The Hudson Part 25

=Hudson=, 115 miles from New York, was founded in the year 1784, by thirty persons from Providence, R. I., and incorporated as a city in 1785. The city is situated on a sloping promontory, bounded by the North and South Bays. Its main streets, Warren, Union and Allen, run east and west a little more than a mile in length, crossed by Front Street, First, Second, Third, etc. Main Street reaches from Promenade Park to Prospect Hill. The park is on the bluff just above the steamboat landing; we believe this city is the only one on the Hudson that has a promenade ground overlooking the river. It commands a fine view of the Catskill Mountains, Mount Merino, and miles of the river scenery. The city has always enjoyed the reputation of hospitality.

It is the western terminus of the Hudson and Chatham division of the _Boston & Albany Railroad_, and also of the _Kinderhook & Hudson Railway_.

White fleecy clouds move slowly by.

How cool their shadows fall to-day!

A moment on the hills they lie And then like spirits glide away.

_Henry T. Tuckerman._

From an old-time English history we read that Hudson grew more rapidly than any other town in America except Baltimore. Standing at the head of s.h.i.+p navigation it would naturally have become a great port had it not been for the railway and the steamboat which made New York the emporium not only of the Hudson, but also of the continent.

Hudson had also a good sprinkling of Nantucket blood, and visitors from that quaint old town recognize in portico, stoop and window a familiar architecture.

=Columbia Springs=, an old-time resort with pleasant grove and white sulphur water, is four miles northeast of Hudson. Its medicinal qualities are attested by scores of physicians, and by hundreds who have been benefited and cured. The drive is pleasant and the return can be made through--

=Claverack=, three and a half miles east of Hudson, a restful old-fas.h.i.+oned village situated at the crossing of the Old Post Road and the Columbia turnpike and county seat of Columbia in Knickerbocker days. The court house on its well-shaded street was for many years the home of the late Peter Hoffman. The Dutch Reformed Church, built of bricks brought from Holland, wears on its brow wrinkles of antiquity, emphasized by the date 1767 on its walls. It is said that General Was.h.i.+ngton encamped here, but there is no historical data to confirm the tradition. Claverack Falls is well worth a visit, which can easily be made in an afternoon stroll. Copake Lake, to the southeast, can be reached by a drive of about twelve miles, a fine sheet of water ten miles in circ.u.mference, with a picturesque island connected to the main land by a causeway. Forty years ago a romantic ruin of a stone mansion still stood on this island, where the writer, when a boy, used to wander around the deserted rooms looking for ghosts, but the walls were torn down July 4, 1866, as the place was frequented every summer by a remnant of the old Stockbridge tribe. The neighbors thought the best way of getting rid of the "n.o.ble red men" was to burn up the hive. The mansion was built by a Miss Livingston, but she soon exchanged her island home for Florence and the cla.s.sic a.s.sociations of Italy. Bash-Bish, one mile from Copake Station on the _Harlem Railroad_, one of the most romantic glens in our country, has been visited and eulogized by Henry Ward Beecher, Bayard Taylor and many distinguished writers and travelers. Soon after leaving Copake Station a beautiful carriage road, but extremely narrow, strikes the left bank of this mountain stream, and for a long distance follows its rocky channel. On the right a thickly wooded hill rises abruptly more than a thousand feet--a perfect wall of foliage from base to summit. A mile brings one to the lower falls; the upper falls are about a quarter of a mile farther up the gorge. The height of the falls, with the rapids between, is about 300 feet above the little rustic bridge at the foot of the lower falls. The glen between is a place of wild beauty, with rocks and huge boulders "in random ruin piled."

I saw the green banks of the castle-crowned Rhine, Where the grapes drink the moonlight and change into wine, But my heart would still yearn for the sound of the waves That sing as they flow by my forefather's graves.

_Oliver Wendell Holmes._

=Hillsdale Village= has a beautiful location and affords a good central point for visiting Mount Everett, with its wide prospect (alt.i.tude 2,624 feet), Copake Lake six miles to the west, Bash-Bish Falls six miles south, and Po-ka-no five miles to the northeast, sometimes known as White's Hill. The Po-ka-no, Columbia County's n.o.blest outlook, 1,713 feet, commands the Hudson Valley for eighty miles; and the owner says that he saw the fireworks from there the night of the Newburgh centennial in 1883. From the summit can be seen "Monument Mountain" and the Green Mountains of Vermont. At its base glides the "Green River Creek," which flows into the Housatonic near Great Barrington. From this point the drive can be continued to North Egremont, South Egremont, Great Barrington and Monument Mountain.

Before the days of railroads the Columbia turnpike was the great trade artery of the city of Hudson. It was interesting to hear William Cullen Bryant recount his experiences in driving from his home in Great Barrington over the well-known highway on his way to New York.

