Chapter 1

Produced by Curtis Weyant, Lesley Halamek and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by Cornell University Digital Collections)

[Transcriber's Note: Each page of this book contained, as a footer, a stanza of poetry, or a prose quotation, which, although pertinent to the text, were not part of it.

I have retained these, moving them to a suitable location between paragraphs, and enclosing them in short markers: * * * ....* * *. Any poetry not enclosed within short * * * markers is an integral part of the text.

The list of typos and corrections is at the end of the book.]

* * * * *

THE HUDSON

Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention

BY WALLACE BRUCE

Centennial Edition

Published by BRYANT UNION COMPANY NEW YORK

COPYRIGHT 1907 BY WALLACE BRUCE

CONTENTS.

CENTENNIAL GREETING. PAGE

HISTORY, ROMANCE AND INVENTION 9-39 An Open Book 10 The Hudson and the Rhine 11 The Half Moon 12 Its Discovery 15 First Description 16 Names of the Hudson 18 Hills and Mountains 19 Sources of the Hudson 19 First Settlement 20 The West India Company 21 Original Manors and Patents 23 The Dutch and the English 24 New Amsterdam 25 New York 26 Sons of Liberty 28 Greater New York 30 Hudson River Steamboats 31 Day Line Steamers 34 The Old Reaches 38 Five Divisions of the Hudson 39

NEW YORK TO ALBANY.

DESBROSSES STREET PIER TO FORTY-SECOND STREET 41-43 Historic River Front 41 A Great Panorama 41 Statue of Liberty--Stevens Castle 42

FORTY-SECOND TO ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-NINTH 43-48 Weehawken, Hamilton and Burr 43 Riverside Drive and Park 45 Columbia University 46 General Grant's Tomb 46

ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-NINTH ST. TO YONKERS 49-50 Washington Heights 49 The Palisades 52 Island of Manhattan 56 Spuyten Duyvel Creek 57 Yonkers 58

YONKERS TO WEST POINT 59-96 Hastings and Dobbs Ferry 60 Tappan Zee and Piermont 61 Irvington and "Sunnyside" 62 Washington Irving 63 The Headless Horseman 66 Tarrytown and Tappan 67 Sleepy Hollow 70 Nyack 72 Ossining 73 Croton River and Reservoir 74 Haverstraw 75 Stony Point 77 Peekskill 79 Story of Captain Kidd 80 The Highlands 81 Dunderberg 82 Anthony's Nose 83 Fort Clinton and Fort Montgomery 84 Beverley House 87 Arnold's Flight 88 Buttermilk Falls 91 West Point Military Academy 92 Plateau Buildings and Memorials 93-94 Fort Putnam 95

WEST POINT TO NEWBURGH 97-103 Northern Gate of Highlands 98 "Undercliff" 99 Storm King 100 Cornwall and "Idlewild" 102

NEWBURGH TO POUGHKEEPSIE 104-128 Washington's Headquarters 104 Refusing the Crown 105 Suffering of Soldiers 106 Cessation of Hostilities 107 Marquis de Lafayette 109 Centennial Celebration 110 Fishkill 113 Duyvel's Dans Kammer 118 "Locust Grove" 119 The Storm Ship 120 Poughkeepsie 121

POUGHKEEPSIE TO KINGSTON 129-146 Hyde Park 130 Mount Hymettus 130 Rhinecliff 135 City of Kingston 136 The Senate House 138 The Southern Catskills 142

KINGSTON TO CATSKILL 147-168 Montgomery Place 147 Story of Steam Navigation 149 Robert Fulton 151 The "Clermont" 152 Tivoli 154 Saugerties 156 The Livingston Country 157 The "Shad Industry" 158 Germantown 160 Man in the Mountain 161 New York City Water Supply 162 The Clover Reach 163 Catskill 164 Otis Elevating Railway 165

CATSKILL TO HUDSON 169-172 Hudson 169 Columbia Springs 170 Claverack and Hillsdale 171

HUDSON TO ALBANY 173-185 Athens 173 The Ice Industry 173 Anthony Van Corlear 176 The Mahican Tribe 177 The Mahicans, Delawares and Iroquois 178 The Old Van Rensselaer House 180 Albany 181

THE UPPER HUDSON.

