison"s fringes the sh.o.r.e, the school of the Sisters of St. Francis, formerly a popular hotel, is perched high on the cliff on the western bank; while in front the dome of the West Point Library and the barracks rise in view upon the Point itself, which stretches completely across the view, its extremity hidden by the jutting headlands of the eastern bank. Here comes down in rainy weather the frothy current of the beautiful b.u.t.termilk Falls, for a hundred feet over the rocks into the river, and the West Sh.o.r.e Railroad, winding along the edge of the cliffs, cuts or goes through their extended points, and finally darts into a long tunnel bored right under the West Point Academy.
The Hudson River, some distance above, bends sharply around the little lighthouse on the end of West Point, its extremity being a moderately sloping rock covered with cedars, the reef going deep down into the water, while on its highest part is a monument to General Kosciusko, who had much to do with constructing the original military works. The flat and elevated surface, some distance inland, plainly visible both from up and down the river, is the Parade Ground, the Academic buildings being constructed around it, while behind them on higher ground is the dome-crowned library. The surface of West Point is not so high as the surrounding mountains, but its advanced position completely commands the river approach both ways, and hence its military importance. Along the water"s edge at the Point the rocks are worn smooth, it is said, by so many cadets sitting there in the summer time. Just above is the cove, where they swim and practice at pontoon-bridge building, and back of this cove is the artillery ground, the guns being fired at the huge side of old Cro" Nest Mountain to the northward. Gee"s Point is also above, and from its extremity was extended the second big chain across to Const.i.tution Island, used during the later years of the Revolution, to obstruct the pa.s.sage, also buoyed on timber floats; some of its huge links being still preserved. Const.i.tution Island was long the home of Susan Warner, the auth.o.r.ess, who died in 1885, and her grave is in West Point Cemetery. Her _Hills of the Shatemuc_ is full of Hudson River scenes, but her best-known book was _The Wide, Wide World_, published in 1850.
The military post and academy of West Point is about fifty miles north of New York, the Government domain covering twenty-four hundred acres.
The buildings stand on a plain of one hundred and sixty acres, elevated one hundred and fifty-seven feet above the river, with mountains all around, rising in some cases fifteen hundred feet, the highest being old Cro" Nest. South of the Academy, on a commanding hill six hundred feet high, are the ruins of Fort Putnam, the chief work during the Revolution. When that war began in 1775 it was ordered that the pa.s.ses of the Hudson through the Highlands should be fortified, and Fort Const.i.tution was built on the opposite island. As the higher adjacent hills commanded it, this work was soon abandoned, and three years later West Point was selected and fortified, with Fort Clinton at the Point, and several other formidable works, becoming the "American Gibraltar," the second ma.s.sive chain being then extended across to the island as an additional protection. It was considered the most important post in the country, and at the time of Arnold"s treason in September, 1780, was garrisoned by over three thousand men, and had one hundred and eighteen cannon in the various works. After peace came, the military defenses fell into ruin; but Washington repeatedly recommended that a military school be established at West Point, and in 1802 it was authorized by Congress, going into operation in 1812. The earthworks of the original Fort Clinton on the point, built by the youthful engineer Thaddeus Kosciusko in 1778, have been restored, and are carefully preserved. This young officer, descended from a n.o.ble Polish family, had not completed his studies in the military school of Warsaw when he eloped with a girl of high rank. The enraged father pursued and captured them, and the youthful lover was compelled either to slay the father or abandon the daughter. He chose the latter, and going to Paris met Dr. Franklin, who soon filled him with a desire to help the struggling Americans, and he came over and entered the army as an engineer in 1776. He served with distinction throughout the war, was made a General, and publicly thanked by Congress. He fought afterwards in the Polish Revolution, and retiring to Switzerland, died in 1817. He is buried in the Cathedral Church of Cracow, and near that city a mound one hundred and fifty feet high has been raised to his memory, earth being brought from every battlefield in Poland. The Kosciusko monument of marble was erected in memory of the n.o.ble Pole in an angle of Fort Clinton at West Point in 1829.