The _Housatonic_ and _Harlem Railroads_ tapped its life and have left many a sleepy village along the route, once astir in staging days. The stone for Girard College was drawn from Ma.s.sachusetts quarries over this route and s.h.i.+pped to Philadelphia from Hudson. The Lebanon Valley, in the northeastern part of the county, is considered one of the most beautiful in the State, and said by Sir Henry Vincent, the English orator, to resemble the far-famed valley of Llangollen, in Wales. The Wy-a-mon-ack Creek flows through the valley, joining its waters with the Kinderhook. Quechee Lake is near at hand, where Miss Warner was born, author of "Queechee" and the "Wide Wide World."

Welcome ye pleasant dales and hills, Where dream-like pa.s.sed my early days!

Ye cliffs and glens and laughing rills That sing unconscious hymns of praise!

_Wallace Bruce._

=Lindenwald=, a solid and substantial residence, home of President Martin Van Buren, where he died in 1862, is two miles from the pleasant village of Kinderhook. Columbia County just missed the proud distinction of rearing two presidents, as Samuel J. Tilden was born in the town of Lebanon. Elisha Williams, John Van Buren and many others have given l.u.s.tre to her legal annals.

Ever fonder, ever dearer Seems our youth that hastened by, And we love to live in memory When our fond hopes fade and die.

_Wallace Bruce._

=Hudson to Albany.=

=Athens.=--Directly opposite Hudson, and connected with it by ferry, is the cla.s.sically named village of Athens. An old Mahican settlement known as Potick was located a little back from the river. We are now in the midst of the great

="Ice Industry,"= which reaches from below Staatsburgh to Castleton and Albany, well described by John Burroughs in his article on the Hudson: "No man sows, yet many men reap a harvest from the Hudson. Not the least important is the ice harvest, which is eagerly looked for, and counted upon by hundreds, yes, thousands of laboring men along its course. Ice or no ice sometimes means bread or no bread to scores of families, and it means added or diminished comforts to many more. It is a crop that takes two or three weeks of rugged winter weather to grow, and, if the water is very roily or brackish, even longer. It is seldom worked till it presents seven or eight inches of clear water ice. Men go out from time to time and examine it, as the farmer goes out and examines his grain or gra.s.s, to see when it will do to cut. If there comes a deep fall of snow the ice is 'p.r.i.c.ked' so as to let the water up through and form snow ice. A band of fifteen or twenty men, about a yard apart, each armed with a chisel-bar, and marching in line, puncture the ice at each step, with a single sharp thrust. To and fro they go, leaving a belt behind them that presently becomes saturated with water. But ice, to be of first quality, must grow from beneath, not from above. It is a crop quite as uncertain as any other.

A good yield every two or three years, as they say of wheat out west, is about all that can be counted upon. When there is an abundant harvest, after the ice houses are filled, they stack great quant.i.ties of it, as the farmer stacks his surplus hay. Such a fruitful winter was that of '74-5, when the ice formed twenty inches thick. The stacks are given only a temporary covering of boards, and are the first ice removed in the season. The cutting and gathering of the ice enlivens these broad, white, desolate fields amazingly. My house happens to stand where I look down upon the busy scene, as from a hill-top upon a river meadow in haying time, only here figures stand out much more sharply than they do from a summer meadow. There is the broad, straight, blue-black ca.n.a.l emerging into view, and running nearly across the river; this is the highway that lays open the farm. On either side lie the fields, or ice meadows, each marked out by cedar or hemlock boughs. The farther one is cut first, and when cleared, shows a large, long, black parallelogram in the midst of the plain of snow. Then the next one is cut, leaving a strip or tongue of ice between the two for the horses to move and turn upon. Sometimes nearly two hundred men and boys, with numerous horses, are at work at once, marking, plowing, planing, sc.r.a.ping, sawing, hauling, chiseling; some floating down the pond on great square islands towed by a horse, or their fellow workmen; others distributed along the ca.n.a.l, bending to their ice-hooks; others upon the bridges separating the blocks with their chisel bars; others feeding the elevators; while knots and straggling lines of idlers here and there look on in cold discontent, unable to get a job. The best crop of ice is an early crop. Late in the season or after January, the ice is apt to get 'sun-struck,' when it becomes 'shaky,' like a piece of poor timber. The sun, when he sets about destroying the ice, does not simply melt it from the surface--that were a slow process; but he sends his shafts into it and separates it into spikes and needles--in short, makes kindling-wood of it, so as to consume it the quicker. One of the prettiest sights about the ice harvesting is the elevator in operation. When all works well, there is an unbroken procession of the great crystal blocks slowly ascending this incline. They go up in couples, arm in arm, as it were, like friends up a stairway, glowing and changing in the sun, and recalling the precious stones that adorned the walls of the celestial city. When they reach the platform where they leave the elevator, they seem to step off like things of life and volition; they are still in pairs and separate only as they enter upon the 'runs.' But here they have an ordeal to pa.s.s through, for they are subjected to a rapid inspection and the black sheep are separated from the flock; every square with a trace of sediment or earth-stain in it, whose texture is not perfect and unclouded crystal, is rejected and sent hurling down into the abyss; a man with a sharp eye in his head and a sharp ice-hook in his hand picks out the impure and fragmentary ones as they come along and sends them quickly overboard. Those that pa.s.s the examination glide into the building along the gentle incline, and are switched off here and there upon branch runs, and distributed to all parts of the immense interior."