ALBANY TO SARATOGA 186-191 Saratoga 187 Historic Saratoga 189 Mount McGregor 190

SARATOGA TO THE ADIRONDACKS 191-201 Saratoga to Lake George 192

LAKE GEORGE TO THE ADIRONDACKS 197-201 Ticonderoga 198 Bluff Point 199 Plattsburgh and the Saranacs 201

SOURCE OF THE HUDSON 202-210 The Tahawas Club 202 The Upper Ausable 203 Haystack and Camp Colden 204 The Deserted Village 205 Indian Pass 206 Tahawas 210

GEOLOGY, TIDES AND CONDENSED POINTS 211-224 Geological Formation 211-215 The Hudson Tide 215 Condensed Points--New York to Albany 216-224

1907--1909

_CENTENNIAL GREETING_

_Hendrick Hudson and Robert Fulton are closely associated in the history of our river, and more particularly at this time, as the dates of their achievements unite the centennial of the first successful steamer in 1807, with the tri-centennial of the discovery of the river in 1609. In fact, these three centuries of navigation, with rapidly increasing development in later years, might be graphically condensed--_

"_Half Moon_," _1609_; "_Clermont_," _1807_;

"_Hendrick Hudson_," _1906_.

_Singularly enough the discovery of Hendrick Hudson, and the invention of Robert Fulton are also similar in having many adverse claimants who forget the difference between attempt and accomplishment._

_Everyone knows that Verrazano entered the Narrows and harbor of our river in 1524, and sailed far enough to see the outline of the Palisades; that Gomez visited its mouth in 1525; Cabot still earlier in 1498; and various Norsemen, named and nameless, for several centuries before them, coasted along the shore and indenture of the "River of the Manhattoes," but failed to acquire or transmit any knowledge of the river's real course or character, and it was left for Hendrick Hudson to be its first voyager and thereby to have and to hold against all comers the glory of discovery._

* * *

A century vast of Hudson-fame Which Irving's fancy seals; Whose ripples murmur Morse's name And flash to Fulton's wheels.

_Wallace Bruce._

* * *

_So Robert Fulton had several predecessors in the idea of applying steam to navigation--John Fitch in 1785, William Symington in 1788 and many others who likewise_ coasted along the shore and indenture of a great idea, _marked by continual failure and final abandonment. It was reserved for Fulton to complete and stamp upon his labor the seal of service and success, and to stand, therefore, its accepted inventor._

_In addition to the invention of Fulton who has contributed so much to the business and brotherhood of mankind, the telegraph of Morse occupies a prominent page of our Hudson history, and it is said that Morse left unfinished a novel, the incidents of which were associated with the Highlands, in order to work out his idea which gave the Hudson a grander chapter._

_Fulton's and Morse's inventions are also happily associated in this, that the steamboat was necessary before the Atlantic cable, born of Morse's invention, could be laid, and, singularly enough, the laying of the cable, largely promoted by Hudson River genius and capital, by Field, Cooper, Morse and others on August 5, 1857, marks the very middle of the centennial which we are now observing._

* * *

A cycle grand with wonders fraught That triumph over time and space; In woven steel its dreams are wrought, The nations whisper face to face.

_Wallace Bruce._

* * *

THE HUDSON

Among all the rivers of the world the Hudson is acknowledged queen, decked with romance, jewelled with poetry, clad with history, and crowned with beauty. More than this, the Hudson is a noble threshold to a great continent and New York Bay a fitting portal. The traveler who enters the Narrows for the first time is impressed with wonder, and the charm abides even with those who pass daily to and fro amid her beauties. No other river approaches the Hudson in varied grandeur and sublimity, and no other city has so grand and commodious a harbor as New York. It has been the privilege of the writer of this handbook to see again and again most of the streams of the old world "renowned in song and story," to behold sunrise on the Bay of Naples and sunset at the Golden Gate of San Francisco, but the spell of the Hudson remains unbroken, and the bright bay at her mouth reflects the noontide without a rival. To pass a day in her company, rich with the story and glory of three hundred years, is worth a trip across a continent, and it is no wonder that the European traveler says again and again: "to see the Hudson alone, is worth a voyage across the Atlantic."

* * *

A very good land to fall in with and a pleasant land to see!

