Leaving Catskill dock, the Prospect Park
Hotel looks down upon us from a commanding point on the west
bank, while north of this can be seen Cole's Grove, where
Thomas Cole, the artist, lived, who painted the well-known
series, the Voyage of Life. On the east side is Rodger's
Island, where it is said the last battle was fought between
the Mahican and Mohawk; and it is narrated that "as the old
king of the Mahican was dying, after the conflict, he
commanded his regalia to be taken off and his successor put
into the kingship while his eyes were yet clear to behold
him. Over forty years had he worn it, from the time he
received it in London from Queen Anne. He asked him to kneel
at his couch, and, putting his withered hand across his
brow, placed the feathery crown upon his head, and gave him
the silver-mounted tomahawk—symbols of power to rule and
power to execute. Then, looking up to the heavens, he said,
as if in despair for his race, 'The hills are our pillows,
and the broad plains to the west our hunting-grounds; our
brothers are called into the bright wigwam of the
Everlasting, and our bones lie upon the fields of many
battles; but the wisdom of the dead is given to the
living.'"
On the east bank of the Hudson, above this historic island,
is the residence of Frederick E. Church, whose glowing
canvas has linked the Niagara with the Hudson. It commands a
wide view of the Berkshire Hills to the eastward, and
westward to the Catskills. The hill above Rodgers' Island,
on the east bank, is known as Mount Merino, one of the first
places to which Merino sheep were brought in this country.
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.
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 ship 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
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 and Hillsdale
Claverack, three and a half miles east of
Hudson, a restful old-fashioned 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 Washington 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 circumference, 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 "noble
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 classic associations 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."
Hillsdale Village has a beautiful location
and affords a good central point for
visiting Mount Everett, with its wide
prospect (altitude 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 noblest
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 Massachusetts
quarries over this route and shipped 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."
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 luster to her legal annals.
Hudson to Albany
Athens.—Directly opposite Hudson, and connected with it by ferry, is the classically 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
"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 grass, to
see when it will do to cut. If there comes a
deep fall of snow the ice is 'pricked' 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 quantities 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
canal 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, planting, scraping,
sawing, hauling, chiseling; some floating
down the pond on great square islands towed
by a horse, or their fellow workmen; others
distributed along the canal, 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
pass 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 pass 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."
Passing 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
Coxsackie Station, is four miles above
Stockport. Opposite this point, and
connected by a ferry, is the village of—
Coxsackie (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 passing craft, it was known as Kinderhook, or "children's point." Passing Bronk's Island, due west of which empties Coxsackie 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 canal boats or other river craft, we pass 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 township, 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."
The Mahican Tribe
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."
According to Ruttenber, the names and location of the Indian tribes were not ascertained with clearness by the early Dutch settlers, but through documents, treaties and information, subsequently obtained, it is now settled that the Mahicans held possession "under sub-tribal organizations" of the east bank of the river from an undefined point north of Albany to the sea, including Long Island; that their dominion extended east to the Connecticut, where they joined kindred tribes; that on the west bank of the Hudson they ran down as far as Catskill, and west to Schenectady; that they were met on the west by the territory of the Mohawks, and on the south by tribes of the Lenni Lenapes or Delawares, whose territory extended thence to the sea, and west to and beyond the Delaware River. The Mahicans had a castle at Catskill and at Cohoes Falls. The western side of the Hudson, above Cohoes, belonged to the Mohawks, a branch of the Iroquois. Therefore, as early as 1630, three great nations were represented on the Hudson—
The Mahican, Delaware and Iroquois
The Mahicans, the Delawares and the
Iroquois. The early French missionaries
refer to the "nine nations of Manhinyans,
gathered between Manhattan and the environs
of Quebec." These several nations have never
been accurately designated, although certain
general divisions appear under the titles of
Mohegan, Wappinger, Sequins, etc. "The
government of the Mahicans was a democracy.
The office was hereditary by the lineage of
the wife; that is, the selection of a
successor on the death of the chief, was
confined to the female branch of the
family." According to Ruttenber, the precise
relation between the Mahicans of the Hudson
and the Mohegans under Uncas, the Pequot
chief, is not known. In a foot-note to this
statement, he says: "The identity of name
between the Mahicans and Mohegans, induces
the belief that all these tribes belonged to
the same stock,—although they differed in
dialect, in territory, and in their
alliances." The two words, therefore, must
not be confounded.