ARNOLD"S TREASON.
West Point itself saw no fighting, the great event of its early history being Benedict Arnold"s treason. Across the river from the Point, and under the shadow of Sugar Loaf Mountain, is Beverly Cove, with a little wharf, where then stood Beverly House, previously the home of a prominent loyalist, Colonel Beverly Robinson of Virginia.
Dr. Dwight, afterwards President of Yale College, was Chaplain of a Connecticut regiment at West Point in 1778, and he then climbed the Sugar Loaf, describing its view over the Highlands as "majestic, solemn, wild and melancholy." Arnold, when he plotted for the surrender of the post with Andre at Treason Hill, below the Highlands, agreed to the treason for $50,000 gold and a Brigadier General"s commission in the British army. Believing the plot was working prosperously, Arnold, after the interview, had crossed from the Point over to Beverly House, his headquarters, and three days afterwards breakfasted there on September 24, 1780. Hamilton and Lafayette arrived early that morning and met him, announcing that Washington was at the ferry below and would soon join them. While at the table, Arnold received a letter from an officer down the river with the startling intelligence, "Major Andre of the British army is a prisoner in my custody." Arnold is said to have acted with wonderful coolness in the presence of his distinguished company, and although evidence of his own guilt might at any moment have arrived, he thoroughly concealed his emotions. Ordering a horse prepared, on the plea that his presence was needed "over the river," he left the table and went up stairs to his wife. He briefly told her they must part, perhaps forever, as his life depended on speedily reaching the British lines.
The poor young wife, a bride of less than two years, was horror-stricken, and swooning, sank senseless upon the floor. Arnold dare not summon a.s.sistance, but kissed their sleeping infant, and mounting his horse galloped down to the wharf. Here he jumped into his six-oared barge, ordering them to row him swiftly down the Hudson, strengthening their energies by a promised reward of two gallons of rum. The oarsmen worked with a will, not knowing where they were going, and were astonished when he got below the Highlands to find him guiding them to the British sloop "Vulture." They were kept aboard as prisoners by Arnold"s orders, and saw him greeted as a friend by their enemies. Even Sir Henry Clinton, when they arrived in New York, despised this meanness and ordered their liberation.
Washington arrived at Beverly House soon after Arnold had left, being anxious to see him, but could not find him. The General took a hasty breakfast and crossed over the river to West Point seeking him, but having no suspicions. He was disappointed at not finding Arnold there, and talking to Colonel Lamb, commanding Fort Clinton, the latter told him he had not heard from Arnold for two days.
Washington"s suspicions began to awaken, and crossing back to Beverly House, he was met by Hamilton, with the papers found upon Andre, revealing Arnold"s guilt. He summoned Lafayette and Knox for counsel, and the deepest sorrow evidently stirred Washington"s bosom as he asked them the memorable question, "Whom can we trust now?" But soon the condition of the deserted wife, who was frantic with grief and apprehension, aroused his liveliest sympathy. Describing the scene, Hamilton wrote: "The General went up to see her. She upbraided him with being in a plot to murder her child, for she was quite beside herself. One moment she raved; another she melted into tears.
Sometimes she pressed her infant to her bosom and lamented its fate, occasioned by the imprudence of its father, in a manner that would have moved insensibility itself." Washington did all in his power to soothe her, believing her innocent of previous knowledge of her husband"s guilt. After Arnold had got safely aboard the "Vulture," he wrote to Washington, imploring protection for his wife and child, saying: "She is as good and innocent as an angel, and as incapable of doing wrong." Ample protection was afforded, and they were sent safely to her friends. She was Miss Shippen of Philadelphia, and only eighteen years old when Arnold, then the Military Governor of Philadelphia, married her in 1778, his second wife. The infant, James Robertson Arnold, afterwards became a distinguished officer in the British army, serving with credit in different parts of the world, and rising to the rank of Lieutenant General, dying in London in 1854.