_Hendrick Hudson_

* * *

How like a great volume of history romance and poetry seem her bright illumined pages with the broad river lying as a crystal book-mark between her open leaves! And how real this idea becomes to the Day Line tourist, with the record of Washington and Hamilton for its opening sentence, as he leaves the Up-Town landing, and catches messages from Fort Washington and Fort Lee. What Indian legends cluster about the brow of Indian Head blending with the love story of Mary Phillipse at the Manor House of Yonkers. How Irving's vision of Katrina and Sleepy Hollow become woven with the courage of Paulding and the capture of Andre at Tarrytown. How the Southern Portal of the Highlands stands sentineled by Stony Point, a humble crag converted by the courage of Anthony Wayne into a mountain peak of Liberty.

How North and South Beacon again summon the Hudson yeomen from harvest fields to the defense of country, while Fort Putnam, still eloquent in her ruins, looks down upon the best drilled boys in the world at West Point. Further on Newburgh, Poughkeepsie and Kingston shake fraternal hands in the abiding trinity of Washington, Hamilton and Clinton, while northward rise the Ontioras where Rip Van Winkle slept, and woke to wonder at the happenings of twenty years.

What stories of silent valleys told by murmuring streams from the Berkshire Hills and far away fields where Stark and Ethan Allen triumphed. What tales of Cooper, where the Mohawk entwines her fingers with those of the Susquehanna, and poems of Longfellow, Bryant and Holmes, of Dwight, of Halleck and of Drake; ay, and of Yankee Doodle too, written at the Old Van Rensselaer House almost within a pebble-throw of the steamer as it approaches Albany. What a wonderful book of history and beauty, all to be read in one day's journey!

* * *

Roll on! Roll on! Thou river of the North! Tell thou to all The isles, tell thou to all the Continents The grandeur of my land.

_William Wallace._

* * *

The Hudson has often been styled "The Rhine of America." There is, however, little of similarity and much of contrast. The Rhine from Dusseldorf to Manheim is only twelve hundred to fifteen hundred feet in breadth. The Hudson from New York to Albany averages more than five thousand feet from bank to bank. At Tappan Zee the Hudson is ten times as wide as the Rhine at any point above Cologne. At Bonn the Rhine is barely one-third of a mile, whereas the Hudson at Haverstraw Bay is over four miles in width. The average breadth of the Hudson from New York to Poughkeepsie is almost eight thousand feet.

The mountains of the Rhine also lack the imposing character of the Highlands. The far-famed Drachenfels, the Landskron, and the Stenzleburg are only seven hundred and fifty feet above the river; the Alteberg eight hundred, the Rosenau nine hundred, and the great Oelberg thirteen hundred and sixty-two. According to the latest United States Geological Survey the entire group of mountains at the northern gate of the Highlands is from fourteen hundred to sixteen hundred and twenty-five feet in height, not to speak of the Catskills from three thousand to almost four thousand feet in altitude.

It is not the fault of the Rhine with its nine hundred miles of rapid flow that it looks tame compared with the Hudson. Even the Mississippi, draining a valley three thousand miles in extent, looks insignificant at St. Louis or New Orleans contrasted with the Hudson at Tarrytown. The Hudson is in fact a vast estuary of the sea; the tide rises two feet at Albany and six inches at Troy. A professor of the Berlin University says: "You lack our castles but the Hudson is infinitely grander." Thackeray, in "The Virginians," gives the Hudson the verdict of beauty; and George William Curtis, comparing the Hudson with the rivers of the Old World, has gracefully said: "The Danube has in part glimpses of such grandeur, the Elbe has sometimes such delicately penciled effects, but no European river is so lordly in its bearing, none flows in such state to the sea."

* * *

I have been up and down the Hudson by water. The entire river is pretty, but the glory of the Hudson is at West Point.

_Anthony Trollope._

* * *

Baedeker, a high and just authority, in his recent Guide to the United States says: "The Hudson has sometimes been called the American Rhine, but that title perhaps does injustice to both rivers. The Hudson, through a great part of its extent, is three or four times as wide as the Rhine, and its scenery is grander and more inspiring; while, though it lacks the ruined castles and ancient towns of the German river, it is by no means devoid of historical associations of a more recent character. The vine-clad slopes of the Rhine have, too, no ineffective substitute in the brilliant autumn coloring of the timbered hillsides of the Hudson."