It is also pleasant to remember that the
Mahicans as a tribe were true and faithful
to us during the war of the Revolution, and
when the six nations met in council at
Oswego, at the request of Guy Johnson and
other officers of the British army, "to eat
the flesh and drink the blood of a
Bostonian," Hendrick, the Mahican, made the
pledge for his tribe at Albany, almost in
the eloquent words of Ruth to Naomi, "Thy
people shall be our people, and whither thou
goest we will be at your side."
The Mourdener's Kill, with its sad story of
a girl tied by Indians to a horse and
dragged through the valley, flows into the
Hudson above Castleton. Two miles above this
near the steamer channel will be seen Staats
Island on the east, with an old stone house,
said to be next in antiquity to the old Van
Rensselaer House, opposite Albany. It is
also a fact that this property passed
directly to the ancestors of the present
family, the only property in this vicinity
never owned by the lord of the manor.
Opposite the old stone house, the point on
the west bank is known as Parda Hook, where
it is said a horse was once drowned in a
horse-race on the ice, and hence the name
Parda, for the old Hollanders along the
Hudson seemed to have had a musical ear, and
delighted in accumulating syllables. (The
word pard is used in Spenser for spotted
horse, and still survives in the word
leopard.)
The Castleton Bar or "overslaugh," as it was
known by the river pilots, impeded for years
navigation in low water. Commodore Van
Santvoord and other prominent citizens
brought the subject before the State
legislature, and work was commenced in 1863.
In 1868 the United States Government very
properly (as their jurisdiction extends over
tide-water), assumed the completing of the
dykes, which now stretch for miles along the
banks and islands of the upper Hudson. Here
and there along our route between Coxsackie
and Albany will be seen great dredges
deepening and widening the river channel.
The plan provides for a system of
longitudinal dykes to confine the current
sufficiently to allow the ebb and flow of
the tidal-current to keep the channel clear.
These dykes are to be gradually brought
nearer together from New Baltimore toward
Troy, so as to assist the entrance of the
flood-current and increase its height.
The engineers report that the greater part
of the material carried in suspension in the
Hudson river above Albany is believed to
come from the Mohawk river, and its
tributary the Schoharie river, while the
sands and gravel that form the heavy and
obstinate bars near Albany and chiefly
between Albany and Troy, come from the upper
Hudson.
The discharge of the Hudson between Troy and
Albany at its lowest stage may be taken at
about 3,000 cubic feet per second. The river
supply, therefore, during that stage is
inadequate in the upper part of the river
for navigation, independent of tidal flow.
The greatest number of bars is between
Albany and Troy, where the channel is
narrow, and at least six obstructing bars,
composed of fine and coarse gravel and
coarse and fine sand, are in existence. In
many places between Albany and Troy the
navigable depth is reduced to 7½ feet by the
presence of these bars.
From Albany to New Baltimore the depths are
variable, the prevailing depth being 10 feet
and over, with pools of greater depth
separated by long cross-over bars, over
which the greatest depth does not exceed 9
or 10 feet. Passing many delightful homes on
the west bank and the mouth of the Norman's
Kill (Indian name Ta-wa-sentha, place of
many dead) and the Convent of the Sacred
Heart, we see Dow's Point on the east and
above this the—
Van Rensselaer Place
Van Rensselaer Place, with its port holes on
either side of the door facing the river,
showing that it was built in troublesome
times. It is the oldest of the Patroon manor
houses, built in 1640 or thereabouts. It has
been said that the adaptation of the old
tune now known as "Yankee Doodle" was made
near the well in the grounds of the Van
Rensselaer Place by Dr. Richard Shuckberg,
who was connected with the British army when
the Colonial troops from New England marched
into camp at Albany to join the British
regulars on their way to fight the French.
The tune was known in New England before the
Revolution as "Lydia Fisher's Jig," a name
derived from a famous lady who lived in the
reign of Charles II, and which has been
perpetuated in the following rhyme:
Lucy Locket lost her pocket,
Lydia Fisher found it;
Not a bit of money in it,
Only binding 'round it.