Benedict Arnold was made a Major General by the British, and was given a considerable sum of money; but his life was unhappy, as he was shunned and often insulted, and sinking into obscurity, he died in London in 1801. His treason was deliberately plotted, investigation showing he had been over a year in correspondence with the enemy, and had sought the command at West Point, given him in August, 1780, in order to compa.s.s its surrender.
OLD CRO" NEST AND THE STORM KING.
The dark pile of old Cro" Nest, guarding the northern side of West Point, rises fourteen hundred and eighteen feet, one of the n.o.blest mountains of the Highlands. Beyond it, the Storm King and Mount Taurus are the northern portals of the pa.s.s, with Pollopell"s Island, rocky and tree-clad, lying in the river between, and farther on the distant hazy sh.o.r.es enclosing Newburg Bay. These b.u.t.tresses of the northern entrance solidly rise as protectors of the pa.s.s into the valley:
"Mountains that like giants stand To sentinel enchanted land."
On the northern side of the promontory making the Point, upon a little level plain above the cliffs, overlooking the river, and almost under the shadow of old Cro" Nest, is the West Point Cemetery. Here is buried General Winfield Scott. Upon the Parade Ground is the Battle Monument, erected in 1894, a column seventy-eight feet high, surmounted by a statue of Victory. Down along the most beautiful part of the sh.o.r.e at the Point, and leading to Kosciusko"s Garden, a favorite resort of the Polish officer, is the secluded path which generations of impulsive young cadets have known as the "Flirtation Walk." Beginning at the roadway, high on the bluff, overlooking the river, it winds with devious turns down the declivity, and after curving around the promontory near the water"s edge, sweeps grandly up the incline again. This trysting-path leads under a lacework of foliage, giving it pleasant and meditative gloom even when the sun shines brightly. Over across the river is the village of Cold Spring, having both above and below the sh.o.r.es rising steeply, and hung upon the edge is the pretty Church of St. Mary"s, with its columned portico and surmounting belfry. Nearby the railway running along the sh.o.r.e pierces a tunnel through a rugged protruding rock. Here is the Cold Spring foundry that makes cannon for the army. Almost under the Parade Ground on the northern side is the Siege Battery, where the guns in time of artillery practice carry on a noisy and reverberating warfare across the Cove against the dark and towering side of old Cro"
Nest. This grand mountain, the target for the youthful gunners, inspired the muse of George P. Morris, the lyric poet of the Highlands, whose delightful home was at Undercliff, across the river above, at the foot of Mount Taurus. His eyes perpetually feasted upon the view of this peak, and thus he described it:
"Where Hudson"s wave o"er silvery sands Winds through the hills afar, Old Cro" Nest like a monarch stands Crowned with a single star."
[Ill.u.s.tration: _Up the Hudson from the Water Battery, West Point_]
The northern portal of the Highlands is guarded on either hand by the Storm King, rising fifteen hundred and twenty-nine feet, and Mount Taurus, fifteen hundred and eighty-six feet. There are also a galaxy of attendant peaks. Beyond Mount Taurus is Breakneck Hill, rising nearly twelve hundred feet, with a chain of mountains stretching far to the northeast, among them the Old Beacon and the towering Grand Sachem, sixteen hundred and eighty feet high. The Storm King was the old Boter-Berg of the early Dutch, thus named because, to their matter-of-fact minds, the mountain resembled nothing so much as a huge lump of b.u.t.ter. Similarly, the eastern portal of the pa.s.s was Bull Mountain originally, but has since been more cla.s.sically transformed into Mount Taurus. The ancient Knickerbocker legend records how the primitive inhabitants chased a wild bull around this mountain to the peak beyond it, where he fell and broke his neck, thus naming both of them, though Breakneck Hill yet awaits a more cla.s.sic transformation.
The geologists tell us that in early ages, like the Minisink of the Delaware, the region north of the Highlands adjacent to the Hudson Valley was a vast lake, extending back to Lake Champlain, which still remains as a fragment of the inland sea, following the melting of the great glacier. To get a southern outlet, the river broke through the mountain barrier and formed the winding and romantic Highland Pa.s.s.