* * *

A stately stream around which as around The German Rhine hover mystic shapes

_Richard Burton_

* * *

What must have been the sensation of those early voyagers, coasting a new continent, as they halted at the noble gateway of the river and gazed northward along the green fringed Palisades; or of Hendrick Hudson, who first traversed its waters from Manhattan to the Mohawk, as he looked up from the chubby bow of his "Half Moon" at the massive columnar formation of the Palisades or at the great mountains of the Highlands; what dreams of success, apparently within reach, were his, when night came down in those deep forest solitudes under the shadowy base of Old Cro' Nest and Klinkerberg Mountain, where his little craft seemed a lone cradle of civilization; and then, when at last, with immediate purpose foiled, he turned his boat southward, having discovered, but without knowing it, something infinitely more valuable to future history than his long-sought "Northwestern Passage to China," how he must have gazed with blended wonder and awe at the distant Catskills as their sharp lines came out, as we have seen them many a September morning, bold and clear along the horizon, and learned in gentle reveries the poetic meaning of the blue _Ontioras_ or "Mountains of the Sky." How fondly he must have gazed on the picturesque hills above Apokeepsing and listened to the murmuring music of Winnikee Creek, when the air was clear as crystal and the banks seemed to be brought nearer, perfectly reflected in the glassy surface, while here and there his eye wandered over grassy uplands, and rested on hills of maize in shock, looking for all the world like mimic encampments of Indian wigwams! Then as October came with tints which no European eye had ever seen, and sprinkled the hill-tops with gold and russet, he must indeed have felt that he was living an enchanted life, or journeying in a fairy land!

How graphically the poet Willis has put the picture in musical prose: "Fancy the bold Englishman, as the Dutch called Hendrick Hudson, steering his little yacht the 'Haalve Maan,' for the first time through the Highlands. Imagine his anxiety for the channel forgotten, as he gazed up at the towering rocks, and round the green shores, and onward past point and opening bend, miles away into the heart of the country; yet with no lessening of the glorious stream before him and no decrease of promise in the bold and luxuriant shores. Picture him lying at anchor below Newburgh with the dark pass of the Wey-Gat frowning behind him, the lofty and blue Catskills beyond, and the hillsides around covered with lords of the soil exhibiting only less wonder than friendliness."

If Willis forgot the season of the year and left out the landscape glow which the voyager saw, Talmage completed the picture in a rainbow paragraph of color: "Along our river and up and down the sides of the great hills there was an indescribable mingling of gold, and orange and crimson and saffron, now sobering into drab and maroon, now flaring up into solferino and scarlet. Here and there the trees looked as if their tips had blossomed into fire. In the morning light the forests seemed as if they had been transfigured and in the evening hours they looked as if the sunset had burst and dropped upon the leaves. It seemed as if the sea of divine glory had dashed its surf to the top of the crags and it had come dripping down to the lowest leaf and deepest cavern."

* * *

So fair yon haven clasped its isles, in such a sunset gleam, When Hendrick and his sea-worn tars first sounded up the stream.

_Robert C. Sands._

* * *

On such a day in 1883 it was the privilege of the writer to stand before 150,000 people at Newburgh on the occasion of the Centennial Celebration of the Disbanding of the Army under Washington, and, in his poem entitled "The Long Drama," to portray the great mountain background bounding the southern horizon with autumnal splendor:

October lifts with colors bright Her mountain canvas to the sky, The crimson trees aglow with light Unto our banners wave reply.

Like Horeb's bush the leaves repeat From lips of flame with glory crowned:-- "Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, The place they trod is holy ground."

Such was the vision Hendrick Hudson must have had in those far-off September and October days, and such the picture which visitors still compass long distances to behold.

"It is a far cry to Loch Awe" says an old Scottish proverb, and it is a long step from the sleepy rail of the "Half Moon" to the roomy-decked floating palaces--the "Hendrick Hudson," the "New York" and the "Albany." Before beginning our journey let us, therefore, bridge the distance with a few intermediate facts, from 1609, relating to the discovery of the river, its early settlement, its old reaches and other points essential to the fullest enjoyment of our trip, which in sailor-parlance might be styled "a gang-plank of history," reaching as it does from the old-time yacht to the modern steamer, and spanning three hundred years.

* * *