The appearance of the troops called down the
derision of the British officers, the hit of
the doctor became known throughout the army,
and the song was used as a method of showing
contempt for the Colonials until after
Lexington and Concord.
Rensselaer, on the east bank of the river,
was incorporated in 1896 by the union of
Greenbush and East Albany. The old name of
Greenbush, which still survives in East
Greenbush, four miles distant, was given to
it by the old Dutch settlers, and it was
probably a "green-bushed" place in early
days. Now pleasant residences and villas
look out upon the river from the near bank
and distant hillsides. Two railroad bridges
and a carriage bridge cross the Hudson at
this point. During the French war in 1775,
Greenbush was a military rendezvous, and in
1812 the United States Government
established extensive barracks, whence
troops were forwarded to Canada.
Albany, 144 miles from New York. (New York
Central & Hudson River Railroad, Boston &
Albany, West Shore, Delaware and Hudson, the
Hudson River Day Line and People's Line.)
Its site was called by the Indians
Shaunaugh-ta-da (Schenectady), or the Pine
Plains. It was next known by the early Dutch
settlers as "Beverwyck," "William Stadt,"
and "New Orange." The seat of the State
Government was transferred from New York to
Albany in 1798. In 1714, when 100 years old,
it had a population of about 3,000,
one-sixth of whom were slaves. In 1786 it
increased to about 10,000. In 1676, the city
comprised within the limits of Pearl, Beaver
and Steuben streets, was surrounded by
wooden walls with six gates. They were 13
feet high, made of timber a foot square. It
is said that a portion of these walls were
remaining in 1812. The first railroad in the
State and the second in the United States
was opened from Albany to Schenectady in
1831. The pictures of these old coaches are
very amusing, and the rate of speed was only
a slight improvement on a well-organized
stage line. From an old book in the State
Library we condense the following
description, presenting quite a contrast to
the city of to-day: "Albany lay stretched
along the banks of the Hudson, on one very
wide and long street, parallel to the
Hudson. The space between the street and the
river bank was occupied by gardens. A small
but steep hill rose above the centre of the
town, on which stood a fort. The wide street
leading to the fort (now State street) had a
Market-Place, Guard-House, Town Hall, and an
English and Dutch Church, in the centre."
Tourists and others will be amply repaid in
visiting the new Capitol building, at the
head of State Street. It is open from nine
in the morning until six in the evening. It
is said to be larger than the Capitol at
Washington, and cost more than any other
structure on the American continent. The
staircases, the wide corridors, the Senate
chamber, the Assembly chamber, and the Court
of Appeals room, attest the wealth and
greatness of the Empire State. The visitor
up State Street will note the beautiful and
commanding spire of "St. Paul." The
Cathedral is also a grand structure. The
population of Albany is now 100,000, and its
growth is due to three causes: First, the
Capitol was removed from New York to Albany
in 1798. Then followed two great
enterprises, ridiculed at the time by every
one as the Fulton Folly and Clinton's
Ditch—in other words, steam navigation,
1807, and the Erie Canal, 1825. Its name was
given in honor of the Duke of Albany,
although it is still claimed by some of the
oldest inhabitants that, in the golden age
of those far-off times, when the good old
burghers used to ask the welfare of their
neighbors, the answer was "All bonnie," and
hence the name of the hill-crowned city.
To condense from H. P. Phelps's careful
handbook of "Albany and the Capitol:" in
1614 a stockaded trading-house was erected
on an island below the city, well defended
for trading with the Indians. In 1617
another was built on the hill, near Norman's
Kill. The West Indian Company erected a fort
in 1623 near the present landing of the Day
Line. In 1664 the province fell into the
hands of the English and the name was
changed to Albany. In 1686 it was
incorporated into a city. It was the meeting
place of the Constitutional Congress 1754,
the proposed Constitution of which, however,
was never ratified. Washington visited it in
1783. The Erie Canal was opened in 1825, a
railroad to Schenectady in 1832, the Hudson
River in 1851, a consolidated road to
Buffalo in 1853, and the Susquehanna
Railroad to Binghamton in 1869. State Street
at one time was said to be the widest city
thoroughfare in the country, after
Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington. The
English and Dutch Churches and other public
buildings, once in the midst of it, but long
since removed, account for its extra width.