There is a grand outlook from the summit of the Storm King over this valley to the northward. The river expands into the beautiful Newburg Bay, its most perfect land-locked harbor, and its course can be traced through the "Long Reach" for more than twenty miles, a broad, straight stream between the pleasant banks, up to Crom Elbow, the "Krom Elleboge" of the original Dutch colonists. Villages dot the sh.o.r.es, and fertile fields stretch up on either hand, while hung in mid air, far away across the water, is the distant, slender, spider-like span of the high railway bridge at Poughkeepsie, the route by the "back door" into New England, which has gone through such serious throes of reconstruction. Upon the left hand the Catskills, and upon the right hand the Berkshire Hills of Western Ma.s.sachusetts, bound the distant horizon. Behind, and to the southward, the river can be traced as it winds through the Highlands down to Anthony"s Nose, while nearer, one can look into the depression on top of the adjoining mountain, within a surrounding amphitheatre of peaks that makes the striking resemblance giving the significant name to the old Cro" Nest.
THE CULPRIT FAY.
Between the Storm King and old Cro" Nest is the deep and beautiful Vale of Tempe, with wild ravines furrowed through it, forming channels for clear mountain streams, and the trees conceal many a delicious dell. In this picturesque nook among the mountains is laid the scene of Joseph Rodman Drake"s charming poem of "The Culprit Fay":
""Tis the middle watch of a summer"s night, The earth is dark but the heavens are bright; Naught is seen in the vault on high But the moon and the stars and the cloudless sky, And the flood which rolls its milky hue, A river of light on the welkin blue.
The moon looks down on old Cro" Nest, She mellows the shades on his s.h.a.ggy breast, And seems his huge gray form to throw In a silver cone on the wave below; His sides are broken by spots of shade, By the walnut bough and the cedar made, And through their cl.u.s.tering branches dark Glimmers and dies the fire-fly"s spark, Like starry twinkles that momently break Through the rifts of the gathering tempest"s rack."
The story is told that Drake, then about twenty-one years of age, and James Fenimore Cooper and Fitz-Greene Halleck, who were his close friends, in August, 1816, were strolling through these Highlands. His companions got into a discussion, holding that our American rivers gave no such rare opportunities for poetic fancy as the streams of older lands. Drake disputed this, and, to prove the contrary, composed within three days this exquisite poem, which has largely made his fame. It is a simple yet interesting story. The fairies living in this beautiful valley are called together at midnight to punish one who has broken his vow, and they sentence him to a difficult penance, with all the evil spirits of air and water opposing. The genius of the poet interweaves the poem with every natural attraction the locality affords. Thus are the fairies summoned to the dance:
"Ouphe and goblin! imp and sprite!
Elf of eve and starry fay!
Ye that love the moon"s soft light, Hither, hither, wend your way.
Twine ye in a jocund ring; Sing and trip it merrily; Hand to hand and wing to wing, Round the wild witch-hazel tree."