But when in the forest bare and old The blast of December calls, He builds in the starlight clear and cold A palace of ice where his torrent falls.

_William Cullen Bryant._

Where the frost trees shoot with leaf and spray And frost gems scatter a silver ray.

_William Cullen Bryant._

How fair the thronging pictures run, What joy the vision fills-- The star-glow and the setting sun Amid the northern hills.

_Benjamin F. Leggett._

Pa.s.sing west of the Hudson Flats we see North Bay, crossed by the _New York Central Railroad_. Kinderhook Creek meets the river about three miles north of Hudson, directly above which is Stockport Station for Columbiaville. Four Mile Light-house is now seen on the opposite bank.

Nutten Hook, or c.o.xsackie Station, is four miles above Stockport.

Opposite this point, and connected by a ferry, is the village of--

=c.o.xsackie= (name derived from Kaak-aki, or place of wild geese, "aki"

in Indian signifies place and it is singular to find the Indian word "Kaak" so near to the English "cackle"). Two miles north Stuyvesant Landing is seen on the east bank, the nearest station on the _New York Central & Hudson River Railroad_, by carriage, to Valatie and Kinderhook. The name Kinderhook is said to have had its origin from a point on the Hudson prolific in children; as the children were always out of doors to see the pa.s.sing craft, it was known as Kinderhook, or "children's point." Pa.s.sing Bronk's Island, due west of which empties c.o.xsackie Creek, we see Stuyvesant Light-house on our right, and approach New Baltimore, a pleasant village on the west bank, with sloop and barge industry. About a mile above the landing is the meeting point of four counties: Greene and Albany on the west, Columbia and Rensselaer on the east. Beeren Island, connected with Coeyman's Landing by small steamer, now a picnic resort, lies near the west bank, where it will be remembered the first white child was born on the Hudson. Here was the Castle of Rensselaertein, before which Antony Van Corlear read again and again the proclamation of Peter Stuyvesant, and from which he returned with a diplomatic reply, forming one of the most humorous chapters in Irving's "Knickerbocker."

Threading our way through low-lying islands and river flats, and "slowing down" occasionally on meeting ca.n.a.l boats or other river craft, we pa.s.s Coeyman's on our left and Lower Schodack Island on our right, due east of which is the station of Schodack Landing. The writer of this handbook remembers distinctly a winter's evening walk from Schodack Landing, crossing the frozen Hudson and snow-covered island on an ill-defined trail. He was on his way to deliver his first lecture, February, 1868, and his subject was "The Legends and Poetry of the Hudson." Since that time he has written and re-written many guides to the river, so that the present handbook is not a thing of yesterday. The next morning, on his return to Schodack, he had for his companion a young man from twenty or thirty miles inland, who had never seen a train of cars except in the distance. On reaching the railway, one of the New York expresses swept by, and as he caught the motion of the bell cord he turned and said: "Do they drive it with that little string?" Lower Schodack Island, Mills Plaat (also an island) and Upper Schodack Island reach almost to--

=Castleton=, a pleasant village on the eastern bank, with main street lying close to the river. The cliffs, a few miles to the north, were known to the Indians as Scoti-ack, or place of the ever-burning council-fire, which gave the name of Schodack to the towns.h.i.+p, where King Aepgin, on the 8th of April, 1680, sold to Van Rensselaer "all that tract of country on the west side of the Hudson, extending from Beeren Island up to Smack's Island, and in breadth two days' journey."

No spot in all the world where poetry and romance are so closely blended with the heroic in history as along the banks of our Hudson.

_Wallace Bruce._

THE MAHICAN TRIBE originally occupied all the east bank of the Hudson north of Roeliffe Jansen's Kill, near Germantown, to the head waters of the Hudson; and on the west bank, from Cohoes to Catskill. The town of Schodack was central, and a signal displayed from the hills near Castleton could be seen for thirty miles in every direction. After the Mahicans left the Hudson, they went to Westenhook, or Housatonic, to the hills south of Stockbridge; and then, on invitation of the Oneidas, removed to Oneida County, in 1785, where they lived until 1821, when, with other Indians of New York, they purchased a tract of land near Fox River, Minnesota.

Domestic clans or families of the Mahicans lingered around their ancient seats for some years after the close of the Revolution, but of them, one after another, it is written, "They disappeared in the night." In the language of Tamerund at the death of Uncas, "The pale-faces are masters of the earth, and the time of the red men has not yet come again. My day has been too long. In the morning I saw the sons of Unami happy and strong; and yet before the night has come, have I lived to see the last warrior of the race of the Mahicans."