The State Capitol has a commanding site. The
old Capitol building was completed in 1808.
The corner-stone of the present building was
laid June 24, 1871, and it has been occupied
since January 7, 1879. According to Phelps,
"the size of the structure impresses the
beholder at once. It is 300 feet north and
south by 400 feet east and west, and with
the porticoes will cover three acres and
seven square feet. The walls are 108 feet
high from the water-table, and all this
worked out of solid granite brought, most of
it, from Hallowell, Me.
The impression produced varies with various
persons. One accomplished writer finds it
"not unlike that made by the photographs of
those gigantic structures in the northern
and eastern parts of India, which are seen
in full series on the walls of the South
Kensington, and by their barbaric profusion
of ornamentation and true magnificence of
design give the stay-at-home Briton some
faint inkling of the empire which has
invested his queen with another and more
high-sounding title. Yet when close at hand
the building does not bear out this
connection with Indian architecture of the
grand style; it might be mere chance that at
a distance there is a similarity; or it may
be that the smallness of size in the
decorations as compared to the structure
itself explains fully why there is a
tendency to confuse the eye by the number of
projections, arches, pillars, shallow
recesses, and what-not, which variegate the
different facades. The confusion is not
entirely displeasing; it gives a sense of
unstinted riches, and represents the spirit
that has reared the pile."
The Governor's room, the golden corridor,
the Senate staircase, the Senate chamber,
the Assembly chamber, and the Court of
Appeals room are interesting alike for their
architectural stone work, decorations and
general finish. The State Library, dating
from 1818, contains about 150,000 volumes.
The Clinton papers, including Andre's
documents captured at Tarrytown, are the
most interesting of many valuable
manuscripts. Here also are a sword and
pistol once belonging to General Washington.
The Museum of Military Records and Relics
contains over 800 battle flags of State
regiments, with several ensigns captured
from the enemy. Near the Capitol are the
State Hall and City Hall, and on the right,
descending State Street, the Geological
Hall, well worthy an extended visit. The
present St. Peter's Episcopal Church, third
upon the site, is of Schenectady blue stone
with brown trimmings. Its tower contains "a
chime of eleven bells and another bell
marked 1751, which is used only to ring in
the new year." Washington Park, consisting
of eighty acres and procured at a cost of
one million dollars, reached by a pleasant
drive or by electric railway, is a
delightful resort. It is noted for its grand
trees, artistic walks and floral culture.
Several fine statues are also worthy of
mention, notably that of Robert Burns
(Charles Calverley, sculptor), erected by
money left for this purpose by Mrs.
McPherson, under the careful and tasteful
supervision of one of Albany's best-known
citizens, Mr. Peter Kinnear. A view from
Washington Park takes in the Catskills and
the Helderberg Mountains.
And now, while waiting to "throw out the
plank," which puts a period to our Hudson
River division, we feel like congratulating
ourselves that the various goblins which
once infested the river have become
civilized, that the winds and tides have
been conquered, and that the nine-day voyage
of Hendrick Hudson and the "Half Moon" has
been reduced to the nine-hour system of the
Hudson River Day Line.
Those who have traveled over Europe will
certainly appreciate the quiet luxury of an
American steamer; and this first
introduction to American scenery will always
charm the tourist from other lands. No
single day's journey in any land or on any
stream can present such variety, interest,
and beauty, as the trip of one hundred and
forty-four miles from New York to Albany.
The Hudson is indeed a goodly volume, with
its broad covers of green lying open on
either side; and it might in truth be called
a condensed history, for there is no other
place in our country where poetry and
romance are so strangely blended with the
heroic and the historic,—no river where the
waves of different civilizations have left
so many waifs upon the banks. It is classic
ground, from the "wilderness to the sea,"
and will always be the poets' corner of our
country: the home of Irving, Willis, and
Morris,—of Fulton, Morse, and Field,—of
Cole, Audubon, and Church,—and of scores
besides, whose names are household words.