These Cro" Nest fairies are a dainty race. Owlet"s eyes are their lanterns; they repose in cobweb hammocks swung on tufted spears of gra.s.s and rocked by midsummer night zephyrs; some lie on beds of lichen, with pillows of the breast-plumes of the humming-bird; others nestle in the purple shade of the four-o"clock, or in rock-niches lined with dazzling mica. Velvet-like mushrooms are their tables, where they quaff the dew from the b.u.t.tercup. Their king"s throne is of spicewood and sa.s.safras, supported on tortoise-sh.e.l.l pillars and draped with crimson tulip-leaves. The "culprit" himself, however, in his beautiful outfit and quaint adventures, gives the best imagery of the poem. At the opening of his journey, chagrined and fatigued, he captures a spotted toad for a steed, and bridles her with silk-weed twist, spurring her onward with an osier whip. Arriving at the water"s edge, he plunges in, but leeches, fish and other watery foes drive him back with bruised limbs. The use of cobweb lint and the balsam dews of sorrel and henbane relieve his wounds, and being refreshed by the juices of calamus, he embarks in a mussel-sh.e.l.l boat, painted brilliantly without and tinged with pearl within. He gathers a colen-bell for a cup, and sculls into the middle of the stream, laughing at the foes who chatter and grin in the water. There he sits in the moonlight, until a sturgeon, coming by, leaps glistening into the silvery light; and then, like a liliputian Mercury, balancing upon one foot, he lifts the flowery cup and catches the sparkling drop that washes the stain from his wing. He returns to the sh.o.r.e, having sweet nymphs grasping the sides of the boat with their tiny hands and urging it onward. The next enterprise of the "culprit" is more knightly. He is arrayed as a fairy cavalier, in acorn helmet, plumed with thistle-down, corselet made of a bee"s nest, and cloak of b.u.t.terfly wings. His shield is a lady-bug"s sh.e.l.l; his lance a wasp-sting; his spurs of c.o.c.kle-seed; his bow of vine-twig strung with corn-silk; and his arrows, nettle-shafts. He mounts a fire-fly steed, and waving a blade of blue gra.s.s, speeds upward to catch a flying meteor"s spark. Again the spirits of evil are let loose, those of air being as bad as those of water. A sylphid queen tries to enchant him with her beauty and kindness; she toys with the b.u.t.terfly cloak as he tells the dangers he has pa.s.sed. But he never forgets the object of his pilgrimage, and triumphing over the foes of air, he is escorted with honor by the sylph"s lovely retinue; his career is resumed, his flame-wood lamp rekindled, and before a streak of dawn is proclaimed in the eastern sky by the sentry elf, the "Culprit Fay" has made his full penance and been welcomed back to all his original glory. Drake died at the early age of twenty-five, a victim of consumption, and his grave is beside the little river Bronx in New York. To his memory his friend Halleck wrote the noted poem, thus beginning:
"Green be the turf above thee, Friend of my better days!
None knew thee but to love thee, Nor named thee but to praise."
NEWBURG BAY.
Emerging from the Highlands, the gentle slopes of the town of Cornwall are under the shadow of the Storm King, while the mountain range stretches off to the northeast, with Fishkill village in front, and the Revolutionary signal station of the Old Beacon standing up prominently behind. These mountains were the Indian Matteawan, the "Council of Good Fur." The same name was given the stream draining their sides until the Dutch called it Vis Kill, or Fish Creek, and hence its present name and that of the village. The sh.o.r.es of Newburg Bay seem low, as they are dwarfed by the mountains, and on the western slope an elevated bench of table-land in terraces stretches back to the distant hills. The town of Newburg, which has about twenty-five thousand people, spreads up these terraces, and in front there are storehouses, mills and railway terminals. When Hendrick Hudson sailed his ship "Half Moon" through the Highlands, he was attracted by the site of Newburg, and wrote: "It is as beautiful a land as one can tread upon; a very pleasant place to build a town on." A tribe of the Minsis who had a village known as the Qua.s.saic, meaning "the Place of the Rock," then occupied it, and would not for a half-century permit a settlement. They were driven away, however, and a colony of Lutherans from the Palatinate came here and founded the "Palatine Parish of Qua.s.saic." They did not flourish, and ultimately some Scots arrived from the Tay, and seeing quite a resemblance to their old home, named the place Newborough. Its most distinguished citizen has probably been General John E. Wool, born here in 1788. At the southern end of this pleasant town, a short distance back from the river, is its chief celebrity, a low, old-fashioned graystone building, appearing to be almost all roof, from which tall chimneys rise. There is a broad lawn and flagstaff in front, and a grove for the background. This is the historic house, maintained by New York State as a relic, which was General Washington"s headquarters during the closing campaign of the Revolution. It was built by Jonathan Hasbrouck, a Huguenot, in 1750, and is also known as the Hasbrouck House. In its centre is a large hall, having a huge fireplace on one side, and containing seven doors, but only one window. This was Washington"s reception hall, and here he dined with his guests. At the foot of the flagstaff on the lawn is buried the last survivor of Washington"s Life Guard, Ural Knapp, who died in 1856 at the age of ninety-seven. This Guard, organized in Boston in 1776, continued as his bodyguard throughout the war, and was selected from all the regiments of the army. Knapp was its sergeant, and at his last public appearance at a banquet in Newburg, the old man made a brief address, concluding with an invitation to the entire company to attend his funeral; four months later they did so.
The "Tower of Victory" is a fine monument, built on the grounds by the Government, and surmounted by a statue of Washington in the act of sheathing his sword. A bronze tablet with the figure of Peace announces that it was erected "in commemoration of the disbandment, under proclamation of the Continental Congress of October 18, 1783, of the armies by whose patriotic and military virtue our National independence and sovereignty was established." It was at Newburg that Washington was offered the t.i.tle of King by the officers of the army, but declined it. Over at Fishkill is the old Verplanck House, with its quaint dormer windows, which was the headquarters of Baron Steuben, and here, upon the disbandment of the army, was held the meeting of the officers at which was formed the Society of the Cincinnati, Washington being its first president. The mountainous region east and south and the "neutral ground" were the haunts of Enoch Crosby of Ma.s.sachusetts, the American spy of the Revolution, whose exploits all about this locality Fenimore Cooper wove into his novel _The Spy, a Tale of the Neutral Ground_, which made the novelist"s earliest fame.
The ancient Wheaton House, around which much of the tale centred, is still there. The Murderer"s Creek comes down to the Hudson through Newburg,--an attractive stream which deserved a better name, but did not get it until N. P. Willis, who lived at Cornwall, and who converted the Dutch "b.u.t.ter Hill" into the Storm King, and "Bull Hill"
into Mount Taurus, tried his persuasive powers at Newburg and got this stream softened into the pleasant Indian name of Moodna. The neighborhood of Newburg is famous from a scientific standpoint for the finding of the remains of mastodons. One was unearthed there in 1899, making the eleventh found in Orange County, New York, during the past century, some of them being among the finest specimens extant.
At the head of Newburg Bay, on the western sh.o.r.e, is a rocky platform down by the waterside, known as the "Devil"s Dance Chamber." When the "Half Moon" came up the river and anch.o.r.ed for the night, this broad flat rock, now almost hidden by cedars, was the scene of a wild midnight revel of the Indians, with all the accessories of song and dance, fire and war-paint, at which the Dutch sailors marvelled exceedingly, calling it the "Duyvel"s Dans-Kamer." Here the warlike Minsis of the Qua.s.saic, before going on hunting expeditions or the warpath, would paint themselves grotesquely and dance around a fire with horrible contortions, singing and yelling under direction of the soothsayers or "medicine men." They believed, if this was kept up long enough, the evil spirit would appear, either as a wild beast or a harmless animal; if the former, it foreboded ill-fortune and the expedition was abandoned, while the latter was a good omen. These hideous performances afterwards scared old Governor Peter Stuyvesant, according to the veracious Knickerbocker, when he sailed up the river, for the historian says, "Even now I have it on the point of my pen to relate how his crew was most horribly frightened, on going on sh.o.r.e above the Highlands, by a gang of merry, roystering devils, frisking and curvetting on a huge flat rock projecting into the river, and which is called the Duyvel"s Dans-Kamer to this very day."
POUGHKEEPSIE AND Va.s.sAR.
The Hudson River"s "Long Reach" stretches many miles almost due northward, and on it is Poughkeepsie, with thirty thousand population, midway between New York and Albany. Near here lived stout Theophilus Anthony the blacksmith, who forged the great chains stretched across the Hudson in the Highlands, for which the British burnt his house and carried him a captive down to the New York prison-ships. Here, at Locust Grove, a foliage-covered rocky point protruding into the river, was long the home of Professor Samuel F. B. Morse, the inventor of the electric telegraph. Poughkeepsie spreads broadly upon its group of gentle hills, with the great railway-bridge crossing high overhead, elevated two hundred feet above the water, and nearly a mile and a half long. The Poughkeepsie streets, lined with fine elms, maples and acacias, rise upon the sloping banks to a height above the bridge level, the town being environed by rocky b.u.t.tresses. The Indians named the place Apo-keep-sinck, or the "pleasant and safe harbor," and in it they housed their canoes. From this was gradually evolved the present name, through a variety of spellings, of which no less than forty-two different styles are found in the old records of the town. The "safe harbor" of the Indians was between two protruding rocky bluffs, and is now filled with wharves. The rapid Winnakee Brook leaps into it, a stream which the Dutch called the Fall Kill. The northern bordering bluff was their Slange Klippe, or the "Adder Cliff," infested with venomous serpents, and the other is the "Call Rock." Tradition tells that once a band of Mohican warriors who had made a foray into New England brought here some Pequot captives, among them a young chief who was tied to a tree for a sacrifice, when a shriek startled them, and a girl, leaping from the thicket, implored his life. She also was a captive Pequot and his affianced. As the captors debated, the warwhoop was suddenly sounded by hostile Hurons, and they seized their arms for defense. The maiden released her lover, but in the conflict they were separated, and a Huron carried her off. The young chief was almost inconsolable, but he pursued them beyond the river, and conceived a daring plan for rescue. He entered the Huron camp disguised as a wizard, found the maiden ill, and her Huron captor implored the wizard to save her life. This he essayed to do, she recognized him, and eluding the Huron vigilance, they escaped at nightfall. They made their way to the Hudson, paddled over in a canoe, and though pursued, he brought her into the "safe harbor," concealed her, and then, by the aid of the friendly Indians he found there, beat off the Hurons.
The Dutch often sailed by, and cast longing eyes upon this spot, so favorable for a settlement, but it was nearly a century after Hudson"s exploration when the venerable yet venturesome Baltus Van Kleek concluded it was about time to take possession. He landed in the harbor, became the lord of the manor, and in 1705 built near the Winnakee Brook a stout fortress-dwelling, which stood until recently.
It was loop-holed for musketry, and in it the New York Legislature met for two sessions during the Revolution. Out in front was the "Call Rock," where old Baltus and his friends used to stand and hail the pa.s.sing Dutch sloops when they wanted to get the news or journey upon the river. The New York State Convention met at Poughkeepsie in 1788, and ratified the Federal Const.i.tution by the small majority of three, after a protracted debate. From its many elevations, this leading city of the Hudson Valley has a superb outlook, only limited by the Catskills far to the northwest, the Highlands down the river, and the dark-blue Shaw.a.n.gunk ridge off to the westward, where the attractive lakes Mohonk and Minnewaska, the former at twelve hundred and the latter at eighteen hundred feet elevation, nestle high among the mountain peaks, overshadowed by the bold summits of Paltz Point and Sky Top. Here flows deep in the valley the pretty Wallkill, out to the Rondout and the Hudson, giving the railroad a route into the mountain fastness.
About two miles back from the river, and behind the city, is Va.s.sar College, the foremost educational inst.i.tution for women in the world.
The splendid buildings stand in grounds covering two hundred acres, attractively laid out, and the main building, modelled after the Tuileries, with high surmounting dome, is five hundred feet long. From Sunset Hill, their highest eminence, there is a panorama of the Hudson for forty miles. This college was the gift of Matthew Va.s.sar, a wealthy Poughkeepsie merchant and brewer, of English birth, who desired to make it the most complete foundation of its kind, and gave and bequeathed $1,000,000 besides the land, there being over $400,000 expended upon the buildings. His nephews have since made large additional gifts. Here is provided a complete mathematical, cla.s.sical and English education for several hundred female students. Its main building is the chief structure of Poughkeepsie. There are art galleries, a museum, library and observatory. The museum of American birds is the most complete existing, there is a fine gallery of water-colors, and a collection of ancient weapons and armor, including the halberd of King Francis I. The founder, having an ample fortune and no children, devoted the closing years of his life to this beneficent work, the college being begun in 1861 and opened in 1865.
He labored a.s.siduously at its development and died at his post of duty. Three years after the opening, when attending the annual meeting of the trustees, while reading his address, he was suddenly stricken with death.
CROM ELBOW TO KINGSTON.